Damn Them, Are They Never Coming In? The Great War

The March attack had failed,

the April attack had failed.

By May 1st 1918,

Germany's situation was already becoming dangerous.

Hindenburg and Ludendorff had thrown the whole German army against the British.

Everything had been flung in.

The British had lost 240,000 men in 40 days.

The French had lost over 100,000.

But the Germans themselves had lost nearly 350,000 men.

Germany's failure went deeper than the great loss of men -

tragic as this was for her war-weary people.

She had also lost the 40 days. Time was more precious than ever before.

Field Marshall Hindenburg expressed the German problem.

"We had a new enemy, economically the most powerful in the world.

"An enemy possessing everything required for the hostile operations,

"reviving the hopes of all our foes and saving them from collapse,

"while preparing mighty forces.

"It was the United States of America and her advent was perilously near.

"Would she appear in time to snatch the victors' laurels from our brows?

"That and that only was the decisive question."

Nearly 13 months had passed since America had entered the war.

During those months, her Allies had each endured their severest ordeals.

Russia had fallen.

France had sunk to her lowest depths of weariness.

Italy had trembled on the edge of catastrophe.

Britain faced defeat by starvation at the hands of the U-boats.

Yet, the Allies had drawn hope from one thought -

the Americans would be coming,

some day, sooner or later.

As the weeks turned into months, and the months completed a year,

the sour truth emerged that it would be later.

Despite her vast resources,

America's unpreparedness for war exceeded that of any other country.

Britain's Prime Minister Lloyd George commented:

"The record of Britain's first ten months of blundering over equipment,

"robs of us of the right to point the finger of scorn at America.

"But when America entered into the struggle,

"her industry was already largely organised for war

"by the immense Allied orders for war materials."

Delay followed delay - delay in production, delay in organisation,

delay even in clothing America's new army,

all adding up to the worst delay of all...

the delay in arriving on the field of battle.

As the British awaited the first German onslaught in March,

the historian, FS Oliver remarked:

It's a question of holding out until the Americans come in.

"Goddamn them, are they ever coming in with all their boastful, glorious talk?"

The March battles were fought without American support.

So were the battles of April.

Now it was May.

On the 2nd, Oliver was asking:

"When is it reasonable to think that the Americans will be able to put in that immense army,

"each man with a hot water bottle, a gramophone and a medicine chest,

"which they tell us will get to Berlin and cook the goose of the Kaiser? When?

American energy was enormous.

American enthusiasm for the war was undoubted.

MUSIC: "Dixie Land" by Daniel D Emmett

On May 1st 1918, there were only 400,000 Americans in France.

There was only one American division on an active front,

only four divisions altogether.

Sickening for the Allies,

the frustration of the wait were sickening for Americans too.

American soldiers were disgusted that they depended on their allies

for the simplest munitions of war.

The British supplied clothing, transport, heavy artillery, tanks.

The French supplied the vast numbers of field guns needed,

aircraft and even machine guns.

The shipment of machine guns finally arrived.

When we opened them...

we found we had received Hotchkiss machine guns.

They were the guns the French used.

Well, there was a big commotion.

The officers got in touch with headquarters,

headquarters with supreme headquarters,

back and forth, back and forth,

but nothing happened.

The officer came in and said, "Men, I'm sorry, those are your weapons.

"That's what you'll have to use up front.

"You'd better learn how to operate them, tout suite."

Training, drilling, marching, practising, more training,

still more training.

French instructors, British instructors.

Whatever else they were, the Americans were not idle.

And so...we would train and we would train right down to the bone.

We awaited the call.

We were no jingoes or we were no screamers around for this or that.

We were trained for war, it was our profession, the regular Marines.

We didn't like the waiting behind the line.

We practically broke open the champagne when the word came

that we were to move in the next 48 hours.

We didn't care where.

We'd had enough of this business of play acting.

We wanted to get somewhere

where we could do some damage and get done and get home.

The first weeks of May passed quietly on the Western Front,

but it was a spurious calm.

While the Americans completed their training and organisation

and absorbed over 200,000 newcomers in France,

the Allies licked their wounds.

Every British division was below strength.

Ten out of 40 were so weakened, they were scheduled to be broken up.

Reinforcements consisted mostly of boys of 18-and-a-half

or wounded men returning to the ranks.

Old soldiers found it an ugly task to prepare boys fresh from school

for the hardest battlefields ever.

When they came to us, they were weedy, sallow, skinny,

frightened children.

Refuse of our industrial system as it was in those days.

They were in poor condition because of wartime shortages of food.

But after six months of good food, fresh air and physical exercise,

they changed so their mothers wouldn't have recognised them.

