To the Last Man - Jeff Shaara [280]
Pershing stood, followed Pétain along the path, thought, It is one advantage Ludendorff will always have. There is no one to argue with him.
ON JULY 15, LUDENDORFF ACTED AGAIN. FROM SOISSONS TO REIMS, the German gains of May and June had pushed a deep bulge toward their eventual goal of Paris. Despite the success of the Americans, Ludendorff would not simply walk away from his strategy. The spearhead of the German assault came near Reims, a quarter million German troops surging southward toward the Marne River. But this time the French had assembled reliable intelligence, and the French commanders had prepared for the assault by pulling their lines back into a flexible defense, designed to absorb the main German thrust. Though the Germans succeeded in crossing the Marne, the French fought back with surprising energy, and the German drive was halted.
Along the Marne itself, there was a different story. East of Château-Thierry, near the village of Varennes, the river formed a tight loop to the north, a finger of land that most strategists would ignore as nearly impossible to defend. This sharp bend of riverbank was manned by the American Thirty-eighth Regiment, part of the Third Division. In the predawn of July 15, two full regiments of German Grenadiers attempted to force a crossing of the narrow river, and discovered that the narrow finger of land was not indefensible after all. Commanded by Colonel Ulysses Grant McAlexander, the overwhelmingly outnumbered troops of the Thirty-eighth held their ground, and destroyed a significant percentage of the German force. Though abandoned by the early withdrawal of the French troops on their flank, McAlexander continued to hold his position for a full day, inflicting, and absorbing enormous casualties. McAlexander’s efforts would not go unnoticed. Throughout the entire AEF, McAlexander would ever after be referred to as the “Rock of the Marne.”
Elsewhere, the German drive was absorbing unaccustomed punishment at the hands of the rejuvenated French defense. The exhaustion of the German attack provided the Allied commanders with a sudden glimpse of the decay that was affecting the German army. Though the Allies were justified in their despair over the potential collapse of their own armies, the inability of the Germans to carry out Ludendorff’s plan was a revelation that the Germans had serious problems of their own. After more than three years, the war of attrition was affecting both sides. For the moment, Pershing appreciated that his plans for the assault on the St. Mihiel salient could wait. From Soissons to Reims, the German forces lay exhausted and battered in a wide arc. It would be up to the Allies to do something about it.
NEAR MONTREUIL-AUX-LIONS—JULY 15, 1918
THEY HAD STOOD NAKED FOR LONG MINUTES, EVERY MAN GRATEFUL to peel the awful filth of the uniform from his body. After a few embarrassing minutes, the men were sent through a line of water hoses, gleeful orderlies dousing them from head to toe. Soaked and thoroughly embarrassed, they were given soft blobs of foul-smelling soap that carried away the last remnants of the creatures who had taken up residence on the skin and hair of each man, and then, more hoses. There were no towels, and as the men dried themselves in the hot sun, they were paraded to fresh piles of uniforms, socks, underwear, and, finally, boots. Some of the men still carried their old boots, had endured so much pain to break them in that they were reluctant to part with the leather that had been softened by the abuse of mud, rain, and a hundred miles of marching. But the resistance