The Battle of Belleau Wood. June 7-9, 1918 Stalemate

The Marines now held a foothold in the Belleau Wood.  The Germans were in the Wood as well.

At midnight on June 7, the Germans launched as assault on the Marines and were completely stopped.  The Marines, in turn, launched an assault on the Germans on June 8 and it was likewise halted, taking so many casualties by this point that the Marine battalion that participated in it had to be relieved and replaced by a more fully manned one.

On June 9 French and U.S. artillery virtually destroyed the Wood, a former pristine hunting ground.  The Germans, in turn, fired artillery into Lucy and Bouresches and reorganized inside the Wood.

But note what wasn't happening.  The Americans had not fought this battle according to script at all. . . and the Germans were not advancing.

The news of the Marine Corp's actions of a day ago hit the front page back home, with dramatic results. This was likely the first time Americans had really thought of the Marine Corps in this fashion.

What was missed in these accounts is a significant factor.  American troops of the 1st, 2nd and 3d Divisions were in action, and as American divisions. But they were not in the overall command of an American Army.

Rather, these divisions had been supplied by the U.S. command, somewhat reluctantly, after it became convinced that the Germans might break the French and British lines.  So, while the divisions fought under their U.S. commanders, these three divisions, made up all of regulars, were above that level now in the French sector under French command, albeit temporarily.

On a local note, the school district in Casper (there was more than one in the county at the time) had purchased property that would become Roosevelt School in 1922.  The school was, rather obviously, named after the recently departed President  Theodore Roosevelt.  It was in use for decades, having completed its service as an alternative high school, and was recently closed and transferred to another entity for a veteran's facility.

This is a situation the US had hoped earnestly to avoid.  Indeed, while the German 1918 Spring Offensive was no surprise whatsoever, the US high command in France had studied it under Gen. Fox Connor and determined that the Allies could resist it successfully without U.S. help, and this would leave the Americans ready to go into action in the Fall and Winter, bringing the war to a conclusion in 1919.

Whether the US was right about that or not can be debated. There was good reason to feel that the Americans were flatly wrong about the French ability to hold out without US assistance by this point in 1918.  And in fairness by this point the American high command was convinced and the three US divisions made up of regulars did in fact start fighting, but not under an overall US command like the Americans had planned on. This would develop into a inter allied spat of a rather serious nature as the summer rolled on.