• Introduction
• Posters
• U.S. Air Force
• U.S. Army 
• U.S. Marines
• U.S. Navy

Introduction

This international conflict pitted the Central Powers composed primarily of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey against the Allies comprising Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Japan, and, from 1917, the United States.

American Troops in Parade, Paris, France, July 4, 1918.  American Heritage Center Collections

The war, which ended with the defeat of the Central Powers in 1918, was unprecedented in the sheer slaughter, carnage, and destruction it caused. Accurate estimates of the death toll are impossible to compile, but the most reliable statistics place military casualties at approximately 8,500,000 and the civilian deaths at approximately 13,000,000. Moreover the war caused the fall of four imperial dynasties, was a leading cause of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and, with the Versailles Treaty and the destabilization of European society and economies, laid the foundation for World War II.

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Posters

Posters were an established medium for advertising before World War I, but the war brought American poster art to a new level. Established artists like Howard Chandler Christy and Henry Reuterdahl turned their talents, free of charge, to promotion of the war effort. Especially notable was the introduction and wide-spread use of the psychological approach in advertising. Posters were used to recruit men (and women), to raise money to prosecute the war or for various charities, or to encourage conservation and sacrifice on the home front. To achieve these goals poster designers appealed to feelings of guilt, romance, or patriotism. The simple, emotionally-charged messages of World War I posters were highly effective in their day and set a standard for poster advertising for many years to come.

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The U.S. Air Force in World War I

The United States entered the First World War with one ill-equipped air unit, the 1^st Aero Squadron. The Appropriations Act of July 24, 1917, provided increased funds, and an executive order of May 20, 1918, established the U.S. Army Air Service. By war’s end the Air Service had attained a strength of 195,000 officers and men and had organized 45 squadrons with a complement of 740 planes. Until the later stages of the war, U.S. squadrons in France were equipped mainly with British and French planes. Much of the success of U.S. military air activity during World War I was attributable to Brigadier General William "Billy" Mitchell, a combat air commander who directed U.S. air attacks of increasing strength up to the war’s end. Mitchell was later instrumental in proving the effectiveness of aviation in combat.

S.E.5As Diving on German Albatross During World War I, n.d.  American Heritage Center Collections

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The U.S. Army in World War I

After the United States entered the war in April of 1917, it still required several months to raise, equip, and train an expeditionary force. There were only 85,000 U.S. troops in France when the Germans launched their last great offensive in March 1918. By the following September, however, there were 1,200,000 U.S. troops overseas under the command of General John J. Pershing.

The addition of American troops introduced a fresh fighting force into a Europe exhausted by three years of bloody trench warfare. Initially U.S. divisions in France fought only in support of major French and British units, including an intense counterattack by U.S. forces against a German offensive at Belleau Wood. Pershing’s forces first fought as an independent army on September 12, 1918, when they destroyed the triangular Saint-Mihiel salient that the Germans had been occupying since 1914.

American Marines Under Fire in France During World War I, 1918. American Heritage Center Collections

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  The U.S. Marines in World War I

When the United States entered the First World War in 1917, the Marine Corps was quick to distinguish itself on the battlefields of France. The 4^th Marine Brigade earned the title of "Devil Dogs" for heroic action at Belleau Wood, Soissons, St. Mihiel, Mont Blanc, and in the final Meuse-Argonne offensive (1918.)

Marine aviation, which dates from 1912, also played a part in the war effort by flying day bombing missions over France and Belgium. More than 30,000 Marines had served in France and more than a third were killed or wounded in six months of intense fighting.

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  The U.S. Navy in World War I

The chief activities of the United States Navy during the First World War were the transport of the approximately 2,000,000 troops of the American Expeditionary Force to France, the patrolling of the North Atlantic shipping lanes to protect Allied commerce from German U-Boats, and the laying of a large anti-submarine minefield in the North Sea. To carry out these duties the Navy increased its size by eightfold after the U.S. became involved in the war.

After World War I ended the Navy addressed the lessons it had learned about the new realities of modern warfare. In 1922 the first U.S. aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Langley, was launched. Unfortunately this revolutionary development in naval warfare went largely unrecognized by American military leaders until the catastrophic Sunday morning of December 7^th, 1941.

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World War II

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