ABSTRACT
They called it the Great War. For many it was the "war fought to end all wars" and, for the United States, it became a war "to make the world safe for democracy." Battle after battle, campaign after campaign, and year after year passed inconclusively amid unprecedented carnage, suffering, and destruction. It was the largest, bloodiest war in human history to that time. Literally millions were mobilized to fight it, and millions died in the no-man's-lands between the opposing trenches that scarred the Western Front in virtually unbroken lines from the Alps to the North Sea. According to demographers, France would need 66 years merely to recoup the young men who died during the war. The war' s bloodiest battle claimed 650,000 lives and when it was over, the lines had scarcely moved. That outcome symbolized the futility of the fighting generally and helped create an enormous cynici sm in those ordered to fight and die for no apparent reason or effect.
