The full effect and result of the artillery preparation was realized only when the infantry went over the top. The early stages of the advance were described by observers as being more like a football game than a battle. The route was virtually clear of prepared obstructions, although there was hardly a stretch of six feet of level ground, and the German opposition was almost paralyzed. The whole field of the forward movement was so pitted with shell craters as to make the going almost like mountain climbing. Over this field a part of the great battle of Verdun in 1916 had been fought and the pits scooped out by the artillery of that time, added to those due to the constant minor fire since, lay so close together that it was utterly impossible for all the men to make their way between. The craters left from the Verdun battle could be distinguished by the fact that their sides were covered with grass and that once in a while a few bones were to be seen, melancholy reminder of the brave men who died there. Seen from observation posts in the rear, the advancing soldiers presented an odd picture, dropping suddenly from view as they went into a hole, then reappearing, clambering up the far side. They jumped over the edges, often into a pool of stagnant water with a bottom of slimy mud, and the climbing out was no easy task, burdened as they were with equipment. It was now the season of the year when the days are still fairly warm, but the nights are keen and frosty. The men started out in the chill of the morning with their slickers, but as the day advanced they began to feel these an unbearable impediment in the heat and rush of battle and they discarded them. When night came they bitterly cursed their folly, for they were wretched with the cold. The early morning was gray and forbidding. A heavy mist covered the land, hampering the air force in their work of observation, but overhead the sky was clear, giving promise of better visibility when the sun should heat the atmosphere and drive the mists away. The infantry, with machine gunners in close support, went forward rapidly. They came to the first German trench line and crossed it almost without opposition. A surprising number of Germans emerged from dugouts, hands up, and inquired directions to the prison cages in the American rear. The Pennsylvanians were just beginning to feel the effect of the loss of morale in the enemy army. To the surprise of our doughboys, the artillery opposing them was weak and ineffectual. To this fact is attributed the great number of what are known as "clean" wounds in the Argonne fight--bullet wounds which make a clean hole and heal quickly. In view of the great number of men struck during this campaign, it is extremely fortunate that this was so. Had the German artillery been anything like what it had been in other battles, our casualty lists would have been much more terrible, for it is the shrapnel and big shells that tear men to pieces.