The American front line near Saint-Étienne was about to change. The 71st Brigade of the 36th Infantry Division had been on the attack for three days. After heavy casualties, it had lost the ability to advance further. The 72nd Brigade was on the way. Because of the distance and the danger of the battlefield, getting to the fight would take time.

On October 10th, 1918, soldiers from the 72nd Brigade were on the battlefield. Getting all the way to front was a challenge because it was hard to find. Now that the Germans saw them arriving, it got a lot harder. A tremendous artillery barrage greeted the 36th Division as it moved into place. Hits registered miles behind the American front line. The 142nd Infantry Regiment, now in control of the village of Saint-Étienne and across the flat landscape all the way to Barton’s Hill a kilometer away, would have to hold on for one more night.

As evening faded into night, the Germans continued firing flares into the sky. The flares would light up the night as they slowly descended by a tiny parachute. This would give enough light to expose anyone unlucky enough to be outside his shelter. But as the night wore on, the flares grew more infrequent. The night before, soldiers on the American side also saw large fires, three of them, behind German lines. Artillery shells came down on the American line as always, but less often.

October 11

In the predawn light, it was necessary to go out there to see what was happening on the German line. Several patrols of 142nd soldiers carefully made their way out of their foxholes and toward the enemy. One patrol came back to their unit in front of the village having heard a man cry out for help in English. It could be a German trap. In the morning mist, two Americans ventured in the direction of the voice.

After a short but intense period of silence the two men returned, supporting between them Private William Schaeffer from Company A. Private Schaeffer had been hit in the knee three days before, on October 8, the first day of the attack. When the Germans counterattacked, he was unable to make it back to the American line. Schaeffer hid in various places until his canteen was dry. As he crawled toward his comrades, he was close enough he could hear Germans speaking to each other.

As the sun rose on October 11th, machine gun fire from the German side ceased for the first time. It was a cold morning and still misty, therefore the enemy could not be seen. More patrols set out toward the German line. They returned with the news that the outposts were empty.

The 71st Brigade, 141st and 142nd Regiments and a Machine Gun battalion, stood down. Just three days before, they had been untested in combat. Since then they had experienced ferocity, violence and privation that had chewed up the veteran division they replaced. Now they were being replaced by the 72nd Brigade.

The cost

It was time to call the roll of survivors. Leaders of battalions set up posts on different parts of the battlefield and each soldier made his way to his own company. Men of the same company who had not seen each other in days were reunited. In every gathering the weight of what just occurred was almost too much to bear. Two company commanders were killed. Seven Lieutenants were killed. Several companies had all their officers killed or wounded.

One hundred sixty enlisted men and ten officers of the 142nd Infantry were killed in that first engagement. The regiment was 40% understrength when it went into battle. This was due to illness and transfers. In addition to the dead, six hundred thirty-five men were wounded or missing. At least four of the missing were taken prisoner. As they gathered at their battalion outposts, battalions looked like companies. Some companies were headed by sergeants.

Reorganizing the men took all day on October 11th, as the 72nd Brigade moved forward to look for the retreating Germans. As men gathered and new leaders were assigned, food and supplies were moved forward. The division’s cook wagons arrived, and the men sat down to their first warm food since breakfast on October 6. In a quiet to which they couldn’t yet adjust, the 142nd regiment slept on the battlefield once more.

Leaving Saint-Étienne

On October 12th the regiment buried their dead. As the men searched the battlefield, their loss was magnified by the remembrance of each friend and neighbor laid to rest in the fields of France. Marines and Engineers from the U.S. Second Division were among the dead and men from their units were able to give their comrades a respectful burial.

Although the battle of Saint-Étienne was over, war continued. Men of the 142nd joined the mass of their division marching north toward Germany’s industrial heartland. Because they occupied the battlefield, the Americans could consider themselves the victors. But it was at a terrible cost. Germany, which invaded France to protect that heartland, moved out in an orderly retreat. They too had won something, if only time. The cost to them had been great as well.

The German withdrawal had been comprehensive. Units began retreating days before October 11th. Artillery had rolled back under the cover of heavier guns far to the rear. Soldiers of the 72nd Brigade only encountered a small residual force after advancing two kilometers north of Saint-Étienne. By the end of the first day they had overtaken Machault, four miles to the north. There the Germans had burned their stores, the fires the Americans had seen two nights before.

The Aisne

The men of the 142nd followed the American advance on October 12th and had reached the vicinity of Dricourt, about seven miles away from Saint-Étienne. Late in the day, the cook wagons were in place and the men were able to get a hot meal. Although now it was raining, the 142nd Infantry made shelter as best they could in a stand of pine trees and stayed the night.

On October 13th the 142nd marched about eight more miles toward the new front line. The Germans had retreated fifteen miles to the north bank of the Aisne River, near Attigny. The river and the Ardennes Canal, which ran parallel to the Aisne, was the new front line. The men of the 142nd were once again in range of German artillery, firing shots at random at the countryside. As night approached, the men moved toward the river. It was still raining, but by midnight the leading units of the 142nd Infantry had made their way to the banks of the Aisne. What the enemy was up to on the other side, no one knew.

