Bisbee daily review., 1919-08-10


 whole war occurred in the region be tween the Argonne forest and the Mouse river during the closing months of the war This gigantic battle ragged practically without in, terruption from July 18th to Nov. 11th, 1918. The story of few of the divisions has been touched upon be fore, but now for the first time it is possible to present a connected and unified narrative of it from official sources.
 Was Great, Final Offensive
 It was in this great final offensive that Marshal Foch paid the American forces the compliment of letting them bear the brunt of the German counter offensive, veritable hell of cannon fire, and this narrative describes them smashing through line after line of the enemies defensives and driving Germany's proudest troops into positions of such peril that the petition for an armistice was the only logical solution.
 Tn this story I have attempted to tell along general lines of the Mouse Argonne battle. It is manifestly i'm possible to give adequate space to every phase of that battle or the role played by every individual unit. Some of the official reports on this opera ton had not yet been completed when I was visiting this battlefield for in- formation in April. 1919, and there fore the statistics are as complete only as they could be made at that time.
 American Army Achievement
 The Meuse-Argonne battle will al- ways stand out as the supreme achievement of the American army in France. Other operations. such as the assistance we lent the French in stopping the great German drive toward Paris, and the suppression of the St. Mihiel salient. are no doubt more spectacular in the public eye, but the part which the American army played in the last great offen- sive of the war is that by which it will be judged in future years.
 There is a paragraph in the in- fantry drill regulations to which the attention of all soldiers is called. It reads about as follows:
 "The ultimate purpose of all mill tary training is success in the battle. This purpose should always be Kept uppermost in mind and all efforts should be directed to this end"
 Was Browning u. S. Effort
 Taking this axiom in its larger sense we may apply it in this way the ultimate purpose of all training in the camps at home and in France. completed by the training in actual warfare which our troops received at Cantigny, at Chateau Thierry and later at St. Mihiel was the battle lasting from September 26th to No- vember 11th in which we broke through the German lines, forced him to retreat behind the Mouse river and with the aid of our Allies compelled him to demand an armis- tice. It wasfonly on September 26th, when the First American Army took its place alongside the Armies of it's Allies. that we were prepared for the supreme effort. to which every or ficer and soldier in the A .E. F. had looked forward For the first time in our history large units of foreign troops were operating under Ameri- can command. All operations that preceded the Meuse-Argonne battle were preparatory and if they stand out by themselves 1t is only as an earnest effort. of what the American army as a whole could do.
 No such concentration of American troops had ever been seen before in our history. while the character Of the fighting was as bitter as any en- gagged in by the troops of our Allies throughout the entire war. Yet the young American Army, functioning normally for the first time in all it's different branches. accomplished what six months before had seemed impossible.
 To view the Meuse-Argonne battle in it's proper light let us go back to the early days of the Toul sector and glance at the various stages of devel- opment from that day in the latter part of October, 1917, when Ameri- can troops first appeared in the line These troops of the First Division. had been trained with the aid ot French troops and when they reached the front line they were eager enough to show their fighting qualities EW each successive experience proved that there was much to be learned about modern warfare that could not be taught in a training camp.
 cantigny Was Development Step The second stepping-stone in the development of the American Army was Cantigny where the same troops the First Division. first took part m an offensive action. The Command- er-in-Chief thus describes that affair:
 Although local, this brilliant ac- ton had an electrical effect, as demonstrated our fighting qualitles
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