bottom of
the stairs and looked up.

"There in the little patch of white light on the level of the ground
above me, I saw the first American soldier I have seen in the war. But
he did not impress me much as a soldier. I did not like his carriage or
his bearing.

"He wore his helmet far back on his head. And he did not have his coat
on. His collar was not buttoned; it was rolled back and his throat was
bare. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. And he had a grenade in
each hand.

"Just then he looked down the stairs and saw me--saw me standing
there--saw me, a major--and he shouted roughly, 'Come out of there, you
big Dutch B----d, or I'll spill a basketful of these on you.'"

All through that glorious day of the 18th, our lines swept forward
victoriously. The First Division fought it out on the left, the Foreign
Legion in the centre and the Second Division with the Marines pushed
forward on the right. Village after village fell into our hands. We
captured batteries of guns and thousands of prisoners.

On through the night the Allied assault continued. Our men fought
without water or food. All road space behind the lines was devoted to
the forwarding of reserves, artillery and munitions. By the morning of
the 19th, we had so far penetrated the enemy's lines that we had crossed
the road running southward from Soissons to Chateau-Thierry, thereby
disrupting the enemy's communications between his newly established base
and the peak of his salient. Thus exposed to an enveloping movement that
might have surrounded large numbers, there was nothing left for the
Germans to do but to withdraw.

The Allied army commander, who directed the Americans on that glorious
day, was General Joseph Mangin. His opinion of the immortal part played
on that day by those two American divisions may be seen in the following
order which he caused to be published:

_Officers, Noncommissioned Officers, and Soldiers of the American Army_:

Shoulder to shoulder with your French comrades, you threw yourselves
into the counter-offensive begun on July 18th. You ran to it as if
going to a feast. Your magnificent dash upset and surprised the
enemy, and your indomitable tenacity stopped counter attacks by his
fresh divisions. You have shown yourselves to be worthy sons of your
great country and have gained the admiration of your brothers in
arms.

Ninety-one cannon, 7,200 prisoners, immense booty, and ten
kilometres of reco