America At War - Concise Histories Of U.S. Military Conflicts From Lexington To Afghanistan (22 page)

Another reason why so many men died in the First World War was that the tactics employed by generals such as Haig and Pershing were flawed. Having soldiers attack machine guns head on or having infantry walk line abreast across open fields was a recipe for disaster. Yet both commanders, and other generals as well, did just that.

Was Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig an incompetent commander?

History has not been kind to Sir Douglas. Although his army was victorious and he won several battles, Haig is seen as the archetypical inept general of World War I, insensitive to the loss of life while remaining comfortable and safe far from the enemy lines. The image is only partially correct. True, he appeared unconcerned about the great losses his army sustained. And he was not exposed to enemy fire (although seventy-eight British generals were and paid with their lives). Nor were his tactics in 1916 and 1917 the best. But commanding generals are not supposed to be on the front line. Their job is to prepare for and manage the battle, and that can be done only in the rear. No one in 1915–1917 knew how to break through tiered layers of defense or, if they knew—and later on some did—the resources available were not up to the task. By 1918, however, Haig’s armies employed tactics that enabled British troops to crack German defenses. Massive artillery fire, tanks, and infantry, all coordinated, were the formula for success. When, in September 1918, the British army swept through the Hindenburg Line, Haig and his staff demonstrated that they knew how to wage war.

Still, the carnage of the Somme and of Passchendaele linger, and will be linked forever with the name of Douglas Haig.

Why were parachutes not widely used?

Parachutes were available in 1914 and could have been employed throughout the war. That they were not today seems foolish. Parachutes, however, were issued to balloon crews and, toward the very end of the conflict, to German pilots. But French, American, and British aviators did not have them. At first the reason was one of weight. Early warplanes were light and utilized engines that were underpowered. The additional weight of a packed parachute adversely affected aircraft performance. But as planes grew more robust, a parachute’s weight mattered little. Still, the pilots of SPADS, Camels, and Fokker Triplanes were not issued this simple piece of lifesaving equipment. Why? Apparently, because commanders believed that with such a device available, pilots and observers would too readily abandon the plane. Knowing there was no easy exit, pilots, particularly pursuit pilots, would stay in the fight and give it their all.

Were the terms of the armistice too lenient?

By November 1918, the German army was a spent force. Ludendorff and Hindenburg understood that victory was not possible and that Germany needed to sue for peace. At Compiègne, the terms Foch set forth in the armistice amounted to surrender on the part of the German military. But Germany never formally surrendered. No surrender ceremony took place, no such document was signed. German soldiers simply turned around and marched home. In Berlin, a victory parade was held, but its participants were German. British, French, and American troops made no celebratory march through Germany’s towns and cities.

This was a mistake. In the years following the war, German citizens and ex-soldiers were able to convince themselves that, as the army had not surrendered, Germany’s defeat must have been brought about not by its armed services, but by forces at home. They blamed left-wing radicals, war profiteers, and the Jews. The Fatherland, they agreed, had been stabbed in the back. This contention, false though it was, gained credence in postwar Germany. Among its proponents was a former corporal in the kaiser’s army by the name of Adolf Hitler.

Should the Allies have continued to fight past November 11, forcing Germany to surrender? Haig thought not. Why? Because the British army would have had to do most of the fighting and, thereby, would have taken heavy casualties. Foch saw the armistice as entirely sufficient. At Compiègne the French had gotten what they wanted, the return of Alsace and Lorraine, etc., without the need for further bloodshed. Only Pershing disagreed. He thought the armistice premature. Black Jack wanted the troops Foch commanded to destroy the German army, thus making clear to everyone that the Allies had won and that Germany had lost. Otherwise, he believed, another war might have to be fought.

Why did the United States not join the battle earlier?

The United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, thirty-one months after the conflict started. In 1914, most Americans believed that Europe constantly went to war and that nothing was to be gained by participating in conflicts that affected only Europe. Americans would mind their own business and let the French, British, and Germans go about killing themselves. What changed their minds? British propaganda, the type of submarine warfare the Germans resorted to in 1917, and Wilson’s desire to influence the postwar world resulted in the U.S. change of heart. That American finances were tied to the success of Britain and France, to whom they had extended significant war credits (loans), was another contributing factor.

How effective was the American Expeditionary Force?

During World War I American soldiers fought hard and with great courage. Yet Pershing’s army was inexperienced, and for this inexperience it paid a price. Writing in October 1918, as the Americans were battling in the Meuse-Argonne, Great Britain’s most senior field commander, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, described the AEF as “ill-equipped, half-trained, with insufficient supply services.”

Rarely does a novice army perform well in its early engagements. Combat is a learning experience, and in 1917, the American Expeditionary Force had much to learn. In his memoirs, Hindenburg wrote of the importance of experience, saying that the losses sustained by the AEF “taught the United States for the future that the business of war cannot be learned in a few months, and that in a crisis lack of experience costs streams of blood.”

