General Pershing sent the following letter to Colonel Fred American Expeditionary Forces, My dear Colonel Feigl:? Office of Commander-in-Chief, I have had a very careful investigation made of the circumstances of the death of your son, Lieutenant Jefferson Feigl, concerning whom you wrote me under date of May 24, 1918. I found that as he entered his battery position, near Beaumont, France, on March 2, 1918, upon returning from his tour of duty at the observation post in his command, he was struck by a fragment of a shell from a hostile battery which had suddenly opened fire. Lieutenant Feigl was unquestionably the type and exemplar of the best in American spirit and action, for he risked and gave to his country his most precious possession-his life. I am glad to send to you, his father, this acknowledgment of deep sympathy for you and my appreciation of his and your great sacrifice. JOHN J. PERSHING, Commander-in-Chief, American Expeditionary Forces. It is worthy of note that the American Army's first offensive as an organization was launched from the vicinity of Lieutenant Feigl's grave. As time went on the Americans and the Germans engaged in a series of trench raids and skirmishes with incidental sniping and artillery fire. In this preliminary warfare the Americans suffered a certain number of casualties. By the end of the year they were occupying certain sectors of the line, and by February 5th it was announced that American troops were occupying the sector northwest of Toul, which indicated that they were on the south side of the St. Mihiel salient. The placing of the American troops in the Lorraine section of the line had a sentimental as well as a practical value. This station would place them in the front of the effort to recover for France their lost provinces of AlsaceLorraine. It was also at that time "a quiet sector of the front," and therefore, suitable for training inexperienced troops. The American troops engaged in these first skirmishes were those of the 1st Division under the command of MajorGeneral Robert L. Bullard, and several lively combats took place, of which the most important was that of Seicheprey on April 20th, in which the Americans were rather roughly treated. The Toul sector was not the only sector held by United States troops. On February 22d it was announced that American units were taking part in the defense of the famous Chemin-des-Dames sector along the Aisne. On March 6th they were reported as holding a sector in Lorraine east of Luneville near the border between France and German Lorraine. They were also reported in the Champagne sector. A report of casualties published by the War Department on March 15th indicated a total loss of 1,722 American troops, of which 1,212 had been killed. Meanwhile, the American troops had passed all the preliminary stages of training, and according to General Pershing's report "By March 21st, when the German offensive in Picardy began we had four divisions with experience in the trenches, all of which were equal to any demands of battle action. The crisis which this offensive developed was such that our occupation of an American sector must be postponed." The German offensive in Picardy was the first of the great drives in the spring of 1918 which the Germans were undertaking with the hope of winning the war before the American Army would reach its full development. In the spring of 1918 Russia was out of the war. It is true that the Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk did not bring about complete quiet on the eastern front, but the great mass of German troops on that front could now be withdrawn and incorporated in the armies of the west. For a time, at least, Germany was able to gather almost her whole strength on her western front. The German High Command knew well what was going on in America. They knew of the tremendous efforts that were being made across the seas to train and supply an army which all alone when fully developed would have been able to crush their greatest strength. And they knew that if the war was to be won at all it must be won now before the American Army could be sufficiently trained and brought to the front in great numbers. The commanding officers in France and England had a simple problem. All they had to do was to hold out until the The American armies should be able to act. In the spring the It would, therefore, seem to be an easy proposition for the English and the French to hold the Germans at bay until two or three million fresh American troops should be added to their strength. Yet it was not so easy as it might appear. The allied forces were under different commands, and it was with great difficulty that arrangements could be made by which they would be able to act in harmony. Moreover, the German troops were old soldiers, trained from boyhood in the art of war, commanded by splendidly trained officers. The English especially could not match them. The comparatively few trained English officers of England's "contemptible little army" at the beginning of the war were now lying by thousands in heroes' graves. The English armies were officered by men who four years before were engaged in business or in peaceful professions. The French were better off, but they, too, had been bled white in the early. years of the terrible struggle. Moreover, in an offensive of such magnitude as this it is always possible for the attacking side to outnumber the defending side at any given point by elaborate concentration of as many troops as possible at a point only known by the attacking commanders. A defense against such an attack would be difficult in any case, and it was all the more difficult because of the divided command among the Allies. Recognizing this, the allied governments came to an agreement to place all of the allied armies under a single command, and on March 28th General Ferdinand Foch, already famous as the greatest strategist in Europe, was made Commander-in-Chief of the armies of the Allies. This was one of the most important acts of the allied governments during the whole of the war. It was strongly approved by the United States which exerted its whole influence in its favor. From that time the direction of the allied campaign was magnificently conducted. General Foch took command at a very critical time. The great German drive through Picardy was in full force. This drive had as its object to drive a wedge between the French and British armies. This would have enabled the Germans to reach the Channel by way of the Somme, and thereby isolate most of the British Army and the entire Belgian and Portuguese armies in the north. A corollary of such an isolation would have been a movement south on Paris. The Germans, moreover, had selected a point where their railways allowed them the greatest possible concentration of troops, and where the Allies were relatively weak. In the first stage of the battle they first eliminated the Cambrai salient so as to protect their northern flank, and then concentrated their attack between St. Mihiel and La Fèrek, where the French and British armies joined. The initial bombardment preceding the advance against the Cambrai salient began at eight o'clock on the morning of March 21st, and extended from Ypres on the north as far south as the Oise. The infantry attack which followed penetrated the first and second lines on a sixteen-mile front from Lagnicourt to Gauche Wood, then in rapid succession the British positions on the north between Arras and La Fère were attacked. By March 25th the Germans had captured an area of about five hundred square miles, and had penetrated beyond Croisilles, Bapaume, Peronne, Brie, Nesle and the forest northeast of Noyon. By March 27th they had recovered the entire battlefield of the Somme, occupying the British position at Albert and taking Roye and Noyon from the French. On the 29th the French counter-attacked, recovering a portion of their lost ground but west of this position the Germans penetrated seven miles on a twelve-mile front, and enveloped Montdidier. Further north Chauny and Hamm were both captured and Bapaume invested. On the 27th the British were forced to retreat on a wide front on both sides of the Somme. By April 8th the German line had been expanded from seventy-five miles to 125 miles, the ground gained being equal to eight hundred square miles. But the British positions around Arras were holding strongly, while the French positions at Montdidier and on the south made progress west a dangerous movement, and the first German drive was stopped, pending the success of a new attack further north along the Lille front. The fighting during the drive toward Amiens was terrific, and both the German and the allied losses were enormous. The Germans claimed the capture of 90,000 prisoners and 1,300 guns. At some points they had advanced a distance of thirty-five miles into allied territory. Their new line now extended southwest from Arras beyond Albert to the west of Moreuil, which is about nine miles south of Amiens, and then went on west to Pierrepont and Montdidier, curving out at Noyon to the region of the Oise. The objective of the German Army was nearly attained. The brunt of the attack had been borne by the Fifth British Army, under the command of General Gough. This army had become demoralized and separated from the Third British Army on the north, and the Sixth French Army on the south. If the German forces had been able to take advantage of the situation they would have broken through the allied line, but the German troops were by that time themselves little more than an armed mob utterly incapable of following up their advantage. The prompt military action of General Fayolle filled up the gap to the south, with three organized French divisions, while the gap to the north was occupied by an extemporized army under the command of General Carey. No troops were available to throw into the opening, when General Carey, who had been home on leave and was trying to find his headquarters, was commandeered to hold the gap at any cost. A correspondent of the Associated Press gave this account of General Carey and his extraordinary army: |