Currently Browsing: This Week in Marne History
September 23 - 29
Monday, 15 October 2007
Meuse-Argonne Offensive Begins.
On 26 September of this week in 1918 began the last of the three great campaigns in which the 3d Division took a most important part in 1918.
The Meuse-Argonne Offensive was named after the two natural features between which the American Army was stationed: On the right was the Meuse River, basically running north-south, along whose banks the 3ID had already fought at of Verdun and St. Mihiel; on the left the Argonne Forest, which would become even more famous in World War II. Thirty-five miles north of the American line was the town of Sedan, where the two main German east-west railroad lines converged. Through it travelled most of the men and supplies for the German armies in the western half of the German front. Capturing Sedan would be a devastating blow—and the Germans knew it. But they also knew that the Meuse-Argonne territory was ideal for defense. Along the Meuse were heights for observation and artillery fire; the Argonne Forest offered the same advantages. Halfway between them was the hill of Montfaucon, which dominated all the land about it. Where natural barriers did not exist, the Germans had created two lines of defenses—trenches, barbed wire, concrete machine-gun and artillery emplacements, all sited for mutual support and crossfire—before Montfaucon and two lines behind it. This was what the Americans faced.
When the offensive began the 3d Division was part of the III Corps which was placed on the American righ. The 3d Division, however, was not one of the three divisions on the front line but was Corps reserve. (The V Corps was in the center and the I Corps on the left.) Of the nine divisions jumping off on the 26th, only five had previously seen offensive combat; four divisions were supported by artillery with which they had never trained. The result was what could have been expected. All three Corps made good progress the first day, when the Germans were surprised by the attack. Thanks to a pincer movement by the I and III Corps around Montfaucon, they had even succeeded in taking the hill on the 27th. Thereafter progress stopped; the Germans brought in seven additional divisions for the defense and the inexperienced American units could not get through them. On the 29th, therefore, Pershing ordered that the offensive be halted, that currently held positions be organized for defense, and preparations begun to renew battle. These preparations included the replacement of inexperienced by experienced units on the front line. When the second phase of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive began on 4 October, then, the 3d Division was where it could have been expected to be, in the center of the action, in the center of the line, in the V Corps of the American First Army.
