America Declares War on Germany - Good Friday 1917.
The 'Mad Brute' must be destroyed
THE first shots of the Great War were fired from Austro-Hungarian gunboats into the Serbian capital city of Belgrade on July 29, 1914.
America’s official position in relation the unfolding crisis became clear within a week. President Woodrow Wilson issued a ‘Proclamation of Neutrality’ keeping the USA out of the escalating conflict. With the hindsight of more than 100 years this neutral act can be seen as a contributory factor to the war. Simply put, by 1914, the USA was a huge economic powerhouse; decisions made in Washington or on Wall Street would profoundly alter the course of the war if America was in, or if America chose to stay out.
An American alliance with Britain and France in 1914 would have almost certainly deterred the Germans from launching a full-scale attack on Belgium and France, and the war might have remained a localised confrontation between far-away Austria and Serbia.
President Wilson’s natural instincts favoured democratic England where he had spent vacations, but the economic effects of the war meant that the President was forced to take decisions which would be preferential to one side and detrimental to the other. Neutrality was destined to be temporary and illusionary.
Wilson’s hand was forced by the nature of the war. Britain’s mighty Royal Navy ruled the seas and was soon deployed to blockade the trading ports of Germany and her allies. When cotton farmers in the Southern states of the USA saw their trade with Germany and Central Europe wiped-out, Britain had to step in and subsidize American farm prices.
The same blockade ran against Britain’s own interests when it came to chemicals. Despite the British Navy’s enormous capacity for raining shells on an enemy, Britain relied on German factories to supply the explosives. Britain turned to manufacturers in the USA, the only place in the world capable of producing the necessary chemicals in sufficient quantities for the British big guns.
To fight the war, Britain needed money. To pay for American munitions, Britain had to borrow cash from the lenders on Wall Street. Approval or disapproval of trade and finance issues by Wilson’s government inevitably went in favour of one European side leading to economic catastrophe for the other; and it was in Britain’s favor that the balance would tip.
For Britain and France, access to finance was a matter of life or death; to deny these countries the necessary loans would cause their fall. By financing the war, America had turned its back on true neutrality. If Britain and France should lose the war, Wall Street would face ruin.
Germany had only one weapon which could break the British naval blockade and halt Atlantic trade; the recently-invented submarine, the dreaded U-boat. To many, the use of submarines represented an unethical and repugnant form of warfare. When atrocities - sometimes real and sometimes fabricated - against Belgium and French civilians were recalled, it seemed as though the Germans were indeed the 'mad brutes' of the anti-German propagandist posters.
The loss of life aboard the liner Lusitania enraged America. When the torpedoed passenger ship sank in May 1915, she took with her 128 American souls. Former president, Theodore Roosevelt and others, condemning submarine warfare as barbaric, began to campaign for war against the Germans. For a while, the U-boats were withdrawn from the Atlantic, but their construction continued.
President Wilson’s diplomatic efforts to persuade the Europeans to make peace with each other came to nothing. While German armies remained entrenched in Belgium and the occupied areas of France, Germany was bound to be the loser in the propaganda war, and Great Britain did all it could to retain American sympathy, but Wilson remained resolute. By the end of 1916, the American people -re-elected Wilson to high office; his vote-winning slogan: ’He kept us out of the war!’
Civilians within the German government began to convince the re-elected Wilson that peace was a possibility but it was the militarists in Germany who held sway. Encouraged by the imminent collapse of Russia and Czar Nicholas II’s tottering regime on Germany’s long Eastern border, the German generals and admirals unleashed the U-boats once more, sensing that victory was close. With Russia embroiled in revolution, German troops could be moved from the east, to make ready for a final hammer blow against the British and French.
A new and larger submarine fleet was bound to result in starvation for the British, or so the Germans calculated. The general weakness and small size of the armed forces of the USA meant that America was no real threat to Germany with the end of the war in sight, and besides, the submarines meant that American troopships could be sunk before they reached the European coast.
