''And they thought we wouldn't fight'' - Floyd Phillips Gibbons (fantasy books to read txt) 📗

soldiers, each of whom carried a heaping armful of packages. Young necks craned and eyes bulged as the packages were deposited on the tables in front of the communion rail. M. Lecompte raised his hands for silence and spoke.

"These Americans," he said, "have come to our country to march and to fight side by side with your fathers and your big brothers and your uncles and all the men folk who have been away from Saint Thiébault so long. These Americans want to take their places for you to-day. These Americans in doing these things for you are thinking of their own little girls and little boys away back across the ocean who are missing their fathers and big brothers and uncles to-day, just the same as you miss yours."

There were wet eyes among the women and some of the older men in khaki closed their eyes and seemed to be transporting themselves thousands of miles away to other scenes and other faces. But the reverie was only for a minute.

M. Lecompte began calling the names for the distribution of gifts and the children of Saint Thiébault began their excited progress toward the tables. Here Papa Noel delivered the prized packages.

"For Marie Louise Larue," said M. Lecompte, "a hair ribbon of gold and black with a tortoise bandeau."

"For Gaston Ponsot, a toy cannon that shoots and six German soldiers at least to shoot."

"For Colette Daville, a warm cape of red cloth with a collar of wool."

"For Alphonse Bénois, an aeroplane that flies on a string."

"For Eugenie Fontaine, a doll that speaks."

"For Emilie Moreau, a pair of shoes with real leather soles and tops."

"For Camille Laurent, red mittens of wool and a sheepskin muff."

"For Jean Artois, a warship that moves and flies the American flag."

It continued for more than an hour. The promoters of the celebration were wise to their work. There was more than one present for each child. They did not know how many. Time after time, their names were called and they clattered forward in their wooden shoes for each new surprise.

The presents ran the range of toys, clothing, games, candies and nuts, but the joy was in sitting there and waiting for one's name to be called and going forward to partake of that most desirable "more."

Big Moriarity had his hands in the incident that served as a climax to the distribution. He had whispered something to M. Lecompte and the result was that one little duffer, who sat all alone on a big chair, and hugged an enormous rubber boot, waited and waited expectantly to hear the name "Pierre Lafite" called out.

All the other names had been called once and not his. He waited. All the names had been called twice and still not his. He waited through the third and the fourth calling in vain, and his chin was beginning to tremble suspiciously as the fifth calling proceeded without the sound of his name.

The piles of packages on the tables had been getting smaller all the time. Then M. Lecompte pronounced the very last name.

"Pierre Lafite," he called.

Pierre's heart bounded as he slipped off the chair and started up the aisle dragging his big rubber boot. The rest of the children had returned to their seats. All the elders in the church were watching his progress.

"For Pierre Lafite," repeated M. Lecompte, holding up the enormous boot. "A pair of real leather shoes to fit in the foot of the boot." He placed them there.

"And a pair of stilts to fit in the leg of the boot." He so placed them.

"And a set of soldiers, twenty-four in number, with a general commanding, to go beside the stilts." He poured them into the boot.

"And a pair of gloves and a stocking cap to go on top of the soldiers.

"And a baseball and a bat to go on top of the gloves.

"And all the chinks to be filled up with nuts and figs, and sweets. Voilà, Pierre," and with these words, he had poured the sweetmeats in overflowing measure into the biggest hip boot in the regiment.

Amid the cheers of the men, led by big Moriarity, Pierre started toward his seat, struggling with the seven league boot and the wholesale booty, and satisfied with the realisation that in one haul he had obtained more than his companions in five.

Company B quartet sang "Down in a Coal Hole," and then, as the band struck up outside the church, all moved to the street. The sun had gone down, the early winter night had set in, and the sky was almost dark.

"Signal for the barrage," came the command in the darkness.

There were four simultaneous hisses of fire and four comets of flame sprang up from the ground. They broke far overhead in lurid green.

"Signal for enemy planes overhead," was the next command, and four more rockets mounted and ended their flights in balls of luminous red. Other commands, other signals, other rockets, other lights and flares and pistol star shells, enriched a pyrotechnical display which was economically combined with signal practice.

The red glare illuminated the upturned happy faces of American and French together. Our men learned to love the French people. The French people learned to love us.

CHAPTER XV CHÂTEAU-THIERRY AND THE BOIS DE BELLEAU

I have endeavoured to show in preceding chapters the development of the young American army in France from a mere handful of new troops up to the creation of units capable of independent action on the front. Only that intense and thorough training made it possible for our oversea forces to play the veteran part they did play in the great Second Battle of the Marne.

The battle developed as a third phase of the enemy's Western Front offensives of the year. The increasing strength of the American forces overseas forced Germany to put forth her utmost efforts in the forlorn hope of gaining a decision in the field before the Allied lines could have the advantage of America's weight.

