Historian John S.D. Eisenhower described it as ‘the turning point’. And certainly many of the key American participants of the time said they felt a decisive shift against the German Army after the Battle of Soissons in July 1918. Patrick Gregory has been looking at how US troops on the Western Front spearheaded Allied counter-attacks 100 years ago. American heavy artillery used [...]
A hundred years ago today, the newly created First Army of the American Expeditionary Force went into battle for the first time, commanding its own sector in northeast France. The St Mihiel offensive, as it was known, was an operation to cut off the St Mihiel salient, a 200 square mile bulge of territory [...]
American troops using French-built Renault FT-17 tanks move up to a forward area near Boureville in the Argonne Forest, 26 September 1918 © IWM (Q 58691) Posted on centenarynews.com on 26 September 2018 On 26 September 1918 troops of the First Army, American Expeditionary Force aided by a corps of French soldiers began a major offensive in [...]
American soldiers resting in a shallow trench in the Argonne Forest (Image: via Wikimedia Commons/US official photo/public domain) Posted on centenarynews.com on 07 October 2018 After four days of intense fighting in the Meuse-Argonne, beginning on 26 September 1918, American Expeditionary Force commander General John Pershing called a temporary halt to most – though not all [...]
Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery (Photo: Patrick Gregory) Posted on centenarynews.com on 26 September 2018 On Sunday 23 September 2018 the American WW1 cemetery at Romagne-sous-Montfaucon in north-east France played host to a centennial ceremony, paying tribute to the 26,000 fallen of the United States’ Meuse-Argonne offensive 100 years ago. The campaign – which began the Allies’ last push of the war [...]
The National World War I Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, has announced a major new expansion of its gallery space in the run-up to America's Centennial commemorations. It is the result of a recent and highly successful Call to Duty fundraising drive which saw a host of local institutions and benefactors heeding the museum’s call. The museum as it [...]
The first major exhibition devoted to exploring how American artists reacted to the First World War has opened in Philadelphia. World War I and American Art is being staged at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in the run up to the Centennial in April 2017, and features the work of some 80 [...]
At noon on Tuesday 8 January 1918 Woodrow Wilson stood before a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill. The US President was to make a speech outlining Fourteen Points: proposals which he hoped would act as a blueprint for the Allies in a post-War era, helping reshape a new peaceful and equitable world. Patrick [...]
A new Eastern Front exhibition at America's National World War I Museum in Kansas City is a timely reminder of an often overlooked aspect of the Great War, writes Patrick Gregory. Wacht im Osten or ‘Watch in the East’ sets out to explore the human impact of the experience of entering and controlling a vast sprawl of newly conquered lands [...]
A naval veteran of two world wars, the USS Texas is a battleship which has survived one or two scrapes in its time. But now, over a century on from its launch and after a long and distinguished second career as a floating museum and some-time film set, the ship is facing a fight [...]