THE MARNE

15 JULY–6 AUGUST 1918

THE U.S. ARMY 

CAMPAIGNS OF WORLD WAR I

•••

•••
THE U.S. ARMY CAMPAIGNS OF WORLD WAR I 

COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

Series Editor: Brian F. Neumann

The U.S. Army in the World War I Era

The Mexican Expedition, 1916–1917

Joining the Great War, April 1917–April 1918

Into the Fight, April–June 1918

The Marne, 15 July–6 August 1918

Supporting Allied Offensives, August–November 1918

St. Mihiel, 12–15 September 1918

Meuse-Argonne, 26 September–11 November 1918

Occupation and Demobilization

The Russian Expeditions, 1918–1920

Cover: The Rock of the Marne, by Mal Thompson

(The U.S. Army in Action series)

•••••••••••••••

CMH Pub 77–5
•••

THE MARNE

15 JULY–6 AUGUST 1918

by

Stephen C. McGeorge

and

Mason W. Watson 

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Center of Military History

United States Army

Washington, D.C., 2018

•••• 5 ••••

•••

INTRODUCTION

A century ago, the great powers of Europe became engulfed 

in what was then called the Great War. It signaled a new age in 

armed conflict in which mass armies supported by industrial mass 

production brought an unprecedented level of killing power to the 

battlefield. By the time the United States entered the war in 1917, 

the combatants were waging war on a scale never before seen 

in history. The experience defined a generation and cast a long 

shadow across the twentieth century. In addition to a tremendous 

loss of life, the war shattered Europe, bringing revolution, the 

collapse of long-standing empires, and economic turmoil, as 

well as the birth of new nation-states and the rise of totalitarian 

movements.

The modern U.S. Army, capable of conducting industrialized 

warfare on a global scale, can trace its roots to the World War. 

Although the war’s outbreak in August 1914 shocked most 

Americans, they preferred to keep the conflict at arm’s length. 

The United States declared its neutrality and invested in coastal 

defenses and the Navy to guard its shores. The U.S. Army, 

meanwhile, remained small, with a regiment as its largest standing 

formation. Primarily a constabulary force, it focused on policing 

America’s new territorial possessions in the Caribbean and Pacific 

as it continued to adapt to Secretary of War Elihu Root’s reforms 

in the years following the War with Spain. It was not until June 

1916 that Congress authorized an expansion of the Army, dual 

state-federal status for the National Guard, and the creation of a 

reserve officer training corps.

In early 1917, relations between the United States and Germany 

rapidly deteriorated. The kaiser’s policy of unrestricted submarine 

warfare threatened American lives and commerce, and German 

meddling in Mexican affairs convinced most Americans that Berlin 

posed a danger to the nation. In April 1917, the president, out of 

diplomatic options, asked Congress to declare war on Germany. 

But the U.S. Army, numbering only 133,000 men, was far from 

ready. The president ordered nearly 400,000 National Guardsmen 

into federal service, and more than twenty-four million men 

eventually registered for the Selective Service, America’s first 
•••• 6 ••••

conscription since the Civil War. By the end of 1918, the Army had 

grown to four million men and had trained 200,000 new officers 

to lead them. As it expanded to address wartime needs, the Army 

developed a new combined-arms formation—the square division. 

Divisions fell under corps, and corps made up field armies. The 

Army also created supporting elements such as the Air Service, the 

Tank Corps, and the Chemical Warfare Service. The war signaled 

the potential of the United States as not only a global economic 

power, but also a military one.

In June 1917, the 1st Division deployed to France, arriving in time 

to parade through Paris on the Fourth of July. The first National 

Guard division, the 26th Division from New England, deployed in 

September. By war’s end, the American Expeditionary Forces, as 

the nation’s forces in Europe were called, had grown to two million 

soldiers and more than forty divisions. During 1918, these American 

“doughboys” learned to fight in battles of steadily increasing scale: 

Cantigny, the Marne, Aisne-Marne, St. Mihiel, and Meuse-Argonne, 

adding thirteen campaign streamers to the Army flag. Overall, in 

roughly six months of combat, the American Expeditionary Forces 

suffered more than 255,000 casualties, including 52,997 battle 

deaths (as well as more than 50,000 nonbattle deaths, most due to 

the influenza pandemic). The war that the United States entered to 

“make the world safe for democracy” ended with an armistice on 

11 November 1918, followed by a controversial peace. American 

soldiers served in the Occupation of the Rhineland until 1923, before 

withdrawing from Europe altogether. 

The United States will never forget the American soldiers 

who fought and died in the World War. America’s first unknown 

soldier was laid to rest on 11 November 1921 in the Tomb of the 

Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery, where soldiers 

still stand guard. The United States created permanent American 

military cemeteries in France, Belgium, and Britain to bury the 

fallen. To this day, memorials to their sacrifice can be found across 

America, and the date of the armistice has become a national 

holiday honoring all those who serve in defense of the nation. 

The last surviving U.S. Army veteran of the war died in 2011. It is 

to all the doughboys, those who returned and those who did not, 

that the U.S. Army Center of Military History dedicates these 

commemorative pamphlets.

JON T. HOFFMAN

Chief Historian
•••• 7 ••••

•••

THE MARNE

15 JULY–6 AUGUST 1918

The Second Battle of the Marne was the turning point of 

the First World War on the Western Front. Between March and 

July 1918, the Germans launched four devastating offensives 

that resulted in an advance unlike anything that had been seen 

in four years of trench warfare. The German assault on the 

Chemin des Dames at the end of May brought the German Army 

back to the Marne River, where the Allies had halted its drive 

on Paris in September 1914. For the second time in four years, 

the Germans appeared to be on the cusp of victory. Between 15 

and 17 July, however, American divisions along the Marne and 

in Champagne played a decisive role in halting the last German 

drive. The Allies then went on the offensive. On 18 July, the French 

Army, which included multiple American divisions, initiated a 

series of offensives that eventually pushed the Germans back 

from the Marne to the Vesle River. The German Army would 

remain on the defensive for the remainder of the war as the Allies 

continued offensive operations from August until the Armistice 

on 11 November 1918. 

This commemorative pamphlet discusses the role of the 

American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in the fighting near the 

Marne. The Second Battle of the Marne can be divided into two 

phases. The first consists of the Franco-American defense of 

15–17 July against German attacks aimed at capturing Reims. 

The second covers the Allied counteroffensives between 18 July 

and 6 August 1918. Both phases included critical contributions 

by American troops, most notably in the initial Allied offensive 

at Soissons. In total, Americans accounted for more than 

40 percent of the Allied casualties sustained in the Second Battle 

of the Marne. In addition, the battle saw AEF divisions fighting 

side by side for the first time, as well as the eventual arrival of 

American corps as operational units. The experience gained in 

the fighting near the Marne would prove invaluable as the AEF 

began independent operations in September.
•••• 8 ••••

Strategic Setting

By the spring of 1918, the German Empire’s window of 

opportunity for victory in the war had nearly closed. Despite some 

battlefield successes, Germany had failed in two major attempts 

to defeat France—the initial invasion of France and Belgium in 

1914, and the attritional assault on the fortress-city of Verdun in 

1916. Rather than undertaking yet another offensive in the west 

in 1917, the new heads of the German Army High Command 

(Oberste Heeresleitung; OHL), Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg 

and General Erich Ludendorff, opted for a strategy focused on 

supporting Austria-Hungary and defeating the faltering Russian 

Empire. In the meantime, Germany attempted to force Britain from 

the war through a renewed submarine offensive. On land, Germany’s 

“eastern strategy” was a success. By the end of 1917, Russia had 

agreed to enter armistice negotiations with the Central Powers. 

An Austro-German offensive against Italy in late 1917, the Battle of 

Caporetto, also had impressive results—the Italian Army suffered a 

stinging defeat, nearly resulting in the fall of Venice. At sea, however, 

Germany’s U-boat campaign against Britain failed disastrously. 

Instead of reducing the number of hostile powers arrayed against 

Germany, the employment of “unrestricted submarine warfare”—

the sinking of civilian vessels without warning—led to the United 

States entering the war as an “Associated Power” alongside 

France and Britain. The first American troops arrived in France in 

June, and more Americans continued to arrive in ever-increasing 

numbers throughout the year. Germany’s strategic outlook at the 

beginning of 1918 was therefore ambiguous. Although Russia’s 

defeat opened new strategic possibilities, America’s entry into the 

war gave the Allies an overwhelming advantage, at least in the long 

term. Moreover, the German home front suffered from the Allied 

blockade, now approaching its fifth year. The hungry, overworked, 

and impoverished German populace was quickly losing its appetite 

for “total war.” 

Refusing to contemplate a negotiated peace, General 

Ludendorff called for a resumption of offensive operations on the 

Western Front in March 1918. Transferring roughly fifty divisions 

from the closed Eastern Front, the Germans enjoyed a temporary 

numerical superiority in the west of approximately 1.25 to 1. The 

German Empire would never again have better odds. Utilizing elite 

formations trained in infiltration tactics, Ludendorff intended to 

crush the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and drive it from 
•••• 9 ••••

the continent before turning on the French Army. Lacking British 

support, the French would then be forced to surrender, thereby 

ending the war in the west well before significant American 

forces arrived. Even though roughly 200,000 American soldiers 

were already in France in March 1918, Ludendorff and the OHL 

doubted that the novice American divisions could stand against 

battle-hardened German troops. 

The first German offensive, code-named Michael, seemed to 

vindicate Ludendorff’s ambitious strategy. Launched on 21 March 

1918, the offensive crashed through the thinly held defensive lines 

of General Sir Hubert Gough’s British Fifth Army, which lay at 

the juncture of the British and French armies, and seized over 

3,000 square kilometers of French countryside. Yet the Germans’ 

tactical successes belied Michael’s strategic failure. The British 

defenders fell back, but the BEF did not break. Within two weeks, 

the deployment of French and British reserves arrested the 

German advance. Logistical difficulties also stalled the German 

Army’s progress; German troops had advanced to a point over fifty 

kilometers from their closest railheads, which limited their access 

to crucial supplies, especially artillery ammunition. Moreover, 

the crisis compelled the Allies, at long last, to establish a unified 

command. On 26 March, the Allies appointed French General 

Ferdinand Foch to the position of “generalissimo,” with the official 

title of General in Chief of the Allied Armies. Henceforth, he would 

coordinate the various Allied armies on the Western Front, guiding 

but not directly commanding the Allied military effort. 

On 9 April 1918, a new German offensive, Operation Georgette, 

targeted the British in Flanders. The attack gained about sixteen 

kilometers but failed to replicate the dramatic advances made 

in March. The following month passed in relative quiet until the 

opening of Operation Blücher-Yorck on 27 May. Directed primarily 

against the French Sixth Army along the Chemin des Dames, 

the offensive initially offered the prospect of a decisive German 

victory. Taken by surprise and forced into a headlong retreat, the 

French gave up about sixty kilometers and 50,000 prisoners before 

the front once again stabilized. At the city of Château-Thierry, on 

the Marne River, the American 3d Division’s 7th Machine Gun 

Battalion helped hold up the German advance on 31 May, denying 

them a secure foothold south of the Marne.

When Operation Blücher finally ended on 5 June, it had 

produced a nearly 2,300-square-kilometer salient in the Allied front 

lines, stretching from Soissons in the west and Château-Thierry 
•••• 10 ••••

in the south to the vicinity of Reims in the east. German soldiers 

were just over sixty kilometers from Paris—as close as they had 

been in September 1914. The French government was in a state 

of crisis. French prime minister Georges Clemenceau declared, 

in terms that Winston Churchill would echo two decades later, 

that “the Germans may take Paris but that would not stop me 

from fighting. We will fight on the Loire, then on the Garonne, 

if we must, then even on the Pyrenees. If at last we are chased 

from the Pyrenees, we will continue the war on the sea; but as to 

making peace, never!” As it happened, solidifying Allied resistance 

precluded a further German drive on the French capital. In June, 

the Germans followed up Blücher with a pair of more modest 

operations, code-named Gneisenau and Hammerschlag, designed to 

improve the position of the German armies in the Marne salient. 

Neither achieved significant results. (See Map 1.)

As of early July, the record of the German spring offensives was 

decidedly mixed. Michael and Blücher had inflicted undeniable 

tactical defeats on the Allies, but both fell short of their larger 

operational objectives. Indeed, the salients created by the two 

offensives left the German Army vulnerable to counterattack. This 

was especially true in the Marne salient, which lacked sufficient 

north-south lines of communication, creating severe logistical 

Château-Thierry, after having changed hands three times in 

two months (National Archives) •••••••••••••••
•••• 11 ••••

difficulties for the Germans. In addition to holding a more vulnerable 

position overall, the German Army was greatly reduced in numbers. 

Even though the Germans generally inflicted heavier casualties than 

they suffered in the 1918 offensives, March and April 1918 were their 

bloodiest months of the entire war. Unlike the Allies, who could 

count on American manpower to make up their losses, the Germans 

had no deep well of replacements from which to draw. 

Despite these challenges, Ludendorff continued to hold out 

hope for a final victory. This would be achieved through an 

operation code-named Hagen, which would involve an attack on the 

British Second Army just south of Ypres. The defeat of Georgette

in April, however, indicated that the Allies had sufficient reserves 

in the north to halt a major offensive. The Germans would have 

to draw the British and French reserves away from the north to 

a new sector. Ludendorff suggested that an offensive aimed at 

capturing Reims, an important rail hub, would both ease German 

supply difficulties in the salient and entangle the British and 

French reserves in a new campaign. This goal became the genesis 

of the last major German offensive of the war, Marneschutz-Reims

(Marne Defense–Reims). 

Planning for this operation began on 5 June, immediately 

after the end of the Blücher offensive. The underlying concept 

was simple. Rather than attacking Reims directly, German armies 

on either side of the city, in Champagne to the east and along the 

Marne to the west, would break through to a depth of about thirty 

kilometers. The two jaws of the German advance would meet near 

Épernay, about twenty-four kilometers south of Reims, enveloping 

the city and its defenders. The destruction of substantial forces at 

Reims would compel the Allies to deploy their reserves, weakening 

their position in the north and clearing the way for Hagen, 

which OHL tentatively scheduled for 1 August. OHL assigned 

Marneschutz-Reims, set for 15 July, to the Army Group German 

Crown Prince, headed by the Kaiser’s eldest son, Crown Prince 

Wilhelm. The army group included the German First, Third, and 

Seventh Armies, a total of forty-eight divisions organized in eleven 

corps, or approximately 650,000 men. Artillery assets amounted 

to 6,353 guns, twice as many as were available to the defenders. 

General Max von Böhn’s Seventh Army, which would execute an 

opposed river crossing over the Marne, received nearly half of 

these guns. The attack would take place along a 119-kilometer 

front stretching from Château-Thierry in the west almost to the 

Argonne Forest in the east. 
78

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Lys R

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Antwerp

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BRUSSELS

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Map 1
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UM

NETHERLANDS

SWITZERLAND

GERMANY

LUXEMBOURG

21 March–15 July 1918

WESTERN FRONT

Front Line, 15 July

U.S. Division locations as of 15 July

German Operation MICHAEL, 21 Mar–5 Apr 1918

German Operation GEORGETTE, 9–29 Apr 1918

German Operation BLÜCHER-YORCK, 27 May–5 Jun 1918

German Operations GNEISENAU and HAMMERSCHLAG, 9–15 Jun 1918

X X

0

0 50 Kilometers

Miles 50

0 100 150 200 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS
•••• 14 ••••

Although the German divisions massed for the attack 

represented a formidable concentration of force, few were fresh 

and none were at anything approaching full strength. Limited 

rations—roughly 2,500 calories per day, down from 3,100 calories 

earlier in the war—left the German soldiers undernourished and 

vulnerable to disease. The first wave of the influenza epidemic in 

the summer of 1918 sent as many as 2,000 men per division to the 

hospital. Even after receiving replacements before the offensive, 

German divisions were severely understrength. In the German 10th

and 36th Divisions of General Hugo von Kathen’s XXIII Reserve 

Corps (part of the Seventh Army), companies contained an average 

strength of about sixty men. The divisions themselves could muster 

only about 5,000 effectives each. In contrast, American infantry 

companies consisted of 250 men at full strength, and American 

divisions—over twice the size of full-strength French or German 

divisions—amounted to no less than 28,000 men. 

The Germans would base their attack on the doctrine of 

infiltration tactics. A decentralized system of command and control 

that relied on the initiative and good sense of noncommissioned 

officers and individual infantrymen, infiltration tactics routinely 

produced dramatic advances on the battlefield against strong 

defensive positions. Most important was the close cooperation of 

infantry and artillery. Fired “off the map,” without lengthy registration, 

a hurricane artillery bombardment would suppress Allied defensive 

positions, allowing specially trained Stosstruppen (storm troops) 

to advance. Organized in flexible ten- to twelve-man squads and 

equipped with grenades, flamethrowers, and light machine guns, 

storm troops would overwhelm lightly defended enemy positions, 

bypassing strong points, while advancing as far and as fast as 

possible, supported all the while by a Feuerwalze (rolling barrage). 

