The 100 Days. Battle of St. Quentin Canal. The American 27th and 30th Divisions go into action. September 27, 1918.

Infantryman of the U.S. 30th Division with German prisoners on September 30, 1918.  Note that they are equipped with British SMLE rifles.  American soldiers assigned to British commands were equipped with British small arms.

St. Quentin as a place name has featured prominently in the newspaper headlines that have appeared here in the past couple of weeks.  Obviously it was a strategic point on the line that the British were hoping to crack.

Most histories of this battle have it commencing on October 29, 1918, but in reality it started today when the U.S. II Corps, which was attached to the British forces, commenced an assault on the northern section of the Hindenburg Line in order to attempt to position the British forces for the assault that was scheduled for two days later.  The II Corps remained part of the British forces and while made up of two divisions was the numerical equivalent of four British or Empire Divisions..

The overall assault had been assigned to Australian Genral Monash, whose earlier efforts in recent weeks had been uniformly successful and indeed quite inventive.  Monash was not happy with the assignment however as the Australians felt that they were being overused and there was serious dissension in Australian ranks.  Monash's feelings on the matter, however, were addressed by the assignment of the U.S. II Corps, made up of two large divisions (the equivalent of four British divisions) to his command.  Field Marshall Haig had opposed the use of the U.S. troops for the assault on the northern part of the line as he felt that they were too green, but British Gen. Rawlinson convinced him to give it a go on the basis that the Germans in the area, which had previously been the subject of an unsuccessful British attack, were now weakened and likely to collapse.

Haig's misgivings proved correct and the American assault failed.  This resulted in a request from Monash to postpone the September 29 planned attack but the request was refused.  We'll rejoin this story, accordingly, on the 29th.