The Doughboys : America and the First World War

The Doughboys were the more than three million men, many of them volunteers, recruited from the cities and farms of the United States, who traveled across the Atlantic to aid the Allies in the trenches and on the battlefields of World War I. Without their courage and determination, the outcome of the war would have been very different. Drawing upon the often harrowing personal accounts of the soldiers of the AEF, "The Doughboys" establishes the pivotal role played by the Americans in the defeat of the Central powers in November 1918. Gary Mead brings together a rich selection of archive material in an engaging account that is part military history, part social analysis, part memoir. "The Doughboys" records the events of the war from the perspective of the United States, highlighting the crucial part played by the troops of the AEF and exposing the prickly, often turbulent relationship between the American and the Allied forces. The contributions of American soldiers during the First World War are celebrated in this new book, which follows their progress from initial derision by the Europeans to a hard-won respect. Reprint.