These methods had been key to the tactical successes the Germans 

achieved during Michael and Blücher, and it remained to be seen 

whether the Allies could develop an effective counter.

Between the end of May and the beginning of July, minor Allied 

counteroffensives regained a few square kilometers of the ground 

lost earlier in the year. American battlefield successes in support of 

these operations were heartening but small. At the end of May, the 

1st Division assaulted and successfully held the village of Cantigny 

against determined German counterattacks. The 2d Division 

likewise captured Belleau Wood and the villages of Bouresches 

and Vaux after a grueling struggle that continued through most 

of June. In these engagements, the Americans demonstrated their 
•••• 15 ••••

ability to advance and hold ground against determined German 

resistance while absorbing punishing losses, including nearly 

10,000 casualties in the fighting around Belleau Wood alone. And 

thousands more Americans reached France every day. After the 

battles of Belleau Wood and Cantigny, a German assessment of 

the American forces noted that, “considering its small experience 

of war and defective training the combat value of the American 

division can in general be described as good. In defense even the 

most recently arrived troops represent an opponent worthy of 

respect. The American soldier shows himself to be brave, strong, 

and skillful. Losses are not avoided. However their leadership is not 

yet all that good.” This eager—if undertrained and inexperienced—

force would face its first major test in the Second Battle of the 

Marne, beginning with the final great German offensive in mid-July.

The repulse of the German Gneisenau and Hammerschlag

offensives in mid-June inaugurated what Foch termed the “period 

of waiting.” He and the rest of the Allied command anticipated a 

renewed German drive, although no consensus existed at first as 

to where it would fall. French intelligence accurately estimated 

that the Germans still had substantial reserves, amounting to at 

least seventy-five divisions—fifty-five of them fresh—as of 30 June. 

Intelligence estimates also correctly predicted that limitations 

on transport capacity, as well as the overall state of the German 

reserves, precluded any major German offensive on the Western 

Front before 15 July. The Allies therefore had ample time to prepare 

a counterattack. On 14 June, Foch instructed the commanderin-chief of the French Army, General Henri Philippe Pétain, to 

begin planning for an offensive in the area of the northwestern 

shoulder of the Marne salient. Foch and Pétain conceived this 

attack explicitly as a riposte to the coming German offensive. The 

Allied counterattack would fall immediately after the Germans 

committed substantial forces to a new push. Success in this attack 

depended to a large extent on timing: the shorter the delay between 

the German offensive and the Allied counteroffensive, the better 

the chances for an Allied victory. The primary objective was to 

bring Allied field artillery and heavy guns within range of the 

German-held rail hub at Soissons. As Foch noted, interdiction of 

German supply through Soissons would ensure that “any German 

offensive in the direction of Château-Thierry [and hence along the 

road to Paris] would be deprived of its life blood.” 

The Soissons offensive fell to the French Tenth Army, under 

the command of General Charles Mangin—an experienced officer 
•••• 16 ••••

known throughout the French Army as “le boucher,” or “the 

butcher,” for his aggressive tactics. Also assigned to the offensive 

were General Jean-Marie Degoutte’s French Sixth Army, which 

would attack from the west, and General Antoine de Mitry’s 

French Ninth Army, which would advance from the south. General 

Mangin completed his plan of operations for the offensive on 20 

June, carrying out a minor preparatory attack on 28 June that 

advanced the front several kilometers and revealed the German 

Army’s lack of defensive preparations. Heartened by this success, 

Mangin proposed expanding the offensive to encompass an attack 

on Soissons itself. Mangin’s impending operation built on plans 

for a more limited offensive against the eastern flank of the Marne 

salient by General Henri M. Berthelot’s French Fifth Army, which 

had been in development since 7 June. Both operations had relatively 

modest objectives but had the potential to achieve strategically 

significant results. If the offensive drives by the French Fifth Army 

from the east and the Tenth Army from the west met in the middle, 

they could attempt to envelop and destroy the German forces left 

within the salient. Yet neither side had ever succeeded in a battle 

of annihilation on such a scale, even after multiple attempts over 

nearly four years of fighting on the Western Front.

The AEF allocated substantial forces to operations around 

the Marne salient. Even though General John J. Pershing objected 

to American units serving as part of Allied armies, the crisis 

provoked by the German 1918 spring offensives led him to release 

American divisions for service in French and British commands. 

Pershing’s flexibility on this matter paid off on 10 July 1918, when 

Foch announced plans to establish an independent U.S. army of 

thirteen divisions, scheduled to be created by the end of July. In 

the meantime, six American divisions remained in position around 

the Marne salient. The blooded American 1st and 2d Divisions 

occupied rear areas near Foissy and roughly ten kilometers south 

of Château-Thierry respectively. The 26th (Yankee) Division, 

composed of National Guard units from the six New England 

states, held the 2d Division’s old lines along the edges of Belleau 

Wood, operating with the French 167th Division as part of the 

American I Army Corps. The 3d Division, part of the French Sixth 

Army’s XXXVIII Corps under General Jean de Mondésir, occupied 

a position along the Marne just east of Château-Thierry. The 

infantry brigades of the 28th (Keystone) Division were stationed 

both to the east and west of the 3d Division, with the 55th and 56th 

Brigades attached to the French 125th and 39th Divisions. About 
•••• 17 ••••

30 kilometers east of Reims, the 42d Division held a second-line 

position behind the French 13th and 170th Divisions as part of 

General Henri Gouraud’s French Fourth Army. 

Defensive preparations in these sectors varied substantially 

depending on the commander. In general, all the forces under the 

control of the French high command (GQG) were to adhere to the 

principles of elastic defense-in-depth, which Pétain had laid out in 

his Directive No. 4 in December 1917. This document prescribed 

a lightly held front line, with the main “combat zone” located 

several kilometers to the rear. Such a deployment kept the bulk 

of the defenders out of the range of enemy artillery, preserving 

their strength for the main defensive battle. The attackers, who 

would be disorganized after having fought through the thinly held 

“sacrifice” line of defense manned by isolated groups of soldiers 

who were expected to hold out at all costs, would lose momentum 

by the time they reached the second defensive line. This approach 

to defensive operations was the cutting edge of doctrine in 1918. 

The Germans employed these tactics with considerable success 

in 1917 during the Nivelle Offensive and the Third Battle of Ypres, 

and the Allies considered their example worthy of imitation. 

Soldiers from the Rainbow Division advancing (National Archives) •••••••••••••••
•••• 18 ••••

Pétain, however, did not require his subordinates to implement 

these instructions to the letter. He permitted them to use their own 

judgment regarding the proper forms of deployment within their 

defensive sectors. This meant that while General Gouraud’s Fourth 

Army embraced the doctrine of defense-in-depth, General Degoutte’s 

Sixth Army, holding the defensive line along the Marne, did not. 

Degoutte instead directed his men to defend the Marne “with one 

foot in the water,” prescribing a rigid, linear defense. The American 

commanders serving under Degoutte’s command generally followed 

his direction, despite their reservations, but not all of his French 

subordinates did the same. The inconsistent defensive preparations 

within the Sixth Army caused considerable confusion for the Allies 

when the German offensive finally opened on 15 July.

By the middle of July, it was clear that Foch’s “period of 

waiting” was at an end. Intelligence pieced together from various 

sources gave the Allies a remarkably accurate and detailed 

understanding of the scale, objectives, and even the precise timing 

of the next German offensive. In spite of the massive concentration 

of German pursuit aircraft in the region—no less than forty-six 

of the seventy-eight German fighter squadrons on the Western 

Front were operating near the Marne as of early July—aerial 

reconnaissance nevertheless detected that the Germans were 

moving large quantities of munitions into the salient. An informant 

attached to the German crown prince’s staff also passed along 

useful information about German preparations to his French 

handlers. Deserters and prisoners captured during the lead-up to 

the attack revealed additional significant details. In one notable 

case, a German officer who had swum across the Marne near 

Dormans to reconnoiter potential crossing points on 30 June was 

captured with several maps in his possession. In response to these 

signs, Pétain ordered the transfer of five divisions into the area 

east of Château-Thierry between 7 and 9 July. Additional troop 

movements into Champagne followed after 12 July. The final and 

most important piece of intelligence, however, came mere hours 

before the German offensive began. At 2000 on 14 July, a trench raid 

by the French IV Corps (part of the Fourth Army) returned with 

twenty-seven German prisoners. After a brief interrogation, the 

prisoners disclosed that the German offensive would open between 

0300 and 0500 the next day, following a preparatory bombardment 

scheduled for shortly after midnight. Between 2330 and 2345, only 

about thirty minutes before the German preparatory bombardment 

was to begin, Allied artillery in Champagne and along the Marne 
•••• 19 ••••

opened fire on suspected German assembly areas. These were the 

first shots of the Second Battle of the Marne.

Operations

Defending Champagne

When the German attack began in the early morning hours 

of 15 July, the American forces attached to the French Fourth 

Army in Champagne were deployed as follows. From west to 

east, the 84th and 83d Infantry Brigades of Maj. Gen. Charles T. 

Menoher’s 42d Division held second-line positions in the sectors 

of the French 13th and 170th Divisions, with both falling under 

the overall command of General Stanislas Naulin’s French XXI 

Corps. The 42d, composed of National Guard units from twenty-six 

states, became known as the “Rainbow Division” because of the 

variety of hues in the colors of its component regiments. Although 

it was only the fourth American division to reach France, the 42d 

had seen limited fighting thus far, and many in the division were 

eager to prove that Guardsmen could fight just as well as U.S. 

Army regulars. Some twenty-five kilometers to the east of the 42d 

Division’s position was Col. William Hayward’s 369th Infantry, 

a segregated African American New York National Guard unit 

known to its members as “Harlem’s Rattlers,” later termed the 

“Harlem Hellfighters” by the Germans. On the morning of 15 July, 

the 369th Infantry held a second-line position in support of the 

French 16th Division. 

In general, the American units in Champagne enjoyed a strong 

working relationship with their French comrades. The Fourth 

Army’s battle-scarred commander, General Gouraud, was held in 

particularly high esteem; Brig. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the 42d 

Division’s chief of staff, later characterized Gouraud as “without 

weakness,” describing him as “almost . . . the reincarnation of 

that legendary figure of battle and romance, Henry of Navarre.” 

The Americans trusted Gouraud and took their place within 

the French defense-in-depth for the coming battle. While the 

French units held the “sacrificial” trenches, the inexperienced 

42d Division held the crucial “intermediate” position, three 

kilometers to the rear, where the main battle would be fought. 

Writing in his diary on 14 July, one soldier recorded that their 

orders were “to fight to the last man, and in no case, to let the 

Bosche through [sic].” 
•••• 20 ••••

Of the twenty-two German 

divisions allocated to the offensive east of Reims, elements 

of at least six divisions—all 

assigned to General Karl von 

Einem’s German Third Army—

attacked within the sector 

partly held by the 42d Division. Although the preemptive 

Allied artillery barrage indicated that the offensive had 

lost the element of surprise—an 

essential component of earlier 

German successes—the attack 

could not be called off on such 

short notice, and the German 

gunners opened their preparatory bombardment on schedule 

at 0010 on 15 July. The intensity 

of the German fire left a lasting 

impression on the men of the 

42d Division, who observed 

the destruction of the first-line 

trenches from the comparative 

safety of their positions in the 

second line. The sound of the German guns could be heard as 

far away as Paris. As the first German infantrymen went forward 

at 0350, the small groups of Allied soldiers left in the forward 

trenches set off flares, indicating the general direction and strength 

of the German assault, before opening fire. The Germans were 

surprised to find the forward trenches so lightly held. Instructed 

to maintain a rapid pace—some of the German assault formations 

had orders to go as far as twenty kilometers in the first day—the 

Germans rapidly mopped up the first defensive line and continued 

the advance. 

Struggling forward across the wide expanse separating the 

first and second Allied lines while under heavy artillery fire, the 

Germans found the main defensive line intact and fully manned, 

and the 42d Division’s machine gun and rifle fire caught them in 

the open. Veteran French soldiers advised the Americans to hold 

their fire until they could clearly see their targets’ uniforms—in 

the early morning haze, it was easy to mistake French horizon 

Brig. Gen. Douglas 

MacArthur, days after 

winning his fourth Silver Star 

(National Archives) •••••••••••••
•••• 21 ••••

blue for German field grey. Desperate to break through the second 

line, the German infantry launched seven attacks in close order 

against the American defenses, suffering appalling casualties. 

One doughboy recorded that the German waves were so tightly 

packed that the dead “couldn’t find room to fall down.” Small 

teams of storm troops did manage to reach the Allied lines, where 

they engaged in fierce hand-to-hand combat with the American 

defenders, but these isolated efforts quickly met defeat. The Allies 

launched several counterattacks beginning at 1500, and by the end 

of the day the 42d Division had recaptured the first-line trenches. 

To the east, the 369th Infantry took several casualties, 

including five fatalities, in the initial German bombardment, but the 

German infantry failed to appear when the barrage lifted around 

0430. When it became clear that no attack was forthcoming, the 

369th received orders to move almost five kilometers to the west to 

support General Georges Lebouc’s French 161st Division. “Harlem’s 

Rattlers” arrived in time to aid the 161st Division’s defense, with 

one machine gun team—commanded by the 369th’s regimental 

machine gun officer, 1st Lt. Lewis E. Shaw—helping to repulse a 

German assault while under heavy artillery fire. Shaw received the 

Croix de Guerre, as well as a promotion to captain, for his role in 

this action. On 18 July, the 369th participated in a counterattack 

that drove the Germans back to their original lines. 

The experiences of the 42d Division and the 369th Infantry 

were indicative of the situation along almost all of the French 

Fourth Army’s front. General Gouraud’s elastic defense-in-depth 

had held.

“The Rock of the Marne”

The situation was different in the Sixth Army’s sector. There, 

the principal American units within the zone of the German 

offensive were Maj. Gen. Joseph T. Dickman’s 3d Division and Maj. 

Gen. Charles H. Muir’s 28th Division. The 3d Division, attached to 

de Mondésir’s XXXVIII Corps, held a twelve-kilometer front along 

the Marne River, from the outskirts of Château-Thierry in the west 

to the slopes overlooking the Surmelin River valley in the east. 

The division’s 4th, 7th, 30th, and 38th Infantry regiments were all 

in line from west to east. Just to the right of the 3d Division was 

General Antoine Diebold’s 125th Division—part of General Léonce 

Lebrun’s III Corps—with the 28th Division’s 55th Infantry Brigade 

attached. While the majority of the brigade held a six-kilometer 
•••• 22 ••••

front in the 125th Division’s second line, about three-and-a-half 

kilometers to the rear, four companies from the 109th and 110th 

Infantry regiments held forward positions along the southern 

bank of the Marne. 

Defensive arrangements varied from unit to unit. General 

de Mondésir interpreted his commander’s intent to defend the 

Marne “with one foot in the water” literally. He instructed General 

Dickman to prepare a rigid frontline defense, rather than a defensein-depth, explaining that “it is on the Marne itself that it is easiest 

for us to halt the enemy because he can cross it only by small 

fractions in boats, or by columns on the foot bridges, and because 

he approaches or reaches the [sic] River, necessarily disorganized.” 

Dickman objected, later writing that he found these instructions 

to be “a violation of fundamental principles and utterly erroneous.” 

He gave his subordinates the freedom to prepare their defenses 

as they saw fit. 

The wooded, rolling slopes and overgrown fields on the 

southern banks of the Marne were ideal defensive terrain, offering 

the Americans both concealment and cover. Along the entire 3d 

Division front, the forward portion of the “outpost zone,” on the 

river banks, consisted of widely spaced rifle pits and machine 

gun nests. Behind this was the main line of the “outpost zone,” 

with entrenchments along railroad tracks running parallel to the 

Marne. The second defensive position, based around an aqueduct 

built along the slopes overlooking the river, was more elaborate; 

it included shallow trenches as well as dugouts used as command 

posts or dressing stations. The third defensive position, known as 

the “woods line,” bisected the Bois d’Aigremont to the south. This 

would be the last line of resistance. 

Col. Edmund L. Butts, commanding the 30th Infantry, 

distributed his battalions among the widely spaced first-, second-, 

and third-line positions—effectively preparing a defense-in-depth. 

However, Col. Ulysses G. McAlexander ordered his 38th Infantry to 

reinforce the front line, positioning four companies—about 1,000 

men—in the “outpost zone” to prevent the Germans from crossing 

the river. The remainder of the regiment divided between two 

lines located roughly 2,700 and 5,400 meters from the Marne. The 

9th Machine Gun Battalion, together with the 6th Engineers, held 

positions along the 3d Division’s front in support of the infantry. 

