A poem entitled “Through a Glass, Darkly” by American General George S. Patton, Jr. (1885 - 1945)

Patton in 1919

Born on 11th November 1885 and educated at the Virginia Military Institute and West Point United States Military Academy, George S. Patton began his military career leading cavalry troops against Mexican forces.

Promoted to the rank of Captain in May 1917, Patton left for Europe.  As Pershing's personal aide, Patton oversaw the training of American troops in Paris until September, then moved to Chaumont and was assigned as a post Adjutant, commanding the headquarters company overseeing the base. Patton was dissatisfied with the post and began to take an interest in tanks, as Pershing sought to give him command of an infantry battalion. While in a hospital for jaundice, Patton met Colonel Fox Conner, who encouraged him to work with tanks instead of infantry.

On 10th November 1917, Patton was assigned to establish the AEF Light Tank School. He was sent to the French Army's tank training school at Champlieu near Orrouy, where he drove a Renault FT light tank. 

Patton was promoted to Major in January 1918 and took delivery of the first ten tanks for the AEF on 23rd March 1918, at the tank school at Bourg, a small village close to Langres, in the Haute-Marne Département. The only US soldier with tank-driving experience, Patton personally backed seven of the tanks off the train. Patton trained tank crews to operate in support of infantry, and promoted its acceptance among reluctant infantry officers. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in April 1918, and attended the Command and General Staff College in Langres.

In August 1918, he was placed in charge of the U.S. 1st Provisional Tank Brigade (which was redesignated the 304th Tank Brigade on 6th November 1918). Patton's Light Tank Brigade was part of Colonel Samuel Rockenbach's Tank Corps, part of the American First Army. Personally overseeing the logistics of the tanks in their first combat use by U.S. forces, and reconnoitering the target area for their first attack himself, Patton ordered that no U.S. tank be surrendered.  Patton commanded American-crewed Renault FT tanks at the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, leading the tanks from the front for much of their attack, which began on 12th September 1918. He walked in front of the tanks into the German-held village of Essey, and rode on top of a tank during the attack into Pannes, seeking to inspire his men.

Patton's Brigade was then moved to support U.S. I Corps in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. He personally led a troop of tanks through thick fog as they advanced 5 miles (8 km) into German lines.  Patton was wounded while leading six men and a tank in an attack on German machine guns near the town of Cheppy.  His orderly, Private First Class Joe Angelo, saved Patton, for which he was later awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Patton commanded the battle from a shell hole for another hour before being evacuated for treatment. 

In hospital, Patton wrote in a letter to his wife: "The bullet went into the front of my left leg and came out just at the crack of my bottom about two inches to the left of my rectum. It was fired at about 50 m so made a hole about the size of a [silver] dollar where it came out."

For his actions in Cheppy, Patton received the Distinguished Service Cross. For his leadership of the brigade and tank school, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. He was also awarded the Purple Heart for his combat wounds after the decoration was created in 1932.

A poem entitled “Through a Glass, Darkly” by General George S. Patton, Jr.  The poem was composed on 16th September 1922.  

Through the travail of the ages,

Midst the pomp and toil of war,

Have I fought and strove and perished

Countless times upon this star.

In the form of many people

In all panoplies of time

Have I seen the luring vision

Of the Victory Maid, sublime.

I have battled for fresh mammoth,

I have warred for pastures new,

I have listed to the whispers

When the race trek instinct grew.

I have known the call to battle

In each changeless changing shape

From the high souled voice of conscience

To the beastly lust for rape.

I have sinned and I have suffered,

Played the hero and the knave;

Fought for belly, shame, or country,

And for each have found a grave.

I cannot name my battles

For the visions are not clear,

Yet, I see the twisted faces

And I feel the rending spear.

Perhaps I stabbed our Savior

In His sacred helpless side.

Yet, I've called His name in blessing

When after times I died.

In the dimness of the shadows

Where we hairy heathens warred,

I can taste in thought the lifeblood;

We used teeth before the sword.

While in later clearer vision

I can sense the coppery sweat,

Feel the pikes grow wet and slippery

When our Phalanx, Cyrus met.

Hear the rattle of the harness

Where the Persian darts bounced clear,

See their chariots wheel in panic

From the Hoplite's leveled spear.

See the goal grow monthly longer,

Reaching for the walls of Tyre.

Hear the crash of tons of granite,

Smell the quenchless eastern fire.

Still more clearly as a Roman,

Can I see the Legion close,

As our third rank moved in forward

And the short sword found our foes.

Once again I feel the anguish

Of that blistering treeless plain

When the Parthian showered death bolts,

And our discipline was in vain.

I remember all the suffering

Of those arrows in my neck.

Yet, I stabbed a grinning savage

As I died upon my back.

Once again I smell the heat sparks

When my Flemish plate gave way

And the lance ripped through my entrails

As on Crecy's field I lay.

In the windless, blinding stillness

Of the glittering tropic sea

I can see the bubbles rising

Where we set the captives free.

Midst the spume of half a tempest

I have heard the bulwarks go

When the crashing, point blank round shot

Sent destruction to our foe.

I have fought with gun and cutlass

On the red and slippery deck

With all Hell aflame within me

And a rope around my neck.

And still later as a General

Have I galloped with Murat

When we laughed at death and numbers

Trusting in the Emperor's Star.

Till at last our star faded,

And we shouted to our doom

Where the sunken road of Ohein

Closed us in it's quivering gloom.

So but now with Tanks a'clatter

Have I waddled on the foe

Belching death at twenty paces,

By the star shell's ghastly glow.

So as through a glass, and darkly

The age long strife I see

Where I fought in many guises,

Many names, but always me.

And I see not in my blindness

What the objects were I wrought,

But as God rules o'er our bickerings

It was through His will I fought.

So forever in the future,

Shall I battle as of yore,

Dying to be born a fighter,

But to die again, once more.

Source:

http://robert-e-howard.org/ShadowSinger20SS13.html

The Battle of St. Mihiel, Verdun, France was a battle of the First World War that took place on the Western Front from 12th to 15th September 1918 at the strategically important front ledge near Saint-Mihiel that had been held by the German side for years.  The American Expeditionary Force (A.E.F.), reinforced by French troops, under the joint command of John Pershing, against the German Army Department C, reinforced by k.u.k.(Austrian) troops. 

French tank at St. Mihiel

American Historian and Author Dr Connie Ruzich inspired this research with a post on her website Behind their Lines about the writers and poets of the First World War, featuring a delightful poem by Patton about tanks - which is worth reading:

https://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2018/07/pattons-poetry.html

Cheppy is a commune in the Meuse department in Grand Est in northeastern France. It was a site of fighting during WW1. An American monument sculpted by American sculptor Nancy Coonsman (1887 - 1976) was erected there by the State of Missouri after the war to honor the volunteers of the state killed in WW1.

Missouri Monument
Cheppy

Additional sources:

https://www.criticalpast.com/stock-footage-video/Cheppy+France+1918

https://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2018/07/pattons-poetry.html

http://www.webmatters.net/france/ww1_usa_cheppy.htm