The Marne Was Just the Beginning: How July 15 Marked America’s Rise on the World Stage David Manney

https://pjmedia.com/david-manney/2025/07/14/the-marne-was-just-the-beginning-how-july-15-marked-americas-rise-on-the-world-stage-n4941756

The River Where America Arrived

It was July 15, 1918. In the heat of a brutal French summer, German artillery opened up on Allied lines at the Marne River. A barrage unlike all others, it was Berlin’s final gamble to break the Western Front. What they didn’t count on was that a new player had arrived, and he wasn’t bluffing.

America wasn’t just sending weapons anymore. We were sending boys who would soon become men by force of fire, and in doing so, the United States proved, once and for all, that it was no longer a mere spectator on the global stage.

Modern Parallels: From the Marne to Ukraine

When Germany launched its last offensive at the Marne, they were gambling on exhaustion. They believed the Allies were too fatigued, too fractured, and too under‑resourced to withstand one final blow. But then American boots hit the dirt. More than 250,000 Americans stood in defiance—not just a token few—by the time the counterattack surged forward.

Today, in Ukraine, we see echoes of that gamble again. A significant power pushes forward under the illusion that the West has grown soft and wouldn’t respond, thinking that American strength is nothing but a bluff.

Although late to the game, the world learned in 1918 that the United States alone had the strength to alter the course of the war. Lessons learned echo in chambers deep inside the Kremlin, Beijing, and Tehran. The entire world knew then that when America commits, we don’t simply turn the tide; we bring a tsunami.

This isn’t arrogance talking. It’s the memory shared by each nation that watched the Marne become the moment the war turned.

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