The Americans in the Great War; V 1. the Second Battle of the Marne(château-Thierry, Soissons, Fismes)

Published in 1919, this vivid firsthand account captures America's arrival on the Western Front at its most urgent moment. The Second Battle of the Marne marked the first large-scale deployment of American forces in World War I, and this volume documents the desperate summer of 1918 when German armies pushed toward Paris before the tide turned. The narrative follows American troops at Château-Thierry, where they first engaged enemy forces, through the brutal fighting at Soissons and the bloody engagements around Fismes. The stakes could not have been higher: would raw American divisions, many composed of civilian soldiers who had never heard a shot fired in anger, hold against the veterans of the German Imperial Army? The account details the uncertainty surrounding America's entry into the war, the massive mobilization effort, and the tactics employed as the AEF learned to fight modern industrial warfare. General Pershing's leadership and the transformation of amateur soldiers into effective fighting units feature prominently. This is history written while the wounds were still fresh, offering an immediacy no later account can match.