Winning a Cause Part 3

And the pilot steers thro' the trackless waste While the engines throb and beat, Flouting surprise, with the army's eyes High up where the four winds meet.

And to those who mourn comes a cheering cry, Which the angels in heaven repeat, "Grieve not, brave hearts; we await you here-- _Here_, where the four winds meet."

There are songs of the north and songs of the south, The east and the west complete; But here is a song of the place we love, Which is called, "Where the four winds meet."

GEOFFREY DALRYMPLE NASH.

THE UNITED STATES MARINES

Our flag's unfurled to every breeze From dawn to setting sun, We have fought in every clime or place Where we could take a gun-- In the snow of far-off northern lands And in sunny tropic scenes, You will find us always on the job-- The United States Marines.

THE SOLDIERS WHO GO TO SEA

"If the army or the navy ever gaze on Heaven's scenes, They will find the streets are guarded by United States marines."

So sing the soldiers who go to sea, commonly called the marines. The Germans after the battles of Belleau Wood and Bouresches called them "devil hounds," and the French named them the "green devils."

An English rhymester wrote to his home paper,

"You must not call them Sammies, You should not call them Yanks.

And if you call them 'doughboys'

Loud laughter splits their flanks.

You will not call them Buddies, And when on Kultur's track, You need not call them forward, You cannot call them back."

They know too that whenever trouble arises in any part of the world, they are the first to be sent to protect American interests. It is said that many of them believe the chief reason why the United States has a navy is for the purpose of carrying the marines to the points where they are needed. They are aware of the fact that marines may be landed and such landing not be considered an act of war. Therefore they look upon their service as much more important than that of the soldier.

The marine has been everywhere man has gone by land or sea or air, as one of their poets wrote:

"From the hills of Montezuma To the gates of old Peking He has heard the shrapnel bursting, He has heard the Mauser's ping.

He has known Alaskan waters And the coral roads of Guam, He has bowed to templed idols And to sultans made salaam."

"I am more than a sailor, for although I belong to the navy I fight on the land. I am more than a soldier, for I do all that the soldier does and at the same time I belong to the navy and go to sea." Thus the marine proves to himself that he is "it," as the soldiers and sailors would say.

"The marines get aviation, searchlight, wireless telegraph, heliograph, and other drill. They plant mines, put up telegraph and telephone lines in the field, tear down or build up bridges, sling from a s.h.i.+p and set up or land guns as big as 5-inch for their advance base work.

"It is a belief with marines that the corps can do anything. Right in New York City is a marine printing plant with a battery of linotypes and a row of presses. They set their own type, write their own stuff (even to the poetry), draw their own sketches, do their own photography, their own color work--everything. Every man in that plant is a marine, enlisted or commissioned. Every one has seen service somewhere outside his country."

Such a feeling of superiority, however, would soon be laughed down if it were not based upon something more than talk. The marines know this and try in every way to show that they excel the other branches. They are extremely careful of their dress, and their personal appearance, and of their conduct whether on duty or off. They try to sustain the reputation of their branch in every little way as well as in every great one.

As an ill.u.s.tration of this, they are not satisfied with a commonplace mascot. Soldiers and sailors, and marines too, must have a mascot. A cat, a dog, a goat, a parrot, a monkey, a pig, a lion cub, or a bear are among the commonest and most popular of mascots. Therefore the marines would usually disdain any one of these. If any of them should happen to be accepted as a mascot, there would be some wonderful story to explain why it was the most remarkable monkey, goat, or lion cub that ever lived.

A large and hideous snake, a young kangaroo, or an anteater are mascots more to the liking of the marines. They must have something like themselves, exclusive and distinguished. The anteater that one body of marines adopted when they were landed at Vera Cruz proved a very interesting and original mascot, and also that anteaters were not always exactly as they are described in school textbooks, for this anteater disdained to eat ants and greedily devoured anything from the food of the marines that they would give him, or that he could steal--bread, meat, pie, doughnuts, or eggs.

A writer telling about this anteater mascot says he was taught several tricks, one of which was to put out with his forepaws every lighted cigarette dropped near him and then to tear it into little pieces.

Heywood Broun, the writer, goes on to say, "The marine who dropped a hundred franc note by mistake just in front of Jimmy says that teaching tricks to anteaters is all foolishness."

And how do they sustain the reputation of their branch in the great things? Here is where soldier, sailor, or marine must prove his superiority, for excelling here means greater service to his country.

It would be difficult indeed to give the palm to any branch of the service. They have all endured hards.h.i.+p and met wounds and death with equal gallantry, each striving to outdo the other in devotion and sacrifice.

Secretary Daniels has told the inspiring heroic story of the fighting of the eight thousand marines who in June, 1918, were thrown into the open gap between the advancing Germans and Paris.

Although they were without proper artillery support and too small in numbers for the task, General Pers.h.i.+ng in those dark days offered their services to Marshal Foch, saying, "If you have no other troops to use and the gap must be closed and the Germans stopped, they will do it."

And they did! But out of the eight thousand, four thousand were missing, wounded, or killed. Read Secretary Daniels' story of this fight, called the battle of Belleau Wood, and be proud that you are an American.

This efficient fighting, building, and landing force of the navy has won imperishable glory in the fulfillment of its latest duties upon the battlefields of France, where the marines, fighting for the time under General Pers.h.i.+ng as a part of the victorious American army, have written a story of valor and sacrifice that will live in the brightest annals of the war. With heroism that nothing could daunt, the Marine Corps played a vital role in stemming the German rush on Paris, and in later days aided in the beginning of the great offensive, the freeing of Rheims, and partic.i.p.ated in the hard fighting in Champagne, which had as its object the throwing back of the Prussian armies in the vicinity of Cambrai and St. Quentin.

