USA > Michigan > Lenawee County > Atlas and plat book of Lenawee County Michigan and history of the World War > Part 19
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THE BEGINNING OF THE END-The ensuing sixty days were unquestion- ably the darkest in Germany's history. One defeat followed another, until the whole campaign took on the appearance of a continuous disaster. Every day throughout August and September victory rested with the Allies. Over 200,000 German prisoners and 2,250 big guns were captured; all territory up to the Hin- denburg line (established by the German commander and fortified so as generally believed to be impregnable) was taken from the enemy, and at numerous points the line was penetrated to a depth of from five to fifteen miles.
On August 29 the American and French troops drove the Germans out of Juvigny, a village-of strategic importance. Here, for the following five days, one American division (30,000) fought four of the best divisions Germany had, beat- ing them decisively. The Americans captured 2,000 prisoners and on a narrow front of two miles made an advance of four miles. Meantime the Allies had taken Lassigny on the 21st, Roye on the 27th, Noyon and Chaulnes on the 29th. The troops were moving eastward and northward in an uninterrupted progress. North of the Somme the British began a drive which gave them the town of Albert on August 22. They pressed ahead and occupied Bapaume the same day that the French and Americans took Noyon. The Hindenburg line was pierced on August 25; it had been found to be vulnerable, and the Allies were well on toward their goal --- France clear of the invader.
All these operations were of vital importance. In the north they opened up the Bapaume-Cambrai road as far as Beugny and the Roye-Peronne-Cambrai high- way to a point north of Peronne, taken by the British on September 1. In the south they delivered the whole of the Roye-Noyon-Soissons railway into the hands of the Allies. The Allies were securing possession of the railways and high- ways the Germans had used so successfully for the moving of troops and supplies.
THE AMERICANS AT ST. MIHIEL-On September 12 the first American army to be mobilized in France, commanded by General Pershing, began an assault on the famous St. Mihiel salient, which for four years had stood an impenetrable barrier between the Allies and the great iron fields to the north. Its presence, together with the German fortresses around Metz, prevented any attempt to invade German Lorraine from the lines held by the French when they with- drew, in September, 1914, after their short-lived invasion of the "lost provinces" of Alsace and I orraine.
General Pe :shing preceded his attack with a tremendous bombardment, said to have been the most scientifically concentrated on record. He was aided by 1,000 tanks, which had cleared the way for the infantry and later for the cavalry. In a week the Americans had recovered an area of nearly 200 square miles, menacing the Briey region (which provided the Germans with eighty per cent of their steel) on the north, and the forts of Metz, on the east. They had released the Verdun-Toul-Nancy railroad and were less than fifteen miles from the great German trunk line which runs from Metz to Mezieres. They had captured over 20,000 prisoners and 100 big guns.
In the first day of the attack, the Americans overran the new railroad which the Germans had built from Thiaucourt down to St. Mihiel as a branch to that from Metz. In the second day they crossed the angle of the salient, leaving the space within, some 100 square miles, to be threshed out by the American cavalry. On September 15 the German guns at Metz opened fire on the Americans. The Americans pushed ahead, regardless of all opposition, winning one of the most notable engagements of the war in a decisive manner.
In his official report of this battle, General Pershing tells of the preliminary troop concentration, aided by the French, involving the movement of 600,000 men, mostly at night. He describes the subsequent fighting of the Americans in this manner:
"Affer four hours' artillery preparation the seven American divisions in the front line (217,000 men) advanced at 5 a. m. on September 12, assisted by a limited number of tanks manned partly by Americans and partly by the French.
"Three divisions, accompanied by groups of wire cutters and others armed with bangalore torpedoes, went through the successive bands of barbed wire that protected the enemy's front line and support trenches, in irresistible waves on schedule time, breaking down all defense of an enemy demoralized by the great volume of our artillery fire and our sudden approach out of the fog.
"Our First Corps advanced to Thiaucourt, while our Fourth Corps curved back to the southwest through Nonsard.
"A rapid march brought reserve regiments to a division of the Fifth Corps into Vigneulles in the early morning, where it linked up with patrols of our Fourth Corps, closing the salient and forming a new line west of Thiaucourt to Vigneulles and beyond Fresnes-en-Woerve.
"At the cost of only 7,000 casualties, mostly light, we had taken 16,000 prison- ers and 443 guns, a great quantity of material, released the inhabitants of many villages from enemy domination, and established our lines in a position to threaten Metz.
