It has been said that when the U.S. Army's senior staff officers had learned of the great victory that the U.S. Marines had achieved at the Bois de Belleau in the summer of 1918, one of them had remarked, "Those head-line hunting bastards!" When reading this next piece you will immediately get a sense that the army was fed-up with the folks at home believing that the same Marines were responsible for the Army's success at Chateau-Thierry. The war was already over by the time this piece appeared, making it clear to all that Chateau-Thierry was a feather in the cap for the Army.
Click here to read an article about the American snipers in W.W. I France.
Click here to read about W.W. I art.
This printable page from an R.O.T.C. manual concerns the American military efforts in World War I.
Attached is a useful summation in three paragraphs of the Aisne-Marne offensive. The reader will learn which American and French units participated, the dates on which the battle raged and the German defense strategy. "The battle had numerous and far reaching results. It eliminated the German threat to Paris, upset Ludendorff's cherished plan to attack the British again in Flanders, gave the Allies important rail communications, demonstrated beyond further doubt the effectiveness of American troops on the offensive, firmly established Allied unity of command..." This article written by Edwin A. Goewey and illustrated by C. Leroy Baldridge (1889 - 1977) reported on how America's "granite youth" was chiseled into fighting trim at the Long Island training camps at Upton and Mineola. Reference is made to the contributions made by Father Francis Duffy and Major-General J. Franklin Bell. Click here to read about the AEF officer training at Plattsburg, New York. Click here to read some statistical data about the American Doughboys of the First World War.  |
Numbered among the many Monday-morning-quarterbacks who appeared in print throughout much of the Twenties and Thirties were the old horse soldiers of yore, bemoaning the fact that industrial warfare had deprived their kind of the glory that was their birthright. This was not the case on the Eastern Front, where Imperial Russian generals had seen fit to launch as many as 400 cavalry charges - while American troopers were ordered to dismount (along with most other cavalry units in the West) and suffer postings with the Service of Supply, among other assorted indignities.
Fritz Arno Wagner (1894 - 1958) is best remembered as a pioneering cinematographer from the earliest days of the German film industry, however before he could gain the experiences necessary to become the director of photography for such films as "Nosferatu", and "Westfront" he had to first fulfill his obligations to the Kaiser. This article is an account of his brief stint in the Hussars (ie. lancers) that he gave to the editor's of LESLIE'S ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY NEWSPAPER.
Although the article only covers his training period, it does give the reader a sense of what life was like for an enlisted man serving in one of the highly prized regiments in the Imperial German Army. A black and white magazine illustration from the cover of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN that appeared six months after President Wilson's declaration of war against Germany in order to let Uncle Sam's taxpayer's understand what it will cost them to put a million and a half men in the field.
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