On May 30th General Pershing announced the complete repulse of further enemy attacks from the new American positions near Cantigny. This time he says: "there was considerable shelling with gas, but the results obtained were very small. The attempt was a complete failure. Our casualties were very light. We have consolidated our positions."
The London Evening News commenting on this fact says: "Bravo the young Americans! Nothing in today's battle narrative from the front is more exhilarating than the account of their fight at Cantigny. It was clean cut from beginning to end, like one of their countrymen's short stories, and the short story of Cantigny is going to expand into a full-length novel which will write the doom of the Kaiser and Kaiserism. Cantigny will one day be repeated a thousand fold."
The Germans, in reporting this fight, avoided mention of the fact that the operation had been conducted by American troops. This seemed to indicate that they feared the moral effect of such an admission in Germany. Up to this time, with the exception of small brigades, the American army had been held as a reserve. After the Cantigny fight they were hurried to the front. The main point to which they were sent at first was Chateau-Thierry, north of the Marne, the nearest point to Paris reached by the enemy. There, at the very critical point of the great German Drive, they not only checked the enemy but, by a dashing attack, threw him back.
This may be said to be the turning point in the whole war. It not only stopped the German Drive at this point, but it gave new courage to the Allies and took the heart out of the Germans. The troops were rushed to the battle front at Thierry, arriving on Saturday, June 1st. They entered the battle enthusiastically, almost immediately after they had arrived. A despatch from Picardy says: "On their way to the battle lines they were cheered by the crowds in the villages through which they passed; their victorious stand with their gallant French Allies, so soon after entering the line, has electrified all France."
General Pershing's terse account of what happened reads as follows: "In the fighting northwest of Chateau-Thierry our troops broke up an attempt of the enemy to advance to the south through Veuilly Woods, and by a counter-attack drove him back to the north of the woods."
The American troops had gone, into the action only an hour or so after their arrival on the banks of the River Marne. Scarcely had they alighted from their motor trucks when they were ordered into Chateau-Thierry with a battalion of French-Colonial troops. The enemy were launching a savage drive, and at first succeeded in driving the Americans out of the woods of Veuilly-la-Poterie. But the Americans at once counter-attacked, driving their opponents from their position, and regaining possession of the woods. On the same day the Germans launched an attack of shock troops, attempting to gain a passage across the Marne at Jaulgonne. They obtained a footing on the southern bank but another American counter-attack forced them back across the river. The American soldiers were fighting with wonderful spirit, and the French papers were filled with praise of their work. As they came up to go into the line they were singing, and they charged, cheering.
[Illustration: Map: Paris is in Southwest corner. Amiens in the
Northwest corner and Rheims is on the East side.]
WHERE THE "YANKS" FOUGHT THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE MARNE
On June 6th came a climax of the American fighting. It was the attack of the American Marines in the direction of Torcy. This gained more than two miles over a two and a half mile front. On the next day the advance continued over a front of nearly six miles, and during the night the Americans captured Bouresches and entered Torcy.
The fighting at Torcy was characteristically American; the Marines advanced yelling like Indians, using bayonet and rifle. From Torcy the Marines set forward and took strong ground on either side of Belleau Wood. They had reached all the objectives and pushed beyond them. The Germans were on the run, and surrendering right and left to the Americans. The attack by the Marines forestalled an attack by the enemy. German reports now noticed the Americans. Their report on June 9th referring to this attack, says: "Americans who attempted to attack northwest of Chateau-Thierry were driven back beyond their positions of departure with heavy losses and prisoners were captured." The Americans had lost heavily, and the hospitals were filled with their wounded, but the thorough American organization was giving the wounded every care, and the Americans were still moving forward.
On June the 10th, another attack was made on the German lines in the Belleau Wood, which penetrated for about two-thirds of a mile, leaving the Germans in possession of only the northern fringe of the Wood. On June 11th the official statement of the French War Office declared: "South of the Ourcq River the American troops this morning brilliantly captured Belleau Wood, and took three hundred prisoners."