They'd put on an average of one stone in weight and one inch in height.

Frenchmen found it difficult to sympathise with manpower problems.

France herself had sacrificed, throughout the war,

the best of her manhood.

By April 1918, she was already calling on the conscripts of 1919,

to avoid breaking up divisions.

The Allied Commander in Chief, General Foch, protested to Haig.

"Foch is very anxious that no division should be reduced.

"He's sure that out of the 1,400,000 men wearing khaki in England,

"100,000 can be obtained to fill out our divisions sufficiently

"to hold a quiet part of the Front

"and release French divisions for the general reserve."

The French Prime Minister took the matter up officially with the British Government.

Reluctantly, Lloyd George released more men to fill the wasted ranks.

SHIP HORN SOUNDS

Haig, falling in with Foch's plan, dispatched five weak divisions

to recuperate on a quiet French sector -

the Chemin des Dames along the River Aisne.

"To battered troops, whose only knowledge of France

"was based on experiences on the Northern Front,

"the Champagne country in the full glory of spring was a revelation.

"Here, all was peace.

"The countryside basked in the sunshine,

"trim villages nestled by lazy streams,

"and tired eyes were refreshed by the sight of rolling hills

"and woods golden with laburnum."

Here, among the vineyards,

within two miles of the front line,

the British soldiers rested.

But their brief holiday was soon over,

for it was precisely here, by one of the war's bitter ironies,

that the next German blow was being prepared.

Ludendorff meant to continue as he had begun

by smashing the main British armies.

First it would be necessary to draw away the French reserves

which had gone to the British Front.

To do this he would have to attack the French.

The Germans transported their divisions and artillery

opposite the Chemin des Dames in deep secrecy.

Short weeks of calm passed by.

General Foch asked himself:

"What was hidden behind this silence?

"We knew the enemy had large numbers of troops at their disposal.

"Where would they suddenly appear?

"We searched the horizon, the mystery remained unsolved."

Not until a few hours before the German attack

were the Allied soldiers warned.

"The first news reached us about 3.45pm on May 26th.

""The enemy will attack on a wide front at 01.00 tomorrow, 27/5."

"Then followed orders for taking up battle stations."

"For a second, we looked at each other in silence.

"In a flash the world had changed. The landscape smiled no longer.

"The sun blazed down, but it had lost its heat.

"For the first time, I had the feeling there was no-one behind us.

"No help that could be relied upon in case of need."

The blow fell at 1am on May 27th.

The weak British divisions were right in its path.

The Germans swept across the Chemin des Dames ridge and over the Aisne.

By evening, they had advanced ten miles.

Nothing like it had ever been seen on the Western Front.

On the second day, May 28th, they pressed forward another five miles.

But on this day, further to the west,

a different kind of omen appeared.

the American First Division went into action

at the little town of Cantigny.

We watched through binoculars and they had a creeping barrage

towards the town of Cantigny on high ground.

I could see some of the waves of American soldiers as they went forward.

I saw many fall. I saw some get up and follow the barrage again.

The Americans took Cantigny - their first victory of the war.

But more than this was needed to stop the great German advance on the Aisne.

And something more was forthcoming.

As the Germans swept towards the River Marne,

reviving the fears of 1914,

a wonderful spectacle was seen by the French.

"Swarms of Americans began to appear on the roads.

"They passed in interminable columns.

"The spectacle of these magnificent youths from overseas,

"these beardless children of 20 radiating strength and health,

"produced a great effect.

"They contrasted strikingly with our regiments in their faded uniforms, wasted by years of war,

"whose members thin,

"their sunken eyes shining with a dull fire,

"were no more than bundles of nerves

"held together by a will to heroism and sacrifice.

"We all had the impression that we were about to see a wonderful operation of transfusion of blood."

It was June 1st when the Americans entered this fight

near Chateau-Thierry,

another landmark of 1914.

By June 3rd, the Germans were halted, 56 miles from Paris.

At every level, a dangerous mood displayed itself.

French peasants spat on the remnants of British units retreating from the Aisne.

The British retorted bitterly.

"Conviction was growing that we were fighting on the wrong side.

"Conviction I'd heard many times since 1917,

"but never before with such feeling."

Sharp words were exchanged when the Allied leaders met at Versailles.

Now it was the turn of the French generals to find themselves under the cloud of defeat.

Even the prestige of General Foch was shaken.

Foch rounded upon Lloyd George with new demands

that the British Army should be brought up to strength.

The argument raged for two hours.

The French insisted on sending an expert to investigate British manpower. Lloyd George had to agree.