McAlexander—suspecting both that the French to his right would 

retreat, and that the Germans would attempt to use the cover of the 

Surmelin valley to infiltrate his sector—also took the precaution 
•••• 23 ••••

of constructing additional trenches throughout the 38th Infantry’s 

position, facing east. 

The Americans serving with the 125th Division found the 

defensive preparations in their sector to be even more confused. 

Distributed by platoons, Companies L and M, 109th Infantry, 

and Companies B and C, 110th Infantry, held partially complete 

trenches along the railroad and near the northern edges of the Bois 

de Condé, a few hundred meters at most from the Marne. Despite 

receiving no orders to fall back in the event of a German attack, 

one soldier in the 28th Division observed that the French officers 

had burned their maps and records and packed up their personal 

belongings, a clear sign that they planned to withdraw. Without 

other orders, however, the four American companies stationed 

along the river intended to stand and fight. 

On the opposite side of the Marne, General von Kathen’s 

XXIII Reserve Corps—the westernmost formation in the Seventh 

Army—made its final preparations for the offensive. The units 

assigned to the attack, while understrength, were among the best 

in the German Army, and morale was generally high. The 10th 

Division, rated by Allied intelligence as a “first-class” unit, stood 

on the far left flank of the entire Marneschutz-Reims offensive; 

its 398th Infantry and 6th Grenadier regiments had orders to 

Entrance to a dugout near Suippes, Champagne 

(National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 24 ••••

cross the Marne and advance through the area held by Butts’ 

30th Infantry. Immediately to the east was the 36th Division, 

considered an “excellent fighting unit” in 1917 but recently assessed 

as “second class.” This division’s 5th Grenadier and 128th Infantry 

regiments were to attack along the front held by the French 125th 

Division and Colonel McAlexander’s 38th Infantry. The role of the 

XXIII Reserve Corps in the offensive was to advance about seven 

kilometers on a six-kilometer front, with the first day’s advance 

limited to just two kilometers. Once in position, its orders were to 

dig in and await the fall of Reims. Whether the corps would make 

any further attacks would be determined later. 

When the Allied artillery bombardment began at 2340 on 14 

July, the leading elements of the 10th and 36th Divisions were 

already in their assembly areas, about 500 meters north of the 

Marne. Before the shells began to burst, some Germans speculated 

that their artillery preparation had started ahead of schedule. 

The initial Allied bombardment caught one battalion of the 398th 

Infantry Regiment in the open, causing over half its strength to 

disperse before the crossing could begin. Other units were more 

fortunate—the 6th Grenadier Regiment managed to avoid the 

barrage entirely—but doubts nevertheless spread through the 

German lines. The Allies knew that an attack was coming, but 

just as in Champagne it was impossible to call off an offensive 

at the last moment. At ten minutes after midnight, the German 

gunners duly opened fire. Yet the confusion caused by the Allied 

bombardment forced the German engineers, who had made 

painstaking preparations for the river crossing, to improvise. They 

relocated ferries and bridging materials, and directed the assault 

troops to new assembly areas. At 0210 on 15 July, the first German 

infantrymen set foot on the south bank of the Marne.

The preemptive Allied bombardment disrupted the Germans 

from the start. The lead battalions of the 10th and 36th Divisions

were supposed to reach a line of departure south of the Marne 

by 0350. At that time, the German preparatory bombardment 

would shift to a rolling barrage that would accompany the main 

infantry attack. As it happened, few formations reached their 

jump-off points in time. Even so, the 6th Grenadier Regiment

continued to enjoy relatively good fortune, crossing the Marne 

by 0240 and seizing most of the town of Mézy. To the east, the 

175th Infantry Regiment likewise crossed the river on schedule, 

reaching its starting line between Varennes and Reuilly in good 

order well before 0350. Other units faced much greater opposition. 
•••• 25 ••••

One battalion of the 5th Grenadiers, having suffered heavy 

casualties in the Allied bombardment, failed to cross the river 

altogether. Its replacement, the regimental reserve, succeeded 

in bringing only scattered elements to the southern bank of the 

Marne by daybreak. The 3d Battalion, 5th Grenadiers, crossed 

on schedule but encountered an American trench shortly after 

disembarking, whereupon soldiers from the 38th Infantry engaged 

the attackers in hand-to-hand combat. On the far west of the 

German advance, the 398th Infantry Regiment crossed on ferries 

and bridges, arriving on the southern bank of the Marne well 

before 0350. Unable to establish contact with the neighboring 6th 

Grenadiers, and having lost contact with its own 1st Battalion, 

the regiment paused to regroup before continuing the advance. 

The German artillerymen, having heard nothing from the infantry 

south of the Marne, assumed that the advance was proceeding on 

schedule. However, as the rolling barrage began at 0350, only one 

out of four German regiments in the first wave, the 175th, was 

prepared to attack. 

The advance of the 175th met with initial success. By dawn, the 

American companies along the river bank in the 125th Division’s 

sector had endured nearly four hours of German artillery fire 

while in the dubious shelter of their unfinished entrenchments. 

One veteran of the 28th Division recorded that the intensity of 

the bombardment “in more than one instance upset completely 

the mental poise of our soldiers, so that they had to be restrained 

forcibly by their comrades from rushing out into the open in their 

temporary madness.” Throughout the barrage, the American and 

French defenders kept up a steady fire on the Germans, who 

crossed the river in twenty-man boats. When the main German 

infantry advance began, however, the French fell back at once, 

leaving the Americans to face the Germans in isolated, platoonsized groups. Outnumbered and attacked on all sides, the four 

28th Division companies fought desperately throughout the early 

morning. Around 0800, the remnants of these units attempted 

to fight their way to the safety of the 55th Brigade’s lines, about 

three-and-a-half kilometers to the south. Small groups made 

their way back during the afternoon and evening of 15 July, but 

the majority became prisoners or casualties. Company C, 110th 

Infantry, suffered severe casualties, with twenty-four men killed, 

forty-eight wounded, and sixty-five taken prisoner. The other 

companies took similarly heavy losses, and casualties from the 

entire detachment amounted to several hundred men. By 0900, 
•••• 26 ••••

elements of the 175th Infantry Regiment had advanced at least 

three kilometers, bypassing or destroying the Americans and 

reaching the southern edge of the Bois de Condé, within sight 

of the Allied second defensive line. (See Map 2.) 

The 5th Grenadier Regiment, crossing just east of the 

Surmelin ravine, achieved similarly impressive results early on. 

By 0400, elements of the 5th Grenadiers had infiltrated behind 

the 38th Infantry’s forward positions on the Marne riverbank, 

occupying the hillside east of Moulins. Some German forces made 

it even farther, reaching the woods northeast of Paroy—almost 

two kilometers south of the Marne—where they engaged in a 

firefight with parts of two companies of the 38th Infantry. Several 

American commanders staged local counterattacks as the threat 

to the 38th Infantry’s right flank became apparent. Occupying 

eastern-facing trenches on the outskirts of Moulins, Capt. Thomas 

C. Reid’s Company F, 2d Battalion, 38th Infantry, opened fire on 

the Germans streaming southward past Varennes. Two of Reid’s 

platoons, commanded by Lt. Ralph Eberlin and, after Eberlin 

was wounded, by Lt. Carl C. Cramer, launched a bayonet charge, 

disrupting German efforts to set up machine gun nests overlooking 

the 38th Infantry’s main position. A larger counterattack came at 

0900, as the 1st Battalion’s Companies B and D, under the overall 

command of Maj. Harry J. Keely, assaulted the 175th Infantry 

Regiment’s position on Moulin Ruiné Signal, northeast of Paroy. 

Hitting the advancing German forces in their right flank, the 

attacking companies inflicted heavy casualties and captured 

around 400 prisoners. Afterward, the companies set up a new 

defensive line on the Moulins ridge, temporarily securing the 38th 

Infantry’s right flank.

The situation on the 38th Infantry’s left was less critical, but 

also worrisome. After crossing the Marne, the 398th Infantry 

Regiment paused briefly, losing the rolling barrage, before pressing 

toward the railroad line, overrunning forward positions held by the 

30th Infantry. At 0500, the regiment launched simultaneous attacks 

toward the south and southeast. The southern thrust encountered 

heavy resistance; after destroying a machine gun nest manned by 

the 7th Infantry southwest of Le Ru Chailly Farm, and capturing 

about twenty-five prisoners, the attack foundered. The regiment 

had advanced only about 100 meters to the south by 0900, as 

Companies I and F, 3d Battalion, 7th Infantry, stubbornly defended 

the northern edge of Fossoy and the nearby woods. Refusing 

to withdraw, two platoons from these companies fought to the 
•••• 27 ••••

last man, inflicting heavy casualties before being destroyed. The 

398th’s push to the southeast fared somewhat better despite fierce 

opposition from the 30th Infantry, with several patrols penetrating 

the “aqueduct line” and infiltrating into the woods east of Fossoy 

and north of Crézancy. Exhausted and understrength, the 398th

ceased all offensive operations in its sector by 0900, shifting to 

the defensive to await reinforcements. 

After several crossing attempts early in the morning, the 

German 47th Infantry Regiment secured a foothold opposite 

Mont-Saint-Père around 0845, advancing to the east and west to 

make contact with neighboring units. In response to this new 

German advance, one hundred men from the 30th Infantry—still 

holding their posts near the river bank—fought their way back to 

Allied lines under the command of 1st Lt. James H. Gay, surprising 

several German detachments and capturing around 150 prisoners, 

including a German major, along the way. Gay later received the 

Distinguished Service Cross for his leadership during this action. 

Pressing on toward Mézy, the 47th Infantry Regiment became 

bogged down under fire from American positions in and around 

the southern outskirts of the town. The Germans made several 

attempts to break through during the afternoon before halting 

around 1630. With this single exception, the 10th Division had 

shifted over to the defensive by noon, having secured few of its 

first-day objectives.

Meanwhile, other German crossings in the vicinity of Mézy 

had been uniformly unsuccessful. Although the 6th Grenadiers

crossed the river on either side of Mézy, capturing most of the 

town before dawn, it was unable to hold on to this position 

against determined American opposition. Companies G and H, 2d 

Battalion, 38th Infantry, counterattacked the German landing site 

east of Mézy at 0415, driving the Germans in this area back across 

the river by 0500. The Germans held on somewhat longer west of 

the town, advancing up to and beyond the railroad line shortly 

after 0500. One German company of about forty men pushed even 

farther, infiltrating beyond the American defenders and reaching 

Crézancy, over two kilometers south of the Marne. The remainder 

of the regiment was pinned down near the railroad tracks only a 

short distance from the river bank, exposed to machine gun fire 

from the 3d Division’s 9th Machine Gun Battalion, sections of which 

occupied concealed positions along the railroad embankment. 

Capt. Jesse W. Wooldridge’s Company G, 38th Infantry, which 

remained in the vicinity of Mézy throughout the morning, staged 
398

III

47

III

6 Gren

III 5 Gren

III

X X

10

XXX

XXIII Res

38

III 30

III

4

III

7

III

X X

3

XXX

XXXVIII Fr

XXXX

SIXTH Fr

XX

III III

III

III

III

III

C

B

B

F A

G

H

E

F

I

D

D

15 JUL (A.M.)

15 JUL (A.M.)

17–18 JUL

17–18 JUL

15 JUL (A.M.)

16 JUL

15 JUL

16-17 JUL

WOODS LINE

AQUEDUCT LINE

RAILROAD LINE

18 JUL

Bois d’Aigremont

Marne R

Su

to Château-Thierry

M

Le Ru Chailly

 Farm

Varenn

Chartèves

Mont-St.-Père

Mézy

Gland

Blesmes

Crézancy

Moulins

Paroy

Fossoy

Map 2
128

III

175

III

X X

36

X X

23

XXX

VIII Res

X X

Fr 125

X X

Fr 51

XXX

III Fr

XXX

XXX

XXX

XX

Co C

Co B 110th

110th

Co L

109th

Co M

109th

Co A, 109th

Co B, 109th

Co C, 109th

Co K, 109th

Co D, 109th

Co H, 109th

15 JUL (A.M.)

RAILROAD LINE

15 JUL

16–18 JUL

Bois de Condé

M

O

U

L I N

S

R I D

G

E

Marne R

Marne R

Surmelin Cr

oulin Ruiné

Signal

Les Étangs Farm

Jaulgonne

Rosay

nes

Courcelles

Sauvigny

Soilly

Chassins

Tréloup

Condé–en–Brie

Reuilly

Monthurel

St.-Agnan

DEFENDING THE MARNE

3D DIVISION ZONE

55TH BRIGADE, 28TH DIVISION, ZONE

 15–18 July 1918

0 100 150 200 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS

Front Line, Date

German Axis of Advance

American Company Location

0

0 1 2 Kilometers

Miles 1 2
•••• 30 ••••

a series of counterattacks beginning at 1030 against this German 

lodgment. These assaults—directed against a force roughly five 

times the size of Wooldridge’s company—captured several hundred 

German prisoners, effectively destroyed the 6th Grenadiers as a 

fighting force, and earned Wooldridge the Distinguished Service 

Cross. Wooldridge’s unit suffered 50 percent casualties.

Because of German advances throughout the morning, the 

38th Infantry now found itself in an exposed position, with 

enemy forces active to the front and on both flanks. The situation 

was particularly critical shortly before 1100, when Maj. Fred L. 

Walker—believing that his platoons along the river bank had 

been destroyed—ordered the 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry, to 

retreat back to the Bois d’Aigremont, leaving the “aqueduct line” 

unmanned in the 30th Infantry’s sector. Walker’s withdrawal 

created a gap in the American defenses on the 38th Infantry’s left 

flank. During the late morning and early afternoon, however, a 

series of American counterattacks helped to stabilize the front 

line and eliminate the risk of a breakthrough. At 1100, American 

forces near Mézy and Fossoy assaulted the 398th Infantry 

Regiment, forcing it to give up its modest gains and withdraw 

Aerial view of the 3d Division’s sector on the Marne 

(National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 31 ••••

back to the railroad line. Around noon, two companies of the 4th 

Infantry attacked the small German detachment in Crézancy, 

which at that time was the farthest German penetration within 

the 3d Division’s sector. After holding out for an hour, the 

Germans withdrew a short distance to the north, leaving the 

southern part of Crézancy in American hands. The German force 

remained near that position until the evening, when it retreated 

in good order back to the Marne. Later in the afternoon, the 

1st Battalion, 7th Infantry, together with elements of the 30th 

Infantry, launched an additional counterattack to retake the 7th 

Infantry’s original outpost line along the Marne. Moving across 

ground already targeted by German artillery, the attackers came 

under an intense and accurate bombardment while exiting the 

Bois d’Aigremont, suffering heavy casualties. The counterattack 

faltered and dispersed. Patrols later discovered that the Germans 

had abandoned their positions in this area.

Fighting east of the Surmelin continued into the afternoon, 

with German efforts achieving mixed results. Despite having made 

excellent progress early on, the 36th Division paused to regroup in 

front of the Allied second-line positions around 0930, exchanging 

fire with elements of the 28th Division’s 55th Brigade, located 

near St. Agnan. The Germans later resumed the offensive during 

the afternoon, assaulting the 38th Infantry’s positions east of the 

Surmelin ravine. In response to this renewed threat to his right 

flank, Colonel McAlexander ordered the 1st and 2d Battalions, 38th 

Infantry, accompanied by the 30th Infantry detachment remaining 

in Mézy, to fall back toward the “aqueduct line,” thereby reducing 

the regiment’s overextended front line. The battalions took up 

new positions facing to the north and east. At 1245, General de 

Mondésir took additional steps to shore up the XXXVIII Corps’ 

position, ordering the French 73d Division to advance into the 

gap that had opened between the American and French units east 

of the Surmelin. The attack opened at 1930, and resulted in the 

capture of Les Étangs Farm, a little under two kilometers east 

of the Surmelin. The Germans made no further attacks in this 

area on 15 July. In the evening, General von Kathen ordered the 

elements of the XXIII Reserve Corps south of the Marne to make 

preparations to withdraw. 

To a large extent, the confused fighting on 15 July had been 

a company and platoon commander’s battle, with officers at the 

regimental level and above exercising little control after the 

shooting started. Soldiers on the spot carried out the local attacks 
•••• 32 ••••

that contained the German advance on their own initiative. More 

organized efforts undertaken on the basis of inaccurate or out-ofdate information, such as the 7th Infantry’s ill-fated counterattack 

during the afternoon, were much less successful. General Dickman, 

commanding the 3d Division, received almost no information from 

the front line, and therefore had few opportunities to shape the 

course of the battle. In his memoirs, Dickman affirmed that “after 

relaying the information of the coming attack and ordering the 

fire of counter preparation, the conduct of the fighting passed into 

the hands of the subordinate commanders, each one to employ 

the means at his disposal, including artillery and reserves, in 

accordance with his judgment and the developments of combat.” 

