Winning a Cause | Page 9

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 the Allies, ready to sacrifice as long as may be necessary until the final victory for the most noble of causes, the liberty of peoples and of nations, of the weak as well as the strong. For this reason the deaths of these humble soldiers take on an extraordinary grandeur.
"We shall ask that the mortal remains of these young men be left here, left with us forever. We will inscribe on the tombs, 'Here lie the first soldiers of the Republic of the United States to fall on the soil of France for liberty and justice.' The passer-by will stop and uncover his head. Travelers and men of feeling will go out of their way to come here to pay tribute.
"Corporal Gresham, Private Hay, Private Enright, in the name of France, I thank