CHAPTER XXVII
BUNDY’S FAMOUS MESSAGE
It was the morning of the seventeenth of June. All night the duel of great guns had raged over Belleau Woods and to the north and the south.
With the coming of daylight, the Germans charged the combined French and American troops that held that part of the field. Fighting desperately, the Allied armies were forced to fall back in the face of superior numbers and a terrific rain of machine gun and artillery fire.
On the Allied right flank and again on the left flank the retirement of French troops began to take on the form of a disorderly retreat. It seemed that the day was lost.
Suddenly, in the early morning, there came pushing through the retreating French forces, a body of men in khaki, in perfect formation. Behind them came others.
General Bordeau, the French divisional commander, eyed them in surprise. Hastily he dispatched a courier to the American commander, General Omar Bundy. The courier made the journey quickly. General Bundy received him at once.
“General Bordeau advises that you fall back at once, sir,” said the courier. “It is folly to advance in the face of utter annihilation.”
General Bundy got slowly to his feet His face was stern and his eyes flashed as he delivered his now famous message.
“We regret, sir,” said he, “that we are unable to follow the counsels of our masters the French, but the American flag has been compelled to retire. This is unendurable, and none of our soldiers would understand not being asked to do whatever is necessary to reëstablish a situation which is humiliating to us and unacceptable to our country’s honor. We are going to counter attack!”
And counter attack the Americans did, led by the marines, with a result that the whole world knows.