RICE UNIVERSITY

LEARNING TO LIVE: TACTICAL TRAINING

FOR THE AEF, 1917-1918

John Albin Almstrom

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN

PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ARTS

Thesis Director's Signature:

by

Houston, May 1972

ABSTRACT

Learning to Live: Tactical Training

for the AEF, 1917-1918

America entered World War One almost totally unprepared.

Her most urgent problem was the training of at least one

million men. This thesis describes the content of tactical

training in the United States Army, the development of an

efficient system for producing qualified replacements for

combat units, and the theoretical differences between Allies,

American Expeditionary Forces and authorities at home.

Because cavalry was employed on only the most minimal scale

during the First World War, no attention has been paid to

training for ,ll,arme blanche.11 Supporting forces such as

aircraft, engineers or signals have been left out of this

discussion in order to save space.

An analysis of American tactical doctrine concludes this

work. Ideas concerning methods of assaulting machine guns are

the author*s own, for which full responsibility is accepted.

Because the war ended before the full weight of America's

military force could be applied, analysis of her performance

on the battlefield must be tempered with an awareness that the

final sophistication of her training system occurred too late

to be of assistance to Pershing's army. The excellence of

tactical education as it evolved in World War One would remain

unproven until America entered a vaster and more desperate

struggle twenty-four years later.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE: THE YEARS BEFORE THE WAR: INNOCENCE AND AMBITION 1

CHAPTER TWO: TRAINING IN 1917: AMBIGUITY, ADVENTURE AND ACCOMPLISHMENT..32

CHAPTER THREE: TRAINING IN 1918: PERFECTION VERSUS NECESSITY 83

CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION: THE DEATH OF AUTOMATON TACTICS 120

APPENDIX A: Composition of United States Army, 1916 & 1918 Sources of Commissioned Personnel,1917-1918 Location of National Army Cantonments and National Guard Special Camps in continental

United States, 1917. Location of Officers' Training Camps, 1917-1918

APPENDIX B: Billeting and Training Areas, American Expeditionary Forces, 1917-1918.

British Training Areas Used by the AEF

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER ONE

THE YEARS BEFORE THE WAR: INNOCENCE AND AMBITION

Americans knew they were special in 1917, when they embarked

on their first great overseas adventure. The country had a fresh,

clean feeling; and with that unembarrassed sense of purity and

lofty purpose went an overwhelming confidence in the American way

of doing things. One of the nation's greatest achievements at

the end of the war would be the transformation of four million

boys into troops tough enough to face the most seasoned army in

the world. The story of training Americans in the Great War is

a spectacular one of sophisticated organization fashioned under

great pressure in scant months of crisis and chaos. Only years

after the war would weakness and errors become known. Both the

accomplishments and oversights, the utility and uselessness, of

American training are intimately bound up with the country's

attitudes and experiences in the years before 1917. In order

to understand America's exuberant performance in the most horrid

of wars, it is essential to remember that hers was the happiest

of homelands.

World War One represents to the American mind energy,

benevolence, righteous vindication, unsullied glory. The

overwhelming sense of uncomplicated accomplishment remains

but slightly adulterated by feelings of betrayal or lost

innocence, for the war did not last long enough to scar America's

2

youth or acquaint her masses with holocaust. Indeed, the

magnitude of America's military achievements finds few rivals

even to the present. A "back-water" police force of 127,000

men, distributed in small groups through a vast land, obsolete

in equipment and limited in experience'*' was expanded into an

army of over four millions. As many divisions were committed

to battle over a period of one year as the British or French

were able to commit in four. Housing was erected for 1,750,000

men. New industries were created, an entire economy reorganized,

vast new bureaucracies established, and an exhilirating sense

of mass participation spread throughout a diverse and indivi-

q dualistic society.

Americans saw themselves, without cynicism or trepidation,

as crusaders. The generation that led the nation in the great

overseas "crusade for human rights," that fathered the "Armies

of Democracy," had known neither defeat nor despair. Economic

opportunities in a rapidly expanding society had been seized.

Technology had been applied to everyday life in a cornucopia

of electrification, better roads, Pasteurized milk, efficient

means of communication, even the extirmination of the house fly.

