Fismes and Fismette - House to House in the Great War

Battles of the First World War Podcast

Mike Cunha

History

4.8 • 812 Ratings

🗓️ 18 December 2023

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

An early Christmas gift for the BFWWP community--the battle of Fismes in summer 1918. This was a Patreon release, so you'll hear the old scores used in the episode.

Following the German Friedensturm offensive in July 1918, the Allies struck back with a counteroffensive that shifted the momentum of the war in the Allies’ favor. Through the rest of July the Germans retreated from their Marne salient, steadily pursued by the French and American forces.

When the Germans retreated behind the River Vesle, American troops encountered obstacles not common to the Great War battlefield: the town of Fismes and its sister village of Fismette. Both would have to be cleared of German troops for the advance to continue.

August 1918 saw weeks of staggering violence as American Doughboys and German Frontkaempfer fought tooth and nail for the ruins of these towns.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	We piled them up something awful as they came.
0:05.8	One little machine gunner laid them down as fast as they advanced.
0:11.8	Private Bernard Spelland, Company H, 112th Infantry, American Expeditionary Force, Femet, Augustmet, house to house in the great war.
0:54.4	So, this episode comes to you from three BFWP listeners, Justin, Aaron, and Bob.
1:04.9	All three of these stand-up guys emailed over a period of five months and asked if I would ever cover Femme and Femmette.
1:14.4	And here we are.
1:17.4	On March 21st, 1918, the Imperial German Army had launched the first of its massive spring
1:24.5	offensives, initiating the onslaught, known as the Kaiser Schlock.
1:29.8	The first blow struck on the psalm, smashing into an unprepared British field army there.
1:35.9	The second blow came just two and a half weeks later on the lease, where the Germans sliced
1:42.2	through the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps and broke through the trench lines.
1:47.9	At the end of May, a month and a half later, they slammed into the French on the end,
1:53.1	and just under two weeks later, hammered the Allied line in the vicinity of Noyon and Mont Didier.
2:01.6	Each time, the Germans cut deep into Allied territory,
2:05.6	carving out deep belts of land and causing hundreds of thousands of casualties.
2:10.6	None of these battles, however, struck the decisive blow.
2:14.6	The German attacks ran out of steam at some critical point, or the Allies pulled their
2:20.0	lines together.
2:22.1	Each push strained the Allies, their lines, and their reserves, but they did not break.
2:30.8	German quartermaster General Eric Ludendorf was the principal architect behind these massive
2:36.0	offensives. Despite blow after blow, the Allies weren't breaking or collapsing in the spring
2:45.3	and on into the summer of 1918. And there was an ever-growing problem on top of that. The United States had
	...

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