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Show THE AMERICANS AT CHATEAU THIERRY. ' In his history of the war, General Ludendorff attempts to minimize the fighting ability of the Americans, but constantly refers to his disturbed dis-turbed state of mind in June of last year over the constantly increasing increas-ing army of Americans. . Ludendorff claims he did not aim to make the deep salient from the Aisne to the Marne, which brought him disaster and also declares his purpose in driving to the Marne was not primarily to reach Paris, but to force the allies to draw off troops from Flanders so that he might break through to the coast. ' In telling of the drive to the Marne, Ludendorff says: J "The center of the 7th army adanced to the south as far as the Marne. Its left wing and the right of the 1st army, which had, as intended, prolonged the attack on the left toward Rheims, pushed ahead between the Marne and the Vesle toward the wooded heights of Rheims, where they soon encountered resistance re-sistance too stiff to be overcome. "The right wing of the 7th army gained ground between the ( Aisne and the Marne, southwest of Soissons and as far as the eastern edge of the forest of Villers-Cotterets, and a captured Chateau Thierry. General Foch concentrated stiong reserves southwest of Rheims and near Soissons, with which he made fruitless fruit-less counter-attacks which subsequently extended as far as Chateau Cha-teau Thierry. (It was in these operations that the Americans stopped tlic advance on Paris and beat back the German tide.) "Early in June we stopped our advance. G. H. Q. did not intend in-tend to attack further except between the Aisne and the Forest of Villers-Cotterets, southwest of Soissons. We wanted to gain more ground to the westward, on account of the railway which leads from the Aisne Valley east of Soissons into that of the Vesle, and affords tactical support to the attack of the 18th army on the line Montdidier-Noyon. "In spite a few unavoidable temporary crises, our troops remained re-mained masters of the situation both in attack and defense. They proved themselves superior to both the English and the French, even .when their opponents were assisted by tanks. At Chateau Thierry, Americans who had been a long time in France had bravely attacked our thinly-held fronts; but they were unskilfully unskilful-ly led. attacked in dense masses, and failed. Here, too, our men felt themselves superior.'' Ludendorff undoubtedly misrepresents the situation at Chateau Thierry. If there was any one form of attack Americans were taught to avoid it was dense masses. Our whole army training has been skirmish skir-mish line, a movement which was developed in the United States. At Chateau Thierry parts of two American divisions, numbering approximately ap-proximately 40.000 men, met and defeated six German divisions, estimated es-timated at 10,000 each. The Germans at the time were at the height iof victory and filled with the fever of conquest, but when they met the Americans, they came to a dead halt and then were forced back. Tins feat of American arms marked the turning point in the war. It was the first bright day of the entire summer for -the allies, and the day after The Standard said Chateau Thierry would be historic. |
