The infantry is the most mobile of any division of the army. Men can go where horses and guns find it impossible. They can file silently through narrow passes or a maze of forest trees and underbrush. They can scale cliffs. They can dodge shell-holes and negotiate muddy roads and morasses. They can move slowly or quickly at will and can therefore take difficult positions where it is impossible quickly to bring up artillery support.

The Ohio boys were in the line exposed to the merciless and cruel machine-gun and artillery fire of the enemy. It was said that the Germans had one machine gun for every two of our rifles. The conflict was desperate. The enemy realized that their cause depended upon their practical annihilation of the American troops. These fighters, who with such courage and disregard of danger had taken this part of the impregnable Hindenburg line, now threatened their supporting lines. It is no disgrace to acknowledge that during those awful initial days of the Argonne drive we paid the price that an army advancing must pay. Of course it was heart-breaking to see the long lines of our stretcher-bearers coming out of that belching brimstone line with the punctured and broken bodies of our boys. But it was glorious to know that the line had not wavered. How long could they last? And how speedily could artillery be brought to their aid? These were the momentous questions that quivered on every lip and that gave imperative urgency to the commands and appeals of the officers who watched with choking emotion the slaughter of “their boys.”

As we gazed over the valley we saw to the left a line of slow-crawling tanks. They were about as long as Ford cars and as tall as a man. They were the French “baby tanks” coming up to help our boys clean out the machine-gun nests. It was perfectly fascinating and almost uncanny to watch tanks in action. There was no visible sign of life or power, nor any seeming direction to their motion. They crawled stealthily along, bowling over bushes or small trees or flattening out wire entanglements. Steep banks or deep gulleys were taken or crossed with equal ease. As a tank would creep up the side of a ridge it seemed to poise momentarily on the crest, the front part extending out into space until the center of gravity was passed, when the whole tank plunged down headlong. We instinctively held our breath until we saw it crawling away on the opposite side.

The tanks parked behind a hill. We worked our way through the intervening valley, up the hill past the tank position, and on toward the battle-line, giving out our supplies to all we met or passed. Before we had finished, a Boche plane flew overhead, took a photo of the tank position, and got away to the German lines before our aviators could give chase. We were warned to retreat to a safe position because the German guns would shell this area as soon as the returning scout brought in news of the location of the tanks. Our first concern, however, was the service we might be able to render the boys. Personal safety was a secondary matter, especially since death lurked everywhere. So we continued across a shell-torn slope, toward the enemy line, going from shell-hole to shell-hole and giving a word of good cheer, a bit of chocolate, and some smokes to the boys who had taken temporary refuge in these ready-made “dug-ins” (a shallow protection).

Having ministered to the wants of our own boys, we felt the brave French pilots and gunners of these tanks were also deserving and as we approached each tank on our return trip a small iron door in front of the pilot opened, and the courteous appreciation, of which the French are masters, told us that our remembrance of them had been wisely chosen. Fritz was unintentionally good to us and waited until we had finished our task in that sector and retraced our steps across the valley before he began to shell it. By that time the wounded had also been cared for and removed and the tank position changed. For once Heinie’s shells were wasted.

For ten wonderful days my duties took me (on foot, by touring-car, by truck, and by ammunition wagon) from the “rail-head” six miles behind the trenches where our boys went “over the top” on that first historic day of the Argonne drive, up to within a half mile of the day’s farthest advance.

I saw artillery pieces and heavy cannon emplacements everywhere back of the line. I saw these guns after their first terrific bombardment, unlimbered and moved up to their new positions. The heaviest guns, including the big naval guns, were especially well concealed in woods, in orchards, and well camouflaged in fields. So well hidden were they that I passed within a few rods of multitudes of them, as I traveled the roads, without detecting their presence until I would either hear the discharge of their shells or see them as they were being unlimbered. To move a heavy gun in mud is no small task. For more than an hour one day I was held up in a truck and watched a dozen experts, with block and tackle and “caterpillar tractor” move a twelve-inch monster from its hidden foundation up a slight incline toward the roadway. It was an hour well spent, for it gave me an object lesson concerning the difficulty with which great field pieces are moved under unfavorable conditions.

By way of contrast, I watched at another time a crew of eight men unlimber an eight-inch gun and move it about fifteen feet from its foundation beside a railroad track to a flat car, which could carry it at express speed to some other point of vantage. This told the great value of railroad spurs leading up toward the enemy lines.

At one place our boys told me of one of our “mysterious” guns, mounted on a specially prepared flat car, which made nightly trips out to different points of vantage for firing on some enemy position, returning again under cover of the darkness to its secret hiding place.

Having seen the battlefields and behind the lines of both the Allied and the German forces; and having noted the military efficiency of the German preparation and their care in carrying out even the minutest details; and having observed the skill in preparation and the accuracy in use, especially of the French artillery; and having been thrilled and pleased by the quick and ingenious adaptation of our American army to the best and most efficient use of every type of weapon, I am thoroughly convinced that an intelligent army, governed by Christian ideals, is an invincible army, no matter what temporary advantage military preparedness may have given to the enemy.