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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (May 18, 1919)
THE OMAHA SUNDAY BEE; - MAY 18, 1919. .7 A Germans Pinned Last Hope For; Victory; On Celebration of French National Holiday Hoping to Smash Lines in Surprise Attack .': . y s , t , Captured German Sergeant, Who Knew Secret of Proposed Attack', Told French Intelligence Officer of German General Staffs Plans and a Few Minutes Later the Supreme Command of the Allied Armies PreparecUTo Meet Hun Onrush General Gouraud Wins Day. rha Th lwa auvikui liutallm.nta at thli klifarv f tha Rainbow Dtvl)an by Riimond S. Tamakla. hleh ..Mired l Lit Sunday', luua tf Tha Bh told ot tha dlvllon' organization, tralnlaa and thraa aioatht' wvtca In tka tretwh.. l Lorralaa. TImm moothl In th. trenehii. "aulM .actor." war. not oiiUt for tha R.labaw, for th.ra au almott aaatlauou. raiding and counter raiding, lad whan tha division laft waa ardarad la a rait . TMa lattallmaat at tha hUtory takas than away fro at thalr wall-aarnad rait ta tha atott critical front at that Mma an tha antlra. allied llaa. far tha Sarniaaa had alannad a raat attack far July 14 Franca'a ladaaaadanaa Day and If thty broke ttlraugk, Pari l would ba at thalr ary. Tha aaxt lattallmaat la Tha Baa. aaxt Sunday, will tall haw thay mat that attack. f "By RAYMOND S. TOMPKINS. Copyright. 191). ay Raymond I. Tamaklai. unnriKn iv. He was a dirty, unshaved Germ,an sergeant and he stood pale and nerve-shaken before a French intelligence officer in a candle-lighted dugout deep in the chalk-white soil of the Champagne country . It was like shimmering gray silk now, though that soil for night had come, the night of July 14, 1918, and the plains were bathed in warm moonlight and the ;lear sky studded with stars. A little French raiding party had brought him in one af those fearless patrols of veteran poilus, wary as deer, cun ning as panthers, who stole in and snatched and were away with their quarry in the twitch of a trigger finger. German Attack Was About Due. A picked patrol it was on , this night picked from the best because its mission must not fail. The Gerq code signal ,that the night of the - man attack was at hand. Gouraud had said it, and Gouraud knew. He had felt before the first of July that it was coming; hy the Sth he had known it for a certainty. And the 14th was French independence day, and Gouraud knew the German logic. v - " , "They wilPall be drunk," so the one-armed hero of the Dardanelles and commander of the ' Fourth French army 'guessed the German estimate of France's readiness. "They. will, all be drunk with cele brating and we will kill them where they lie." A Surprise, complete unreadiness that1 was the Germans' desperate hope; their highest card and thejr last. General Gouraud's troops in the Champagne, before Chaloris-sur-Marne, could expect to drink deep to Bastile day with perfect safety, for a German attack there, they might well think, would be madness. The opposing lines had been virtually stationary there since 1914. Before Chalons,- from the Argonne ' to Rheims, the allies' trench systems were five miles deep, with great dugouts ana vast wire neias. it was. perhaps, the most perfectly or ganized defensive position on the whole western front. "Yes," thought Von Hiridenburg, "the French will expect to be safe there on the 14th day of July, 1918 safe and drunk 1" , Reasons for Attack. They had failed at Chateau-Thierry. The Marne salient at that point did not afford maneuvering room for another major German of fensive. Wave after wave of smashing attack the Hun had hurl ed against Verdun, oq the right, and Rheims, on the left, and they had all been futile. They had tried to widen on their right in the direction of Compiegne and Montdidier, but there the allied armies were known -to have concentrated their reserves. What, tlien, beside these things, and the probability of surprise, moved the German high command to plan a drive on Chalons through Jive miles of defenses? This; That their lines of com munication were shorter and super ior; .that they could operate on a straight line, while the allied "re serves could come from north of Paris to Chalons 'only around the Marne salient via Vitre-le-Francois, and that, Chalons once taken, a jumping-off point for the next drive on Paris could be chosen at will. But, above all, surprise. The candles in the dugout flick . ered with the vital intercity of the moment, it seemed, but probably it was only jvith the throb of a gun beginning the ordinary .night Harassing. Got His Information. The intelligence officer put his question bluntly, almost carelessly. know, would There was nothing now between those companies and death but a few hours' sleeo and a few minutes of hand-to-hand fighting. It was the uerman attack had come. In five minutes and it was then but a little after dark the whole Fourth French army knew it and vas ready Americans and all. And again the "Fourth French army heard again Gouraud's call of the week before: "None will look behind none will give way. Kill them; kilPthem inabundance until they have had enough 1" Rainbow Picked Again. The Americans were the men of the Rainbow division. Coming out of the Baccarat sector on June 21, "for a rest," they had instead, moved by rail to Camy de Chalons with head quarters at Vadenay