The German invasion of Poland was dramatic, and drew the attention of the entire world, but fighting had actually begun even earlier as Germany sought to press its territorial ambitions. Often overlooked, actual combat occurred six months earlier, and not far from the Polish border with Czechoslovakia, in a tiny, autonomous region with several names, including, for a time, the Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine.
In August of 1918, as the armies of Europe neared exhaustion, American troops of the 28th “Keystone” division were thrown into a nearly forgotten battle that fully represented the horrors of the War to End All Wars.
Of the vaunted ironclad warships of the US Civil War perhaps the mightiest and most terrifying was the confederate ram Tennessee. On August 5, 1864, she would be put to the test in the largest naval engagement of the war, an engagement that defined the divided loyalties of the War of the Rebellion.