In 19 there were the volunteer ambulance drivers of what would become the American Field Service. Prince himself flew missions on the Western Front and died after his plane crashed returning from a mission in October of 1916.īut not all of the Americans who arrived at the Western Front before the American declaration of war were soldiers or pilots. In January of 1915, American aviator Norman Prince arrived in Paris, trying to convince the French Army to accept American pilots into their ranks, which led the creation of the Lafayette Escadrille. Other Americans did not wait for presidents and senators to act. When some senators objected and threatened to block the legislation, Wilson proceeded via Executive Order, which has a rather modern ring. On February 26, Wilson asked the Congress for permission to arm American merchant ships. True, the United States Congress, at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson, declared war on April 6, 1917, but Wilson had already severed diplomatic relations with Germany on February 3, in response to Germany’s resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare. The American entry into the war would seem to be a more straightforward event to date, but that’s not quite the case.

What day, exactly, did the war begin? Was it June 28, 1914, the day the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo? Was it July 5, when Kaiser Wilhelm told the Emperor Franz Joseph that Imperial Germany would give the Austro-Hungarian Empire unqualified support in any military move against Serbia (the infamous “Blank Check” that so emboldened the Austrians)? How about July 28, when the Austrians declared war on Serbia, or August 1, when Germany declared war on Russia? You could also select August 3, when Germany declared war on France, or the following day, when Germany invaded neutral Belgium, prompting the British the declare war on Germany that evening. As we observe (“celebrate” somehow seems wrong in the context) the 100th anniversary of the First World War, it’s not always easy to pick a precise date to mark.

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