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Updated: May 6, 2025
The elimination of this wedge would have great moral effect; it would free the Paris-Nancy railway from artillery fire; and would assure Pershing an excellent base for attack against the Metz-Sedan railway system and the Briey iron basin. The German positions were naturally strong and had withstood violent French attacks in 1915.
Mihiel blocked the north and south line from the Paris-Nancy trunk line and at Montfaucon and Varennes interrupted the Paris-Verdun railroad by indirect fire. There was every reason why the Germans could expect that a sudden and terrific blow would permit them to get to Verdun, take the forts on the east bank, and possibly cut clear through the French lines and break them into two parts.
No episode in the war is more likely to ring in the memory of after-times. "In the bend of the Marne at the mouth of the Surmelin," says Colonel Palmer, "not a German was able to land. In all twenty boats full of the enemy were sunk or sent drifting harmlessly down the stream." To the east of Mézy also, four American platoons did incredible things in defence of the Paris-Nancy railway.
From the strongest point in French defence it became the weakest. When the Germans took St. Mihiel in September, 1914, they cut the north and south railroad that binds Verdun to the Paris-Nancy Railroad. When they retreated from the Marne they halted at Varennes and Montfaucon, and from these points they command the Paris-Verdun-Metz Railroad.
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