Headstone of an unknown British soldier among those of French soldiers at the National Cemetery, Craonnelle, France. © 2014 by John M. Shea
A Soldier of the Great War
"On June 28 fierce fighting broke out on the Aisne, where the British and Canadians made some small gains, and at Verdun, where the Germans overran a few French-held trenches.Two days earlier the first large contingent of American troops had arrived in France, 14,000 men, who disembarked at St Nazaire. But this was to have no effect at all on the battlefield. The men had first to train, and to be reinforced by colleagues, the next contingent of whom did not arrive for another three months."
The Allied spring offensives of 1917 — the British Battle of Arras, the French Second Battle of the Aisne, the Italian Battles of Mt. Ortigara and Tenth Isonzo — had failed. Sick of the war, French soldiers mutinied in actions that affected nearly half the army. Since the March Revolution, the Russian front had been quiet, and it was not clear the army would rally for a planned offensive. The Americans who arrived in France in June were small in number, untrained, and with few weapons of their own. Their commander, General John Pershing, intended to prepare them for the spring offensives of 1918.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 341, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
1917-06-28, 1917, June, Verdun, the Aisne, St Nazaire, American troops, 1917-06-26, Craonnelle Soldier of the Great War
