. Our greatest battle (the Meuse-Argonne). ld present a great ridge-like bastion cut byravines, with irregular hills and slopes of a char-acter which, even though bald, would have been for-midable in defense. Its timber had nothing in com-mon with the park-like conception of a Europeanforest, in which the ground opens between treetrunks in lines as regular as in an orchard. If theArgonne had been without roads, the Red Indiansmight have been as much at home in its depths asin the primeval Adirondacks. Underbrush grew asfreely as in second-growth woods in our New Eng-land or Middle States; the
. Our greatest battle (the Meuse-Argonne). ld present a great ridge-like bastion cut byravines, with irregular hills and slopes of a char-acter which, even though bald, would have been for-midable in defense. Its timber had nothing in com-mon with the park-like conception of a Europeanforest, in which the ground opens between treetrunks in lines as regular as in an orchard. If theArgonne had been without roads, the Red Indiansmight have been as much at home in its depths asin the primeval Adirondacks. Underbrush grew asfreely as in second-growth woods in our New Eng-land or Middle States; the leaves had not yet begunto fall from the trees. It had not been until September 15th that the 77thhad been relieved from the operations in theChateau-Thierry region. A new division, freshfrom training at the British front and in Lorraine,it had gone into line in August to hold the bank ofthe Vesle against continuous sniping, gassing, andartillery fire; and later, after holding the bottom ofa valley with every avenue of approach shelled in. o PiK PhW 02 w HH« THE ORDER OF BATTLE S3 nerve-racking strain, it had shown the mettle ofthe Americans of the tenements by fighting its way-forward for ten days toward the Aisne Canal. Ithad been in action altogether too long according toaccepted standards, though this seems only to havetempered its steel for service in the Argonne. Ordinarily a new division would not only havebeen given time to recover from battle exhaustion,which is so severe because in the excitement men arecarried forward by sheer will beyond all normal re-actions to fatigue, but it would have been given timefor drill and for applying the lessons of its first im-portant battle experience. The value of this is thesame to a division as a holiday at the mountains orthe seashore to a man on the edge of a nervousbreakdown. He recovers his physical vitality, andhas leisure to see himself and his work in per-spective. Instead of knowing the relaxation and the joy of
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublishernewyo, bookyear1919
