US Soldier Letter, 1918

      Dear Family,
I love you guys so much, it feels like I have not seen you for years! Me and the rest of the 1st division are going to accompany the French on their assault of Cantigny tomorrow. We are going to run the Germans out! It's still cold here in Europe, but the troops are warm and ready to go. If you could send me some wool socks that would be great.  Mine have holes in them.  The French well, they don't look the best. They are pretty tired and worn out.  How are you doing back home? I hear money is good right now, you should see if anyone will hire you. Because if I don't make it back, not saying I wont, you'll be all the kids got. We are at a French base getting ready for the attack. The land all around is spotted with craters and burnt trees, and though the sun is out everything is a dark color there is no green for miles! Not exactly what we pictured France looking like back home!
      Well, I hope everything is going well back home, make sure the kids stay in school. I miss you so much and the States in general. I will try to get this letter out as soon as possible, but for the time being hold on we wont be gone long. 5/27/18

      Sincerely, Soldier

Causes Of WWI And U.S. Involvement

Four main causes of WWI:
I. Imperialism-(When a nation takes political control over another country). Conflicts started to rise over land disputes in Africa, Asia and in some places in Europe.

II. Nationalism-(The feeling of intense pride of one's homeland). This made it so people were not as open to people from other countries and created huge tensions between European nations.

III. Militarism-(when a nation devotes a lot of resources to make armies and things for war). This started a huge race between nations to try and create the largest military.

IV. Alliances-Triple Entente: France, Russia, and Great Britain. Triple Alliance: Germany, Austria-Hungry, and Italy. These alliances formed huge threats to one another and when one country got into a conflict the rest went to back them up. This created large amounts of tension between European nations.

The Spark of WWI: In June 1914, Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne was assassinated wile on vacation in Bosnian, Sarajevo. The assassin was a member of the Black Hand a Serbian nationalist group that were trying to start a war to bring down Austria-Hungary. Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia for the assassination and used it as an excuse to invade. Russia, Serbia's ally, then declared war on Austria-Hungary with Russia's other ally France. Germany then went to war with both France and Russia and thus starting WWI.     

• Lusitania: May 7, 1915, a British passenger liner was sunk by the German's U-boats when it entered the war zone, or the area around England. They killed 1,200 passengers 128 of which were American. 
• Sussex Pledge: March 1916, US president Wilson threatened Germany to take a pledge to give warning before sinking merchant ships.
• Zimmerman Telegram: January 1917, a German telegram intercepted by the British asking Mexico for assistance in the war and in return they would give Mexico a hand full of Southern US states.  
• Unrestricted Sub Warfare: February 1, 1917, the German started up their unrestricted sub warfare and started to sink merchant ships again. They sank US ships before the United States on April 6, 1917, declared war on Germany.

Francisco Pancho Villa

 

      Francisco Pancho Villa, better known as "Pancho Villa", but born  Doroteo Arango, and was a famous Mexican revolutionary leader from 1910 to 1911. Before he was a leader of the Mexican Revolution he was a very skilled bandit that lived in the mountains as the leader of a bandit group. Many Mexicans looked up to him as the modern day Robin Hood because he would steal from the wealthy and give most of the profits to the poor. He was very skilled at attacking swiftly and not getting caught which was one of his great attributes.
      His actions caught the attention of a group of men who were planing a revolution to overthrow the current Mexican president Porfirio Diaz. After some convincing he finally decided to become a leader of the new revolution. The idea was to get Francisco Madero to take Diaz's place as president, Madero said that he was going to improve the living for the lower classes in Mexico. After the first two years of fighting, Pancho Villa and Pascual Orozco (another commander) got into a fight and that caused Pancho Villa to resign from the cause. After he resigned in 1911 Madero became president, but he did not change a thing for the people of Mexico. 
      A year had passed and Orozco, being left out of the government plans, started a new revolution to get himself a place in office. Madero called for Villa and another commander Victoriano Huerta to assist him in bringing down the revolutionaries. In June 1912 Huerta accused Villa of stealing a horse and sent him to be executed, Madero made it so he did not have to die but could not prevent him from going to prison. By the time Villa escaped from prison it was late December and Huerta had become a Madero adversary, killing Madero and taking presidency for himself. 
      When Villa escaped he allied  with Venustiano Carranza to try and bring down Huerta. After fighting with him by his side, Pancho Villa left Venustiano Carranza and declared him, his enemy. These now two huge military forces started to fight over Mexico. The United States seeing this would not stop decided to assist Carranza's cause to bring down Villa. Pancho Villa led an army to attack the US town of Columbus, New Mexico on March 9, 1916; this being the only attack on the US since 1812, the US sent  a couple thousand soldiers in the search for him. They searched over a year for him with no sucsess and during that time period Carranza was assassinated by Adolfo De la Huerta who became president. In 1920 Pancho Villa, now out of hiding, retired by an order from Huerta and also for some other promises. Villa was later gunned down wile in his car on July 20, 1923. 

By Cordel Bever

Source: http://history1900s.about.com/cs/panchovilla/p/panchovilla.htm