"This signal success of the American First Army in its first offensive was of prime importance."
FOCH CHANGES HIS STRATEGY-In the last week of September, Marshal Foch changed his policy of indirect attack and resorted to direct frontal attacks on a large scale, first in Champagne and then in Flanders. He was eminently successful, sweeping everything before him and losing a remarkably small num- ber of men, considering the territory freed, the prisoners and guns captured and the disaster wrought upon German arms and morale.
On September 29 the Americans and British pressed forward on a thirty mile front in the neighborhood of St. Quentin, which was occupied on October 1. It was the key to the trunk line between France, Belgium and northern Germany, a position of the utmost strategic importance. Before its capture by the Allies, the Germans deported almost the entire population of 50,000.
On October 9, Cambrai, another important city, was captured in an advance over a thirty mile front. Cambrai is thirty-two miles southeast of Lille. toward which the advance was subsequently directed. On October 11 the British made a thrust toward Douai, the Germans evacuating strong positions to the north of the Sensee river. On October 17 the British carried the whole front south of Le Cateau (where they had encountered the Germans in the opening month of the war, in 1914), and established themselves on the railroad beyond the town, taking 3,000 prisoners.
In the meantime the French advance upon the important city of Laon was making steady progress. Laon was an important observation post, the junction of two German lines of supplies. It was taken on October 13, after a severe fight. Thus the advancing lines of the Allies, to the east and the west, were connected. After that the advance from the Oise river to the Aisne was rapid.
In the Champagne district the American and French attack began on Sep- tember 26. In the first day the French advanced from three to four miles and the Americans from five to six. By the end of the second day 10,000 Germans had been taken prisoners. The Americans were advancing down the Meuse and the Aire rivers taking town after town. Meantime the Germans were concentrating their forces behind what they called their second, or Kriemhilde line.
On October 4 the Americans went over the Kriemhilde line, the last enemy organized line of defense south of the Belgian border, cutting through 30,000 Prus- sian Guards on their way. The next day the Germans retreated before the Ameri- cans and French. The French immediately took advantage of this retreat and pursued the Germans on a broad front north and northeast of Rheims, driving the enemy back eight miles. On October 12 it was officially announced that the French had taken thirty-six towns and villages, 21,567 prisoners and 600 guns. On October 16 the Americans occupied the important strategic point of Grand Pre, on the northern bank of the Aire river. Between September 26 and Novem- ber 6 the Americans took 26,059 prisoners and 468 guns on this front.
BELGIUM CLEARED OF GERMANS-Still another great offensive was being waged in Flanders at this time. On September 28, while the British fleet bom- barded the coastal defenses from Nieuport to Zeebrugge on the North Sea, the Belgian army, under King Albert, and the British army, under General Plumer, went over the German lines on a ten mile front between Dixmude and Passchen- daele Ridge, north of Ypres. They advanced five miles and captured 4,000 prison- ers and an immense amount of supplies. On the following day the Belgians took Dixmude, Passchendaele and other Flemish towns, adding 1,500 prisoners to the list. On September 30 Roulers was taken by the Belgians. The French army joined this sector on October 2, and a great enveloping movement, with the city of Lille as its objective, was begun. The remnants of the Lys salient estab- lished by the Germans in Flanders were obliterated. The Allies quickly recap- tured Armentieres, which had been taken by the enemy on April 9. For ten days there was a consolidation of positions by the Allies. Then they began a furious attack from Comines to the sea, in the general direction of Ghent and Courtrai.
THE GREAT GERMAN RETREAT-On October 16 the great retreat of the Germans from western Belgium began. Belgian infantry, assisted by French cavalry, attacked all along the line. The British surrounded the large French city of Lille, which the Germans evacuated on October 17. The Germans evacuated Ostend and Zeebrugge, their submarine bases on the Belgian coast. They like- wise gave up such towns as Bruges, Thielt, Courtrai and Turcoing, over a front of more than fifty miles. The number of prisoners taken by the Allies on this front was over 15,000. October closed with the German retreat from Belgium being conducted on a vast scale. The Germans retreated so rapidly they did not have time to carry out their usual policy of destruction of all towns.
The approaching end was now visible to all; German military power was crushed. On October 6 the Kaiser's government appealed to President Wilson for an immediate armistice and peace on the terms laid down by the president on January 8, 1918. In the meantime, however, important and far-reaching events were occuring elsewhere.