By contrast, the lack of communication between the front line 

and support units, particularly the artillery batteries, hindered 

the Germans. Having lost the rolling barrage shortly before 0400, 

the German infantry lacked effective fire support throughout the 

battle, and consequently they had only limited ability to advance 

against determined opposition. 

On the morning of 16 July, the Germans still held a small 

lodgment on the south bank of the Marne within the 3d Division’s 

sector. The German armies north of the Marne had achieved more 

impressive results. Against General Berthelot’s French Fifth Army, 

the Germans had driven forward over five kilometers, nearly 

destroying the Italian II Army Corps. The advance across the 

Marne within the 125th Division’s sector was also notable, and 

elements of six German divisions were now on the river’s southern 

bank, occupying a depth of up to six kilometers along a fourteenkilometer front. Despite these gains, the German Seventh Army

had failed to secure the offensive’s ambitious first-day objectives, 

and Reims remained securely in Allied hands. It was unclear 

whether further efforts could salvage the offensive.

Having pinned such high hopes on the operation’s success, the 

German high command ordered the Seventh Army to continue 

its drive on 16 July. These attacks made limited progress north of 

the Marne. Meanwhile, von Kathen’s XXIII Reserve Corps near 

Château-Thierry carried out its planned withdrawal. American 

patrols quickly discovered that the Germans in the 3d Division’s 

sector had left, and by 1000 General Dickman could report, with 

some exaggeration, that “on the front of the 3d Division there are 

no Germans south of the Marne, except the dead.” In the 125th 

Division’s sector, the Germans repulsed a joint Franco-American 

counterattack involving elements of the 28th Division’s 109th 
•••• 33 ••••

Infantry. A minor attack on the French 73d Division, launched 

in the morning of 17 July, represented the last German offensive 

effort south of the Marne. After this operation, which briefly 

routed two companies of the 28th Division, the French and 

Americans returned to the offensive, forcing the Germans back 

across the Marne by the end of the day. By that time, the German 

high command had already decided to terminate MarneschutzReims. Ludendorff immediately approved a new plan for Army 

Group German Crown Prince to continue limited attacks north 

of the Marne toward the city of Reims, transferring the Seventh 

Army’s reinforced artillery to the east to support this operation. 

Ludendorff’s attention, however, was already focused on the 

long-awaited campaign against the British in Flanders. On the 

afternoon of 17 July, he departed from the Marne salient, heading 

to the headquarters of Army Group Rupprecht of Bavaria to 

plan that next offensive. Yet as Ludendorff continued to fantasize 

about future victories, Crown Prince Wilhelm formed a more 

realistic assessment of the battle’s consequences, later writing 

in his memoirs that when the attack on Reims failed “I no longer 

entertained any doubt that matters at the front as well as affairs at 

home were drifting towards the final catastrophe—a catastrophe 

which was inevitable unless, at this eleventh hour, great decisions 

were formed and energetically carried out.”

Although the battle was decided on the ground, aerial 

operations also played an important role in the Allied victory. 

The Germans committed more than half of all their pursuit 

squadrons on the Western Front to the offensive. Among these 

was the famous “Flying Circus” of the Red Baron, Capt. Manfred 

von Richthofen—though as the Red Baron himself had been killed 

earlier in the year, from 8 July the unit was under the command 

of 1st Lt. Hermann Goering. Opposing this German force was 

a range of Allied squadrons, including two inexperienced and 

underequipped units belonging to the AEF’s Air Service, the 1st 

Pursuit Group and the I Corps Observation Group, both part of 

Col. William L. “Billy” Mitchell’s 1st Air Brigade. On 29 June the 1st 

Pursuit Group deployed to Touquin, about forty kilometers from 

Château-Thierry. A few days later, a group of eight Nieuports from 

the 27th Aero Squadron under Lt. Donald Hudson encountered nine 

German Fokker D-7s. Thirty-five minutes later, both squadrons 

returned to their respective bases with two fewer machines. Other 

skirmishes in the first weeks of July were similarly bloody. Among 

the pilots of the 1st Pursuit Squadron who lost their lives in the 
•••• 34 ••••

fighting over the Marne salient was 1st Lt. Quentin Roosevelt, the 

youngest son of former president Theodore Roosevelt. Quentin 

Roosevelt earned his first aerial victory in a dogfight on 10 July. 

He died four days later, on the eve of the German offensive, when 

he became separated from his squadron near Chamery and was 

overwhelmed by seven German fighters. 

While the 1st Pursuit Group contested German air superiority, 

the I Corps Observation Group conducted a series of reconnaissance flights over the German front lines and rear areas, taking 

relatively light casualties in the course of their missions. Their 

photographs helped to reveal German troop movements and 

supply dumps, adding to the evidence pointing to the impending 

German offensive. When the German attack began, both the I 

Corps Observation Group and the 1st Pursuit Group went into 

action, flying constant missions throughout 15 July. Colonel 

Mitchell personally identified several German pontoon bridges 

near Dormans in a solo reconnaissance flight during the morning. 

Although American fighters engaged in dogfights during the rest of 

Constructing a memorial to 1st Lt. Quentin Roosevelt 

(National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 35 ••••

the day, they suffered no casualties and earned no confirmed kills. 

American aircraft flew numerous missions during the following 

days, and the 1st Pursuit Group claimed to have destroyed a total 

of eight German aircraft between 15 and 18 July. 

Casualties during the fighting on the ground were much more 

severe. From 15 through 17 July, the 3d Division lost a total of 

3,151 men (606 dead), with the heaviest losses falling on the 7th 

Infantry (730 casualties) and the 38th Infantry (632 casualties). 

Although only one of the 28th Division’s two infantry brigades—the 

55th—was heavily engaged, it also suffered severely, with the 109th 

and 110th Infantry regiments losing a total of 670 men (including 

223 dead) between 15 and 18 July. German casualties are more 

difficult to estimate, although it is clear that the 10th and 36th

Divisions both lost heavily, with prisoners taken from these units 

alone amounting to well over 1,000 men. One German veteran 

estimated that 60 percent of the men who attacked against the 

Americans on the Marne had become casualties. 

The 3d Division’s success on the Marne earned it justified 

fame. Whereas other Allied divisions along the Marne yielded up 

to eight kilometers in some places to the advancing Germans, the 

Americans—and, in particular, McAlexander’s 38th Infantry—held 

their ground. In his final report on the AEF, Pershing wrote that 

during the fighting near Château-Thierry on 15 July:

a single regiment of the 3d Division wrote one of the most brilliant 

pages in our military annals. It prevented the [German] crossing 

at certain points on its front, while on either flank the Germans 

who had gained a footing pressed forward. Our men, firing in 

three directions, met the German attacks with counterattacks at 

critical points and succeeded in throwing two German divisions 

into complete confusion, capturing 600 prisoners. 

Pershing later clarified that the regiment in question was the 

38th Infantry. In a letter written shortly after the battle, the 3d 

Division’s then–chief of staff, Col. Robert H. C. Kelton, discussed 

McAlexander’s leadership on 15 July in glowing terms, describing the 

38th Infantry’s commanding officer as “like the rock of the Surmelin 

Valley as George H. Thomas was of Chickamauga.” The sobriquet, 

originally applied just to McAlexander, was altered slightly and 

eventually extended to encompass the 38th Infantry as a whole: 

“The Rock of the Marne.” The 3d Division likewise became known 

as the “Marne Division.” 
•••• 36 ••••

The Battle of Soissons

The defeat of the German offensives in Champagne and on the 

Marne presented the perfect opportunity for Foch’s long-awaited 

counteroffensive. The German forces in the Marne salient were 

disorganized, depleted, and exhausted after nearly four months of 

continuous fighting. On top of this, they were disheartened by the 

obvious failure of their most recent major offensive. Moreover, the 

German concentration in the eastern part of the salient left only 

a handful of the salient’s forty divisions—under the command of 

General Johannes von Eben’s Ninth Army—to guard against an 

Allied attack in the west. Although German planners recognized 

that this deployment left their right flank vulnerable, they assumed 

that any Allied reserves allocated to an offensive against the 

western side of the Marne salient would be drawn into the fight 

around Reims. In other words, they believed that their own 

offensive would remove any threat to their position in the Marne 

salient. On this point, they nearly were proven correct. At 1000 

on 15 July, shortly after the opening of Marneschutz-Reims, Pétain 

issued orders for General Émile Fayolle’s Reserve Army Group to 

cease preparations for the offensive near Soissons and to transfer 

reserves to the east for a counterattack against the Germans on 

the Marne. If carried out, these orders would have indefinitely 

postponed the offensive assigned to Mangin’s Tenth Army, giving 

the Germans in the salient an opportunity to redeploy their forces 

and to reinforce the defenses on their right flank. Foch moved 

quickly to countermand Pétain’s orders, instructing Fayolle’s army 

group to continue preparations for the attack and limiting the 

transfer of reserves away from the Tenth Army. Instead, reserves 

were released from Gouraud’s Fourth Army, which had checked 

the German assault in Champagne. Arrangements for the attack 

near Soissons therefore proceeded according to schedule, with 

the offensive opening as planned on 18 July. (See Map 3.)

Mangin’s Tenth Army consisted of twenty-two infantry and 

three cavalry divisions, most of which had been concentrated 

in and around the forest of Villers-Cotterêts since late June. 

Although not present with the main body of the army, the 

American 1st and 2d Divisions were slated to play a leading role 

in the coming offensive. Maj. Gen. Charles P. Summerall’s 1st 

Division was located near Froissy, a little over twenty kilometers 

from the battlefield at Cantigny, when it received orders on 11 

July to report to the French Tenth Army. The division made 
•••• 37 ••••

the 120-kilometer journey to Mortefontaine by truck over the 

following week, with the artillery arriving just in time for the 

offensive during the night of 17–18 July. The 2d Division had even 

less time to redeploy, receiving orders to move out on 14 July. 

Lacking transportation, the infantry could not embark until 16 

July, and consequently did not reach their destination until the 

evening of 17 July. Arriving at Taillefontaine with little time to 

spare—still about seven kilometers from the jump-off point—

many units had to march in double-time up to two kilometers 

before immediately going into action. 

On top of the chaos caused by its last-minute redeployment, 

the 2d Division had just undergone a change in overall command. 

While on leave in Paris on 14 July, Maj. Gen. James G. Harbord, 

who had led the 4th Brigade through the fighting in Belleau Wood, 

received orders to take command of the 2d Division after Pershing 

relieved Maj. Gen. Omar Bundy. Harbord left Paris the next day, 

assuming command of the division around 0900 on 15 July. He had 

almost no time to familiarize himself with his new duties before 

the beginning of the offensive, which he only learned about on 

the evening of 15 July. Harbord recorded his irritation at these 

last-minute developments, writing that:

A division of twenty-eight thousand men, the size of a European 

army corps, had been completely removed from the control of 

its responsible commander, and deflected by marching and by 

truck, through France to destination unknown to any of the 

authorities responsible either for its supply, its safety, or its 

efficiency in the coming attack. The French Corps Commander 

and his staff were unable to state the points at which the division 

would be debussed or where orders could reach which would 

move it promptly to its attack position. This within thirty hours 

of a decisive battle.

Opposite the Tenth Army were eight divisions, backed by 

an additional six in reserve, belonging to the German Ninth 

Army’s XXXIX Reserve Corps and XIII Corps. These units had 

made limited defensive preparations and suffered from low 

morale as well as supply shortages. The Germans based their 

strongest points of resistance around the ravines that cut across 

the countryside southwest of Soissons. Other strong points 

were the small French villages, whose stone-walled buildings 

provided useful shelter and cover for the German defenders. In 
XXX

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CHÂTEAU-THIERRY

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Map 3
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ORDER OF BAT TLE

 18 July 1918

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Planned Axis of Attack

Front Line, 18 Jul, Morning
•••• 40 ••••

general, the Germans in the Marne salient, not expecting to fight 

a defensive battle, had not constructed elaborate trench networks 

resembling those found in more established positions elsewhere 

on the Western Front.

Both the 1st and 2d Divisions came under the control of the 

French XX Corps, commanded by General Pierre E. Berdoulat. 

Known within the French Army as the “Iron Corps,” the XX 

Corps had fought in Champagne and at Verdun before deploying 

to Soissons. Foch himself had led the corps during the defense of 

Nancy in 1914. At Soissons, Berdoulat’s command consisted largely 

of Americans, who accounted for no less than 80 percent of the 

corps’ strength. The 1st and 2d Divisions were among the most 

experienced and battle-tested units in the AEF. The 2d Division, 

however, was not entirely fresh as a result of the casualties it 

sustained in the fierce fighting in Belleau Wood, which had ended 

only a few weeks prior. 

Also assigned to the XX Corps was one of the French Army’s 

most elite units—and one of its few remaining twelve-battalion 

divisions—the 1st Moroccan Division, commanded by General 

Albert Daugan. Consisting of a mix of French Foreign Legion, 

Senegalese, and North African units, the outfit impressed the 

Americans as particularly fearsome. One doughboy recalled that 

a “big, fierce-looking” French battalion commander, visiting with 

1st Division troops before the battle, commented that “he hoped 

it would be sunny on the morrow, as it was much better weather 

Battery of 5th Field Artillery, 1st Division, near Ploisy 

(National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 41 ••••

for killing Germans, and that he was looking forward to it.” The 

American added that the officer “looked as if he meant it, too.” 

The three divisions in XX Corps formed the spearhead of the 

Allied attack, aimed at securing high ground south of Soissons. 

Other American units were also slated to participate in subsidiary 

operations around the Marne salient. Farther to the south, elements 

of the 4th Division were assigned to divisions in the French Sixth 

Army’s VII and II Corps. The 39th, 58th, and 59th Infantry of the 4th 

Division were thus attached to the French 164th and 33d Divisions 

in two separate attacks directed eastward into the salient, both of 

which would begin on 18 July. From the southernmost tip of the 

salient, the 3d, 26th, 28th, and 42d Divisions were to push northeast, 

crossing the Marne and proceeding north through the center of 

the salient, with attacks beginning at the same time as—or shortly 

after—the initial operation near Soissons. Although the offensive 

against the Marne salient was technically a French operation under 

French overall command, it was really a coalition effort, with 

substantial AEF and BEF contributions. (See Map 4.)

Assigned to fight alongside the infantrymen of the French 

Tenth Army was a contingent of 324 tanks belonging to Col. 

Charles-Joseph Chedeville’s French 2d Tank Brigade. Consisting 

of either heavy tanks—the 13.6-ton Schneider CA-1 or the 23-ton 

Saint-Chamond, both mounting 75-mm. guns—or light 6.7-ton 

Renault FT tanks, mounting 7.9-mm. or 37-mm. guns, the battalions 

of the brigade supported different divisions in the attack. A total 

of fifty-seven tanks, mainly Saint-Chamonds, went into battle 

in support of the 2d Division, while twenty-seven Schneiders 

accompanied the 1st Division. Owing to technical problems—

common to tank operations throughout the First World War—only 

225 tanks of the 2d Tank Brigade made it to the battlefield on 18 

July, although others joined the fight on subsequent days. The 

Sixth Army had another 154 tanks. The total of 478 made Soissons 

the French Army’s largest tank battle of the war. One American 

soldier remarked that there were more tanks at Soissons “than we 

knew were in the world.”

The XX Corps issued attack orders on 17 July, with H–Hour set 

for 0435 the next day. Unfortunately, these orders did not reach the 

1st and 2d Divisions until late in the evening. Both divisions had 

difficulties moving into assault positions and to the starting line, 

compounded by violent thunderstorms during the night of 17–18 

July. The road conditions were so bad that machine gun companies 

and 37-mm. gun sections could not keep up and did not rejoin their 
•••• 42 ••••

regiments until 19 July. Many of the accompanying French tanks 

also arrived late to the fight. 

In the 1st Division’s sector, the Allies experienced a security 

breach—similar to that suffered by the Germans before their 

offensive in Champagne—when two French deserters crossed 

over to enemy lines around 0400 on 18 July, revealing that the 

Allied attack would begin in less than an hour. The Germans 

responded with a protective artillery barrage at 0430, which fell 

while the 1st Division’s first wave was assembled on the starting 

line. The Allied artillery plan called for a rolling barrage, beginning 

at H–Hour without any prior artillery preparation. The absence of 

a sustained preparatory bombardment had the intended effect of 

preserving the element of surprise, in spite of the above-mentioned 

security breach, and the rolling barrage—together with French 

tank support—enabled a rapid advance across two kilometers of 

open farmland with only light casualties. The fighting intensified 

around the town of Missy-aux-Bois and the nearby Missy ravine, 

a kilometer-wide gulch where the Germans had stationed large 

numbers of machine guns and field artillery pieces. Maj. Clarence 

R. Huebner’s 2d Battalion, 28th Infantry, took 50 percent casualties 

in two unsuccessful attacks on the ravine. The German position 

faced an additional attack by the 2d Battalion, 26th Infantry, which 

stormed the ravine at about 0715. Fighting through the elaborate 

German defensive works, the 28th Infantry, supported by elements 

of the French 153d Division, mopped up the German strongpoint 

by 0900, as the town of Missy-aux-Bois fell to the 16th Infantry 

at about the same time. One German battalion, which had taken 

refuge in a cave, was captured almost intact, complete with 604 

officers and enlisted men. 

