With a propitious sense of timing and a skillful demonstration of political legerdemain, Major General Commandant of the Marine Corps George Barnett insinuated a regiment of Leathernecks into the initial force of Doughboys sailing for France when America entered World War I in 1917. Even as Army General John J. Pershing, commander-in-chief of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), was cabling in vain that "no more Marines be sent to France," another regiment and a machine-gun battalion had arrived.
Together, the interloping Marines formed up to become the 4th Brigade (Marine), AEF, in official parlance. Mostly they were just known as "The Marine Brigade." In Army circles, even at the highest level, they were sometimes referred to as "Useless Son-of-a-bitches Made Comfortable." In official correspondence, an Army general who had once served as a regimental commander in the 2nd Division, AEF, called the Marines "adventurers, illiterates, and drunkards."
After the storied Battle of Belleau Wood, the journalistic drum-beating that identified the chest-thumping Marines irritated Army sensibilities raw at every level. Through the campaigns of Soissons and St. Mihiel, inter-service relations failed to improve. Pershing flatly refused to allow the formation of an entire Marine Corps division in the AEF, a decision supported by both Secretary of War Newton D. Baker and Army Chief of Staff General Peyton C. March.
A second brigade of Leathernecks did deploy to France in September 1918, but these Marines were frittered away on rear-echelon duties or as replacements for the 4th Brigade (Marine), AEF. Perhaps as a sop to the Department of the Navy in general and to the Marine Corps in particular, Pershing turned over command of the 2nd Division to Marine Major General John A. Lejeune, just before AEF forces formed for the Meuse-Argonne offensive.
Pershing had loaned a pair of divisions (including the 2nd) to the French 6th Army to bolster its attack to seize the Massif du Blanc Mont, a prominent ridgeline between Somme-py and St. Etienne--Arnes. The fresh and well-trained 2nd Division's Doughboys and Leathernecks succeeded where the demoralized and weary poilu had not. But the Marine brigade in the division suffered exorbitant casualties, counting 2,538 killed and wounded. On 25 October 1918, operational control of the 2nd Division, AEF, passed to the U. S. First Army, and then to V Corps.
The Beginning of the End
By then, the German forces had begun a withdrawal along an 80-kilometer front. Lejeune reflected morosely on the Marine casualties incurred thus far in the war; in a letter to the officer who had relieved him as assistant to the Major General Commandant, he remarked: "There isn't much left of the original crowd. [The hospitals] are full of wounded."
Lejeune departed from his first staff conference with the commander of V Corps with an uneasy feeling. Major General Charles P. Summerall displayed an abrasive and threatening style of leadership, and his manner grated on Lejeune's professional nerves. Summerall seemed to take great satisfaction in relieving subordinates who failed to live up to his expectations; he relished recounting the number of times he had sent officers to the rear for reclassification.
On the eve of the V Corps' attack, Lejeune joined Summerall on a visit to each battalion and regimental headquarters. At every stop, the brusque corps commander reminded everyone within earshot of his policy of relieving any field-grade officer who did not measure up to his demanding standards. By the end of the day's monotonous tirades, Lejeune had the temerity to talk back to Summerall: "General, the 2d Division's officers will carry out their mission and their orders because of esprit, the pride and love for their division, and their devotion to the cause for which they are fighting."
Unmoved, Summerall continued with his threats. At one point, after finding the responses of a battalion commander in the Marine Brigade not to his liking, he ordered Lejeune to relieve him. After discussing the matter with both the officer's regimental and brigade commanders, Lejeune simply ignored Summerall's order, especially since the Marine officer had already earned the Medal of Honor.
The Marines' last battle on the Western Front started with a massive artillery barrage that began two hours before dawn on 1 November. By then, the forces of the Central Powers had unraveled. Bulgaria, Turkey, and Austria-Hungry were out of the war, and elements of the German Navy had mutinied. The German Army had shriveled by attrition; battalions were now the size of pre-war companies, and companies were at less than platoon-strength.
