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
"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."
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
1918-09-05, 1918, September, Aisne, Mangin, Ailette, Chemin-des-Dames, Neuve Chapelle, Laventie cemetery and village