January 1917 meant a new phase in the war at sea, as the despised German U-boats were unleashed against hostile and neutral ships sailing the Atlantic, but on January 19th, the German diplomat Alfred Zimmermann sent the fateful telegraph message which promised Mexico financial assistance, if that country moved to reconquer New Mexico, Texas and Arizona. This was not a realistic German war aim - and the Mexicans were not interested - but the hostile intent contained in the message destroyed American commitment to neutrality. Public opinion in the USA shifted almost overnight as newspapers disclosed details of the German plot to dismember the Union from the southern border.
Less than three months later, on Good Friday, April 6th, 1917, an almost unanimous vote by Congress committed the USA to war against Germany.
The President presented his new war policy as an idealistic crusade in favor of democracy. It was a mandate for the cause of liberation and freedom, not only for the subjugated citizens of France and Belgium, but also for the German people themselves. America went to war, not for military glory or territorial gain, but for freedom, justice and the ideals of a nation founded upon the notion of democracy.
In the President’s view, Imperial Germany and her brutal submarine fleet were too dangerous to be allowed exist in a civilised world. To eradicate that danger, America would need a new Army of at least half a million men or more. Preparation of a significant fighting force would take over one year. By the time that force was ready to fight, the war was almost over, but the existence of that force - expanded to a size larger than the British Army - meant that defeat for Germany was virtually certain, hastening the collapse of the German will to continue the struggle beyond November, 1918.
MORE TO FOLLOW - SITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION
c. MDM 2015
The 'Mad Brute' must be destroyed
THE first shots of the Great War were fired from Austro-Hungarian gunboats into the Serbian capital city of Belgrade on July 29, 1914.
America’s official position in relation the unfolding crisis became clear within a week. President Woodrow Wilson issued a ‘Proclamation of Neutrality’ keeping the USA out of the escalating conflict. With the hindsight of more than 100 years this neutral act can be seen as a contributory factor to the war. Simply put, by 1914, the USA was a huge economic powerhouse; decisions made in Washington or on Wall Street would profoundly alter the course of the war if America was in, or if America chose to stay out.
An American alliance with Britain and France in 1914 would have almost certainly deterred the Germans from launching a full-scale attack on Belgium and France, and the war might have remained a localised confrontation between far-away Austria and Serbia.
President Wilson’s natural instincts favoured democratic England where he had spent vacations, but the economic effects of the war meant that the President was forced to take decisions which would be preferential to one side and detrimental to the other. Neutrality was destined to be temporary and illusionary.
Wilson’s hand was forced by the nature of the war. Britain’s mighty Royal Navy ruled the seas and was soon deployed to blockade the trading ports of Germany and her allies. When cotton farmers in the Southern states of the USA saw their trade with Germany and Central Europe wiped-out, Britain had to step in and subsidize American farm prices.
The same blockade ran against Britain’s own interests when it came to chemicals. Despite the British Navy’s enormous capacity for raining shells on an enemy, Britain relied on German factories to supply the explosives. Britain turned to manufacturers in the USA, the only place in the world capable of producing the necessary chemicals in sufficient quantities for the British big guns.
To fight the war, Britain needed money. To pay for American munitions, Britain had to borrow cash from the lenders on Wall Street. Approval or disapproval of trade and finance issues by Wilson’s government inevitably went in favour of one European side leading to economic catastrophe for the other; and it was in Britain’s favor that the balance would tip.
For Britain and France, access to finance was a matter of life or death; to deny these countries the necessary loans would cause their fall. By financing the war, America had turned its back on true neutrality. If Britain and France should lose the war, Wall Street would face ruin.
Germany had only one weapon which could break the British naval blockade and halt Atlantic trade; the recently-invented submarine, the dreaded U-boat. To many, the use of submarines represented an unethical and repugnant form of warfare. When atrocities - sometimes real and sometimes fabricated - against Belgium and French civilians were recalled, it seemed as though the Germans were indeed the 'mad brutes' of the anti-German propagandist posters.
