Apparently the Germans had anticipated the attack, for they were braced to receive it when the first Yankee troops began to move. The enemy stood firm—and was continuing to stand firm almost twelve hours after the assault was launched.
There was a slight chill in the early November air as it grew light. The air was filled with shrieking shells and shrapnel. Rifle and machine-gun fire rose even above the noise of the field and siege guns. Shrill whistles punctuated intervals of seeming silence as American officers gave orders to their men. In the midst of battle, whistles are depended upon mainly for signals—also there are signals given with the hands. The confusion is usually too great to permit verbal orders being understood.
At the same time that General Lejeune attacked the enemy, General Rhodes, to the south, also had advanced. But the enemy was holding stubbornly in that section of the field also, and at 6 o'clock on the morning of November 7 the American forces had made only slight progress. However, they were still hammering hard at the German lines.
With a gallantry not exceeded in the annals of the war, the Second division kept at its task. When one enemy machine-gun nest was captured, they found themselves targets for others, whose gunners, discovered, had withheld their fire until the moment when it would be the most effective.
Another grand assault was ordered by General Lejeune.
The Germans made a determined resistance. They put in fresh troops and subjected the American lines to a terrific artillery bombardment of high explosives and gas shells. Directly in the path of the advancing Americans was a large wood. Although the wood was not yet cleared of the enemy, the American line here was farther advanced. Many prisoners had been taken.
A third attack resulted in the capture of still more prisoners and many machine-guns. In the meantime the Ninth infantry, on the right of that part of the field where Hal and Chester found themselves, had advanced its position to the northern edge of the Bois de la Jardin and was digging in to beat off a possible counter-attack. In fact, the entire Third brigade, assisted by a battalion of the Second engineers, was strengthening its lines as well as possible under heavy enemy machine-gun and artillery fire.
The defensive part played by this brigade was very difficult. Its losses were heavy as a result of enemy shell fire and gas bombardments, to which the Third brigade could not at the moment reply. Its duty now was to hold its lines. Its present action was confined to a rifle and machine-gun duel with the enemy.
To the south, the First brigade also was hotly engaged. It had advanced in the face of a terrible artillery and machine-gun fire until at hand grips with the foe. Then ensued one of the fiercest struggles of the war.
As in other encounters, the Germans proved no match for the Yankees at hand-to-hand fighting. They resisted desperately, but gradually were driven back. The Americans, with wild cheers, pursued them closely.
General Lejeune's center, composed of the Second brigade, with an additional battalion or two of artillery, also was meeting with greater success than the Third brigade, which, for the moment, had been checked.
The advance was pushed with desperate energy, and the Germans could not hold their ground in the face of the withering American fire. The German center faltered, then broke.
Taking advantage of this success, General Lejeune pushed Brigadier General Abernathy's Second division into the breach. Immediately, also, he ordered the First brigade forward in an effort to break through to the south, while orders were rushed to the hard-pressed Third brigade to make a final effort.
The task of the Third brigade was easier now. Bereft of its supports, the German center was obliged to yield ground to the Third brigade or risk being cut off and surrounded.
The Germans gave ground slowly.
To the south, the First brigade also began to drive the foe more swiftly. It appeared for a moment that the Germans would suffer a rout. Under the direction of their officers, however, they braced perhaps half a mile farther back, and again showed a determined front.
Trenches dug by the Americans were abandoned now as the Yankees poured forth in pursuit of the enemy. Not a man in the whole Second division who was not sure that the trenches would never be needed for defensive purposes. No one knew better the morale of the American troops than did the men themselves.
Nevertheless, the advance slowed down in the face of the resistance being offered by the enemy. For a time it appeared that the fighting had reached a deadlock.
The deciding touch to the battle was furnished by General Rhodes.
Sweeping up from the south, the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh brigades of the Forty-second division bore off a trifle to the east and then turned north again, thus catching the enemy on the left flank.
