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 California 
 
 egional 
 
 icility
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 A. RUSSELL BUCHANAN
 
 ■f- 
 
 When the Tide Turned 
 
 The American Attack at Chateau Thierry 
 
 and Belleau Wood in the first 
 
 week of June, 191 8 
 
 BY 
 
 Otto H. Kahn 
 
 AN ADDRESS AT THE 
 
 UNITED WAR WORIC CAMPAIGN MEETING 
 
 OF THE BOSTON ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION 
 
 November 12. 1918
 
 When the Tide Turned 
 
 The American Attack at Chateau Thierry 
 
 and Belleau Wood in the first 
 
 week of June, 191 8 
 
 BY 
 
 Otto H. Kahn 
 
 AN ADDRESS AT THE 
 
 United War fVork Campaign Meeting 
 
 of the Boston Athletic Association 
 
 November 12, 1918
 
 When the Tide Turned 
 
 Why the Tide was Fated to Turn 
 
 THESE are soul-stirring days. To live 
 through them is a glory and a solemn joy. The 
 words of the poet resound in our hearts: 
 "God's in His heaven, all's well with the world." 
 Events have shaped themselves in accordance 
 with the eternal law. Once again the funda- 
 mental lesson of all history is borne in upon the 
 world, that evil — though it may seem to triumph 
 for a while — carries within it the seed of its own 
 dissolution. Once again it is revealed to us that 
 the God-inspired soul of man is unconquerable 
 and that the power, however formidable, which 
 challenges it is doomed to go down in defeat. 
 
 A righteous cause will not only stand unshaken 
 through trials and discomfiture, but it will 
 draw strength from the very set-backs which 
 it may suffer. A wrongful cause can only stand 
 as long as it is buoyed up by success. 
 
 The German people were sustained by a sheer 
 obsession akin to the old-time belief in the potent 
 spell of "the black arts" that their military 
 masters were invulnerable and invincible, that by 
 
 3
 
 some power — good or evil, they did not care 
 which — they had been made so, and that the 
 world was bound to fall before them. 
 
 The nation was immensely strong only as long 
 as that obsession remained unshaken. With its 
 destruction by a series of defeats which were 
 incapable of being explained as "strategic retreats," 
 their morale crumbled and finally collapsed, 
 because it was not sustained, as that of the Allies 
 was sustained in the darkest days of the war by 
 the faith that they were fighting for all that men 
 hold most sacred. 
 
 To those who were acquainted with German 
 mentality and psychology, it had been manifest 
 all along that when the end foreordained did come, 
 it would come with catastrophic suddenness. 
 
 Where the Tide Turned 
 
 It is the general impression that the tide of 
 victory set in with Marshal Foch's splendid 
 movement against the German flank on July 
 1 8th. That movement, it is true, started the 
 irresistible sweep of the wave which was destined 
 to engulf and destroy the hideous power of 
 Prussianism. But the tide which gathered and 
 drove forward the waters out of which that wave 
 arose, had turned before. It turned with and 
 through the supreme valor of our Marines and 
 other American troops in the. Jirsf battle at Chateau 
 Thierry and at Belleau Wood, in the first week 
 of June. 
 
 4
 
 The American force engaged was small, measured 
 by the standard of numbers to which we have 
 become accustomed in this war, but the story 
 of their fighting will remain immortal and in its 
 psychological and strategic consequences the action 
 will take rank, I believe, among the decisive 
 battles of the war. 
 
 I am not speaking from hearsay. I was in France 
 during the week preceding that battle, the most 
 anxious and gloomy period, probably, of the 
 entire war. What I am about to relate is based 
 either on authoritative information gathered on 
 the spot, or on my own observations. In telling 
 it, nothing is farther from my thoughts than to 
 wish to take away one tittle from the immortal 
 glory which belongs to the Allied armies, nor 
 from the undying gratitude which we owe to the 
 nations who for four heart-breaking years, with 
 superb heroism, fought the battle of civilization — 
 our battle from the very beginning, no less than 
 theirs— and bore untold sacrifices with never 
 faltering spirit. 
 
