Don Martin diary entry for Sunday, September
8, 1918:
Stayed in again today.
Went for a long walk along the Marne in the afternoon despite rain. Also
watched the celebration of the 4th anniversary of the Marne victory.
Had long visit with Sam Blythe [Saturday Evening Post]. In the evening attended a conference of all the
correspondents with Major James of the Press division. He says we shall move
soon to Nancy and that before any American operation is started we will have
the entire thing explained to us.
Don Martin
sent two Special Cables to the Herald on September 8, published in the
September 9 New York Herald. The first contained a mix of reports on German
morale.
AMERICAN INVITATION TO GERMAN SOLDIERS TO SURRENDER AND GET FED BEGINS
TO SHOW RESULTS
Boches Gather in Groups and
Gladly Give Themselves Up as First Chance
KAISER REALIZES HUN MORALE IS DECLINING
Don Martin Tells How High Command
Is Trying to Combat U. S. Propaganda
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, Sunday
The German High Command is
greatly disturbed at the extent of the propaganda which the Americans are
dropping inside their lines. And it is coming, too, at the time of the enemy’s
greatest reverses, when he knows the spirit of his fighting men is beginning to
droop, and that this American propaganda is helping to lower their morale.
Reports reaching us are to
the effect that German officers are taking drastic action to punish their men
for reading this American propaganda, which, I may say, is entirely fair and is
merely an appeal to reason. Our flyers are dropping tens of thousands of
pamphlets inside the enemy lines every week. Prisoners with whom I have talked
said that these pamphlets are being eagerly read by many German soldiers and
cause many of them to think seriously.
Some of these pamphlets ask
the Germans what they think they are fighting for, what they think will happen
if the war continues when it is impossible for them to win. The Germans are
told that the longer the war lasts the greater will be the sufferings of their
home folks. The Germans are asked what they get to eat and are informed that
the Americans will feed them bountifully--all they have to do is to surrender;
that they will be well fed and sent back home at the end of the war.
This propaganda, appealing to
the stomach, as well as to the mind of the Germans, informs them that America
is determined to fight to the finish and that she has an inexhaustible supply
of men who are coming to France by the hundreds of thousands.
The surrender of an
occasional group of Germans who are found hiding in the woods is believed to be
a result of this propaganda.
At the same time The Germans
continue to drop thousands of pamphlets inside the French lines that are
designed to embitter them against Great Britain and America.
French Experts Praise Americans
French experts, analyzing
developments since the allied offensive, pay particular attention to the
Americans, who, they say, are small numerically as compared to the French, but
the quality of their fighting and their success in attaining the most difficult
goal insured the success of the offensive, whereas had they failed the whole
offensive, the biggest allied operation of the war, would have been endangered.
When the Germans swooped
across the Marne and tried to force their way southward they were confronted by
the Americans, who, after two days of bitter fighting, forced the Huns back. At
the same time the First and Second American divisions, fighting on each side of
the crack Moroccan divisions at Soissons—the most vital point in the line—swept
forward through the pick of Germany’s shock troops, cutting and shooting their
way through division after division and reaching their objectives.
Here is where they met and
overcame the stoutest enemy opposition and they made possible the advance of
the Franco-American troops from the south, compelling the entire German line
north of the Marne to withdraw.
Men from Wisconsin and
Michigan, composing the Thirty-second division, entered the battle and fought
their way to the Vesle, capturing Cierges and Bellevue Farm and going through
many tough fights victorious. They met six enemy divisions all told and
finished the campaign in five days, fighting day and night, “chins up and hollow
eyed.” Recently when an assault unit was needed, these crack-a-hard-nut
Michigan and Wisconsin men were called northwest of Soissons, and they took
Juvigny, which is likely to be the key to the western edge of the Chemin Des
Dames.
To-day this division is the
envy of the British and the French because of the youth and the gigantic
stature of its men.
In the fighting up to this
time American divisions have been in the hot of it and all along the line they
have been praised equally by the French. The Forty-second has a splendid record
in the fighting in the region of Sergy, where it met the Prussians.
The Americans are
enthusiastic over the victories of the French around Noyon, and while the
disposition here is not to become too enthusiastic, the feeling is growing that
the Hums have much the worst of the situation, despite the fact that, by
shortening the line, the enemy will be able to pack in his divisions thicker
than ever and, consequently, will be able to make desperate resistance.
Americans here who are in
possession of the very best information caution against making the home folk
believe that the war will be over this year.