Political power, drawn out of corrupt hands by the osmotic power

of public opinion, had been applied to regulate mammoth in¬

dustries and fulfill the paradoxical promise of Thomas Jefferson

that the good of both society and individual could be maximized

together.^

There seemed little reason to doubt that the redeemed

American could accomplish anything. The period from 1912 to 1914

3

was ore of America's most idyllic, replete with succesful men."*

Bernard Baruch, with a Wall Street fortune made on his own

specualtive ability, was "prepared to rise or fall on ...

individualism.Herbert Hoover, an orphan risen to millions

in mining, was building a reputation for organizational genius

and philanthropy. William Jennings Bryan, prophet of the little

man, was Secretary of State under a President very typical of

his constituents--Woodrow Wilson. Himself the object of a

meteoric rise to power, the intellectually potent and unassail-

ably idealistic Wilson captured the Democratic Party and the

imaginations of enough of a progressive nation to be elected

President in 1912.

As the war in Europe manifest itself in all its horror and

futility, America felt at first all the more justified in her

sanctimoniousness as "the last best hope of mankind." 'This

European war suggests that maybe the white man’s burden is

the white man himself," pontificate d the Buffalo Courier. The

New York Times asserted that the

European nations have reverted to the condition of savage tribes roaming the forests and falling upon each other in a fury of blood and carnage to achieve the ambitious designs of chieftains clad in skin and drunk on mead.

What whould the American do to combat this appalling manifestation

of human unseccess? "Sit tight, keep his hands in his pockets

and his mouth shut," extemporized the Riverside Free Press.^

British propagandists sensed that reticence, poise or

apathy were not particularly prevalent traits in the America

of 1914 to 1917. German atrocities, real and imagined, were used

4

by skillful press agents to play on the neutralist public's

O

sense of decency and moral outrage. Failure of the Imperial

German Government to do acceptable penance for the 114 American

lives lost in the May 1915 sinking of the Lusitania more than

compensated for ill feelings created by the British blockade’s

q persistent interference with American rights at sea. Prosperity

gradually but irrevocably inserted its beguiling influence into

the calculus of American opinion on the war, heavy Allied

munitions contracts having inflated wages in some areas from 45

cents an hour to as much as $15 a day.'*'®

For what British intrigue failed to provide as impetus

in pushing America out of neutrality by April 1917, the relentless

German talent for tactlessness more than compensated. In San

Francisco, consul Franz Bapp was convicted of violating American

neutrality and conspiring to restrain interstate commerce by

destroying factories, railroad bridges and military trains.^

Haskell, New Jersey was obliterated in January 1917 when the E.I.

du-'Pont smokeless powder plant exploded with a blast that was

felt fifty miles away. Only a few weeks earlier an increasingly

alarmed public had found its own Edith Cavell, when Tessie

McNamara of Kingsland, N.J. stayed at her telephone switchboard

12 to warn workers trapped in yet another burning munitions plant.

German intrigue in Mexico, and the implication of the Imperial

embassy in an attempted assassination of J0P. Morgan did much

to nullify the $28 million propaganda effort conducted by

hyperactive agents of an increasingly nefarious Kaiser.

As America began to feel more and more insecure her attentions

5

turned with intensifying credulity to the bellicose statements

of those whose feelings on German perfidy were anything but

mixed. Theodore Roosevelt, perhaps the most colourful and

popular public figure of the time, assailed Wilson as Ma dema-

13 gogue, adroit, tricky, without one spark of loftiness in him."

For a nation utoo proud to fight," Roosevelt admonished that

To treat elocution as a substitute for action, to rely upon high-sounding words unbacked by deeds, is proof of a mind that dwells only in the realm of shadow and shame.

To such calls for a rebirth of national self-respect and virility,

a powerful political response was not long in coming.

Prominent Republicans such as Elihu Root, Theodore Roosevelt

and Henry Cabot Lodge attacked the President as early as 1914

for his failure to come to the aid of Belgium and the other western

democracies.^ In December of the same year the American Rights

Committee formed in New York to arouse support for active inter¬

vention on behalf of the Allies. Although war pressure was not

to become serious for another two years, popular attention came

16 to be focussed on the military vulnerability of the nation.

That America must rearm herself to survive in the world1s

raging Darwinian jungle became apparent to all but the most

persistent pacifists after the sinking of the Lusitania.^ National

defence became the social crisis to which large segments of the

concerned public turned their attention in the middle of 1915.