 Just Before the Tide Turned 
 
 On the 27th of last May the Germans broke 
 through the French position at the Chemin des 
 Dames, a position which had been considered by 
 the Allies as almost impregnable. They over- 
 threw the French as they had overthrown the 
 British two months earlier. Day by day they 
 came nearer to Paris, until only thirty-nine miles 
 
 5
 
 separated them from their goal. A few days more 
 at the same rate of advance, and Paris was within 
 range of the German guns of terrific destructive 
 pov/er. Paris, the nerve center of the French 
 railroad system and the seat of many French 
 war industries, not only, but the very heart of 
 France, far more to the French people in its meaning 
 and traditions than merely the capital of the 
 country; Paris in imminent danger of ruthless 
 bombardment like Rheims, in possible danger 
 even of conquest by the brutal invader, drunk 
 with lust and with victory! As one Frenchman 
 expressed it to me: "We felt in our faces the very 
 breath of the approaching beast." 
 
 And whilst the Hunnish hordes came nearer and 
 nearer, and the very roar of the battle could be 
 dimly and ominously heard from time to time 
 in Paris, there were air raids over the city prac- 
 tically every night, and the shells from the 
 long-range monster guns installed some sixty or 
 seventy miles distant, fell on its houses, places 
 and streets almost every day. 
 
 They were not afraid, these superb men and 
 women of France. They do not know the meaning 
 of fear in defense of their beloved soil and their 
 sacred ideals. There was no outward manifesta- 
 tion even of excitement or apprehension. Calmly 
 and resolutely they faced what destiny might 
 bring. But there was deep gloom in their 
 hearts and dire forebodings. 
 
 They had fought and dared and suffered and 
 sacrificed for well nigh four years. They had buried 
 
 6
 
 a million of their sons, brothers and fathers. They 
 were bleeding from a million wounds and more. 
 They said: "We will fight on to our last drop of 
 blood, but alas! our physical strength is ebbing. 
 The enemy is more numerous by far than we. 
 Where can we look for aid? The British have just 
 suffered grave defeat. The Italians have their own 
 soil to defend after the disaster of last autumn. Our 
 troops are in retreat. The Americans are not 
 ready and they are untried as yet in the fierce 
 ordeal of modern warfare. The Germans know 
 well that in three months or six months the 
 Americans will be ready and strong in numbers. 
 That is why they are throwing every ounce of 
 their formidable power against us now. The Hun 
 is at the gate now. Immeasurable consequences 
 are at stake now. It is a question of days, not 
 of weeks or months. Where can we look for 
 aid now ?" 
 
 And out of their nooks and corners and 
 hiding places crawled forth the slimy brood of 
 the Bolshevik-Socialists, of the Boloists, Cail- 
 louxists and pacifists, and they hissed into the 
 ears of the people, "Make peace! Victory has 
 become impossible. Why go on shedding rivers 
 of blood uselessly? The Germans will give you 
 an honorable, even a generous peace. Save 
 Paris! Make peace!" 
 
 The holy wrath of France crushed those serpents 
 whenever their heads became visible. Clemenceau, 
 the embodiment of the dauntless spirit of France, 
 stood forth the very soul of patriotic ardor and 
 
 7
 
 indomitable courage. But the serpents were there, 
 crawling hidden in the grass, ever hissing, "Make 
 peace! 
 
 And then, suddenly out of the gloom flashed 
 the lightning of a new sword, sharp and mighty, 
 a sword which had never been drawn except for 
 freedom, a sword which had never known defeat 
 — the sword of America! 
 
 The Turning of the Tide 
 
 A division of Marines and other American 
 troops were rushed to the front as a desperate 
 measure to try and stop a gap where flesh and 
 blood, even when animated by French heroism, 
 seemed incapable of further resistance. They 
 came in trucks, in cattle cars, by any conceivable 
 kind of conveyance, crowded together like 
 sardines. They had had little food, and less 
 sleep, for days. 
 
 When they arrived, the situation had become 
 such that the French command advised, indeed 
 ordered, them to retire. But they and their brave 
 General would not hear of it. They disembarked 
 almost upon the field of battle and rushed 
 forward, with little care for orthodox battle order, 
 without awaiting the arrival of their artillery, 
 which had been unable to keep up with their 
 rapid passage to that front. 
 
 They stormed ahead, right through the midst 
 of a retreating French division, yelling like wild 
 Indians, ardent, young, irresistible in their fury of 
 
 8
 
 battle. Some of the Frenchmen called out a well- 
 meant warning: "Don't go in this direction. There 
 are the boches with machine guns." They shouted 
 back: "That's where we want to go. That's where 
 we have come three thousand miles to go." And 
 they did go, into the very teeth of the deadly 
 machine guns. In defiance of all precedent they 
 stormed, with rifle and bayonet in frontal attack, 
 against massed machine guns. 
 
