AMERICAN POWER DURING WORLD WAR I

Selective Service Act  May 1917  Raising an army for fighting  Draft, lottery, volunteer  Under this, 24 million men registered  3 million chosen by lottery  Ages 18-45

Americans at War  Training lasted 9 months  In U.S. and Europe  17 hour days  Movies, books, shows to keep morale up  Women NOT drafted  Couldn’t enlist either  Navy accepted them (noncombat positions) Nurses, secretaries, and telephone operators  Army reluctant to accept them Didn’t rank, pay or give benefits

African Americans  Separated living quarters and rec facilities  Trained some to be officers and put them in command of black troops  Assigned to noncombat duties

America in War – Shipyards  Construction of ships  Problem: Draft reduced number of skilled shipyard workers  SO  U.S. government took some steps… 1. Exempted shipyard workers from draft 2. Campaigned to emphasize importance of shipyard work 3. Shipyards use fabrication technique 4. Gov. took private owned ships and converted them

America in War - Navy  America wanted a strong navy!  To combat the U-boats!  Convoy System  Merchant vessels travel in large groups with a guard of destroyers and cruisers.

Fighting “Over There”  Many soldiers never ventured outside small towns or farms  New Weapons  Poison Gas  Machine Guns  Tanks

New Weapons  Machine Guns  600 rounds of ammunition per minute  Poison Gas  Tubes that spewed gas – a greensih-yellow fog of chlorine  Gas masks became standard after this

Mechanized Warfare  Tanks  Bullets bounce off  Developed by the British  Airplanes  Early airplanes flimsy  Used for recon missions  Eventually they became faster and able to carry heavy loads s-fighter-jet#split-s-fighter-jet

Medical Care  Red Cross ambulances carried soldiers to hospital  Staffed by volunteers  Soldiers suffered from many things…  Filth, lice, rats, polluted water  Poison gas  Reek of decaying bodies  Lack of sleep  “Shell shock”  Trench foot  Trench mouth

Americans fighting in Europe  Fresh and enthusiastic!  Determined to hit the Germans hard  General John J. Pershing – American Expeditionary Force  American infantry men nicknamed “doughboys” i/speeches#john-j-pershing-addresses-the-us-from- france

Russia says Bye-Bye  Russia economy collapsing due to war  Russian people unhappy with how government was handling the war  So Tsar Nicholas II abdicated from throne and Provisional Government set in  Rise of Bolshevik Party – led by Vladimir Lenin

The Tide Turns  Central Powers starting to weaken  Alvin York  Mountaineer from Tennessee  Captured 132 prisoners and killed 25 Germans Pershing called him “outstanding” “The greatest thing accomplished by any private soldier of all armies of Europe”