WW1
Chateau Thierry-
July 18, 1918.-On a front of forty kilometers, from Fontenoy to Chateau-Thierry, the Americans and French this morning launched an offensive drive against the German positions. It was the first allied offensive of moment for more than a year. The Americans are playing a large role. They are fighting in the Soissons region, the Chateau-Thierry region, and other points along the big front.
When the German high command started its drive Monday morning [July 15] it started more than the Kaiser planned for. The French .and Americans were entirely successful in guarding their secret and the attack at 4:45 o'clock this morning, without one gun of artillery preparation, took the Germans completely by surprise.
Belleau Wood-
1918. Comprising two related actions, firstly at Chateau-Thierry from 3-4 June and then at Belleau Wood itself from 6-26 June, the Battle of Belleau Wood saw the re-capture by U.S. forces of the wood on the Metz-Paris road taken at the end of May by German Seventh Army forces arriving at the Marne River around Chateau-Thierry and held by four divisions as part of the German Aisne offensive. Chateau-Thierry formed the tip of the German advance towards Paris, some 50 miles south-west. Defended by U.S. Second and Third Divisions dispatched at the behest of the French by AEF Commander-in-Chief Jack Pershing, the Americans launched a counter-attack on 3-4 June with the assistance of the French Tenth Colonial Division; in a spirited action together they succeeded in pushing the Germans back across the Marne to Jaulgonne.
Rejuvenated by success first at cantigny (at the end of May) and now at Chateau-Thierry, General Bundy's Second Division forces followed up Chateau-Thierry two days later with the difficult exercise of capturing Belleau Wood.
Meus-Argonne Offensive-
At 5:30 on the morning of September 26, 1918, after a six-hour-long bombardment over the previous night, more than 700 Allied tanks, followed closely by infantry troops, advance against German positions in the Argonne Forest and along the Meuse River.
Building on the success of earlier Allied offensives at Amiens and Albert during the summer of 1918, the Meuse-Argonne offensive, carried out by 37 French and American divisions, was even more ambitious. Aiming to cut off the entire German 2nd Army, Allied Supreme Commander Ferdinand Foch ordered General John J. Pershing to take overall command of the offensive. Pershing’s American Expeditionary Force (AEF) was to play the main attacking role, in what would be the largest American-run offensive of World War I.
July 18, 1918.-On a front of forty kilometers, from Fontenoy to Chateau-Thierry, the Americans and French this morning launched an offensive drive against the German positions. It was the first allied offensive of moment for more than a year. The Americans are playing a large role. They are fighting in the Soissons region, the Chateau-Thierry region, and other points along the big front.
When the German high command started its drive Monday morning [July 15] it started more than the Kaiser planned for. The French .and Americans were entirely successful in guarding their secret and the attack at 4:45 o'clock this morning, without one gun of artillery preparation, took the Germans completely by surprise.
Belleau Wood-
1918. Comprising two related actions, firstly at Chateau-Thierry from 3-4 June and then at Belleau Wood itself from 6-26 June, the Battle of Belleau Wood saw the re-capture by U.S. forces of the wood on the Metz-Paris road taken at the end of May by German Seventh Army forces arriving at the Marne River around Chateau-Thierry and held by four divisions as part of the German Aisne offensive. Chateau-Thierry formed the tip of the German advance towards Paris, some 50 miles south-west. Defended by U.S. Second and Third Divisions dispatched at the behest of the French by AEF Commander-in-Chief Jack Pershing, the Americans launched a counter-attack on 3-4 June with the assistance of the French Tenth Colonial Division; in a spirited action together they succeeded in pushing the Germans back across the Marne to Jaulgonne.
Rejuvenated by success first at cantigny (at the end of May) and now at Chateau-Thierry, General Bundy's Second Division forces followed up Chateau-Thierry two days later with the difficult exercise of capturing Belleau Wood.
Meus-Argonne Offensive-
At 5:30 on the morning of September 26, 1918, after a six-hour-long bombardment over the previous night, more than 700 Allied tanks, followed closely by infantry troops, advance against German positions in the Argonne Forest and along the Meuse River.
Building on the success of earlier Allied offensives at Amiens and Albert during the summer of 1918, the Meuse-Argonne offensive, carried out by 37 French and American divisions, was even more ambitious. Aiming to cut off the entire German 2nd Army, Allied Supreme Commander Ferdinand Foch ordered General John J. Pershing to take overall command of the offensive. Pershing’s American Expeditionary Force (AEF) was to play the main attacking role, in what would be the largest American-run offensive of World War I.