American Power Tips the Balance

American Mobilization

• Needed to build up armed forces

• Only 200,000 soldiers• Old weapons• 55 small planes• 130 pilots

Mobilization

• Selective Service Act passed in May 1917

• 3 million drafted• 2 million reached

Europe

Mobilization

• Women Served as nurses, secretaries and phone operators

Mobilization

• Blacks served in segregated units

• Excluded from navy and marines

• Army trained black officers for the 1st time

American Success in Combat

• Hard to get troops to Europe

• BY 1917-U-Boats had sunk twice as much ship tonnage as the Allies built

• U.S. began building more ships

• Draft reduced number of skilled ship builders– Exempted shipyard

workers from draft– Emphasized

importance of shipyard work

– Used fabrication– Converted civilian

ships to war ships

Breaking the Blockade

• Convoy system

• Submarine chasers

• Airplanes

A Submarine Chaser

Breaking the Blockade

• U.S. helped lay underwater mines in the North Sea

• U-Boats no longer a threat by 1918

• U-Boats destroyed-hard to replace

Fighting in Europe

• American troops were fresh

Fighting in Europe

• John J. Pershing-General in charge of U.S. forces in Europe

• Aggressive

The Tide Turns

• Russia out of War by 1918

• Germans now focusing on France

• 50 miles from Paris by May 1918

The Tide Turns

• By October 1918, the tide had turned against the Central Powers due to American help

Weapons of WWI

Big Bertha

• Big Bertha

• German

• Could shoot a 1,800 pound shell 75 miles

Zeppelins

• Gas filled air ship

• Enabled Germans to drop bombs on English cities

• Easy to shoot down

Machine Guns

• 600 rounds/minute

Poison Gas

• First used in 1915

• Gas masks became standard equipment

Victim of Poison Gas

Mechanized Warfare

• Warfare that relies on machines powered by gasoline or diesel engines

Mechanized Warfare

• Tanks- built from steel• Bullets bounce off• First used by British in

1916-Battle of the Somme

• Airplanes- flimsy-limited to scouting at first

• Early gunfights resembled duels

• Eventually got faster and able to carry heavier bombs

WWI Airplanes

Medical Care

• Filth, lice, rats, polluted water

• Stench of gas and decaying bodies

• Suffered from lack of sleep

• Shell shock

Collapse of Germany

• November 3, 1918-German Grand Fleet ordered to sea

• Sailors and marines refused

• Mutiny spread• November 9-People

of Berlin rebel

• Proclaimed a German Republic

• Kaiser abdicates• November 11, 1918

and 11AM-Fighting stops

The numbers

• 30 nations involved• 26 million dead-half

civilians• 20 million wounded• Cost $350 billion