Profs and Pints Online presents: “The Battle of Belleau Wood,” a discussion of courage and sacrifice in the summer of 1918, with Edward Lengel, chief historian of the National Medal of Honor Museum, former professor at the University of Virginia, and author of several books on World War I military history.

[ This talk will remain available in recorded form at the URL for tickets and access given here.]

“Retreat? Hell, we just got here,” U.S. Marine Captain Lloyd Williams is said to have famously replied to the battered French soldiers who urged him to turn back from Belleau Wood.

The words of Captain Williams, a Virginia Tech graduate who would heroically die in those woods, turned out to be prophetic in many ways. The Battle of Belleau Wood, which waged over several weeks in June 1918, would come to be the United States’ first big engagement of World War I, its first major battle of the twentieth century outside North America, and, arguably, its first encounter with the horrors of modern war. It became a defining moment in the history of the U.S. Marine Corps, and its tragic casualties, heroic acts, and ultimate success live on in Marine Corps lore. The French would rename the area, in the eastern part of their nation, the “Bois de la Brigade de Marine” (“Wood of the Marine Brigade”).

More than 100 years later, the Battle of Belleau Wood is in the news again as a result of a controversy over allegations that President Trump disparaged the American soldiers who died there in declining to visit a cemetery in France where they’re buried.  Part of why emotions have run so high is because Marines view Belleau Wood as especially hallowed ground.

Come hear Edward Lengel, a military historian and master storyteller, relay the gripping tale of the Battle of Belleau Wood and discuss its immense significance. He’ll describe how the battle moved from rolling wheat fields into dense woodland choked with thick underbrush. Enveloped in smoke and gas, their ears pounded by a bewildering riot of sound, threatened by enemies on all sides, fighting men lived by moments and by inches. In this world, the rules of war did not exist. No one heard the generals’ orders, and individual men, American and German, made split-second decisions that determined victory or defeat.

The Americans adjusted to their well-equipped European adversary and delivered a jarring shock to the Germans, who were astonished and intimidated by American aggressiveness. The Americans won the battle and rolled onward, but thousands of graves remain to mark the sacrifices made there. What happened in Belleau Wood and over the remainder of that summer 100 years ago helped determine the course of the war and shape the future of this nation.

Profs & Pints Online: The Battle of Belleau Wood