Radio War Nerd EP157—The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, 1918

Recorded November 15, 2018 To mark the 100th anniversary of the War To End All Wars, the War Nerd and Ames discuss the American military's biggest contribution to the Entente victory: the Meuse-Argonne offensive, launched in the last six weeks of the war. Turns it this was the largest and deadliest battle in US military history — 26,000 killed, nearly 100,000 wounded — featuring the most epic traffic jams in American history (see photo above), led by a gaggle of psychopathic dumb-as-nails US officers. Despite professing to love war so much, hardly any Americans even know about their military's biggest battle ever. And for good reason, as we learn. It did not go very well. And all that death and embarrassment didn't even matter much anyway—the Meuse-Argonne wasn't all that important compared to the Entente's other major battlefronts during the Hundred Days Offensive that ended the war. Afterwards at 2:02:00 — the War Nerd briefly talks about World War One poetry, the dividing moment between pro-war verse and the sort of antiwar verse that's been the rule ever since . . . Also, Afghanistan going from awful to awfuler . . .