On March 21st, the Germans had launched their first powerful offensive on a front of fifty miles from Arras to Noyon in Picardy and had advanced their lines from St. Quentin to the outskirts of Amiens.

On April 9th, the German hordes struck again in Flanders on a front of twenty miles from Lens northward to the River Lys and had cut into the Allied front as far as Armentières.

There followed what was considered an abnormal delay in the third act of the demonstration. It was known that the Germans were engaged in making elaborate arrangements for this mid-summer push. It was the enemy hope in this great offensive to strike a final effective blow against the hard-pressed Allied line before America's rising power could be thrown into the fight.

The blow fell on the morning of May 27th. The front selected for the assault was twenty-five miles in width, extending from the Ailette near Vauxaillon to the Aisne-Marne Canal near Brimont. The Prussian Crown Prince was the titular chief of the group of armies used in the assault. One of these forces was the army of General von Boehm, which before the attack had numbered only nine divisions and had extended from the Oise at Noyon to east of Craconne. The other army was that of General Fritz von Bülow, previously composed of eight divisions and supporting a front that extended from Craconne across the Rheims front to Suippe, near Auberive. On the day of the attack, these armies had been strengthened to twice their normal number of divisions, and subsequently captured German plans revealed that the enemy expected to use forty-five divisions or practically half a million men in the onslaught.

The battle began at dawn. It was directed against the weakly held French positions on the Chemin des Dames. It was preceded by a three hour bombardment of terrific intensity. The French defenders were outnumbered four to one. The Germans put down a rolling barrage that was two miles deep. It destroyed all wire communications and flooded battery emplacements and machine gun posts with every brand of poison gas known to German kultur. Dust and artificial smoke clouds separated the defenders into small groups and screened the attacking waves until they had actually penetrated the French positions.

The French fought hard to resist the enemy flood across the Chemin des Dames with its ground sacred with tragic memories, but a withdrawal was necessary. The French command was forced to order a retreat to the Aisne. Hard-fighting French divisions and some units of the British Fifth Army, which had been badly hit in Picardy in March, made an orderly withdrawal southward.

On the second day of the fight the enemy made a strong thrust toward Soissons, and after keeping the city under continual bombardment, succeeded in overcoming all resistance and occupying the city on May 29th. On the first day of the attack alone, twelve thousand explosive, incendiary and poison gas shells were hurled in amongst the hospitals in Soissons. American ambulance units did heroic work in the removal of the wounded.

The Germans forced a crossing on the Aisne. On the following day, May 30th, they had crossed the Vesle River and had captured Fère-en-Tardenois. On the following day their victorious hordes had reached the Marne and were closing in on Château-Thierry.

Some idea of the terrific strength of the enemy offensive may be gained from a recapitulation which would show that in five days the Germans had pushed through five successive lines of Allied defence, and had penetrated more than twenty-five miles. On the first day, they had captured the Chemin des Dames, on the second day, they had overcome all resistance on the Aisne, on the third day, their forces, pushing southward, had crossed the Vesle River, on the fourth day, they had destroyed the lines of resistance along the Ourcq, on the fifth day, they had reached the Marne.

It was a crisis. The battle front formed a vast triangle with the apex pointing southward toward Paris. The west side of the triangle extended fifty miles northward from the Marne to the Oise near Noyon. The east side of the triangle ran north-eastward thirty miles to Rheims. The point of this new thrust at Paris rested on the north bank of the Marne at Château-Thierry. The enemy had advanced to within forty miles of the capital of France; the fate of the Allied world hung in the balance.

Undoubtedly I am prejudiced, but I like to feel that I know the real reason why the German hordes stopped at Château-Thierry on the north bank of the Marne. To me that reason will always be this—because on the south bank of the Marne stood the Americans.

On that day and in that event there materialised the German fears which had urged them on to such great speed and violence. In the eleventh hour, there at the peak of the German thrust, there at the climax of Germany's triumphant advances, there at the point where a military decision for the enemy seemed almost within grasp, there and then the American soldier stepped into the breech to save the democracy of the world.

The Marne River makes a loop at this place and Château-Thierry lies on both banks. The Marne there is called a river, but it would hardly come up to the American understanding of the word. The waterway is more like a canal with banks built up with stone blocks. There are streets on either bank, and these being the principal streets of the town, are bordered with comparatively high buildings.

While the Germans were on the outskirts of the city, American forces had made brilliant counter attacks on both sides. To the west of Château-Thierry the German advance forces, seeking to penetrate Neuilly Wood, had been hurled back by our young troops. To the east of Château-Thierry the enemy had succeeded in crossing the Marne in the vicinity of Jaulgonne.

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