Tremendous shelling of
villages between the Aisne and the Vesle indicates that the Huns now have their
big guns emplaced. One village held by the Americans has been terrifically
shelled, twenty shells falling in it every minute for two hours. However, it
will be but a matter of a few days at most before the Huns will have been
forced across the Aisne all along that stream. Where they will go afterward
will depend entirely on the pressure of General Mangin’s army.
In their retreat northward
the Germans are destroying everything that they cannot carry with them.
Evidently they have no hope of returning to the territory south of the Aisne.
They are wrecking villages and blowing up their ammunition dumps. They are,
however, getting most of their guns away.
Germans Harvest Wheat
Fields in the entire region
north of Fere-en-Tardenois have been stripped of their harvest of wheat, which,
presumably, has been shipped to Germany. Everything of value in this part of
France has been taken by the Huns, who have demonstrated one of the most
successful looting operations in all history. The fields on the wide plateau
between the Vesle and the Aisne are as clean as a billiard ball and there is
not a single blade of wheat left, although the crop promised a bountiful
harvest.
This afternoon I watched the
shelling of the German back areas. The horizon looked like a hundred oil tanks
were afire, an evidence of the huge explosions there. Whether these explosions
were caused by our shells or by Boche incendiarism we have not yet been able to
determine.
The Americans, hand in hand
with the French, are pushing steadily ahead in the face of the bitterest kind
of machine gun and artillery fire. On the other hand the Boche must be
suffering from the allied artillery, which night and day is pouring high
explosives along the roads, in the villages and in the back areas occupied by
him to the north of the Aisne. We are using gas extensively and with good
effect, according to prisoners, who say that the Germans fear gas more than
anything else, as they are not adequately supplied with gas masks and those
that they have are manufactured of material that is not the best.
There has been intense aerial
activity during the last few days. I saw a thrilling spectacle of this air
fighting in the region of the Vesle. In the distance the sky was dotted with
German observation balloons, while allied balloons hung like a string of beads
in the sky over our lines.
Suddenly a Boche airplane,
like a swallow, slipped out of a cloud and headed straight for our balloons.
Instantly a score of anti-aircraft guns were shooting at him, and black puffs
of smoke broke ahead, behind, above and below him. It seemed impossible that
the Boche would escape them, but he continued to soar onward, while our
balloons, like silvery spots in the sky, began to descend, our observers coming
down by the parachutes.
The German airplane raced on
despite the storm of shrapnel. He darted close to one of our balloons and it
began to descend, a whirling sheet of flame. He missed the next two, but got
the fourth, which vanished in a spiral flame and cloud of smoke.
The Boche still was in the
very midst of a tempest of shrapnel when suddenly he changed his course and
shot upward, straight up into the blue. He became fainter and fainter.
The second September 8
dispatch, published in the New York Herald on Monday, September 9, was an extended
battlefront report.
STINGING ALLIED BLOWS
CLOG HUN WAR MACHINERY
Officer Tells Don Martin Tide Has Turned
and Kaiser Has Lost Chance for
Offensive
GERMANS WHIPPED BUT STILL STRONG
Prisoners Say Desperate Resistance Will Be Made
to Continue Pressure
Along Aisne
“Always Forward” Is Their Motto
As They Keep Close on Heels of Fleeing
Foe
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, Sunday
Information which we have
obtained from German prisoners is to the effect that the enemy is greatly
worried at the persistence of the allied pressure against him on all sides, but
intends to make all the resistance he can along the Aisne and the Chemin des
Dames. These prisoners said they were not surprised at the German withdrawal to
the Hindenburg line.
In
the opinion of the Franco-American military authorities, the British pressure
against the Huns in the west and in the north is placing then in a dangerous
position. It is now generally agreed that the enemy is in no shape to undertake
an offensive.
Tide Turns Toward Allies
A high military authority
told me this afternoon that even a short time ago no one expected that the
Allies would now be in such a splendid position as they occupy at this time. At
the same time he cautioned me against raising the hopes of the folk at home to
too high a pitch, for while the Germans undoubtedly are whipped they still have
left the strength for a stiff punch, which, he declared, we must not
underestimate. He added that the enemy has suffered a stinging blow since last
July, and that at the present time it seems that he will not be able to remain
south of the Hindenburg line, where, probably, he will endeavor to maintain a
position this winter—a season during which it will be hard to conduct a big
operation against him, since the condition of the roads then will make it
impossible for the Allies to transport the supplies which they will need for
such an offensive.
He expressed the belief,
however, that the tide has definitely turned in favor of the Allies, due to the
fact that America has exceeded her promises in so far as the number of her men
here is concerned.