The loss of life aboard the liner Lusitania enraged America. When the torpedoed passenger ship sank in May 1915, she took with her 128 American souls. Former president, Theodore Roosevelt and others, condemning submarine warfare as barbaric, began to campaign for war against the Germans. For a while, the U-boats were withdrawn from the Atlantic, but their construction continued.
President Wilson’s diplomatic efforts to persuade the Europeans to make peace with each other came to nothing. While German armies remained entrenched in Belgium and the occupied areas of France, Germany was bound to be the loser in the propaganda war, and Great Britain did all it could to retain American sympathy, but Wilson remained resolute. By the end of 1916, the American people -re-elected Wilson to high office; his vote-winning slogan: ’He kept us out of the war!’
Civilians within the German government began to convince the re-elected Wilson that peace was a possibility but it was the militarists in Germany who held sway. Encouraged by the imminent collapse of Russia and Czar Nicholas II’s tottering regime on Germany’s long Eastern border, the German generals and admirals unleashed the U-boats once more, sensing that victory was close. With Russia embroiled in revolution, German troops could be moved from the east, to make ready for a final hammer blow against the British and French.
A new and larger submarine fleet was bound to result in starvation for the British, or so the Germans calculated. The general weakness and small size of the armed forces of the USA meant that America was no real threat to Germany with the end of the war in sight, and besides, the submarines meant that American troopships could be sunk before they reached the European coast.
January 1917 meant a new phase in the war at sea, as the despised German U-boats were unleashed against hostile and neutral ships sailing the Atlantic, but on January 19th, the German diplomat Alfred Zimmermann sent the fateful telegraph message which promised Mexico financial assistance, if that country moved to reconquer New Mexico, Texas and Arizona. This was not a realistic German war aim - and the Mexicans were not interested - but the hostile intent contained in the message destroyed American commitment to neutrality. Public opinion in the USA shifted almost overnight as newspapers disclosed details of the German plot to dismember the Union from the southern border.
Less than three months later, on Good Friday, April 6th, 1917, an almost unanimous vote by Congress committed the USA to war against Germany.
The President presented his new war policy as an idealistic crusade in favor of democracy. It was a mandate for the cause of liberation and freedom, not only for the subjugated citizens of France and Belgium, but also for the German people themselves. America went to war, not for military glory or territorial gain, but for freedom, justice and the ideals of a nation founded upon the notion of democracy.
In the President’s view, Imperial Germany and her brutal submarine fleet were too dangerous to be allowed exist in a civilised world. To eradicate that danger, America would need a new Army of at least half a million men or more. Preparation of a significant fighting force would take over one year. By the time that force was ready to fight, the war was almost over, but the existence of that force - expanded to a size larger than the British Army - meant that defeat for Germany was virtually certain, hastening the collapse of the German will to continue the struggle beyond November, 1918.
MORE TO FOLLOW - SITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION
c. MDM 2015
Chateau-Thierry. July 18, 1918.
Location. Aisne, Picardy, Champage Region
German planners eyed the Chateau-Thierry's bridges as a favourable crossing place on the River Marne. Located less than 60 miles from Paris, the town had tremendous strategic significance as Germans fought to smash through the French, Belgians and the new American arrivals.
American machine gunners (the 7th Machine Gun Battalion - a fast-moving motorised unit), was rushed into place at the bridges on the last day of May while the French worked to stop the bridges falling intact into German hands.
Combat between the Americans and advancing Germans began that same night of the 31st as machine-gun teams exchanged fire during heavy street fighting.The combined Franco-American force was able to hold or demolish the town’s three bridges, and the German attack was halted.
There were more bridges to defend eastwards along the Marne; and it was to these river crossings which the US 3rd Division was directed, under French orders.
The main German attack in the region recommenced six weeks later on July 15, as the Germans became increasingly desperate for a decisive win. The French high command decided use surprise attack tactics to catch the Germans off-guard. No preliminary bombardment was used to alert the Germans. When the artillery did open fire it was as a rolling barrage, with the troops following immediately behind.
