A million men by May!

When this cable came in from General Pershing in July, 1917, Army headquarters in Washington, D.C. was stunned. Then came another cable: We must lay plans for a force of three million men. This was a lot to expect in ten months from a country whose young officers were drilling with broomsticks!

But John J. Pershing, famous for his ramrod back and his jutting chin, was insistent. He had been in France only a few weeks, but that was enough to show him the critical plight of the Allied cause. German submarines were sinking Allied ships faster than they could be built. Choking clouds of German poison gas were moving down men like flies. The new armored tanks were plowing through barbed wire and spitting lead.

This was America's First World War—the war that was supposed to "make the world safe for democracy."

In 1917 the battlefields of France were a network of trenches. At the shout of "Over the top!" thousands upon thousands of American doughboys crawled out to charge in the face of German machine guns. Finally they turned the tide of war.

America's First World War: General Pershing and the Yanks is a vivid story of the American Expeditionary Force and that remarkable soldier, John J. Pershing, who led the Yanks to victory "Over There."

From the dust jacket