Three American ambulance organisations were created in France during the first year of the war: the Harjes Formation, the American Volunteer Motor Ambulance Corps and the American Field Service (AFS), which was founded in 1915 and would ultimately play the most important role. But for many the motivation was excitement and adventure,” explained Ross Collins, a professor at North Dakota State University and World War I specialist.Īmerican ambulance drivers under French army command “Probably some altruistically wanted to do what they could to ‘save civilisation from the barbarians’, and many had old family ties to England and France. Around the same time, a few hundred young volunteers, the majority of whom came from the prestigious US Ivy League university system, set off for Europe. The American Hospital at Neuilly, a suburb on the western outskirts of Paris, began treating wounded on the front line in September 1914 – just months after the outbreak of the war. Two men about one hundred yards away were decapitated and there were a number of dead horses about.” American William Yorke Stevenson wrote about his experience on the front line at the brutal battle between the French and the Germans at Verdun in 1916.*Įven though the United States would not join the Allied forces until a year later in 1917, there were already a number of Americans in France helping with the war effort. This was the heaviest shellfire I have yet been under, and I was glad to have something to do to keep my mind off of it. ![]() ![]() “Some twenty huge – at least, they seemed huge to us – shells fell around us.
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