Winning a Cause | Page 9

course that it seems for centuries to be at a standstill; but there
are also times when it rushes along at a giddy pace, covering the track
of centuries in a year. Those are the times we are living in now. Today
we are waging the most devastating war that the world has ever seen;
tomorrow--perhaps not a distant tomorrow--war may be abolished
forever from the category of human crimes. This may be something
like the fierce outburst of winter, which we are now witnessing, before
the complete triumph of the sun. It is written of those gallant men who
won that victory on Monday--men from Canada, from Australia, and
from this old country, which has proved that in spite of its age it is not
decrepit--it is written of those gallant men that they attacked with the
dawn--fit work for the dawn!--to drive out of forty miles of French soil
those miscreants who had defiled it for three years. "They attacked with
the dawn." Significant phrase!

The breaking up of the dark rule of the Turk, which for centuries has
clouded the sunniest land in the world, the freeing of Russia from an
oppression which has covered it like a shroud for so long, the great
declaration of President Wilson coming with the might of the great
nation which he represents into the struggle for liberty, are heralds of
the dawn. "They attacked with the dawn," and these men are marching
forward in the full radiance of that dawn, and soon Frenchmen and
Americans, British, Italians, Russians, yea, and Serbians, Belgians,
Montenegrins, will march into the full light of a perfect day.

THE FIRST TO FALL IN BATTLE
During the trench warfare, it was customary to raid the enemy trenches
at unexpected hours, sometimes during the night, often during "the
sleepiest hour," just before the dawn. In such a raid made by the
Germans in the early dawn of November 3, 1917, fell the first
American soldiers to die in the World War.
The Germans began by shelling the barbed-wire barrier in front of the
trenches where the Americans were stationed for a few days, taking
their first lessons in trench warfare. A heavy artillery fire was then
directed so as to cover the trenches and the country immediately back
of them. This prevented reinforcements coming into the trenches.
Following the barrage a large number of Huns broke through the
barbed wire and jumped into the trenches.
The Americans did not fully understand the situation, for it was their
first experience with a trench raid. A wounded private said, "I was
standing in a communicating trench waiting for orders. I heard a noise
back of me and looked around in time to see a German fire in my
direction. I felt a bullet hit my arm."
Three Americans were killed. They were the first fighting under the
American flag to fall in battle on the soil of Europe. They were--
Corporal James B. Gresham, Evansville, Indiana.

Private Merle D. Hay, Glidden, Iowa.
Private Thomas F. Enright, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
On November 6, three graves were dug. On one side of them stood a
line of poilus in their uniforms of horizon blue and red, and on the
other a line of American soldiers in khaki. The flag-covered caskets
were lowered, as the bugler sounded "taps," and the batteries fired
minute guns.
Then the French officer in command of the division, amid the broken
roar of the minute guns and the whistle of shells, paid a tribute to the
dead.
"In the name of this division, in the name of the French army, and in
the name of France, I bid farewell to Corporal Gresham, Private Hay,
and Private Enright of the American army.
"Of their own free will they left a happy, prosperous country to come
over here. They knew war was here. They knew that the forces battling
for honor, for justice, and for civilization were still being checked by
the forces serving the powers of frightfulness, brute force, and barbarity.
They knew that fighting was still necessary. Not forgetting historical
memories, they wished to give us their brave hearts.
"They knew all the conditions, nothing had been hidden from them, not
the length and hardship of the war, not the violence of battle, not the
terrible destruction of the new weapons, not the falseness of the enemy.
Nothing stopped them. They accepted the hard life, they crossed the
ocean at great peril, they took their places at the front beside us; and
now they have fallen in a desperate hand-to-hand fight. All honor to
them.
"Men! These American graves, the first to be dug in the soil of France,
and but a short distance from the enemy, are a symbol of the mighty
land that has come to aid