United States in World War I 11 approximately 10,000 fresh soldiers were arriving in France daily. In 1917, Congress gave US citizenship to Puerto Ricans when they were drafted to participate in World War I, as part of the Jones Act. In the end, Germany miscalculated the United States' influence on the outcome of the conflict, believing it would be many more months before US troops would arrive and overestimating the effectiveness of U-boats in slowing the American buildup. The United States Navy sent a battleship group to Scapa Flow to join with the British Grand Fleet, destroyers to Queenstown, Ireland and submarines to help guard
Youngest British soldiers in World War I Youngest British soldiers in World War I The youngest authenticated British soldier in World War I was the twelve-year-old Sidney Lewis who fought at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Lewis's claim was not authenticated until 2013. In World War I, a number of young boys joined up to serve as soldiers before they were eighteen, the legal age to serve in the army. It was previously reported that the youngest British soldier was an unnamed boy, also twelve, sent home from France in 1917 with other underage boys from various regiments. George Maher (20 May 1903 – "c."1999)