A Patriot's History of the Modern World (23 page)

But the French knew better than to advance this proposal, choosing a more diplomatic approach. In a secret memo to high command, the head of the French military mission, in a moment of perspicacity worthy of de Tocqueville, sized up the Americans as having “a highly developed national pride and a strong spirit of independence.” Anticipating the changes afoot in the world, he perceived, “they are all convinced that their country is now predominant [and the United States thinks it is] holding the balance of power, by virtue of its enormous resources in men, money, and supplies.” They had decided, he added, “not to submit to any subordination whatsoever,” but to demand equal footing,” to which “we must resign ourselves.” He concluded that the French had to trust the Americans, who were “gifted, in general, with a sound common sense, and a spirit of fairness…. Our real and only danger lies in failure to make allowances for the spirit of the American people, and for the idiosyncrasies of the American mentality.”
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Nonetheless, the French also sought to train and use American soldiers for their own purposes, a move strongly and successfully resisted by General Pershing. To put matters to rest, Pershing finally abolished the use of French and British trainers for American soldiers, calling British training “a detriment” and French instructors “useless.”
¹²⁴

The critical need for American troops in the spring of 1918 was due to the Russian Revolution of 1917, and to Lenin's having signed a peace treaty with Germany. Not only had Germany accomplished all of its war aims in
the East (and perhaps more), the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918 freed hundreds of thousands of German POWs and troops for service on the Western Front. Fortunately for the Allies, the Germans had occupied so much territory that it required hundreds of thousands of troops to guard and control the new acquisitions. Those forces could have been more effectively employed in the West. Nevertheless, enjoying a numerical superiority not seen since August 1914, the Germans mounted a series of offensives against the British and French using their new “Hutier tactics” of bypassing strong points to achieve breakthroughs in depth, bringing the Allies to the brink of destruction. Pershing allowed a quarter million American troops to assist in the defense, but only in American formations and commanded by American officers. By July, the Germans had suffered one million casualties and the Allies could go on the offensive with the American doughboys.

Pershing had been tasked by Wilson with keeping the American Expeditionary Force a “separate and distinct component” of the Allied forces. This was necessary not only because of the need to preserve American autonomy, but also because Pershing worried that the low morale of the battle-weary British and French would rub off on his untested units. Given little other direction by Wilson, Pershing shaped the American war effort in Europe more than any other single U.S. commander in military history. Pershing's unsuccessful expedition into northern Mexico to track down Pancho Villa had presented him with a lesson in the value and limitations of the new technologies. Airplanes under his command had scouted the vast desert, while automobiles commanded by Patton had pressed Villa. The Mexican campaign had instructed the United States in a much different type of guerrilla warfare from the one the more successful Philippine campaign had offered—indeed, many of the units had just come from the Philippines—and contributed to a larger body of knowledge of what worked, and didn't work, in battling guerrilla forces over large, open areas.

Pershing took a great deal more with him than knowledge and experience from his days in Mexico and Texas. While stationed at Fort Bliss in August 1915, he had received a crushing call from an AP correspondent who thought he was speaking to Pershing's lieutenant: “Lieutenant Collins, I have some more on the Presidio fire.” Earlier that morning, a fire had engulfed Pershing's home in San Francisco, killing his wife and three daughters by smoke inhalation—only his son Warren survived. The general sobbed on a friend's shoulder the entire two-day train journey back for the funeral. Among the letters of condolence was one from Pancho Villa.
¹²⁵

Like many famous American commanders who were educators or involved in education—William Tecumseh Sherman, Joshua Chamberlain, Robert E. Lee (after the Civil War), and both Stonewall and Andrew Jackson (briefly)—John Pershing had been a schoolteacher for a short time after graduating from high school and before attending West Point.
¹²⁶
His service in education continued with a posting to West Point as a tactical officer, and to the University of Nebraska as an instructor in military science, where he established the first of the “Pershing Rifles” drill teams. As an officer with the 10th Cavalry “Buffalo Soldiers,” Pershing fought as a brevet major at San Juan and Kettle hills alongside Teddy Roosevelt and won what later became the Silver Star. With his unprecedented promotion to brigadier general, solid service in the Philippines, and notoriety from the Villa expedition, Pershing was one of only six people qualified to command the American Expeditionary Force in Europe. Two were due to retire in a year, and two were in ill health, making his only serious rival for the command General Leonard Wood. It turned out to be no contest as Wilson believed Wood harbored ambitions to become president, and while both Wood and Pershing were Republicans, Pershing's presidential aspirations did not come into focus until after the war. Both Pershing and Wood actively campaigned for the command, but Secretary of War Newton D. Baker chose Pershing and Wilson approved. Pershing met with President Wilson only once, and received no instructions as to the course he should pursue. “In the actual conduct of operations I was given entire freedom and in this respect was to enjoy an experience unique in our history,” Pershing said later.
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It is also worth noting that while virtually all national reporters knew of Pershing's departure date and on what ship he sailed, there were no “leaks” of the information, so patriotic were the journalists of the day. No one wanted to give the enemy a chance to sink Pershing's ship.

