Background on U.S. participation in World War I

     The history of U.S. participation in World War I is commonly confused with what happened in World War II.  In the Second World War, the allies invaded France on June 6, 1944 and fought their way across Europe until Germany's surrender in May 1945.
      U.S. participation in World War I was quite different.  Although the British, French, and Russians had been fighting Germany since 1914, the United States didn't declare war until April 1917.  President Woodrow Wilson instructed the American commander, General John "Black Jack" Pershing, to make sure the American contribution to winning the war was recognized.  That is, if sending one million American soldiers into the fight led to the defeat of Germany, then Wilson wanted the United States to get the credit, which might be of great value in post-war negotiations.  Therefore, Pershing rejected repeated requests from French commanders to throw American units into the fighting piecemeal.  Rather he insisted, American troops should not go into battle until he had assembled an overwhelming force, one that could be demonstrably decisive.  This decisive battle was the Meuse-Argonne offensive, named for two rivers in northeastern France that were the scene.  By the start of the offensive, on September 26, 1918, Pershing had more that one million men under his command, and they did indeed have a demonstrably decisive impact.  The Armistice came on November 11, 1918, just forty-seven days later.  The chart below of American battle deaths by week is tragic evidence of how the fighting progressed.  Prepared a few years after the war, it shows few American battle deaths until June 1918.  This is because American troops hadn't gotten to Europe in any numbers yet.  The United States was completely unprepared for war when it was declared in April 1917.  But some troops had arrived by June and Pershing allowed these, principally the Marines, to be used to block a German offensive at Chateau Thierry.  Deaths reached 2,529 in the most intense week of fighting then.  But this was dwarfed by the huge number of battle deaths beginning with the Meuse-Argonne campaign in late September.  There were 6,559 deaths that week, continuing at a declining rate through the end of the war in November.  It is worth noting that total battle deaths for the Americans in World War I was around 47,000.  Deaths from other causes, mainly disease, were higher as killers like measles and influenza took their toll in the confines of encampments.