BULGARIA BEATEN-Allied operations were actively begun on the Balkan front on September 16, after months of preparation. Bulgaria had sent troops to France. It was under the leadership of General d'Esperey of the French army, who had a force of 350,000 (consisting of British, French, Serbian, Montenegrin, Italian and Russian forces) and the new army of Greece, numbering around 200,000.
From the Greek base at Saloniki the British and Greek troops struck at the enemy in the region of Lake Doiran, while the Serbians and French drove for- ward along a twenty-five mile line across the Czerna river, where the enemy's lines extended west into Albania. By September 23 the British held Doiran, the Serbians had captured Prilep and the First Bulgarian army, cut off from the Second, fled in disorder. On September 24, the Second Bulgarian army was like- wise in flight.
Within two weeks from opening the campaign, the Bulgarian forces had been split in two, the Bulgarian government had been compelled to surrender and make a separate peace with the Allies, King Ferdinand had abdicated in favor of his son, Boris, and Germany, confronted by the first break in the Central Powers, saw Turkey isolated and helpless, and her own dream of empire shattered.
Veles, the principal railway center of Serbia, was retaken from the Bul- garians on September 25. The British and Greeks invaded Bulgaria, near the fortress of Strumitza, capturing it handily. This opened a way for the Allies to Sofia, the Bulgarian capital. The Bulgarian First army was caught in a trap and its destruction was inevitable. King Ferdinand of Bulgaria appealed frantically to Germany, but the Germans were then in full retreat in France and Flanders and were in no position to give aid to their ally. Nothing remained but for Bul- garia to surrender. King Ferdinand assembled his grand council on September 23. Five days later emissaries were dispatched to the Allies' headquarters to sue for peace. On the 29th an armistice was signed. Fighting ceased on the 30th. Under the terms of the armistice Bulgaria agreed to evacuate all the territory she occupied in Greece and Serbia, to demobilize her army immediately and to sur- render all means of transport to the Allies. Bulgaria was immediately occupied by the Allied troops. She had been an ally of Germany three years-lacking nine days. She was the first of the four Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria) to sue for peace, and to acknowledge defeat at the hands of the Allies. Bulgaria's defeat was astonishing in its completeness. Her natural defenses were of the best and the Allies had feared a long and arduous campaign.
THE DOWNFALL OF TURKEY-The defeat of Bulgaria was quickly fol- lowed by the downfall of Turkey. The campaign against the Turks in Palestine, begun September 18, was a brilliant success for the Allies, and developed into such a serious disaster for the Turks, that by October 1, it was semi-officially reported that the Turkish government had opened negotiations for peace. The British drive in Palestine was an unbroken succession of victories. In close union with the Arabs, the British advanced rapidly on a line from the Mediterranean to Haifa, extending across Palestine to the Arabian desert. Damascus, the capital of Syria, the most beautiful and (after Bagdad) the most historic city of Asiatic Turkey, was taken on October 1. On October 8 a French naval division entered the important port of Beirut, 160 miles northwest of Damascus. The Allies there- by had an unbroken front from Beirut to the desert and rapidly advanced toward Aleppo, the main base of the Turks in Asia Minor. The capture of Aleppo was inevitable, as the Turkish forces were retreating rapidly and in great disorder. The British forces along the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers, in Mesopotamia, also began a forward movement, with a prospect of soon uniting with their army in Palestine, thus establishing an unbroken and victorious front from the Medi- terranean across Mesopotamia to Persia. On October 8 it was reported that Persia was being evacuated by the Turks.
The British forces captured more than 71,000 prisoners and 350 guns, whitt the Arabs captured 8,000 prisoners, between September 18 and October 5. Dur ing the advance in Palestine, Nazareth was captured, thus freeing another holy spot from the clutches of the Mohammedan. As a result of the continuous dia- asters in Palestine and Mesopotamia, Enver Pasha, for years the commanding and controlling figure in Turkey, was overthrown on October 8. Revolution broke out in Turkey and it was evident that the Ottoman empire must soon follow the example of Bulgaria and sue for peace. This was done on October 31, the Allies imposing terms upon Turkey fully as severe as those which had been imposed upon Bulgaria. They were described as "complete and unconditional surrender," and Turkey was at once reduced to military impotence. The Dardanelles and the Bosporus with their fortifications were opened to the Allies, who entered Con- stantinople a few days later. All allied prisoners were handed over to the Allies without reciprocity; the Turkish army was demobilized and her navy surrendered. Turkish troops were to withdraw from northern Persia and other occupied nom-
Page Twelve
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR
Turkish territory. The Allies were given the use of all means of transportation and communication; all garrisons in Arabia, Syria and Mesopotamia were at once surrendered. Turkey was to cease all relations with the Central Powers; the Allies were given such rights and facilities as were necessary to enforce all the provisions of the armistice. Thus, within the same month (October), two of the four countries fighting the Allies were beaten to their knees. The downfall of the other two was near at hand.
