"The Marines of the Fourth Brigade, one of two infantry brigades of the Second Division, US Army, carried out the major effort of the Marine Corps in Europe during World War I. The Marines' triumph in the Battles of Belleau Wood and Soissons-in June and July of 1918, respectively-is one of the greatest in Marine Corps history, and was so important to an eventual Allied victory in World War I that the only memorial in Europe dedicated to United States Marines commemorates Belleau Wood. Rather than using a top-down approach, Mike Miller draws on letters, diaries, memoirs, and interviews of Marines on the ground, resulting in a vivid and personal reconstruction of the battles. In addition to the extensive use of primary documents, this account puts equal emphasis on the Battle of Soissons, which is often neglected in other accounts. While Belleau Wood is rightly remembered as an engagement in which Marines fought with determination to clear out the Germans, it was at the Battle of Soissons that Allied forces overturned the Germans at last and turned the tide of the war. Miller amplifies the narrative with tour stops including GPS coordinates so readers visiting the sites or those in remote locations can see for themselves the terrain and other features of the battles."--