The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-12-16
GENERAL PERsHING REPORTS ON
 WORK OF U S. ARMIES IN FRANCE

(Continued from Page Two.)
 the first time wire entangIements ceased to be regarded as impossible
 barriers and open warfare training. which had been so urgently insisted upon, proved to be the correct doc Urine. Our divisions concluded the at tack with such small losses and in such high spirits that without the usual rest they were immediately available for employment in heavy fighting in a. new theatre of opera tions. The strength of the First Ar my in this battle totaled appr0xi- mately 5O0,0 men, of whom aoOut 10000 were French. Without pausing to reCuperate the now veteran divisions Pershing swung them to the east and prepared for the Meuse-Argone drive the strat- egiC importance of which he believed l to be ''second to none on the western l front, for should this system (of supply through Sedan-Mezieres) be ] cut before the enemy could withdraw l his forces through the narrow neck ] betweeen Nezieres and the Dutch 1 frontier, the ruin of his armies in 1 France would be complete'' 1 The entire frontal zone was ''eIab- | orately fortified consisting of prac- | tically a continuous series of positions l 20 kilometers or more in depth and 1 strengthened, moreover, by the natu- 1 raI features of the terrain. The story | of the hand-to-hand struggle which 1 ensued is told dispassionately by the l report which says "continous fight l ing was maintained along the entire l battle front with ''the enemy con- i testing every foot of our front but l by the end of October. ''the enenv's 1 eIabortely prepared positions. incIud- | ing the Hindenburg line, on our front 1 had been broken; the almost impassi- 1 ble Argonne Forest was in our hands:
 an advance of q kiIometers had
 been effected; 18,6OO prisoners, 370 l cannon, 1000 machine guns and a
 mass of material captured; and the
 great railway artery through Carig- nan to Sedan was now seriously l threatened"
 With the enemy graudalIy break ing before him, Pershing found that his own reserves were beginning to show the effects of the terrific attri- tion. After careful review of the l situation, the report recites that the decision to "continue the attack was | reached on the theory that the enc
 ny divisions were suffering even
 more.
 "Once a German division was en-
 gagged in the fight it was practically 1 impossible to effect its relief" the 1 general says.
 From November 1 to 6. Amerf-
 can army corps battered their way
 to Sedan, and to quote the official re- cord:
 By the 7th the right of the Third Corps had exploited it's river crossing | to q distance of 10 kiIometars east of | the Mouse, completely ejecting the ? l driving him out into the swampy plain of the Woevre; the Fifth and First corps had reached the line of
 the Mouse River along their respec-
 tive fronts and the left of the latter corps held the heights dominating Sedan, the strategical goal of the 1 Meuse-Argonne operation, II kilo-
 meters from our point of departure on November l. We had cut the en- enly's main line of communications Recognizing that nothing but a ces- sation of hOstiiities could save his
 armies from complete disaster, he ap- pealed for an immediate armistice on November 6.
 1 Meanwhile general plans had been prepared for the further employment l of American forces in an advance be- tween the Mouse and the MoseIle to | be directed toward IS,-swy by the First Army, while the Second Army was to assume the offensive toward the Briey Iron Basin. Orders direct ing this preparatory local operations l involved in this enterprise were is sued on November ,.
 "Betweeen the 7th and 10th of No-
 venber the Third Corps continued it's Il advance eastward to RemoivilIe, l while the Seventeenth French Corps
 on it's right, with the Seventy ninth
 Twenty-sixth, and Eighty-first Amer ican divisions, and 2 French divisions drove the enemy from his final foot hold on the heights east of the Mouse | At D. m. on November 9 apDroDri- ate orders were sent to the First and Second Armies in accordance with
 the following telegram from Marshal 1 Foch to the Commander of each of | the Allied armies:
 '"The enemy, disCrganized by our repeated attacks, retreats along the | entire front.
 ''It is important to coordinate and expedite our movements.
 q appeal to the energy and the in itiative of the Commander-in-C Chief l and of their armies to make decisive the results obtained
 'Tn consequence of the foregoing instructions, our Second Army pressed the enemy along US entlre front. On the night of the 10-11th and the morning of the 11th the Fifth Corps.
 in the First Army, forced a crossing
 of the Mouse east of Beaumont and 1 gained the commanding heights with l in the reentrant of the river, thus
 completing our control of the Mouse
 River line. At a.. m. on the 11th l notification was received from Mar
 shal Foch's headquarters that the
 Armistice had been signed and that
 hostilities would cease at II a. m,
 Preparatory measures had been pensation, back due pay, personal ef- l fects and the return of bodies of de