The Second Battle of the Marne

EIGHT The Final Phase, July 27–August 9

e i g h t The Final Phase, July 27 to August 9 On July 27, the normally cautious and meticulous French General Marie Émile Fayolle sent an uncharacteristic message to the senior officers of his Groupe d’armées de Réserve (GAR). Aware of the toll the Second Battle of the Marne had taken on the men of the GAR, Fayolle nevertheless hoped to inspire them and then push them on to further feats, including the rupture of the German defensive line in the Tardenois plain. “The moment has come,” read the order, “to harvest the fruits of our counter-offensive, which has now lasted ten days: forward, whatever the fatigue of the men!”1 The order demonstrates both that Fayolle had bought into the offensive mindset laid out by Foch on July 24 and that he understood the importance of continuing the offensive. The battle was not yet won, but perhaps a final push might create the decisive victory that he and Foch had been anticipating for several weeks. Fayolle’s atypical élan notwithstanding, the German positions in the Marne salient were still strong. At the time of his order, the German line along the western end of the salient still threatened large sections of the critical Soissons to Château-Thierry highway. The Allies had artillery and infantry close enough to the road to harass almost any German movement along it, but they could still not use the road themselves with safety. Thus Allied progress in the west had been negligible since July 19. On the other end of the salient, the slow British advance in the tough terrain of the Ardre River valley meant equally negligible progress The Final Phase, July 27 to August 9 161 in the east. In the center, the Allies had experienced more consistent progress, moving through stubborn German defensive positions in the Croix Rouge farm and placing forces within effective artillery range of the critical communications juncture of Fère-en-Tardenois. Allied goals for this fourth major phase of the battle involved crossing the German defensive line in Tardenois and breaking the last main German line of resistance south of the Aisne. On July 28, advance elements of the French 52nd Division crossed the Marne and established a thin bridgehead by capturing Fère-en-Tardenois. The operation had been daring and aggressive; French units attacked with little immediate artillery support, catching the Germans off guard. They had in fact so surprised the Germans that they found more than one million German rations in depots in the town itself and an estimated $5 million worth of munitions in the supply dumps near the town. The loss of these supplies , especially the food, hurt the German supply situation, and the recovery of them provided needed succor to seriously overextended Allied troops. In other liberated towns and villages near the Ourcq, the Germans had been much more thorough and had, according to contemporary reports, “destroyed everything they could and took away all food.”2 Wanton German destruction had now become a nearly universal feature of the German retreat, and it enraged Allied soldiers of all nations. Rudolf Binding described the German withdrawal from the perspective of German soldiers retreating from a French village: “In the twinkling of an eye everything was turned upside-down, as if the looters were professionals. . . . The soldiers hacked whole beds to pieces for the sake of a length of sheeting the size of a towel. . . . There was not very much to be had, but in the end nearly everything was carried off.”3 Within a few months, the victorious Allies would call upon the vanquished Germans to pay for the damage that they had caused. More immediately, the Allied high commands wanted to maintain offensive pressure in order to deny the Germans the ability to destroy more French villages and towns. On the operational level, the German withdrawal to the Ourcq allowed the Allies to reopen the full length of the Paris to Châlons railway , thus assuring an unfettered line of supply to eastern France. The opening of the railways proved especially important to the Americans, who now had access to a full rail network from the Atlantic ports to their new operational bases near St. Mihiel, Toul, and Nancy. With the 162 The Second Battle of the Marne AEF’s lines of supply now more secure, Foch urged Pershing to form his...