1910's Government and Politics | "Over the Top": By an American Soldier Who Went

Memoir

By: Arthur Guy Empey

Date: 1917

Source: Empey, Arthur Guy. "Over the Top": By an American Soldier Who Went. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1917, 187–189.

About the Author: In May 1915, Arthur Guy Empey was in his office in Jersey City, New Jersey, when he read that a German U-boat had sunk the British passenger liner Lusitania, killing 1,198 people, including 128 Americans. Empey decided that because President Woodrow Wilson had not declared war on Germany, he would not enlist in the U.S. Army. Instead, he traveled to London, which was under attack by German zeppelins, and enlisted in the British army.

Introduction

In August 1914, the uneasy peace of Europe was shattered. Once the Belgians refused to grant the Germans unopposed passage through their territory, the Germans implemented the Schlieffen Plan. First devised in 1905, the plan...