""And, waking or sleeping, I can still see before me the dark threat of Belleau Wood…Our brains told us to fear it, but our wills heard but one command, to clean it out…" -Colonel Albertus W. Catlin, United States Marine Corps, 6th Marine Regiment
The Bois de Bellau, or Belleau Wood was a serene hunting preserve flanked by wheat fields and situated about 50 miles from Paris. It was once deemed a "quiet sector" by American military commanders, but in early June 1918 it would be transformed into a hellish landscape littered with scores of dead and wounded. Along this mile-long stretch of hardwood forest located near an unassuming village in France, the World War I (WWI) Marine Corps would encounter what many consider to be a seminal battle in its history, and would be transformed from the amphibious infantry of its formative years to an organization more closely resembling the expeditionary force it is known as today. Beyond its influence of the evolution of the Marine Corps, the Battle of Belleau Wood is also regarded as the first true crucible WWI placed on what was, at the time, a previously untested American military.
By June 1918, the Germans were en route to Paris. This happened in 1918 as opposed to 1914 due to the failure of the Schlieffen Plan to take France at the onset of the war. When Schlieffen's grand wheel maneuver did not produce its desired strategic effect, the Germans dug in, forcing the British and French to assault their defensive positions. The British and French were doing all they could to drive the German Army out of its entrenched positions across the Western Front, but the stalemate would not break. In the process, both sides wore down, and the Germans under the command of Erich Ludendorff finally sensed the strategy of exhaustion was coming to fruition…"
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