On 6 April 1917 America finally entered the First World War. America's Proclamation of War (Courtesy of the United States World War I Centennial Commission) CN’s Patrick Gregory looks at the background to the decision to go to war against Germany, and the forces which propelled President Woodrow Wilson and his country to [...]
America extended its First World War involvement as 1917 drew to a close, declaring war on Austria-Hungary. Centenary News contributor Patrick Gregory explains: The Habsburg double-headed eagle, symbol of an empire described by President Woodrow Wilson as 'the vassal of the German government' (Photo: Centenary News) During his annual State of the Union address [...]
The design for America’s proposed new National World War I Memorial in Washington DC has reached another key stage thanks to an innovative collaboration between the memorial’s sculptor and computer artists in New Zealand. Sabin Howard with his new working model of 'A Soldier's Journey', developed in partnership with digital modellers, Weta Workshop, [...]
American soldiers resting in a shallow trench in the Argonne Forest (Image: via Wikimedia Commons/US official photo/public domain) Posted on centenarynews.com 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 [...]
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 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 [...]
Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery (Photo: Patrick Gregory) Posted on centenarynews.com 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 [...]
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 [...]
On 10 August 1918 General John Pershing drove from AEF headquarters in Chaumont to La Ferté-sous-Jouarre on the Marne, some 15 miles south-west of Château-Thierry. There he was to take up formal command of the newly created First Army of the American Expeditionary Force, a sign of the growing strength of his troops in the field [...]
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 [...]
How US Marines (the Devil Dogs) and US Army 'saved the Allies from WW1 defeat'.