In June, the National Security League displayed its political

6

muscle by attracting twenty-two state governors to its New York

convention. The Navy League raised $25,000 in twenty-five

18 minutes. Masses marched in the streets, women and children

waving flags that appealed "Wake Up, America!" Streams of books,

articles, and even films with such titles as "Fall of a Nation"

and "The Battle Cry of Peace" were directed toward the spineless,

the naive, or the unbelieving.^

"Preparedness," as the new crusade came to be called, soon

brought to surface the prophets and saints attendant on any

militant new faith. Most articulate of the apostles was Frederick

Huidekoper, long a student of American military self-deception.

In the ringing tones of muck-raking fervour so characteristic of

American reformism, he declared that

Our historians ... have painted in glowing colors the successes of our past wars and have extolled the prowess of our Citizen-soldiery,1 but they have glossed over the almost uninterrupted succession of blunders which has characterized our military policy in the past.2^

Huidekoper*s voluminous chronicle of short-sightedness and in¬

eptitude, entitled The Military Unpreparedness of the United States,

became as scripture to those most alarmed by his evidence of

America*s perpetual vulnerability. Blame for a pitifully small

regular army, further handicapped by gossamer organization for

mobilization, a mere trickle of reserves and libratory recruitment

was placed not upon the professional military, but upon past and

present policy makers whose negligent complacency in matters of

7

national security invariably manifest itself in a disastrous

22 penchant for waste and manslaughter.

General Leonard Wood, since his retirement as Chief of Staff

in 1914, had been residing at Governor*s Island, New York in

his new capacity as Commanding General of the Eastern Department.

It was now to be his pleasure, so rare among professional American

officers, to find a mass movement supporting his concerns and

prescriptions for national security. That America would one

day face the necessity of transforming her small peacetime army

into a fighting force large enough to face the first-class land

powers of Europe was a possibility never far from Wood*s mind.

He compared the situation of the United States to that of China,

her vast wealth serving only to tempt greedy powers well prepared

to seize it. Material prosperity would not translate itself

into military prowess soon enough to save the country unless

careful, deliberate and effective plans were made in peace.

Although not the most gifted of speakers, General Wood possessed

stature and earnestness sufficient to publicize the need for

America to prepare her human and economic resources for a war

n /

which would approach as "an avalanche rather than ... a glacier.11 4

Most European armies could turn in time of war to an

immense pool of trained men who had been conscripted to serve

two years with the regular force and a much longer period in

reserve. As such a system for developing a rapidly expansible

army was clearly ruled out by American political realities, many

professional officers despaired of creating an efficient mass

8

army out of volunteer civilians or taterdemalion National Guard

25 units within any period less than years. General Wood did

not share such pessimism. While Chief of Staff he had demonstrated

that infantry, cavalry and artillery troops could be trained

in one year--an estimate he later lowered to six months1 intensive

instruction.^

Leonard Wood was not one to separate himself from civilians,

as did many of his colleagues. Pressing for the development

of America*s military potential in a manner compatible with her

national habits and traditions, Wood asserted that officer

training, that most vital and time-consuming prerequisite of

rapid mobilization must be conducted

with the minimum of interference with (the candidates^} educational or industrial careers, under conditions which will permit the accomplishment of their training during the period of their youth, and once this is accomplished will permit their return to their normal occupations with the minimum of delay.27

From these premises was conceived an important model for what was

to come in World War One--the so-called Plattsburg camps.

Since 1866 regular army officers had been teaching tactics

at certain public universities and private colleges. In 1913

General Wood decided that much of this training was both defective

28 in quality and deficient in quantity. A circular letter from

the Chief of Staff on May 10, 1913 led to the holding of two

training camps that summer: one in Monterey, California attended

by 63 students from 29 institutions; and one of the fields of

Gettysburg, with 151 students from 61 institutions experiencing

the conditions of a soldier*s life. The object of such training,

9

stated General Wood to the presidents of the educational insti¬

tutions involved was

not in any way one of military aggrandizement, but a means of meeting a vital need confronting a peaceful, unmilitary, though warlike nation, to preserve that desired peace and prosperity by the best known precaution.29

From the outset, the summer training camps gained almost

meteoric popularity. Henry Sturgis Drinker, president of Lehigh

University, stated upon visiting Gettysburg that American youth

needed the experience of rigorous, self-imposed discipline,

especially

those with well-to-do indulgent parents, and those who, lacking parental control, have developed an independence of action not consistent in all respects with the proper conventions of society and life.39

