On September 3, 2020 The Atlantic published a story written by Jeffrey Goldberg in which President Trump claimed that he could not travel to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery outside of Paris because it was raining, and the helicopter wouldn't fly and the Secret Service wouldn't drive him there. Both of these statements, according to Goldberg, were not true.
In the article, Goldberg quotes sources who said that the president said, "Why should I go to that cemetery? It's filled with losers," before referring to over 1,800 marines who are buried in the cemetery as "suckers," for getting killed fighting the Germans.
The Aisne-Marne American Cemetery is a 42.5-acre memorial that sits at the foot of Belleau Wood. There are 2,289 graves and over 1,060 soldiers who are still missing, over 100 years later.
World War I is a complicated story for the United States. The History Teacher in me wants you to know that there are four main reasons for why World War I was even fought: Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, and Nationalism. Thankfully we don't have to worry about that today [eyes roll completely out of my head].
When the United States finally declared war (President Wilson ran for re-election in 1916 under the slogan "He kept us out of war") in April 1917, the military was woefully unprepared. The Germans, and even the US' allies, were doubtful about how actually helpful the United States would be. The United States had never maintained a large standing army, following Thomas Jefferson's belief that a large standing army was a threat to peace. Jefferson helped draft and approve and promote the Military Peace Establishment Act (1802) which reduced the size of the military, yet also established a military academy north of New York City at West Point. In his 6th Annual Message (1806), Jefferson wrote:
Our duty is, therefore, to act upon things as they are, and to make a reasonable provision for whatever they may be. Were armies to be raised whenever a speck of war is visible in our horizon, we never should have been without them.
As the events of World War I unfolded across Europe, the United States continued to resist building up for the possibility of entering the War. The last major wars the United States were even involved in relied on cavalry, which wasn't going to help in this particular war, what with mustard gas, trench warfare, machine guns, and tanks.
The Russians bounced from World War I in early 1918, after the Bolsheviks overthrew Czar Nicholas before (probably!) assassinating him and his wife Alexandra and their children. This freed up a not-insignificant number of German troops, who decided to mobilize on the Western Front in April 1918, hoping to win the war before whatever the US could throw at them was fully operational.
At the Third Battle of the Aisne, the Germans (they weren't Nazis yet) launched a massive surprise attack with over 4,000 pieces of artillery on May 27, 1918 at Aisne. French General Auguste Duchene was in charge of the defense, and ordered British soldiers to huddle together in the front trenches, which made them a much-easier target for the German artillery. Then they dropped poison gas on the trenches, and followed that up with an infantry assault. The Germans, under Erich Ludendorff (who would go on to be an early Hitler supporter, gaining notoriety for his completely false "Stab-In-The-Back" theory which blamed Jews, liberals, communists, democrats, and war profiteers for Germany's defeat in World War I), took advantage of a 25-mile gap in defense and advanced to within 35 miles of Paris. The Allies didn't stand a chance. Over 50,000 Allied soldiers and 800 Allied guns were captured.
On June 6, 1918 the German assault was neutralized. 137,000 Allied soldiers were killed or wounded while the Germans had 130,000 casualties. This was the first major action American soldiers - mainly the US 3rd Division - had seen in World War I, and they impressed their counterparts.
This is where the battles overlap. Five days earlier the Germans had secured Chateau-Thierry and Vaux, and the Germans moved into Belleau Wood. The Marne River is a little over 300 miles long and runs behind Belleau Wood, which is about 60 miles northeast of Paris. The US 2nd Infantry Division (containing a brigade of Marines), the 9th Infantry, and the 6th Marine regiments all joined to plug the gap in the defense. There were French troops between them and the Germans. General James Harbord overrode an order from the French to dig trenches further back and instead ordered the Marines to "hold where you stand" and use their bayonets to dig a shallow trench that would allow them to fire at the advancing Germans from a prone (laying down, facing-forward) position. On the afternoon of June 3, 1918 the Germans attacked. US troops waited until the Germans were within 100 yards before opening fire, cutting down wave after wave of German soldiers until they retreated into the woods.
The Germans dug in, then they attacked. A French colonel told the US troops to retreat, to which Marine Captain Lloyd W. Williams replied, "Retreat, hell. We just got here." June 6, 1918 (a date that echoes through history) saw the heaviest single-day losses in Marine Corps history. On June 11, 1918 Capt. Williams led an assault on the Germans in which only one in 10 German officers and 16 of 250 German troops survived or escaped injury. Told to withdraw by a French major, Capt. Williams told him to "Go to hell." The next day, after getting gassed and injured by shrapnel, Capt. Williams responded to approaching medics, "Don't bother with me. Take good care of my men." He died on June 12. The building which holds Virginia Tech's Depts of Political Science, History, Geography, Philosophy, and Foreign Language and Literatures is named after him.
1st Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates said during the battle:
I have only two men out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold.
24-year old 1st Lt. Cates wrote his mother:
It has been a living hell. We were shelled all night with shrapnel and gas shells...It was mustard gas and a lot of the men were burned.
Marine Fred W. Stockham died of gas poisoning and was given a posthumous Medal of Honor for giving his own gas mask to a fellow soldier whose mask had been shot off.
44-year old Marine sergeant Dan Daly allegedly yelled at his men, "Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?" Colonel Albertus W. Catlin, who was shot in the chest during The Battle of Belleau Wood, later wrote:
The minute they got into the woods our boys found themselves in a perfect hornets' nest of...gunners, grenadiers, and riflemen. There were machine gun nests everywhere - on every hillock...every ravine...and every gun was trained on the...Marines.
Bayonet and hand-to-hand combat ensued. At the end of it at least 1,600 German soldiers were captured. The Americans had 9,777 casualties and over 1,800 killed. After the Battle of Belleau Wood had ended, the French renamed it "Bois de la Brigade de Marine" or "Wood of the Marine Brigade." General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing said after the Marines' performance, "the deadliest weapon in the world is a Marine and his rifle." An official German report said, after the battle, that the Marines were "vigorous, self-confident, and remarkable marksmen."
We could really get into some strong military strategy stuff here, but you can click on any of these links to really get into it. Basically, like the rest of World War I, the Battle of Belleau Wood was a bloodbath. Over 10,000 Americans were dead, wounded, or missing in action. Marine Corps Commandant General Charles C. Krulak referred to Belleau Wood as the "Marines' first crucible," and said:
The flower of America's youth fought and bled to wrest this wood from the Germans....I walked toward the tree line through waist-high wheat, just as they did 80 years ago. History books describe that 800-yard advance, but I never fully appreciated it until I walked it myself. The Germans had every square inch of that field covered by machine gun and artillery fire. The Marines paid dearly with every step they took.
Army General James G. Harbord, who was after the fact made an honorary Marine said in 1923:
Now and then, a veteran...will come here to live again the brave days of that distant June. Here will be raised the altars of patriotism; here will be renewed the vows of sacrifice and consecration to country. Hither will come our countrymen in hours of depression, and even of failure, and take new courage from this shrine of great deeds.
In April 2018 French president Emmanuel Macron commemorated the battle by saying at a ceremony, "The blood [of Americans] was spilled to defend France."
The result is the temporary defeat of Germany as a threat to world peace. It's also the rebirth of the Marine Corps, who may or may not have earned the "Devil Dogs" nickname at the Battle of Belleau Wood. Or, you know, "losers," and "suckers," according to the 45th president of the United States.
