Wunderry Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American history tellers early and

ad free right now. Join Wundery Plus in the Wundery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's August 30th, 1918, and you're America's top military commander in Europe

at your new headquarters near San Miguel and Northeastern France. You're leaning over a table in the middle of the

room examining a large map. The U.S. joined the war 16 months ago, but only now do you have

enough soldiers and arms to operate as an independent

army rather than merely as units supporting your allies.

Your new independent forces are called the first army, and you're eager to deploy them in what will be the first U.S. led

offensive of the war.

On the map you see the target, a triangle of German-held land around San Miguel that juts out into French

territory.

You plan to attack from two sides, take the territory,

then push on to seize control of the city of Nets.

But as you study the map, you're interrupted by the arrival of Field Marshal Ferdinand Fauch, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces and head of the French Army.

Field Marshal, this is unexpected. What can I do for you?

I came to tell you that we're calling off the offensive.

Why? The British have now pushed the Germans back to their last line of defense at the Hindenburg line,

making them vulnerable. We're going to launch an assault to break their defenses and we need your troops to join us.

But we're ready to march on Mets as we agreed. That was before the British advance.

We now have a chance to end the war and we need to seize it. Well, what exactly do you have in mind?

Your forces will still take San Mial as planned, but instead of pushing on to Mets, you will move

to support the British attack. You say nothing trying to

quash your fury at this sudden departure from the plan, but Fosh isn't done

...