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As time passes, however, Pershing takes higher rank. His insistence upon soldierly qualities, his unyielding determination to create American armies under an independent command, his skill in building up a great organization, his successful operations at St. Mihiel and in the Meuse-Argonne drive, despite faulty staff work all these facts become more plain as we acquire perspective.
Never in the history of the world have such enormous masses of military been engaged in battle at one point. "On the forty-mile semicircular firing-line around the French fortress, from the River Meuse above St. Mihiel to Avocourt, the Germans probably have several thousand guns, at least 2,500, in action or reserve. Were each gun fired only once an hour, there would be a shot every second.
You must remember that sausage episode? It was just outside St. Mihiel, about five in the evening. Your little lot were lying next to my little lot, and we happened to meet, and I said 'What ho! and you said 'Halloa! and I said 'What ho! What ho! and you said 'Have a bit of sausage? and I said 'What ho! What ho! What HO!"
Mihiel, Verdun, Châlons, over the ghastly battle-fields of Champagne, through Rheims, Chateau-Thierry, Vaux, to Paris, I have always had the same spectacle under my eyes, the same passion in my heart.
It had been raining for days and the men were wet to the skin, and many of them had no way to get dry except to roll up in their blankets and let the heat of their body dry their clothes while they slept. It was a great comfort to have the Salvation Army hut where they could go and get warm and dry once in awhile. The night of the St. Mihiel drive was the blackest night ever seen.
It came to him, suddenly, that all this activity and night marching could mean only one thing a new attack along some new front. Encouraged by the success of St. Mihiel, the Americans were going in again. But where? McGee put the question to a dozen officers, and not one of them had the foggiest notion of where he was going.
From two to three days each were spent in front-line posts on the Amiens-Bethune, Albert-Peronne, Bapaume-Soissons, St. Mihiel, and back of the Argonne sectors. Often, the party was the first civilian group to enter a town evacuated only a week before, and all the horrible evidence of bloody warfare was fresh and plain.
Headquarters First Division, American Expeditionary Forces. France, September 15, 1918. From: Chief of Staff. To: Major L. Allison Coe, Salvation Army. Subject: Service in Operation against St. Mihiel Salient.
Mihiel in the making of American armies and the discouragement of the German High Command was of the first importance. "An American army was an accomplished fact," wrote Pershing, "and the enemy had felt its power.
"But you remembered about giving me a bit of sausage outside St. Mihiel?" "No, I didn't. I'm taking your word for it. For all I know you may be luring me into some den to rob me of my straw hat. I don't know you from Adam. But I like your conversation especially the part about eating and I'm taking a chance." Archie was concerned. "Listen, old bean. Make an effort.
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