For this month’s bibliophilic Friday,
we’re going to take a brief detour into military history. World War I in
America often seems to be the forgotten war. As a nation, we remember World
War II much more clearly and talk about it more. We certainly were involved in
World War II much longer than we were in World War I, which might explain it.
However, there are lessons still to be learned from World War I, and those
military members who fought in that war deserve to be remembered as much as the
fighters from World War II.
One book on World War I takes a snap
shot of a single battle. The Miracle at Belleau Wood by Alan
Axelrod deals with one of the first battles fought solely by a battalion of
Americans – in this case, a group of United States Marines.
As a rule, I find military histories
hard to follow – I get lost in a maze of place names and general’s names and
dates and lose track of where I am in both time and space. This book, focusing
on a single battle, is an exception.
The book provides the reader with a
good description of trench warfare in World War I at its full maturation. It
delivers a hard-hitting, clear view of the reality of terms tossed around in
history books such as “the fog of war.”
More than anything else, this book
is a coming of age story about the United States Marine Corps. The author’s
contention is that this battle consolidated the position of the USMC in the
public eye as the leading edge fighters of the United States military, the
all-volunteer force that is proud to be “the first to fight.” The USMC, of
course, needed no such consolidation in its own mind; it has always known who
it is.
Alan Axelrod does a good job of
presenting the build-up to the battle and the battle itself in an engaging
manner, but without glorifying the concept of war. The book is replete
with anecdotes from people who were in the battle which highlight not only the
bravery but the humor men seem to find in even the grimmest situations. One of
my favorite anecdotes is the Marine officer who received a message from a
French officer that the Marines were supposed to retreat as the French were
retreating. The Marine looked up and told the messenger, “Retreat? Hell, we
just got here.” My second favorite anecdote is the exchange between one officer
and another when the first officer, Major Thomas Holcomb, came forward to meet
with Major Frederic Wise, whose battalion he was to relieve shortly. As he
arrived, the Germans cut loose with a fierce artillery barrage. Holcomb looked
at Wise and asked, “Is this celebration due to my arrival?” Dead pan, Wise
replied, “No…This is only routine.”
Axelrod does not shield the reader
from the horrors of war in the trenches, either. The casualties in this battle
were horrific – over 120 officers and over 5700 men. As Americans rediscovered
in another war a generation later on the shores of Normandy, in spite of their
heavy losses, the Marines at Belleau Wood ultimately succeeded because American
commanders and officers explained to their troops their objectives and how they
intended to achieve them. American soldiers then used their ingenuity,
experience, and gut determination to achieve that objective – if they were cut
off from their squad or platoon, if the higher ranking officers were killed,
the individual soldiers still strived to forge forward to win the battle.
During the battle, the Marines were
commanded by an army general, General Harbord. By the end of the battle, the
Marines voted to make General Harbord an honorary Marine, an honor he ranked
personally as the highest honor he ever achieved.
One reason the battle of
Belleau Wood was important was that it was the first time that United States
fighting forces would fight the Germans essentially on their own. (See footnote.) The
Germans hoped that they would be able to squelch and demoralize the American Marines completely, gaining a psychological edge on the battlefield. The
Germans also were racing against time – the sheer number of men the Americans
would be able to field on behalf of the Allies would ultimately overpower
Germany, which was reaching exhaustion. For the Germans to win the war, this
last offensive push had to succeed – and at Belleau Wood, only the Marines
stood between them and a break in the lines to reach Paris.
The extent to which the German
troops were able to “squelch” and “demoralize” the Marines can be judged by the
nickname the German soldiers gave to them – the Teufelhunden, which means
“Devil Dogs.”
Surprisingly, among the forces on the field during the battle, only the Marines emphasized
the importance of marksmanship in regular battle as well as for snipers. Common
military practice at the time was to teach troops to simply point in the
general direction of the enemy and shoot, the theory being that you would have
so many bullets flying at the enemy at one time that he was bound to suffer
casualties. Not so the Marines – each Marine aimed at a target when he shot,
and what he aimed at, he hit.
It does take the author several
chapters to ease the reader into the battle – about four – and I would have
liked to know a little bit more about what happened to various people after the
battle throughout the rest of the war. The first four chapters, however,
provide the reader with important background information without which the
reader would be unable to appreciate exactly what the Marines did at Belleau
Wood. There are a few references throughout the book about what happens to certain of
the Marines in the future but I would like to have known more.
The author’s assessment of the final
result of the battle is unusual. Many historians credit the Marines in
this battle with preventing the fall of Paris in Ludendorff’s last offensive to
break through the trench lines. However, most historians also believe that once
the Marines had done this, early in the battle, the rest of the fight to take
the wood, which cost so many Marine lives, accomplished little. The author
agrees, and yet, as he explains, after listing the terrible tally of the battle
– 126 Marine officers and 5057 Marine men killed along with many more
Germans:
For the U.S. Marine Corps, this investment
in blood has never been subject to question or controversy. It was a mission. That
in itself is all that really matters. Beyond this however, it was a test of
American military capacity and American character, and the Marines felt
fortunate that they were given the responsibility for taking and passing this
test. … The reputation of the marines as America’s fiercest warriors, the
nation’s elite fighting force, was forged in this battle. After Belleau Wood,
the Marines claimed the right to be regarded as the American vanguard, the
first to fight and if necessary, the last to leave.
Kindle
Loc. 2842-2845.
This book is definitely worth your time.
Try reading this book, or another outside of
our beloved mysteries, then play around with ideas for a while to see what
mysteries you could put together from it. What ideas might you come up
with?
FN. An army unit temporarily “on loan” to
the French had acquitted itself well a few weeks earlier as well in stopping a
German advance. As a rule, General Pershing, the overall commander of the
American Expeditionary Force, wanted the U.S. troops to fight as their own
units rather than interspersed between French and English troops; however, one
of the Ludendorff offensives compelled him to loan the artillery unit to the
French.