As the regiments of the 2d Infantry Brigade to the north 

became bogged down in the fighting around the Missy ravine, 

the 1st Brigade’s 16th and 18th Infantry made one of the day’s 

most dramatic advances, reaching their objectives by 0830 and 

pushing forward about a kilometer farther than neighboring 

units. Elements of the 18th Infantry went even farther than that, 

assaulting Chaudun—located within the 1st Moroccan Division’s 

sector—and engaging in hand-to-hand combat with the German 

defenders. The 1st Brigade’s rapid advance left both its regiments 

in an exposed position, and they suffered heavy casualties as a 

result. The official history of the 1st Division records that the 2d 

Battalion, 16th Infantry, taking fire from three sides, lost all of its 

officers and “was almost annihilated.” 
X X

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18 JUL (A.M.)

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Corcy

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SOISSONS

AT TACK AT SOISSONS

MARNE SALIENT

 18–22 July 1918

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Map 4
•••• 44 ••••

At 1100, the XX Corps headquarters announced that the 1st 

Division’s intermediate objective, Cravançon Farm, had been 

taken. Although the division’s orders were to take the line running 

from Buzancy to Berzy-le-Sec, the disorganization and heavy 

casualties incurred in the morning’s fighting limited its ability 

to make a further advance. German resistance also started to 

stiffen in the afternoon, owing in part to the timely arrival of the 

28th Division, which had been in reserve. Unable to progress 

toward its new objective, the 1st Division shifted over to the 

defensive, staging no major attacks in the afternoon of 18 July. 

The division had made a six-kilometer advance in the space of 

only a few hours—shattering the 11th Bavarian Division, which 

was left with only 2,500 men out of a prebattle total of 6,500. In 

the words of the 16th Infantry’s regimental chaplain, “it was a 

most spectacular battle to watch, but terrible beyond description 

to experience.”

To the south, the doughboys in the 2d Division began their 

assault as they arrived at their jump-off points around 0435 on 

18 July. In this sector, the objectives were Beaurepaire Farm, 

the château southeast of Vauxcastille, and the eastern edge of 

the village of Vierzy. Advancing behind a rolling barrage, the 

infantry made rapid progress at first, although confusion set in 

immediately as troops became intermingled—in part because of 

their precipitate arrival at the starting line. Although the terrain 

in the 2d Division sector did not include the troublesome ravines 

that obstructed the 1st Division’s advance—with the exception 

of the Vauxcastille ravine near Vierzy—many 2d Division units 

rapidly strayed outside their boundaries or veered away from 

the designated axis of attack. Some 2d Division troops crossed 

into the 1st Moroccan Division’s sector, fighting alongside 

French troops in that area. One company of the 2d Battalion, 

5th Regiment (U.S. Marines), went even farther astray, traveling 

over five-and-a-half kilometers to the northeast—across the 

front of the 1st Moroccan Division—almost reaching the zone 

of operations of the 1st Division. Around 0930, a mixed force 

composed of elements of the 5th Marine Regiment and the 28th 

Infantry infiltrated to the east as far as the edge of the third 

objective, the town of Vierzy. After briefly entering the town, 

however, the detachment withdrew to avoid the effects of German 

gas shelling. 

Although the 2d Division’s third-line objectives remained 

unoccupied on 18 July, it nevertheless had successfully taken all 
•••• 45 ••••

of its second objectives by the early afternoon. In response to 

the division’s rapid progress during the morning, the XX Corps 

announced a new objective for 2d Division, beyond the ChâteauThierry–Soissons highway. The regimental commanders did not 

receive orders for this operation in time for the division to begin 

the assault at 1800, and the attack was therefore postponed. The 

2d Division’s assault kicked off shortly after 1900. The division 

reached a line east of Vierzy, which fell to elements of the 23d 

Infantry and 5th Regiment—attacking from three directions—

after 2000. By the evening of 18–19 July, the 2d Division’s front 

line was fairly straight except on its left flank, where the 1st 

Moroccan Division’s comparatively slow rate of advance had left 

a one-kilometer gap. The 2d Division repulsed several German 

counterattacks during the night.

The Allied advance of roughly seven kilometers on a twentykilometer front in a single day of fighting dislocated the entire 

German position in the Marne salient and wrecked Ludendorff’s 

hopes for a renewed offensive in Flanders. The German high 

command redeployed divisions earmarked for that offensive 

during the afternoon on 18 July, diverting troops and support 

services to the south, and effectively ending preparations for 

Hagen. One German officer wrote in his diary the next day: “I 

know that we are finished. My thoughts oppress me. How are we 

to recover ourselves?” German losses had indeed been severe. 

Across the entire front of the Marne salient, around 20,000 German 

soldiers had been taken prisoner, including 10,000 captured by 

the Tenth Army. Although the Allied forces had fallen somewhat 

short of their ambitious objectives for the first day, failing to break 

through the German lines, by the evening of 18 July it was clear 

that the German Army had suffered a major defeat. 

At 0400 on 19 July, the 1st Division resumed attacking with 

the same objective, the line Buzancy–Berzy-le-Sec. This attack 

began with a rolling barrage and tank support, but no preparatory 

artillery fire. Heavy German artillery and machine gun fire stopped 

elements of both the 1st Division and the 1st Moroccan Division 

short of the Chazelle and Ploisy ravines, stalling the advance. 

Resuming the assault once again at 1730, this time with heavy 

artillery preparation, 1st Division elements captured Ploisy, 

advancing to the east of the town and into the Chazelle ravine. 

In the 2d Division’s sector, Harbord ordered Lt. Col. Harry Lee’s 

6th Regiment (U.S. Marines) to continue the attack on 19 July. The 

division’s other three regiments were too exhausted and depleted 
•••• 46 ••••

to make further attacks. When the 6th Regiment’s assault began 

at 0900, accompanying French tanks drew a tremendous volume 

of German artillery fire, resulting in about a third of the armored 

force being disabled. By midday, the 2d Division had advanced to 

a line from Parcy-Tigny to La Râperie. Losses during the advance 

were extremely heavy, and at 1145 Colonel Lee estimated that 

his regiment had already suffered roughly 30 percent casualties. 

At 1800, the German 20th Division counterattacked on the 2d 

Division’s left flank, seeking to regain ground lost during the day. 

The 1st Moroccan Division and 6th Regiment repulsed the attack 

west of Villemontoire. The French 58th Division ultimately relieved 

the 2d Division during the evening of 19–20 July, completely taking 

over the 2d Division’s front by the next afternoon. After this, the 

2d Division withdrew to Pierrefonds and Taillefontaine, in Tenth 

Army reserve, having advanced some eight kilometers in only two 

days of fighting. 

The attack of the 6th Regiment on 19 July had been especially 

costly. The unit suffered the highest number of casualties of any 

unit in 2d Division engaged in the offensive, in large part because 

“Peace Talk”: American artillery piece near Dommiers 

(National Archives) •••••••••••••••
•••• 47 ••••

of accurate German artillery fire, which caught the 6th Regiment 

during their two-kilometer advance across open ground to the 

starting line. The division sustained 4,135 casualties between 18 

and 20 July, including over 700 dead. Harbord was convinced that 

their push had made an extremely important contribution to the 

Allied victory in spite of its heavy cost, writing in his memoirs 

that the 2d Division’s achievements at Soissons would have 

been worthwhile “even if every member of the Division from the 

Commanding General to the last joined replacement had died.” 

As the 2d Division withdrew from the line, the 1st Division 

remained in place with orders to continue the advance the 

next day. The XX Corps adjusted divisional boundaries at 0230 

on 20 July, setting La Folie Farm, east of Buzancy, as the 1st 

Division’s new objective. Beginning at 1400, after two hours 

of artillery preparation, attacks made some progress before 

stalling in front of Berzy-le-Sec. The XX Corps ordered a renewed 

attack on 21 July, but by this time 1st Division units were badly 

commingled and organization was largely improvised. When the 

28th Infantry’s senior surviving officer in the vicinity of Berzyle-Sec, 1st Lt. Soren C. Sorenson, was hit by a shell fragment, 

2d Lt. John R. D. Cleland assumed command of the first wave 

of the assault on the town. Despite being wounded both before 

and during the advance, Cleland led his men into Berzy-le-Sec 

through German artillery and machine gun fire, receiving the 

Distinguished Service Cross for this action. The 28th Infantry 

had control of the town by 1015. Throughout the day, the entire 

1st Division faced heavy artillery and machine gun fire, as well 

as at least one fully organized German counterattack, which it 

repulsed. By the evening of 21 July, the division had secured a 

firm position on the outskirts of Buzancy, astride the Soissons–

Château-Thierry highway. 

The XX Corps ordered the British Army’s 15th (Scottish) 

Division to relieve the 1st Division on the night of 22–23 July, 

and the 1st Division’s infantry regiments withdrew from the line 

with little German interference the next day. In only five days 

of combat, the 1st Division had forced an advance of eleven 

kilometers, sustaining a total of 6,870 casualties, including 

over 1,500 dead. Losses among commissioned officers were 

particularly heavy, amounting to as much as 60 percent killed or 

wounded. The 16th and 18th Infantry regiments lost all of their 

field-grade officers, except their respective colonels; for their 

part, the 28th Infantry lost two and the 26th Infantry all of its 
•••• 48 ••••

field-grade officers. The division would not be fit for service on 

an active front again until September. 

On 22 July, in response to the Allied advance, Ludendorff 

authorized the evacuation of German forces from the southern 

portion of the Marne salient. Further withdrawals took place by 

stages over the following weeks. Field Marshal Hindenburg later 

wrote that the retreat from the Marne was:

a grievous decision, not from the purely military standpoint but 

from that of professional pride. How the enemy would rejoice 

if the word “Marne” were to mean a revolution in the military 

situation for a second time! Paris, and indeed all France, would 

breathe again. What would be the effect of this news on the whole 

world? We realised how many eyes and hearts would follow us 

with envy, hatred—and hope.

The Germans in the salient would ultimately pull back to a 

defensive line on the Vesle River, over thirty-two kilometers north 

of Château-Thierry.

The performance of the 1st and 2d Divisions at Soissons 

offered further proof that American troops were willing and 

able to fight fiercely at close quarters with the enemy. It also 

again demonstrated that reckless frontal assaults and headlong 

advances were costly and often ineffective. At the same time, 

American troops benefited from fighting alongside the veteran 

1st Moroccan Division, which—like many other French Army 

units—had refined small unit tactics to such an extent that 

they could reliably reduce heavily defended strongpoints while 

suffering minimal casualties. The only drawback to the French 

tactical system was that it entailed a slower rate of advance, 

something that many American officers were unwilling to accept 

or even understand. Additionally, both American divisions had 

difficulty maintaining direction and observing unit boundaries 

while attacking, although this might have been attributable in part 

to their late receipt of orders and late arrival on the battlefield, 

which gave them no time to reconnoiter or even study maps 

of this unfamiliar front. The divisions also found maintaining 

forward and lateral communications in the attack to be a constant 

challenge, and command posts at all levels consistently failed to 

keep each other informed of their locations as they moved. In the 

1st Division, the 2d Brigade’s commander, Brig. Gen. Beaumont 

B. Buck, exacerbated this confusion by deciding to spend his time 
•••• 49 ••••

throughout much of the offensive “touring” the battlefield and 

visiting neighboring units rather than commanding his own men. 

General Summerall had assumed command of the 1st 

Division only three days before the attack, replacing Maj. Gen. 

Robert L. Bullard, who had been promoted to command the III 

Corps. An artilleryman who had commanded the 1st Division’s 

field artillery brigade at Cantigny, Summerall cemented his 

reputation as a “pusher” almost immediately. He may have 

threatened to relieve Buck, spurring the latter into action on 21 

July, and impugned the personal courage of the 26th Infantry’s 

commanding officer, Col. Hamilton A. Smith, by suggesting that 

his command post was located too far to the rear. Smith was 

killed shortly afterward while leading his men in an assault on 

a German machine gun position. Summerall later also relieved 

the 28th Infantry’s commander, Col. Conrad S. Babcock. Beyond 

his tendency to replace subordinates on a whim, Summerall’s 

fondness for overblown rhetoric added to his image as an 

aggressive, demanding commander. His reply, when asked in the 

evening of 18 July whether his division could attack the next day, 

was characteristic: “Sir, when the 1st Division has only two men 

left they will be echeloned in depth and attacking toward Berlin.” 

Summerall’s bombastic personality, however, belied a judicious 

appreciation for the power of artillery on the modern battlefield. 

Horses of the 7th Field Artillery near Missy-aux-Bois 

(National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 50 ••••

Since his arrival in France, he had insisted that American 

divisions needed more artillery than that contained in two 

regiments of 75-mm. guns and a single regiment of 155-mm. 

howitzers, but his recommendations had fallen on deaf ears. At 

Soissons, however, he discovered a method for maximizing the 

artillery firepower available to the division by concentrating fire 

on a narrow front, even if this might leave the division’s flanks 

unsupported. This technique proved to be effective.

The 4th Division’s Advance

In the south, other American divisions participated in the 

general Allied offensive as part of the French Sixth Army. The 

objectives there were more limited, intended mainly to support 

the Tenth Army’s decisive effort near Soissons. The French II 

Corps, the northernmost unit in General Degoutte’s Sixth Army, 

had orders to advance roughly five kilometers to the line running 

from a hill north of Breuil to the village of Neuilly-Saint-Front 

alongside the Tenth Army. At the same time, the French VII Corps 

and the American I Army Corps would make a modest advance 

in the southern part of the Sixth Army’s sector. Elements of Maj. 

Gen. George H. Cameron’s 4th Division, which had only arrived in 

France in May 1918, were assigned piecemeal to French units in 

the Sixth Army. Opposing the 4th Division were the German 40th

Division and 10th Bavarian Division, which Allied intelligence 

rated as third- and second-class units, respectively (Map 5). 

Commanded by Col. Frank C. Bolles, a veteran of the Philippine 

Insurrection and recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross 

in 1899, the 4th Division’s 39th Infantry attacked along with the 

French II Corps’ 33d Division between 18 and 20 July. Despite 

suffering from a breakdown in communications which led to the 

regiment taking friendly fire from French artillery on the morning 

on 19 July, the 39th Infantry managed to advance more than seven 

kilometers in two days of fighting, reaching a point two kilometers 

east of Chouy while suffering only 255 casualties. Meanwhile, the 

4th Division’s 58th and 59th Infantry of the 8th Infantry Brigade 

saw action farther to the south while attached to General Léon M. 

Gaucher’s French 164th Division, part of the VII Corps. While the 

59th Infantry remained in reserve, the 58th Infantry jumped off at 

0435 on 18 July with no artillery preparation. Early in the morning, 

the 1st and 2d Battalions, 58th Infantry, assisted French units in 

successful attacks on Chevillon and Courchamps. Maj. Gilbert R. 
39

III

8 4

X

X X

Fr 2

X X

Fr 47

X X

Fr 41

X X

Fr 33

X X

Fr 164

XXX

VII Fr

XXX

XI Fr

XXX

II Fr

XXXX

TENTH Fr

XXXX

SIXTH Fr

18 JUL (A.M.) 18 JUL (A.M.)

18 JUL

18 JUL

19 JUL

19 JUL

20 JUL

20 JUL

XXXX

II

II

II II

II

II

II

II

II

II

II

II

III

III

Bois de l’Orme

Hill 172

Ourcq R

Ourcq R

Courchamps

Monthiers

Bonnesvalyn

Sommelans

Latilly

Priez

Chézy-en-Orxois 

Dammard

Neuilly-St.-Front

Rozet-St.-Abin

Chouy

Faverolles

Corcy

Noroy-sur-Ourcq

St. Remy

Chevillon

St.-Gengoulph

Brumetz 

4TH DIVISION ADVANCE

MARNE SALIENT

 18–20 June 1918

0

0 1 3 Kilometers

Miles 1 2 3 

2

0 100 150 200 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS

Front Line, Date

American Sector

Map 5
•••• 52 ••••

Cook’s 2d Battalion then made an independent advance around 

1000, storming trenches located on Hill 172 and coming under heavy 

fire from well-defended German positions near the Bois de l’Orme. 

