At 5:30 a.m. on 26 September 1918, nine divisions of General John J. Pershing's American First Army attacked between the Meuse River and the Argonne Forest in northeastern France, after a night of artillery fire that Pershing's own report put at three hours. It was the first day of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, which the American Battle Monuments Commission later called the greatest battle in American history. By evening the first German position had fallen, but the hill of Montfaucon held out until about noon the next day. The fighting lasted 47 days, until the Armistice; the National Archives counts 26,277 Americans killed. On the same date in 1777, British troops under Lord Cornwallis marched into Philadelphia.
The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, 1918: America's greatest battle
26 September to 11 November 1918 · 108 years ago
The United States entered World War I in April 1917 with a small army. By the autumn of 1918 General John J. Pershing commanded well over a million men in France, and he had insisted that they fight as an independent American army rather than be fed into French and British units.
Read the full story of The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, 1918: America's greatest battle ›Battle of the Maritsa, 1371: the night the Serbian lords were destroyed
26 September 1371 · 655 years ago
Near the Maritsa river, Ottoman forces under Lala Şahin Pasha met a Christian army led by the Serbian King Vukašin and his brother Jovan Uglješa, who aimed to stop the Ottoman advance. The Ottomans won decisively, both brothers were killed, and the way into Macedonia lay open.
Read the full story of Battle of the Maritsa, 1371: the night the Serbian lords were destroyed ›Also on this day
1777: British troops marched into Philadelphia. Howe's printed Narrative says that the army marched to Germantown on the 25th, and that Lord Cornwallis, with the British grenadiers and two battalions of Hessian grenadiers, took possession of the city the next morning. The Quaker diarist Elizabeth Drinker wrote that day that "about 2 or 3000 came in through Second street, without opposition or interruption", that "Cornwallis came with those troops to day", and that Howe "is not yet come in". According to the historian Martha K. Robinson, the British abandoned the city the following June. Our article on the Battle of Germantown follows Washington's attempt to strike back.1
