More than three million American men, many of them volunteers, joined the A.E.F. in the first 20 months of US involvement in the First World War. Of these, over 50,000 were killed on European soil. These were the Doughboys, the young men recruited from the cities and farms of the United Sates, who travelled across the Atlantic to aid the allies in the trenches and on the battlefields. Without their courage and determination, the outcome of the war would have been very different. Why did America become involved in the First World War? what was the fighting experience of the A.E.F. in France and Russia? most importantly, why has the vital contribution made by the Americans been largely neglected by historians of the great war? Drawing upon the often harrowing personal accounts of the soldiers of the A.E.F., this book establishes the pivotal role played by the Americans in the defeat of the central powers in November 1918. Gary Mead brings together a selection of archive material in an engaging account that is part military history, part social analysis and memoir. This book records the events of the war exclusively from the perspective of the United States, highlighting the crucial part played by the troops of the A.E.F. and exposing the prickly, often turbulent relationship between the American and the allied forces.