At first, Americans watched the madness in Europe from across the Atlantic Ocean. Germany had overrun Belgium, and German troops had marched toward Paris. Now, late in 1914, everything was at a standstill, with troops from both sides dug into trenches, facing each other across a no-man's-land that stretched five hundred miles from the Swiss border to the North Sea. Millions of men and women lived in them—and millions were dying there.

A storm of outrage swept across America in 1915 when the U.S. passenger ship Lusitania was sunk by German U-Boats with a loss of over one thousand lives, and the American people began to hear a call to arms. Finally, on April 2, 1917, President Wilson, who had always believed in peace, declared war on Germany, and America was no longer a distant observer.

This is the exciting story of how the Yanks helped the Allies turn the tide of World War I in Europe. How the United States mobilized industry, trained doughboy soldiers, and promoted the war to the people at home is told by a master historian and storyteller. The blood, dirt, and desperation of the war itself is illustrated in tales of action at Chateau Thierry, and Belleau Woods (when the U.S. Marine Corps lost more men in one day that in all their previous history); in the air with the daring men of the Army Air Corps; at the battle of the Meuse-Argonne, where the Lost Battalion was trapped behind German lines.

In these pages, the "war to end all wars" is brought to life again for readers of today.

From the dust jacket