Chapter 12.3 (pp. 425-431)

Americans on the European Front

Congress sent the Allies: Naval supportSupplies/arms$3 billion in loansToken force of 14,500 led by Pershing

Pershing realized this was not enough men Asked for 1 million men by 1918 & 3 million by 1919

Preparing for War

Pershing in France in 1918

Draftees & VolunteersSelective Service Act

implemented in May of 1917Authorized a draft

24 million were registered

3 million selectedAt first ages 21-30;

later ages 18-45

Volunteers & National Guardsmen also served4.7 million served in total

2 million saw time in the trenchesCollectively known as the American

Expeditionary Force (AEF)Nicknamed “Doughboys”Sustained 320k casualties

53k combat deaths, 63 non-combat deaths (influenza pandemic of 1918), 204k wounded

350k African Americans servedSegregated units led by white officers

Draftees & Volunteers

American troops pass Buckingham

Palace in London,

1917

369th Infantry Regiment of New York; nicknamed

the Harlem Hellfighters

Women in the War11k women served in

uniform in various rolesNurses, drivers,

clerks, telephone operators

14k others served abroad as civilians working for the government or for private agencies

TrainingLearned how to:

Use a bayonet & rifleDig a trenchPut on a gas maskThrow a grenade

Training was sometimes cut short due to urgency

Stateside training camps

The Convoy SystemConcern for transporting troops safely

In April 1917 alone, U-boats had sunk 400+ Allied & neutral ships

Starting in May 1917, all merchant & troop ships traveled in a convoyGroup of unarmed ships surrounded by a ring of

destroyers, torpedo boats, & other armed naval vessels

Numbers of ships sunk soon slowedU-boats did not sink a single U.S. troopship

traveling to Europe

American Soldiers in EuropePershing hoped to

keep Americans separate from the AlliesIn his view, the Allies

were too accustomed to defensive moves

Americans were ready for offensive moves

They resembled the fresh European troops of 1914

Most black soldiers never saw combatMarines refused to

accept African Americans altogether

369th/Harlem Hellfighters convinced their white officers to loan them to the French armyThey earned France’s

highest honor: Croix de Guerre (Cross of War)

V.I. Lenin & the Bolsheviks violently overthrew Russia’s republican gov’t in November of 1918Lenin signed a truce w/ Germany in DecemberA final peace treaty was signed in March

Germany gained vast territories from western RussiaGermany no longer had to fight a two-front war

Hundreds of thousands were sent to the Western FrontFrom March through May of 1918, German forces

turned all energy toward pounding the French/British linesSuccessfully broke through trenches & advanced deep into

Allied territory By May of 1918, they were only 50 miles from Paris Known as the “Spring Offensive”

Turning the Tide of War

Americans Save ParisAllied Victories Aided by the Americans:

Re-captured village of Cantigny in late May of 1918

Early June, American forces at Chateau-Thierry helped the French repel a German offensive

Likewise at Belleau Wood at the end of JuneIn July, American troops turned away another

assault at Rheims, farther southBy the end of July, the Allies had halted the

German advanceThe Allies would now begin their own offensive

Meuse-Argonne Offensive

A Marine bulldog chases a German

dachshund; American Marines

had been nicknamed “Devil Dogs” after fighting at Belleau

Wood

Chateau-Thierry postcard, 1919

Allied Counterattack250K new American soldiers were arriving in

France during each month during summer of 1918Additionally, tanks could plow through barbed

wire & make it through “no man’s land”On August 8, at the Battle of Amiens, German

advanced was stopped & German gains were lostGeneral von Ludendorff called it “the black day of

the German army”He advised the Kaiser to seek peace

The Allies insisted on total surrender

The final Allied assault, the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, began on September 26, 1918It included more than 1 million AEF troops

Soon the German army was in full retreat from the Argonne Forest & the Meuse River region

Germans were forced back to their own border by NovemberPershing wanted to push into GermanyOther Allied leaders accepted Germany’s armistice

The war ended on November 11, 1918

Allied Counterattack

Ending the WarCentral Powers collapsed, one by one, in the face

of Allied attacks & domestic revolutionsBulgaria dropped in Sept. 1918Ottoman Empire in Oct. 1918Austria-Hungary splintered in Oct. 1918

German commanders begged for peace before the fighting spilled onto German soilAllies refusedMutiny spread across Germany by the end of Oct.By November 10, the Kaiser had fled to HollandArmistice signed on French RR car on 11/11/1918

American troops arriving in France in spring of 1918 carried a new strain of the flu virusQuickly spread across the Western Front

Disabled 500K German troops at the peak of their offensive

Second wave followed in the fall Third wave in the winter

Struck people of all agesCould kill w/in a few daysSpread easily in crowded, unsanitary

conditions

The Influenza Epidemic

A doctor at Ft. Devens, MA:“…very rapidly develop the most viscous type

of pneumonia that has ever been seen….It is only a matter of a few hours then until death comes, it is simply a struggle for air until they suffocate. It is horrible.”

Over ½ a million Americans died from itPerhaps 30 million people worldwide

Influenza Epidemic

New TechnologyPlanes, Tanks, Flamethrowers, Zeppelins, Air

craft Carriers, Gas Masks, Armored Vehicles, Motorcycles, Field Telephones, Etc.

New weaponry=more deathsFighting took to the skies

“Dog Fights”#1 American pilot=Eddie Rickenbacker

Downed 26 enemies

End ResultsIn the USA:

50K+ Americans died in battle More died from disease, esp. influenza“Hundreds of bodies of our brave boys lie on

Hill 212, captured with such a great loss of blood. We will never be able to explain war to our loved ones back home even if we….live and return.”—Corporal Elmer Sherwood

Globally:8-10 million soldiers, sailors, flyers died

5K+ soldiers/day60K Brits lost in one day at the Battle of the Somme in 1916

5 million more civiliansOttoman forces organized the mass killing of Armenians,

whom they suspected of disloyaltyMillions were wounded, crippled

“Trench foot,” blindness from poison gasCost more money & involved more countries than any

previous war in historySurvivors sensed the war had destroyed a whole

generation of young men

End Results

Globally:Downfall of four monarchies:

1. Russia, 1917Bolsheviks

2. Austria-Hungary, 19183. Germany, 19184. Turkey, 1922

Fascism in Italy, 1922Disillusionment & bitterness

The “War to End All Wars”?????Both would contribute to WWII only 21 yrs. later

Poem—MCMXIV (1914)

End Results