I have to admit, I know far more about WWII than I do about WW1. WWI was such a depressing war. I suspect I’m not alone there. This is a great vid and made from a Brit source, so not generic “ra ra” pro US focus.
Since I am a historian (I really am!) I thought I’d get in on this thread early in the game. But I will keep it brief, as I have some work-related tasks that need to be done.
The way it was taught to me was this; the actual U.S. combat contributions in World War One were minimal - we did not see much combat until the spring of 1918, with the major effort being the Meuse-Argonne offensive starting in September. A look at the numbers shows that the United States suffered an insignificant number of casualties when compared to the major combatants.
However, Pershing had brought an entire U.S. Army into the line in the latter half of 1918 and was organizing a second. Meanwhile, the other nations had suffered through 4 years of war with massive losses. Some units of the French Army had mutinied, refusing to conduct offensive operations.
The memory device I learned in school (including two courses in WW1 for 6 credit hours) was that the U.S. contribution could be expressed by the mathematical statement M3 (with the 3 representing cubed, as in M x M x M) representing Manpower, Morale, and Momentum.
The introduction of massive amounts of American manpower helped bolster Allied morale, while at the same time reducing German morale (things were bad on the German home front). This helped shift the momentum over to the Allied side. The Germans, having failed in their Spring 1918 offensives, decided to negotiate while they still had some bargaining chips.
In effect, the Germans were certainly not very worried about the Americans in 1917 when they risked war with the U.S. by restarting unrestricted submarine warfare. After all, we had been unable to capture Pancho Villa in 1916, even though we were operating in our own back yard. But by 1918 the Germans had to start taking America more seriously. And the prospects for American action in 1919 probably seemed ominous to the Germans, so they acted accordingly.
All of this is off the top of my head without consulting any sources. A bit of research could produce a more academic response. But as I said, there is work to be done.
I will try to watch this video later and form an opinion. And maybe some others will chime in here as well.
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Matches my far less educated opinion. Morale is a very real factor that can not be measured.
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Ditto… but as far as what we SHOULD have done, a dark pat of me wants to say we should have just let Europe continue to Darwin themselves then move in to colonize and rebuild the ruins.
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The nice thing about America is that we are separated from the giant shitshow that is Europe by wide oceans.
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I’m not sure how we got suckered in to a Family fight, but there you go.
It turned in to a bit of an R&D for the next time the British would need us after relearning the age old lesson that appeasement doesn’t work.
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I agree that France and the UK had absorbed the vast majority of “Allied” deaths. Yes, we came in late, like real late. But, if you look at our combat deaths (53,000+) in that short period of time it was pretty “intense” for our short venture into WWI. What would our casualties have been if we had jumped in during 1915 or so? Probably right up there with the French and Brits.
Twice as many of our guys died from non-combat causes (the 1918 Spanish Flu being the biggest culprit) as did from combat. That’s probably not too far off of Civil War percentages of KIA vs Died of Disease.
You make a valid point. When I said that US casualties were “insignificant” compared to the major combatants, I was referring to the overall totals. But you are correct to remind us that for the short period we were engaged we took some heavy losses.
Pulled out my 1959 ROTC manual covering American Military history. Dated I admit, but a quick place to find official information in a condensed format. It states that the first substantial American combat efforts were at the end of May, when the 3rd Division went into action Chateau Thierry, while the 2nd Division was operating at Belleau Wood. Meanwhile, the 1st Division was at Cantigny. To keep things simple, let’s credit the Americans with going into combat on June 1st and continuing up through the armistice on Nov. 11th. Looks like that comes to 163 days. That is about 5 and a half months.
Resorting to Wiki (sorry, but it is after midnight here) shows 53,402 combat deaths. That is close to 10,000 per month on average, using a round figure. By comparison, Wiki figures for Vietnam shows 47,434 combat deaths between 1955 and 1975, with the heaviest fighting starting in 1965.
The AEF had more KIA in 6 months then we took in several years in Vietnam. So yes, things must have been pretty intense. If the war had continued into 1919 there is no telling what might have happened - with the Americans continuing on the offensive the numbers would probably have gotten pretty grim.
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Short answer: don’t underestimate the morale and “war is just the continuation of political policy by violent means” implications of having two armies show up to a stalemate to force the German populace into accepting that the conflict was only ever going to end one way. A negotiated peace was still preferable for all parties, and had the US supplemented offensive dragged on it would have been from a less commanding position in terms of popular support, but likely even less favorable for the Germans and likely to have precipitated some Nazi-like result in similar amounts of time.
Achieving that as a nascent superpower for the expenditure of a fraction of the lives the BEF and French forces took was, in the most callous terms, a brilliant way of establishing the US as not only a superpower, but one who not only profits from wars in Europe but could be decisive in those massive coalition conflicts.
That’s about the last quarter of this
WWII was the first time combat resulted in more deaths than disease for US troops.
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Waiting for Something to Jump Off while you sit in the same trench you eat sleep pee and poop in will do that to a fella.
You dont get a Purple Heart for Dysentary but it will kill you qucik as a Bayonet
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That and modern antibiotics came around 1930 +/-.
Kinda wonder how much of the early figuring out what worked against disease got ignored by mainstream medicine too.
And yet our leaders still allowed the bankers to force us to intervene in a WWI in which we didn’t need to fight in order to rescue the billions of dollars loaned to the allied nations.
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Smedley Butler was right.
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A good primer on the Subject.