Don
Martin diary entry for Tuesday, July 30, 1918:
Had a busy, exciting and thrilling day. Saw an air fight; visited the
Bois de Chatelet and saw the big steel emplacement of the German gun which was
used for remote firing, perhaps the bombarding of Paris; saw a cloud of gas
rise nearby which caused everyone to put on his gas mask. We, in an automobile
([Edwin] James [New York Times] and I), went at a 60-mile an- hour clip and
just missed the cloud by a few hundred feet; but we had our masks on anyhow.
Got a good story about the Prussian resistance to the American advance. The
Americans are going ahead, but more slowly. Wrote 4500 word cable for New York
on the big gun and about 1,200 on the general situation.
Don Martin wrote an extended dispatch, dated Wednesday, July 31, about the hard-fought battle to take the village of Sergy. It was published in the New York Herald on Thursday, August 1.
OUR MEN FIGHT AS THEY PLAY FOOTBALL, SAYS DON MARTIN;
KEEP SCORE IN GERMAN DEAD
Defeat of Prussian Guards Wins Admiration, While the Bavarians Showed Courage, but Were No Match for Americans
LOSSES OF FOE HUGE DURING LAST 3 DAYS
Prisoners Say American Artillery Fire is Deadly,
Causing Terror and Killing Sleep and Rest
COUNTRY LIKE DESERT
American Sees 17 of his Wounded Comrades
Bayoneted by the Hun
By DON MARTIN
Special Correspondent of the Herald with the American Armies in France
[Special Cable to the Herald]
WITH THE AMERICAN ARMIES IN FRANCE, Wednesday
All France is speechless with wonder and admiration at the way the Americans met the Fourth Prussian Guards, the Crown Prince’s crack stormers, at Sergy, and Seringes, capturing and holding them against the most vigorous assaults of the Prussians. The Americans continue to show their superiority over Germany’s best troops. The division after capturing Sergy continued to advance in face of the most vigorous resistance of the Prussians, who had massed machine guns there.
The Prussians were forced up the slope northeast of the village, and the Americans fought their way on yard by yard, losing many, but never faltering, and driving the Prussians back a kilometer. Then they stopped and rested to wait for daybreak to meet the counter attack or renew their own attack.
It seems strange that boys who were mechanics and clerks were able to meet what were considered the most skilful and dangerous fighters in Europe and outfight them, but they have found that the only way to stop Americans is to kill them. In hundreds of cases the boys had only slight wounds, making it possible to rest in the inferno, hiding their injuries from their officers. This is a thing unheard of before, but I know it to be true.
An idea of what France thinks of them is shown by the French civilians, who stand on the curbs and cheer when Americans pass by. Frenchmen working on the roads wave their hats. There is no doubt that the young men of the Western World, many of whom will never return, are demonstrating that lifelong training and iron discipline are unnecessary to make good fighters.
Bavarians No Match For Boys
Americans in the region adjoining the Sergy sector were fighting last night with the same vigor on meeting the Sixth Bavarian Reserves, who were hurried to the front to check the impudent Americans. The Bavarians are fighting with dash and courage, but are no match for the Americans, who fight the same as they play football, with their whole soul and strength, giving no thought to anything else, but instead of a score of points there will be a score of dead.
The severity of the fighting at Sergy will be understood when it is known that seven Prussians who were captured said they were all that were left of a hundred. They were surrounded in the night and terrorized by the new form of opposition. They said the Prussian Fourth Guards are crack shock troops who are used on special occasions when there is a crisis to be met, and had never failed to reach their goal until they met the Americans.
They were flabbergasted at the fierceness of the boys, and said:--“We are not certain of victory now, when we know what the Americans can do.”
The Prussians fight to a finish and do not cry “Kamerad” when death confronts them, as most of those at Meurcy Farm, which was a bloody conflict. The Americans advanced against machine guns manned by Prussians and killed the Germans with their bayonets and rifle bullets, the Prussians firing even when a death blow was inflicted. It is almost unbelievable that any one could escape alive from the tornado of death hurled by the Prussians, supplementing their machine guns, with artillery playing far behind.
With Italians North of Sergy
The Americans rushed through a broad stretch of ground seven times at Meurcy. Also at Sergy and points north of Sergy they stunned the Prussians with their bravery, cleaned out the gun nests and held their new ground. No Prussians escaped to the rear. All were killed, captured or badly wounded. The same is true of a large number of the Bavarians.
North of Sergy a battalion composed of Italians and Americans gave a fine exhibition of courage and discipline. They crossed a field eighteen hundred feet wide in the face of a rain of machine gun bullets and kept their formation the whole distance. They never turned or budged except to obey the order of their officers to lie down to escape the shells. The Italians and Americans both fought with a dash equal to that of the boys of the Middle West elsewhere.