Pershing had ordered the V Corps in the center of the First American Army as the main thrust against the German lines; Summerall, in turn, placed the 2nd Division in the center of V Corps. On 1 November, an intense pre-dawn barrage preceded the attack. The Marine Brigade moved forward on the right flank of the division's sector in a column of battalions, and a rolling barrage of artillery preceded the advance. By nightfall, the entire First Army had advanced nine kilometers to a line just short of Landreville and the approaches to the Meuse.
Spanish Flu Outbreak
By 2 November, Spanish influenza began to hit the Doughboy and Leatherneck ranks hard, but those men who could still fight unflinchingly soldiered on. A day later, most of the Germans fell back across the Meuse as the Marine brigade moved into position on the right of the 3rd Brigade after its successful advance of 11 kilometers in just two days. Adding to the misery of the dreaded Spanish flu, the Marines and Doughboys shivered in the freezing rain and suffered from dysentery brought on by spoiled rations and polluted water.
In a bold tactical movement during the moonless night of 3-4 November, the Doughboys of the 3rd Brigade and a battalion of Leathernecks maneuvered for more than six hours in a downpour to overcome sleeping German troops. The daring raid barely missed capturing a German general and his staff. At noon on 4 November, the 2nd Division ordered patrols forward in search of intact bridges across the Meuse. On the night of 5-6 November, the remaining German forces opposing V Corps retreated across the Meuse, and rumors of a cease-fire spread through the ranks of the 2nd Division.
Both Pershing and Summerall anticipated that the 2nd Division would cross the strategic waterway on 10 November, the Marine Corps' birthday. The V Corps commander planned for both the 2nd and 89th divisions to cross the Meuse simultaneously. To Lejeune's dismay, his corps commander and the V Corps staff had no plans to reduce the German artillery and machine-gun emplacements that ringed the possible crossing sites. The river on the right side of the division's sector was unfordable without heavy bridging equipment. Despite Lejeune's protests, Summerall designated two crossing sites for a concurrent crossing by both divisions.
To Move Pins on a Map'
On 10 November, 1/5 and 2/5 made it across the Meuse, while the attempt by the battalions of the 6th Marines failed. The 4th Brigade (Marine), AEF, suffered 323 killed and another 1,109 wounded. Many observers blamed the heavy casualties during the final days and hours of the war on Summerall, and perhaps Pershing himself. With the enemy on its knees, critics questioned the need to incur needless casualties just to move pins on a map. But the order to keep pressing the attack came from Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the commander-in-chief of the Allied armies, to the commander-in-chief of the AEF and then to the American Army, corps, and division commanders.
Lejeune recorded the emotional impact of the cease-fire in his published memoirs:
A few minutes before 11 o'clock, there were bursts of fire from the two antagonists and then—suddenly there was complete silence. It was the most impressive celebration of the armistice that could have possibly taken place. There was a solemn and earnest joy in the hearts of every man at the front . . . we were happy because fighting, death, and destruction had ceased.
In the last 11 days of the war, the Marines mourned 273 of their comrades killed and counted another 1,263 wounded. Of the 78,839 men who wore forest green during World War I, more than 32,000 served on the Western Front; six of that number earned the Medal of Honor, and the 4th Brigade (Marine), AEF, suffered 11,366 casualties, of whom 2,459 paid the supreme sacrifice. During the war, 230,274 men applied for service in the Marine Corps; recruiting officers accepted only 60,189 of them.
Even though the Marine Corps provided only two brigades to the AEF, only one of which actually saw action on the Western Front, the smaller of the naval services reaped a public-relations bonanza. Following the journalistic hyperbole after the blood-letting at Belleau Wood, Major General Commandant Barnett took steps to ensure that the American public knew the token force of Leathernecks was always in the thick of the fighting.
By the time Pershing had his American Army formed and ready for the Meuse-Argonne offensive, the 4th Brigade (Marine), AEF, was just one of many infantry brigades serving on the Western Front. Through it all, the Leathernecks managed to keep intact their identity as "soldiers of the sea" while flaunting the colorful mannerisms and elan that had buoyed the Marine Corps since its founding more than a century before.