From Les Eparges around the nose of the salient at St. Mihiel to the
Moselle River the line was roughly 40 miles long and situated on
commanding ground greatly strengthened by artificial defenses. Our First
Corps (Eighty-second, Ninetieth, Fifth, and Second Divisions) under
command of Major General Hunter Liggett, restrung its right on
Pont-a-Mousson, with its left joining our Third Corps (the Eighty-ninth,
Forty-second, and First Divisions), under Major General Joseph T.
Dickman, in line to Xivray, were to swing in toward Vigneulles on the
pivot of the Moselle River for the initial assault. From Xivray to
Mouilly the Second Colonial French Corps was in line in the center and
our Fifth Corps, under command of Major General George H. Cameron, with
our Twenty-sixth Division and a French division at the western base of
the salient, were to attack three difficult hills--Les Eparges, Combres,
and Amaranthe. Our First Corps had in reserve the Seventy-eighth
Division, our Fourth Corps the Third Division, and our First Army the
Thirty-fifth and Ninety-first Divisions, with the Eightieth and
Thirty-third available. It should be understood that our corps
organizations are very elastic, and that we have at no time had
permanent assignments of divisions to corps.

[Sidenote: The attack on St. Mihiel begins.]

[Sidenote: Breaking the barbed-wire defenses.]

After four hours' artillery preparation, the seven American divisions
in the front line advanced at 5 a.m., on September 12, assisted by a
limited number of tanks manned partly by Americans and partly by the
French. These divisions, accompanied by groups of wire cutters and
others armed with bangalore torpedoes, went through the successive bands
of barbed wire that protected the enemy's front line and support
trenches, in irresistible waves on schedule time, breaking down all
defense of an enemy demoralized by the great volume of our artillery
fire and our sudden approach out of the fog.

[Sidenote: The First Army takes the salient.]

[Sidenote: Many prisoners and guns taken.]

Our First Corps advanced to Thiaucourt, while our Fourth Corps curved
back to the southwest through Nonsard. The Second Colonial French Corps
made the slight advance required of it on very difficult ground, and the
Fifth Corps took its three ridges and repulsed a counterattack. A rapid
march brought reserve regiments of a Division of the Fifth Corps into
Vigneulles in the early morning, where it li