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Meuse-Argonne Offensive
At dawn on September 26, 1918, General Pershing's troops launched an attack along the Meuse River and into northern France's rugged Argonne Forest that would prove to be the deadliest battle in American history. While British forces attacked the German lines to the far north in Belgium, more than 600,000 American and French troops supported by almost 5,000 artillery pieces, 500 tanks, and 500 airplanes slowly forced their way through strong German defenses. During the nearly seven weeks of combat, the Allied forces made significant advances against the exhausted Germans, breaking the stalemate in the trenches and nearly pushing the Germans out of France. The battle lasted until the end of the war, and 26,277 Americans died in this final fight, the highest American death toll for any single battle in U.S. history, not surpassed even by the fierce battles of the Civil War or World War II. |