 They threw themselves upon the victory- 
 flushed Huns to whom this unconventional kind 
 of fierce onset came as a complete and discon- 
 certing surprise. They fought like demons, with 
 utterly reckless bravery. They paid the price, 
 alas! in heavy losses, but for what they paid they 
 took compensation in over-full measure. 
 
 They formed of themselves a spearhead at the 
 point nearest Paris, against which the enemy's 
 onslaught shattered itself and broke. They stopped 
 the Hun, they beat him back, they broke the spell 
 of his advance. They started victory on its march. 
 
 A new and unspent and mighty force had come 
 into the fray. And the Hun knew it to his cost 
 and the French knew it to their unbounded joy. 
 The French turned. Side by side the Americans 
 and the French stood, and on that part of the 
 front the Germans never advanced another inch 
 from that day. They held for awhile, and then 
 set in the beginning of the great defeat. 
 
 I was in Paris when the news of the American 
 achievement reached the population. They knew 
 full well what it meant. The danger was still 
 
 9
 
 present, but the crisis was over. The Boche 
 could not break through. He could and would be 
 stopped and ultimately thrown back, out of France, 
 out of Belgium, across the Rhine and beyond! 
 
 The aid for which the sorely beset people of 
 France had been praying, had arrived. The 
 Americans had come, young, strong, daring, eager 
 to fight, capable of standing up against and 
 stopping and beating back German shock troops 
 specially selected and trained, and spurred on 
 by the belief in their own irresistibility and the 
 exhaustion of their opponents. The full wave of 
 the hideous instruments of warfare which the 
 devilish ingenuity of the Germans had invented, 
 liquid fire, monstrous shells, various kinds of gases 
 including the horrible mustard gas, had struck the 
 Americans squarely and fully, and they had stood 
 and fought on and won. 
 
 The French, so calm in their trials, so restrained 
 in their own victories, gave full vent to their 
 joy and enthusiasm at the splendid fighting and 
 success of the Americans. The talk of them 
 was everywhere in Paris. Hundreds of thousands 
 of American soldiers already in France, thousands 
 coming upon every steamer, millions more to 
 come if needed — and they had shown the great 
 stuff they were made of! All gloom vanished, 
 overnight. The full magnificence of the French 
 fighting morale shone out again — both behind 
 the hnes and at the front. "lis ne passeront 
 pas!" "On les aura." 
 
 And the Bolshevik-Socialists, Boloists, weak- 
 
 10
 
 kneed pacifists, and that whole noisome tribe 
 slunk back into their holes and corners and hiding 
 places, and never emerged again. 
 
 And, as the people of Paris and the poilus at 
 the front correctly interpreted the meaning of that 
 battle in those early days of June, so did the 
 supreme military genius of Marshal Foch interpret 
 it. He knew what the new great fighting force 
 could do which had come under his orders, and he 
 knew what he meant to do and could do with 
 it. It is an eloquent fact that when six weeks 
 later he struck his great master stroke which was 
 to lead ultimately to the utter defeat and collapse 
 of the enemy, American troops formed the larger 
 portion of an attacking force which, being thrown 
 against a particularly vital position, was meant to 
 deal and did deal the most staggering blow to 
 the enemy; and other American troops were allotted 
 the place which from the paramount responsibility 
 attaching to it, may be termed the place of honor, 
 in the center of the line, in immediate defense of 
 the approaches to Paris. 
 
 They made good there — officers and men alike. 
 They made good everywhere, from Cantigny to 
 Sedan. They made good on land, on the seas 
 and in the air; worthy comrades of the war- 
 seasoned heroes of France and Great Britain, 
 worthy defenders of American honor, eager artisans 
 of American glory. When, for the first time the 
 American army went into action as a separate 
 unit under the direct command of its great chief, 
 General Pershing, Marshal Foch allotted them 
 
 11
 
 ten days for the accomplishment of the task set 
 for them, /. f., the ejection of the German army 
 from the strongly fortified St. Mihiel salient, which 
 the enemy had held for four years. They did it 
 in thirty hours, and made a complete and perfect 
 job of it. 
 
 I have had the privilege of seeing these splendid 
 boys of ours, in all situations and circumstances, 
 from their camps in America to the front in 
 France — the boys and their equally splendid 
 leaders. The sacred inspiration of what I have 
 thus seen will stay with me to my last day. 
 
