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World War I (Series: Chronicle of America's Wars) Lerner Publishing Group, 2004 ISBN-10: 0-8225-0148-1 ISBN-13: 978-0-8225-0148-0 Pages: 96 Reading level: Grade 6 For ages 10 and older Available at most booksellers, including: AbeBooks.com Powell's Books Independent booksellers need our support! |
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On June 28, 1914, Austria’s Archduke Franz
Ferdinand was assassinated, starting a chain of events
that divided the world. What began as a single man’s act
of rebellion ended in the world’s first global war.
After three years of horrific trench warfare that
stretched across Europe, marked by the use of poison
gases and millions of deaths, American troops entered
the war in June 1917. On November 11, 1918, an armistice
went into effect and ended the fighting.
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[American
soldiers in World War I were often called "doughboys."] It's
not clear where the term "doughboys" came from, but it was
used before World War I. During the Mexican War of
1846-1848, infantry men were often covered with the white dust
of adobe soils. "Adobies" might have become "dobies" and then
"doughboys." In the Civil War (1861-1865), mounted
soldiers called infantry men "doughboys," perhaps because
these soldiers used flour or white clay to polish their white
belts.
DOUGHBOY SLANG
cooties: body lice,
fleas, and bedbugs. Also called "seam squirrels" and "pants
rabbits."
dogfight:
aerial combat.
go over the top: to
leave the relative safety of a trench and charge the enemy
across no-man’s land
monkey meat:
foul-tasting canned ration of beef and carrots
no-man's land:
the area between the trenches of warring troops
whizzbang:
a shell from heavy artillery, particularly the Austrian 88
mm gun.