What is the significance of chateau thierry

Chateau-Thierry Monument. Dedicated: Location: France. Browse photos, videos, interactive websites and apps dedicated to memorializing those who served in the U. Armed Forces overseas. Their service, achievements, and sacrifice are illuminated — dive in to learn more. View in Google Maps. World War I Battlefield Companion. American Armies and Battlefields in Europe.

Secrecy and last-minute haste were the watchwords. This was a French show, the battle plan depended on surprise, and the Americans were to be its shock troops, moving behind a rolling artillery barrage rather than a long preparatory bombardment. The big guns sounded off at a. The Americans advanced, officers to the front, taking heavy casualties, including, before the battle was over, every battalion commander of the 26th Infantry.

Junior officers and sergeants filled the breach, and the soldiers did not waver, even as the casualties stacked up to fifty thousand men. The American advance was swift—they had achieved surprise and struck in greater force in the Battle of Chateau-Thierry than the Germans could have expected— and confused, as units became mixed in the chaos of fiercely contested battle, which included German gas, artillery, and air attacks, over ground the Americans had not, of necessity, scouted beforehand.

At least it was no battle of static trenches though shallow trenches were dug and ducked into but of open field maneuver, with French tanks in occasional support they were lightning rods for German artillery ; and the doughboys took a perhaps unwise pride in their ability to directly charge and overwhelm German machine gun nests when flanking them might have been less costly.

But it was this aggressive spirit that made the doughboys what they were—and that made them think the French were often slow and unreliable. The Germans remained disciplined, resolute opponents. They had given ground the first day in the Battle of Chateau-Thierry, but their fighting retreat stiffened on the second day.

By the third, some doughboy units and officers had been pushed to the point of exhaustion. General Summerall met with his regimental commanders to assess their situations and encourage them. I know them as well as you do.

I came here to tell you that the Germans recrossed the Marne last night and are in full retreat and you will attack tomorrow morning at The Battle of Chateau-Thierry—wrapped up, at least in the history books, on 22 July—was the turning point of the war.

We expected grave events in Paris for the end of July. That was on the 15th. On the 18th even the most optimistic of us knew that all was lost. The history of the world was played out in three days. He had used up his reserves extracting his men from across the Marne. The American experience of the Battle of Chateau-Thierry was not merely one of victory—but also of what victory cost. The Americans had proved beyond doubt at the Battle of Chateau-Thierry they had the grit to see things through.

On July 18, the Allied troops began a general counteroffensive against the whole salient in which the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 26th, and 32nd and 42nd American divisions, most of which served under the I and III American Corps took a brilliant part. This offensive was a complete success and by August 6, the enemy had been driven beyond the Vesle River. Later, the 4th, 28th, 32nd and 77th American divisions and elements of the 3rd and 93rd played a prominent role in the desperate fighting on and North of the Vesle.

Of the , American soldiers who fought in these operations, 67, were casualties. After World War I ended, families of the American War dead could repatriate the remains of their love dones home to United States or choose permanent interment in American military cemeteries abroad.

Many chose to leave the fallen among their comrades, where they fought and died.