ITALY WINS OVER AUSTRIA-Italy decisively defeated Austria shortly after Bulgaria and Turkey had crumbled. The breakdown of Austro-Hungary on the battlefield was complete. Before the Italian offensive came to an end the Aus- trians had lost 300,000 men in prisoners alone and not less than 5,000 guns. The week between October 26 and November 3 brought about the Austrian undoing.
The Italian army was led by General Diaz, a skillful commander. Pretending to the enemy that he proposed to advance against the mountain line between the Rivers Piave and Brenta, where range after range lay before him, Diaz swiftly threw his attack against the line of the Piave river in the Montello region. Com- plete collapse of so large and well-equipped an army as that of Austria was un- precedented, but it occurred almost immediately. The Austrians were soon in head- long flight back past the Livenza and Tagliamento (where they had pushed the Italians the year before, when they swept down into Italy) toward the boundary line of the Isonzo.
While this phase of the battle was going on, General Diaz threw strong forces northward from the Piave and Brenta, seized the important mountain passes and was in a position to overrun the whole Trentino (between Italy and Austria-Hun- gary) as rapidly as the difficulties of transportation in the mountainous region could be overcome. His victories of October 30 and 31 cost the Austrians fully 83,000 men. On the latter date Austrian envoys, carrying the white flag, entered the Italian lines. The dual monarchy realized that the end had come. In the last few days of the terrific drive (which ended November 3) the Italians occupied Trieste and Trent. Italian land and sea forces were landed on the 3d at the former place. Entire Austrian regiments surrendered in the Italian advance on Trent on November 2. On the morning of the 3d the entire Italian front was pushing forward. On that day, the armistice was signed, hostilities to cease the following day. When the terms of surrender were announced they were found to be severe in the extreme. They included, in addition to the cessation of hostili- ties, the demobilization of the Austrian army, the withdrawal of all forces on the Italian front, and the surrender of half the Austrian military equipment. Besides evacuating invaded territory, Austria was to withdraw from the Trentino and part of the Tyrol, and from Istria, Dalmatia and most of the Adriatic islands. The armistice gave the Allies free use of all roads, railways, and waterways in Aus- tria, and the control of all necessary strategic points. As in the case of Turkey, Austria was obliged to give up all allied prisoners without reciprocity. The naval conditions of the armistice included the surrender of most of the Austrian navy and the laying up of the rest, and the freedom of allied navigation in Austrian waters, without any modification of the allied blockade.
GERMANY BEGS FOR PEACE-While Bulgaria, Turkey and Austria-Hun- gary were being decisively defeated on the field of battle and were suing for peace, Germany's military pride was humbled by the forced retreat of her armies along the whole front in Belgium and France. Further humiliation came when she hurriedly evacuated the entire Belgian coast, on October 17, to avoid the cap- ture of all her forces there, and quit the important industrial district of northern France, surrendering the cities of Lille, Douai, Cambrai, Roubaix, LaFere, Laon, St. Quentin and the forest of Argonne, won by the Americans. On October 6, forced alike by military disasters and domestic revolution, the German govern- ment appealed to President Wilson for an immediate armistice and peace on the terms repeatedly laid down by him. On October 8 President Wilson sent a reply refusing to grant the armistice. A week later (October 15) the British and Belgian troops crossed the Lys river, taking 12,000 prisoners and 100 guns. On October 21 the Allies crossed the Oise and threatened the city of Valenciennes. On the following day the British, under General Haig, crossed the Scheldt river, which flows north past Cambrai and Valenciennes, then through Belgium past Ghent and Antwerp.
On October 31 the British, French and Belgian armies launched an attack along a wide front on the Scheldt, pushing their way east of Tournai. The enemy fell back rapidly. Every objective was carried and 1,000 prisoners taken by the British alone. The same day the American troops advanced their line north of Grand. Pre. On November 1 the Aisne river was crossed by a large force of the Allies, while west of the Meuse river the Americans advanced three miles and took 3,000 prisoners. In the course of the operations west of Valenciennes the British captured about 3,000 Germans.
