During the First Battle of the Marne (September 1914), the German troops were stopped at the gates of Meaux. This heroic action not only prevented the city from being taken by the Germans but also changed the course of the war. In 1932, at the place of the battlefield, the people of the United States of America had a monument erected in the memory of the French soldiers fallen in action. Called, in French, "La Liberté éplorée" ("The Tearful Liberty"), the sculpture by Frederick MacMonnies is popularly known among the French as "Le Monument américain" ("the American Monument").