It is interesting to know the fact that a large percentage of the Americans in the hardest fighting at Sergy and its neighborhood are of German parentage. I saw many in the hospitals. They were fine lads—no better soldiers. The names on their packs showed unmistakably their ancestry. The boys said they had American backbone, and showed it in their fighting.
They did brilliant work in the capture of Hill 184 near Sergy, which marked an important point. The advance by the Americans here and elsewhere was inevitably slower than in the first period. The best troops the Germans possess are now opposing them. The same is true of the whole front; shock troops are being used everywhere.
Intrenching in Nesle Forest
The Germans are emplacing their guns and wire before trenches on the southern edge of the Forest of Nesle. They probably will stand there for a time, but are not likely to do so permanently. It is impossible to tell what developments are coming. For three days the Germans are known to have been buttressing their resistance in the Soissons section, where the Allies are hammering away furiously in the hope of driving the Huns back and forcing a withdrawal from the remnant of the bowl south of Soissons and Rheims.
If the Germans hold Soissons indications are that they will withdraw only to Fismes, which is a vital road and railway centre. If the Germans fail to hold Soissons there is a possibility of their retreat to the Aisne, which would be a crushing blow to German ambitions. The people of Germany then would be certain to realize the extent of the reverse.
The losses of the Germans in the last three days have been huge. The Germans have been pounded everywhere. As far as twenty miles from the front billets, headquarters, ammunition dumps, transport lines and troops are shelled steadily night and day. To-day at a spot five miles back of the line I saw twenty heavy guns manned by Americans bellowing in chorus, sending shrapnel toward Germany’s lines. Aerial observers reported that the effect was splendid.
Deadly Artillery Work
Prisoners say the artillery is deadly, causing terror and killing sleep and rest. The Germans have been lax in their artillery fire recently because the movement of guns back is beginning. To-day I saw a fine exhibition of accuracy of fire. A report that a German gun was seen on the edge of a road six miles away was telephoned to the artillery. Meanwhile the Germans were firing steadily. In half an hour an American heavy gun opened with seven shots and the German gun was silent. An aerial observer reported that the gun was hit.
This is one of a thousand incidents emphasizing the necessity of surplus airplanes. Here is an example of the way they are observing the works:--A German deserter told the location of a German gun when I was present. An officer said, “Have a photograph taken of the place immediately.” Within four hours an officer entered and handed in a photograph taken at an altitude of five thousand feet. It showed that the German deserter had told the truth. The gun was in the position named, clearly indicated.
A series of orders were quietly issued. The officer in command later said to me, “The artillery put that gun out of business in a few minutes.”
Airplanes are flying constantly over the battlefront. American flyers were numerous to-day. A German airplane swooped down to within five hundred feet of the ground and fired from machine guns on camions. Others dropped bombs which landed in the woods. The Germans have been bold since the Richthofen crowd arrived. They fly twenty kilometres back of our line. To-day I saw three. One was an observation airplane taking photographs at low altitude.
Over Evacuated Ground
This is certainly a rough war. To learn the conditions of the country through which the Germans are retreating I to-day visited villages evacuated the night before by the Germans, who unmercifully shelled them. The villages are complete wrecks. The houses are uninhabitable and cannot be repaired. Horses by the hundred lie dead in the fields and on the roadsides. Thousands of men are working on roads which have been wiped out by shell fire. Woods are clipped and withered, the fields churned with dead.
Here and there Boche graves, hurriedly dug, are marked with rude crosses. At one place were a hundred Boche graves. At another the Boches buried fifty in a new French cemetery. The French shrug their shoulders, and say it is sacrilege, but will leave them alone until it is time to remove them decently. Evidence is everywhere that the Boches lost heavily during the retreat.
I saw a girl of seven in a town two miles from the line who lived through all the fighting with her grandmother in the cellar of their house, which was wrecked. The old lady proudly called attention to some geraniums in a little plot in front of the house, which were about all that was not ruined.
There are hundreds of stories of German atrocities on the field of battle. The worst is told by an American who pretended to be dead to escape the fate of other wounded men, numbering seventeen. They were left in Sergy when the Americans were driven out the first time. The wounded man told a physician, who believes him, that he saw the Germans run bayonets through seventeen Americans who were wounded.
I hesitate to repeat the tales which I am unable to prove. The authorities prefer omission till they are definitely established. The fact remains that out of the clouds of smoke there is always rising some flame. The boys say the Germans are guilty of everything. For that reason the Americans are very bitter.
The following map showing the state of the Franco-American counter offensive was published in the July 31, 1918, New York Herald.
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