Commemorative Products
Commemorative Pamphlets
The Mexican Expedition, 1916–1917
by Julie Irene Prieto
The Mexican Expedition, 1916–1917 examines the operation, led by General John Pershing, to search for, capture, and destroy Francisco "Pancho" Villa and his revolutionary army in northern Mexico in the year prior to the United States' entry into World War I. This campaign marked one of the final times cavalry was used on a large scale, and it was one of the first to use trucks and airplanes in the field. While Pershing's troops failed to capture Villa, both Regular Army troops and National Guardsmen stationed on the border gained valuable experience in these new technologies.
The U.S. Army in the World War I Era
Drawn largely from CMH's two-volume textbook, American Military History, the pamphlet provides an overview of the decades leading up to the United States joining the World War, and its experiences during the eighteen months of the nation's involvement in the war. The conflict capped a period of reform and professionalization that transformed the Army from a small dispersed organization rooted in constabulary operations to a modern industrialized fighting force capable of global reach and impact. The more than four million Americans who served during the war, half of whom deployed overseas, helped create the modern U.S. Army. This pamphlet is intended to honor their service and to help the members of today's Army to connect with an important element of its past.
Joining the Great War, April 1917–April 1918
by Eric B. Setzekorn
The next installment in the U.S. Army Campaigns of World War I series, chronicling the first year of the American involvement in World War I. It briefly summarizes the prewar U.S. Army, the initial American reaction to the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914, and the factors that led to the U.S. declaration of war in April 1917. The narrative then examines how the U.S. Army transformed itself from a small constabulary force into a mass, industrialized army capable of engaging in modern warfare. The author covers stateside mobilization and training, the formation of the American Expeditionary Forces, and the slow buildup of American forces in France and concludes with U.S. soldiers helping to blunt the first phase of the 1918 German Spring Offensive.
Into the Fight, April–June 1918
by Mark E. Grotelueschen
Into the Fight, April–June 1918, is the fourth installment of the U.S. Army Campaigns of World War I series, covering the American Expeditionary Forces' role in countering the German spring offensives of March–June 1918. The arrival of the American forces on the Western Front in early 1918 coincided with a series of major German pushes intended to break through the Allied lines. The crisis of the German offensives provided an opening for multiple American divisions to enter the lines. They worked with British and French units to resist the German advances, took command of their own sectors of the front, and increasingly engaged in their own offensive operations. The narrative of this volume spans the brutal fighting at Cantigny, Château-Thierry, Belleau Wood, and Vaux, where the inexperienced and untried American soldiers and marines received their first exposure to the grim realities of combat. Yet as the actions of these early campaigns show, both allies and enemies soon learned that the Americans who reached the front in the spring of 1918 were willing and able to fight with the grit and determination needed to achieve victory.
The Marne: 15 July-6 August 1918
by Stephen C. McGeorge and Mason W. Watson
The Marne: 15 July-6 August 1918 is the fifth installment of the U.S. Army Campaigns of World War I series, covering the American Expeditionary Forces' (AEF) participation in the Second Battle of the Marne in July and August 1918. Between March and July 1918, a series of four major German offensives had sought to break through the Allied lines. By mid-July, German troops had advanced to the edge of the Marne River–as close as they had been to Paris since September 1914–but fierce resistance from the Allies halted their forward momentum. Between 15 and 17 July, American divisions along the Marne and in Champagne played a decisive role in stopping the German advance, most notably alongside the French forces defending the strategically vital city of Reims. From 18 July to 6 August, American units took part in the Allied counteroffensives that pushed the Germans back from the Marne to the Vesle River. The narrative of this volume focuses on the American efforts on the critical Marne salient, where AEF divisions fought side by side for the first time, and Americans accounted for more than forty percent of the casualties sustained in the Second Battle of the Marne. Even after only a few months of experience in combat, the American contribution would play a pivotal role in the battle that decided the course of the First World War on the Western Front.
St. Mihiel, 12-16 September 1918
by Donald A. Carter
St. Mihiel, 12-16 September 1918 is the seventh installment of the U.S. Army Campaigns of World War I series, covering the American Expeditionary Forces' (AEF) participation in the St. Mihiel Offensive in September 1918. The St. Mihiel salient, created during the initial German invasion in 1914, had withstood multiple French efforts to regain the territory. Yet even though the Germans had established strong defensive positions around St. Mihiel and its neighboring villages and towns, the salient was highly vulnerable to attack and was an optimal target for a potential American operation. Until this point in the war, members of the AEF had not fought in a formation larger than a corps, and then only under French or British leadership. Now, as part of the American First Army under General John J. Pershing, they prepared to launch an offensive that would demonstrate to the Allies and the Germans alike that the Americans were capable of operating as an independent command. The AEF's successful efforts in the St. Mihiel Offensive, and the hard-won operational and tactical lessons that it learned during the battle, helped set the stage for the grand Allied offensive that would seize the initiative on the Western Front and blaze a path toward ultimate victory in the war.
Meuse-Argonne: 26 September–11 November 1918
by Richard S. Faulkner
Meuse-Argonne: 26 September-11 November 1918 is the eighth installment of the U.S. Army Campaigns of World War I series, covering the American Expeditionary Forces' (AEF) participation in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, the most vital American military contribution to the Allied effort during the war. On 26 September 1918, the American First Army launched a massive attack between the Argonne Forest and the Meuse River northwest of the French town of Verdun. The narrative of this volume spans the forty-seven days of the AEF's key role in the Grand Allied Offensive on the Western Front, designed to stretch the German Army past its breaking point. From the outset, the inexperienced Americans faced a determined enemy on daunting terrain, with both natural and manmade fortifications that would challenge the First Army's ambitious operational plan. Although heavy casualties, troop exhaustion, and tangled logistics slowed the AEF's initial momentum, the doughboys capitalized on the strength of their manpower and firepower, as well as their newfound combat experience, to press forward and turn the Germans out of their defenses. By the time that the Armistice was signed on 11 November, the U.S. Army had been tested in the fire and proved itself capable of waging a modern industrialized war. Moreover, through its tenacity and sacrifices, it had secured a major role for the United States in crafting the peace that followed.
Occupation and Demobilization, 1918-1923
by Brian F. Neumann and Shane Makowicki
When the guns finally fell silent at the end of the First World War, just under 2 million American soldiers were serving on the Western Front. Over the next month, 250,000 doughboys marched into Germany as part of an Allied occupation of the Rhineland. Tens of thousands more Americans remained in France and provided crucial logistical support. The American occupation would last until 1923, when the last soldiers withdrew and the Europeans continued the difficult process of restoring the continent to stability. American political, military, and business leaders quickly turned their attention to dismantling the vast war machine built during 1917 and 1918. Returning soldiers to their civilian lives and shifting to a peacetime economy proved almost as difficult as mobilization, but without the unifying impulse the war provided. Just as the war produced unique challenges for the nation, so too did the process of demobilization. American armed forces underwent a massive reduction in force and returned to peace in a world fundamentally altered by war.