“Ultimately, Cantigny was little more than a skirmish when compared to the epic battles of the Western Front. Yet its strategic importance far outweighed its size in terms of forces committed.”

By Michael Stroud

BY MAY OF 1918, the Great War had been raging for nearly four years. The Allies — France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy and Japan — had been unceasingly engaged with the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey, throwing a generations’ worth of young men into often fruitless battles in an effort to achieve a breakthrough and ultimate victory. 

The United States’ declaration of war against Germany a year earlier was certainly welcomed by the Allies. Yet observers still had reason to keep their optimism in check. While America’s manpower reserves and manufacturing capacity would prove decisive, the country’s military was still small and largely untested. What’s more, it would be months, perhaps years, before it could be brought decisively to bear.

The U.S. victory at Cantigny on May 28, 1918, although minor in terms of size, would prove to foe and ally alike that American troops were capable, well-led and resolute.

The United States entered the First World War ill-prepared to fight. It had been 52 years since the end of the U.S. Civil War. In the intervening decades, America’s military had accrued limited experience in an assortment of small conflicts: the Spanish American War, the Philippine Insurrection, various campaigns against Native American tribes in the southwest. By 1917, its total standing army was only around 130,000 men, a fraction of the size of the multi-million-man armies of France, Britain, Russia and Germany.

After the implementation of conscription through the Selective Service Act on May 18, 1917,[1] the United States would soon have more than three million men in uniform. The task of leading the core of this new army, the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), would fall on Major General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing, a veteran of the frontier wars. Pershing would have his work cut out for him in modernizing this mass of raw “citizen soldiers” to take on the battle-hardened Germans however.

Through the creation of an operations and training staff, Pershing would prepare recruits for 20th century warfare. The general had studied the fighting on the Western Front with a keen eye and was determined to avoid the bloodbaths visited upon British and French troops at places like Ypres, Verdun and the Somme. Feeding the AEF piecemeal into the mud and slaughter of trench warfare was not his plan. Instead he stressed the doctrine of mobile operations.

Even then, it would take the rest of 1917 for his new army to begin to take shape. And more training would need to be completed in France.

By early 1918, Pershing had more than six divisions totaling 325,000 men in Europe with more arriving by the week.[2] He was eager to prove his new army’s mettle to both the Allies and the Germans. The opportunity came at the small northern French village of Cantigny along the Somme River in May of 1918.

The Germans, as part of their Spring Offensive of March, had seized Cantigny, thereby creating a salient or bulge in the Allied lines. Pershing saw this as an opportunity for a small contingent of the AEF to finally get into the fight.

Acting on Pershing’s orders, Major General Robert L. Bullard, commander of the U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division, tasked the 28th Infantry Regiment, under Colonel Hanson E. Ely, to attack the German salient and retake Cantigny.

The action began at 7 a.m. on May 28. After a nearly two-hour, pre-dawn artillery bombardment by French batteries, Ely, a 49-year-old, six-foot tall former West Point football player, led 4,000 troops forward in the first American offensive of the war.

Supported by French tanks, Ely and his three battalions, covered by flanking machine gun companies, slammed into the outer German positions. Would America’s green troops buckle in the face of the seasoned enemy? No one at the time knew for sure.

After an hour of intense close combat marked by rifle and machine gun fire, hand grenades, flamethrowers and fierce hand-to-hand fighting, the Germans withdrew. American troops, green no longer, occupied the village of Cantigny, taking 200 enemy prisoners in the process.

The architect of the attack, a then little-known colonel by the name of George C. Marshall, was surprised at how well things had gone. 

“The success of this phase of the operation was so complete, and the list of casualties so small, that everyone was enthusiastic and delighted,” said the future U.S. Chief of Staff. [3] 

But the fight was not over for these freshly battle-tested American troops.

Recognizing the powerful symbolism of an American victory, the German commander-in-chief, Eric von Ludendorff, ordered AEF troops driven from Cantigny. Pershing, recognizing that all eyes were on his contingent, ordered the village held at all costs.

General Oskar von Hutier and his German 82nd Reserve Division shelled Cantigny relentlessly for hours. It was followed by a ground attack at dusk. For the next 48 hours, American troops were subjected to continual bombardment and infantry attacks.  

By the morning of May 30, Ely and his 28th Infantry had “suffered 1,603 casualties including 199 killed,”[4] but the town was still in Allied hands. Hutier’s division had lost over 1,400 men in the initial action and the subsequent counter assaults.

When compared to the truly epic battles of the Western Front, Cantigny was little more than a skirmish. Yet its strategic importance outweighed its size in terms of forces committed or casualties sustained. America’s conscript and volunteer army, trained for modern warfare, had gone on the offensive against a seasoned enemy and withstood sustained counterattacks. The men at Cantigny were led by professionals, from Major General Pershing down to the brigade-level with Colonel Hanson Ely. What’s more the American soldier himself proved that he would and could take the fight and win.

The AEF and the United States military were now a force to be reckoned with and the world took notice.

Michael Stroud is a military historian with a passion for travel. He’s visited Napoleon’s Tomb, Versailles, Rome, Pompeii, Gettysburg and Antietam. He currently lives in Coldwater, Michigan with his wife Kellie. You can follow him on LinkedIn.

Notes

[1] Scott Rank. Battle of Cantigny. https://www.historyonthenet.com/battle-of-cantigny (accessed December 12, 2020).

[2] Ibid

[3] Doughboys’ Bloody Baptism at the Battle of Cantigny. https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2020/02/13/doughboys-bloody-baptism-at-the-battle-of-cantigny/ (accessed December 12, 2020).

[4] Cantigny: The First Battle of the AEF. https://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/cantigny.htm (accessed December 12, 2020).

Bibliography

“Cantigny: The First Battle of the AEF.” WORLDWAR1.com – World War I / The Great War / 1914-1918. Accessed December 12, 2020. https://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/cantigny.htm.

“Doughboys’ Bloody Baptism at the Battle of Cantigny.” Warfare History Network. Last modified February 13, 2020. https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2020/02/13/doughboys-bloody-baptism-at-the-battle-of-cantigny/.

Image 174 of World War History: Daily Records and Comments As Appeared in American and Foreign Newspapers, 1914-1926 (New York), May 26, 1918, (1918 May 26-29). n.d. https://www.loc.gov/resource/2004540423/1918-05-26/ed-1/?sp=174&q=Cantigny&r=-0.996,-0.252,2.992,1.446,0.

Rank, Scott. “Battle of Cantigny.” History. Last modified June 11, 2018. https://www.historyonthenet.com/battle-of-cantigny.