Remarks Addressed to The Commonwealth Club of California by Charles Kendrick on Armistice Day, November 11, 1919
Just a year ago this morning at 11 o'clock the great guns ceased their roar and a silence came upon the Argonne Sector, where I was located, which was greater even than the thunder of artillery that sounded but a moment before. The silence was appalling! It seemed as though something had gone out of our lives. After spending months in that sound, it did not seem possible that all of a sudden it was all over and that apparently peace was here.
On that day I was in Beaumont, with the Second Division, and was feeling very, very sad. For at evening mess, the day before, I had been told by a brother officer from Corps Headquarters that my two dearest friends, Major King and Father Davitt, two men with whom I had slept and eaten and worked for the entire forty-seven days of the Argonne, had been killed. One was a major of artillery, the Corps munitions officer, and he had been blown up by a shell the evening before. The other, the Corps Chaplain, a Catholic priest, had met death from a machine gun bullet earlier that morning. So the Armistice did not leave me a happy person. . . .
The most awful period of the Argonne battle was the early part of October, when the line ran from St. Juvin on the Aire through Champignuelle Landry-St. George, Romagne, and Cunel, to Brieulle on the Meuse, and was what was known as the Kriemhild Stellung Line, which the Germans thought impregnable and which the Americans, as well, began to consider likewise. I know you folks here think that we had just one on-rushing tremendous victory, but I want to tell you that at the Corps Headquarters many and many a day the higher officers -and that does not mean myself, although I had a fairly good view of the situation -shook their heads with a good deal of doubt, and it did not seem possible we could get past that line. Towns that one day were in our lines were in the enemy's hands the next day, and vice versa.
It was all a nasty, bloody mess, but about the middle of the month great changes began to occur. . . . General Hunter Liggett had taken command of the First Army, and preparations were being made that we felt would bring us through. And finally came that morning of November 1st. Then to the sound of four thousand guns the German lines were rent asunder, and for ten days our Army rushed headlong through that gap until, finally, at the end of ten days, from Verdun on the south to Sedan on the north, the entire Argonne was in the hands of the American troops. . . .
Then came the Armistice. Many of the higher officers were, I know, sorry to see it occur. With the large view I was able to obtain from Corps Headquarters I could not my self help but feel it was too bad that we were not permitted to obtain the crushing victory that was within our grasp. But as General Summerall, our Corps Commander, said to me a few days after the Armistice: "It would have cost ten thousand American lives to have completed this operation, and American lives were far too precious to lose when the need was not there."
Leaving the Argonne, I will go for a moment to St. Mihiel, just to give you a few im pressions of the situation along that line. In the St. Mihiel operation of September 12th, it took about fourteen hours for the American troops to come together and pinch off that famous triangle -the First Division on the south driving to Vigneulles and the Twenty sixth Division on the north joining hands with them at that point. A day or two after the big drive I remember coming down the road that formed a part of what might have been called the hypothenuse of the triangle that made the St. Mihiel salient. I was on my way to a P.C. (Post of Command) of the 103rd Artillery. As I rode along I noticed a Battalion of the lOlst or 102nd Artillery -I am not quite sure which -drawn up alongside the road, waiting to go into position. They were camouflaged as much as possible under the trees, because aerial observation was very good, and the Germans had control of the air in that sector. It was a sunny day, seemingly a rather rare occasion in that part of France. As l passed I noticed every mother's son of those hundreds of men were stripped to the waist and sitting on their horses, on the ground, on the limbers of caissons, all very busily "reading their shirts" or "hunting shirt lions" (lice) as they called the sport. The hundreds of men were doing that with all seriousness. It was just as natural to do that as to clean their equipment, or mend their clothes. Nobody was smiling about it, nobody was skylarking; it was just an ordinary everyday affair. . . .
Another experience we had at St. Mihiel was a real introduction to gas, and I had rather an amusing and extraordinary piece of discipline worked upon me in regard to it. I had been sent out along the front (in the Argonne) by General Summerall to obtain in formation in regard to certain conditions. Among others I called upon Colonel Scott of the 89th Division, who was occupying an advanced P.C. It was then about eleven o'clock at night and there was a pretty stiff bombardment going on all evening. There was a rule in the advanced section that every man must at all times carry a gas mask. I went around generally in a side car-a motorcycle with a little boat on the side of it-and my gas mask was usually in the bottom of the side car. I had come as near as I could to the P.C. in my machine, and then as the road was blown to pieces I left the machine and started ahead on foot. After going a little distance in the dim twilight I saw a sentry, and I could see that he had a gas mask on. I had forgotten my own gas mask, having left it in the machine. I asked him, "Why are you wearing a gas mask, sentry?" Removing his mask, he said, "Well, sir, they have been dropping gas shells around here pretty freely all evening, and there was a gas alarm sounded down in the trenches a few minutes ago. There it goes now." As we were talking we could hear it again. I hesitated a minute about going back for my mask, but as he said the P.C. was only about two hundred feet down the lane in a dugout, I thought I would take the chance of making a quick run to it, get the necessary information and get back again before anything happened. I got to the dugout; and there was one unfortunate thing about our dugouts in the Argonne, they all faced the enemy they had been built by Germans on the reverse sides of the slopes, so as to be away from the fire ofthe French, and as we captured the territory these dugouts then faced the Germans, and at times they were very uncomfortable, to say the least. I opened the heavy door of the dugout and closed it carefully before pushing aside the blanket which hid the light, and in there I saw Colonel Scott working at a table, on which was his gas mask open and ready for use. I looked at his assistant sitting on a bunk nearby and saw that he had his gas mask alongside of him and open at "alert". I thought this looked pretty serious. As I introduced myself to the Colonel I noticed that he scrutinized me very carefully, and I knew that he saw I was without a gas mask. He probably thought that I was either a fool or else a bravado, and after I had got my information and was prepared to start away he pulled out some cigarettes and invited me to sit down and talk about the situation generally, and particularly about such information as I mighthave had from Corps Headquarters. He kept me talking there for half an hour, knowing all the time I had no gas mask, and big shells were breaking nearby every two or three minutes. Several times I was sure I smelled gas, but I gave the Colonel no inkling of my anxiety; yet all the time I well knew that in case it came, only two heads could get into those two gas masks, and that it was going to be curtains for yours truly. The Colonel had made up his mind I would not go without a gas mask again and I am sure he succeeded.
