American troops are holding a trench on a wooded hillside in the Vosges Mountains. The the Vosges formed the main border line between France and the German Empire. During WWI, they were the scene of severe and almost continuous fighting. At the outbreak of the war, the United States pursued a policy of non-intervention, avoiding conflict while trying to broker a peace. After the sinking of seven U.S. merchant ships by submarines, Wilson called for war on Germany, which the Congress declared on April 6, 1917. The United States was never formally a member of the Allies but became a self-styled "Associated Power". The United States had a small army, but, after the passage of the Selective Service Act, it drafted 2.8 million men, and, by summer 1918, was sending 10,000 fresh soldiers to France every day. The AEF helped the French Army on the Western Front during the Aisne Offensive (at Chateau-Thierry and Belleau Wood) in June 1918, and fought its major actions in the Saint-Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Offensives in late 1918. At 11 o'clock in the morning of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the WWI, known at the time as the Great War, came to an end.