On November 2, under combined French and American attacks between the Aisne and the Meuse rivers, the Germans broke into full retreat. Pursuing them, the Allies advanced four miles in the center of a fourteen-mile front. The Ameri- cans captured eight villages, sixty cannon and many prisoners. The same day the British, under Haig, captured Valenciennes. On November 3 the Americans and French swept ahead on a fifty-mile front above Verdun. The Argonne forest was cleared by this date and additional prisoners and store captured. The Bel- gians advanced thirty miles along the Dutch border and reached the approaches to Ghent. General Pershing announced that in driving forward three miles west of the Meuse, the Americans had taken 4,000 prisoners, including four battalion commanders and their staffs. Since the great offensive began on July 18, the allied armies had captured 362,355 men, including 7,990 officers, as well as 6,217 cannon, 38,622 machine guns and 3,907 mine throwers.
On November 4 the British broke deeply into the enemy positions along a thirty mile front, capturing more than 10,000 prisoners and 200 guns. Clearing the last of the wooded defenses west of the Meuse, the Americans started a new attack against the enemy's lines east of the river. The American first army, com- manded by General Liggett, struck at Sedan, the historic city where Napoleon III and a French army of 86,000 surrendered, on September 2, 1870, to the Ger- mans in the Franco-Prussian war. Of this engagement General Pershing says in his official report:
"The meeting of the French and Americans at this historic spot signalized the defeat of the German arms, a defeat as decisive and humiliating as that forced upon France forty-seven years before at the same spot. If there had been question before as to the acceptance of the armistice terms the Allies' advance, culminating in this meeting at Sedan, left no choice in the matter."
On November 5 it was announced that General Pershing had taken over 5,000 prisoners and occupied about forty villages in the country reconquered from the Germans. On the 6th the Germans were retreating on a seventy-five mile front from the Scheldt to the Aisne. Two days later, November 7, German emissaries were dispatched to Marshal Foch to beg for an armistice. Germany had lost the war. She had lost also in diplomatic encounter, for President Wilson, while out- lining the terms on which he hoped to see peace made, referred the Kaiser's officials to Marshal Foch, plainly stating that the peace must be a military and a decisive one.
On the morning of November 11, in the little village of Senlis, the nearest point to Paris reached by the Germans in their great drive of 1914, the armistice was signed. The Allies fought up to the last moment. They had driven the enemy practically out of all the conquered parts of Belgium and France. They were vic- torious on every front. Germany was beaten to her knees. The great war was over.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ARMISTICE -- AND AFTER-The terms of the armistice which ended the war were the most severe imposed upon a defeated nation by a triumphant one. They put an end to Prussian militarism. They took from Germany the weapons with which it had been enabled to build up its supremacy. They made a resumption of the war by Germany impossible, although subsequent events dis- closed that nothing was further from Germany's wishes than to carry on a losing war at a time when revolution was causing the empire to crumble at home.
Under the terms of the armistice Germany was obliged to surrender all of the occupied portions of Belgium, France and Luxemburg, together with Alsace-
Lorraine, the former French provinces which Germany had taken away from France after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. They were obliged to sur- render 5,000 cannon, 30,000 machine guns, 2,000 aeroplanes, 5,000 locomotives, 50,000 railway cars and 10,000 motor trucks. They were obliged to surrender all their submarines, numbering around 200, fifty destroyers, six battle cruisers, ten battleships and eight light cruisers. All ports of the Black Sea occupied by the Germans were given up, together with all the Russian vessels captured by the Germans. All merchant vessels in the hands of Germany were surrendered, with- out reciprocity. The Allies demanded the right to occupy all of the country on the west bank of the Rhine river and the principal crossings, at Mayence, Coblenz and Cologne, the Germans to evacuate within nineteen days. The Germans agreed to withdraw and create a neutral zone on the east bank of the Rhine, from twenty to thirty miles wide, extending from Holland to the Swiss border. The Germans agreed to retire from all territory held by Russia, Roumania and Turkey before the war. The treaties of Brest-Litovsk and Bucharest, ending the war with Rus- sia and Roumania, were abrogated. Full restitution must be made for all dam- age done by German soldiers. All allied prisoners in Germany (military, naval and civilian) were given their liberty at once, without reciprocal action by the Allies.
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