CHAPTER XXVII
BUNDY'S FAMOUS MESSAGE
It was the morning of the seventeenth of June. All night the duel ofgreat guns had raged over Belleau Woods and to the north and the south.
With the coming of daylight, the Germans charged the combined French andAmerican troops that held that part of the field. Fighting desperately,the Allied armies were forced to fall back in the face of superiornumbers and a terrific rain of machine gun and artillery fire.
On the Allied right flank and again on the left flank the retirement ofFrench troops began to take on the form of a disorderly retreat. Itseemed that the day was lost.
Suddenly, in the early morning, there came pushing through theretreating French forces, a body of men in khaki, in perfect formation.Behind them came others.
General Bordeau, the French divisional commander, eyed them in surprise.Hastily he dispatched a courier to the American commander, General OmarBundy. The courier made the journey quickly. General Bundy received himat once.
"General Bordeau advises that you fall back at once, sir," said thecourier. "It is folly to advance in the face of utter annihilation."
General Bundy got slowly to his feet His face was stern and his eyesflashed as he delivered his now famous message.
"We regret, sir," said he, "that we are unable to follow the counsels ofour masters the French, but the American flag has been compelled toretire. This is unendurable, and none of our soldiers would understandnot being asked to do whatever is necessary to reestablish a situationwhich is humiliating to us and unacceptable to our country's honor. Weare going to counter attack!"
And counter attack the Americans did, led by the marines, with a resultthat the whole world knows.
That the reader may be better able to understand the situation, it willbe well to go back a ways and tell in more detail of events leading upto the presence of the marines in Belleau Woods.
After having been drilled all summer, the regiment of marines which hadcome with the first convoy in June, was withdrawn from the FirstDivision. Although this was most depressing to every officer and man, inthat it meant that they would not be among the first in the trenches,the service to which they were assigned was in one sense a compliment toqualities which are as inseparable from them as their gallantry.
The marines have traditions, associated with ship's orderliness, whichare kept up by competent, veteran non-commissioned officers, that makethem models in soldierly deportment.
After the withdrawal of the marines, the First Division was brought upto full strength as a complete regular division composed of theSixteenth, Eighteenth, Twenty-sixth and Twenty-eighth Regiments ofinfantry and the first artillery brigade, of the Fifth, Sixth andSeventh artillery regiments.
On the third of June the German confined his attacks for the most partnorthward of the section held by the marines, but was feeding in machinegun groups with a view to future mischief. On the early morning of thefourth, the marines took over from the French a twelve-mile front, withthe Third brigade, holding the Fourth from its left to the west ofBelleau Woods. The Twenty-Third Regiment, and the marine battalion andthe Fifth Machine Gun Battalion, which had been sent to fill the gap atColombs, were returned to the division, which now held the sector alone.
The marines now held twelve miles of battleline with no reserves betweenthem and the Marne.
From Hill 204 all the way to the American right the Germans had theadvantage of observation.
The country is uneven, with many woods and the usual open fieldsbetween woods and villages. In front of the marines the Germans heldthe important tactical point of the village of Bouresches and therailroad station, and they had filtered into the adjoining BelleauWoods and around it as an ideal cover for machine-gun nests. ThisBouresches-Belleau line was excellent for the purpose of the enemy ifthey were to stabilize their positions and cease to advance, or as ajumping-off place for continuing their offensive.
The spirit of rivalry between the Third (a regular brigade) and theFourth (the marines) was very pronounced. Marine officers might not havehad the schooling in tactics of the regulars, but being plaininfantrymen, they considered at least that they were not afraid tofight.
The honor and future of the marine corps were at stake there beforeBelleau Woods and Bouresches. There had been people who had said themarine corps should be eliminated from the armed forces of the UnitedStates. The marines soon were to prove themselves.
On the Fourth of June, the first day they were in the front line, themarines had repulsed a German attack. At dawn on the morning of theSixth, the second day after they were in the line, they made an attackin conjunction with the French on the left to rectify the line in thedirection of Torcy; and they went through machine-gun fire and shellfire to their objectives all according to pattern.
