Optimism at Armageddon

The experiences of American soldiers in World War I differed enormously from those of European combatants. With the United States emerging from its previous isolation, soldiers arrived in the European theater late, fought briefly, and soon found themselves among the victors. Combat in the trenches - the brutal warfare that so dominated the war experience for Europeans - was over too quickly to define the conflict for Americans. Exposed for the first time to a foreign culture and bombarded by the messages of America's first concerted propaganda campaign, doughboys and other American participants struggled to make sense of their role and participation in the war. No aspect of their lives in the service was left to themselves. Censorship of their letters both encouraged certain kinds of expression and discouraged others. The propaganda machine interpreted everything for them. Mark Meigs here juxtaposes more "official" views - as expressed in speeches and in The Stars and Stripes, army handbooks, and unit histories - with informal, widely disseminated sources, such as popular songs, jokes, and postwar fiction, together with the soldiers' own letters and journals. Optimism at Armageddon begins with an exploration of how Americans rationalized their involvement and goes on to examine the effects of veterans' experiences during the war, focusing on combat, cultural and sexual contact with their French hosts, and death, concluding with the doughboys' thoughts of home and an account of their return to American society. An engagingly intimate perspective on a crucial turning point in American history, the book traces participants in the war struggling to define their individuality in the face of an ever-strengthening mass culture. Optimism at Armageddon reveals Americans preserving traditional notions of individuality while adapting to the standardization of twentieth-century life.