Against the usual pattern of World War One attacks, American troops seized their objectives and pressed their attack into territory behind the German lines. This counter-attack - the Second Battle of the Marne - took pressure off routes to Paris and the German Kaiser’s regime began to totter irrevocably.
Chateau-Thierry today.
The town is overlooked by an ancient fortress. Fallen Americans are commemorated by the enormous Chateau-Thierry Monument, situated two miles westwards from the town itself. The partnership between France and the USA is symbolised by an imposing double colonnade structure. Where the colonnades meet are statues, one representing the States, the other the French Republic. Views along the Marne Valley help visitors to understand how the terrain formed a passage from German-held-territory to Paris.
Postcards from the time depict the battle for Chateau-Thierry’s bridges as ‘the turning point of the World War’. The battle was certainly indicative of the war’s final direction.
Location. Aisne, Picardy, Champage Region
German planners eyed the Chateau-Thierry's bridges as a favourable crossing place on the River Marne. Located less than 60 miles from Paris, the town had tremendous strategic significance as Germans fought to smash through the French, Belgians and the new American arrivals.
American machine gunners (the 7th Machine Gun Battalion - a fast-moving motorised unit), was rushed into place at the bridges on the last day of May while the French worked to stop the bridges falling intact into German hands.
Combat between the Americans and advancing Germans began that same night of the 31st as machine-gun teams exchanged fire during heavy street fighting.The combined Franco-American force was able to hold or demolish the town’s three bridges, and the German attack was halted.
There were more bridges to defend eastwards along the Marne; and it was to these river crossings which the US 3rd Division was directed, under French orders.
The main German attack in the region recommenced six weeks later on July 15, as the Germans became increasingly desperate for a decisive win. The French high command decided use surprise attack tactics to catch the Germans off-guard. No preliminary bombardment was used to alert the Germans. When the artillery did open fire it was as a rolling barrage, with the troops following immediately behind.
Against the usual pattern of World War One attacks, American troops seized their objectives and pressed their attack into territory behind the German lines. This counter-attack - the Second Battle of the Marne - took pressure off routes to Paris and the German Kaiser’s regime began to totter irrevocably.
Chateau-Thierry today.
The town is overlooked by an ancient fortress. Fallen Americans are commemorated by the enormous Chateau-Thierry Monument, situated two miles westwards from the town itself. The partnership between France and the USA is symbolised by an imposing double colonnade structure. Where the colonnades meet are statues, one representing the States, the other the French Republic. Views along the Marne Valley help visitors to understand how the terrain formed a passage from German-held-territory to Paris.
Postcards from the time depict the battle for Chateau-Thierry’s bridges as ‘the turning point of the World War’. The battle was certainly indicative of the war’s final direction.
Bellau Wood SITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Belleau Wood. June 1, 1918 to June 26, 1918.
Location. Open fields and wooded patches a few minutes by car from the town of Chateau-Thierry and 59 miles from Paris.
Casualties. Nearly 2,000 men killed and 8,000 wounded on the Allied side, notably from the US Marine Corps as well as US Army with elements of French and British forces.
Belleau Wood became one of World War One’s most iconic battlefields following the German plan to bring the war to a decisive conclusion before the American build-up proved too strong for the German Army to contain.
Savage hand-to-hand fighting at its most primitive was characteristic of this battle. It is also historically significant as the first major battlefield for the American Expedition Force in the war, and the biggest in American history since the end of The War Between the States
As American troops entered the fighting of World War One brimming with confidence and enthusiasm. Belleau Wood turned into a military shambles. Hadn’t the American commanders learned anything from the experience of the French and British in the first four years of the war?
The disaster began with French ambitions to capture Belleau Wood from the Germans. There was a hole in the French lines and the Americans were ordered to undertake a forced march to plug the gap.
Instead of digging deep trenches, the Marines lay in shallow hollows a few inches deep, rifles at the ready. German attackers (June 3), fixed bayonets and were repulsed despite the weak and open American defences.
On the morning of June 6, 1918, US Marines captured an area to the west of the wood as a preparation for the main attack.
