The Germans, worried, had committed all their reserves and their losses had been heavy, while the Allies now received a permanent stream of reinforcements from across the Atlantic. The Franco-American forces multiplied the counter-attacks. A general offensive was decided upon which involved a breakthrough on both flanks of the enormous salient held by the German armies in northern France so as to drive them to the supposedly impassable rampart of the Ardennes forest.
The British were to attack in the north, storming the Hindenburg Line. and rush to the important railway junction of Aulnoye. The French had to rely on an American bridgehead to the south, to break the Kriemhilde line (an element of the Hindenburg device), invest Mézières and Sedan and thus cut the railway line which supplied the German armies from Metz. br class='autobr' />The offensive, as it was envisioned. raised many criticisms. Far from being impenetrable, the forest of the Ardennes was crisscrossed by numerous roads and railways. Another generation of soldiers was to see this in 1940.
General John J. Pershing, a tough, unaccommodating soldier, often considered ruthless and stubborn, who commanded the American Expeditionary Force (A.E.F.), had fought sufficiently against the claims of the British and the French to integrate American units into their own forces to refuse, in particular, that the command of the southern system of the major offensive in preparation should be entrusted to a French general.
During a blunt explanation with Foch, Pershing declared:“I can no longer agree to participate in any plan which requires the dispersal of our units. Experience made, it is clear that neither our officers nor our soldiers now agree to be integrated into the armies of others. The French, who badly needed the drive and the firepower of the fresh American troops, had to go through these requirements.
The American army was already engaged in larger operations. to the south, the Saint-Mihiel-Belfort area. It was therefore necessary to quickly transfer 600,000 men to the north. This haste complicated the Americans' supplies and sanitary organization, eventually forcing Pershing to launch his attack east of the Argonne, near his previous positions.
Americans and French enjoyed a large numerical superiority:13 divisions for the former, 31 for the latter, against around twenty enemy divisions. The American divisions consisted of 12 infantry battalions, instead of the usual 9, totaling 28,000 men each; if we count their support units, they reached a strength three times greater than that of the other divisions present.
A brilliant diversionary attack, carried out in the Vosges, by 9 of them them on a front of 32 kilometers, jostled the Germans. Three American divisions held back to exploit any initial success, three more were available in army reserve. In an attempt to stem a developing attack, the Germans took manpower from 16 of their divisions engaged against the French.
The Americans had had to leave their most seasoned troops to finish the battle of Saint -Mihiel, so that only one of their assault divisions was an active unit, and only three others had ever experienced fire:the 4', 28', 33' and 77' divisions. In the ranks of the 77', baptized "Liberté", 4,000 men from the West had just been enlisted.
The 80', 35' and 37' divisions had already occupied quiet sectors on the front; but the men from the Pacific Coast and the Rocky Mountains who made up 79 didn't even have that experience. The commanders themselves were inexperienced:five of them were getting their start.
The American soldiers were certainly insufficiently prepared after the only week spent in the army, but their morale was strong and great their impatience to measure themselves against the enemy.