Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1918-08-21

large part OF It's 0enSe4E Crowded
area is swept by the Allied artillery,
and its railroad line from Scissors 10
Chateau Thierry was soon crossed and
cut by the advancing Franco-American
troops.
This left only a narrow, insufficient
path down the center of the pocket
at best a pitably insufficient corridor
for the easy withdrawal or for the re
enforcement and adequate supply OF
the pocketed divisions, and now cor
ridor necessarily bombarded by the
!. French, British and American avia-
tors.
As the news of the turn Of the tide
reached Berlin. the observers at that
deluded capital cheered themselves W
by expiating on the fact that, in the
/ first rush of their drive, they had sue.
4 ceeded in crossing the Marine and es-
tablishing strong bridge-head on its
/ southern bank. Their journals dwelt
/ lovingly on that fact in their issues OF
July 10.
The very next day. the last living UNI
/ captured German had vanished from
the southern bank of the Marine, and
the pontoon bridges swung across its
waters during the next few days were
vii chorus of the bridge layers was
Allied bridges. At many places the an.
played by the hammers of the Ameri.
can engineers.
On Sunday, French and American
soldiers were marching through the
ruins of Chateau-Thierry and the
American communique of Tuesday
night told how our troops that were
sgarming over the Marine had gained
possession of Jaulgonne. the little vii
lage whose walls witnessed some of
the most savage encounters of that
first June day when the hurrying
Yankees took a hand in the fighting
in this sector.
II was on July is that what had
appeared up to then to be merely an
historic German failure was turned
with dramatic swiftness into an his
toric German disaster.
1t was on July is, while Ludendorff
was trying as best he could to make
something out of the small success he
had gained between Rheims and the
Marine, that General Foch suddenly APP
peared on the front between Scissors
and Chateau-Thierry with an unex-
pecteda rmy of French and American
troops.
In making this attack on a 2S-mile
front. much was sacrificed for the sake
of surprise. Over bad roads, through
nights of storm and blackness, troops
were hurried to that sector and plung-
ed into the counter-offensive without
an hours delay-without any artil-
lery preparation. Some of our own
troops gained the front line only just
in time to go over the top at the APP
pointed hour. Some, caught in the
jam of traffic on the congested roads,
had to double time to reach the line
in time.
Such 18th hour warnings as the en-
envy may have had did not lead him
to expect, apparently, that the attack
would come so soon or that it would
ever come in such force.
The mass of Germans swept off their
feet, the great qpuantity of guns and
other material captured, the German
officers and German men caught-liter-
ally-napping in their dugouts, the
complete absence of any dangerous
and poisonous traps left in the wake of
their disordered retreat-all these
things testified to the surprise that
the Allied strategy achieved.
The fighting that followed was on a
larger scale, was crowned with more
spectacular success and was fraught
with consequences of greater historical
import than any fighting in which Yam
kee troops had shared since the war
began. 1t was the first appearance of
the American soldier in a major Al
lied offensive. 1t was the first major
Allied offensive since the arrival of the
A. E. F.
At many points in the line which
dipped down from scissors to Chateau
Thierry and up from there to Rheims,
American units were engaged. They
were in the thick of it. Where they
were fighting was hottest.
The advance of the infantry was ex-
ultant and swift. With tanks ahead of
them and their own guns behind
them: they went down, across fields,
across streams, across ravines, the In
fantry raced. driving the enemy before
them, moving so fast that once pri-
vate found himself leading a platoon
far in advance of his line, and had to
fight his way back.
They moved so fast that sometimes
they didn't bother to take their pris-
oners back. They just chased them
back. They moved so fast that the
machine guns couldn't keep up with
them. They set a fearful pace for
those following Loyalty with ammuni-
tion and supplies,
The various American regimental
and brigade P. C.'s. the field hospitals
and the other units which serve and
trail behind the doughboys had the
novel and exhilarating experience of
moving forward three times in IS
hours. The ensuing toilers of the Sig
nal Corps. what with the pace OF the
race. found winning in the forward
area an impossible task during the
next few days.
Messages were sent to be sped on