In their retreat northward
the Germans are adhering strictly to their policy of killing as many as
possible of the Allied troops and at the same time sacrificing the fewest
number of their own troops. Their resistance south of the Aisne was composed
mainly of artillery and machine guns, with a few of their best troops placed in
charge of the latter. These enemy machine gunners were told to stand by their
guns and to fire until they were killed. Most of them obeyed this, although some
of them surrendered.
Use Machine Gun Defence
By the skilful placing of
these machine guns where they can sweep wide spaces of territory the Germans
are making the advance of the Franco-American troops difficult. From a front
observation post this morning I saw by the aid of a powerful glass along the
edges of the plateaus which form the “hog’s back” in the Aisne-Vesle region.
The advance was slow and in
one place the Americans re-formed six times. They were enfiladed by machine gun
fire and some of them dropped, but most of them made steady progress and, after
re-forming the sixth time, attained their objectives.
For five hours the Germans
splashed one of the plateaus with high explosives, but the Americans and the
French went through the fire and charged the machine gun clusters in the edges
of the ravines which sloped northward.
The recent fighting around
Blanzy-les-Fismes, Glennis and Meurival, just south of the Aisne, was well
illustrative of the present tactics of the enemy. Shells fell in them every
minute, and our soldiers could be seen darting from building to building in
these villages and finally to emerge from them to the north, while shells fell
all around them.
The German losses in this
region have not been large, for their scheme is to leave a score of expert
machine gunners to hold off hundreds of our men. The job has been a tough one
for the French and Americans, but despite the opposition they have met they are
progressing northward steadily.
Fismes is a wreck. I was the
first civilian to go through it after it had been occupied by the
Franco-American troops. The streets are filled with debris and filth left by
the Hun hordes, and it is impossible to pass through its streets in an
automobile. The Americans, however, now are cleaning it up.
For weeks the city was No
Man’s Land. The Huns occupied one end of it; the Americans the other. Dead lay
in the streets and it was impossible for either side to remove them. Indeed,
for days dead Germans lay in front of the Hotel de Ville. Every night there
were bitter clashes between patrols, and constantly soldiers on both sides
fought and worked in their gas masks. The Germans hurled a gas shell every ten
minutes.
Virtually every building in
Fismes was damaged; most of them were ruined—another evidence of the damage by
allied bombing and heavy artillery shelling. The great number of enemy graves
there was a striking proof of their heavy losses.
Germans Burn Hospitals
To-day the Germans are making
it a regular practice to burn their hospitals before their evacuation. All of
them are constructed of wood, and many of them are several acres in extent. I
have seen in the last few days half a dozen such ruins. In one of these ruins
the Americans found a German serum intended to prevent gangrene poisoning that
results sometimes from gas. The directions for its use said that it was not a
certain preventive but was likely to be efficacious.
A unique method of patrol
fighting was explained to me to-day by Private C. E. Colf, of Canandaigua, N.
Y., and T. A. Coakley, of Philadelphia, Pa. They had just returned from
fighting in the Aisne plateau when I saw them. They wore felt coverings over
them steel helmets and explained to me that it was to deaden the sound of
breaking twigs when they were on night patrol duty. They had been fighting all
the way from the Marne to the Aisne.
“It has been tough fighting,”
Private Colf told me. “The Germans have thrown away their rifles and are using
machine guns only, because they are forced to use them. I saw two of them this
morning who thought that by crying ‘Kamerad’ they would get off, but they
didn’t. Ten Americans went to get them after they had signified their surrender
but when our men got close to them the Huns began firing at them Then we got
both of them.”
Private Coakley described his
sensations when going into battle.
“Don’t believe any one who
tells you that he is not afraid when
going into battle,” he said. “They are all afraid—not exactly afraid,
either, but just worried. But I have never seen an American who got ‘cold
feet.’
“I suppose that it would save
many lives if we sneaked up on these machine gun nests and put them out of
business that way, but to us it does not seem the American way. We want to make
a quick job of it, and—believe me—we are doing it.”
The Americans are doing their
full share of the fighting in the great offensive. No matter what unit is
engaged, the records all seem to be the same. I have talked with a dozen of our
men from New York city and while all of them said that they would rather be in
Broadway they are willing to stick here until the job is finished.
All our men are glad that the
harassing, guerrilla-like warfare which they knew in the Fismes region has
ended, They like the dash of the open warfare. The spirit of our men is
splendid and they firmly believe that they have the Boche running.
The evidences north of the
Vesle indicated that the enemy retreated through that region in good order,
although he left some ammunition and guns behind him.
I have just seen another
demonstration of the value of aerial observation. The Americans were anxious
for information regarding the situation along the entire length of the plateau.
