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Some people aren't so familiar with how awful World War 1 was

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the reason for this ignorance in many ways is that World War two was even [Teacher discussing World War One]

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bigger and badder than its prequel but it may also be because World War one

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battles always have such pretty french name the some eat play the mildness they

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are den well how bad could they have been with names like that well answer

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very very bad all those lovely names translate to total carnage and they sent [Gravestones appear]

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shivers down the spines of the survivors and families of the dead one of these

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deceptively lovely sounding battles was named the meuse-argonne offensive of

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1918 also called the Battle of the Argonne forest first Americans as with

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all the big battles of World War one the battle was a regular bloodbath because [Soldiers lying in trenches]

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it was an attempt to break out of the trenches and actually get the war moving

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again it's kind of like a you know a laxative but for warfare and again like

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all the worst battles of the war and the last season of a show that's past its [Soldiers in trench and sponge bob appears]

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prime it seemed to go on forever lasting from September 26 to November 11th 1918

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the battle only ended because the war ended otherwise it would likely have

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gone on for months like the Battle of some in 1916 but the Mao was unlike the

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other big battles of the war in one way American soldiers fought in it in fact [Germany looking at France shivering]

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it was largest battle in US military history up to that point bigger even

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than the enormous clashes of the Civil War so yay well 1.2 million Americans [Soldiers firing rifles]

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took part in the Mao and 26,000 died there another innovation was that the

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battle introduced a new kind of automatic rifle right up to the end of [Automatic rifle appears]

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the war both sides were dedicated to finding a way to kill more of each other

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the joys of innovation here's how the battle played out the Allies decided to

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make a big push against the Germans and overrun their line forcing them out of [Allies rush to Germans]

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their trenches Allied forces had tried this before but this time Americans had

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their back or the Germans were sweating it because they just didn't have the

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extra German soldiers to match the 1.2 million

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new American the Allies left the Western Front in three directions the u.s. went

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south the British and Belgians went east into Belgium and the British and French

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went north across the way to France as the Allies advanced into German occupied [Allies appear in Germany]

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territory one group of Americans led by General John J Pershing were held up by

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fierce German resistance in the Argonne forest Co Pershing was impatient with

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what he saw as over caution on the part of the French and British he figured

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that Americans moving quickly on foot with rifles could do more damage to the

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enemy than pointless artillery bombardment didn't Pershing know it's

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not safe to run with guns or is that scissors either way whatever Pershing's [Athlete running with gun]

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planted turned out to be a bad idea he sent groups of infantry into the forest [Us infantry run into forest]

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to meet the Germans head-on and over and over and over again German artillery

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inflicted high casualties on them the battle bogged down and 120,000 American [Dead soldiers appear]

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soldiers were killed or wounded as the stalemate dragged on for six weeks but

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last the Americans were able to achieve a breakthrough not by breaking through

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the forest and the German line but by going around them it had taken the u.s. Soldiers sneaking]

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for six weeks to travel 10 miles but once they did they met up with other

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Allied forces and continued their merry unmarry way east into Germany well on

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November 9th the German government said enough is enough

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they realized they could no longer defend their homeland Germany's people

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and soldiers were starving its allies were overrun or out of the war and its

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troops for mutinying rather than taking part in what could [Troops pointing guns at their own army]

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only be suicide missions against a much larger force and hard to blame them next

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thing anybody knew Kaiser Wilhelm was ousted from power by his own people and

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Germany declared itself a republic well the new government agreed to an

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armistice two days later on November 11th 1918 and the war officially ended [Armistice agreement in newspaper article]

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in 1919 with the Treaty of Versailles at which point the whole world took a deep

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breath and gave one big Versailles of relief [Earth takes big sigh]

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