 I confess I find it hard to speak of them without 
 a catch in my throat and moisture in my eyes. 
 I see them before me now in the fair land of 
 France — brave, strong, ardent; keen and quick- 
 witted; kindly and clean and modest and wholly 
 free from boasting; good-humored and good- 
 natured; willingly submissive to unaccustomed 
 discipline; uncomplainingly enduring all manner 
 of hardships and discomforts; utterly con- 
 temptuous of danger, daring to a fault, holding 
 life cheap for the honor and glory of America. 
 What true American can think of them or picture 
 them without having his heart overflow with 
 grateful and affectionate pride? 
 
 As I observed our Army "over there," I felt 
 that in them, in the mass of them, representing as 
 they do all sections and callings of America, there 
 had returned the ancient spirit of knighthood. 
 I measure my words. I am not exaggerating. 
 If I had to find one single word with which to 
 
 12
 
 characterize our boys, I should select the 
 adjective "knightly." 
 
 A French officer who commanded a body of 
 French troops, fighting fiercely and almost hopelessly 
 in Belleau Wood near Chateau Thierry (since 
 then officially designated by the French Gov- 
 ernment as the Wood of the Marine Brigade), 
 told me that when they had arrived almost at 
 the point of total exhaustion, suddenly the 
 Americans appeared rushing to the rescue. One 
 of the American officers hurried up to him, saluted 
 and said in execrably pronounced French just six 
 words: "Vous — fatigues, vous — partir, notre job." 
 "You — tired, you — get away, our job." 
 
 And right nobly did they do their job. Need 
 I ask whether we shall do ours? 
 
 The Tide of Our Gratitude 
 
 The job now before us is to raise the needed 
 funds to enable the organizations included in the 
 United War Work Campaign to do theirs. No 
 one who has not had occasion to see our Army 
 over there, can fully realize how much of comfort, 
 of cheer and of home feeling these organizations 
 are bringing to our boys. For, these boys with all 
 their knightly virtues are very human. They are 
 healthy young animals with strong appetites for 
 food and for recreation. They will attack a dish 
 of American ice-cream or a hot drink with a zest 
 inferior only to that with which they attack a 
 
 13
 
 German machine-gun nest. They will crowd 
 into an entertainment hut, a reading and writing 
 or lecture room with an eagerness comparable to 
 that with which they storm enemy positions. 
 And they have an intense and touching longing 
 for home. 
 
 The feeling of the long distance separating them 
 from home is the one hardest to get accustomed 
 and resigned to for those splendid fellows. The 
 organizations of the United War Work, with the 
 vast ramifications of their beneficent activities 
 in all places where our army is fighting, training, 
 constructing or resting are giving to the boys 
 something akin to a home, something which 
 brings the sweet and eagerly welcomed touch of 
 American surroundings and atmosphere into the 
 strange and unaccustomed world in which they 
 are moving for the time being. 
 
 One must not think of those who are representing 
 these organizations in their contact with the Army, 
 as bespectacled anaemic beings. They are, on 
 the contrary, red-blooded men and women, with 
 warm hearts and sympathetic understanding. The 
 services and benefits of the great organizations 
 they represent are open to any and every man 
 wearing the United States uniform, irrespective 
 of race or religion or antecedents. No questions 
 are asked, and every one is made cordially 
 welcome by the men and women who with devoted 
 zeal, tirelessly, courageously and self-sacrificingly, 
 often within reach of shot and shell, tend to the 
 wants of our boys. 
 
 14
 
 The spirit in which they administer their task 
 is large and broad and of wide human sympathy 
 and tolerance, as I can testify from personal 
 observation. They realize fully that they are 
 not dealing with saints or aspirants to sainthood, 
 but with average youth and with soldiering youth 
 at that. And they know what youth — clean, 
 vigorous, normal American youth wants and 
 appreciates in the way of material and spiritual 
 things. They know the temptations besetting 
 youth, but they also know that the normal 
 American boy would far rather have clean enjoy- 
 ment than tainted pleasures. 
 
 They are offering to all soldiers comfort, cheer, 
 diversion, instruction, in short, the opportunity to 
 gratify every legitimate aspiration, and if the 
 records show that our army is the healthiest and 
 cleanest that ever stood in the field, a large part 
 of the credit for this enviable result belongs to the 
 organizations included in the United War Work 
 Campaign. 
 