Drinker and his colleagues formed an uncritical supervisory Board

of College Presidents, which included representatives of Princeton,

Harvard, Yale and Cornell.^ Save for the hot weather at

Gettysburg, the students themselves seemed to enjoy their

32 military experience. Willing to pay for their own transportation,

33 food and clothing, they returned to campus filled with

patriotic fervour and scathing intolerance of members of the

Collegiate Anti-Militarism League, those hypocritical, snobbish

representatives of the "effeminating tendencies of the timea"^

By geometric proportions grew the appeal of the camps. In

1914 six hundred students attended courses in Burlington, Vt.,

0 c

Asheville, N.C., Monterey, Calif., and Ludington, Mich. Nine

more camps were added in 1916 at Plattsburg, N.Y., Oglethorpe, Ga.,

10

Fort Sam Houston, Tex., Fort Sheridan, 111., Fort Douglas, Ut.,

Fort Benjamin Harrison, Ind., Fort George Wright, Wash., and

the Presidio at San Francisco. Enrollment for 1916 was expected

to exceed twenty thousand--a hundred-fold increase in three years.

Entry into the strange new world of the military was

presented as challenge and adventure. "You will wince at your

blisters," cautioned a popular handbook of the day. "You will

get no sympathy from any one else. It is the spirit of the camp

37 for every man to bear his own burdens." From the moment he

lined up for his typhoid shots, drew his equipment and received

his squad assignment, the student was "on a cadet status; that

is, treated with the courtesy due prospective officers," but

Q O

nevertheless under strict discipline. Day began at 5:45 with

reveille, followed by breakfast and a meticulous inspection of

tents and equipment. The remainder of the morning passed in

strenuous drill. It had been originally planned to leave after¬

noons free for recreation, but such was the enthusiasm of the

39 cadets that the work day was stretched to eight hours. At nine

o'clock "lights out" sounded over tired bodies and minds content

with the sense of accomplishment.

