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On this date, June 1...
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BJ Omanson
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Jun 08, 2001 06:06 PDT
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On this date, June 1, in the year...
1918: AR Appenheimer arrives by rail at St Soupplets at 5 a.m.,
unloads and leaves at noon, marches with 77th Company supply train by
wagon & mule till nightfall, arriving at a "chateau court" on the
northern outskirts of Marigny-en-Orxois, a distance from St Soupplets
of some 50 kilometers ~ a very long day's march in severe heat.
Appenheimer writes in his diary: "Unload & leave at noon and hike
till night and camp at a chateau court. It's a beautiful place, lakes,
fountains, deer, swans and ducks. The chateau is now a Hospital,
bringing in wounded soldiers by the hundred. Very close to the
Front."
This was an old and famous chateau, located on the northern edge
of Marigny-en-Orxois. Parts of the chateau dated from the 12th
century, while other parts dated from the 15th and 18th centuries. It
had belonged, in its time, to Gigot de La Yeyronie, first surgeon of
the king Louis XV and to Francois Poisson, father of the Marquise de
Pompadour, favorite of Louis XV. When Appenheimer saw it, however,
its halls & rooms would have been stripped of their lavish furnishings
and filled instead with wounded French soldiers ~ soldiers who had
fallen before the massive German offensive which had steam-rolled in
recent days across the Chemin des Dames to the banks of the Marne.
Appenheimer's final note in his diary on this date states simply
"Cut off from Company and have to go around." Determining what he
refers to here requires some speculation. The companies of the
battalion, after their arduous daylong march, were in sore need of
rationing, and it fell to the few supply wagons which had arrived to
get what rations they could up to the men in the line. Appenheimer &
other teamsters of 77th Company were camped at the Marigny chateau,
while the machine gunners of the company were, at that late hour,
digging in among the trees of the Bois des Clerembaults at the far
southeast end of the 4th Brigade line, just north of the Paris-Metz
road.
Appenheimer's entry, where he states he "had to go around" to the
company, indicates he probably made a ration run to the 77th Company,
a straight distance of some six kilometers, though a longer distance
if he made a detour. One can speculate what the obstacle was that he
had to avoid, for the straight route from Marigny to the Bois des
Clerembaults would have taken him through Pyramide Ferme, where the
rest of the 6th MGB supply train was camped, together with the
headquarters of the 4th Brigade, a French artillery battery, and
several other Marine units, including the entire 5th Regiment ~ in
other words, an enormous number of men, equipment, wagons, trucks and
animals. The French were soon to complain to General Harbord that his
Americans had a tendency to stop and bunch up at all the important
locations along the roads, and Harbord agreed, citing his own
Headquarters at Pyramide Ferme as a place which was particularly bad.
Another indication of how bad the congestion was at Pyramide Ferme is
found in a field message sent by Colonel Turrell at Pyramide Ferme to
General Neville at Regimental Headquarters just outside of Marigny on
the evening of June 3 when, if anything, the congestion should have
lessened somewhat. Turrill complains that Neville's runner,
travelling with all possible haste, required fully an hour and a half
to cover a distance of only about one and a half kilometers! ~ and a
single trained runner would make far better time through congestion
than a mule-team and loaded wagon.
By the time Appenheimer and his fellow teamsters were able to
make their way out around through the surrounding fields to the Bois
des Clerembaults and unload their provisions, then make their
circuitous way back to the chateau at Marigny, it must have been close
to dawn ~ close to 24 hours with little or no rest since they had
first unloaded from the train at St Soupplets.
1919: AR Appenheimer still at Quantico, Virginia.
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