The Last Battle of the First World War

November 11, 1918. At exactly 11 AM local time, the shooting stops. It’s eerily quiet for the first time in a long time. World War I has finally come to an end today after Germany and the Allied nations signed an armistice not long before. The final battle of the war, known today as the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, saw an unexpected turn of events and a surprising victory. Today: the battle that ended the first world war. How did an inexperienced American army help turn the tides? And how did the Meuse-Argonne Offensive change the way America would fight future wars?

Thank you to our guest, Professor Mitchel Yockelson, author of “Forty-Seven Days: How Pershing's Warriors Came of Age to Defeat the German Army in World War I.”

Primary source letter from army doctor Stanhope Bayne-Jones can be found on the website of the Historical Collections of the US National Library of Medicine.

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