Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-10-02
No Wonder Germany Quit
by MAJOR FRANK G. MAHIN
OF the Army Recruiting Station

According to the official report or
Lieutenant General Fuchs, of the
German Army on the first phase of
the st. Mihiel attack" we started
very heavy artillery fire along the
entire army front at l a. m. Of
September 18th. He was right about
its being heavy artillery fire, for our
guns fired l,O95.00O shells in four
hours. He then stated that al
though the reserves or the Higher
Command had not yet been made
aVailable-in spite of several re-
quests-the 3lst and 123rd Divis-
ions tn rcServe) were alerted at
l.3O Il. III. and the SSth Division
talso reserve) at l50 a. IN. AS it
became more ANA more certain that
the expected large scale attack had
fore, did not permit waiting for the
approval of the Higher Command
but demanded an immediate and in
dependent decision, the 31st and
l23rd Divisions were assembled at
two towns" There is a typical Ger
man statement Note carefully that
a Lieutenant General commanding an
army of the Lord knows how many
divisions actually had the unadul-
terated nerve and gall to assemble
two of his divisions without waiting
mand", and this when he was GER
tain a general attack was on. In
any army except the German the
two. division commanders would
have come mighty near being court
nartialed if they had failed, Instant
ly, and on their own initiative, to
assemble their divisions as soon as
the roar of the bombardment assured
them that il was a general attack
which was on. And here Lieuten-
ant General was evidently quite
proud of himself for having dared
to do such thing. 1t is evident
that. as we have long thought, the
German Army was so dependent on
their General Staff or High Com
mand, that their failures were due
to all initiative having been utterly
squelched and destroyed. At 4.45 a.
m they started these two divisions
forward to meet our attack, but
their orders were to proceed TO cer-
tain places and stop there. At 7.l5
permission was granted to send one
regiment of the 123rd division for
ward to a crossroads about mile
southwest of the village of Preny.
Now at that time this regiment was
about a mile and a half north OF
Preny and my battalion was about
three miles southwest of Preny, but
fortunately for us they did not
know it, The General goes on To
state that he inquired at 1920 a. m
/ of the troops in the trenches ii
there was any reason for ordering
an immediate evacuation of the ad-
/ vance zone and was told there was
nc compelling reason at that time
| That statement was quite correct as
our attack did not start until a
aff started
! troops in the trenches couldn't have
| withdrawn If they had wanted to
we were coming on so fast. After
| that 500 a. m. conversation oul
! friend Fuchs could get no further
| Information until an observer re-
! ported at 9.25 that he could see
'rearward' movement south of Thiau
court. This rearward movement
was actually the forward movemen
| of our End division. At 1918 a. m
| il was reported that we had broker
! through the 18th Division and ap
! peared to have taken Vieville'-in
asmuch as it could not be communi
! Gated with 10y telephone" Again oul
friend Fuchs assumptions were cor
/ IrCt, though Idlnvr I~tc, for | sen
| a mes sage dated "7.10 a. IN. norti
wall of north house, Melville" sta
! ting that we had taken the town
| The reason / was on the north sld'
=, of the house was that our own bar
rage was still hitting the roofs o
| the houses and that was the safes
| place | could find. And the reasol
they could not get Melville by phon
was that there was a Yank Tele
phone operator at the switch-boar'
| who could not speak German.
tried, myself, to get the German op
orator at the other end of the wir
wherever that was. to tell me some
thing. but he was so excited n
couldn't talk coherently and L lef
him to the tender mercies of one o
my men. At $40 a. m. the 31st an
| 123rd Divisions were ordered
counter attack south of Thiaucour
and in the direction of Melville. Blu
here is the joke; the 31st never di
attack and the IL" d not until 90
p. m. the following day. Meantime
General Fuchs reported at 1850 &
m. that the enemy is southeast o
Thiaucourt and at Tautecourt Farm
The 77th Division appears to be an
initiated. No information concern
ing the counter-attack of the Bis
and 123rd Divisions" All of his in
formation was correct, except tha
we reached Tautecourt Farm a
!, 900 a. m. and at once started dig
ging in as we were on our Army oh
jective. And we'll knew that tn
77th was annihiiated, IS we took tn