World War I : New Technology and U.S. Involvement

1. World War I: New Technology and U.S. Involvement * Today’s focus will be on the use of new methods and technology in World War I and the United States’ Involvement on the Western Front * The History Channel on 'Trench Warfare'

4. German trenches at the right, British at the left.

10. * “Going over the top”

11. * Problems in the trenches

12. * Problems in the trenches: “Trench Foot” and “Trench Mouth”

14. * Problems in the trenches: Rats

15. * Problems in the trenches: Body Lice

16. * Problems in the trenches: Snipers

18. * New Weapons: Tanks

21. * Chlorine, Mustard Gas * New Weapons: Poison Gas

22. * New Weapons: Poison Gas

23. * New Weapons: Poison Gas

24. * New Weapons: Flamethrower

25. * New Weapons: Barbed Wire

26. Americans Arrive on the Western Front * Arrival of Americans changed course of war and helped Allies pull off a “victory” * * June – July 1917, American troops supplemented Allied powers on the Western Front (“doughboys”) * July 1917, John J. Pershing and the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) arrive in Paris – Pershing’s VIEWS on the U.S. involvement were different than other Allied Powers’… * AEF troops arrived at the rate of 10,000 a day, Germans could NOT sustain fighting! * The U.S. troops were escorted by a convoy system across the Atlantic * * Different tech. from the British

27. Americans Arrive on the Western Front * Germans launch HUGE offensive in March 1918 (July) – AEF troops played large role in preventing Central powers from taking Paris * *September 1918, AEF under Pershing launch the Meuse-Argonne Offensive – aka the Battle of Argonne Forest *Argonne Forest was CRUCIAL to the Allied war effort because it caused the Germans to begin their final retreat! * November 11, 1918 – Armistice Day signaled the end of World War I * * By October 1918, the Central powers had fallen apart (Ger., A-H, Ott.) Battle of Argonne - "Trench Warfare"