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June 3, 1918 - Car trouble wastes much of day for Don Martin


Don Martin diary entry for Monday, June 3, 1918: 
Waited in Ligny till noon before a car arrived to tow us in. Got to Neufchateau at 2 p.m. Wrote a 1500 word cable. Arranged to start up to the line again tomorrow.  
         While Don Martin was stuck with car trouble, German commanders had ordered an advance on Marigny and Lucy through Belleau Wood as part of a major offensive, in which other German troops would cross the Marne River. The commander of the Marine Brigade, Army General James Harbord, countermanding a French order to dig trenches further to the rear, ordered the Marines to "hold where they stand". With bayonets, the Marines dug shallow fighting positions from which they could fight from the prone position. In the afternoon of June 3, German infantry attacked the Marine positions through the grain fields with bayonets fixed. The Marines waited until the Germans were within 100 yards before opening deadly rifle fire which mowed down waves of German infantry and forced the survivors to retreat into the woods.
       Having suffered heavy casualties, the Germans dug in along a defensive line from Hill 204, just east of Vaux, to Le Thiolet on the Paris-Metz Highway and northward through Belleau Wood to Torcy.  After Marines were repeatedly urged to turn back by retreating French forces, Marine Captain Lloyd W. Williams of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines uttered the now-famous retort "Retreat? Hell, we just got here".
                   ---
         Here is another of Don Martin's short dispatches published in the Paris Herald on June 4.

GERMANS "EDIT" PRESIDENT'S
WORDS FOR HOME READING
(FROM THE HERALD'S CORRESPONDENT.)
AMERICAN FRONT, Sunday
            The Wolff Agency furnished to the German press for the issues of April an incomplete translation of President Wilson's speech of April 6 commemorating the anniversary of the declaration of war by the United States on Germany. After the omission of the sections referring specifically to the Liberty Loan, there is a very noticeable feature in the omission of the sentences proclaiming Mr. Wilson's desire to deal justly with the German Government and the German people: "Justice, even-handed and dispassionate; justice to Germany, whatever the outcome of the war."
         The statement that the military leaders of Germany are the real rulers is likewise omitted, as is the description of conditions in Russia under German occupation.         
      The final omission is in the section in which the ideals of America are set forth and where it is shown that a German victory means utter defeat for those ideals. In the translation of Mr. Wilson's final sentences the word "force" in the phrase "Germany has said that force, and force alone, shall decide" is translated by "macht" (might), while in the sentence "There is therefore but one response possible from us — force, force to the utmost, force without stint or limit, the righteous and triumphant force which shall make right the law of the world,'' "force" is translated by "gewalt" (violence). There is no apparent reason for the change, and it is probable that the mistake was deliberate.

DON MARTIN.

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