Champagne - Blanc Mont, Pt 1 (featuring Steven Girard)

Battles of the First World War Podcast

Mike Cunha

History

4.8 • 812 Ratings

🗓️ 29 September 2020

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In September 1918, the French 4th Army requested American assistance with clearing the Champagne battlefield of German forces. The American Expeditionary Force would provide two divisions, the veteran 2nd and the green 36th Divisions.

For years, the German Army had held Blanc Mont ridge, a lynchpin to holding the Champagne sector of the Western Front. But the French Army was now too exhausted to carry the massif. MG John A. Lejeune, Marine commander of the American Army’s 2nd Division, planned an innovative attack that would see his division seize the ridge, hold it, and continue to advance past it.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	General, if you do not divide the 2nd Division but put it in line as a unit on a narrow front,
0:05.6	I'm confident it will be able to take Blunkmont Ridge, advance beyond it, and hold its position.
0:11.5	Major General John Archer, Lejean, the United States Marine Corps,
0:14.7	commanding general, 2nd Division AEF to General Henry Garrow,
0:18.7	Commanding General 4 French Army, Cholone Samoa, France, September 1918. Hey folks, welcome to the battles of the First World War podcast, episode 67, Champagne, Blankmont, Part 1.
0:52.0	Opening our Blankmont episodes is our recent guest, Stephen Gerard, retired U.S. Army
0:57.7	NCO, and historian of the 4th Brigade Marine 2nd Division AEF.
1:03.6	Steve will be opening all of the blankmonte episodes for us, and I thank him greatly for it.
1:11.6	All right, kicking it off with the admin notes, I'm happy to report that William is the
1:18.1	latest patron of the BFWP to join us on Patreon.
1:24.4	William and other patrons on Patreon have early access to all new episodes, as well as operations
1:30.9	maps, transcripts, and bibliographies for those episodes. They will also have other perks, such as
1:37.1	not yet released episodes, and being able to submit a question that I'll research and answer to the
1:43.4	best of my ability.
1:45.9	Patrons also have the possibility of naming a battle they'd like to hear covered on the show.
1:51.8	If you are able and interested in becoming a member of the BFWP PALS Battalion, point your
1:59.0	internets to patreon.com backslash
2:03.0	battles of the First World War podcast and you can sign up there.
2:07.6	You will only be charged when an episode is released and your patronage is greatly appreciated.
2:16.8	So this episode, we're shifting back closer to the Mursargan, but we're not going back there just yet.
2:24.3	We're stopping in the Champagne region just to the west of the Mursargan.
2:29.3	To get a sense of where we'll be, and if you're not currently driving, set your Google Maps to the city of
	...

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