Meanwhile Lanrezac’s advance on St. Quentin was meeting difficulties. A regiment of the XVIIIth Corps, under orders to take a village down the road, advanced under shrapnel falling like hail. Shells “gutted the road and tore branches from the trees in huge pieces,” wrote a sergeant who survived.
”It was stupid to lie down; one might as well keep moving… Here and there men lay flat on their stomachs or on their backs. They were dead. One of them, under an apple tree, had all of his face missing; blood drowned his head. One the right drums sounded the bayonet charge followed by the trumpet. Our line advanced marked by the sparkle of the bayonets slanted against a blue sky. The rhythm of the drums quickened. ‘Forward!’ All the men cried ‘Forward!’ It was a superb moment. An electric shiver went through my scalp and contracted the roots of my hair. The drums beat in a rage, the hot wind carried the notes of the trumpet, the men shouted – they were transported! …Suddenly we were stopped. To charge a village 900 yards away against a solid defense was folly. The order came, ‘Lie down, take cover.’ “
Source:
Tuchman, Barbara W. "The Front is Paris." The Guns of August. New York: Macmillan, 1962. 417. Print.
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