According to General Bundy's ideas, the way to act in an active sectorwas to be active, that is why the marines were enabled to make historyat Belleau Woods, which battle included the fight at Chateau Thierry.
It was before noon on the seventeenth of June. Straggling figures camearound a bend in the road near Meaux--they were French, the advanceguards of the retreating columns that were to follow.
Folks from the nearby villages crowded the roadside with tears in theireyes as they watched their own French soldiers going back and back. Itmeant the Germans were coming on toward Paris!
Slowly it dawned on those French civilians that American marines, whichnow were seen approaching, were going ahead to fill the gap--to take theplace left by their own poilus. The word passed quickly down theroadside. Girls and women ran forward with poppies and other blossomsand pressed them into the hands of the marines. Their gratitude waspathetic--it impeded the regular line of march, at first, but after themarines passed, every man was filled with a determination to make good.
The marines had marched about half an hour when Hal and Chester cameacross a sight they will never forget--a long line of stumbling, pitifulrefugees.
A man behind Hal said two or three times to himself:
"Confound 'em!" and there was a murmured re-echo down the line.
"Quiet back there!" the platoon leader shouted, but there was a bit ofsympathy in the command.
German shells began to fall near the road, thicker and thicker. Theywere feeling their way with artillery for the advance that was tofollow. Not so many kilometers more, and their shells would be fallingon Paris, the German staff thought.
Then came the orders to dig in, and the marines fell to.
They had no time to dig anything but individual rifle pits that Juneday, before they got their first chance to give "Fritz" a taste of theunexpected. With their bayonets and mess gear they scraped shallow holesin the ground, and along that afternoon the Germans marched confidentlyout of the woods, across the green wheatfield, in two perfect columns.
Then the marines opened fire.
Hardly a marine in that regiment, and other regiments behind--in facthardly a man in the two divisions of marines that soon were to battledesperately, hand-to-hand, with the Germans, that did not boast a"marksman's badge"; many were qualified as sharpshooters and expertriflemen. These men did not simply raise their rifles and shoot in thegeneral direction of Germany. They adjusted their sights, coolly tookaim and shot to kill. The Prussians dropped as if death was wielding ascythe in their midst, rank after rank.
Then the flower of the German army broke ranks and took refuge in thewoods. But the impudence of the Americans could not be allowed to gounpunished. The Germans whipped and slashed that field of waist-highwheat with such a concentrated machine-gun fire as neither Hal norChester ever expected to encounter again.
But once again the unexpected.
Wave after wave of marines rose up in perfect alignment and charged!
Foolhardy? Of course. The marines dropped in twos, threes and fours, butthey advanced. Whole platoons were wiped out, but the waves never broke.
At a ce
rtain point, say books on tactics, the remnants of decimatedforces must waver, give way and retire. Never were ranks cut up sobefore, perhaps, but the book of tactics went awry when those Americanyoungsters charged! Handfulls of them reached the trees and put theBoche to flight. Then they entrenched at the edge of the woods.
But the end was not yet. The advance of the marines continued throughthe woods.
At the very outset they met machine-gun fire; and out of the wood, afterthey were in it, came the persistent rattle of rifle fire, varied byveritable storms of machine-gun fire. Wounded began to flow back fromthe ravines. Calls came for Stokes' mortars from the hidden scene ofthat vicious medley, along with the report that Colonel Catlin had beenwounded half an hour after the attack began.
Machine-gun positions in the outskirts of the woods had been taken; butthey were only the first lot. Hal had been through many woods whereGerman machine gunners ensconced themselves, and none that he rememberedafforded better positions for defense against any enemy.
Not only was the undergrowth advantageous, but there were numerous rocksand ravines and pockets, all of which favored the Germans. There wasnothing new in the system which the enemy applied, but not until troopsgo against it for the first time do they realize its character.
When they could locate a gun, the marines concentrated their rifles uponit. The wounded crawled back behind rocks or into ravines, or to anyplace where they could find a dead space. Hot cries accompanied theflashing drives of the cold steel through the underbrush. Many bayonetsmight drop from the hands of the men who were hit, but some bayonetswould "get there."
Hal, stopping to get his breath, found time to say to Chester, who wasnear him:
"Hot work, old man; but we're going through!"