Advancing over such dangerous ground to gain their objective, it appears miraculous that the division was not wiped out, or at least did not suffer more heavily than it did.  An explanation of this seeming miracle has been offered in the rapidity of the advance.

No two battles are ever fought alike.  Offensives and defensives will be planned along certain lines.  Then will suddenly obtrude the element of surprise or something that could not be foreseen or guarded against, which will overturn the most carefully prepared plans.

No soldiers in the world were ever trained to a higher degree of efficiency than the Germans.  Mathematical precision ruled everywhere; the ultimate detail had been considered; and all students of military matters were forced to admit that they had reduced warfare seemingly, to an exact science.  But it was a mistake.  The Germans were the victims of surprise times innumerable.  Some of the greatest events of the war, notably the first defeat at the Marne in its strategic features, was a complete surprise to them.

Everything about war, can, it seems, be reduced to a science except strategy.  Certain rules can be laid down governing strategy, but they do not always work.  Generally speaking, it is psychology; something which exists in the other man’s mind.  To read the other man’s mind or make a good guess at it, defeats the most scientifically conceived strategy.  Napoleon outwitted the best military brains and was himself the greatest strategist of his time, because he invariably departed from fixed military customs and kept his opponent entirely at sea regarding what he was doing or intended to do.  Very seldom did he do the thing which his enemy thought he would do; which seemed most likely and proper according to military science.  He thought and acted quickly in crises, relied constantly on the element of surprise and invented new strategy on the spur of the moment.

It was the big new strategy, the big new surprises, with which the Germans found themselves unable to cope.  The strategy of Foch which developed in the offensive shortly after the battle of Chateau Thierry in July and was well under way in the early part of August, was a surprise to the Germans.  Pershing surprised them in his St. Mihiel and following operations, especially the battles of Argonne Forest, and had a greater surprise in store for them in the Lorraine campaign had the war continued.

Perhaps the Germans figured at Metz, that owing to the extreme difficulty of the ground to be covered, their strong fortifications and great gun power, any advance, especially of Negro troops, would be slow.  They accordingly timed their artillery action and their defensive measures for a slow assault.

But they were surprised again.  Officers could not hold back the Negro fighters and German guns and soldiers could not stop them.  They plunged on to Preny and Pagny, and they rushed into the Bois Frehaut, and held for thirty-six hours, this place from which picked Moroccan and Senegalese troops were forced to retreat in ten minutes after they had entered it.  The Bois Frehaut was an inferno under the murderous fire of the Germans.  Holding it for thirty-six hours and remaining there until hostilities ceased, it is surprising that the casualty list of the 92nd Division did not amount to many times 1,511.