Much training was crammed into six weeks. Basic drill

movements were taught. Cadets became familiar with army routine

and administration. Hours on the rifle range and drill fields

taught physical discipline and self-confidence. By the end of

the summer, the student was controlling as many as a hundred men

36

11

in realistic mock battle, making maps, discussing signals and

engineering problems,^ and finding himself capable of up to a

week*s strenuous marching with little sleep or mental relaxation.^

In the uneasy summer of 1915, more than college students

were voicing an interest in receiving officer*s training. General

Wood, upon granting the request of several New York businessmen

to attend training camps at their own expense, charily stipulated

that less than 250 "enthusiasts** would not be considered.^

Sixteen thousand professional and business men, including such

figures as the Mayor of New York, were to attend camps at Plattsburg

/ Q and elsewhere by 1917. Both student and adult enthusiast would

spend many an afternoon advancing through fields, taking cover

in welcoming folds in the ground, again rushing forward, directing

the movements of men, and wondering how many would not get up

again were the "enemy" firing real bullets.^

If military education has a way of taking the glory out of

war, so too does it add a sense of urgency to the demands of

the newly informed for truly effective defense measures. At a

time when behemoth armies grappled on the blood-soaked plains of

Europe, the mobile force of the United States, with an addition

of 25,000 men, could be seated in the Yale Bowl at New Haven with

room to spare. Of state militia forces totalling 120,000, at

best half were effective. The House Military Affairs Committee

received testimony in December 1915 that there was enough field

artillery ammunition on hand to serve the nation*s inadequate

12

arsenal of guns for but one day. Thence they would stand silent.^

Powerful speakers such as Hudson Maxim, James M. Gurley, Judge

Alton B. Parker and Henry L. Stimson heightened public interest

in defence to the point where Woodrow Wilson, facing reelection,

had to turn his reluctant attention to military matters in order

A A

to prevent a Republican monopoly of the preparedness movement. °

Secretary of War Lindley M. Garrison received the order to

investigate and recommend a program adequate for rational security

on July 12, 1915. By September, the War College Division of

the General Staff, responsible for planning and coordination

throughout the army, had submitted its views on "A Proper Military

Policy for the United States," An extremely well-written, lucid

and convincing document, the War College report stressed that

America*s record of fortuitous survival blinded many to a full

awareness of very real dangers which had "never been driven home

by the bitterness of defeat."^ The ability of various nations

to land large forces unopposed on American coasts was coldly

displayed, along with the minimum forces which would be necessary

to check the advance of the enemy, and serve as cadre for armies

large enough to expel him decisively.^®

So effective were the arguments of the War College that

Garrison placed most of its proposals in a bill to be placed

immediately before Congress. The regular army was to be doubled

in size to 280,000, a veteran reserve corps of 500,000 established,

and provisions made to raise an additional Continental Army of

49 500,000 by voluntary enlistment in time of emergency. No faith

13

was placed in the National Guard as a reserve, for the War College

believed it unreliable due to constitutional limits on federal

control over training and deployment.”^

National Guard and ,fstatesl rights1 sympathizers were too

strong in Congress to allow the Garrison bill to pass unemasculated.

When Wilson proved unwilling to stand firmly behind a Continental

Army, Garrison resigned. His replacement, affable ex-pacifist

Newton D. Baker, was able to steer a compromise bill through

a quarrelling Congress which provided for a slightly larger

regular army, a strong National Guard of a half million under

firmer federal control, and a small reserve corps of retired

officers and enlisted men. A framework for economic mobilization

was laid by the creation of the Council for National Defence, a

government nitrates’, plant, and authorization to commandeer un¬

cooperative industries in time of war."*'*’

Both good and ill resulted from the National Defence Act of

June 3, 1916. Loyalty of the National Guard to the President

had been ensured, some provision made for emergency economic controls,

recognition given efforts to train reserve officers in peace,

and authorization granted for wartime recruitment. But the one

organization capable of making overall plans for rapid mobilization,

the embryonic General Staff Corps, was directed to station no

more than half its members in Washington at any time. In the

spring of 1917, with war imminent, only nineteen junior officers

were on duty in the capitol to plan what would become the most

14

sweeping mobilization in American history.

Unlikely though it is that the Germans ever doubted the

flaccidity of America’s military muscle, any fears of the high

command could not but have been allayed in 1916 by the antics of

mobilization efforts along the Mexican border. The National

Guard, 158,664 poorly trained amateurs, was at least 100,000

CO

below legal war strength. One unit suffered a 15^% rejection

rate due to physical misfits. Railways proved inefficient, por¬

tending a repeat of the scandalous logistical chaos experienced

during the 1898 Cuban expedition, should the United States attempt

to mobilize more than 150,000 men. Artillery was in short supply,

motor repair facilities inadequate, aircraft obsolete and unreliable.

Most amazing in the light of conditions on the Western Front

known even to Americans, the army had yet to make up its mind on

what type of machine gun to procure!The German General Staff

realized that to open total submarine warfare against Allied

shipping would bring America into the conflict. But how could

America in scant months turn the tide of victory in Europe before

the submarines had strangled Britain? If America could not react

effectively against a threat from Mexico, how could her entry

into the most colossal and technologically sophisticated war

in history be anything more than a pathetic, petulant gesture

of impotent bravado?

Sunday, March 11 1917 Dr. Leighton Parks preached at Saint

Bartholomew's, Manhattan. His message: Christ was not a pacifist.

15

The Rev. Clarence A. Eaton echoed the theme at Madison Avenue

Baptist--pacifists made him want "to swear, pray, laugh and

weep."“^ Following the sinkings of the Algonquin. City of Memphis.

Illinois and Healdton, angry crowds staged "loyalty parades"

in major cities, unaware in their righteous outrage that their

signs reading "On to Berlin" or "Down with the Kaiser" bore a

tragic resemblance to those carried down European streets three

years before. America had been insulted by the cynical despots

of central Europe, and would not be taken for granted. Two

hundred and fifty former Plattsburg reservists formed a "broomstick

brigade" down Broadway. Flags, war news and martial music were

everywhere.^

Wilson*s speech to the assembled houses of Congress requesting

a declaration of war on Germany brought tears to the eyes of

even so crusty an old man as Chief Justice .White. In answer

to the President* s plea to "make the world safe for democracy,'*

both Senate and House voted overwhelmingly for war on April 6,

1917. It was as if, said the New York World, "no one could have

told that there were two political parties in the nation. It

was one patriotically joyous family eager to cry approval of the

head of it.""^ Song writer George H. Cohen, born on the Fourth

of July and author of "Yoiire a Grand Old Flag" and "I'm a Yankee

Doodle Dandy," created an instant hit with "Over There." A

suddenly pliable Congress moved rapidly to put formidable war

powers in the hands of the President.

