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Headstone of an unknown Australian soldier buried in High Wood Cemetery. © 2013 by John M. Shea
Panorama of the Western theater of war 1914/15 from Compiègne to Arras, with the North Sea coast in the distance.
Postcard map of the Chemin des Dames between Soissons and Rheims. The view is facing north towards the heights of the 'Ladies Road,' the Aisne River to its south. The Germans held the high ground after the retreat from the Marne in 1914. The French suffered heavy casualties taking the Chemin des Dames in the Second Battle of the Aisne in 1917, an offensive that led to widespread mutinies in the French Army. The Third German Drive of 1918, the Third Battle of the Aisne, drove the French, and supporting British troops, from the heights, and again threatened Paris.
Personifications of Alsace and Lorraine in a German postcard. Lorraine looks to France, but Alsace to Germany, a point made by the poem.
Metal grave markers at the Laventie German Military Cemetery, Laventie, France. A plowed field and village is in the background. © 2013 by John M. Shea
". . . as dawn broke violent attacks were launched up the slopes of Mont St. Quentin — and owing to the ferocity with which the battle was fought, the enemy's attention became gradually concentrated there. Australians of the 54th Battalion thus found their way into Péronne practically unimpeded, and by 8.40 a.m. they were established in the centre of the town, having cleared all points of resistance in the southern and western quarters. . . .For the remainder of that day (September 1st [1918]) the German troops counterattacked both positions fiercely, but were unable to beat the Australians out of the positions they had already won . . ." ((1), more)
". . . the French Tenth Army, fighting foot by foot, was gaining ground daily, and to such an extent that, on September 2d, it had surmounted the heights of Crouy and reached the high road from Soissons to Councy-le-Château.At the other end of the battle line the British First Army, continuing its broadly conceived operations, recommenced its attacks. On September 2d, after violent and stubborn fighting, it broke through the Droucourt—Quéant line and passed on for several miles in the direction of Marquion. After this smashing blow the enemy began to retreat along the whole front between the Somme and the Sensée, reaching new positions behind the Tortille and the Nord Canal, in front of the Hindenburg Line. Thus, at the beginning of September, victory had passed to the Allied banners, thanks to the rapid and sustained development of the operations following the German offensive of July 15th. The results envisaged in the memorandum of July 24th were being attained." ((2), more)
"On September 3, Marshal Foch's 'Directive' prescribed that while (1) the British armies supported by the left of the French armies continue to attack in the general direction Cambrai—St. Quentin, and (2) the centre of the French armies continues its action to drive the enemy beyond the Aisne and the Ailette, (3) the American Army after delivering at the latest by September 10 their attack on the St. Mihiel salient should prepare 'as strong and violent an offensive as possible in the general direction of Mezières, covered on the East by the Meuse and supported on the left by the attack of the Fourth French Army (Gouraud).'" ((3), more)
"The enemy assault will continue for some time, but our enemies must themselves see that they will not be able to attain their aim. Our troops are fighting splendidly and I attribute to their courage that such colossal superiority in strength does not crush us.The French fight brilliantly and are bleeding to death. They do not hesitate at any sacrifice. With the English, the individual man is very good and tenacious, but the leadership is deficient. Among the Americans I have found that the majority do not know what they are fighting for. I asked an American prisoner what they were fighting for and he answered, 'For Alsace.' Then to the question, 'Where is Alsace?' he replied, 'It's a big lake,'" ((4), more)
"South of Peronne, the armies of Debeney and Rawlinson crossed the Somme on September 5th. Mangin's French Army was now north of the Ailette River, its right wing moving eastward along the Chemin-des-Dames. The Franco-American troops had driven the foe from the Vesle River and occupied the heights between that river and the Aisne.In Flanders the British had recovered Neuve Chapelle and Fanquissart, while Lens had been evacuated but not yet occupied by Gen. Horne's army.The Germans were now in bad plight. Since their great offensive began in March, they had lost more than 1,500,000 men in dead, wounded, and captured. Their reserves were scanty and the morale of the troops was declining." ((5), more)
(1) The Germans successfully defending Mont St. Quentin, and having lost much of Péronne, shifted some of the forces from the former to the latter, allowing the Australians to overrun the trenches and village of Mont St. Quentin. The last of the Germans defending Péronne retreated on September 2 after having been outflanked by the Australian 15th Brigade.
1918, the Last Act by Barrie Pitt, page 217, copyright © 1962 by Barrie Pitt, publisher: Ballantine Books, Inc., publication date: 1963
(2) Allied Commander-in-Chief Ferdinand Foch wrote his July 24 Memorandum after the failure of Germany's fifth and final offensive of 1918, and during the Allied advance in the Second Battle of the Marne. After pointing out the weakened condition of the German army after its offenses, the ongoing strengthening of the Allied Army with the monthly addition of 250,000 American troops, and the Allied advantages in aircraft and tanks, Foch stated that it was time to seize the offensive in order to advance future operations and reinvigorate the French economy by freeing railways from Paris to critical communications centers such as Amiens and by ridding the mining region and the Channel ports of the threat of German forces. To achieve these goals Foch called for offensives that would surprise the enemy and deny him time to recover from previous blows. At a meeting on July 24, 1918 Foch had this memo, the basis of subsequent Allied operations, read to Douglas Haig, Henri Philippe Pétain, and John J. Pershing, the British, French, and American Commanders-in-Chief.
The Memoirs of Marshal Foch, translated by Col. T. Bentley Mott by Ferdinand Foch, pp. 392–393, copyright © 1931 by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., publisher: Doubleday, Doran & Co., publication date: 1931
(3) Excerpt from Winston Churchill's history of the war summarizing Allied Commander-in-Chief Ferdinand Foch's September 3, 1918 directive. Point 3, concerning the actions of the newly created American First Army, would require a reduction of the St. Mihiel salient, then a rapid redeployment westward for an assault in the heavily fortified heights of the Argonne. American Commander-in-Chief John J. Pershing had at last, and would command, the independent American Army he had argued for since his arrival in France more than a year before.
The World Crisis 1911-1918 by Winston Churchill, page 828, copyright © by Charles Scribner's Sons 1931, renewed by Winston S. Churchill 1959, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 1931, 2007
(4) September 4, 1918 statement given to newspapers by German Crown Prince Frederick William who already knew from German commander Erich Ludendorff that the war was lost.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. VI, 1918, p. 303, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(5) Germany's five offensives of 1918 began on March 21 and continued through July 17. After that final, failed offensive and the Allied victory in the Second Battle of the Marne, the Allies took back nearly all the ground that German forces had captured. Although both sides suffered heavily, the allies had advantages in armaments including tanks and airplanes, and in the arrival of 250,000 American troops in France each month. On September 5, the Americans, who had been fighting under French and British command (as some would continue to do), were about to launch their first offensive as the new American First Army.
King's Complete History of the World War by W.C. King, page 455, copyright © 1922, by W.C. King, publisher: The History Associates, publication date: 1922
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