How the U.S. Army Won World War I - Geoffrey Wawro

The Allies were on the brink of defeat in 1917. Russia and Italy were beaten, and the French and British reverses on the Chemin des Dames and Passchendaele led to the French army mutiny—never entirely solved—and a British manpower crisis as extreme as the French. Had the U.S. not intervened in 1917, the Germans might not have launched their 1918 offensives on the Western Front. They would have forced the Allies to attack the Hindenburg Line and exhaust the last of their manpower or accept German annexation of Belgium and northern France. However, with the Americans coming in force in 1918, the Germans had to attack. They nearly broke through to Calais and Paris. It was the Americans who saved the crumbling French army in the Second Battle of the Marne, and it was the Americans who delivered the decisive blow that won the war: the offensives at Saint-Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne, which cut the principal German line of supply and retreat and forced Hindenburg's surrender in November 1918.

Dr. Geoffrey Wawro, Professor of History and Director of the Military History Center at the University of North Texas

Lecture given as part of the National WWI Museum and Memorial's 2018 Symposium, 1918: Crucible of War.

Symposium presenting sponsor: Pritzker Military Museum & Library - http://www.pritzkermilitary.org

For more information visit http://theworldwar.org