They were soon to have the desired field and achieve a victory, fighting side by side with their dauntless French allies who, on many a field during the most discouraging period of the war, had proved their constancy and courage.
In order to understand more clearly the battle to be described, let us step back a few months for a better background for our perspective.
It was five months since the Germans opened their campaign of 1918 by their successful drive at Cambrai. During these five months, however, a new contestant had stepped over the threshold of the war’s arena. Seven hundred and fifty thousand American soldiers had, during that time, been landed in France, making in all a formidable army of over a million men, to aid in “making the world safe for democracy.”
In their attack on Monday, May 27, 1918, the German army had practically destroyed the troops on the French line north of the Aisne River, and on the Saturday following had reached the Marne between Dormans and Château Thierry. This brought them within forty-five miles of Paris, which they planned to capture, and therefrom to dictate a peace on their own terms.
In a conversation, which several of us younger officers had with our colonel, he pointed out to us that if General Foch had thrown his reserves in front of the German advance at that time, it would have brought them south of the Marne, and by the extension of the enemy’s lines between the Aisne and the Oise it would have brought his reserves far from the main battle. So, after the Germans had passed the Aisne River, he put aside the temptation to halt his enemy north of the Marne, and put all his available reserves to holding a line from Soissons to Château Thierry on the west, and from thence on the east to Rheims. The lines so formed might be likened to an immense letter V with its two arms each not far from twenty-five miles in length.
It was along these lines that, on the 15th of July, 1918, the tempest of the peace storm broke.
The allies had survived three great blows with their military organization unbroken, and it remained to be seen what could be done with them when used for an offensive battle.
The German concentration of troops was greatest between Dormans and Rheims,—a front of about twenty-five miles on the eastern arm of the V.
At several points between the places last mentioned, the enemy threw a score of bridges across the Marne, and while these bridges were crowded with their soldiers, they were swept by a fire of artillery, machine-guns, and rifles which checked their advance and killed them in masses.
Simultaneously with this onset, the Germans attempted another formidable attack along the western arm of the V and northwest from Château Thierry. This was met by the French with a deadly barrage, so that the Germans were unable to debouch from their own positions.