First World War.com - Primary Documents - Georg von der Marwitz on the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, September 1918

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Georg von der Marwitz Primary Documents: Georg von der Marwitz on the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, September 1918
Updated - Saturday, 20 December, 2003

The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, jointly launched by U.S. and French forces on the Western Front in front of the Argonne Forest east of Verdun in late September 1918, comprised one of the key offensives of the war and by the armistice had successfully driven north up the west bank of the Meuse to the Belgian border.

Reproduced below is the text of an address given by local German commander Georg von der Marwitz.

Click here to read U.S. Commander-in-Chief John J. Pershing's official account of the offensive. Click here to read Erich Ludendorff's post-war reflections on the offensive's significance: he attributed much of its success to American rather than battle-wearied French forces.

General Georg von der Marwitz Address to the German Fifth Army on the Meuse-Argonne Offensive

It is on the unconquerable resistance of the Verdun front that depends the fate of a great part of the western front, perhaps even of our nation.

The Fatherland must rest assured that every commander and every man realizes the greatness of his mission and that he will do his duty to the very end.

If they do this, the enemy's attack will, as heretofore, break against our firm will to hold.

Source: Source Records of the Great War, Vol. V, ed. Charles F. Horne, National Alumni 1923

"Devil Dogs" was the nickname given to the U.S. Marines by the German Army.