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Show I,L U. S. MARINES IN OGDEN. ' H While the great war was on no message from overseas was more cheering than the word which came to us in the summer of 191 S, Announcing that the U. S. marines had stopped the German drive at , jthc apex of the salient at the Marnc. Could those brave boys then have been transported in the twinkling of an eye, and were they brought into our presence, the love and affection given them would j' hay 6 been an ovation without parallel, j Well, those marines are here today and, though our enthusiasm of 1918 has been calmed by time, as all emotions are, there should be enough of the spirit of gratefulness left to accord them the recognition recog-nition they so richly have earned. Recalling the critical period of 1918, when Iiaig was fighting with his back to the wall and France was prostrated with the dread ! of enemy success, we remember well the glad tidings of Chateau Thierry, where the victorious Germans, coming down from the Aisuc, were goose stepping in the direction of Paris. The Bavarians and Prussians had driven the weary French and exhausted British from Che district northeast of Soissons, and seemingly had an open road to Paris. The kaiser, with his press agent, had journeyed from grand 1 'headquarters and had climbed a tower to see his troops perform on the drive to. Paris. Something occurred which was disconcerting, and soon a messenger arrived to advise the emperor that Americans were in front of them and would not allow his soldiers to pass. , What took place was this: 11 Jli. LUX X IVJll 1 JUC ill L-1 CUV Hi HI KJUO ill m U I ti Ui VUVii x fc 1 the French lines to the north and west of Chateau Thierry. The French troops, demoralized by constant mauling and inability to resist the hammering they had received in a 30-mile retreat, were streaming back in disorder. When the marines got into position, word was sent to the French just ahead that during the night they would be expected to filter through the lines, as American forces had arrived. and would meet the blow. French officers, in contact with the new arrivals, admired the' daring of the Americans but confessed the outlook was hopeless and even advised a withdrawal to a point nearer Paris. The French troops retired three miles to the rear. Tn the gray dawn of morning the first wave of Prussian Guards appeared, debouching in two great lines from a forest. They were filled with the thought of conquest and buoyed up to the highest high-est point with a victory which had been uniformly stimulating since March 21, when the first break-through shattered the British lines west of Cambria. They were not to be denied the supreme sensation sensa-tion of a triumphal march .into Paris. General Barnett of the American Amer-ican forces gave the command to open fire. White balls of smoke broke over the enemy, as the shrapnel caught -the range.. There ( was evidence of surprise in the, ranks of the Prussians, as the resistance re-sistance indicated something unusual was transpiring, but they I scarcely wavered until the shell-fire grew in intensity. Then the marines opened their wonderfully accurate rifle fire. The lines of the oncoming Germans were seen to falter, then stop, then melt away as the famous shock troops of the kaiser broke and ran to the shel-1 shel-1 ter of the forest. That was the beginning of a retreat from which the Germans never fully recovered. It was America's first reply in force to the challenge of A'on Hiudenburg that the Americans could not get over in time and, if they did. they would not fight. It was the most unnerving thing for the German general command that had happened on the western front, because the sample package, pack-age, though a small one, conveyed to Von Hindenburg and Luden-dorff Luden-dorff the knowledge" that the material, of which the American army just arriving on the field of action was coinpo-vscd, equaled, if it did not excel, the picked troops of Europe, and this sample multiplied ' bv a thousand meant disaster. I, Up to the present we have no accurate information as to what was the degree of astonishment among the German high command, but it is fair to venture the assertion that no one period in the war gave to general headquarters more perturbation than that in which i( die council of war at Spa received full information as to what took , place at Chateau Thierry. The marines robbed the German army of part of its trepidation, made the enemy cautious and finally es-J es-J tablished doubt in his ability to win a doubt which led to a lowered 1 morale and then to defeat. French officers who saw the marines in battle acknowledged that the rifle fire of the marines'V.as a revelation, the adjusting of sights and the picking of victims at 500 yards having been unknown to European warfare, -with its volley firing. For us, one of the most glorious pages in pur history was written writ-ten by the marines at Chateau Thierry. Let us salute them ! . i Heroic Marines 1 . . J |