This maneuver, apparently, had not been anticipated by the enemy's general staff, for it took the Germans by surprise. True, they received warning in time to wheel machine-guns into position and to place big guns to rake the Americans as they dashed forward. But the warning had not been received in time to permit the general staff to alter its plan of defense, and for this reason proved the blow that broke the backbone of the enemy's resistance.
The enemy, closely pressed by General Lejeune, had no time to make changes in his defensive plan necessitated by General Rhodes' sudden attack. Reinforcements could not be sent to check General Rhodes without weakening the front opposed to General Lejeune.
General Schindler, after a hasty conference with his staff, ordered a retreat to the lines just before Sedan. The Germans fell back rapidly.
Neither General Rhodes nor General Lejeune was content to rest with this advantage, but each decided to push on.
During all this time, the enemy had been successful in keeping a wedge between the Second and Forty-second American divisions. General Schindler realized that if he hoped to extricate his men from the trap sprung by the Americans he must prevent a juncture of the Second and Forty-second at all hazards.
Now, however, as the attack seemed on the verge of success, General Lejeune decided that the German wedge separating him from General Rhodes must be pierced.
Accordingly, without permitting the advance to slacken elsewhere, he threw the First brigade against it.
For perhaps fifteen minutes the fighting was fast and furious. In vain the Germans tried to stem the tide in khaki that rushed forward against them. General Schindler further weakened his center to rush reinforcements in order to retain the wedge intact.
But it was no use. The Americans were not to be denied. They fought with the courage and desperation of lions. Little heed did they pay to the hail of machine-gun bullets that swept them as they advanced. Artillery and explosive shells failed to stop them. Rifle fire was no more effective.
Suddenly from the German lines sallied a regiment of cavalry. The American infantry braced to receive the charge.
At the same time Hal found himself before Colonel Taylor of the First brigade with dispatches from General Lejeune. He had just delivered them as the German cavalry sallied forth.
"Great Scott! What a chance to take!" the lad muttered under his breath. "The Germans must be licked. This move can be for no other purpose than to give infantry time to withdraw."
The American infantry stood firm as the German cavalry hurled itself upon them. Not an inch of ground did they give. Horses and men fell in heaps. Other chargers reeled back, throwing their riders beneath their hoofs. At the same time the Yankee infantry poured in a hail of rifle fire.
The Germans retired a pace, reformed and charged again. The result was the same. Not an inch did the Americans give, and the execution in the enemy's ranks was fearful to behold.
"I guess that will stop that," Hal told himself.
He was right.
When the enemy's cavalry withdrew a second time it did not reform for a third charge. Instead, it fell back upon its infantry and artillery supports, apparently fearing that the American infantry would pursue and annihilate it.
"I thought so," said Hal.
In the meantime, the German retirement in other parts of the field had become more rapid. The lines before Sedan were abandoned gradually and at last there was nothing to keep the Americans from entering the city save the cannonading of the German artillery from far to the rear of the town.
But although the bulk of the German army had retired safely to the east of Sedan, fortune had not been so kind to the two brigades which had formed the wedge between the Second and Forty-second American divisions.
When General Lejeune's men had pushed back the cavalry attack, General Rhodes, to the south, had gained an inkling of what was going on. Accordingly he had ordered an attack upon the hard-pressed foes.
Caught thus between two fires, the Germans tried first to hold their ground, and, finding this could not be done, to retreat orderly.
But they had delayed too long.
Three regiments of the First brigade of General Lejeune's division had been hurried forward to cut off a movement, and the Germans, when they found flight blocked, became disheartened. In spite of the fact that they outnumbered the little force between them and the bulk of their army, thousands of men threw down their arms and surrendered. This forced the others to follow suit or be annihilated.
Less than two hours later, with German shells still falling among them, American troops entered Sedan.
And the French population, virtual prisoners for many months, received them with wild acclaim. It was a joyous day for the citizens, indeed.