What happened next seems to represent the recurrent popular view of World War one commanders as complete incompetents. Without a proper reconnaissance of the opposing Germans, the 5th and 6th US Marine Regiments marched into hail of machine gun fire. The wood had become a network of trenches and machine gun nests, and the wheat fields outside the wood became the perfect killing ground.
The Marine Brigade suffered 1087 men either killed or wounded, making June 6, 1918 the worst day on record for the Marines. but the strategic Hill 142 had at least been captured, although the main wood remained in German hands.
Another futile attack was made into the trees on June 8, as the Germans brought in reinforcements. Now that the strength of the Germans had become clear, French and American artillery were called upon to pound the woods, but German gunfire dominated the fighting on the 10th, and the Marines also experienced the terror of a mustard gas attack. June 11 was particularly horrendous for the Marines as units became lost and disorientated - easily done by inexperienced troops in woodland. Heavy artillery supported a further attack in June 11; this time the greater part of the wood was captured, and the following day brought further gains.
The Germans held on and counter attacked, deploying heavy artillery and poison gas. For a further two weeks, the costly battle continued. The U.S. Army was able to relieve the Marines with the 3rd Dvision’s 7th Infantry, but there was no sudden breakthrough for the Americans who were now commanded by the French.
There were further failures, particularly on June 18, 19, and 21. For three further days, fighting continued, but it was a 14-hour artillery bombardment on June 25th which broke the German resolve to hold Belleau Wood.
On June 26, the Marines could finally report that Belleau Wood was in their hands.
For all their élan and fighting spirit, Belleau Wood is now viewed as a disaster for the Americans. The tragedy of Belleau Wood appears to represent all the evils of World War One in a microcosm. Planning, tactics, command and control systems failed, killing or maiming thousands of Americans. Brigadier General James Harbord has become the principal scapegoat for the mismanagement of the battle.
Belleau Wood today.
The wood is approached from open fields - the Marines here were easy targets for German machine gunners. Spindly trees make the wood an eerie place. Shell holes are everywhere. There are monuments and preserved artillery in the wood itself. A very atmosphere place for somber contemplation. Belleau Wood’s main war graves are in the AISNE-MARNE CEMETARY which contains 2,289 American graves. These are overlooked by tower built in French romanesque style rather than the more usual classical manner. A carillon plays tunes which would have been familiar to the American troops to mark the hour. The tower suffered a hit in World War II, but the Stars and Stripes flies proudly here.
Meuse-Argonne Offensive 1918
The blow which sealed the fate of the Kaiser's Army - The USA is victorious.
German planners had eagerly looked forward to the day when their submarines would force the starving British to sue for peace, but that submarine strategy had gone badly wrong for the Germans. The use of escorted convoys by the British meant that food and armaments continued to feed and defend the British population.
Instead it was the German population which starved after more than four years of blockade by the British Royal Navy. When the Germans captured British trenches and supply dumps in the Spring of 1918, the Germans were shocked by the abundance of food and drink abandoned by the retreating Britons. The everyday requirements necessary to keep the German citizenry alive and the German army in the field were no longer available. As German trucks trundled to the front on bare metal wheels - there was no more rubber for tyres - the German army was crumbling and the willpower of the Germans for the fight was sapping away.
Command of the final battle of World War One was taken by the French General, Marshal Foch.
By September 26, 1918, over 400,000 Americans were ready to attack. Alongside the US Army was the Tank Brigade commanded by George S. Patton, although the tank crews were made up by French personnel as well as Americans. The village of Montfaucon was at the centre of American combat objectives. Where the Montfaucon Memorial now stands, the German defences were murderously thick. Patton, with most of his tanks knocked out, attacked on foot, but was wounded and then evacuated.
The US 37 Div took Montfaucon the following morning.
By now the Second American Army had become a fighting force, commanded by BULLARD. The political events of the time tend to outweigh the actions on the battlefield. As the First (under Hunter Liggett) and Second American Armies advanced, the Germans finally made peace overtures. The two American armies had advanced 15 miles into German-held territory by the end of October.
