Hello, welcome to the history hit World Wars Podcast, a podcast dedicated to that turbulent period in history between 1914 and 1945.

My name is James Rogers, and in this episode we explore the Battle of Belu Wood. In June 2018 during the First World War, the

Germans were making an offensive towards Paris. Standing between them and the capital were the

U.S. Marines, centered on infantry tactics, shooting

from the hip, and with an aggressive offensive reputation, the Germans knew what lay ahead.

It was here, though, that around 50 miles from Paris the Battle of Belouwood took place.

As the fantastic Michael Nyberg from the US Army War College explains,

this was a ferocious fight, which spawned the famous US marine

mottos of retreat. Hell we just got here. And come on you sons of bitches. Do you want to live forever?

This was the beginning of a warrior elite. I think the most important historical context is Germany's attempt to win the

First World War in the spring and early summer of 1918 before the American Army

could make itself felt. So what the Russian army having collapsed in the east?

Germany was trying to move as many infantry divisions to the west as it possibly could.

And the real context of Bella Wood is the third of these five German

offenses that eventually take place in 1918,

when the Germans are trying to drive.

We don't think, historians today don't think they were trying

to go towards Paris, but it was an easy thing

to look in a map and believe that they were moving towards Paris.

So the panic that's going on inside Allied lines you can imagine, and the race really is whether the Germans can move those units from east to west

faster than the Americans can get them from the United States to Western Europe

and Bella Wood and this campaign is going to become a major part of all of that.

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