Don
Martin diary entry for Thursday, July 25, 1918:
With [Edwin] James [New York Times] went to Mont Pere, by way of Château-Thierry. Saw Major Spencer of
Third Division. Not much going on on American front. Germans throwing shells at
bridges which French are building over the Marne. American soldiers swimming in
river nearby. Not worried. Wrote cable for New York.
On July 25 Don Martin wrote a letter
to Dorothy, which he called a “long
treatise on the war.” He lists what
he has seen and done. And he expresses his disgust with war in surprisingly
blunt terms in a letter to an 11-year old:
I have been in a
position to see a great deal of the war... I have been in dozens – I might say
scores – of towns which have been practically wiped off the map by shell fire,
chiefly from the French and Americans. I have been on battlefields five hours
after the fighting was over .... I saw French cavalry start into action and
have seen Americans “go over the top.”
I have been with men in the batteries firing the great guns and have stood far
ahead of the guns and, with a telescope, watched the shells strike. Yesterday I
saw the bodies of five Americans in a line, about twenty feet from each other.
They were killed by German machine guns as they charged towards a woods... All
over one field of about ten acres there are still remnants of the fight, packs,
guns, cartridges, grenades, helmets, gas masks etc.
War today is a terrible thing.
It isn’t a case of going into battle, fighting a few hours or a couple of days
and then being through. Here the soldiers are never through. They are bombed in
their quarters. They are shelled wherever they are. Their dugouts are
threatened; shells are booming constantly day and night; and this goes on for
days and weeks. A soldier goes into the trenches (there are few trenches now
though; it is open fighting) or the front line and there he stays for a week,
two weeks, perhaps three weeks and he is in a furnace all the time. To look over a battlefield after the thing is
over one wonders how anyone could have been there and survived; yet a good many
come out unhurt and a great many suffer only slight injuries. Shrapnel and high
explosives do the damage. The shrapnel wounds are terrible some times. I have
seen bodies torn all to pieces. I have seen soldiers with half their heads shot
away.
Don Martin wrote an update dated July 25, reporting on the continued American progress, which wasp ublished in the New York Herald on July 26.
Americans Take Important Part in Driving Germans From the Marne Salient
Hard to Keep Up with Retreating Foe,
Who is Abandoning Guns
GERMANS ON THE RUN, BEATEN IN OPEN FIGHT
Franco-American Offensive Brilliant and Enemy
Only Avoided Disaster by
Rapid Work
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, Thursday
Americans continue to bear an
important part in the attacks which are forcing the swift withdrawal of the
Germans to points well back of the present lines, where it is expected, they
will attempt to make another stand with a heavily reinforced army.
Americans are fighting in one of
the most important parts of the line north of Jaulgonne, where they continue to
advance, sweeping the Germans from positions. This morning they captured two
villages, passing their line in the forest of Fere.
The Germans now are using churches
in which to establish machine gun nests, and their resistance everywhere is
stiffening preparatory to a stand. Possibly, however, they will be unable to
check the advance of the Allies for any length of time until they reach the
Vesle.
At the present time it is hard for
the Americans to keep up with the retreating foe, who is fleeing afoot and in
trucks, leaving behind him machine gun detachments to hinder as much as
possible the advance of our men.
As the enemy flees northward he is
abandoning field guns, machine guns and large quantities of ammunition. Several
of these field guns, numberless machine guns and thousands of enemy shells now
are in the possession of the Americans, having been captured by them. At the
same time they have rooted out scores of his machine gun nests after desperate
fighting.
The German infantry is refusing to
stand up and fight. The Hun now is relying on machine guns to hold up the
allied onrush and permit him to get out of the trap in which he was caught by
General Foch’s brilliant strategic stroke. The Hun infantry has been thoroughly
beaten in the open fighting by the French, the Americans and the British,
despite the fact that the American troops were trained only for trench warfare
and not for open fighting.
The Franco-American offensive has
been a brilliant success up to this time. It was only by the swiftest kind of
work on the part of the Germans that they avoided a catastrophe.
German shelling and massing of
troops seem to foreshadow an early battle of great proportions.
Germans Alarmed at Defeat
Newspapers published in Germany and containing accounts of
the ordeal have just been received here. The wonder is whether the German
people will maintain their spirit in the face of this unfavorable news as well
as at other times. It is not doubted here that Germany is alarmed at the
success of the Allies.
It is certain that the enemy must
launch a counter movement to offset the impression at home created by the
defeat of the Crown Prince’s armies when the news of this defeat filters
through despite the efforts of the German government to keep the truth from the
people.
The enemy communiqués contained in
the German newspapers treat the Allied offensive as though it were a minor
engagement.
As I write this, the American
artillery is creating havoc in the German lines. I was on a hill close to our
advancing troops this morning and watched the effects of the artillery fire.
Through a field glass I saw the Germans moving along the edge of a road. At
first our shells spattered near them, and then they drew nearer. In five
minutes the enemy troops were in the path of them and the projectiles were
falling among them. It is certain that many Boches were killed. Our soldiers
then charged.
Later I learned that a signal had
been flashed to the artillerists telling of new spots where the enemy was
passing, and our fire was directed there. This is the allied method of
harassing the Hun’s lines. This goes on constantly by airplanes and artillery.
Everywhere along the lines the Germans are losing heavily in their withdrawal.
Rebuilding in Shadow of Guns
It is interesting to see the
feeling of the French civilian population now that the Allies are going ahead
and pushing the Germans back from French soil. I have seen scores of aged women
back in the villages which they had been forced to quit upon the approach of
the destroying enemy. I saw them in these villages amid the soldiers with their
rifles and the artillery. They were clearing away the ruins and starting under
the shadow of the guns the work of rehabilitation.
I found many such instances in the
zone which now is within reach of the enemy fire. The civilians all seemed to
realize the possibility that the Germans might start a new offensive and that
the enemy might retake these villages. This,
however, seemed to make no difference to them, for the French love their
homes even when these homes are but piles of debris.
The buoyant and valorous spirit of
the Americans when they are on their way to battle continue to amaze the
French, who declare that the American army is one of boys, but these boys are
the best of soldiers.
This is true. I have watched our
fresh youths as they went striding forward, whistling and singing, straight to
the front. Once when I stopped in a small village to buy postal cards and
souvenirs I saw some of our troops start off direct for the battle line. They
were as happy as if they had been going to a football game.
In a field where there was desperate
fighting last Saturday I saw a grim picture of the way Americans fight. Our men
were crossing this field in a charge against German positions at the edge of a
wood. In this field I saw four Americans lying on their faces, unburied. Their
guns had fallen from their grasp and lay well ahead of their bodies, showing
that they were charging forward with their bayonets in position. I have seen
many lying on fields in the same position. Such valor is winning the ever
growing admiration of the French.
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