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U.S. History 1877-Present Videos 173 videos

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U.S. History 1877-Present 6: The U.S. enters WWI 92 Views


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Description:

During WWI, the U.S. forces were integral in turning the tide for the Allies. We may not have had the best training...or tactics...but hey, we threw people at the problem until it was gone. And that worked just fine. So there.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:04

The Americans made their grand entrance into it ww1 in 1917 not [Fireworks and US flag appears]

00:10

to toot our own horn but it really was a blessing for the Allied forces and for

00:14

the Germans it was like watching a wrecking ball without Miley Cyrus on it [Wrecking ball strikes Germany flag]

00:18

sail towards them because of the whole trench warfare thing the war had been at

00:22

a stalemate for a while with manpower and short supply everybody was just [Soldiers crouching in a trench]

00:26

crouching in their trenches and occasionally sending men streaming into

00:29

no-man's land to be mowed down by machine guns

00:32

sometimes some enemy ground was taken but for the most part the war was a big

00:36

muddy rat-infested tie still was a tie that the Germans were likely to soon [German flag breaks tie with hammer]

00:41

break the Allies had a lot of things going against them at this point for one

00:45

the French army had mutinied in large numbers in 1917 making many commanding

00:50

officers wish they'd spruced up those trenches of it another major issue was

00:54

that the Allies had lost one of their allies Tsar Nicholas the second was all [Czar nicholas II in a boxing ring]

00:59

about trying to take down Kaiser Wilhelm especially since the Kaiser was the

01:03

Stars own cousin and had still attacked the Russian Empire the trouble was that [Dad aims rifle at man]

01:08

the Russian military leadership was pretty incompetent and had lost a bunch

01:13

of battles and that too the fact that the war totally overextended Russia's [Clock ticking forward]

01:17

resources and that the people already thought Tsar Nicholas was a crappy Tsar

01:22

and the next thing anybody knew well the Russian people house would star Nikolas

01:27

it wasn't long before the Bolshevik Communists took over and signed a peace [Bolshevik communists in discussion]

01:30

treaty with Germany this meant that Germany could say well

01:33

forget about it to the Eastern Front and focus all their

01:37

energy on the trench ridden Western Front they almost won the whole thing

01:42

with the Spring Offensive of 1918 but the Americans over 500,000 strong at

01:47

that point in the war helped to stop the German advance and we're the main force [US flag grows larger]

01:51

start pushing them back this was the time when being a pushy American was a

01:55

plus an Americans kept helping to turn the tide in several battles that [American flag pushing the tide]

01:59

followed there was the Battle of Cantigny in which US soldiers won today

02:04

but lost 10 thousand of their brothers in the process there was also the Battle

02:08

of belleau wood that lasted for 20 days with America suffering lots of [Soldiers fighting in the battle of belleau wood]

02:13

casualties before finally kicking Germans out of the woods and then there

02:16

was the Battle of Sam Mejia in which 300,000 American troops attacked the

02:21

German lines again suffering terrible casualties but despite all the American

02:25

deaths the Germans couldn't hold one thing all these battles have in common

02:30

is that Americans were a big part of why the Allies won the battle stuff another [American soldier appears in a field]

02:34

thing is that a ton of Americans died why were the Germans just that good

02:39

China but also the Americans were just that bad unfortunately most historians

02:44

agree that US military experience with war was low at the time and our tactics

02:49

were outdated also most of our soldiers were freshly drafted civilians with no [Soldier aiming gun at himself]

02:54

battle experience like these no professional soldiers so a big part of

02:58

why America helps turn the tide wasn't necessarily know-how as it was the sheer

03:02

amount of manpower the US had to throw into the meat grinder we're guessing

03:06

they didn't put that fun fact on the recruitment posters where's Uncle Sam [US army recruitment poster on a wall]

03:12

here being real

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