16

Events in Mexico had underlined the truth of the War College*s

1916 statement that America*s tradition of volunteer military

service could not ,funder the most favorable circumstances produce

CO

anything like the number of men required for national defence.

For years prominent experts on military manpower had assailed

the volunteer system as undemocratic, unreliable, inefficient and

59 extravagent. When diplomatic relations with Germany were

severed in February, Newton Baker had a conscription bill drafted

for presentation immediately on the outbreak of war.^® By the

time the Selective Service Act of May 18, 1917 was law, printed

registration forms and regulations had already arrived at newly

appointed local draft boards.

A twenty-fold expansion of America*s military force was

envisaged by the Selective Service Act. The regular army was

to be enlarged from 250,000 to almost half a million. National

Guard units were to grow in strength from 3,803 officers and

107,320 men in June 1917 to over 450,000. Two added drafts of

500,000 men each were authorized to form a National Army up to

61 one million strong. On June 5, in a process as painless as

voting, nine and a half million young men between the ages of

twenty-one and thirty registered for the draft. A fortnight

later, Secretary Baker drew the first number out of a large glass

bowl, and each local draft board brought up for consideration

candidate number 258. By the end of the war, twenty-four million

men would be registered and 2,758,542 supplied to the armed

17

/TO

forces, all but 8,000 of whom found themselves in the army. J

Well might an American ambulance driver serving with the

Canadian army comment in April 1917 that his countrymen did

not know Mwhat war means: filth, mud, sickness; ruins and rain."^

Recruiting for the greatest of all adventures was booming, even

Civil War veterans trying to get into the army.^ The offices

of the Emergency Peace Federation were smeared with yellow

paint. Dachshunds were pelted with stones, sauerkraut became

"liberty cabbage," New York ripped up 5,000 lamp posts for scrap

iron, children rolled bandages or collected paper and tin cans.

"The most effective means of promoting durable international

peace is to prosecute the war against the Imperial German Government,"

echoed the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in response

to the unmistakable sentiments of President and nation.00 Post¬

masters received instructions to report any "suspicious characters,

or disloyal and treasonable acts and utterances." A presidential

proclamation of April 6 made it a crime to "tear down, mutilate,

67 abuse, desecrate or insult the US flag in any way."

A nation1s youth marched off to camp in a commotion of

musical lightheartedness and ominous repression. To such tunes

as "Let's Keep the Glow in Old Glory (And the Free in Freedom

Too)" and "Your Lips Are No Man’s Land But Mine," draftee and

volunteer boarded his train, sated with the best wishes of friends,

family or the Grand Army of the Republic, not to mention ice

cream and cake. Merle Hay, a farm boy from Glidden, Iowa must

18

have thought himself typical. With eight dollars in his pocket

and the smell of flowers from his Sunday School class on his

best suit, he entrained for Fort Bliss, Texas. He would be

the first to die in France.

Residents of communities as scattered as Yaphank, Long

Island, Macon, Ga., and American Lake, Wash, soon witnessed

spectacular scenes of organized activity such as were to charac¬

terize American power to millions all over the world. Typical

was the eight week transformation recorded on film by the Little

Rock, Arkansas Board of Commerce, of an empty field bordered

by a desolate stretch of railroad track into a city of forty

thousand. Great piles of pre-cut limber, pipes, nails, glass

and roofing were deposited along the rail line. Shortly, teams

of carpenters arrived. In one day the framework for an entire

two-storey barracks could be erected; on the next, walls nailed

and roofing finished.^9 Other crews dug sewer lines, graded roads,

and installed electrical appliances, doorways and windows.

Quartermaster General Henry G. Sharpe instructed the

Construction and Repair Division of his department in March 1917

to prepare estimates for housing an army of a million men. When

Newton Baker created the semi-autonomous Construction Division

in May, much planning had already been done.^ Colonel Isaac W.

Littell, head of the new organization, was soon able to draw

upon the advice of such men as W.A0 Starrett, prominent New York

architect, and a board of sanitation experts from the American

19

Medical Association.^ The success of the camps, traditional

pesthouses, in controlling the influenza epidemic of a year later

offered dramatic testimony to the skill with which these facilities

were planned, built and operated.