With only 8000 men engaged in the fiercest battles, the Marine Corps casualties numbered 69 officers and 1531 enlisted men dead and 78 officers and 2435 enlisted men wounded seriously enough to be officially reported by cablegram, to which number should be added not a few whose wounds did not incapacitate them for further fighting.

However, with a casualty list that numbers nearly half the original 8000 men who entered battle, the official reports account for only 57 United States marines who have been captured by the enemy. This includes those who were wounded far in advance of their lines and who fell into the hands of Germans while unable to resist.

Memorial Day shall henceforth have a greater, deeper significance for America, for it was on that day, May 30, 1918, that our country really received its first call to battle--the battle in which American troops had the honor of stopping the German drive on Paris, throwing back the Prussian hordes in attack after attack, and beginning the retreat which lasted until Imperial Germany was beaten to its knees and its emissaries appealing for an armistice under the flag of truce. And to the United States marines, fighting side by side with equally brave and equally courageous men in the American army, to that faithful sea and land force of the navy, fell the honor of taking over the lines where the blow of the Prussian would strike the hardest, the line that was nearest Paris, and where, should a breach occur, all would be lost.

The world knows today that the United States marines held that line; that they blocked the advance that was rolling on toward Paris at a rate of six or seven miles a day; that they met the attack in American fas.h.i.+on and with American heroism; that marines and soldiers of the American army threw back the crack guard divisions of Germany, broke their advance, and then, attacking, drove them back in the beginning of a retreat that was not to end until the "cease firing" signal sounded for the end of the world's greatest war.

It was on the evening of May 30, after a day dedicated to the memory of their comrades who had fallen in the training days and in the Verdun sector, that the 5th and 6th Regiments and the 6th Machine Gun Battalion, United States marines, each received the following orders:--

Advance information official received that this regiment will move at 10 P.M. 30 May by bus to new area. All trains shall be loaded at once and arrangements hastened. Wagons, when loaded, will move to Serans to form train.

All through the night there was fevered activity among the marines.

Then, the next morning, the long trains of camions, busses, and trucks, each carrying its full complement of United States marines, went forward on a road which at one place wound within less than ten miles of Paris, toward Meaux and the fighting line.

Through the town of Meaux went the long line of camions and to the village of Montriel-aux-Lions, less than four miles from the rapidly advancing German line. On this trip the camions containing the Americans were the only traffic traveling in the direction of the Germans; everything else was going the other way--refugees, old men and women, small children, riding on every conceivable conveyance, many trudging along the side of the road driving a cow or calf before them, all of them covered with the white dust which the camion caravan was whirling up as it rolled along; along that road only one organization was advancing, the United States marines.

At last, their destination reached early on the morning of June 2, they disembarked, stiff and tired after a journey of more than seventy-two miles, but as they formed their lines and marched onward in the direction of the line they were to hold they were determined and cheerful. That evening the first field message from the Fourth Brigade to Major General Omar Bundy, commanding the 2d Division, went forward:--

Second Battalion, 6th Marines, in line from Le Thiolet through Clarembauts Woods to Triangle to Lucy. Instructed to hold line. First Battalion, 6th marines, going into line from Lucy through Hill 142.

Third Battalion in support at La Voie du Chatel, which is also the post command of the 6th Marines. Sixth Machine Gun Battalion distributed at line.

Meanwhile the 5th Regiment was moving into line, machine guns were advancing, and the artillery taking its position. That night the men and officers of the marines slept in the open, many of them in a field that was green with unharvested wheat, awaiting the time when they should be summoned to battle. The next day at 5 o'clock, the afternoon of June 2, began the battle of Chateau-Thierry, with the Americans holding the line against the most vicious wedge of the German advance.

The advance of the Germans was across a wheat field, driving at Hill 165 and advancing in smooth columns. The United States marines, trained to keen observation upon the rifle range, nearly every one of them wearing a marksman's medal or better, that of the sharpshooter or expert rifleman, did not wait for those gray-clad hordes to advance nearer.

Calmly they set their sights and aimed with the same precision that they had shown upon the rifle ranges at Paris Island, Mare Island, and Quantico. Incessantly their rifles cracked, and with their fire came the support of the artillery. The machine-gun fire, incessant also, began to make its inroads upon the advancing forces. Closer and closer the shrapnel burst to its targets. Caught in a seething wave of machine-gun fire, of scattering shrapnel, of accurate rifle fire, the Germans found themselves in a position in which further advance could only mean absolute suicide. The lines hesitated. They stopped. They broke for cover, while the marines raked the woods and ravines in which they had taken refuge with machine gun and rifle to prevent them making another attempt to advance by infiltrating through.

Above, a French airplane was checking up on the artillery fire.

Surprised by the fact that men should deliberately set their sights, adjust their range, and then fire deliberately at an advancing foe, each man picking his target, instead of firing merely in the direction of the enemy, the aviator signaled below "Bravo!" In the rear that word was echoed again and again. The German drive on Paris had been stopped.

For the next few days the fighting took on the character of pus.h.i.+ng forth outposts and determining the strength of the enemy. Now, the fighting had changed. The Germans, mystified that they should have run against a stone wall of defense just when they believed that their advance would be easiest, had halted, amazed; then prepared to defend the positions they had won with all the stubbornness possible. In the black recesses of Belleau Wood the Germans had established nest after nest of machine guns. There in the jungle of matted underbrush, of vines, of heavy foliage, they had placed themselves in positions they believed impregnable. And this meant that unless they could be routed, unless they could be thrown back, the breaking of the attack of June 2 would mean nothing. There would come another drive and another. The battle of Chateau-Thierry was therefore not won and could not be won until Belleau Wood had been cleared of the enemy.