The Battle of Belleau Wood (May 25, 2026)
by Scott Sosebee
This column is a Texas history column, certainly, but it is also an American history one. So, for this entry, especially since as I write this it is Memorial Day and June is also approaching, I will offer a story of one of the most important battles in history that involved Americans, the first sustained action involving U.S. soldiers during World War I.
About fifty miles northeast of Paris is the small village of Belleau. Today it is a peaceful landscape of trees, small hills, and green as far as the eye can see. Visitors to the spot usually come to visit a 42 acre cemetery and memorial that commemorates a time about a hundred years ago when the panorama was not as bucolic. Instead, it was the scene of a great battle, one in which United States Marine Corps and Army soldiers repelled a German force and began the beginning of the end of the World War I. The fighting at the Battle of Belleau Wood was brutal and often at close-quarters, and the cemetery at the spot recognizes the sacrifice of almost 2,000 Americans in their largest engagement of the “Great War.”
The United States had been in the war for more than a year by the spring of 1918, but because the nation was ill-prepared for an overseas fight the bulk of U.S. troops did not arrive in France until the late winter/early spring of 1918. American Expeditionary Force commander John J. Pershing had, thus far, refused to allow American troops to become intermingled with French or British regiments, so the lack of numbers meant the U.S. had played only a token part in the war up to that point. However, that was all about to change in May 1918 when U.S. soldiers would experience their first real test in a large-scale pitched battle.
When the United States joined the war in April 1917, German leaders understood that American numbers could tip the balance of the war in the Allies’ favor, but fighting in Russia had prevented them from mounting an effective offensive in France. However, when Russia negotiated an end to their participation in March 1918, Germany could then shift more than fifty divisions to the Western Front. The Germans hoped that their planned offensive could knock out the French and British troops before the Americans could be fully mobilized, which would ensure a German victory. They launched two assaults against the Allied troops, and while so far the lines had held, it was a tenuous clasp. Germany was sure a third wave would lead to victory.
The Germans began their third offensive on the Western Front against French troops between Soissons and Reims in late May, and by May 27 they had pushed the French back and reached the north bank of the Marne River at Château-Thierry, only sixty miles from Paris. However, what the Germans had feared then happened: The United States Army 3rd Division advanced to the Marne and stopped the German advance. The Germans thus turned right along the north side of the river towards Vaux and Belleau Wood. The Germans took Château-Thierry and Vaux on June 1, and now turned their attention toward Belleau Wood. If they could take Belleau, they would have punched a hole in the Allied lines and have a real possibility of moving toward Paris.
The United States 2nd Division, which included a brigade of Marines, marched to the front, with the 5th Marine and 23rd regiment serving as reserve troops, all to confront the German assault. The Germans relentlessly advanced toward Belleau, but despite being outnumbered and outgunned Army General James Harbord refused to listen to French advice to retreat, and he ordered the Marine regiments to “hold where you stand.” Marine Captain Lloyd W. Williams defiantly answered the French treatises to retreat with the now famous retort: “Retreat? Hell, we just got here!” The Marines did hold, and then after support from the Army arrived the Americans stopped the German offensive.
The Americans halted the German advance, but the battle was not over since the Germans remained in Belleau Wood. Battalions of the 5th and 6th Marines, along with the 23rd Infantry advanced on the Germans on June 6. The Germans had established a defensive position and inflicted terrible casualties on the U.S. troops, but despite the horrible bloodshed, the American troops pushed forward again the next day, and then the day after that. They rested for a day as artillery assaulted the German position, and then they charged the German position once again. The 7th Army Infantry arrived on June 10 to help, but the fighting in Belleau Wood continued for three weeks, often in hand-to-hand combat. The American troops methodically moved through the German ranks, and finally, on June 26, Marine Major Maurice Shearer sent the following message: “Belleau Wood now U.S. Marine Corps entirely.”
The Battle of Belleau Woods astonished the German military commanders. When the U.S. entered the war, the Germans were not concerned. In their eyes, the Americans were too raw and while they could field a large army, the German command did not consider them the equal of experienced British or French troops, much less the hardened German soldiers who had fought almost four years of war. But when the Battle of Belleau Woods was over they had changed their minds. The German officers on the ground in France send word back to the high command that they had better prepare for the war to end. Their reasoning? If these were the raw American troops, these eighteen, nineteen, twenty-year-old Marines who had given back everything they had been given, then when more experienced and better drilled troops arrived the German Army would not stand a chance. Yes, the war did not end with the conclusion of the Battle of Belleau Wood, but the end was now in sight.
The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Scott Sosebee the Executive Director of the Association and can be contacted at sosebeem@sfasu.edu or via www.easttexashistorical.org.