A French airplane ascended and in fifteen minutes returned and dropped a
message in the vicinity of our headquarters.
“French troops occupying
shell holes; four columns of troops advancing, with cavalry advancing well
ahead of them. French batteries in action. Great number of troops. Fires in Villers-en-Prayeres;
violent explosions in villages north of Villers-en-Prayeres. Convoys arriving
Fismes.”
I now am permitted to tell a
story of the remarkable nerve and efficiency exhibited by an American regiment
in the fighting in the region north of Soissons. They advanced against the
enemy well ahead of the troops adjoining them on the right and left, meanwhile
subjecting themselves to a dangerous enfilading fire by the enemy, who in his
withdrawal was trying to keep his line straight.
“We go ahead; never back,”
said the Americans when the Germans began to counter attack, supported by
machine guns. The Americans then dropped on their bellies and used their rifles
with deadly accuracy.
The Huns advanced in five
waves to force the Americans to retreat, but our man lay flat and pumped
bullets into them with such accuracy that the Germans quit when their fifth
wave was mowed down and many of their dead covered the field.
United States’ Motto Is “Keep Going!”
I talked to-day with one of
our officers who was in this fighting. He said that the German dead carpeted
the field and in places they lay two deep. The American troops, he declared,
never budged, but in the fighting since the Marne have gone steadily ahead,
following and living up to their motto:--“Keep going.”
I can say that the fighting
between the Vesle and the Aisne has developed many of their fine qualities.
An interesting story of the
fighting in Fismette—a stormy battle ground—was told to me to-day by one of our
officers of the engineers who was engaged in cleaning up that region of death.
Under him was one of our soldiers who had been in the fighting there.
They came across a grave at
the edge of the town. During the fighting the American troops had held that
part of Fismette, while the Germans occupied the opposite end of the place. The
American soldier who was working directly with this officer pointed to the
grave and said he had killed the German who was buried there. Then he told his
story:--
He was a sentinel stationed
at this spot, and while talking with his sergeant they saw a German approaching
them. This German held a grenade in his hand and when he was ordered to stop
paid no heed to the command. As he was about to throw the grenade the sergeant
ordered the sentinel to shoot and the German dropped dead.
The sentinel looked at the
fallen man and became greatly agitated. “Sergeant,” he said. “I never killed a
man before.”
This sentinel is a mere boy
and he felt himself a murderer. To-day, however, he is a calloused man.
In the New York Herald on Sunday,
September 8, 1918, the four photographs below sent by Don Martin were published with the following
text.
CAPTURED PHOTOGRAPHS OF GERMANS
BACK OF THEIR LINES
SCENES BEHIND THE GERMAN FRONT—
GERMANS FIRING TRENCH MORTAR
By DON MARTIN
In the appearance of the
young German officers seen in the accompanying photographs there is nothing to
indicate that the ruling caste is emaciated or lacking in military pride. The
pictures were taken from German prisoners, who refused to give any information
concerning them except that they were taken before the allied offensive was
started.
The German officers are just
as militaristic and just as supercilious as they ever were—and this applies to
those whom I have been permitted to see and talk with since the failure of the
Germans’ July offensive and the brilliant success of the allied offensive. The
soldiers seem to have lost some of their fighting spirit—in fact, many of the
prisoners say the Germans are eager to give up—but the officers insolently say
they will win. The officers are all well clothed and well fed.
And on September 8, there
was Don Martin’s daily report for Paris, published in the Paris Herald on
Monday, September 9, including another story of bravery.
Yank Officer, Hit,
Follows Advancing Men on Stretcher
(SPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE HERALD)
By DON MARTIN
WITH THE AMERICAN ARMIES, Sunday
There was lessened activity last
night and this morning on the American front north of the Vesle. The Germans
are continuing their machine-gun resistance, but are doing very little in the
way of counter-attacks.
A remarkable story may be told
about the valor of an American officer, whose name for the present must be
omitted. On Friday he was severely wounded in the abdomen. He was carried back
for treatment, but he insisted on being placed on a stretcher and taken back to
the scene of battle. His order was obeyed. For six hours he lay on the
stretcher, being gently moved from place to place, and directed the advance of
his men. This task completed, he was taken to a dressing station to be treated
anew and afterward was removed to a hospital.
In Alsace, after a thirty-minute
artillery preparation Americans penetrated far into the enemy line, inflicting
severe casualties upon the Hun. Several dead were counted. In this part of the
American front an American observation aeroplane was attacked by fourteen enemy
machines, but succeeded in finishing its tasks and returned safely.
This afternoon General Pershing in
three ceremonies pinned distinguished service crosses on heroes of the summer
fighting.
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