ighting the
First Division continued to advance until it had gained the heights
above Soissons and captured the village of Berzy-le-Sec. The Second
Division took Beau Repaire farm and Vierzy in a very rapid advance and
reached a position in front of Tigny at the end of its second day. These
two divisions captured 7,000 prisoners and over 100 pieces of artillery.

[Sidenote: The Twenty-sixth and the Third.]

The Twenty-sixth Division, which, with a French division, was under
command of our First Corps, acted as a pivot of the movement toward
Soissons. On the 18th it took the village of Torcy while the Third
Division was crossing the Marne in pursuit of the retiring enemy. The
Twenty-sixth attacked again on the 21st, and the enemy withdrew past the
Chateau-Thierry-Soissons road. The Third Division, continuing its
progress, took the heights of Mont St. Pere and the villages of
Charteves and Jaulgonne in the face of both machine-gun and artillery
fire.

[Sidenote: Germans fall back.]

[Sidenote: The Forty-second relieves the Twenty-sixth.]

[Sidenote: Third and Fourth Advance.]

On the 24th, after the Germans had fallen back from Trugney and Epieds,
our Forty-second Division, which had been brought over from the
Champagne, relieved the Twenty-sixth and, fighting its way through the
Foret de Fere, overwhelmed the nest of machine guns in its path. By the
27th it had reached the Ourcq, whence the Third and Fourth Divisions
were already advancing, while the French divisions with which we were
cooperating were moving forward at other points.

[Sidenote: The Forty-second and Thirty-second.]

[Sidenote: The Twenty-eighth and the Seventy-seventh.]

The Third Division had made its advance into Roncheres Wood on the 29th
and was relieved for rest by a brigade of the Thirty-second. The
Forty-second and Thirty-second undertook the task of conquering the
heights beyond Cierges, the Forty-second capturing Sergy and the
Thirty-second capturing Hill 230, both American divisions joining in the
pursuit of the enemy to the Vesle, and thus the operation of reducing
the salient was finished. Meanwhile the Forty-second was relieved by the
Fourth at Chery-Chartreuve, and the Thirty-second by the Twenty-eighth,
while the Seventy-seventh Division took up a position on the Vesle. The
operations of these divisions on the Vesle were under the Third Corps,
Major General Robert L. Bullard, commanding.

[Sidenote: The First Army is organized.