By early summer of 1918
a considerable number of Americans are going to be training with the British.
The agreement was to train American forces.
It was not necessarily for American forces to go into combat...
however
with their proximity to British forces and with the
crisis of the German offensives in the spring of 1918
it is understandable that the British are
desirous to commit American forces.
As the crisis continues into May and June Persian starts wanting to withdraw some of the forces.
The one place we do see American soldiers who are going to go into contact with the British,
early on is going to be at the small village of Le Hamel.
This ended up meeting that the
131st infantry a regiment from Illinois was going to participate in the attack at Hamel
The British broke up several American companies attaching each platoon to an Australian company.
And the British commander on the spot makes the decision that
he was willing to risk his career and go ahead with the attack against the wishes of
Pershing, the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces
because he believes so strongly that this attack would work
and that the Americans were going to play a vital part in it.
The attack itself goes very well a little over an hour it achieves all of its objectives
working alongside the tanks the Americans and the
Australians go forward in many cases American officers were killed
and Australians stepped in seamlessly to lead American units
And they were able to get to their objectives and then hold them against German counter-attacks.
Up until August of 1918 all of the combat of Americans
participate in their doing so as part of larger Allied units.
This is one of the reasons why the coalition and aspect of the war is so
important is that really the United States for all intents and purposes
is
having to function within the boundaries of the coalition and they cannot simply go it on the their own.
The
Americans in the French have been conducting the
reduction of the Marne salient operation general Foch who is now promoted to marshal of France
He has called for his
salients
strategy
attacking the salients along the Western Front to improve
Allied logistics in
preparation for an offensive that will win the war ideally sometime in early 1919.
with the
continued presence of American forces within the British zone,
it is only natural that they are going to take part in those operations.
When the Battle of Amiens began on the 8th of August 1918,
it was going to be a massive offensive involving several cores. The entire British 4th Army and also
the French 1st Army operating alongside to the right of the British 4th Army would be attacking as well.
So two field armies attacking at Amiens.
This battle had no preparatory bombardment so much like at the Second Battle of the Marne
when the artillery opened fire,
it was at the exact same time as the tanks and the infantry started moving forward.
So the Germans had no chance to do anything and it was a disaster for the German Army.
In earlier battles in the war
armies would be happy if they were able to advance a few hundred meters in a day.
But in the first day of the battle of Amiens, the British were able to advance several kilometers.
The one area where the
British did not achieve all of their objectives on the first day of the Battle of Amiens was in the northern sector.
Of the offensive. Which was where the
British 3rd Court was operating, and attached to the British 3rd Corps as a reserve,
was the American 33rd division which included the same unit that had participated in La Hamel a month earlier.
The 131st Infantry
What happened in the third chorus sector is two days before the Battle of Amiens was supposed to begin
the Germans not knowing that there was an offensive planned in that area had launched a minor advance,
and they had taken a little bit of ground, but that had thrown the entire British offensive in that sector
into confusion, and
so that that minor advanced by the Germans on the 6th meant that the British 3rd Corps did not achieve all of its
objectives on the 8th of August. In the morning at the 9th, August
it was determined the British 3rd Corps didn't really have the strength to continue the offensive without extra reinforcements.
And so they looked to the American 131st Infantry to throw them into combat.
So they were marched overnight and they were sent into battle in the afternoon of August 9th.
The Americans went forward and attacked now alert, prepared German defenders
and they took heavy casualties.
But fighting alongside British units overnight all of their objectives fall into a line
and in fact
the American advance was so successful that they were able to take over a German battalion headquarters
complete with all of the papers and maps and everything still intact. The Germans had evacuated so quickly,
they didn't have time to destroy everything.
It helps support the rest of the general British attack at Amiens.
The Americans continued to fight as a part of the British 3rd Corps for the next few days
and into the middle of August
With the success of the British attack at Amiens,
Foch starts to reconsider.
What he starts to see is that the
Germans are weakening and
his forces are getting stronger. So Foch starts to
consider the idea that
maybe the time is now for the Allies to attack
to not let the Germans breath.
This is
really the beginnings of the
operational method that Foch is gonna use to win the war on the Western Front.
You use multiple attacks in
rapid succession so that you deny the enemy any time to recover.