Pershing and his men struggled to master the art of war. Mistakes were made, yet not once were the Americans defeated in battle. There is little doubt that had the war continued into 1919, lessons would have been learned and the AEF would have become a most formidable fighting force.

Was the United States alone responsible for the Allied victory in World War I?

No, it was not. America played a part in the war’s outcome, a significant part, but the United States did not cause the defeat of Germany and its partners.

As Captain B. H. Liddell Hart has written, no single factor can account for the victory of November 1918. However, several factors can be seen as critical. One of these was Britain’s naval blockade. This ruined the German economy and weakened the kaiser’s army. Another was the grit shown by the French army, which, despite setbacks, continued the fight from the first day of the war to the last. Still another, not mentioned by Liddell Hart, was that Germany took on not only France and Russia, but also Great Britain and the United States. In doing so, Germany was simply outmatched.

Most certainly, Americans contributed to Germany’s defeat. In battle, the AEF engaged the German army and helped to grind it down. But America’s more important contribution was to lift the spirits of the French and British, both at home and on the field of battle. American involvement made them believe victory was possible. The British and French had been fighting hard since 1914 and, after sustaining horrendous losses, were no longer convinced Germany would be beaten. Enter the United States. In 1917 and 1918, America sent to Europe thousands and thousands of healthy young men eager to fight. Commented Liddell Hart:

The United States did not win the war, but without their economic aid to ease the strain, without the arrival of their troops to turn the numerical balance, and, above all, without the moral tonic which their coming gave, victory would have been impossible.

7

WORLD WAR II

1939–1945

On November 26, 1941, an extremely powerful fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) departed the northern waters of Japan. At the core of the strike force were six aircraft carriers. Their destination was a spot in the ocean two hundred miles north of the Hawaiian Islands, where at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet lay at anchor. Launching 350 aircraft in two waves, the Japanese struck the Americans early on Sunday morning, December 7. Surprise was total. Dropping bombs and torpedoes, the Japanese sank five battleships and damaged numerous other warships. They also destroyed a large number of U.S. military aircraft and killed 2,403 people. The six Japanese carriers began recovering aircraft at 11:15
A.M.,
and with planes and pilots safely aboard—they had lost twenty-nine aircraft—the strike force steamed for home, reaching Japan on December 24.

Brilliantly executed, the attack on Pearl Harbor was a resounding success. In one stroke, the Japanese had dealt a severe blow to America’s Pacific Fleet, thereby damaging the one opponent capable of opposing their further expansion into Southeast Asia. Their intent was to achieve military superiority before the United States was able to strike back, then either negotiate with a dispirited America or gain a victory at sea against a depleted fleet. Either way, Japan and its empire would be secure.

Essential to any American military response to the Japanese were aircraft carriers. In 1941 the United States had seven of these vessels. Two were incapable of sustained combat, one being old and the other quite small. Of the remaining five, three were assigned to the Pacific Fleet. At that time, many admirals considered battleships to be the most important warship afloat. But, as events would show, the aircraft carrier was to become the decisive weapon in the war against Japan. Fortunately for the Americans, none of the three Pacific carriers were at Pearl Harbor on December 7. The USS
Lexington
was delivering planes to the American garrison on Midway Island. The USS
Saratoga
was in a naval yard on the West Coast. And the USS
Enterprise
was returning to Hawaii having transported airplanes to the marines on Wake Island. The survival of these three ships meant that the Americans, despite the catastrophe at Pearl Harbor, could mount offensive operations against the Japanese.

If the attack on December 7 was a tactical success—and it was—it was also a strategic blunder. For the attack, undertaken while diplomatic negotiations between the United States and Japan were under way, enraged the Americans. They believed, rather quaintly, that nations first declared war and then attacked, rather than the other way around. “Remember Pearl Harbor” became a rallying cry for a nation intent upon revenge. “December 7,” said President Franklin Roosevelt, was “a date that will live in infamy.” Few Americans, then, objected when on the next day Congress formally declared war.

Until that date the United States had been a nation divided over whether to engage in foreign wars, especially the one then taking place in Europe. Many Americans believed that the country should remain neutral. They saw the price of involvement as too high in both blood and treasure.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, however, was no isolationist. He realized that the United States needed to stop the Nazis. He understood that Adolf Hitler’s Germany represented a grave threat to all democratic nations. But the president was mindful of the strong isolationist feelings in the country, especially as he was running for an unprecedented third term. He therefore proceeded cautiously.

But Roosevelt did act. He authorized the United States to sell armaments to Britain and France. He established (to the disadvantage of Germany and the German-controlled French government) a naval exclusionary zone in Latin America. He asked for, and received, from Congress a military draft. He sent fifty overaged destroyers to Britain in exchange for leases of naval bases in Newfoundland, Bermuda, and the Caribbean. And, on January 6, a newly reelected President Roosevelt spoke eloquently of what he called the Four Freedoms: Freedom of speech, Freedom of worship, Freedom from want, and Freedom from fear. As historian C. L. Sulzberger later wrote, “It took no seer to recognize this was a world in which Adolph Hitler had no place.”

