The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1918-12-26
AMERICAN TEAM WORK
WINS ARGONNE BATTLE
Troops From South, East, Southwest, and Central
West Crash Through German Lines in One
of Wars Most Notable Engagements
Doughboys Appear Out of Mist With
Bayonets Fixed For Business.

The following is from the Stars
and Stripes:
The thick wall of German resist
ance in Argonne against which the
First American army had been ham,
mering since the last week in Sep
tember gave way with crash on
November l, and the Yankee troops,
who had gone stubbornly through
with more than a month of murder
Gus, inch by inch, hammer and tongs
fighting, came at last into their re-
ward.
To them at last came the heart
warming though somewhat fatiguing
experience of chasing the Germans as
fast as their trucks and their horses
and their legs would carry them.
Marshal Foch has sent General
Pershing the following telegram:
Operations begun November by
the First American army have al
ready assured, thanks to the valor
of the high command and to the
energy and the bravery of the troops
results of the greatest Importance.
I am happy to send you my warmest
congratulations on the success of
these operations.
By the end of the fourth day, with
increased resistance developed all
along the line, troops working along
the west bank of the Meuse were
throwing pontoon bridges across the
rain swollen river, under fire from
enemy guns perched on the palisades
beyond, the fire of which wiped out
one of the four bridges. A brigade
moved across in the darkness, and by
daylight of the fifth day a whole di-
vision was operating on the eastern
heights.
On the sixth day the advance was
still going forward on both sides of
the Meuse.
Meanwhile, at the center, Beau
mont with 500 good French citizens
released, lay for behind the advance
of the Americans, who had moved
forward 25 kilometers since last Fri
day morning and As kilometers since
the battle began on September 26.
It was on last Friday morning,
when the eastern sky line was tinged
with the first promise of day, that
the infantry moved forward for the
third great assault of the Argonne
drive-moved forward after the
most stupendous artillery prepara-
ton in America9 history. 1t is not
enough to say that behind them the
guns were wheel to wheel. The can
non used in some areas could not all
;have been crowded in had they been
placed wheel to wheel.
Snapshots of Whole Line.
Not merely guns and tanks and
airpIanes helped, however. The very
earth and air and sky seemed in alli-
ance with the doughboys. For a
week the weather had been kinder
far than those of US who remembered
last fall in France had dared even to
hope. !
For a week the winged cameras
had been lowering over the German
front, uncovering his every secret
and supplying to the high command
such a complete set of photographs
that the guns, by few rays of mer-
CHESS firing, had been able, calmly
and systematically, to wreck the
enemy works, castering and decimat-
ing his reserves, harrying his train,
-bewildering his communications.
Now, on the morning of mornings,
with dry ground under foot and a
pleasant warmth in the air, low,
almost impenetrable ground mist
overlay that devastated land, provid-
ing for the onmoving infantry such a
screen as no merely human chemical
corps has yet been able to devise.
Shielded by that and preceded by a
barrage that was precise and flexible
beyond all our previous experience,
the doughboys went forward. Under
the avalanche of shells the Germans
had vanished discretely underground: ::
no one could have stayed out and
lived. When the barrage moved on
and they emerged it was to find
all the surface of the earth in their
neighborhood in the possession of
young Americans in large numbers,
who came at them out of the mist
with bayonets ready for business.
st. Georges Goes First.
For the first few hourse-for the
first day in some places along the
front stretching from Grandpre to the