As darkness fell on October 8, 1918, soldiers of the 142nd Infantry regiment experienced the in-betweenness of the front line. At their current strength, they couldn’t advance. Because they were exposed to enemy fire, they couldn’t easily retreat. After a day of intense fighting, American forces had captured the town of Saint-Étienne and the German line of defenses that ran through it. Now, they were anticipating a counterattack.

German forces did counterattack earlier in the day, in the late afternoon. Soldiers of the 142nd under Captain Thomas Barton withdrew to the wooded hill about 600 yards from Saint-Étienne and dug in. The Germans gained some ground, but their counterattack was halted. Americans were hoping for support from their own artillery, but during the whole battle it was underwhelming.

A battalion of French tanks began the day with them; but coordination was poor between the French tankers and American infantrymen. The tanks did not keep up with the attack, and some of the machines were picked off by German artillery. When the tank battalion’s commander was killed, the tanks withdrew from the fight.

The first night

So it was left to the men on the new front line to dig in and hold. Everything was improvised; shell craters became shelters. Evening did not bring silence or comfort. The Americans were still taking artillery and small arms fire through the night. Temperatures dropped to freezing. Each soldier had one day’s ration when he started out two days before. Now, all their food and water were gone. Runners sent back to get food and supplies were under fire the whole way.

Exhausted by their introduction to combat, hungry soldiers curled up in their foxholes amid the shellfire and actually slept. Others kept guard as American and German patrols crawled across no man’s land to learn the disposition of their enemy. Doughboys who missed the signal to retreat tried to crawl back to the American line. However, several of these were picked up by German patrols and made prisoners.  

Just before light on October 9th, men came up with crates filled with canned food. Frost covered the ground. Limbs were stiff and fingers were numb. If the Germans were going to attack, now would be the time. Shortly after dawn the American line experienced a furious shelling for about thirty minutes. But it seemed the enemy was not going to do more than fire at them with their cannon.

The next day

Now it was the 142nd’s turn. Behind the lines an ad hoc collection of the regiment’s reserve was formed. This included units who had gotten lost on the first day and individuals who had lost contact with their unit. At approximately 10:30 a.m. this force set out to reach the new front line. Reaching it under heavy fire, they forged ahead toward the German line. By this point German explosives and poison gas were overwhelming and the attack gained about 200 yards.

What followed was a sustained barrage of German artillery, made more accurate by German spotter aircraft. They still held a line of trenches about one thousand yards north of Saint-Étienne.

The second night

It grew dark once more, the second night. Once again, soldiers improved their makeshift defenses and thought of eating and drinking. Food and supplies were two miles back, and it took all night for small groups of men to carry them forward. The men who had advanced during the day found their position untenable. Reinforcements moved out of their foxholes and covered their retreat to the line established the night before.

Since the Americans could not move forward, did the Germans know it? And wasn’t this the perfect time for them to attack? This was on the mind of every doughboy hugging the earth around Saint-Étienne. During the cold night they strengthened their defenses, and dug deeper. Signalmen came up stringing telephone wire for better communication. Wounded men were carried back to the aid station. Men lay still in the cold and listened. They didn’t hear the German army getting ready to come down on their hasty fortifications. Instead they looked forward and saw large fires behind the German lines, three of them. German flares lit up the sky constantly. The men kept on their guard.

October 10th

By morning some food and water had reached the front line. The day brought orders for the First Battalion of the 142nd to move into the village and relieve soldiers and marines from the U.S. 2nd Division who had been holding it. The Second was moving out of the area after nine days of the most intense fighting. Saint-Étienne was closely observed by the Germans, and soldiers from First Battalion would have to slip in while under fire.

First the soldiers had to cross open land to reach town. Crawling forward in small groups, they sought foxholes and drainage ditches to cover their advance. The men moved into the village and spaced themselves, taking advantage of any protection nearby. Buildings, piles of rubble and shell holes provided shelter once the Germans caught sight of any movement. To relieve the men defending the cemetery posed another problem: it was out in the open. While every gun appeared to fire at them, First Battalion men would carefully time their dash toward the cemetery. Although German artillery was dialed in to every square foot of the village, they never shelled their own cemetery.

Under fire

As First Battalion men occupied the trenches in the cemetery, soldiers of Third Battalion also made their way under heavy fire through Saint-Étienne. Their destination was the front line north of town across the Arnes riverbed. This was the American position closest to the fourth line of German fortifications and it was very well defended.

Lieutenant Ben Chastaine of A Company recalls an order from behind the lines that contact be made with the enemy who was entrenched just ahead. The officer who got the order picked six men and they carefully made their way out of their holes and toward the German line. Chastaine continues:

“Crawling over every foot of the way the patrol made its way along a shallow ditch at the side of the road for a considerable distance in “no-man’s-land.” Suddenly from both sides and in front the little group became the target of the enemy snipers. Bullets in a perfect hail left the officer and four of his men on the ground while the other two made their way back as best they could. There was all the contact desired.”