I

America’s total commitment to an Allied victory in Europe assured President Woodrow Wilson a commanding position in global affairs. Never had Europe been as much in need of external leadership and rescue. The horrors of previous years seemed to reach their culmination in the disasters of 1917. As submarines levied their toll on the high seas, the war on the Western Front reached new levels of disaster. Early in 1917, Britain and France, independently, planned massive assaults to break through the German lines. In April, French General Robert Georges Nivelle launched his “unlimited offensive” at Chemin des Dames. Unfortunately, Nivelle’s plans, widely distributed, reached the German high command. Nivelle knew this, but insisted that it changed nothing. The superbly prepared German line was a defendant’s dream. So suicidal were the casualties that French soldiers refused to leave the trenches and face the withering fire of well-placed German machine guns. To quell the mutiny, French officers shot their own troops to enforce the orders to attack. French casualties during ten days of April approached 200,000.