Blanc Mont Ridge 1918: America's forgotten victory

Osprey Campaign #323

by Romain Cansiere, Ed Gilbert

The dominating Blanc Mont Ridge complex in the Champagne region of France was home to some of the most complex German defenses on the Western Front. Its heights offered artillery observation that made even approaching the ridge virtually suicidal.

Pessimistic about the ability of depleted and demoralized French units to capture the position, G�n�ral Henri Gouraud was granted the use of two American divisions: the veteran 2nd "Indianhead" Division, including the 4th (Marine) Brigade, and the untested 36th "Arrowhead" Division of the Texas and Oklahoma National Guard.

This fully illustrated book describes this Allied offensive with American troops in the vanguard, and shows how despite the heavy losses it sustained to both manpower and supporting armor, they eventually forced the Germans to abandon most of the region in one of the largest withdrawals of the war.

Genres: Military History, History

96 pages, Paperback

First published July 26, 2018

Reviews

[Dimitri · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mediocre, day-by-day battle narrative. If it weren't for traces of local flavour, courtesy of regional historians, its only virtue would be the obscurity of a battle that has been largely cultivated out of the landscape and yellowed into a handful of interwar unit histories (with German archives burned in '45)