tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">Frontispiece

  PAGE France at Last! Iron Division Debarking 22 Into the Maw of Battle 186 Briefly at Rest in the Argonne Forest 248

---

CHAPTER I

Men of Iron

"You are not soldiers! You are men of iron!"

Such was the tribute of an idolized general to the men of the Twenty-eighth Division, United States Army, after the division had won its spurs in a glorious, breath-taking fashion at the second battle of the Marne in July and August, 1918.

The grizzled officer, his shrewd, keen eyes softened to genuine admiration for the deeds of the gallant men and with real sorrow for the fallen, uttered his simple praise to a little group of officers at a certain headquarters.

It was too good to keep. It was repeated with a glow of pride to junior officers and swept through all ranks of the entire division in an incredibly short time. The gratified and delighted soldiery, already feeling the satisfaction of knowing their task had been well done, seized upon the words and became, to themselves and all who knew them, the "Iron Division."

The words of praise have been attributed to General Pershing. Whether they actually emanated from him has not been clearly established. That they did come from a source high enough to make them authoritative there is no shadow of doubt.

Furthermore, to make the approval wholly official and of record, there has come to the division from General Pershing a citation entitling every officer and enlisted man to wear on his left sleeve, just under the shoulder seam, a scarlet keystone, an unique distinction in the American Army. The citation called the Twenty-eighth a "Famous Red Fighting Division," but even this formal designation has not supplanted, in the minds of the soldiers, the name of "The Iron Division," which they regard as their especial pride.

And, to make the record complete, scores of the officers and men throughout the division have been cited for gallantry and awarded the Distinguished Service Cross by General Pershing, while others have won the French decoration, the Croix de Guerre.

So it is that the former National Guard of Pennsylvania has carried on the fame and glory which were the heritage of its fathers from the Civil War and from every other war in the history of the nation. At the cost of many precious young lives and infinite suffering, it is true, but that is war, whose recompense is that the victory was America's and that our men magnificently upheld all the traditions of their land.

Regiments and smaller units of the division which did not get into the line in time for that first swift battle looked with envy upon their comrades who did and pridefully appropriated the division's new-found honors, announcing themselves "members of the Iron Division." And when their own time came, they lived well up to the title and reputation.

Held up to scorn and contempt for years as "tin soldiers," made the plaything of the pettiest politics, hampered and hindered at every emergency and then thrown in a sector where it was believed they would have a chance to become fire-hardened without too great responsibility falling to their lot, they met the brunt of the last German advance from the Marne, held it and sent the enemy back, reeling, broken and defeated, saved Paris and won the grateful and admiring praise of their veteran French comrades in arms.

Throughout all the years of upbuilding in full belief that the time would come when they would have a chance to vindicate their faith in the National Guard system, a devoted group of officers and enlisted men remained faithful and unshaken. The personnel fell and rose, fell and rose. Men constantly dropped out of the service as their enlistments expired and the burden of recruiting and training new men was always to be met. It was discouraging work, but carried forward steadily and unfalteringly.

Persons who visited the National Guard of Pennsylvania in its training camps, especially the last one in this country, Camp Hancock, at Augusta, Ga., were impressed with the quiet confidence with which the older officers and enlisted men viewed their handiwork. Many of the newer men in the service, catching the spirit of confidence, voiced it in boyish boastfulness.

"These men are ripe and ready," said the older, more thoughtful ones. "They will give a good account of themselves when the time arrives. They are trained to the minute, and Pennsylvania never will have need to be ashamed of them."

"Just wait until this little old division gets to France," bragged the younger ones. "The Hun won't have a chance. We'll show 'em something they don't know. Go get 'em; that's us."

And today, Pennsylvania, mourning, grief-stricken, but aglow with pride and love for that gallant force, agrees with both.

It is an odd coincidence that the Twenty-eighth Division of the German army should have been one of the most frequently mentioned organizations of the Kaiser's forces during the war and that it, too, should have acquired, by its exploits, a title all its own. It was known as "the Flying Shock Division," and on frequent occasions it was disclosed, through the capture of prisoners, that the two Twenty-eighth Divisions were opposing each other—a fact eloquent in itself of the esteem in which the enemy held our Pennsylvania lads as foemen, for the "Flying Shock Division" was shunted from one end of the Western Front to the other, wherever a desperate situation for the Germans called for desperate fighting.

In the heroic stand of the Pennsylvania Guardsmen may be traced one more instance of the truth of the adage that "history repeats itself." On the field of Gettysburg a handsome monument marks the crest of Pickett's charge, the farthest point to which Confederate fighting men penetrated in their efforts to break through the Union lines. Here they were met and stopped by Pennsylvania troops (the Philadelphia Brigade). Had they not been stopped, military authorities have agreed, the battle of Gettysburg almost certainly would have been lost to the Union. The whole course of the war probably would have been changed and the Confederacy would have been within sight of ultimate victory.

But they were met and stopped by the Pennsylvania troops. From that time the cause of the Confederacy was a losing one, and for that reason the monument is inscribed as marking "The High Water Mark of the Rebellion."

It is not inconceivable that, when the time comes to erect monuments on the battlefields of the Great War, one will stand at or near the tiny village of St. Agnan, in the Department of the Aisne, France, fixing the "high-water mark" of the German bid for world domination.

Here it was, at this village and its vicinity, that Pennsylvania troops met and