It's around August after the Battle of Amiens,
the British keep up the pressure and they keep attacking the Germans.
After the 4th Army's attack had lost momentum
the British move and they shift the axis of advance to the north. The British had five field armies,
so they just go from one army to another and each one launches another attack.
In one of these attacks the American 27th
And the 30th divisions get called into action. They take part in fighting near the village Herzeele and
they help to capture these villages in late, August and early September, 1918 and
This is as part of the Ypres-Lys Offensive,
which is essentially the German Georgette Offensive in reverse.
So the German Georgette Offensive in April had captured a large amount of ground
near the Ypres salient in the northern part of the British line and the Ypres-Lys Offensive
pushed the Germans right back out of what they've captured.
They win battle after battle. They'd keep attacking against the Germans.
Keep pushing them back until the Germans are forced to withdraw back to what is really their
last resort the Hindenburg Line.
So in 1916
during the Battle of the Somme, the Germans began to contemplate what they would do if they lost major battle.
What they decide is as a way of kind of insurance as they would construct a massive defensive line
Which would run along the entire Western Front.
And they would construct this far to the rear of where their soldiers are currently fighting.
So while they're defending the frontline trenches there, they go tens of kilometers behind the lines.
And they construct this state-of-the-art defensive system.
Now the Hindenburg Line is strongest
opposite the British Army. That's because it's built along the St. Quentin Canal. This is a 18th century canal
that runs parallel to the Western Front and the Germans build up their defenses on either side of the canal.
So that they can defend on the far side and if things go really bad,
they can retreat on to the other side and then hold the canal indefinitely.
I mean, how are the Allies going to succeed in crossing this canal with its banks that are 16 meters high?
There's only one real weak point in the St. Quintin canal
position on the Hindenburg line,
and that is where the canal goes into a tunnel a seven kilometer long tunnel called the Bellicourt Tunnel.
It's essentially a massive bridge a seven kilometer wide bridge over the St. Quintin canal.
While they would have to be bridging the canal under fire if they attacked elsewhere, over the Bellicourt Tunnel
they could just push over it. Now the Germans weren't stupid and they recognize that the Bellicourt Tunnel
represented a weak point in their line.
So they put their best troops out there to defend it and built up elaborate defenses along it.
So it's not until late September that the British are ready to carry out this attack.
And it's scheduled to coincide with the other allied attacks that really kick off Foch's grande Allied offensive
So first you have the Americans going forward on the 26th of September and the Meuse-Argonne and then
the next day, start their attack against the Hindenburg Line and the Americans who they're taking part in that.
The Americans had been intended to push forward and gain a
jumping off line that would be closer to their objectives prior to the opening of the actual attack.
So for the 30th Division this goes, ok, they're able to achieve their jumping off line.
They're able to push past the outpost positions of the German troops
and they gain the line where they're supposed to be.
The 27th Division runs into a lot heavier resistance and they aren't able to reach their jumping off line in this
preliminary operation.
The British are not really going to be adaptable enough that they can adjust their
artillery fire plans to account for the fact that the Americans are a lot farther from their front line
than they were supposed to be.
so when the artillery bombardment begins,
its rolling barrage, when that opens up on the first day of the British offensive against the Hindenburg Line
the American 27th Division is way far back from where that artillery is falling.
Ideally are rolling mirages within a hundred meters of the infantry
it's supposed to be following the infantry along
and accompanying them guiding them through the German positions.
That is it going to work when the Allied infantry has to go an
extra few hundred metres in order to catch up with the rolling barrage
And so the 27th division has tremendous trouble on the first day of the attack on the Hindenburg Line.
They take very, very heavy casualties and the fighting is incredibly confusing.
Once they do break the Hindenburg Line and they breach the Bellicourt Tunnel defenses.
That dislocates the entire German Hindenburg system.
Because now the defenders along the line elsewhere are going to be flanked and so they are forced to withdraw
So the next thing they have to withdraw too is something that they're going to have to hastily improvise.
The plan is still for the American is to go on the offensive as well
so the target of this offensive is going to be a
salient in the line around the
French town of St Mihiel.
It had existed since 1914
and threatened the French rail line that runs just south of the front
so reducing the salient was a major strategic objective before the
Allied forces in the area and it was a really good set peace operation that the Americans could undertake.