OUR GREATEST BATTLE BOOKS BY FREDERICK PALMER THE VAGABOND WITH KUROKI IN MANCHURIA THE LAST SHOT MY YEAR OF THE GREAT WAR MY SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR WITH OUR FACES IN THE LIGHT AMERICA IN FRANCE OUR GREATEST BATTLE OUR GREATEST BATTLE (THE MEUSE-ARGONNE) BY FREDERICK PALMER Author of "The Last Shot," "America in France," etc. [Illustration] NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1919 COPYRIGHT, 1919 BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC. TO THE READER During the war we had books which were the product of the spirit of the hour and its limitations. Among these was my "America in France," which was written, while we were still expecting the war to last through the summer of 1919, to describe the gathering and training of the American Expeditionary Forces, and their actions through the Château-Thierry and Saint-Mihiel operations. Since the war and the passing of the military censorship, we have had many hastily compiled histories, and many "inside" accounts from participants, including commanders, both Allied and enemy, whose special pleading is, to one familiar with events, no less evident in their lapses than in their tone. This book, which continues and supplements "America in France," is not in the class of the jerry-built histories or the personal narratives. It aims, as the result of special facilities for information and observation, to give a comprehensive and intelligent account of the greatest battle in which Americans ever fought, the Meuse-Argonne. In the formative period of our army, I was the officer in charge of press relations, under a senior officer. I was never chief censor of the A. E. F.: I had nothing to do with the censorship of the soldiers' mail. After we began operations in the field, my long experience in war was utilized in making me an observer, who had the freedom of our lines and of those of our Allies in France. Where the average man in the army was limited in his observations to his own unit, I had the key to the different compartments. I saw all our divisions in action and all the processes of combat and organization. It was gratifying that my suggestions sometimes led to a broader point of view in keeping with the character of the immense new army which was being filled into the mold of the old. Friends who have read the manuscript complain that I do not give enough of my own experiences, or enough reminiscences of eminent personalities; but even in the few places where I have allowed the personal note to appear it has seemed, as it would to anyone who had been in my place, a petty intrusion upon the mighty whole of two million American soldiers, who were to me the most interesting personalities I met. The little that one pair of eyes could see may supply an atmosphere of living actuality not to be easily reproduced from bare records by future historians, who will have at their service the increasing accumulation of data.