Further north, British and Belgian forces were making great territorial gains. With the momentum of the advance, the French rediscovered their failed fighting spirit and joined the attack.
Germany did not surrender, but their government had requested an armistice on October 6. German supremo Ludendorff resigned following a nervous breakdown. It was the Germany Navy, the High Seas Fleet, which succumbed to defeat first. Bottled up in harbour for most of the war, the German fleet mutinied.
German civilian politicians began armistice negotiations on November 7, and the Kaiser's disastrous reign ended two days letter with his abdication. Fighting came to an end on the 11th hour of the 11th month, November 11, 1918.
General Pershing and his British and French counterparts remained in the field. There was no guarantee that the armistice would hold, but hold it did. Pershing's inexperienced army had done its job nobly and effectively and could return home, leaving many of its dead behind.
As the British had discovered two years earlier, an inexperienced soldiary takes disproportionately high casualties when compared to seasoned and battle-hardened troops.
During the Great War, 53,000 Americans were killed. That figure is included in the toll of 204,000 battle casualties. There were further casualties, with 30,000 men killed by disease and accidents. The influenza pandemic accounted for many of these men. The sacrifice of these men is no longer in living memory, but sadly, the sacrifice of these men barely registers in public perceptions of the First World War.
Belleau Wood. June 1, 1918 to June 26, 1918.
Location. Open fields and wooded patches a few minutes by car from the town of Chateau-Thierry and 59 miles from Paris.
Casualties. Nearly 2,000 men killed and 8,000 wounded on the Allied side, notably from the US Marine Corps as well as US Army with elements of French and British forces.
Belleau Wood became one of World War One’s most iconic battlefields following the German plan to bring the war to a decisive conclusion before the American build-up proved too strong for the German Army to contain.
Savage hand-to-hand fighting at its most primitive was characteristic of this battle. It is also historically significant as the first major battlefield for the American Expedition Force in the war, and the biggest in American history since the end of The War Between the States
As American troops entered the fighting of World War One brimming with confidence and enthusiasm. Belleau Wood turned into a military shambles. Hadn’t the American commanders learned anything from the experience of the French and British in the first four years of the war?
The disaster began with French ambitions to capture Belleau Wood from the Germans. There was a hole in the French lines and the Americans were ordered to undertake a forced march to plug the gap.
Instead of digging deep trenches, the Marines lay in shallow hollows a few inches deep, rifles at the ready. German attackers (June 3), fixed bayonets and were repulsed despite the weak and open American defences.
On the morning of June 6, 1918, US Marines captured an area to the west of the wood as a preparation for the main attack.
What happened next seems to represent the recurrent popular view of World War one commanders as complete incompetents. Without a proper reconnaissance of the opposing Germans, the 5th and 6th US Marine Regiments marched into hail of machine gun fire. The wood had become a network of trenches and machine gun nests, and the wheat fields outside the wood became the perfect killing ground.
The Marine Brigade suffered 1087 men either killed or wounded, making June 6, 1918 the worst day on record for the Marines. but the strategic Hill 142 had at least been captured, although the main wood remained in German hands.
Another futile attack was made into the trees on June 8, as the Germans brought in reinforcements. Now that the strength of the Germans had become clear, French and American artillery were called upon to pound the woods, but German gunfire dominated the fighting on the 10th, and the Marines also experienced the terror of a mustard gas attack. June 11 was particularly horrendous for the Marines as units became lost and disorientated - easily done by inexperienced troops in woodland. Heavy artillery supported a further attack in June 11; this time the greater part of the wood was captured, and the following day brought further gains.
The Germans held on and counter attacked, deploying heavy artillery and poison gas. For a further two weeks, the costly battle continued. The U.S. Army was able to relieve the Marines with the 3rd Dvision’s 7th Infantry, but there was no sudden breakthrough for the Americans who were now commanded by the French.
