In June 1918 United States forces, spearheaded by the US Marines, fought for three weeks to take Belleau Wood2, a tangle of forest and rock near the Marne where German troops had halted during their drive on Paris. The fighting was savage and often hand-to-hand, and American losses were heavy, but the Marines cleared the wood and held it. The battle helped stop the German advance3, announced the arrival of American power on the Western Front, and earned the Marines their enduring reputation4.
In the spring of 1918 Germany's last great offensive was rolling toward Paris, and the Western Front hung in the balance. Into a gap in the line came the newly arrived Americans, and in a small French wood the US Marines fought the battle that would define them for a century.
Germany's last push
By 1918 the First World War had bled Europe white, but Germany, freed from the Eastern Front, launched a last series of offensives in the west to win before American strength could tell. One drive pushed toward the Marne and Paris, and the newly arrived American Expeditionary Forces were rushed to help plug the line.
Retreat? Hell, no
As French units fell back, the US Marines moved up near Belleau Wood. Advised to withdraw, one Marine officer is said to have replied5, "Retreat? Hell, we just got here." Instead of falling back, the Americans dug in and prepared to attack into the wood, where German machine guns waited among the trees and rocks.
Three weeks in the wood
The battle that followed, through most of June, was brutal and close. The Marines attacked across open wheat fields into machine-gun fire1 and fought through the wood tree by tree, sometimes hand to hand, taking and losing ground again and again, fighting alongside the US Army's 3rd Infantry Brigade6 with French units and artillery on their flanks. Losses were terrible, but they would not give up, and by the end of June the wood was cleared of German troops5.
The Devil Dogs
Belleau Wood cost the Americans dearly, but it announced their arrival as a fighting force the Germans had to respect, and it helped blunt the last German push toward Paris. According to Marine tradition the enemy nicknamed them1 Teufelshunde, "Devil Dogs." The battle became a founding legend of the modern Marine Corps, remembered every year.
