American War Memorial at Montfaucon Hill (Montfaucon d'Argonne)

Montfaucon-d'Argonne was a hilltop village some 280 meters above sea levelin in the Department of Meuse, Lorraine,
It was the site of a Benedictine monastery (founded in the 6th Century) destroyed in the First World War.
There is now an American battle monument at this hilltop battlefield, and there is a village at the base of the hill where about 300 people now live.
Opposite the 315th Infantry on the morning of 26 September 1918 lay one of the most formidable positions on the entire Western front.
Five hundred meters beyond the Regiment's most advanced posts of the outpost line, across the waste of rusted wire and shell-torn ground that marked "No Man's Land", lay the German front line.
The German Army had held this position for nearly four years and had reinforced it with four successive lines of defense, the first of these was the prolongation of the famous Hindenburg Line, which at this point lay three kilometers south of Montfaucon.
Beyond the nearly obliterated villages of Haucourt and Malancourt, the country rolled to the north in hills and valleys dotted with small clumps of woods and underbrush, and traversed by band after band of barbed wire entanglements. Beyond all, far back on the northern horizon, rose the dominating heights of Montfaucon, which the German High Command had said would never be taken by the Allies.
Montfaucon remained a vital observation point for the German army until it was captured by the U.S. 37th and 79th Divisions at about noon on 27 September 1918. The U.S. offensive had begun at dawn the day before.