***

In January 1933 an elderly Paul von Hindenburg, then president of the German Republic, and earlier the senior commander of the kaiser’s army during the First World War, appointed Hitler chancellor of Germany. Hindenburg did so in recognition of Hitler’s National Socialist Party having won the largest number of seats in the previous election. In other words, Adolf Hitler came to power legally. Millions of Germans saw him as the country’s savior. Two years later, after Hindenburg’s death, they voted enthusiastically to combine the vacated presidency with the office of chancellor. By the end of 1934 Hitler’s power was absolute. Moreover, he was, as historian Robert E. Herzstein has written, “the heart and soul of the German state.” That the man was a thug seemed not to matter.

How had such an individual come to power? Part of the answer lies in his magnetic personality and in remembering that he was a mesmerizing speaker. Part lies in Hitler being able to take full advantage of the chaos then enveloping Germany. Adolf Hitler promised to deliver what the German people desperately wanted—economic recovery, financial stability, social order, and, as important, pride in the Fatherland. The years following World War I had been difficult for Germany. Reparations and the Great Depression had made things worse. To millions of Germans, including those of the middle class, Hitler offered hope.

Once in control, Der Führer moved swiftly. He embarked on a massive program of rearmament and secured from the military’s officer corps an oath of personal allegiance. He crushed political dissent, making the Nazi Party the sole legitimate political organization. Internationally, he repudiated the Treaty of Versailles, withdrew Germany from the League of Nations, engineered a union (
Anschluss
) with Austria, and formed a military alliance with Fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan.

As Germany grew in strength and assertiveness, the rest of Europe took notice, but did nothing. In particular, Great Britain and France, two nations that might have restrained Herr Hitler, stood aside. They themselves were in dire economic straits and had no stomach for military confrontation. When German forces reentered the demilitarized lands west of the Rhine, France and Britain remained silent. When Germany dismembered Czechoslovakia, they acquiesced, appeasing the German leader and hoping that a piece of paper Adolf Hitler had signed in Munich would bring an end to German demands.

It did not. Only when the German führer invaded Poland in September 1939 did Britain and France respond. They declared war on Germany, and so began, in Europe at least, the Second World War.

For Great Britain and, later, for the United States, the war was a global conflict, not one confined to the boundaries of Europe and of the Atlantic Ocean. For at the same time Adolf Hitler brought his own brand of misery to the Continent, Imperial Japan was striking hard into China, eyeing the resources-rich islands of the Dutch East Indies and contemplating how best to counter the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet.

From 1941 to 1945 President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill never were able to concentrate solely on the war in Europe. They had the Pacific conflict to contend with as well. Because both theaters required men and material, allocating resources to one meant depriving the other. Shipping P-51 fighter aircraft to England meant General George Kenney’s Fifth Air Force in New Guinea did not receive the Mustang. Landing craft assigned to marine regiments in the Pacific meant these essential vessels were not available for transporting General Eisenhower’s soldiers onto the beaches of Europe. The simultaneous demands of what truly was a global conflict required planning of the highest order and a fair amount of juggling. In retrospect Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill—and their countries’ senior military commanders—did both, and did so extremely well.

***

By the time Mr. Roosevelt had enunciated his Four Freedoms, France had fallen to Germany’s impressive war machine and Britain stood alone against the Nazis. Earlier, from August through October of 1940, Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) had thrown back the Luftwaffe. But this aerial conflict, known as the Battle of Britain, meant only that Britain was not yet defeated. Her army was small, her navy overextended. Her financial reserves were dwindling, and with U-boats prowling the Atlantic, the small island nation, home to the Magna Carta and parliamentary democracy, seemed likely to collapse—unless the United States was to provide massive assistance.

“Give us the tools and we will finish the job,” said Britain’s bulldog of a prime minister, Winston Churchill. But how to do so, when Great Britain had no money and the United States, at least formally, was neutral?

Roosevelt found a way. He likened the situation to when a neighbor’s house is on fire. “You don’t,” he said, “make the neighbor first pay before permitting him use of your garden hose. You lend it to him, and do so immediately.” The president then revived an obscure federal law that allowed the War Department to lease military equipment, and the Lend-Lease Program was established. This program was the means by which the United States provided huge amounts of war material to those nations fighting the Germans and Japanese. The scale of the effort was immense. Britain, for example, received slightly more than $31 billion worth of armaments. Some of this was in the form of aircraft for Britain’s Royal Navy. By the end of the war, Fleet Air Arm carriers were well stocked with Hellcats, Avengers, and Corsairs, all of which were manufactured in the United States.