General Orders Number 232 from General John J. Pershing

COPY. 215 G. H. a. AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES. France, Dec 19, 1918. GENERAL ORDERS No.232 It is with a sense of gratitude for its splendid accomplishment, which will live through all history, that I record in General orders a tribute to the victory of the First Army in the Meuse Argonne battle. Tested and strengthened by the reduction of the St. Mihiel salient, for more than six weeks you battered against the pivot of the enemy line on the western front. It was a position of imposing natural strength, stretching on both sides of the Meuse River from the bitterly contested hilis of Verdun to the almost imprenstrable forest of the Argonne; a position, moreover, fortified by four years of labor de- signed to render it impregnable; a position held with the fullest resources of the enemy. That position you broke utterly, and thereby hastened the collapse of the enemys military power. Soldiers of all the Divisions engaged under the First, Third and Fifth Corps- the lst, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 26th, 28th, 29th, 32nd, 33rd, 35th, 37th, 42nd, 77th, 78th, 79th, 80th,82nd, 89th, 90th and 9lst-you will long be remembered for the stubborn resistance of your progress, your storming of obstinately defended machine gun nests, your penetration yard by yard, of woods and ravines, your heroic resis- tance in the face of counter attacks supported by Powerful artillery fire.. For more than amonth, from the initial attac> of September 26th, you fought your way slowly through the Argonne, through the woods and over hills west of the Meuse; you slowly enlarged your hold on the Cotes de Meuse to the East, rand+then on the let. of November, your attack forcedithe enemy into flight. Pressing his retreat, you cleared the entire left bank of the Meuse south of Sedan, and then stormed the the heights on the right bank and drove him into the plain beyond. Yoyr achievement which is scarcely to be equalled in American History, must remain a Source of proud satisfaction to the troops who participated in the last compaign of the war. The American people will remember it as the realization of the hitherto potential strength of the American Contribution toward the cause to which they had sworn allegiance. There can be no greater reward for a soldier or for a soldier's memoryo This order will be read to all organizations at the first assembly formation after its receipt. JOHN J. PERSHING, General, Commander in Chief, American Expeditionary Forces. E. 3. SERVICE¹^ ARCHIVES AND official: Robert C. Davis Adjutant General.