Unable to advance, and having taken almost 50 percent casualties, 

the battalion was forced to fall back from the wood, with the bulk of 

the unit taking up positions near Hill 172. The French released the 

59th Infantry from reserve in the early afternoon, although neither 

American regiment made further attacks on 18 July. 

Resuming the offensive at 0435 the next day, the 59th 

Infantry took heavy casualties in repeated attempts to cross the 

Courchamps–Priez road. Despite being supported by French tanks 

in attacks during the afternoon, the regiment made no progress 

against German artillery and machine gun fire. The 1st Battalion, 

58th Infantry, also attacked on 19 July, accompanying a battalion 

of the French 113d Infantry Regiment in an advance eastward 

from Courchamps. The battalion progressed less than a kilometer 

before being halted by heavy German fire. The attack continued at 

0435 on 20 July. The 3d Battalion, 59th Infantry, was the only 4th 

Division unit to attack on this day, as other American battalions 

acted in support of French units. On the early morning of 21 July, 

the 164th Division ordered the withdrawal of all 8th Brigade 

battalions. The 8th Brigade sustained some 1,660 casualties during 

its three days in the offensive, helping French units to gain about 

eight kilometers of ground against determined German resistance. 

Total casualties for the 4th Division in the offensive against the 

Marne salient amounted to 2,098 men.

The Advance from the South

The 26th Division was the third American division to arrive 

in France. By the end of the war, it had accumulated more days in 

active engagement with the enemy than any other AEF unit, with the 

exception of the 1st Division. In addition to its lengthy service in the 

line, the 26th Division was distinguished by the controversies that 

surrounded both the unit and its commander during and after the 

war. Last in his class at West Point, Maj. Gen. Clarence R. Edwards 

served as an administrator in the Philippines and headed the War 

Department’s Northeastern Department before taking command of 

the 26th Division in 1917. His easygoing personality and paternalistic 

command style left an indelible mark on the Yankee Division’s 

personnel, who idolized their commander, giving him the nickname 

“Daddy.” The 26th received less training than other early-arriving 
•••• 53 ••••

divisions and performed indifferently during its first tour of duty in 

a quiet sector of the line. Inspectors frequently criticized the unit, 

citing instances of loose discipline and disorganization. 

But the 26th was not necessarily a substandard division. To 

some extent, General Pershing’s bias against the National Guard, 

something that he shared with many other Regular Army officers, 

influenced assessments of the division’s performance. When the 

26th Division repelled a major German raid while holding the 

line at Seicheprey on 21–22 April, the response from AEF General 

Headquarters (GHQ) was overwhelmingly negative. Pershing 

considered the raid a defeat, noting that the division had suffered 

650 casualties, of which 180 were taken prisoner, and he held the 

Yankee Division and its commander responsible. 

The reality, however, was more complicated. The commander 

of the French XXXII Corps, General Fénelon F. G. Passaga, held 

that the division had done well against a “carefully planned and 

well executed” German attack. In the assessment of historian 

Mark E. Grotelueschen, the division’s record showed that it had 

“done fairly well in a long, hard, inglorious tour in an increasingly 

active sector.” However far from perfect, the 26th Division was not 

as dysfunctional as Pershing and GHQ believed.

In early July, after recovering from the raid at Seicheprey, 

the 26th Division moved toward Château-Thierry, occupying a 

ten-kilometer front in the Pas Fini (or “unfinished”) sector as 

part of Lt. Gen. Hunter Liggett’s newly established I Army Corps, 

part of the French Sixth Army. In the German offensive of 15–18 

July, the entire line of the 26th was subjected to heavy artillery 

bombardment, and its 101st Infantry repelled two minor German 

attacks around Vaux on 15 July. Little further enemy action 

occurred in the division’s sector, but the incomplete defensive 

works offered minimal shelter against German artillery fire and 

raids, and the 26th Division suffered more than 1,000 casualties 

between 10 and 17 July.

Following the defeat of the German offensive, Liggett directed 

the 26th Division to attack in support of the general Allied 

operation on 18 July, ordering the Yankee Division to advance two 

kilometers while maintaining close contact with the neighboring 

French 167th Division (Map 6). As was the case elsewhere along 

the Marne salient on 18 July, the assault was scheduled to begin at 

0435 without a preparatory bombardment. Confusion set in almost 

immediately, as entire companies and ammunition columns lost 

their way while advancing through Belleau Wood in the predawn 
X X

26

X X

Fr 167

X X

Fr 39

XXX

I

XXXX

SIXTH Fr 

18 JUL (A.M.)

19 JU L

18 JUL

20 JUL

20 JUL

21 JUL

22 JUL

23 JUL

XX

XXX

II

II

II

II

II

II

II

Bois de

Belleau

Bois des

Rochets

Hill 204

Hill 193

Marne R

Clignon R

to Paris

to Soissons

Torcy

Belleau

Givry Étrépilly

Bouresches

Lucy-le-Bocage

Le Thiolet

Domptin

Bonneil

Vaux

Bussiares

Courchamps

Monthiers

Épaux-Bézu Bézu

Grisolles

Bonnesvalyn

Sommelars

Latilly

Priez 

CHÂTEAU-THIERRY

DRIVE TO THE OURCQ

MARNE SALIENT

 18–26 July 1918

0 100 150 200 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS

Front Line, Date

American Sector

0

0 1

Miles 1 2 3

2 3 Kilometers

Map 6
56 28

X

X X

42

X X

3

X X

Fr 75

XXX

III Fr

XXX

XXXVIII Fr

XXXX

25–26 Jul

FIFTH Fr

XXXX

18–25 Jul

NINTH Fr

18 JUL (A.M.)

18 JUL (A.M.)

23 JUL

23 JUL

21 JUL

22 JUL

22 JUL

24 JUL

24 JUL

24 JUL

25

25 JUL

26 JUL

20–21 JUL

22–23 JUL

25–26 JUL

25– 2 6 JUL

24–25 JUL

XXX

XX

XXX

XXXX

XX

XX

XXXX

Forêt de

Fère

Bois de Trugny

Forêt de

Fère

La Ventelette

Marne R

Surmelin Cr

La Tieulerie Farm

Le Chanois La Théoderie

Croix Rouge Farm

Le Charmel

Château

Jaulgonne

Le Charmel

Fresnes Courmont

Rosay

Varennes

Sauvigny

Condé–en–Brie

Chartèves Mont-St.-Père

Mézy

Gland

Blesmes

Chierry

Crézancy

Moulins

Paroy

Reuilly

Fossoy

Monthurel

u-St.-Germain

Brécy

Beuvardes

Épieds

Trugny
•••• 56 ••••

hours. Only one of the division’s three assault battalions—the 

3d Battalion, 103d Infantry—reached its jump-off point in time 

to catch the rolling barrage, and yet that battalion, advancing 

alongside the French division to its left, took its assigned objectives, 

including the town of Torcy, within the hour. The remaining two 

battalions reached their jump-off points and attacked around three 

hours later. Having captured the town of Belleau by 0830, the 3d 

Battalion, 104th Infantry, resumed its advance in the afternoon, 

pushing through Givry and partway up the slope of Hill 193. The 

battalion then withdrew to positions on the northern edges of Givry 

and Belleau. Meanwhile, the 2d Battalion, 103d Infantry, made 

a limited advance during the morning, overrunning a German 

machine gun position located in the Bouresches railway station 

by 0930. Remaining in its new position throughout the day—taking 

enfilading fire from machine gun positions on Hill 193—the 

battalion repulsed a German counterattack before withdrawing 

back to Belleau Wood after dark.

The following two days saw relatively little progress. Despite 

orders to continue the attack, the 26th Division held its position on 

19 July and waited for the 167th Division to capture Hill 193. The 

French division made several attempts to take the hill, supported 

by small-arms fire from nearby 26th Division units, but it did not 

succeed. By 20 July, the Germans had begun to withdraw from 

their forward positions in the salient. Liggett ordered the I Corps 

to resume its advance with a major attack in the afternoon on 20 

July, instructing the 26th Division to push about five kilometers 

to the north and east. After a short preparatory bombardment, 

the assault began at 1500 under the cover of a rolling barrage. 

Although elements of the 26th Division succeeded in reaching 

their first objectives, about two kilometers from their starting 

line, the division’s performance was generally poor. The failure 

of the neighboring French 39th and 167th Divisions to advance 

exposed the Yankee Division’s flanks as it moved forward. 

The German forces on Hill 193 remained a particularly serious 

obstacle, as the machine gun positions located there enfiladed the 

advancing 51st Brigade. The 52d Brigade, on the right, likewise 

took fire from German positions on Hill 204, which the French 

39th Division assaulted unsuccessfully on 20 July. Machine gun 

fire from German strongpoints in Les Petits Bois and the Bois 

de Rochets, in the center and on the right of the 26th Division’s 

sector respectively, further reduced the Yankee Division’s rate of 

advance. In the evening, the 167th Division reported that it was no 
•••• 57 ••••

longer in contact with German forces, a sign that the Germans had 

evacuated their defensive positions in the I Corps’ sector. Liggett 

accordingly ordered the 26th Division to continue attacking on 21 

July, hoping to turn the orderly German retreat into a rout.

As the 26th Division struggled to move forward between 18 

and 20 July, the French XXXVIII Corps, east of Château-Thierry, 

mopped up the remaining German troops south of the Marne. The 

3d Division undertook limited operations on 18–19 July, patrolling 

actively without attempting a major advance. On the morning 

of 20 July, French troops attacking east of the Surmelin ravine 

discovered that the Germans in that area had withdrawn. The 38th 

Infantry then advanced in conjunction with the French 73d Division, 

reoccupying the town of Varennes, which the Germans had captured 

on 15 July. On 21 July, the 3d Division established a foothold on the 

northern bank of the Marne, crossing on pontoon bridges and boats 

near Chierry and Fossoy. German machine gun and artillery fire 

prevented an additional crossing by the 6th Engineers near Mézy. 

By the end of the day, elements of the 4th and 7th Infantry regiments 

occupied positions north of the Marne. Meanwhile, the French 39th 

Division captured Château-Thierry itself around 0800 on 21 July, as 

part of a general ten-kilometer advance.

Operations in the 3d Division’s sector continued the next day as 

the Germans withdrew farther into the salient. The 38th Infantry 

Camouflaged pontoon bridge over the Marne (National Archives) •••••••••••••••
•••• 58 ••••

began crossing near Mézy at 0400 on 22 July, occupying Jaulgonne 

before noon and driving north toward Le Charmel. Although the 

1st Battalion, 38th Infantry, reached Le Charmel at about 1315, 

it was unable to hold the position without support and fell back 

toward Jaulgonne later in the afternoon. The 4th and 7th Infantry 

regiments also advanced against light opposition, and by the end 

of the day the 3d Division had secured a line running roughly from 

Le Chanois and La Théoderie in the west to Jaulgonne in the east. 

The 26th Division’s advances on 21–22 July were equally 

dramatic. Attacking at 0400 on 21 July, the Yankee Division drove 

forward six kilometers against minimal opposition, reaching the 

Soissons–Château-Thierry highway by noon and taking about 

175 prisoners. After a brief rest, the advance resumed in the 

afternoon. Progress slowed as the infantry approached fortified 

German positions near the towns of Épieds and Trugny. Ordered to 

continue advancing against what the I Corps headquarters believed 

to be lightly defended rearguard positions, General Edwards 

launched a series of unsuccessful attacks without artillery support 

on Trugny and Épieds in the evening of 21 July. Elements of the 26th 

Division briefly entered both towns before stiff German resistance 

forced them to withdraw. Fighting continued on 22 July as the 26th 

Division made repeated attempts to push through the German 

defensive line. The 102d Infantry gained a foothold in Épieds by 

0630, but German machine gun fire, as well as a counterattack by 

the German 201st Division, caused the regiment to fall back and 

prevented further advances during the morning. In the afternoon, 

the 102d staged an additional, unsuccessful attack on Épieds after 

a preparatory bombardment. 

German resistance throughout the fighting on 21–22 July, with 

the exception of the defense of Épieds, Trugny, and Le Charmel, 

was generally on a small scale. The German rearguard elements 

consisted of scattered squad-sized groups of riflemen and machine 

gunners. These men had orders to hold out as long as possible in 

order to ensure that the bulk of the German forces could withdraw to 

new defensive positions. One historian of the 3d Division described 

(with slight exaggeration) how hidden German machine gunners 

ambushed the advancing American forces, “[opening] fire from 

bushes, from concealed slit trenches, and from positions in trees. 

It was Indian warfare with modern weapons.” Lt. Col. Emerson G. 

Taylor, who served as the 26th Division’s last chief of staff during 

the war, praised the tenacity of these “little groups,” which helped 

to hold up the Allied advance, writing that “all of them defended 
•••• 59 ••••

their positions to the last.” Even small teams fighting in this way 

could cause heavy casualties. The rearguard’s efforts bought time 

for the Germans to reinforce and occupy a series of defensive lines 

that ran across the interior of the Marne salient. Each line was 

intended to impede the Allied advance to the Vesle River, where 

the German high command hoped the front would stabilize. The 

main point of resistance, short of the Vesle, was the line along the 

Ourcq River in the vicinity of Fère-en-Tardenois. Although the Ourcq 

itself was a small waterway, fordable in many places—one soldier 

in the 42d Division wrote that it was “a stream hardly worthy of the 

name creek, but dignified by the French as a river”—the wooded 

terrain in the Tardenois region, as well as the high ground north 

of the river, made the Ourcq an ideal position from which to fight 

a holding action. 

As the I Corps slogged through one German defensive line 

after another, the 1st Air Brigade carried out numerous supporting 

missions. The I Corps Observation Group shifted to the north 

immediately following the defeat of the German offensive on 

the Marne, and a series of reconnaissance flights supported the 

Directing the fire of a 37-mm. gun near Roncheres 

(National Archives) •••••••••••••••
•••• 60 ••••

advance of the 1st and 2d Divisions near Soissons. The observation 

group then returned to the I Corps’ sector as the Americans began 

to advance to the Ourcq. Aerial observation during the push saw 

mixed results. Pilots had great difficulty communicating with 

ground troops who had little or no experience cooperating with 

air support. Because infantry contact patrols frequently failed to 

indicate their positions with flares or panel displays, observers 

had to fly at extremely low altitudes in an attempt to distinguish 

between American and German uniforms with the naked eye. 

Enemy opposition remained stubborn, and the Air Service took 

increasingly heavy casualties as the offensive dragged on. The 1st 

Air Brigade lost a total of fifteen pilots during the fighting from 18 

July to 6 August, while achieving sixteen confirmed kills.

Meanwhile, the Germans prepared to hold their ground for one 

final day before falling back to their next defensive line, near the 

Ourcq. The 3d Division’s 4th and 7th Infantry regiments launched 

renewed assaults on 23 July, pushing northeast as far as La Tieulerie 

Farm. The 26th Division also attacked that morning, and elements 

of the 101st Infantry reached the Épieds–Le Chanois road before 

withdrawing in the face of heavy German resistance. The rest of the 

day was relatively quiet within the 26th Division’s sector. During the 

night of 23–24 July, the 28th Division’s 56th Brigade entered the line, 

relieving the exhausted 52d Brigade—which, Liggett maintained, 

had “[lost] direction and failed to hold together as an organization” 

after the events of 21–22 July. At 0405 on 24 July, the 56th Brigade—

now attached to the 26th Division—attacked the German positions 

near Épieds and the Bois de Trugny. The attacking 111th and 112th 

Infantry regiments found that the Germans had withdrawn during 

the night, and both regiments immediately advanced, encountering 

almost no opposition before reaching the Forêt de Fère—nearly 

nine kilometers away—in the afternoon.

Liggett issued orders in the evening instructing the 26th 

Division to make a “supreme effort” to reach the Sergy plateau 

before daybreak. This entailed a further ten-kilometer advance. 

Passing these orders on to the 26th Division, General Edwards 

noted that this drive, if successful, would permit the French 

I Cavalry Corps “to pass through and effectively break up a 

retreating and hard-pressed enemy. A complete victory is at 

hand.” German defenses in the Forêt de Fère, including a heavily 

fortified position built around Croix Rouge Farm—a complex of 

stone buildings within a large clearing—forestalled this new push. 

Rather than attacking such formidable defenses, the 26th Division 
•••• 61 ••••

and its attached troops dug in to await relief by the 42d Division’s 

84th Brigade, which was then advancing by truck from La Fertésous-Jouarre, roughly thirty-five kilometers to the southwest. The 

84th Brigade entered the line on 25 July, taking control of the 26th 

Division’s sector by 1900, while the 83d Brigade simultaneously 

took over the sector previously held by the French 167th Division’s 

170th Infantry Regiment. The 42d Division now held the entire 

I Corps front. The Yankee Division accordingly passed into the 

Sixth Army’s reserve, ending its participation in the Second Battle 

of the Marne. 

