Lafayette We Are Here!

6th June 1918: The American Marines Attack Belleau Wood

Jean-Michel Steg

• Publisher: SAGA Egmont
• Year: 2024
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9788727171807
• Subtopic: World War I
• Index: History

6th June 1918 saw more American soldiers fall on French soil than the famous 1944 D-Day landings. Why is this fact so little known?

As well as providing a detailed account of this funereal episode, Lafayette We Are Here! looks at the reasons behind American involvement in what was primarily a European conflict. Why did a neutral government in 1914, driven by a largely pacifist population, end up joining the Allies in 1917?

In this third instalment of his trilogy concerning the deadliest days of the First World War, Jean-Michel Steg investigates a cataclysmic battle for the American Marines in a small wood in northern France and presents an informative and accessible overview of the military strategy and geopolitical context.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction ‘Lafayette, We Are Here!’
• Chapter 1 Belleau Wood, 6 June 1918, Dawn
• Chapter 2 6 June 1918, 17.00 The Attack
• Chapter 3 The Battle of Belleau Wood Rages On
• Chapter 4 Early 1917 The State of the Conflict on the Eve of the United States’ Entry into the War
• Chapter 5 Why Didn’t the United States Enter the War in August 1914?
• Chapter 6 The American Army before It Entered the War
• Chapter 7 The United States Slides into War
• Chapter 8 The German General Staff’s Strategic Gamble
• Chapter 9 Preparing the American Intervention
• Chapter 10 The German Spring Offensive of 1918 and the American Baptism of Fire
• Chapter 11 What Was the True Military Impact of the Battle of Belleau Wood?
• Chapter 12 The Last Hundred Days of the War
• Chapter 13 After the Armistice, then the Treaty of Versailles
• Chapter 14 War’s End for the United States
• Post-Mortem
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgements
• Endnotes