World War I

World War I included major campaigns with listed deaths at Meuse-Argonne, France, from 9/18-11/18 with 26,277; Aisne-Marne, France, from 7/18-8/18 with 6,992; Somme, France, from 8/18-11/18 with 3,221; Oise-Aisne, France, from 8/18-11/18 with 1,919; St. Mihiel, France, in 9/18 with 1,799; Champagne-Marne, France, in 7/18 with 1,485; Cantigny, France, from 4/18-7/18 with 963; Ypres-Lys, Belgium, France, from 8/18-11/18 with 894; and Chateau-Thierry, France, from 6/18-7/18 with 886. Military service personnel participants totaled 4,734,991, with 53,402 in theater deaths, 63,114 deaths in service, 204,002 wounded in service, and 4,452 missing in action; Illinois deaths totaled 3,016 and Kane County deaths 151. The last county World War I veteran, Raymond George Geister, died on 2/6/2000 at age 105. In 1914 the war began in Europe after the assassination in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, of Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary; in 1915 the British passenger liner Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat, causing the death of 128 American civilians; in 1917 the first Selective Service Act passed Congress and the United States declared war on Germany; in 1918 by spring U.S. troops were being shipped into France at a peak rate of 300,000 soldiers per month and Germany agreed to an armistice; and in 1919 the combatant nations signed the Treaty of Versailles. Over 65 million served in uniform in all combatant countries from 1914-1918, over 8 million died on active service, over 21 million were wounded, over 6 million civilians died, and the war created 3 million widows and 10 million orphans. From income tax increases and the sale of bonds, the U.S. raised $23 billion for the war effort from a population with an annual income of less than $70 billion. An attack was launched from a front line trench, one of a system of trenches that zigzagged along the Western Front, and during the war the airplane emerged as a new weapon although for most of the war airplanes were used to observe enemy activities. President Woodrow Wilson said, "The world must be made safe for democracy."

Geneva, Illinois · United States