Introduction

Abstract

World War I has been a matter of unresolved interpretation for American participants from the first moments of their involvement to the return of the last soldiers and bodies of soldiers in the 1920s and even to the present day. The signs of the historical significance of the American effort were plentiful in Europe by the end of the war. American supplies had supported the allies. Americans had enlarged several ports in France and laid railroads to move goods and men to the Western front. There were camps, hospitals, and even a university of pre-fabricated buildings that had gone up with a speed and disregard for expense that astonished the French. They were abandoned or sold in 1919: solid, if ambiguous, testimony to the extent and importance of the American effort.