There were further failures, particularly on June 18, 19, and 21. For three further days, fighting continued, but it was a 14-hour artillery bombardment on June 25th which broke the German resolve to hold Belleau Wood.
On June 26, the Marines could finally report that Belleau Wood was in their hands.
For all their élan and fighting spirit, Belleau Wood is now viewed as a disaster for the Americans. The tragedy of Belleau Wood appears to represent all the evils of World War One in a microcosm. Planning, tactics, command and control systems failed, killing or maiming thousands of Americans. Brigadier General James Harbord has become the principal scapegoat for the mismanagement of the battle.
Belleau Wood today.
The wood is approached from open fields - the Marines here were easy targets for German machine gunners. Spindly trees make the wood an eerie place. Shell holes are everywhere. There are monuments and preserved artillery in the wood itself. A very atmosphere place for somber contemplation. Belleau Wood’s main war graves are in the AISNE-MARNE CEMETARY which contains 2,289 American graves. These are overlooked by tower built in French romanesque style rather than the more usual classical manner. A carillon plays tunes which would have been familiar to the American troops to mark the hour. The tower suffered a hit in World War II, but the Stars and Stripes flies proudly here.
Meuse-Argonne Offensive 1918
The blow which sealed the fate of the Kaiser's Army - The USA is victorious.
German planners had eagerly looked forward to the day when their submarines would force the starving British to sue for peace, but that submarine strategy had gone badly wrong for the Germans. The use of escorted convoys by the British meant that food and armaments continued to feed and defend the British population.
Instead it was the German population which starved after more than four years of blockade by the British Royal Navy. When the Germans captured British trenches and supply dumps in the Spring of 1918, the Germans were shocked by the abundance of food and drink abandoned by the retreating Britons. The everyday requirements necessary to keep the German citizenry alive and the German army in the field were no longer available. As German trucks trundled to the front on bare metal wheels - there was no more rubber for tyres - the German army was crumbling and the willpower of the Germans for the fight was sapping away.
Command of the final battle of World War One was taken by the French General, Marshal Foch.
By September 26, 1918, over 400,000 Americans were ready to attack. Alongside the US Army was the Tank Brigade commanded by George S. Patton, although the tank crews were made up by French personnel as well as Americans. The village of Montfaucon was at the centre of American combat objectives. Where the Montfaucon Memorial now stands, the German defences were murderously thick. Patton, with most of his tanks knocked out, attacked on foot, but was wounded and then evacuated.
The US 37 Div took Montfaucon the following morning.
By now the Second American Army had become a fighting force, commanded by BULLARD. The political events of the time tend to outweigh the actions on the battlefield. As the First (under Hunter Liggett) and Second American Armies advanced, the Germans finally made peace overtures. The two American armies had advanced 15 miles into German-held territory by the end of October.
Further north, British and Belgian forces were making great territorial gains. With the momentum of the advance, the French rediscovered their failed fighting spirit and joined the attack.
Germany did not surrender, but their government had requested an armistice on October 6. German supremo Ludendorff resigned following a nervous breakdown. It was the Germany Navy, the High Seas Fleet, which succumbed to defeat first. Bottled up in harbour for most of the war, the German fleet mutinied.
German civilian politicians began armistice negotiations on November 7, and the Kaiser's disastrous reign ended two days letter with his abdication. Fighting came to an end on the 11th hour of the 11th month, November 11, 1918.
General Pershing and his British and French counterparts remained in the field. There was no guarantee that the armistice would hold, but hold it did. Pershing's inexperienced army had done its job nobly and effectively and could return home, leaving many of its dead behind.
As the British had discovered two years earlier, an inexperienced soldiary takes disproportionately high casualties when compared to seasoned and battle-hardened troops.
During the Great War, 53,000 Americans were killed. That figure is included in the toll of 204,000 battle casualties. There were further casualties, with 30,000 men killed by disease and accidents. The influenza pandemic accounted for many of these men. The sacrifice of these men is no longer in living memory, but sadly, the sacrifice of these men barely registers in public perceptions of the First World War.