Yet the British and French were united on one subject -

America must send more men and send them fast.

All eyes turned upon General John J Pershing,

the American Commander in Chief.

Pershing had his own views of the part America must play in the war

and had made them clear.

"I was against us becoming a recruiting agency for anyone else.

"While realising the difficulties,

"it was understood that we should organise our own units

"and build a distinctive army of our own as rapidly as possible."

In America, the camps and depots filled.

There was a great gathering of men.

But the difficulties of making a new United States army

had proved to be beyond anyone's imagining.

It was unthinkable that America should send her soldiers to fight under other flags.

As the crises of 1918 developed,

the Allies put every pressure on Pershing to change his plan.

But Pershing was made of stubborn stuff.

At a meeting in May, General Foch had said:

"Are you willing to risk our being driven back to the Loire?"

Pershing retorted: "Yes, I'm willing to take the risk."

Ludendorff's arguments on the field of battle

proved more powerful than the pleas of the Allied leaders.

With the Germans across the Marne, Pershing was forced to compromise.

He cabled to Washington: "Consider military situation very grave.

"The time has come for us to take up the brunt of the war.

"England and France won't be able to keep at present strength for long."

CHEERING AND BAND MUSIC

Pershing agreed that 250,000 Americans should be brought to France in June

and another 250,000 in July.

He agreed the priority should be given to infantry,

trained or untrained -

just men.

Britain would find the shipping.

56% of these men were carried in British ships.

A blood transfusion on a scale never dreamt of now began.

MUSIC: "Over There" by George M Cohan

# Over there, over there

# Send the word Send the word over there

# That the Yanks are coming

# The Yanks are coming

# The drums rum-tumming everywhere

# So prepare, say a prayer

# Send the word Send the word to beware

# We'll be over We're coming over

# And we won't come back till it's over, over there... #

Pershing gained one point.

The Americans were fighting under their own command.

But American soldiers entered their grimmest experience so far.

On June 6th, the American 2nd Division, half of it Marines,

attacked at Belleau Wood.

We got into the edge of the woods and we dug in and took position.

The difficulty with Belleau Wood was you never knew where the front was.

Little groups of men got together to fight each other.

While you were fighting in one direction,

you'd find there were Germans to the rear of you.

They had to be mopped up.

Clean up, mop up and move ahead.

In open order and in mass

the Americans lost heavily at Belleau Wood,

but they were not to be denied.

As their first wounded came back,

khaki figures among the blue of the French,

a French nurse said to one of them, "Surely you're an American?"

He replied, "No, Ma'am, I'm a Marine."

There were three American divisions in battle now, with great promise.

But German plans would decide where and how the next battle would be fought.

It was not an easy decision.

A German commander wrote: "Our casualties were increasing greatly.

"Ammunition was running short, and the problem of supply was difficult.

"It was clear that action so stubbornly contested

"would never let us capture Paris.

"The brilliant offensive had petered out."

What should the Germans do?

Ludendorff, organiser of their great offensives,

was in a cruel dilemma.

He intended to attack the British front,

but was tempted to make a crushing blow against the French army.

Ludendorff became entangled in his own web.

He temporised.

The temptation was too strong.

He decided to attack the French again.

The first day's advance, on June 9th, was six miles deep.

The Germans took 8,000 prisoners.

The next day, they advanced another two miles...

..and then stopped.

On June 11th, the French struck back.

Two American divisions formed a spearhead,

supported by nearly 150 tanks,

and by low-flying aircraft.

No flags, no bright swords, no lines of battle, charging with a yell.

Combat groups of weary men, in drab and dirty uniform,

dressed approximately on a line,

spaced so that one shrapnel burst cannot include more than one group.

Laden like mules with gas masks, bandoliers, grenades,

trudging forward without haste or excitement.

They moved on an untidy wood where shells were raining,

a wood that did not answer back or show an enemy.

The French attack did not go far, but worked. The Germans were halted,

and Ludendorff surveyed the results of another month that had gone by

without producing victory.

"There may be 20 American divisions in France,

"more than I had believed possible.

"Our March superiority in numbers of divisions had been cancelled,

"and numbers were now to our disadvantage.

"For this reason America became the deciding factor in the war."

Now, once again, there was a brief period of calm on the Western Front.

Fighting died down into local actions.

Commanders drew breath and took stock of their position.

Like a ripple across the calm,

or a breath of fresh wind,

an idea stirred among the Allied leaders.

General Foch recorded:

"I did not forget the offensive task for which the Allies must get ready,

"and which had to be undertaken soon,

"since only offensive action could bring the war to a victorious end."