In the ten days that had elapsed since the beginning of the 

German Marne offensive, the 26th Division suffered 4,644 casualties. 

Casualties from 18 to 23 July, including losses incurred by attached 

units, amounted to 3,613. These losses came in the course of an 

eighteen-kilometer advance, which netted about 250 prisoners as 

well as several field artillery pieces. Although frequently critical of 

Edwards’s leadership, Liggett held the 26th Division’s personnel in 

high regard, stating that the “quality of the men was splendid, and 

equal to any in the Army.” Although the division’s inexperience and 

curtailed training limited its effectiveness in the Marne campaign, 

Liggett held that the Yankee Division “nevertheless . . . as a whole 

performed very well in its first essay in open warfare, and it did so 

under peculiarly difficult conditions.”

The German withdrawal on the night of 23–24 July also opened 

up a path for the 3d Division to advance. The next day, leading 

elements of the 4th, 7th, and 30th Infantry regiments (the latter 

having relieved the 38th Infantry) approached the outskirts of 

Le Charmel, but failed to capture the village itself. The division 

attacked again on 25 July, and elements of the 4th Infantry finally 

succeeded in occupying the village that afternoon. The position 

there remained dangerous, as fire from a German machine gun 

nest located in Le Charmel Château, a little over a half-kilometer 

from Le Charmel proper, prevented American troops from moving 

openly in the village streets. By the evening, the capture of 

Le Charmel, as well as the entry of the 42d Division into the line, 

had prepared the ground for further advances by the I Corps and 

French XXXVIII Corps on 26 July. 

Croix Rouge Farm

The 42d Division received orders for the first attack it would 

make in support of Foch’s Marne counteroffensive at 1540 on 
28 55

X

28–31 Jul

X X

42

X X

26–27 Jul

Fr 167

X X

26–28 Jul

Fr 39

X X

30 Jul–1 Aug

32

X X

26–30 Jul

3

XXX

XXXVIII Fr

XXX

III Fr

XXX

I

XXX

II Fr

XXXX

SIXTH Fr

XXXX

FIFTH Fr

26 JUL

26 JUL

27 JUL

27 JUL

28 JUL

29 JUL

29 JUL

30 JUL

30 JUL

31 JUL

31 JUL

28 JUL

29–31 JUL

28–29

29–30 29–31

31–1

30–1 AUG

2 9

2 9

1 AUG

1 AUG

1 AUG

XX

XXX

XXX

XXX

XX

XX

XXXX

XXXX

Bois de

Grimpettes

Bois de

Cieges

Forêt de

Fère

Forêt de

Fère

Forêt de

Nesles

La Ventelette

Bois

Meunière

Hill 212

Ourcq R

Ourcq R

La Tieulerie Farm

Croix Rouge Farm

Le Charmel Château

Villardelle Farm

Meurcy Farm

Le Charmel

Fresnes

Courmont Ronchères

Vandièressous-Chatillon

Verneuil

Champvoisy

Passy

Anthenay

Lagery

Vézilly

Coulonges

Chamery

Cierges

Sergy

Nesles

Seringes-et-Nesles

Fère-en-Tardenois

Villerssur-Fère

Villemoyenne

Villome

Cohan

Beuvardes

CROSSING THE OURCQ

MARNE SALIENT

26 July–1 August 1918

0

0 1

Miles 3 1 2

2 3 Kilometers

0 100 150 200 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS

Front Line, DateAmerican Sector

Map 7
•••• 63 ••••

26 July (Map 7). The 167th and 168th Infantry regiments learned 

that they were to attack the Croix Rouge Farm position in a little 

over an hour, with orders to advance almost two kilometers beyond 

the farm to the edges of La Ventelette wood. The Germans had 

gone to great lengths to reinforce the defenses at Croix Rouge 

Farm, setting up several camouflaged machine gun positions with 

overlapping fields of fire. The defending troops, which consisted 

of elements of the German 23d Infantry Division and the 10th 

Landwehr Division, had taken the precaution of clearing the 

underbrush from the surrounding woods and painting waist-high 

white or red lines on the trees as visual aids for the machine 

gunners. The defenders also had access to a sizeable ammunition 

cache, located about a mile from the complex, which the Germans 

had stockpiled earlier in the month in preparation for the 15 July 

offensive. Altogether, Croix Rouge Farm was among the more 

formidable positions established inside the Marne salient. To one 

Rainbow Division soldier, it seemed as if:

enemy machine gunners were almost everywhere—in trees, 

behind fallen ones, and in hurriedly made “nests” on the farm 

to the front . . . and all the Hun gunners had to do was sit there, 

pull the triggers, and keep on loading. It was a devilish deathtrap, 

a wicked device of a hellish brain!

Responsibility for assaulting this position fell to the 1st and 

3d Battalions, 167th Infantry, and the 2d Battalion, 168th Infantry, 

together with elements of the 151st Machine Gun Battalion. An 

understrength French infantry battalion, with only about thirty 

men per company, also supported the left flank of the attack. The 

men from the 167th and 168th were tired and hungry, as many 

had not eaten or slept in over a day and a half. Furthermore, 

ammunition was slow in reaching the infantrymen on the front 

lines, and the attacking battalions lacked both detailed maps 

and accurate information about the enemy. They also had been 

subjected to inaccurate but nonetheless deadly harassing artillery 

fire throughout the better part of the day, while the Allied artillery 

preparation—which had been scheduled to begin two hours 

before the attack—failed to materialize. The attack therefore went 

forward shortly before 1700 in less-than-ideal circumstances.

Springing up from cover and dashing toward the German 

positions, across several hundred meters of farmland, the assaulting 

battalions immediately came under heavy machine gun fire. 
•••• 64 ••••

The 167th Infantry’s 1st Battalion sustained the attack for less than 

fifteen minutes. Pinned down in the open ground surrounding the 

farmhouse, it remained in place under German fire for an hour 

before resuming the advance. At about 1800, ad hoc units composed 

of elements of several platoons commanded by 1st Lt. Ernest E. Bell 

and 1st Lt. Robert Espy, both from the 167th’s 1st Battalion, staged 

simultaneous bayonet charges with a total of about 110 men. The 

groups swept into the north and west sides of the farm complex, 

capturing twenty-seven machine guns but suffering more than 

60 percent casualties. The force then mopped up the Germans in 

the farm buildings, repulsing a hasty counterattack. Groups of men 

from the 168th Infantry also managed to reach the farmhouse from 

the south, helping to clear out the remaining defenders. German 

counterattacks ceased around 2000. By nightfall, Croix Rouge 

Farm was securely in American hands—at the cost of over 1,000 

casualties. The Germans destroyed their remaining ammunition 

before withdrawing behind the Ourcq to the northeast. In his 

memoirs, Douglas MacArthur praised the tenacity of the men of 

his division who had “[crawled] forward in twos and threes against 

each stubborn nest of enemy guns . . . [closing] in with the bayonet 

and the hand grenade,” adding that “there was no quarter asked 

or given.” He remarked elsewhere that the attack on Croix Rouge 

Farm was carried out “in a manner which for its gallantry I do not 

believe has been surpassed in military history.”

Croix Rouge Farm (National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 65 ••••

After staging an unsuccessful attack on 26 July—launched 

at the same time as the assault on Croix Rouge Farm—the 3d 

Division resumed its advance the next day. The Germans in the 

3d Division’s sector had withdrawn during the night, leaving 

rearguards to hold their former defensive line. Led by the 4th 

Infantry, the 3d Division pushed forward almost two kilometers 

to Villardelle Farm. The 42d Division also moved forward in the 

afternoon, encountering little enemy resistance south of the Ourcq 

River and occupying the town of Villers-sur-Fère. Machine gun fire 

from strong defensive positions to the north of the river, however, 

prevented the Rainbow Division from crossing. During the night 

of 27–28 July, the 28th Division’s 55th Brigade, previously held in 

the XXXVIII Corps’ reserve, relieved the French 39th Division, 

taking over a two-and-a-half-kilometer front between the 42d and 

the 3d Divisions. 

Elements of three American divisions, operating as part of two 

corps in the French Sixth Army, now occupied a continuous line 

along the Ourcq River from the outskirts of Villemoyenne in the 

west to the vicinity of Ronchères in the east. American units held 

the entire frontage of both the I Corps and the French XXXVIII 

Corps. The fighting along the Ourcq was, as one doughboy later 

expressed it, “a straight issue between Americans and Germans.” 

In subsequent days, American divisions played a decisive role in 

forcing a crossing over the Ourcq, and thus in destroying the last 

tenable German position in the Marne salient south of the Vesle.

Crossing the Ourcq

The Allied assault on the Ourcq began in earnest in the early 

morning of 28 July. Elements of the 42d Division soon gained a 

foothold across the river, with the 166th, 165th, 167th, and 168th 

Infantry regiments—in order from left to right—attacking in 

line. The 168th Infantry launched a costly assault with limited 

artillery support on Hill 212, a “dome-like eminence” located 

on the north bank of the Ourcq a little over a half-kilometer to 

the southeast of Sergy. Although heavily defended, the German 

position on the west face of the hill had largely collapsed by 

0800. The 167th Infantry also gained a foothold a little to the 

west of the 168th. The 167th and 168th contested control of Sergy 

throughout the day—at least two platoons belonging to the 1st 

Battalion, 167th Infantry, entered the village—but could not 

secure it before nightfall. 
•••• 66 ••••

On the 42d Division’s left, the 165th and 166th Infantry regiments 

stormed across the river, halting in front of German defenses located 

around Seringes-et-Nesles and Meurcy Farm. The entrenched 

German position at Seringes-et-Nesles, which MacArthur described 

as “like a small Gibraltar,” put up especially stubborn resistance. 

Heavy artillery fire from the Forêt de Nesles limited progress in this 

sector, and by the end of the day both regiments of the 83d Brigade 

had withdrawn back across the Ourcq. 

For the 28th Division, to the 42d Division’s right, German 

resistance was equally resolute. Attacking in the morning, two 

battalions of the 55th Brigade’s 110th Infantry reached the Ourcq 

by noon, although machine gun fire from the Bois des Grimpettes 

prevented a further advance. To the right of the 55th Brigade, the 

3d Division (supported by the neighboring French 4th Division) 

captured Ronchères around 1500. At 1630, the 3d Division’s 5th 

Brigade, together with the 55th Brigade, launched a renewed 

attack. Although the 3d Division troops pushed only a few hundred 

meters beyond Ronchères, elements of the 55th Brigade succeeded 

in crossing the Ourcq and advancing some distance toward the 

Bois de Grimpettes before heavy fire compelled them to pull back 

to the river. 

Picking off German snipers (National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 67 ••••

Attacks against the German positions on the Ourcq continued 

on 29 July. The 4th Division, which had entered into the I Corps’ 

reserve after participating in the initial offensive between 18 and 20 

July, took part in attacks along the Ourcq during this day. General 

Liggett attached elements of the 47th Infantry and the 11th Machine 

Gun Battalion to the 42d Division on 28 July, and the 47th Infantry 

accordingly supported the 168th Infantry’s attacks near Sergy, 

which began shortly before 0900. The 47th Infantry’s Companies L 

and I (both part of 3d Battalion) entered Sergy from the west and 

east, under the overall command of Lt. Col. Gulielmus V. Heidt. 

Company L fought its way through the majority of the village, 

taking severe casualties, while Company I also pushed in from 

the east. Both companies withdrew around 1700 when Sergy came 

under heavy fire from German artillery. The savage fighting in the 

village took a heavy toll on the command structure of the 47th 

Infantry, as the 3d Battalion lost a series of commanding officers 

in quick succession. Heidt was hit before the 3d Battalion entered 

the woods near the Ourcq, and his successor, Maj. James P. Cole, 

was wounded just after the battalion entered Sergy. Capt. Louis 

T. Roberts then briefly assumed command before being wounded 

by shellfire. His replacement, Capt. Ross Snyder of Company M, 

was killed later in the day. 

Meanwhile, the two regiments of the 42d Division’s 83d 

Brigade overcame three more German strongpoints in fighting 

that continued through the late afternoon. The 165th Infantry 

assaulted and captured Meurcy Farm and the nearby Bois Colas. 

The town of Seringes-et-Nesles also fell to the 2d Battalion, 166th 

Infantry, around 1800 after “desperate resistance” by the German 

defenders. The Germans refused to surrender, and the Americans 

were disinclined to take prisoners. MacArthur described the scene 

in his memoirs:

I formed our infantry on the south bank of the stream and rushed 

the town. Their artillery concentrated, their machine guns east 

and west of the town raked us fore and aft, but nothing could stop 

the impetus of that mad charge. We forded the river. We ascended 

the slopes. We seized Hill 184. We killed the garrison in the town 

to a man. At dusk on July 29th we were in sole possession.

With this, General Menoher announced—somewhat 

prematurely—that “the backbone of the enemy’s resistance on 

the heights north of the OURCQ [had been] broken.”
•••• 68 ••••

In the 28th Division’s sector, attacks resumed on 29 July at about 

0445 after a brief preparatory artillery bombardment. The division’s 

orders envisioned an initial advance of at least six kilometers to 

a position north of Villome and Coulonges. General de Mondésir, 

however, had more ambitious plans for the day. Imagining that the 

Germans were in full retreat, he instructed the leading elements of 

XXXVIII Corps to establish outposts as far north as Mont-NotreDame and Mont-Saint-Martin—almost fifteen kilometers from 

the Ourcq. German resistance, however, was much stronger than 

anticipated, and the 110th Infantry had barely advanced as far as the 

Bois des Grimpettes by 0915 before retiring in the face of heavy fire. 

A second assault, beginning at 1700, made minimal progress at the 

cost of heavy casualties. The 3d Division’s 4th Infantry regiment also 

made an attack around 0650 but was repulsed, and the 32d Division 

moved forward to relieve the 3d Division during the night of 29–30 

July. A German report summarizing the events of the day simply 

stated that the attacks to the east of Sergy on 29 July “collapsed 

before our front lines.” 

The 32d Division, commanded by Maj. Gen. William G. Haan, 

formally took command of the 3d Division’s sector in the morning 

of 30 July. A late arrival to France, the 32d Division originally had 

been assigned to the I Corps to receive further training and serve 

Soldiers of the 167th Infantry in combat near Seringes-et-Nesles 

(National Archives) 

•••••••••••••••
•••• 69 ••••

as a pool of replacements for frontline units. Redesignated as a 

combat division on 10 April, the 32d held quiet sectors on the front 

lines for some time during May and June before moving to support 

the French Sixth Army’s offensive against the Marne salient in late 

July. At 1000, the 2d Battalion, 127th Infantry, launched an assault 

on the Bois de Cierges and the Bois des Grimpettes in support 

of the 28th Division, which had attacked with artillery support 

earlier in the morning. Although the 28th Division’s 110th Infantry 

had managed to enter the Bois des Grimpettes before 0600, parts 

of the wood remained in German hands and the 127th Infantry’s 

supporting attack made little progress. At 1430, the 28th and 32d 

Divisions made simultaneous assaults following a twenty-minute 

artillery bombardment. Advancing behind a rolling barrage, the 

infantry pushed through the Bois des Grimpettes toward the 

village of Cierges. The 110th Infantry finally secured the wood, 

mopping up the Germans remaining in the area. Elements of the 

127th Infantry also occupied the southwestern portion of the Bois 

de Cierges. The 55th Brigade withdrew from the line during the 

night of 30–31 July, relinquishing its sector to the 32d Division’s 

63d Infantry Brigade. In three days of fighting near the Ourcq 

River, the 55th Brigade had suffered more than 1,400 casualties. 

With the 28th Division’s withdrawal, the 32d Division occupied 

the entire XXXVIII Corps’ front. 

The 42d Division made little progress on 30 July. A ninetyminute artillery bombardment preceded an unsuccessful attack 

at 0900 by two battalions of the 47th Infantry, with support from 

the 168th and 167th Infantry. To the west, the 165th Infantry made 

a small advance before repelling a German counterattack directed 

toward Meurcy Farm. 

Further assaults undertaken during the afternoon of the next 

day achieved equally little. The 1st Gas Regiment (formerly the 

30th Engineers) brought about the largest advance in the 42d 

Division’s sector on 31 July, forcing the Germans to retreat from 

their position just to the north of Meurcy Farm, in the Bois Brulé. 

The 32d Division fared somewhat better, assaulting Cierges after 

a thirty-minute artillery bombardment. The town fell to the 1st 

Battalion, 127th Infantry, around 1630. Further attacks beyond 

that point, however, were unsuccessful. By the end of the day, 

the 32d Division held a line running from Hill 212 in the west to a 

point about a kilometer east of Cierges. 