Pleas of prominent Congressmen were ignored in the selection

of the thirty-two camp sites which would house National Guard

and National Army divisions.^ Territorial departmental commanders

picked camp areas with careful reference to accessibility to

railroads and medical factors such as flies, flooding, inclement

weather, water supply and living space.^ A standard plan for

a two-storey barracks for the sixteen National Army camps, located

mostly in the northern states, was submitted to the Surgeon

General for approval. Studies were made of ventilation in the

tents which provided housing for the sixteen National Guard camps

in the warmer southern states. When it was discovered that the

men were tying down the flaps of their tents at night, more tents

were quickly provided to lower the occupancy rate from nine to

five men.^ Such concern for hygiene and comfort reflected the

War Departments awareness that the cantonments were to be the

dwelling places for men not accustomed to military life, but to all the conveniences of the average American home.

In general, the aim to create "an environment conducive to military

efficiency and contentment" was realized.^

A full division of about one thousand officers and 28,000 men

was to be accommodated in each camp. As an infantry regiment

required twenty-two barracks of 150 men each, plus six other

20

buildings for the officers, an entire cantonment amounted to at

least 1200 barracks plus an administration building, post

exchange, quartermaster's depot, 350 kitchens, myriad shower

and restroom facilities, laundries, several hospitals, a com¬

missary and recreation hallsNational Guard camps comprised

major buildings, and tents erected on wooden platforms with

walls up to shoulder level and stoves installed inside. All

camps were built around a huge central drill field, the buildings

laid out in numbered rectangles on roads totalling twenty-five

miles in length. Wayne Heter, with the 40th Division at Camp

Kearney, Calif, described his new home as no less than "a big,

77 busy city, minus the vice and street corner loafers.”

Never since the construction of the Panama Canal had so

mammoth a venture been undertaken by the United States government.

Using a new devise known as the "cost-plus contract,"^ 200,000

workers built thirty-two complete cities in three months. Five

hundred million feet of lumber were consumed, along with six

million square feet of roofing paper, 93,000 kegs of nails,

140,000 doors, 686,000 sashes, 29,250,000 square feet of wall

boarding, 250 street lamps and three million square feet of screens.

When the recruits began to arrive in early September, two-thirds

of the camps were fully completed. The remainder reached

completion by early October. Recent expansion of the size of

a rifle company from 150 to 250 meant that one barracks could no

longer hold an entire company. Few problems resulted. So much

79

21

housing had been constructed that more barracks space was simply

allocated to each company. Even so, most camps were seldom

filled to capacity.

Induction into the army is a traumatic experience for most

men. Few cannot remember the day when they first entered the

81 all-encompassing embrace of the military. At the outset, it

was a feeling of shock. Trains for Camp Travis, Texas halted

in the middle of the administrative area. Following a light

meal, recruits were separated by counties, placed in alphabetical

order, and directed to put their valuables in an envelope.

Benumbed youngsters found themselves naked, herded into a shower

room, their fellows muttering something about civilian clothes

82 being shipped home. Thence followed the f,bull pen," a thorough

examination by the "medicos" for contagious diseases and physical

defects. After the hated vaccinations, the recruit found his

way to the personnel office where documents on his private history

84 were filled out. He received his clothing and was sent to

clean his quarters.

It is a shock to lose one's first name. It is irksome to

never be alone. It is utterly dejecting to be spoken to con¬

tinually in harsh, clipped tones; to receive no understanding

when one errs out of ignorance; to be constantly criticized and

seldom commended. The unavoidable, onorous adjustments that must

be made when entering the military have changed but little since

the cold winter of 1917. All the more remarkable to the modern

22

eye appears the unmitigated enthusiasm and boundless good cheer

of those hapless recruits. The Canadian border was closed; Provost

Marshal Enoch Crowder was not discouraging vigilante bands looking

for Mslackers.11 Remarkably little protest appeared. One expects

the youth of then to have known what they were getting in to;

to have had some grasp, however rudimentary, of the futility

and tragedy of their crusade. Could they not at least have been

troubled by the sure knowledge, to even so innocent a generation,

that many would never return from their adventure across the seas?

