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There was a lull on the 16th, and on the 17th Maunoury recovered the quarries of Autrèches; but east of Reims the 9th Army had fallen back from the Suippe, and the Prussian Guard had captured Nogent l'Abbesse and was threatening Foch's connexion with Langle in Champagne.
And she might well be proud of Major Henri Marchand, for he was in the very best sense a soldier and a gentleman, and there gleamed a bit of color on his breast that had been pinned there by Marshal Foch's own hand.
Two new armies of reserves had come into line, Foch's Ninth and Maunoury's Sixth; and two old armies had new commanders, the Third with Sarrail instead of Ruffey and the Fifth with Franchet d'Esperey instead of Lanrezac. In the east Castelnau and Sarrail stood almost back to back along the eastern and western heights of the Meuse above Verdun.
All the night before I had wakened at intervals to heavy cannonading and the sharp cracking of mitrailleuse. We were well behind the line, but the wind was coming from the direction of the battlefield. The start was made from in front of General Foch's headquarters. He himself put me in the car, and bowed an au revoir.
Already in September, after the defection of Bulgaria and the startling success of Foch's converging movement on Sedan, Germany knew that she was defeated. The Berlin Government turned to Wilson and on the 5th of October requested an armistice. At the same time Austria-Hungary made a similar request offering to negotiate on the basis of the Fourteen Points. Wilson's position was delicate.
"They are not yet trained" was Foch's reply. "Try them and see" said General Pershing. "They will go, anywhere you send them, and I will bet my life on it." Pershing took the initiative in urging the offensive, supplied the troops that gave Foch his mobile reserve enabling him to strike his blow, and those American troops "delivered the goods."
The colonel in charge came out to greet us, and to him Captain Boisseau gave General Foch's request to show me batteries in action. The colonel was very willing. He would go with us himself. I conquered a strong desire to stand with the telephone building between me and the German lines, now so near, and looked about.
He was a sort of liaison officer between General Grossetti, commanding the Forty-second Division, and the latter's chief, General Foch, his special duty being to carry General Foch's orders to General Grossetti and to keep the army chief informed, each evening, how his commands were being carried out.
In May, preceding Foch's advent, the communards led by a miserable little shoemaker who talked about shooting all the world took possession of the buildings belonging to the Polytechnic, and were dislodged only after severe fighting by Marshal MacMahon's Versailles troops. One shell burst in the midst of an improvised hospital there, gravely wounding a nurse.
To-day our Republic is defended by three armies General Pershing's, Marshal Foch's and Marshal Haig's. But whenever a German-American vilifies Haig and attacks England you may know that down in his heart he wants Pershing defeated, the United States conquered, and Germany made victorious.
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