Both the 42d and 32d Divisions launched further attacks on 

1 August, but the German defenses continued to hold. The two 
•••• 70 ••••

American outfits succeeded in pushing the Allied line forward 

about a kilometer at most. German counterattacks continued to 

hinder progress, especially within the 42d Division’s sector. 

Allied efforts elsewhere in the Marne salient were more 

successful. Mangin’s French Tenth Army returned to the offensive 

on the morning of 1 August, capturing several villages near the 

heights of Grand-Rozoy, about six kilometers to the west of the 

42d Division’s sector. French and British divisions then held the 

position against repeated German counterattacks. During the night 

of 1–2 August, the Germans withdrew the bulk of their forces to a 

new defensive line along the Vesle, an unfordable but shallow river 

about thirty-five feet wide. The last German troops withdrew from 

Soissons on 2 August. By that time, the decisive phase of the Second 

Battle of the Marne had come to an end. The Marne salient, which 

at the beginning of July had appeared to threaten Paris, was now 

reduced to a sliver of territory between the Chemin des Dames and 

the Vesle River. Meanwhile, the British were preparing for their 

own offensive near Amiens, scheduled to begin on 8 August. The 

Germans were on the defensive, and the Allies did not intend to give 

their opponents any opportunity to regain the initiative.

Relief of the 7th Infantry west of Moulins (National Archives) •••••••••••••••
•••• 71 ••••

The Pursuit to the Vesle

The American divisions along the Ourcq discovered the 

German withdrawal early in the morning on 2 August and 

immediately began a pursuit. Caught in the middle of being relieved 

by the 4th Division, and exhausted after more than a week of 

unremitting combat, however, the Rainbow Division made only a 

limited advance. The 165th Infantry’s regimental chaplain, Francis 

P. Duffy, recalled that General MacArthur “wanted a last effort 

made by his Division. He called on one regiment, then on another, 

for a further advance. Their commanders said truthfully that 

the men were utterly fatigued and unable to go forward another 

step.” At the same time, the 32d Division drove forward about 

six kilometers, occupying the villages of Chamery, Coulonges, 

Cohan, and Dravegny. German resistance throughout the day was 

generally light, although the small groups serving as rearguard 

detachments did their best to impede Allied progress. During 

the evening, the 4th Division completed the relief of the Rainbow 

Division, which accordingly passed into the I Corps’ reserve. The 

42d Division was severely depleted, having suffered more than a 

thousand dead and 5,476 total casualties since joining the battle 

along the Ourcq. 

General Liggett later praised the Rainbow Division for its 

conduct during the fighting in the Marne salient, writing in his 

memoirs that “no Division in the Army could have acquitted 

itself better than did the 42nd Division in the crucial fighting on 

the North bank of the Ourcq River. It proved itself a first class 

Division in every sense; swift in attack, and tenacious in both 

attack and defense.” Father Duffy described the battle’s impact on 

his regiment, referring to the 165th by its original National Guard 

designation, the 69th Infantry, in somewhat more personal terms: 

In this one battle nearly half our strength is gone. We have lost 

fifty-nine officers and thirteen hundred men and of these thirteen 

officers and about two hundred men have been killed outright. 

Many of our wounded have been badly hurt. . . . But in spite 

of losses and sorrow and sickness I find the men surprisingly 

cheerful and willing to carry on. They have what soldiers 

most wish for, Victory. And they know now that the men who 

opposed their path and had to give way to their persistence 

were the famous Prussian Guards, of the very flower of the 

German Military Machine. The old 69th had again lived up to its 
•••• 72 ••••

reputation of the past; there were no German troops; no troops 

in the world that could withstand its stubborn bravery.

Taking the Rainbow Division’s place in the line, the 4th 

Division—now operating for the first time as a complete unit under 

General Cameron’s overall command—prepared to continue the 

Allied advance to the Vesle (Map 8).

The pursuit resumed on 3 August, as the 4th Division pushed 

forward between three and eight kilometers. German machine 

gun nests located north of Chéry-Chartreuve and in the Bois de 

Bazoches caused some delays, but the Germans abandoned both 

positions during the afternoon. The 32d Division also advanced, 

reaching a point less than two kilometers from the Vesle. General 

Degoutte ordered the Allied divisions to establish bridgeheads on 

the north bank of the Vesle during the night of 3–4 August, but 

neither American division attempted to cross the river at that time. 

The small riverside town of Fismes, located in the 32d Division’s 

sector on the south side of the Vesle—opposite its smaller twin, 

Fismette—also remained in German hands. During the night, the 

French XXXVIII Corps yielded control of its sector to General 

Bullard’s III Army Corps. General de Mondésir and the rest of the 

XXXVIII Corps headquarters staff passed into the Sixth Army’s 

reserve. This was the first time in the war that two American army 

corps operated in tandem on the same front. 

The battle continued early on 4 August as both the 4th and 32d 

Divisions attempted to cross the Vesle. The 4th Division reached 

the river but was unable to cross, although the French 62d Division, 

to the left of the 4th Division, did secure a foothold across the river 

in its sector. The 32d Division attacked in the afternoon, and the 

3d Battalion, 127th Infantry, occupied part of Fismes late in the 

evening, fighting street-by-street against the German defenders. 

Although the Germans retreated from their positions between 

the Ourcq and the Vesle without putting up much of a fight, they 

had transformed Fismes and Fismette into veritable fortresses. 

One 32d Division veteran later recalled that the Germans “had 

spared no effort in making this city and surrounding country as 

impregnable as science could make it. Huge stores of ammunition 

and engines of destruction were located here and preparations 

made to withstand the most formidable attack.” The two towns 

would become the site of fierce fighting over the following weeks.

The next two days saw relatively little combat, as heavy 

rainfall and solidifying German resistance prevented the 32d and 
X X

4

X X

42

X X

32

X X

Fr 62

X X

Fr 4

XXX

I

XXX

1–5 Aug

III Fr

XXX

1–4 Aug

XXXVIII Fr

XXX

4–6 Aug

III

XXX

1–5 Aug

II Fr

1 AUG

1 AUG

2 AUG

2 AUG

3 AUG

3 AUG

4 AUG

6 AUG 4–6 AUG

4 AUG 4 AUG

4– 5

5

6

6

5 AUG

5– 6 AUG

XXX

XXX

XXX

XXX

XXX

XXX

XXX

XXX

XXX

XX

Bois de

Grimpettes Bois de

Cieges

Bois de

Voizelle

Bois

Meunière

Forêt de

Nesles

La Ventelette

Hill 212

Ourcq R

Ardre R

Orillou R

Vesle R

Vesle R

Vesle R

Croix Rouge Farm

Le Charmel Château

Fère-en-Tardenois

Château

Villardelle Farm

Meurcy Farm

Le Charmel

Fresnes

Courmont

Ronchères

Champvoisy

Passy

Vézilly

Coulonges

Chamery

Cierges

Sergy

Nesles

Seringeset-Nesles

Fèreen-Tardenois

Villerssur-Fère

Villome

Cohan

Dravegny

Chéry-Chartreuve

Mont-St.-Martin

Jouaignes

Bazoches

Mont-Notre-Dame

Fismes

Fismette

Villette

Courville

Mareuilen-Dôle

PURSUIT TO THE VESLE

MARNE SALIENT

 1–6 August 1918

0

0 1

Miles 1 2 4

2 3 4 Kilometers

3

0 100 150 200 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS

Front Line, Date

American Sector

Map 8
•••• 74 ••••

4th Divisions from making significant progress. The 32d Division 

sent a few patrols across the Vesle on 5 August, while the 127th 

Infantry improved its position in Fismes, largely evicting the 

Germans from the town. The 4th Division, meanwhile, defeated a 

limited German counterattack early in the morning on 5 August, 

and elements of the 39th and 58th Infantry regiments established 

several footholds across the river but abandoned all of them by 

nightfall. The 32d Division made no attack on 6 August, while 

the 4th Division undertook a small-scale advance. Small groups 

belonging to the 39th Infantry succeeded in crossing the Vesle, but 

withdrew to the southern bank by the end of the day. The German 

defensive line on the Vesle River remained largely intact. 

The desultory fighting on 6 August marked the end of the Second 

Battle of the Marne. The 28th Division returned to the line—refreshed 

after a brief period in reserve—relieving the 32d Division on 7 

August, while the 4th Division remained in position until relieved 

by the 77th Division on the night of 11–12 August. Casualties during 

the final phase of the fighting had been relatively light compared to 

the shocking losses earlier in the offensive. The 4th Division lost 

1,625 men between 3 and 6 August, while the 32d Division—which 

German machine gun team firing on infantry from the 

28th Division (National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 75 ••••

had been in the line between 30 July and 6 August—suffered 3,662 

casualties. The battle around Fismes and Fismette dragged on 

until late August, as American divisions sought to wrest the area 

from German control, but from a strategic perspective this was a 

subsidiary operation. Foch, who had been promoted to Marshal 

of France on 5 August, recognized that further large-scale efforts 

against the Vesle would only bring diminishing returns. Instead 

of battering at the German defensive positions there, Foch placed 

his hopes in the long-awaited offensive by the British Fourth Army 

near Amiens, scheduled for 8 August. The next major Allied blow 

would inaugurate the period known as the “Hundred Days”: three 

months of unremitting Allied offensives that pushed the Germans 

back more than a hundred kilometers and culminated, in November 

1918, with the collapse of Imperial Germany.

Analysis

In his memoirs, Erich Ludendorff claimed that 8 August 1918, 

the first day of the British offensive at Amiens, was the “black day 

of the German Army in the history of this war.” The attack launched 

on that day was a true coalition effort. British tanks, supported 

primarily by Australian and Canadian infantry with help from 

elements of the American 33d Division, inflicted a terrible defeat on 

the German Army, capturing some 18,500 prisoners and 374 guns 

and advancing nearly thirteen kilometers. Subsequent days would 

bring further disasters for the Germans; from August onward, 

the German Army was in almost continuous retreat. 

The Battle of Amiens undoubtedly was a significant Allied 

victory, but it is doubtful whether it would have had the impact it 

did if not for the Allied counteroffensive on the Marne. The Second 

Battle of the Marne created the necessary conditions for the Allied 

victory at Amiens. In a real sense, therefore, the “Hundred Days” 

offensive began on 18 July, not 8 August. Ludendorff may have 

downplayed the significance of the defeat on the Marne, but other 

German leaders recognized the importance of what had occurred. 

German chancellor Georg von Hertling, for example, described his 

response to the defeat of Marneschutz-Reims and the beginning of 

the Allied offensive at Soissons:

At the beginning of July, 1918 I was convinced, I confess it, that 

before the first of September our adversaries would send us 

peace proposals. . . . We expected grave events in Paris for the 
•••• 76 ••••

end of July. That was on the 15th. On the 18th even the most 

optimistic among us knew that all was lost. The history of the 

world was played out in three days.

On the other side, Foch was especially proud of the victory 

the Allied armies had achieved, tallying the “30,000 prisoners, 

more than 600 guns, 200 mine throwers, and 3,000 machine guns 

captured,” and noting that the collapse of the Marne salient both 

eliminated the threat to Paris and shortened the Allied front by 

about forty-five kilometers. Even more importantly, however, “a 

victorious counter offensive had once more placed in our hands 

the initiative of operations and the power to direct the progress 

of events in this long, vast war.” 

The reality of this achievement was not lost on the soldiers 

of the AEF, who were well aware of the leading role that 

American troops had played in the fighting in the Marne salient. 

In his memoirs, Pershing was far from modest about the decisive 

importance of the American participation in the Second Battle of 

the Marne:

While our forces had played important rôles in halting earlier 

German offensives, there were available here for the first time 

sufficient American divisions to join with those of the Allies in 

striking a decisive blow. The power of American arms brought 

to bear in the Marne salient made it possible to crush the last 

enemy offensive and commit him entirely to the defensive. . . . 

The preponderance of Americans at the critical points of this 

offensive, coupled with their successes in the vital areas of the 

battle, brought about this victory.

This victory nevertheless came at a heavy cost. About 39,672 

out of the roughly 270,000 Americans who fought in the Second 

Battle of the Marne became casualties. Total Allied losses in the 

battle amounted to 95,165 men. Several factors explain the high 

casualty toll suffered by the American divisions on the Marne. 

Foremost among these is the relative inexperience of the American 

soldiers. General Liggett commented in his history of the war that 

Americans “endlessly took chances that no French soldier in his 

right mind would have chanced; nor would our men had they been 

fighting since 1914.” The eagerness and impetuosity of American 

soldiers was both a product of, and to some extent a substitute for, 

their lack of experience. “The courage of our young Army was not 
•••• 77 ••••

always wise,” Liggett wrote, “yet it served to end the war of 1918. 

Courage sometimes is the only substitute for the skill that comes of 

experience.” He recalled how the commander of the 1st Moroccan 

Division, observing the American attack at Soissons, professed to 

“weep for the families and sweethearts of these Americans. See 

how they went into battle as we did in 1914! My division, the flower 

of the French Army, no longer can keep up with them.”

American dash and élan account for the dramatic advances 

that American troops routinely made as well as the appallingly 

heavy casualties they suffered in these advances. The spirited 

attacks of the 6th Regiment at Soissons on 19 July and the 167th and 

168th Infantry regiments at Croix Rouge Farm on 26 July exemplify 

the American willingness to fight and advance with almost no 

regard for losses. Nevertheless, fighting in this manner wore out 

units rapidly, making them less effective in subsequent actions. 

Impetuous attacks likewise led to American units frequently 

outpacing neighboring French formations during the advance. 

As a consequence, entire American divisions sometimes found 

themselves exposed to enfilading fire as well as counterattacks 

directed toward their flanks. These advances undoubtedly were 

dramatic, but American units might have profited from slowing 

their progress to stay in step with their Allied counterparts. 

Similarly, even though relations with individual French 

soldiers were generally good and many French generals praised 

the American soldiers who fought under their command, French 

and American units often failed to apprise each other of their 

dispositions, leading to considerable confusion on the battlefield. 

The most egregious example of this was the retreat of the French 

125th Division on 15 July, which the French executed without 

informing the four attached companies of the 28th Division. It 

remains unclear why the French did not warn the four companies 

about the retreat. Likewise, American officers were sometimes 

less than forthcoming in their communications with their French 

counterparts and superiors. 

Although these problems reduced Allied effectiveness, they 

cannot detract from the significance of what the AEF achieved. 

Despite the limitations imposed by inexperience and sometimes 

rocky relations with their French allies, American divisions played 

a pivotal role in the battle that decided the course of the First World 

War on the Western Front. They would carry the experience gained 

on the Marne to their subsequent engagements in September 

through November 1918.
•••• 78 ••••

•••

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Stephen C. McGeorge has served as deputy chief historian, U.S. 

Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), since April 

2007. As a serving Army officer, he completed an M.A. in history 

under Dr. Ted Wilson and served on the Leavenworth faculty at the 

Combat Studies Institute as a military history instructor. Following 

his retirement, he was director of the Oregon Military Museum; 

TRADOC historian for the Stryker Brigade Combat Teams at Fort 

Lewis, Washington; and chief collections curator for the National 

Museum of the United States Army.

Mason W. Watson is a history Ph.D. student at Ohio State 

University, where he has taught courses in military and European 

history. He received his B.A. from the College of William and Mary 

in 2012 and his M.A. from Ohio State in 2016. His dissertation deals 

with the interwar British Army and the memory of the First World 

War. He is currently serving as a graduate research assistant at 

the U.S. Army Center of Military History.
•••• 79 ••••

•••

FURTHER READINGS

Doughty, Robert A. Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and 

Operations in the Great War. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap 

Press of Harvard University Press, 2005. 

Grotelueschen, Mark E. The AEF Way of War: The American Army 

and Combat in World War I. New York: Cambridge University 

Press, 2007.

Harris, Stephen L. Rock of the Marne: The American Soldiers 

Who Turned the Tide Against the Kaiser in World War I. 

New York: Berkley Caliber, 2015. 

Johnson, Douglas V. II, and Hillman, Rolfe L. Jr. Soissons 1918. 

College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999. 

Lengel, Edward G. Thunder and Flames: Americans in the 

Crucible of Combat, 1917–1918. Lawrence: University Press 

of Kansas, 2015.

Neiberg, Michael S. The Second Battle of the Marne. Bloomington: 

Indiana University Press, 2008.

Pershing, John J. My Experiences in the First World War. New 

York: Da Capo Press, 1995. (Originally published New York: 

Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1931.)

Woodward, David R. The American Army and the First World 

War. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 

Zabecki, David T. The German 1918 Offensives: A Case Study in 

the Operational Level of War. London: Routledge, 2006.

For more information on the U.S. Army in World War I, 

please visit the U.S. Army Center of Military History Web site 

(www.history.army.mil).
PIN : 203355–000

CHAMPAGNE-MARNE 1918

AISNE-MARNE 1918