June 1917- American Troops Enter the war?

Answer 1

Well, in June 1917 the first American troops arrived in France. There were about 200 of them, and they were the advance vanguard of the nearly two million who would eventually reach France. The group in June 1917 was the Commander of the AEF (American Expeditionary Force), General Pershing, a number of his staff officers (along with Lieutenant Colonel George Patton - Pershing had been dating his sister) and a handful of enlisted men, including sergeant Edward Rickenbacker, later a pilot and captain and America's highest scoring fighter ace of the war. They were quickly entrained for Paris, where they received a tearfully hysterical joyous reception from the French, who felt delivered at last by the arrival of Americans from their great peril. They paraded to Lafayette's tomb, where an aide to Pershing uttered the famous phrase "Lafayette, we are here" (in French "Lafayette, nous voila").

But it was quite a while before American combat troops were present in France in any large numbers. Beginning in late autumn 1917 subunits of American divisions began occupying sectors of the lines for introductory purposes. The Germans were always aware of these changes and tried to give the Americans a rough time, to discourage them. The first shots fired and the first few casualties were in October.

It was late May and June of 1918 before Americans were committed to combat in large numbers. This was the true crisis of the war. The Germans had knocked Russia out of the war, and moved much of their force from the eastern front to the west, to try to win the war before the Americans could make their weight felt. They came close. So the great majority of American combat and losses occurred in the last five or six months of the war, and the American contribution to Allied victory was crucial. You'd have a hard time finding a Frenchman or an Englishman who would admit that today though. But at the time they all freely admitted it.