Brilliantly did these men justify their commander’s faith in them in this and in all the later battles in which they took part. In all, 1,390,000 were in action against the enemy. Less than two years before they had been clerks, farmers, brokers, tailors, authors, lawyers, teachers, small shop keepers, dishwashers, newspaper men, artists, waiters, barbers, laborers, with no thought of ever being soldiers. Their education, thoughts, environment, whole life, had been aloof from military affairs. They had been trained at high speed, in the shortest possible time, four or five months, and sometimes less, having taken the place of the year or more formerly thought necessary. But it was American troops that stopped the enemy at Chateau-Thierry and at Belleau Wood in June, when the Germans were making a determined drive for Paris and had reached their nearest approach to the French capital. They fought the enemy’s best guard troops, drove them back, took many prisoners and held the captured positions. Because of their valor and success the Wood of Belleau will be known hereafter and to history as “the Wood of the American Marines,” although other American troops fought with the Marines in that brilliant action. In the pushing back of the Marne salient in July, into which General Pershing, with absolute faith in the dependability of his men, threw all of his troops who had had any sort of training, American soldiers shared the place of honor at the front of the advance with seasoned French troops. Through two weeks of stubborn fighting the French and the Americans advanced shoulder to shoulder and steadily drove the enemy, who until that time had been just as steadily advancing, back to the Vesle and completed the object of reducing the salient. Early in August the First American Army was organized under General Pershing’s personal command and took charge of a distinct American sector which stretched at first from Port sur Seille to a point opposite Verdun and was afterwards extended across the Meuse to the Argonne Forest. For the operation planned against the formidable enemy forces in front of him General Pershing assembled and molded together troops and material, all the elements of a great modern army, transporting the 600,000 troops mostly by night. The battle of St. Mihiel, for which he had thus prepared, began on September 12th, and this first offensive of the American First Army was a signal success. The Germans were driven steadily backward, with more than twice the losses of our own troops and the loss of much war material, and the American lines were established in a position to threaten Metz.