without delay. All day
we did a tremendous business. About half past nine a German plane came
over, tried to bomb us, and swept the street with a machine gun. We
continued serving and pouring out coffee. The aviator killed a woman and
child who were standing in a garden, and then one of our machine guns
got him. The plane, a three passenger one, came tumbling down into the
public square. The pilot was caught with both legs under the engine and
was badly hurt, but the observer and the gunner were uninjured. An
infuriated Frenchman, who had seen the killing of the woman and child,
rushed up and killed the gunner as they lifted him out. I got these
facts from an American staff car driver who assisted in extricating the
pilot. That morning, our guns got three German planes.

[Sidenote: A German shell hits twenty-seven.]

At one that afternoon I left the canteen, and went home for the bath
which I had missed that morning. I had just finished dressing when a
German shell passed over the house, killing, as they said, twenty-seven
persons.

[Sidenote: The distant thunder of battle.]

I elected to stay over night at the hotel instead of going to the
champagne cave. No sound disturbed the night except the distant thunder
of the battle and the bursting of shells which were falling about a
thousand yards short of the town. The Germans were trying to destroy the
bridge over the Marne, to cut our communication with Rheims, but they
did not have the range.

Copyright, The Forum, November, 1918.

* * * * *

Volumes of detailed narrative could not sum up more graphically what the
American Army did in France than did the summary written by General
Pershing, presented in the following pages.

THE AMERICAN ARMY IN EUROPE

GENERAL JOHN J. PERSHING

[Sidenote: Organization of the American army.]

With French and British armies at their maximum strength, and all
efforts to dispossess the enemy from his firmly intrenched positions in
Belgium and France failed, it was necessary to plan for an American
force adequate to turn the scale in favor of the Allies. Taking account
of the strength of the central powers at that time, the immensity of the
problem which confronted us could hardly be overestimated. The first
requisite being an organization that could give intelligent direction to
effort, the formation of a General Staff occupied my early attention.

[Sidenote: The division.]

[Sideno