Ironically, Pershing's training concepts and tactics were decidedly “retro,” greatly resembling the failed French notions of
élan.
He emphasized rifle fire accuracy, the use of the bayonet, and above all, the soldier's spirit. Instead of massed formations bedecked in brightly colored uniforms, however, doughboys would fight from a tactical background outlined in the
Infantry Drill Regulations
, which emphasized fast-moving infantry operating in smaller units with khaki or camouflage uniforms. Pershing appreciated the firepower of machine guns, but did not want his men dependent on them, fearing they would slow the advance. But he remained wedded to the frontal assault—to be sure, using broken-field “combined arms” tactics—in
which the key was to identify the vulnerable strong points and overcome them using bayonets. The problem in the Meuse-Argonne offensive (September–November 1918), where the United States played a major role, was that lacking their own artillery or tanks, and demonstrably weak in coordinating with what air power there was, the Americans were reliant on the French. Time and again, artillery proved poorly directed; tanks broke down or French crews abandoned them under heavy fire; and Colonel Billy Mitchell's airplanes bombed and strafed behind the lines, not in support of advancing American infantry. The saving grace was that, whenever possible, subordinates were allowed to redefine tactics in light of battlefield circumstances—an American tradition.

Old-fashioned American innovation, adaptation, and, above all, individual autonomy made the Expeditionary Force a much different military unit from the cynical and hardened British and French armies it now joined. The level of preparedness was striking compared with that of the Europeans. Whereas Britain had gone to war with a general staff of 232 and Germany 650, the United States had only 41, and by law no more than half could be in Washington at the same time.
¹²⁸
By the fall of 1917, a million Americans had arrived in Europe to little fanfare. They were greeted by no bands, no flag-waving civilians—“a funeral,” as Captain George C. Marshall put it.
¹²⁹
Yet the disembarking Americans seemed different, described by one European as “emanating a powerful impression of ruddy, clean-shaven youth, of lithe, athletic bodies with strong, clean limbs—the only really youthful army in the field in 1918.”
¹³⁰

Teufel Hunden

At first, however, the results were mixed. Early skirmishes produced easy victories, but the Americans were confronted with the awesome reality of twentieth-century combat when ordered into Belleau Wood to support a French operation. From June 6 to June 26, 1918, American infantry and Marines (who earned the nickname “Devil Dogs,” or
Teufel Hunden
, from the enemy in the battle) fought against well-placed German positions arranged in kill zones, finally seizing the Wood, but not before suffering a shocking 5,200 casualties. Pershing's version of
élan
underwent an instant evolution in the hands of sergeants and junior officers, who realized the “reckless courage of the foot soldier with his rifle and bayonet could not overcome machine guns well-protected in rocky nests.”
¹³¹
Trusting this commonsense, bottom-up refinement of tactics, Pershing told a subordinate
that Americans had developed “a type of manhood superior in initiative” to the Europeans'.
¹³²
Belleau Wood taught them that neither guts nor initiative alone would defeat the entrenched Germans; but it also showed that Americans could take a shot and persevere. Pershing therefore called Belleau Wood the most important battle for the American military since the Civil War.

Along with the education under fire came the official formation of the American 1st Army in August, consisting of fourteen infantry divisions, supported by French artillery, tanks, and trucks. France's Marshal Foch, who had by then become Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies (Pétain was Commander in Chief of All French Armies), continued to press for dispersing American forces to plug gaps in Franco-British lines, but Pershing angrily refused, telling the marshal, “While our army will fight wherever you decide, it will not fight except as an independent American army.”
¹³³
What “Black Jack” lacked in tactical ingenuity, he made up for in his skill in dealing with the French.

Foch relented. In September 1918, the half-million-strong U.S. 1st Army assaulted the St. Mihiel salient, which was only lightly defended by the Germans. Nevertheless, it resulted in a reassuring success, and Pershing boasted, “We gave 'em a damn good licking, didn't we!” But in the Meuse-Argonne offensive of September through November of 1918 they encountered a different German army, one of grizzled veterans instead of aged or very young reserves. Brimming with confidence, the American Expeditionary Force advanced toward its objectives. One survivor later recalled, “We were Power, and nothing could stop us. We were Americans!”
¹³⁴
Division after division slammed into German artillery, gas, machine guns, and wire, shredded in the process and gaining little ground. Troops advancing from the rear lines were appalled to see up to two hundred ambulances delivering wounded to a single medical station. However wedded Pershing was to the bayonet offensive before the Meuse-Argonne, he reconsidered tactics after five days of heavy losses. Colonel Billy Mitchell, who had promised to clear the skies of German aircraft, similarly reappraised his work when German planes repeatedly filtered through his patrols to attack Americans on the ground. Mitchell refused to criticize the air corps, but he knew it had failed to live up to his promises.

By the end of September, Germany's defensive line had been breached, but with terrific American casualties and phenomenal psychological cost to those who had endured. As a pastor serving with the 80th Division wrote, “We became beasts lusting for blood and flesh. We were no longer normal, but abnormal…. Men swore who never swore before, men who taught Sunday School classes back home.”
¹³⁵
By then the American military force was too big for one man to lead while also commanding an army directly. Pershing replaced himself as commander of the 1st Army with General Hunter Liggett—a better tactician—and formed the 2nd Army under General
Robert Bullard, thereby limiting his duties to Commander in Chief, American Expeditionary Force. The 1st Army had suffered somewhat under Pershing due to his being heavily involved in AEF matters and not having sufficient time to devote to it. His staff was fragmented, and a higher headquarters was long overdue, but Pershing wished to gain experience in army command. Fulfilling that desire had been a mistake, and now Pershing corrected it.

Pershing's insistence on an independent American command had alienated the British and the French, but in truth, from the outset both allies hoped to use American men piecemeal as replacements for their own losses without permitting a separate American presence. His doggedness in demanding an American Expeditionary Force separate from the British and French no doubt saved thousands of American lives. Americans would have been hurled piecemeal into action as part of British or French commands, negating their own training and unit
élan
. It also ensured that the United States had the most powerful army left in the field—a significant advantage to Wilson at any postwar bargaining table.