Germans Falling Back; Americans Pressing Forward

The Germans Know All Was Lost?

MacArthur Confronts the Dead.

(5 August) In these days on the Western Front, the Americans have become increasingly active, especially in the Allied effort to protect Paris from German occupation.

By late July a century ago, according to historian Martin Gilbert, “the American soldiers leave their trenches and advance through the pulverized German lines.”

“The Germans fought with every resource of personal bravery and technical skill to halt the onward march of their new-found enemy.”

But, according to historian Gilbert, “by nightfall on July 18^th, the German threat to Paris was over. By the end of the fourth day of the French offensive, an estimated 30,000 German soldiers had been killed.”

This quickly becomes a key battleground for the Allies, with the Americans playing an essential role.

“On July 22^nd the Germans fell back more than five miles and were being driven back even further” on the next day, the day on which British tanks and infantry advancing two miles on the Somme front captured nearly 2,000 German prisoners.

“The Germans,” reports Gilbert, “had not been pushed back like this before.”

The tide turns quickly against the Germans.

Later the German Chancellor writes: “On July 18^th even the most optimistic among us knew that all was lost.

“The history of the world was played out in three days.”

It was a textbook series of moves: the failure of the German offensive and a dramatically successful Allied counter-attack.

Among the American officers leading the American sector of the successful Allied offensive was Colonel Douglas MacArthur. Crossing No-Man’s-Land in one French sector “he was confronted,” he writes, “only by what he recalled as the moans and cries of wounded men apparently left behind when their comrades-in-arms had withdrawn.

Writes historian Gilbert: “MacArthur estimated that he passed at least 2,000 German corpses. Stopping from time to time to examine the dead and wounded, he identified the insignias of six different German divisions. During his reconnaissance he suddenly saw in the light of a flare a German machine gun pointed directly at him.

“When the crew did not fire, he crawled up to the gun. They were all dead, all dead. The lieutenant with shrapnel through his heart, the sergeant with his belly blown into his back, the corporal with his spine where his head should have been.”

“For his exploit,” Gilbert reports, “MacArthur was awarded his fourth Silver Star.”

“Later that day, he led his men in a successful attack on the new German line.”

Fighting continues in many sectors of the front line, among them at the French town of Soissons. In early August, after a fierce struggle, the French drive the Germans out of Soissons.

Reports Gilbert: “Among the German soldiers who had fought throughout the retreat was Corporal Adolph Hitler. “For his personal bravery he was awarded the Iron Cross, which he wore for the rest of his life.”

Hitler is recommended for the medal by a Jew.