The Americans looked upon this as wantonly useless. It
was then that orders were sent to the battery commanders for increased
fire.
Although there was no reason for it, German ruthlessness was still
rampant Sunday, stirring the American artillery in the region of
Dun-sur-Meuse and Mouzay to greater activity. Six hundred aged men and
women and children were in Mouzay when the Germans attacked it with gas.
There was only a small detachment of American troops there and the town
no longer was of strategical value. However, it was made the direct
target of shells filled with phosgene. Every street reeked with gas.
Poorly clad and showing plainly evidences of malnutrition, the
inhabitants crowded about the Americans, kissing their hands and hailing
them as deliverers. They declared they had had no meat for six weeks.
They virtually had been prisoners of war for four years and were
overwhelmed with joy when they learned that an armistice was probable.
The last French town to fall into American hands before the armistice
went into effect was Stenay. Patrols reported they had found it empty
not more than a quarter of an hour before eleven o'clock. American
troops rushed through the town and in a few minutes Allied flags were
beginning to appear from the windows. As the church bell solemnly tolled
the hour of eleven, troops from the Ninetieth division were pouring into
the town.
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