Were the marines at Luxembourg during World War 1?

Answer 1

No. For most of the war Luxembourg was well within German lines. There were only two Marine regiments which saw action in France, the 5th Marines and the 6th Marines. Together these made the 4th Marine Brigade. The 4th Marine Brigade was one half of the US Second Division. The other brigade was Doughboys, soldiers of the US Army, the 9th Infantry and the 23rd Infantry, which together were the 3rd Brigade. The Second Division was thus a hybrid, half Army, half Marine, and the only such US division ever. All other WWI US divisions in France were all Army. WWI US Divisions were huge, more than twice as large as those of any other army, close to 27,000 men.

There were two other Marine regiments which were sent to France, but they were used for replacements for the 5th and 6th Marines, and also as cargo handlers and Service of Supply troops. The Marines had hoped to form an all-Marine division with these two additional regiments, but the US Army brass was not eager to see such a development, particularly after the Marines received such an inordinate amount of attention and coverage in the press back in the US during their battle in Belleau Wood.

Belleau Wood was the Marines first action in France. Its about sixty miles east of Paris, and today is called "Bois De Brigade Des Marines", or Brigade of Marines Wood. The battle lasted several weeks in June, 1918. The Germans had been able to move hundreds of thousands of veteran troops to the Western Front after the Russians made a separate peace with Germany and quit the war. The Germans were using these troops in an all-out effort to get the war won before the US could get its Army to France and make its weight felt on the battlefield. As part of this plan to win the war before it was too late, the Germans made five massive attacks in the spring and summer of 1918. In order to stem one of these German attacks, the US 2nd and 3rd Divisions were committed near the end of May, 1918, in truly desperate circumstances. The Germans had smashed through the Allied line, and nothing was between them and Paris, and victory in the war. The 3rd Division stopped the Germans at Chateau Thierry, and the Germans shifted the main effort a little to their right, to the east, closer to Paris, and encountered the 2nd Division, which stopped them in Belleau Wood and the area around it.

A war correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, Floyd Gibbons, was with the Marines at Belleau Wood. He had just filed a story with the headline "Marines Fighting in Belleau Wood" when he was going forward with the Marines and was wounded. He lost an eye. His colleagues who had seen him go down thought he was killed, and sent word back to press headquarters that Gibbons was killed. Ordinarily the censors would never have let a story be sent back to the states identifying any unit, for security reasons. But, in the shock of believing Gibbons killed, his friend, the censor, sent the story through unaltered. The next day it was in the headlines in just about every newspaper in America: "Marines Fighting In Belleau Wood". This was one of the first big battles American troops were in, the story got a tremendous amount of attention. It also aggravated the Army tremendously. These were the only Marines in France, there weren't that many of them, they weren't fighting alone, the other brigade of the 2nd Division, the Army brigade, was right there too, and all the other US troops in France were Army troops. The Marines had never even had a unit as big as a regiment before this war. This contributed to a bitter inter-service rivalry that persists to this day, particularly on the resentful US Army side.

After Belleau Wood, still as half of the US Second Division, the Marines fought at Soissons, Blanc Mont, in the St. Mihiel Salient offensive, and in the final, massive US battle of the war, the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. This last is the bloodiest battle Americans have ever fought, but few have heard of it today. After the war was over the 2nd Division, still including the Marine Brigade, marched into Germany as part of the Army of Occupation.

I would expect that after the war, while on occupation duty, some Marines on leave from their units may have made their way to Luxembourg, now that it was freed from German occupation.