Ferme in the Champagne area, for-special train ing. They had landed there June 29, and were 'about to carry out a minor operation near Chatillions-sur- Marne when Marshal Foch, learn ing of the German plan against Cha lons, again availed himsel of Gen eral Pershing's offer, and looked about for one high- spirited, hard fighting American division."" By the first of July the Rainbow, a five-months-old American war-baby, was a part the only American part of Gouraud's plan of defense. By the 10th it and alt the French divisions with it were in their places before Chalons. It was a novel plan of defense; elastic is the one word that best describes it. it was the greatest and most successful of plans for the de fense of ano!d-time trench system; for as this proved to be the last of the great trench battles of the war, so, also was it the fiercest and most decisive. The most threatening advance on Paris had been stopped earlier in the summer, but that al lied success had not broken the Ger man power of large-scale offensive. Abandoned First Line. Gouraud had abandoned his first line system and turned it into a mass of death traps. No soldiers were there except the handful of French men in sacrafice companies, prepared to face certain death for the sake of keeping the Germans fooled into believing that the signal flares and rockets they sent ifp by night and their own visible move ments by day meant that the first line was full of troops. Armed with machine guns, they were to wait there, first in deep dugouts, while the bombardment went on, then in the midst of labyrinths of wire so thick that they could not set out and no one else could get in, and they were to delay the German ad vance and separate tht German in fantry from the German barrage, until overwhelmed by, sheer force of numbers. . At sunset the evening before the attack they were pitching horse shoes inside their barbed-wire back yards. So all the German bombardment on the first lines by trench artillery and ninenwerfer would be time, la bor and ammunition wasted. Iowa Troops Proceed. For its first real infantry defense Gouraud had moved his troops bade to the intermediate line, about three miles from the German positions. On the extreme left, just south tof Auberive-sur-Suippes were the third and second battalions of the 165th infantry, all New Yorkers, and the Third battalion, 166th, from Ohio, and on the extreme right, northeast of Souain, were Alabamians of the Second battalion 167th Infantry, and Iowans of the Second battalion 168th infantry. Between the Alabam ians and the New Yorkers ran the tancient Romanroad to Chalons-sur- Marne. lhey were tne guardians ot the pass. , Maryland in Front. ' In the second line, from left to right, five miles from the German positions, were the 117th Engineers, from California and South Carolina, ready to fight as infantry; First bat talion, 165th infantry; First and sec ond battalions, 466th infantry; First and Third battalions; 167th infan try and First and Third battalions 168th infantry. Mingled with them were French t soldiers of the 170th division on'the left and the 13th di vision on the right. The Rainbow had been brigaded with two French i.r iniaiury tnvisiuns. The Rainbow artillery was like wise brigaded with the French. Col onel Leach, with the 151st Field ar tillery from Minnesota being on the right, in support of the second posi tion, and and Colonel Riley, with the 149th from Illinois on thcleft. Of the 150tH Artillery regiment, from In diana, under Colonel Tyndall, one battalion was on the right and two on the left. The farthest advanced American unit in the battle system was the 117 Trench mortar battery, from Maryland. It was out beyond the in- T termediate line on the right, charged with the duty of delaying the Ger man , advance with - showers of I-bombs. : . - Night Like All Others. Back of the front line were' shel ters filled to bursting with animals and transportation; and around and behind them was artillery of all call bers with, great heapsi of ammuni tion. Th dTinn.ra ir Wniny hvJ ,n? P Ana wnue mey tnougnt mese !L.aJle g"LTJ l.'r htngs the world went suddenly mad the guns. 6till turther back were ammunition and supply dumps, hospitals (a big one at Bussey-le-Chateau), and at Vadenay Ferme was headquarters of the Rainbow division, with General Menoher fci command and" Colonel MaeArtljur chief of staff. Behind all these, 20 miles away from the German lines, the prize the Huns sought on this clear, warm, moonlight night, of July 14, 1918. stood the city of Chalons-sur-Marne, a black spot on the ghost-gray planes of the Cham pagne, lightless and silent. Silent but for the occasional boom of a gun, and crash of a shell, now behind the German lines, now be hind the allied lines. Just an ordin ary night; harassing fire to keep them stirred up around the batteries and dumps and picket lines so that they would knowr you were still there and still living. Here and there an occasional rifle shot. Now and then a rocket like the earth throwing a fiery kiss Jo the moon. No airplanes, no bombs falling; just soft moonlight, gentle breezes and the faint throb of cannon, like the war god breathing spasmodically in his sleep. , ' Gouraud Begins Firing. General Gouraud began - his bar rage at U o'clock. Until November 1 during the Argonne-Meuse of fensive that