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Mihiel to Camp des Romains, thence to Bois d'Ailly, Apremont, Boudonville, Regnieville, and finally to the Moselle, three miles north of Pont-a-Mousson. The northwestern side was marked by an imaginary line drawn from Etain in the north past Fresnes, over the Les Eparges Heights, and thence by Lamorville and Spada to St. Mihiel.
They proceeded against their opponents in the Bois d'Ailly, the Forest of Apremont, the Bois de Mont-Mare, the village of Regnieville, and the Bois le Pretre. Though each success was not large, the entire effort was effective in pushing in the southern side of the salient.
But the latter half of September gave a novel aspect to affairs. A great deal, no doubt, was due to Foch and the unity of command; but that unity did not extend to the East nor account for the debacle of Bulgaria and Turkey. It was, however, partly responsible for the extension of our offensive in France beyond the limits of the year before and for the timing of the American attack in the Woevre. In the hour of his Allies' need President Wilson had consented to the brigading of American with French and British troops, and to the employment of American divisions as supports for French and British generals. But with the American Army growing equal in size to the French and the British and acquiring an independent skill in war, there could be no hesitation about an American command on an equal footing with the armies of Haig and Pétain; and to the Americans under General Pershing had been allotted the right wing of the Allied front, the British forming the left and the French the centre. Some critics talked of Pershing's armies being used as the spear-head of an invasion of Germany through Lorraine; but this would have been an eccentric operation, and there were obvious reasons for restoring Lorraine, if possible, to France undevastated by war. North rather than east was the natural direction for an American advance, and in either case an indispensable preliminary was to eliminate that strange wedge at St. Mihiel which the Germans had held since September 1914. The task would also be a useful apprenticeship for an independent American command. The attack was made on both sides of the salient on 12 September, but the principal drive was from the south on a twelve miles' front between Bouconville and Regnieville. Part of the defending force was Austrian, but the whole salient collapsed under the blow; 15,000 prisoners and 200 guns were captured, and a new front was formed on a straight line from Fresnes to Pont-
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