The Meuse-Argonne Offensive (September 26th – November 11th, 1918), was the largest battle in U.S. military history as measured by either the casualty rate or the number of ground forces involved.
Twenty-two divisions saw action, about 1.2 million soldiers were deployed, 26,277 were killed and 95,786 were wounded.
The last post was about the North Staffordshire regiment. Click here to read an article about an amazing WW1 artifact – the N Staffs Tapestry.
Riqueval Bridge May 2011
Many have seen this iconic image of British soldiers lining the bank of the St. Quentin Canal in France, listening to the words of their Brig. J.V. Campbell, who must have had quite a loud voice, especially considering that after long exposure to artillery the soldiers probably didn’t have keen ears.
A dictionary definition of a straggler is ‘a person in a group who is moving more slowly or making less progress than the others’. In a military setting there can be a fine line between a straggler and a deserter, who is a person who has demonstrated by his actions or the passage of time that he has no intention of rejoining his group. There are also associated with straggling or deserting the additional concepts of ‘shirking’ or ‘skulking’, which mean avoiding difficult or dangerous situations.
The American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) Somme American Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing is located between Bony and Le Catelet in the modern region of Hauts-de-France. During the Great War this region was called by its ancient name, Picardy.
The site is actually located on the battlefield of September 29th – 30th , 1918 where the American 27th and 30th Divisions, backed by the Australian 2nd and 5th Divisions, attacked over the Bellicourt Tunnel and broke through the Siegfriedstellung, which the Allies called the Hindenburg Line.
You can’t get much farther from the Western Front than Tahiti, but it was a world war. Then as still today, Tahiti and the surrounding islands were French territory.
Enter the German Navy’s East Asia Squadron, under the command of Vizeadmiral Maximilian von Spee (1861-1914). Home-ported at Tsingtao in China, when the war began most of the unit was steaming towards German New Guinea, and von Spee was ordered to divert to the island of Ponape in the Carolines to await orders.
The Salonika Front. Notwithstanding the mosquitoes, the inevitable French-British rivalries, the on-again off-again Greek politics and nearly three years of launching futile attacks against strong defenses held by a lightly-regarded adversary, ultimately this was where the end of World War I began.
This article describes the imp
act of the First World War on a backwater of the Empire, British Honduras, which today is the independent nation of Belize. Click here.
See Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Marie Dressler and Sessue Hayakawa promoting Liberty Bonds. Click here.
The St. Mihiel Cemetery of the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) is situated at Thiaucourt, France. Mihiel is a dialectual variant of the masculine name Michel. The name is derived from the 1918 Battle of the St. Mihiel Salient, which was fought over ground that includes the cemetery site, from September 12th through September 16th, 1918 and was a resounding victory for American arms.
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