On August 8 the British launched a successful counteroffensive east of Amiens. As the Germans retreated from the territory they had captured earlier in the year, Marshal Ferdinand Foch allowed Pershing to conduct an independent American operation against the St. Mihiel salient, which the Germans had held since 1914. (Army orders indicate that it was the first American operation to use the terms “D-Day” and “H-Hour” for planning purposes.) From September 12 to 16, American troops captured the salient and 15,000 German prisoners, with 7,000 of their own killed, wounded, or missing. Frederick Trevenen Edwards had left the Episcopal General Theological Seminary in New York City in May 1917 to enlist in the army. A first lieutenant in the 118th Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Division, he served in the regimental headquarters during the Marne-Aisne campaign in July. Wounded by German shellfire at Montfaucon during the Meuse-Argonne offensive, Edwards died on October 6, 1918.
AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES, FRANCE
September 12, 1918.
Dear Dad,—It’s nearly night; that time after supper when we light our candles and pull the blankets over the windows. I am in a farmhouse in a village just back of the lines. A long street winds away over the hill towards the Front. As the darkness comes on, the noise of the street grows more turbulent; swelling with the dark until it becomes a roaring turmoil; the thunder of heavy trucks; the rattle of guns and wagons; the steady tramp, tramp of marching Infantry; all punctuated by the whistle of the Military Police on the corner, regulating the traffic. His is a mighty job. A New York traffic Cop would be lost; for here no light can be shown. Every night it has rained a downpour; it is so black one cannot see a hand before his face; and still he has to stand on a muddy, desolate crossroads, that is apt to be shelled at any minute, and direct traffic heavier than the streets in New York.
Last night I sat here in this damp old house waiting for the battle to begin. What a queer experience it was! Outside, the rumble of the street, the shouts, the whistles, the steady downpour of the rain on the roof, that trickled and splashed on the floor inside. There I sat at one end of a table with a candle on either side of me and a map in front. The map was dotted with German batteries and jagged trenches, marked with lines which showed where our attack would be, how far it would progress by such and such a time. On the other side of the table sat the Colonel. Between us was a telephone with a spidery wire going out through the dark in every direction.
It was a wild stormy night, when one would like to pull a comfortable chair in front of the fire, with a good book to read. But this was very different; the room was cold, wet and cheerless. I took a chance on the smoke showing from the chimney, broke up some old furniture and built a little fire to warm us.
There we sat; not much to say; now and then a dripping messenger would rap, stand stiffly at attention and present a message. Again, the telephone would jangle and over the wire we would get a weird garble of letters. There would be a conning of the code book and an answer to code and send back. Then it would be quiet again. Just over the hill were the trenches. Ever since the war began, they had not been changed; year after year there had been no attack on either side; yet night after night now we had been piling up troops and guns behind that line waiting for the hour when they would go over. The night had come.
The little fire snapped cheerily, the rain drummed on the old tiles; and the steady roar of the Infantry went on outside. I thought about the Germans just across the way; poor devils; there they were oblivious to it all; probably snug in their dugouts out of the rain. How many of them would die there in the mud in to-morrow’s grey dawn? And the poor chaps were probably sitting there playing pinocle and thinking of home.
Outside, the Infantry were tramping by, thousands of them; every road was choked with them. All over the hills the guns were waiting, thousands of them, where before there had only been hundreds. As yet they had not spoken; they had been dragged into position on dark nights, and there they sat, with the rain dripping off the shining muzzles that were all pointing over the hill.
It was one of the longest nights I have ever spent. Then, five minutes before the hour, I went to the window and pulled off the blanket. The rain had stopped; it was cold and clammy, a fog was spreading over the valley.
How still it was! A cricket in the chimney place began to chirp; my watch ticked loudly as I watched the hand drag on. There it was, finally, over the dot, and, as if the thing had automatically touched the world off, the sky was torn asunder with a mighty flash and thunder. The attack was on; every gun all over those long hills was roaring at the German lines; the sky quaked with flames. The roar and rumble was of a thousand thunder storms. It was the most magnificient and terrifying sight that I have ever seen. Then the rockets began going up from the enemies’ trenches, white ones, red ones, ones like fountains of stars; crawling across the sky singly, in pairs, agitatedly tumbling. The telephone jangled and the pleading voice over the wire called for an ambulance.
I went back to the window fascinated. Hour after hour the thing went on; just as the light began to creep up out of the east it magically stopped. I could not see; but I knew how the Infantry were climbing up the ladders out of the trenches, slipping over the muddy tops and through the wire. I knew the hundreds of tanks, whippets that I had seen crawling up the road night after night, were now going over; crawling out from under the trees and squirming through the fog of No Man’s Land. Faintly I could hear the German machine guns trying to stop them. Then the artillery began again; I could see the barrage creeping up just in front of the Infantry. After that the telephone kept me so busy that I forgot the Battle.
It was nine o’clock before I could lie down for a moment’s sleep, the first in three nights. I crawled into a haymow, thinking how warm and cosy my blankets would be; but I found that the roof had leaked over them and wet them through. I was quite discouraged, but buried myself in the hay and fell asleep. When I awoke, I heard the tramp of feet on the echoing road again; this time going the other way, and through the big barn door I found myself watching a long column of grey clad prisoners going to the rear. All day long they have been shuffling by, boys most of them, with here and there old men; most of them smiling broadly as though they were glad that it was all over. They were a muddy lot, dirty, unshaven and poor-looking. We have advanced steadily all day and must have demoralized the Germans because we have taken thousands of prisoners. Hour after hour the guns and things move up, harassing the enemy, who retreats as fast as he can out of this deadly rain of shell.
It’s night again; the same kind of program probably ahead of us. I must stop and and go back to my work. All my love, TREVENEN.
P.S. I forgot to tell you—I’m a First Lieutenant now. I began to think it never would come, for I have been recommended three times by the Colonel and nothing seemed to come of it. There are two Adjutants now in every Regiment and I am one of them. I have charge of the Personnel.