The greatest event in my military career was the morning of November 1st. I had been placed in control of road traffic from a point on the front called Romagne to a point called Montfaucon. Keeping roads open during an engagement is vital to the operations. I had under me a company of military police and a group of the Second Cavalry. It was my duty to see that nothing was allowed to go forward on this road but troops and ammuni-tion, and nothing was allowed to come back but walking wounded. No food was to be permitted to go up to the troops for the first period of twenty-four hours. The military police were already on the job. I sent the Cavalry out ahead. At about half-past three in the morning I started for my position, and at four o'clock the barrage came down, the most terrific thing that human mind has ever conceived. It stretched from the Aisne to the Meuse. More than 4,000 guns of all calibers were pumping shells at the Germans as fast as men could feed them. The air was filled with concussions. Wild demons were screaming and whining overhead. It was a misty morning; a white misty fog hung everywhere. And as you have seen fire light up some smoky air, the bursting of the guns in that fog lit up the heavens, until it seemed as though lightning was striking and flashing all the time. You could not tell whether the shells were going or coming. The ground trembled under my feet. The concussions from guns hidden along the roadside were so great that at times my side-car was almost blown off the road. As I went deeper and deeper into this tremendous mass of death-dealing artillery, my flesh crawled and I was terrified. Every instinct within me demanded that I go back. I was positive I was going to certain death. I knew what was ahead of me. I glanced at the boy alongside of me on the motorcycle; I saw his eyes were tense and his face was set, and he doggedly looked straight ahead into the mist. I knew that he was thinking the same thoughts that I was thinking. But duty urged us onward. Then, gradually, as we went farther into the maelstrom I felt myself exalted. I grew exultant; I seemed to become a part of this tremendous machinery of death. I wanted to spring up in the car and yell and shout with perfect joy and abandon, and I looked at the boy and could see that he also was changing. I shouted, "Corporal, isn't this wonderful?" and he answered, "Gee, Captain, isn't it great!"This is the feeling that every man gets who goes over the top, I don't care who he is. He always fears the beginning, but his duty drives him onward. When he finally gets into it he walks on air and nothing counts. We expected that the road under my control would be under very heavy fire; in fact, two other officers who received road assignments, also, rather smiled at me when I got this job. But only eight shells fell near me that morning, one to my right, one behind me, and one to my left, and all within three minutes. We, however, beat them to the ground, and were uninjured. Then on my right quickly dropped five more shells, but every one of them were duds, that is, they didn't explode. That was all the Ger mans had time to give. They couldn't get set for any more. . . .
The next morning somewhere around seven o'clock I heard a terrific cannonading on my right. Immediately to the south of me was Montfaucon, rising about five hundred feet above the surrounding territory, and it commanded a sweeping view of the entire Argonne, from Verdun clear up to Buzancy. During October it was a post of command for several different organizations, and I had to go up there on a number of occasions. It was always under enemy fire from the north and from across the Meuse, because it was the finest observatory for military purposes in the Verdun region. One of the most impressive and wonderful experiences of the War was a view from Montfaucon prior to November I st. There under your vision were probably 300,000 men; that is, over 300,000 men were occupying the territory immediately below you, and yet not thirty men were to be seen, so well were they camouflaged. So thoroughly hidden were all the men and all the horses and all the guns and all the material, that you could not see anything but just the landscape. On this particular morning, the 2nd of November, I heard this heavy cannonading on my right and wondered if some enemy counter-attack was in progress. I decided to find out what was happening and got into my side car and rode to the top of Montfaucon hill and there saw one of the most tremendous panoramas ever given to a human eye to see. The Fifth Division was forcing a crossing of the Meuse.
