REVIEW: WITH THE HELP OF GOD AND A FEW MARINES by A. W. CATLIN.
A very interesting read if you are a WW1 buff and interested in the Marines and their great sacrifice at Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood. Here we see the British and French and their wonderful allies, after four long years, worn down, with the Germans about to deliver the knock out blow and take Paris.
Brigadier General Albertus Wright Catlin U.S.M.C. tells how the Marines were trained and their forces increased as they prepared to go in and assist France after having declared war on Germany (following the sinking of the Lusitania).
An overseas training camp was established at Quantico, Va., and I went down to take charge. There we received the graduates from the regular training stations as fast as they could be turned out, and through the summer and fall of 1917 we drilled ‘em and we drilled ‘em, until they were fit to go up against any foe on earth.
He tells of the Marine philosophy—their creed.
The Marine fights because fighting is the immediate and essential means to an end. He trusts implicitly the judgment of his superiors that the end justifies the means, not with the blind trust of the docile German, but from a well-grounded and well understood principle…They have never been deceived and they never hesitate.
Who are these Marines? A bare thousand of them challenged death in Belleau Wood with the same spirit that drove on the Six Hundred at Balaklava.
Catlin describes their background and why these men were chosen:
Sixty per cent of the entire regiment — mark this — sixty per cent of them were college men. Unquestionably, the intelligent, educated man makes the best soldier. There is no place for the mere brute in modern warfare.
Life in the trenches was hell. They hated the rats as much as the enemy.
…And the rats. They played over the men while they slept in the dug-outs. They lived and multiplied and made merry throughout the length of the trenches. There are regiments which keep terriers for the killing of rats in the trenches. We had no terrier, but the Fifth had a mascot that was nearly as good. It was an ant bear, a sort of raccoon, which some Marine had brought from Haiti. And it did murder rats ...
The Germans sometimes played dirty tricks which, even in war, are not worthy of any soldier.
If evidence were lacking of ingrained German untrustworthiness and treachery, the following from the lips of three men: 'During the progress of a hot engagement a number of Germans, hands aloft and crying ‘Kamerad!’ approached a platoon of Marines who, justifiably assuming it meant surrender, waited for the Germans to come into their lines as prisoners. When about three hundred yards distant, the first line of Germans suddenly fell flat upon their faces, disclosing that they had been dragging machine guns by means of ropes attached to their belts. With these guns the rear lines immediately opened fire and nearly thirty Marines went down …with a yell of rage, their comrades swept forward, bent on revenge. I am happy to state that not a German survived, for those who would have really surrendered when their dastardly ruse failed were bayoneted without mercy.'
Finally, the great struggle is over and Catlin correctly correctly states:
I believe that our part in this war has been vital, that if we had not gone in Germany would have won. The mere fact that half a million Americans were training on French soil was enough to hearten volatile France. They needed something more than mere fighters, and they got it in the nick of time. And if the United States Marines had not beaten back the Hun at Belleau Wood, Paris might easily have fallen.
It is heartbreaking to read what the general says about the German menace being at an end—Hitler and his criminal gangs were back for revenge within twenty years!
Well, the war is over, and we all rejoice in that. There has been enough of killing and of suffering. But it has not been fought in vain if Germany’s military power has been thoroughly broken and its menace to civilization ended forever.
The general’s last words are also heartbreaking, as well as prophetic.
And finally I pray for a more robust and heart-felt patriotism, a genuine love of country like that which the Frenchman feels. … It is my country that went into this war solely to save the ideals of Christianity from destruction. It is my country that sent the flower of its manhood to fight and die for that cause. It is my country that stands here on the great Western continent, facing the future with faith undimmed, ideals untarnished, in the full strength of her prime, the world-acknowledged champion of the rights of man. God save my country!
There have been vast structural changes to the landscape during this past century since WW1 and there is much for us to reflect upon in Brigadier General Catlin’s closing statements.
Brigadier General Albertus Wright Catlin U.S.M.C. tells how the Marines were trained and their forces increased as they prepared to go in and assist France after having declared war on Germany (following the sinking of the Lusitania).
An overseas training camp was established at Quantico, Va., and I went down to take charge. There we received the graduates from the regular training stations as fast as they could be turned out, and through the summer and fall of 1917 we drilled ‘em and we drilled ‘em, until they were fit to go up against any foe on earth.
He tells of the Marine philosophy—their creed.
The Marine fights because fighting is the immediate and essential means to an end. He trusts implicitly the judgment of his superiors that the end justifies the means, not with the blind trust of the docile German, but from a well-grounded and well understood principle…They have never been deceived and they never hesitate.
Who are these Marines? A bare thousand of them challenged death in Belleau Wood with the same spirit that drove on the Six Hundred at Balaklava.
Catlin describes their background and why these men were chosen:
Sixty per cent of the entire regiment — mark this — sixty per cent of them were college men. Unquestionably, the intelligent, educated man makes the best soldier. There is no place for the mere brute in modern warfare.
Life in the trenches was hell. They hated the rats as much as the enemy.
…And the rats. They played over the men while they slept in the dug-outs. They lived and multiplied and made merry throughout the length of the trenches. There are regiments which keep terriers for the killing of rats in the trenches. We had no terrier, but the Fifth had a mascot that was nearly as good. It was an ant bear, a sort of raccoon, which some Marine had brought from Haiti. And it did murder rats ...
The Germans sometimes played dirty tricks which, even in war, are not worthy of any soldier.
If evidence were lacking of ingrained German untrustworthiness and treachery, the following from the lips of three men: 'During the progress of a hot engagement a number of Germans, hands aloft and crying ‘Kamerad!’ approached a platoon of Marines who, justifiably assuming it meant surrender, waited for the Germans to come into their lines as prisoners. When about three hundred yards distant, the first line of Germans suddenly fell flat upon their faces, disclosing that they had been dragging machine guns by means of ropes attached to their belts. With these guns the rear lines immediately opened fire and nearly thirty Marines went down …with a yell of rage, their comrades swept forward, bent on revenge. I am happy to state that not a German survived, for those who would have really surrendered when their dastardly ruse failed were bayoneted without mercy.'
Finally, the great struggle is over and Catlin correctly correctly states:
I believe that our part in this war has been vital, that if we had not gone in Germany would have won. The mere fact that half a million Americans were training on French soil was enough to hearten volatile France. They needed something more than mere fighters, and they got it in the nick of time. And if the United States Marines had not beaten back the Hun at Belleau Wood, Paris might easily have fallen.
It is heartbreaking to read what the general says about the German menace being at an end—Hitler and his criminal gangs were back for revenge within twenty years!
Well, the war is over, and we all rejoice in that. There has been enough of killing and of suffering. But it has not been fought in vain if Germany’s military power has been thoroughly broken and its menace to civilization ended forever.
The general’s last words are also heartbreaking, as well as prophetic.
And finally I pray for a more robust and heart-felt patriotism, a genuine love of country like that which the Frenchman feels. … It is my country that went into this war solely to save the ideals of Christianity from destruction. It is my country that sent the flower of its manhood to fight and die for that cause. It is my country that stands here on the great Western continent, facing the future with faith undimmed, ideals untarnished, in the full strength of her prime, the world-acknowledged champion of the rights of man. God save my country!
There have been vast structural changes to the landscape during this past century since WW1 and there is much for us to reflect upon in Brigadier General Catlin’s closing statements.
No comments have been added yet.