chorus of guns held the allied record for volume of sound and devasting effects. It was timed to coincide with the probable mass ing of the German artillery for the preliminary bombardment It paled the clear light of the moon; where the guns were the hor izon was red as sunset with their muzzle flashes; over the German lines and rear areas the sky flamed with shell explosions. The Rainbow men, with nothing in their war ex perience except the desultory can nonading of the Baccarat sector, came out of dugouts and elephant backs to watch the spectacle. When they shouted to one another, "Great sight, ain't it?" they had to shout through, cupped Jiands directly into a comrade's ear. " "" They stood there feeling a little sorry for the enemy;, who had to endure such punishment; but exul tant to think in what a terrible mess his plans for the night's work must be artillery smashed before it could get under way, storm troops demoralized, ammunition dumps go- beneath their feet and hideous death ran' rampant .over every foot of grounds Midnight had come an hour earlier to the -Germans than it had to the allies. They had forgotten that, some of them. And some of them recalled it too late. It was five minutes past 12. - (To be continued in The Bee next Sunday.) Acute Controversy Before , Peace - Meet Setded by Italy Paris, May 17. Italy ' fcas relin quished its Claims to theV Dodo canese Islands, off the Asia" Minor coast, in favor of Greece. This ends one of the most -acute controversies before the peace conference. : Premier Orlando, Count Macchi Di Cellere,-Italian ambassador to the United States, and CM. E. M. House of the American peace mis sion, continued today their confer ences looking toward a settlement of the Adriatic question. It was said that the outlook was hopeful but it was stated in official circles that over-optimism at present should be discouraged. The question of the future ,of the -Dodocanese islands involved the question of self-determination. Italy has held the islands since the Trf politan war, but now retires under the terms of the treaty of Lucerne which provided that the islands should be held until the Italian pris oners in Tripoli were delivered by the Turks. 1 WILL HELP CHILDREN. Washington. May 17. American school children, through the Junior Red Cross, will 'donate $1,000,000 this year to the relief -of child vic tims, the war overseas, it was an nounced by the Red Cross. 'Frisco Smugglers Follow Mark Twain s Plan Unsuccessfully San Francisco, May 17 Mark Twain's statement in the "Double Barreled Detective" that "the best Way to throw a detective off the track is to go along with him" was put into practice recently by an uni dentified would-be smuggler on the Standard Oil tanker -Royal Arrow, on her arrival here from Hong Kong. When the customs inspectors boarded the tanker -vto search for contraband they followed the cus- torn of going to a vacant stateroom , to change their uniforms for search ing clothes. They first searched this room and then started to inspect the vessel. , ' v Finding hothing, they returned to the stateroom to change back into their uniforms and were surprised to v note evidences of the. room having been occupied during their absence. - An examination resulted in the dis- f cover of a heavy roll of pongee silk & i. J :i c ... i- and a very valuable silk kimono in the locker. When the incident was reported & to Col. John S. Irby, surveyor ol the port, he expressed the opinion j that would-be smugglers had with- a out .doubt been inspired 'by Mark ( Twain's advice. f 1 A Word of Advice A smile that shows defective' teeth Is devoid of charm. In fact. It is often repulsive. When a girl opens her mouth, " Do you like to see bits of gold Flashing at youT Would you not prefer to look upon -Pretty enamel teeth? Of course you wouldj The Bailey Dental organization Makes beautiful porcelain jackets. Which slip right on over the teeth And do not leave any dark rims ' Close to the gums. "" , ' As the old-fashioned pivot Teeth do. And the nerves do not have to Be killed or the teeth cut off. And ydu know that teeth Whose nerves are killed Usually last only ten years or even less. And they are apt to send pus -Through the whole system. t A porcelain Jacket will, therefore, ! Improve both your appearance and your healtS. Bailey Dental Co. ; Inc. , Seventh Floor City National Bank " v Omaha, Neb. 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Men in deep holes in the ground throughout miles of the Champagne's chalky desert caught it up ad passed it on ''Francois ne-four-O' and it went out farther and farther toward the German lines and stopped where things it heralded would begin in the dugouts of the French sacrifice companies. STOCK SALESMAN, WANTED ,Om REAL aaleamM to nil b attracts offering on. which ha can ropoat,' by an stabliihed invest snont hou.V The opportunity is ex ceptional end the connection has possibilities limited only by ability of producer. Tell u about yonrself, your alee record, and the territory preferred. In plain VoreV yonr service. Sales Manager, PotU Tarnbull Advertising Agcy Kan au City, Mo.V v w: ' - in HARP SCHOOL ; Harp."" " vFaraUa TvptiM Ml V I lit J. Phone DeM.e704 TOBACCO sr. HaMt CURED to i trial. It It earn, aoats SL B H fcUa. aoata Bothlnc. 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