On June 28th, Foch met Haig, who wrote in his diary:

"I told Foch of two small projects which I contemplated carrying out,

"if the military situation allowed.

"He was pleased at my offensive intentions at the present time."

The British Army profited by its period of rest.

Spirits had revived.

The ranks were filling.

"Our troops are really wonderful", Haig commented.

One part of his army had never accepted defeat,

or submitted to enemy initiative.

On April 25th, the third anniversary of Anzac Day,

the Australians had counterattacked at Villers-Bretonneux,

marking the high-water line of the German advance towards Amiens.

All through May, and June,

the Australian front was fluid and active.

It was the Australians that Haig designated for an offensive project

at Le Hamel, an example of what they called "peaceful penetration".

With the Australians, there were men of the American 33rd division.

Haig had a high opinion of the Americans,

who had paraded for him earlier.

"I was impressed.

"They were a fine body of men. Keen, active and athletic-looking."

The date selected for the Le Hamel project was appropriate.

July 4th, Independence Day.

But there was an unexpected snag.

General Pershing was appalled to find that his soldiers,

whom he considered to be untrained,

had been given tasks in the Australian battle plan.

Pershing said the Americans must be withdrawn.

Haig had to agree, and told his commander Rawlinson,

who passed the news to Australian commander, General Monash.

Monash demanded to see Rawlinson.

"It was a tense meeting. I knew that the withdrawal of those Americans

"would result in confusion,

"and in dangerous gaps in our line of battle.

"So I resolved to take a firm stand,

"and pressed my views as strongly as I dared."

In effect, Monash told Rawlinson: "No Americans, no battle."

Rawlinson spoke again to Haig,

who authorised the use of American troops.

Monash remarked: "It appeared that great issues hung for an hour or so

"upon the chances of my being able to carry my point."

Great issues had hung indeed.

The following battle was a model for the whole war.

It was all over in an hour and a half.

By the end, at a cost of 750 Australians and 130 Americans,

1,500 Germans were captured,

and all the ground attacked had been won.

Monash commented:

"Le Hamel was the first offensive operation on any substantial scale

"fought by any Allies since the previous autumn.

"Its effect was electric, and it stimulated many to the realisation

"that the enemy was, after all, not invulnerable."

Now the war turned into a race.

Both Foch and Ludendorff pushed forward preparations for attack.

For the Germans, it was a matter, in Ludendorff's words,

"of striking one more blow to make the enemy ready for peace."

There was no other way.

"Headquarters decided to attack the enemy at his weak point.

"An attack on both sides of Reims was planned for the middle of July."

Foch perceived that this was the decisive moment of the year, and of the war.

"By mid-July, the time was fast approaching when the opposing forces would be practically equal.

"If the enemy did not attack, we would have to take the offensive.

"If he did attack, we'd accompany our parry with a counter stroke."

Once again, it was the Germans who completed their preparations first.

The German blow fell on July 15th,

a massive attack by 52 divisions, east and west of Reims.

Against them, Foch deployed a truly allied army,

French, British, Italians and Americans.

The western attack fell upon the Italians and had success.

British divisions were rushed up to hold the line.

The Americans were called to defend.

The eastern attack failed totally.

The French had deliberately withdrawn from their forward zone,

saving their strength for the counteroffensive.

A German officer wrote:

"I have lived through the most disheartening day of the whole war.

"This wilderness is not very big,

"but seems endless when one is held up in it,

"and we ARE held up.

"Our guns bombarded empty trenches.

"Our gas shells gassed empty artillery positions.

"Only in little hidden folds of the ground, sparsely distributed,

"lay machine-gun posts, like lice in the seams and folds of a garment,

"to give the attacking force a warm reception.

"After uninterrupted fighting

"from five in the morning until night,

"we only advanced about three kilometres."

The next day, the Germans only made slight progress.

The day after, none at all.

The same man wrote:

"I know that we are finished.

"My thoughts oppress me.

"Everything seems to be at a standstill.

"I do not believe we shall ever get our hands free again.

"The American army is there, a million strong.

"That is too much."

The Second Battle of the Marne, like the first,

marked a moment of equilibrium.

Now Foch, like Joffre before him, knew that his hour had come.

He greeted it with satisfaction.

"On July 17th, the Germans had been reduced to impotence.

"On the 18th, the guns of the Allies would make their thunder heard

"at the time and place which had been fixed upon."

Once again, as in 1914,

all the war, all its potential,

all its hopes, fears and deceitful promises,

were centred on the river Marne.

The wheel had come full circle.

Out there...

is the killer.

The liar.

And you know you must find them,

through the dark places of the world,