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Map of United States troop sailings from Canada and the United States to Great Britain, France, and Italy. Over 2,000,000 Americans sailed, divided roughly equally between Britain and France.
'Warmest regards from the Somme . . . ' from Robert Künger, September 21, 1916, presumably pictured with his machine gun crew. Translation couresy of Thomas Faust, ebay's Urfaust.
Edito Card of an Hanriot HD.1. Introduced in late summer, 1916, the French Hanriot HD.1 was primarily flown by the Belgian and Italian air services. This plane is in the colors of the Belgian Air Corps. The white thistle on the fuselage was the symbol of the squadron of Willy Coppens, Belgium's leading ace of the war. The sawtooth pattern on the tail identified an individual pilot. Each patrol of three planes had an identifying cowling color. Coppens, as the leading ace, insisted on an all-blue plane.
View across No Man's Land between Ypres and Messines in 1917 by Lance Corporal Hugh F. Ward, 97th Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps. Ward painted this while he was in the sector before, during, and after the June, 1917 Battle of Messines Ridge. Initialed 'H.W.'.
Map of the 1918 German offensives on the Western Front from The Memoirs of Marshall Foch by Marshall Ferdinand Foch. © 1931 by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc.
"The following recommendations are made on the assumption that at least 250,000 men can be transported in each of the months of June and July by the employment of combined British and American tonnage. We recommend:(a) For the month of June: (1) Absolute priority shall be given to the transportation of 170,000 combatant troops (viz., six divisions without artillery, ammunition trains, or supply trains, amounting to 126,000 men and 44,000 replacements for combat troops); (2) 25,400 men for the service of the railways, of which 13,400 have been asked for by the French Minister of Transportation; (3) the balance to be troops of categories to be determined by the Commander-in-Chief, American Expeditionary Forces.(b) For the month of July: (1) Absolute priority for the shipment of 140,000 combatant troops of the nature defined above . . ." ((1), more)
"In the black recesses of Belleau Wood the Germans had established nest after nest of machine guns. There in the jungle of matted underbrush, of vines, of heavy foliage, they had placed themselves in positions they believed impregnable. And this meant that unless they could be routed, unless they could be thrown back, the breaking of the attack of June 2nd would mean nothing. There would come another drive and another. The battle of Château-Thierry was therefore not won and could not be won until Belleau Wood had been cleared of the enemy.It was June 6th that the attack of the American troops began against that wood and its adjacent surroundings, with the wood itself and the towns of Torcy and Bouresches forming the objectives. At 5 o'clock the attack came, and there began the tremendous sacrifices which the Marines Corps gladly suffered that the German fighters might be thrown back." ((2), more)
"On the 7th, another Mention, this time for having: 'shot down an aeroplane and four balloons in less than a month,' brought me the Order of Leopold. . . .On June 5, 9, and 10, I brought off my sixth, seventh, and eighth victories, over, respectively, Houthulst, Zonnebeke, and near Armentières, to the south of Ypres in the British zone. This zone, like that of the coast, was very strongly defended by the enemy, and I came back with three bullet-holes and three splinter-tears in my main planes." ((3), more)
"The landscape here is of the deadly-conventional Armageddon type—low green-grey ridges fringed with the usual decorations of a few isolated trees, half-smashed, with a broken wall or two, straggling trench-grey silhouettes that once were villages. Then there are open spaces broken only by ruined wire-tangles, old trenches, and the dismal remains of an occasional rest-camp of huts. The June grass waves, poppies flame, shrapnel bursts with black puffs, an aeroplane drones, larks sing; someone comes along the trench, clinking a petrol-tin. And this is about all one sees, as one stumps along the communication-trenches, dry and crumbling, with a dead mole lying about here and there." ((4), more)
"Between Noyon and Montdidier on June 9 [1918], artillery preparation for the fourth drive in the Germans' spring offensive began at midnight, but the French, amply warned, began their counterpreparation ten minutes earlier. Though opportune, this fire did not disrupt the enemy's infantry assault, which occurred between 0300 and 0430 hours. Striking the left-center of Third Army, which occupied a forty-five-kilometer front, the Germans advanced seven kilometers on the first day and five on the second across a front of twenty-five kilometers." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from a report by American Commander-in-Chief General John J. Pershing on the June 5, 1918 agreement between Allied Commander-in-Chief Ferdinand Foch, Lord Alfred Milner, member of the British War Cabinet, and Pershing. In urgent need of troops after three German offensives since March 21, the British cut their transport of food to the United Kingdom. Pershing, who had been building an American Army in preparation for 1919 offensives, cut his transport of materiel in order to delivery men. His troops would use tanks, planes, and other weapons provided by his allies.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. VI, 1918, pp. 188–189, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(2) Excerpt from an account on the Battle of Belleau Wood by Josephus Daniels, U.S. Secretary of the Navy. American machine gunners and French colonials held the town of Château-Thierry on May 31, 1918 during the German Aisne Offensive, the third German offensive of 1918. The defenders prevented German forces from crossing the Marne River, blowing the bridge over it and holding against German attacks that continued through June 2. The battle for Belleau Wood continued into July.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. VI, 1918, pp. 200–201, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(3) Excerpts from the memoir of Willy Coppens, Belgium's greatest ace in World War I with 37 victories, all but two of them observation balloons. After repeated attempts to bring down a balloon, Coppens was finally successful when he was provided with 20 French incendiary bullets, which he used sparingly. Balloons were heavily defended with anti-aircraft guns and fighter planes.
Flying in Flanders by Willy Coppens, pp. 177, 179, publisher: Ace Books, publication date: 1971
(4) Excerpt from the diary of Siegfried Sassoon, British poet, author, Second Lieutenant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers (R.W.F.), and recipient of the Military Cross for gallantry in action. Sassoon was deployed to Palestine in early 1918, then returned to France after the successful Germany's spring offensives Michael and Georgette, when British losses required every available soldier on the Western Front. As he wrote he was near Mercatel, 7 or 8 km south of Arras.
Siegfried Sassoon Diaries 1915-1918 by Siegfried Sassoon, page 264, copyright © George Sassoon, 1983; Introduction and Notes Rupert Hart-Davis, 1983, publisher: Faber and Faber, publication date: 1983
(5) The fourth of German's five 1918 offensives, the Noyon-Montdidier Offensive, began on June 9, in an attempt to build on the success of the Aisne (Blücher) Offensive begun on May 27. But the French were not surprised as they had been in May, and had reserves ready.
Pyrrhic Victory; French Strategy and Operations in the Great War by Robert A. Doughty, pp. 457–458, copyright © 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2005
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