 The extent of their work with its resultant 
 inestimable benefit to our boys, is limited only by 
 the greater or lesser liberality with which the 
 country will respond to their appeal for funds — 
 and, surely, no liberality can be too great towards 
 those who fought without counting the cost in 
 life and limb for our honor, glory and safety. And 
 if, thank God, the fighting and maiming and 
 killing have now come to an end, let us give in 
 double measure as a peace-offering, as a thanks- 
 giving, as a tribute to the memory of those who 
 
 15
 
 laid down their lives for America and for humanity. 
 
 Heaven forbid that we should permit an impres- 
 sion to go out to our soldiers that we took good 
 care of them as long as we needed them to stand 
 between us and the enemy, but that when the 
 danger to us is past, we fail them. The debt of 
 gratitude which we owe to them cannot be measured 
 or discharged in money, but we can at least prove 
 to them, as far as we can express it by giving, 
 that we love them with proud and tender affection 
 and that their well-being is a first charge upon 
 our means. 
 
 America has broken many a record since we 
 entered the war. There is one record yet to be 
 broken before our boys come home. That is the 
 record of the outpouring of a nation's gratitude 
 to its defenders. 
 
 The Tide of Peace 
 
 For some time past we have heard approaching 
 in the skies, the beating of the wings of the Angel 
 of Peace. Now he has descended upon our poor, 
 bleeding, war-torn earth. He holds in his hands 
 the great gifts of Freedom and Victory. We greet 
 him with boundless gratitude and with reverent 
 joy. The hideous idol of Prussian militarism lies 
 shattered at the feet of the free nations, its arch- 
 priest dethroned and disgraced, cast out by his 
 own distracted peDple and branded with the curse 
 of the entire world. 
 
 To this blessed and glorious result, we may 
 
 16
 
 justly claim that America has contributed no 
 mean part. We thank God for the day when, 
 spurning the lure of ease and plenty and boundless 
 prosperity, we chose for our own that road to the 
 heights which leads through sacrifice and suffering 
 and brought our mighty and unspent power to 
 the rescue of the hard pressed champions of 
 humanity. We then sought no advantage for our- 
 selves and we seek none now. We have proved 
 that America is not the "land of the almighty 
 dollar," as too many believed and as especially 
 our enemies fatuously believed to their undoing, 
 but a land of high idealism, ardently zealous to 
 do and dare and spend itself in a righteous cause. 
 
 We look back over these past fateful nineteen 
 months and we examine our hearts and thoughts 
 and deeds and we believe we may say justly and 
 without self-complacency that the men and women 
 of America have not been found unworthy under 
 the great test to which they were put. Old and 
 young, rich and poor, East and West, North and 
 South — all but an insignificant few who are not 
 spiritually Americans — have risen to the inspiration 
 of our high cause and have joined in patriotic 
 devotion and willing sacrifice. 
 
 A new and exalted spirit pervades the land. 
 We have made a new pact of unity. We have come 
 to understand and appreciate each other better. 
 We respect each other more. We are justly proud 
 of the qualities which all Americans have proved 
 themselves to possess in common. 
 
 We draw strengthened faith and heightened 
 
 17
 
 inspiration from the glorious vindication of the 
 irresistible potency of the American spirit which 
 has made its own, transfused and merged into 
 a homogeneous people, thinking and feeling alike 
 in national essentials the men and women of many- 
 races who make up America. 
 
 We are now walking along the heights of great 
 achievements and lofty aspirations. Let us shun 
 the descent into the valleys we have left behind. 
 Let us trust and strive that some at least of the 
 things we have gained spiritually may never 
 leave us. 
 
 America comes out of the war with her economic 
 and moral potency and prestige vastly enhanced, 
 with her outlook broadened, her field of activity 
 expanded, her enterprise quickened, her imagination 
 stirred, her every faculty stimulated. 
 
 The vista which opens before us of America's 
 future is one of dazzling greatness, spiritually 
 and materially. The realization of that vision 
 cannot fail us if we but meet our problems in a 
 spirit of true Americanism, of moderation and self 
 restraint and of justice and good will to all, 
 rejecting alike privilege and demagogy, banishing 
 all class rule, be it of capital or of labor. 
 
 In that spirit let us grasp each other by the hand 
 and thus resolved and united against enemies 
 without or foes within, let us march on towards 
 the high destiny that Providence has allotted 
 to the country which in grateful pride and deep 
 affection we call our own. 
 
 18
 
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