Amerikanernest: The Lost Battalion, Argonne Forest 1918

Amerikanernest provides new insights into one of the most celebrated American units of the Great War: the 77th Division's so-called Lost Battalion. It also explores instruments of national power and how Imperial Germany and the US prepared for war.

At the turn of the 20th century, a German tungsten mine near Spokane, Washington, supplied high-grade ore to Krupp foundry in Essen, Germany. The German military-industrial complex understood the strategic value of tungsten decades before competitors and used the ore to quintuple artillery and capital ship production for the Imperial German Army and Navy.

Two men, a German sent to Spokane by the Kaiser to operate the mine and a second-generation American who grew up in Spokane, became improbably linked. They would live and work within blocks of each other and would later fight on opposing sides during the Great War. In 1918, they would come face-to-face on a tiny, forested battlefield the Americans called "the pocket," and the Germans called "Amerikanernest" (American Nest). The epic five-day battle and the stubborn refusal of the beleaguered American 'Lost Battalion' to surrender would become US Army legend. Five Americans would be recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor, many more would receive the Distinguished Service Cross, and all of the Lost Battalion were justifiably celebrated as heroes. The Imperial German Army, weakened by years of fighting and attrition, was near its breaking point but was clearly not done with the fight in the Argonne or its resolve to wipe out the Amerikanernest.

This book traces both men's incredible journeys to their fateful meeting in the Argonne. Their journeys are framed against the backdrop of 20th century Great Power competition, German tungsten mining designed to dramatically ramp up weaponry production, and a US Army that was desperately unprepared to go to war.