port the wearied French, and as the latter
came filtering back and through, soon found itself meeting direct German
assaults. Stretching across the road to Paris, with the French too weak to
make a stand, it blocked the German advance. Even so, the danger was not
entirely parried, since the enemy held strong positions from Vaux
northwest to Veuilly, which, when German reinforcements came up, would
enable them to deliver deadly assaults. Those positions had to be taken.
From the 6th to the 11th of June, American troops, among them marine
regiments, struck viciously, concentrating against the railroad
embankment at Bouresches and the hill of Belleau Woods. The stiffness of
the German defense, maintained by their best troops, was overcome by
fearless rushing of machine-gun nests, ruthless mopping-up of isolated
stragglers, and a final clearing of the Woods by heavy artillery fire. On
the 18th of June the Americans took the approaches to Torcy and on the 1st
of July the village of Vaux. If the attack on Belleau Woods proved their
courage, the capture of Vaux vindicated their skill, for losses were
negligible.

[Footnote 11: The reader should distinguish the defensive operations at
Chateau-Thierry, on the 1st of June, from the attack launched from this
sector in July. Both are known as the battle of Chateau-Thierry.]

The Allied line was now in a position to contest actively any deepening
of the Marne salient to the west, and American troops had so clearly
proved their quality that Pershing could with justice demand a radical
revision of the Allied opinion that American soldiers were fit only for
the defense. His confidence in their fighting capacity was soon further
put to the test and vindicated. On the 15th of July the Germans opened
the fourth and last of their great drives, with tremendous artillery fire
from Rheims to the Marne. They hoped to capture the former, swing far to
the south and west, and, if they failed to take Paris, at least to draw
sufficient troops from Flanders and Picardy as to assure a successful
drive on Amiens and the Channel Ports. For the first time, however, the
element of surprise in their attack was lacking. At the eastern end of
the battle-line General Gouraud, with whom were fighting the Forty-second
Division and four colored regiments, warned of the moment of attack,
withdrew his front lines and permitted the Germans to shell empty
trenches; all important positions he held firmly. On the Mar