French Poilu 1914 1918 (osprey Warrior 134) (repost)

The First World War began in August, 1914, but America didn't have a functional army in Europe until the fall of 1917. During those three years (1914-1917), more than 3,000 Americans, paying their own passage, sailed to France to help in the war effort. The majority were young men who drove Ford Model T ambulances for what would become the American Field Service. Field Service ambulance sections were assigned to the French Army and saw their greatest glory in the battle of Verdun (1916). "Model T's to War" is their story.

This book provides a thorough examination of the relations between the men in the British, French and American armies on the Western Front of the First World War. The Allied victory in 1918 was built on the backs of British, French, and American soldiers who joined together to fight for a common cause. Using the diaries, records, and letters of these men, Chris Kempshall shows how these soldiers interacted with each other during four years of war.

An extraordinary history of French lives under occupation in the First and Second World Wars, this is an intimate, unforgettable meditation on the strange mixture of compromise and betrayal, collaboration and resistance that marks defeat, written by one of the greatest historians of France.

Learn the pre-1914 situation and how the great powers caused the war