America and General Pershing Enter the War

The Zimmerman Telegraph, sent to the German Embassy in Mexico





America stayed out of the war for three years, despite the sinking of the Lusitania by a German submarine in 1915. The intercepted Zimmerman Telegraph in 1917, in which the Germans asked Mexico to join the Central Powers in return for territory in the United States, finally forced America into the war. On April 6, 1917, Congress formally declared war on the German Empire.

American General John Pershing arrived in Paris on June 14, 1917. He quickly came to dislike the social and political distractions of the French and moved his team 150 miles from Paris to Chaumont.

General Pershing had reviewed the British and French strategies for the American troops and decided that the old methods had been the cause of the three year old stalemate. The Allies had gotten too used to relying on grenades, artillery and machine guns. "The rifle and bayonet remain the supreme weapons of the infantry soldier," he said in October 1917.

Trench warfare had badly demoralized the European troops and Pershing wanted to regain the aggressive attitude of 1914. If the Allies wanted to win the war, they had to go on the offensive. He expected soldiers to be aggressive to the point of recklessness and to accept heavy casualties.