Our Greatest Battle (The Meuse-Argonne)Palmer, Frederick
History
Our Greatest Battle (The Meuse-Argonne)
Palmer, Frederick
Argonne, Battle of the, France, 1918; World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Western Front
In the Meuse-Argonne battle his corps had the wicked front on the left
against the Argonne Forest and the valley of the Aire; and again he
did well, leaving no doubt that he had energy as well as capacity,
or that he deserved the three stars of a lieutenant-general which
General Pershing now placed on his shoulders. Later, in the drive of
November 1st, his maneuvering of our corps and divisions, in that
swift movement in pursuit and in the crossing of the Meuse which gave
us the heights on the other bank, seemed without a tactical fault in
its conception and execution, and it warranted the use of the word
brilliant in thinking of Liggett, who in the closing days of the war
had the opportunity to show the cumulative results of his study of
his maps from the days when he began sawing wood in Neufchâteau. He
was a modest, sound soldier, an able tactician, and a delightful,
simple gentleman, who did his country honor in France both as soldier
and as man. His place at the head of the First Corps was taken by
Major-General Joseph T. Dickman.
Both he and Major-General Robert Lee Bullard, who received command
of the Second Army, then holding our line won in the Saint-Mihiel
operation, were broad-minded men of the world who would have made their
mark in any profession. Physically you could make two Bullards out of
one Liggett. My most distinct picture of him was of his slight figure
in his big fur coat in the midst of winter rains and sleet, while his
small head, with his close-fitting overseas cap, only made the coat
appear the larger. In his command of the 1st in the Toul sector and
in our first offensive at Cantigny, he had set his mark on our pioneer
division. The French liked him, and he could speak their language with
the attractive Southern accent of his boyhood days. He took the French
_liaison_ officers into his family and set them to work, and they
became so fond of his family that one of them was overheard telling
French staff officers what a lot they had to learn from the Americans.
If Bullard could not eat three square meals a day, it did not interfere
with his belligerent spirit. His brain was just as good a fighting
brain as if he had eaten beefsteak for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
However bad his neuritis in the winter days, his blue eyes were always
twinkling, and when he came into his mess and the officers rose, his
smiling request that they dismiss the formality was all in keeping with
the atmosphere of that division command.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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