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Registration Certificate — draft card — for John Edward Barlow of Columbus, Ohio. Both houses of Congress passed the Selective Service bill on May 16, 1917, and President Wilson signed it into law two days later. All men then eligible — that is, between the ages of 21 and 30, both inclusive — were required to register on June 5, 1917, as Barlow and ten million others did.
Gravestone of an unknown soldier of the Seaforth Highlanders, a Scottish regiment, in Cabaret Rouge British Cemetery. © 2013 by John M. Shea
A woman tramway worker operating a manual switch, changing the direction of her trolley. As men entered or were conscripted into the military, women took on unaccustomed roles.
A French officer charging into battle in a watercolor by Fernand Rigouts. The original watercolor on deckle-edged watercolor paper is signed F. R. 1917, and addressed to Mademoiselle Henriette Dangon.
Dive Copse British Cemetery in Sailly-le-Sec, France.
". . . all male persons between the ages of 21 and 30 inclusive shall be subject to registration in accordance with regulations established by the President: And upon proclamation by the President and other public notice given by him or by his direction stating the time and place of such registration it shall be the duty of all persons of the designated ages, except officers and enlisted men of the army, the navy and the National Guard and Naval Militia while in the service of the United States, to present themselves for and submit to registration under the provisions of this act." ((1), more)
"Officially, the Battle of Arras ended on 17 May — but in reality it ceased at the termination of the last major British attack, which was on 4 May, 1917. For most of the troops, however, the war still had a long, terrible path to follow.On the Arras battlefront the village of Bullecourt finally succumbed to the 58th (2nd/1st London Division on 17 May." ((2), more)
". . . the introduction of meat and sugar rationing had failed to stem the rise in the cost of living. In Paris the purchasing power of the franc had fallen by about 10 per cent since the beginning of the war. Elsewhere in the country the rising cost of food was far outstripping any wage increases; for example, in the Loire-Inférieure, around Nantes and Saint-Nazaire, the cost of food had risen by 169 per cent since the start of the war, wages by only 119 per cent.In January 1917 some 400 women staged an anti-war protest in Limoges, while in May strikes in Paris reportedly involved about 100,000 workers." ((3), more)
"On May 19 Pétain published Directive No. 1 and provided the entire army a clear explanation of his operational concept. The directive repeated the idea of an 'equilibrium of opposing forces' that would prevent an attacker from rupturing an opponent's defenses and conducting a strategic exploitation. To function within this equilibrium, the French could not remain passive and yield the initiative completely to the enemy; they had to attack. Instead of seeking a breakthrough however, Pétain intended to launch limited offensives that would incur 'minimum losses' but attrit the enemy. To lessen casualties he planned on massing artillery on the enemy's forward positions and then sending infantry into the destroyed trenches. Rather than fire into the huge area between the enemy's front and rear lines and thereby dilute the artillery's effect, he preferred concentrating all French rounds on the enemy's forward positions and having the infantry advance only a short distance." ((4), more)
"May 20 [1917]When I woke early this morning to hear the bird-voices, so rich and shrill in the grey misty dawn, piping hoarse and sweet from the quiet fragrance of the wet garden and from the green dripping woods far off—lying in my clean white bed, drowsy and contented, I suddenly remembered 'At zero the infantry will attack'—Operation Orders! Men were attacking while I lay in bed and listened to the heavenly choruses of birds. Men were blundering about in a looming twilight of hell lit by livid flashes of guns and hideous with the malignant invective of machine-gun fire. Men were dying, fifty yards from their trench—failing to reach the objective—held up.And to-night the rain is hushing the darkness, steady, whispering rain—the voice of peace among summer foliage. And men are cursing the downpour that drenches and chills them, while the guns roar out their challenge." ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from Section 5 of the Selective Service Act, which was passed by both houses of the United States Congress on May 16, 1917 and signed into law by Woodrow Wilson on the 18th. Registration was required between the hours of 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. on June 5th for all those then subject to registration. President Wilson included Sections 5 and 6 of the Act in his Proclamation Establishing Conscription. In his April 2, 1917 address to the joint session of Congress requesting a declaration of war on Germany, the President had stated his opinion that American males should be universally liable to service, and that 500,000 men should be immediately added to the military with 'subsequent additional increments of equal force' depending on need and the resources to train the men. There are slight discrepancies (e.g., 'the ages of 21 and 30, both inclusive') between the text Dos Passos provides and other sources.
Mr. Wilson's War by John Dos Passos, page 215, copyright © 1962, 2013 by John Dos Passos, publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
(2) The British suffered 159,000 casualties in the 1917 Battle of Arras, a battle that lasted 39 days at an average cost of 4,076 casualties per day. In Cheerful Sacrifice, his history of the battle, Jonathan Nicholls compares Arras to other deadly offensives by the British, noting that the Battle of Arras had the highest daily rate: the Battle of the Somme (1916) 141 days, 2,943 casualties per day; the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele, 1917) 105 days, 2,323 daily casualties; Britain's final offensive of 1918, 96 days, 3,645 casualties per day.
Cheerful Sacrifice: The Battle of Arras, 1917 by Jonathan Nicholls, page 209, copyright © Jonathan Nicholls [1990 repeatedly renewed through] 2011, publisher: Pen and Sword, publication date: 2010
(3) With the failure of French commander in chief Robert Nivelle's 1917 spring offensive, the Second Battle of the Aisne, and as mutinies broke out in the French army, strikes spread among the civilian population. Among the strikers in Paris were the 'midinettes', Parisian shop girls or seamstresses.
They Shall Not Pass: The French Army on the Western Front 1914-1918 by Ian Sumner, page 166, copyright © Ian Sumner 2012, publisher: Pen and Sword, publication date: 2012
(4) With the failure of French commander in chief Robert Nivelle's 1917 spring offensive, the Second Battle of the Aisne, and as mutinies broke out in the French army, the government replaced Nivelle with General Henri Phillippe Pétain who aimed to end the mutinies and the failed military tactics that drove soldiers to their actions. His policy is sometimes summarized as 'Wait for the Americans and the tanks,' but his production plan initiatives called not only for tanks, but also for an increase in the production of aircraft to command the air, and of heavy artillery to reduce German defenses.
Pyrrhic Victory; French Strategy and Operations in the Great War by Robert A. Doughty, page 366, copyright © 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2005
(5) Entry for May 20, 1917, from the diary of Siegfried Sassoon, British poet, author, Second Lieutenant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and recipient of the Military Cross for gallantry in action. Sassoon had been wounded, shot through the shoulder by a sniper, in an April 16 attack on the village of Fontaine-lès-Croisilles in the Battle of Arras.
Siegfried Sassoon Diaries 1915-1918 by Siegfried Sassoon, pp. 170–171, copyright © George Sassoon, 1983; Introduction and Notes Rupert Hart-Davis, 1983, publisher: Faber and Faber, publication date: 1983
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