The Allies

Abstract

The conflagration that erupted 25 years after the outbreak of the Great War had the unmistakable dimension of a global conflict. The events of a world at war made individual lives appear vulnerable, even insignificant, and none more so than those of the soldiers on the battleground. Instinctively, fighting men looked for strength in numbers. Hope for survival seemed to lie more than ever in becoming one with a larger body of human beings. One of the favorite pastimes, for instance, of men of the 90th Infantry Division in England in the last weeks before the invasion of France was to sum up over and over again the American divisions they knew had already joined them. “We didn’t like the idea of being too much alone in this big show,” one of the division’s surgeons commented, “and we longed for plenty of company.”¹