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The American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) consisted of the United States Armed Forces sent to Europe under the command of General John J. Pershing in 1917 to help fight World War I . During the United States campaigns in World War I the AEF fought in France alongside French and British allied forces in the last year of the war, against German forces. Some of the troops fought alongside Italian forces in that same year, against Austro-Hungarian forces. The AEF helped the French Army on the Western Front during the Aisne Offensive (at Château-Thierry and Belleau Wood) in June 1918, and fought its major actions in the Saint-Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Offensives in late 1918. ==History== U.S. President Woodrow Wilson initially planned to give command of the AEF to General Frederick Funston, but after Funston's sudden death, Wilson appointed Major General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing in May 1917; Pershing remained in command for the entire war. Pershing insisted that American soldiers be well-trained before going to Europe. As a result, few troops arrived before 1918. In addition, Pershing insisted that the American force would not be used merely to fill gaps in the French and British armies, and he resisted European efforts to have U.S. troops deployed as individual replacements in decimated Allied units. This attitude was not always well received by the Allied leaders who distrusted the potential of an army lacking experience in large-scale warfare.〔Coffman, ''The War to End All Wars'' (1998)〕 In addition the British tried to barter their spare shipping to make the US put its soldiers into British ranks. By June 1917, only 14,000 U.S. soldiers had arrived in France and the AEF had only a minor participation at the front in late October 1917, but by May 1918 over one million U.S. troops were stationed in France; but only half of which made it to the front lines.〔Pershing, ''My Experiences in the World War'' (1931)〕 Since the transport ships needed to bring American troops to Europe were scarce at the beginning, the army pressed into service passenger liners, seized German ships, and borrowed Allied ships to transport American soldiers from New York, New Jersey, and Newport News, Virginia. The mobilization effort taxed the American military to the limit and required new organizational strategies and command structures to transport great numbers of troops and supplies quickly and efficiently. The French harbors of Bordeaux, La Pallice, Saint Nazaire and Brest became the entry points into the French railway system which brought the US forces and their supplies to the front. American engineers in France built 82 new ship berths, nearly of additional standard-gauge tracks and of telephone and telegraph lines.〔 The first American troops, who were often called "Doughboys", landed in Europe in June 1917. However the AEF did not participate at the front until late October 1917, when the 1st Division fired the first American shell of the war toward German lines, although they participated only on a small scale. A formation of regular soldiers and the first division to arrive in France, entered the trenches near Nancy.〔 The AEF used French and British equipment. Particularly appreciated were the French canon de 75 modèle 1897, the canon de 155 C modèle 1917 Schneider and the canon de 155mm GPF. American aviation units received the SPAD XIII and Nieuport 28 fighters and the US tank corps used the French Renault FT light tanks. Pershing established facilities in France to train new arrivals with their new weapons.〔Wilson, ''Treat 'Em Rough: The Birth of American Armor, 1917–1920'' (1989)〕 By the end of 1917 four divisions were deployed in a large training area near Verdun: the 1st Division, a regular army formation; the 26th Division, a National Guard formation; the 2nd Division, a combined formation of regular troops and United States Marines; and the 42nd "Rainbow" Division, a National Guard formation consisting of units from nearly every state in the United States. A fifth division, the 41st Division, had been converted into a depot division near Tours. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「American Expeditionary Forces」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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