French President Emmanuel Macron and his Portuguese counterpart Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa on Monday marked the centennial of a World War I battle which helped allied nations stop a German offensive in the final year of hostilities. In 1918, Germany made a major effort to finally make a breakthrough toward Paris and push British forces back to the English Channel. It failed because of the kind of resistance that Macron lauded on Monday. "In all, 7,000 Portuguese soldiers were killed, wounded or taken prisoner in this one day, the deadliest of the Great War for your people. It made the Battle of the Lys what the Battle of Verdun was for the French," Macron said, recounting the 1916 French-German battle where the casualties amounted to the hundreds of thousands.

Source: ABC News April 09, 2018 13:18 UTC