Further north of Epieds, the Germans having entrenched themselves along
the roadway, had fortified the same with a number of machine guns which
commanded the flat terrain in such a way as to make a frontal attack by
infantry waves most costly. The security of the Germans in this position
received a severe shock when ten light automobiles, each one mounting
one or two machine guns, started up the road toward the enemy, firing as
they sped. It was something new. The Germans wanted to surrender, but
the speed of the cars obviated such a possibility. So the enemy fled
before our gasoline cavalry.

The Germans were withdrawing across the river Ourcq, whose valley is
parallel to that of the Marne and just to the north. The enemy's
intentions of making a stand here were frustrated by violent attacks,
which succeeded in carrying our forces into positions on the north side
of the Ourcq. These engagements straightened out the Allied line from
the Ourcq on the west to Fere-en-Tardenois on the east, which had been
taken the same day by French and American troops.

By this time the German withdrawal was becoming speedier. Such strong
pressure was maintained by our men against the enemy's rear guards that
hundreds of tons of German ammunition had to be abandoned and fell into
our hands. Still the retreat bore no evidences of a rout.

The enemy retired in orderly fashion. He bitterly contested every foot
of ground he was forced to give. The American troops engaged in those
actions had to fight hard for every advance. The German backed out of
the Marne salient as a Western "bad man" would back out of a saloon with
an automatic pistol in each hand.

Those charges that our men made across the muddy flats of the Ourcq
deserve a place in the martial history of America. They faced a
veritable hell of machine gun fire. They went through barrages of
shrapnel and high explosive shell. They invaded small forests that the
enemy had flooded with poison gas. No specific objectives were assigned.
The principal order was "Up and at 'em" and this was reinforced by every
man's determination to keep the enemy on the run now that they had been
started.

Even the enemy's advantage of high positions north of the river failed
to hold back the men from New York, from Iowa, Alabama, Ohio, Illinois,
Minnesota and Indiana, who had relieved the hard fighting Yankees. These
new American organisations went up against fresh German divisions that
had been le