Download - Americans on the European Front
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Chapter 12.3 (pp. 425-431)
Americans on the European Front
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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
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Pershing in France in 1918
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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
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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
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American troops pass Buckingham
Palace in London,
1917
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369th Infantry Regiment of New York; nicknamed
the Harlem Hellfighters
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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
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TrainingLearned how to:
Use a bayonet & rifleDig a trenchPut on a gas maskThrow a grenade
Training was sometimes cut short due to urgency
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Stateside training camps
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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
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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)
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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
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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
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A Marine bulldog chases a German
dachshund; American Marines
had been nicknamed “Devil Dogs” after fighting at Belleau
Wood
Chateau-Thierry postcard, 1919
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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