Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. No notes or highlighting. Gift message in front. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Throughout that summer French and British instructors-veterans of trench warfare-worked with the – untried Americans to prepare them for what they were about to face and at 06:05 a.m. on October 23 Battery C of the 6th Field Artillery fired the first American shell of the war against the Germans. In December General Sibert was recalled to Washington; he was replaced by Maj. Gen. Robert Bullard. It was Bullard who would lead the division during its first great test. Desperate to secure victory before the full weight of American might could be felt in the spring of 1918 the Germans launched their Katserschlacht offensive against weary French and British units in Picardy. Beginning on March 21 German units crashed through Allied lines and made advances on a scale not seen since the earliest days of the war. Soon they were again threatening Paris. Believing that they faced defeat the French appealed to Pershing for troops. The AEF commander agreed but maintained his long running demand that once the enemy offensive had been stopped his men go in to combat in their own formations. The French reluctantly agreed to a compromise: if the Americans demonstrated their ability in their first action then they would no longer demand that the AFF be broken up and its men parceled out as replacements to Allied units. That first test would come at Cantigny a tiny town that the French had been unable to retake from the Germans On May 28 1918 just over a year after America had declared war the 1st Division’s 28th Infantry left their trenches and attacked the town Cantigny was secured in Just 45 minutes and held for several days despite repeated German counterattacks. The 28th Infantry kasen forever afterward as the “Lions of Cantigny had demonstrated that the ALF was capable of holding its qua sinat the best the Germans cold throws at them. After Cantigny there was no longer any discussion