Memorial to our veterans who served American in World War I

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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, and The War to End All Wars, was a global war which took place primarily in Europe from 1914 to 1918. Over 40 million casualties resulted, including approximately 20 million military and civilian deaths. The United States originally pursued a policy of isolationism, avoiding conflict while trying to broker a peace. This resulted in increased tensions with Berlin and London. When a German U-boat sank the British liner Lusitania in 1915, with 128 Americans aboard, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson vowed, "America was too proud to fight" and demanded an end to attacks on passenger ships. Germany complied. Wilson unsuccessfully tried to mediate a settlement. He repeatedly warned the U.S. would not tolerate unrestricted submarine warfare, in violation of international law and U.S. ideas of human rights. Wilson was under pressure from former president Theodore Roosevelt, who denounced German acts as "piracy".  Wilson's desire to have a seat at negotiations at war's end to advance the League of Nations also played a significant role.  Wilson's Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, resigned in protest of the President's decidedly warmongering diplomacy.

The era of modern warfare begins with World War I.  An arsenal of deadly weapons first appeared: aircraft filled the air; the first effective tanks rolled over the ground; machine guns decimated the enemy; poison gas killed or maimed thousands of troops.

In January 1917, after the Navy pressured the Kaiser, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare. Britain's secret Royal Navy cryptanalytic group, Room 40, had broken the German diplomatic code. They intercepted a proposal from Berlin (the Zimmermann Telegram) to Mexico to join the war as Germany's ally against the United States, should the U.S. join. The proposal suggested, if the U.S. were to enter the war, Mexico should declare war against the United States and enlist Japan as an ally. This would prevent the United States from joining the Allies and deploying troops to Europe, and would give Germany more time for their unrestricted submarine warfare program to strangle Britain's vital war supplies. In return, the Germans would promise Mexico support in reclaiming Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

After the British revealed the telegram to the United States, President Wilson, who had won reelection on his keeping the country out of the war, released the captured telegram as a way of building support for U.S. entry into the war. He had previously claimed neutrality, while calling for the arming of U.S. merchant ships delivering munitions to combatant Britain and quietly supporting the British blockading of German ports and mining of international waters, preventing the shipment of food from America and elsewhere to combatant Germany. After submarines sank seven U.S. merchant ships and the publication of the Zimmerman telegram, Wilson called for war on Germany, which the U.S. Congress declared on 6 April 1917.

The United States was never formally a member of the Allies but became a self-styled "Associated Power". The United States had a small army, but it drafted four million men and by summer 1918 was sending 10,000 fresh soldiers to France every day. In 1917, the U.S. Congress imposed U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans as part of the Jones Act, when they were drafted to participate in World War I. Germany had miscalculated, believing it would be many more months before they would arrive and that the arrival could be stopped by U-boats.

The war was ended by several treaties, most notably the Treaty of Versailles, signed on 28 June 1919, though the Allied powers had an armistice with Germany in place since 11 November 1918.  On November 11 an armistice with Germany was signed in a railroad carriage at Compiègne. At 11 a.m. on November 11, 1918 — the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month — a cease fire came into effect. Opposing armies on the Western Front began to withdraw from their positions. Canadian George Lawrence Price is traditionally regarded as the last soldier killed in the Great War: he was shot by a German sniper and died at 10:58.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_war_I

TROWBRIDGE

CORPORAL MADISON ELLSWORTH TROWBRIDGE (West Virginia), 28th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, U.S. Army; killed in action in France on October 9, 1918, one month before the armistice.  There is a marker for Corp. Trowbridge among the Tablets of The Missing At Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, Romagne, France.  There is also a headstone in the Maplewood Cemetery, Kingwood, Preston Co., W. Va. engraved "CORP. M. E. TROWBRIDGE 1899-1918."  It is located in the Trowbridge plot with Madison's grandparents James McGrew Trowbridge and Sarah Ann (Snider) Trowbridge.  This marker is simply a memorial and does not mark a grave.  Madison was born on May 4, 1899, the son of Joseph Madison Trowbridge (1865-1941) and Zona Holyfield, nee Farnsworth, (1858-1901).

WESTFALL

LOY W. WESTFALL, U.S. Navy, Electrician 2nd Class, enlisted in the U. S. Navy at Cleveland, Ohio on March 28, 1917 at the age of 25.  From April through October 1917 Loy was assigned to a receiving ship in New York, N. Y.  and then to the submarine base at New London, Connecticut until January, 1918.  From March until May 1918 he was again assigned to ships based out of New York.  From May until Armistice Day on November 11, 1918 he was assigned to the USS Princess Matoika.  He was honorably discharged on October 19, 1919 at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center near Chicago.  When he enlisted his residence was listed as 555 W. Thornton Street, Akron, Ohio which was the address for his parents, Nathaniel and Luvenia (Trowbridge) Westfall. Source:  Ancestry.com. Ohio Military Men, 1917-18 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2000. Original data: Official Roster of Ohio Soldiers, Sailors and Marines in the World War, 1917-1918. Vol. I-XXIII. Columbus, OH, USA: F. J. Heer Printing Co., 1926.

 
Ronald N. Wall
Updated: 29 May 2023