The Emmett index. [volume] (Emmett, Idaho) 1893-1925, 1918-07-25

Written down by the soldiers of tn
A. f. f., one by one there are appear
ing, for the first time in the pages o
American history, the names of oil
French towns. They are towns ricl
in the memories of thousand year
and Scared with the half forgotten
wounds of a hundred wars. Theirs
are names that French children hav'
conned for centuries and which nov
children will read in the schoolbooks o,
America.
Such a name is Chateau Thierry
1t was there that the German armies
in the great thrust for Paris they be
gan May 27, first met resistance Of
Yankee troops.
Chateau Thierry is little town OF
a hill Past it's foot flows the slow
untroubled waters of the Marine
From the gray stone, red tiled out
skirts on the other side of the river
you cross a Searched bridge of stone
to mount, by winding paths, to where
the ancient church lifts its Sixteenth
Century belfry to the heavens. House
by house and street by street.-the town
has grown up through the centuries
around squat, deep dungeoned cha
teau. OF this chateau only two vine
hung gates and the fragments Of a
thick set wall are left to tell the
story of many bitter siege.
The chateau was built in 720 by
Charles Martel, the great Hammer of
the Franks and grandfather Of the
still greater Charlemange-the same
Charles Martel who saved Europe for
Christendom when, twelve years later,
he met and vanquished the turbanned
hosts of the all conquering Saracens
in the battle of Poiters. Little remains
of the castle itself, but you can still
see the base of the tower where one OF
his feeble successors, Charles the Sim
pie, was held prisoner.
When in the early days of June,
1918, men once more fought hand
to hand in the narrow streets
of Chateau Thierry and the
thunder of the guns stirred an
cient echoes in the crumbling ruins
of the castle, history was but repeat
ing itself. The river valleys, converg-
ing upon the plain of Paris and finding
there barrier of hills, have ever
turned that basin into the final battle
field of an invasion with the capital
as the goal. That is why around Cha
teau Thierry, reared like a stubborn
bastion on the rim of that basin, the
soldiers Of many a forgotten cause
have fought and died. 1t has always
blocked the path to Paris.
Now held as watch tower by the
dukes Of France, now as an outp It
by the counts of Champagne, the
castle changed hands again and again
through the early centuries.
English archers took and held it in
1921, toward the close of the weary
Hundreds Years War between Eng
land and France, the interminable war
which finally brought Joan of Arc up
out of the field of Lorraine to lead
the armies of the king and which, at
the end, lost to the English crown all
is rich French jewels save only Calais.
In the first half of the Sixteenth !
Century, while adventures on the
other side of the Atlantic were ex
ploring with fear and wonder the
mysteries of the wilderness known as
Americe, the Old World shook with
he trampling armies of Francis l,
king of France, and his enemy, the
mighty Charles V, emperor of Ger
many, who had made pact with Eng
and for his undoing.
Then-and not for the last time
he dwellers along the Marine saw an
army of Germans march upon Paris.
For leading his troops through Cham
Dagne, Charles pressed his invasion to
within twenty-four leagues of the cap
tai, and in that invasion the Germans
.ook Chateau Thierry.
A half century later the Spaniards
sacked it in the course of the terrible
wars of religion, when Catholics and
duguenots fought such bitter battles
'or the control of France that in the
course of thirty years l million French
men persisted. Spanish troops entered