Beyond the Meuse the bank sloped up gradually to a little plateau, and in the dead space between the river and plateau the division had established a dressing station. On the plateau there was a big clump of trees and directly above the trees were the high steep hills in which were the Germans. Elements of the Fifth Division had succeeded in crossing the Meuse and had gotten into these trees with a large number of men. They had also pulled some guns in there and they were busily shooting up the hill at the Germans. The Germans in turn were shooting down point-blank at the troops in those trees. I could see the wounded being carried out of the woods to the dressing stations on the river's slope. I could see the shrapnel breaking freely on both sides, and I imagined hell was working in those woods.
Suddenly along the entire front of the woods, in clouds, rose a white smoke. At first I thought it was clouds of gas being sent down by the Germans, but as I looked further I determined that it was a smoke screen sent up by our troops to camouflage their position. As the screen grew higher and denser I saw our troops rushing out of the woods to the left across an open space and then down into a ravine, where they were lost to sight. This ravine swung around the hill position in front. Then again to the left of that, over on the road between Nantillois and Brieulles, I saw another tremendous sight going on at the same time. Several organizations could be seen operating on the landscape. Part of them with their trains had stopped in a sort of valley to the left of the road. On the road itself a great number of ammunition wagons and ambulances were rapidly moving to and from Brieulles. The Germans had apparently observed the situation there and had opened up a lively barrage all along the road and on the valley on the left. The road itself was on the reverse slope and difficult to hit under direct fire. The Germans, however, were quite successful in dropping their shells on the road and also into the troops and among the horses. I could see the shells break and the men scatter here and there to get away from the bursts. I saw many shells breaking on the road among the ammunition wagons, knocking some off the road and causing others to lurch on their headlong rush. One shell burst squarely under an ambulance and the whole thing with its precious freight was scattered into the air.
Now again on the right of this scene, from the ravine into which had disappeared portions of the Fifth Division, burst forth a steady and vigorous fire. From the flashes from the ravine I imagine that our troops must have dragged along with them some of our punishing little one-pounders. The Germans, on the other hand, were fiercely searching the ravine with their artillery. The whole sight in front of me was so utterly tremendous that words absolutely fail me in attempting to describe it. I watched it for about two hours and then the call of duty took me away. I might say that later that night the Fifth Division succeeded in clearing the hills of the enemy troops and also brought up a number of their guns to the captured positions, from which they were able to do very good work in helping to corral the Germans on the line of the Meuse to Sedan.
Most of us in America had an idea before we "got across" (to France) that the Crown Prince was actively with his troops in the battle of Verdun. He was there, we thought, as a General urginghis troops forward, but on Montfaucon you could see his personal arrangements for participation in this great battle. On top of Montfauconwas a chateau - a good, strong, stone chateau. This was the headquarters of the Crown Prince. However, he did not live in the chateau, but in the ground underneath the chateau, where they had dug a subcellar about thirty feet deep. The cellar was divided into five or six rooms, nicely finished with walls brightly colored and very attractive. Rising out of the center of the cellar to the roof of the chateau was a concrete tube probably seventy or eighty feet high. This tube was about four feet wide, inside measurement, and about four feet thick on each of the outside walls. The walls of the tube were reinforced with12-inch I-beams, so that it was almost impossible to send a shell through it, or to in any way seriously cripple it. On top of the tube was a cap about six feet thick, also interlaced with I-beams one on top of the other, so that the whole thing was really a first-class piece of concrete reinforcement. Going up the tube from the inside was a narrow flight of stairs running zigzag to a landing about six feet below the top. Through the corner walls of the tube just below the cap was a slit, probably fifteen inches across, looking down on Verdun. This slit was about two inches wide and was shaped something like the slit in the turret of a battleship. There the Crown Prince could sit or stand and with his field glasses leveled on Verdun could direct his attacking forces. Besides this, in the event of any shells coming close by, he could move away from the slit in his observation tower and with a sort of periscope cleverly arranged he could see what was going on outside without the least danger to himself. Thatperiscope was afterwards removed by the Third Division, and I guess they still have it as a trophy.I think I have perhaps talked to you long enough, but before stopping I want to leave one thought with you. As we all know, there were about 4,800,000 men in our Army, and almost all these were young fellows, the flower and the pick of the entire country. They were men who were physically and mentally fit, and they have had their minds broadened by travel and experience. They have been trained in resourcefulness and helpfulness. They have had all the thrills that go to a man who has agreed to lay down his life for his country, and they are patriots through and through.
Within ten years these men undoubtedly will form the backbone of this nation. Around them will probably gather all the patriotic and national spirit of their period. These are the men on whom during the coming years this nation will have to depend, to maintain theintegrity of its institutions, and to see that liberty and law are preserved for us all. These men are now trying to get together, and they ought to be helped to get together and to stick together purely for the welfare of the nation, and I hope that everyone of you will do whatever you can in your own way to aid them to get together, and to find themselves. They are young, and so may be somewhat rough in their methods, and want shortcuts to the things that they believe necessary, but their hearts are in the right place. They are un doubtedly the hope of the future of this country, and if they are guided aright by us they are bound to form a solid front for a safe and sane democracy which will bring us through the trials and tribulations that probably are in store for us for a number of years to come.