Over There: The United States in the Great War, 1917-1918

When
the United States finally declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, the
British and French armies were at a point of total exhaustion.Within
two weeks the French troops had mutinied, leaving the Western Front
practically undefended. In the same month, Lenin arrived in Moscow on
the heels of the Russian Revolution and vowed to make peace with
Germany. To make matters worse, the Allies had reason to be dubious
about the help they were receiving from across the Atlantic. The U.S.
Army ranked sixteenth in the world (behind Portugal), and most of its
soldiers were poorly trained. Byron Farwell's informed, stirring account
describes not only how the United States turned the tide of the war but
also how the war served as a national coming-of-age experience, with
all of the concomitant awkwardness and confusion. Moving deftly from the
home front to the Marne, from statistics and strategy to vivid accounts
of the chaotic violence of the battlefield, Farwell draws a
comprehensive portrait of America's brutal entrance into the twentieth
century. Illustrations