Busy men have little time to brood. The human body and

psyche display incredible resiliance when placed in the cauldron

of war. The few hours not filled with exhausting training were

the object of generous efforts by public service organizations,

most notably the YMCA, Knights of Columbus and Jewish Welfare

85 League, to keep the youth of America happy and occupied. Every

camp boasted its library, gymnasium, professional song leaders

and sports coaches. Night classes were offered by the YMCA, and

86 plays staged by the Liberty Theater. Good food, wholesome and

87 plentiful, evoked few complaints. Veteran preacher Raymond

B. Fosdick*s Committee on Training Camp Activities saw to it that

no "houses of ill fame, brothels or bawdy houses" were allowed

to operate in the five-mile alcohol-free zone that surrounded

each camp. Local communities did provide dancing partners

on Saturday night, and some such as Houston quite literally

brightened Christmas with immense trees decorated in red, white

23

and blue electric lights.

George Creel's Committee on Public Information flooded camp

and nation with war news. Monthly health reports for each

divisional cantonment appeared in the Official Bulletin to reassure

parents that the government was not abusing their trust. Short,

hard-hitting pamphlets villified the enemy and expounded on

America's war mission. Films, popular speakers and visiting war

heroes added to the fervour. Society responded: people grew

victory gardens, observed meatless Fridays and wheatless Wednesdays,

consistently oversubscribed to the Liberty Loans. Wrist watches

gained sudden popularity when it became known that aviators

wore them. The venerable five-minute drill break may have made

the cigarette acceptable—it lasted five minutes, and came in

a packet small enough for army pockets. Possessive mothers

insisted that they would rather their sons went "to heaven in

90 France than to hell in America."

America's young men would learn much, and suffer even more,

in the next fourteen months. Should their determination falter,

Creel made sure that they received plenty of literature on

Germany's "vile and filthy treatment of Belgians," her glee in

skewering babies on bayonets, her use of priests as cover against

machine gun and artillery fire. Recruits in 1917 did not laugh

at images of submariners emptying drinking water from the life¬

boats of torpedoed ships*, or an old Belgian slave labourer sobbing

that "perhaps this shell will kill my son.Including the

scandal and didacticism of the pre-war years, the entire cognizant

24

life of most recruits had passed in an environment of moral

absolutes and direct cures for evil. World War One was to be

not so much a change for America1s newly minted troops, as a

climax.

Metamorphosing civilians into soldiers has changed little

in the half century since World War One. It would seem apparent

that human nature, and wisdom too, have not altered much. But

it was indeed a different generation that went to war in 1917.

It was a generation that trusted its elders—elders who had

known much success, little self-doubt. It was a generation only

beginning to adjust to the changes of belief and behaviour that

mis t accompany urban life. Youth felt the need to prove its

manliness, and thus welcomed combat as had its forefathers.

America possessed immense power, but had only recently discovered

the immensity of the feats that could be accomplished by

sophisticated organization. The very camps the recruits lived in,

still smelling of sawdust and fresh timber, were evidence of

their country1s material prowess. Confidence was a real, under¬

standable, potent force among America1s armies as they began

massing for their redeeming descent on a decayed and despairing

Europe.

But what of professional officers, that select group of

experienced men who would dictate the tactics and direct the

infinitely complex processes of victory? They had always realized

that more than money and flesh were required for success on the

25

battlefield. Yet no despair existed among their ranks, despite

America*s hoary and recent shortcomings. Comforting precedents

had been set in the confusing years since 1914. Invaluable

legislation had somehow passed. It had proven possible to train

soldiers in less than a year. The nation*s leading young men

were amenable to intensive leadership training. A small but

expert body of military planners was in existence. And the

emotional and economic support of an outraged nation seemed

irresistable.

NOTES

1 Captain B.H. Liddell Hart, Through the Fog of War (New York, 1938), 201.

2 Leonard P. Ayres, The War with Germany: A Statistical Summary (Washington, 1919), 29.

3 Excellent survey works on America1s participation in World War One include Edward M. Coffman, The War to End All Wars: The American Military Experience in World War I (New York, 1968); Frederic L. Paxson, America at War, 1917-1919 (Boston, 1939); and Charles Cullen Tansil, America Goes to War (Boston, 1938). A somewhat idealized account is to be found in Lawrence Stallings, The Doughboys: The Story of the A.E.F., 1917-1918 (New York, 1963).

4 Two penetrating studies of the pre-war years are Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910-1917 (New York, 1954) and Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877-1920 (New York, 1967).

5 Alan Churchill, Over Here! An Informal Recreation of the Home Front in World War I (New York, 1968), 4.

6 Ibid.. 10.

7 Ibid., 18.

8 A.A. Hoehling, The Fierce Lambs (Boston, 1960), 3.

9 See Link, Woodrow Wilson.

10 Hoehling, The Fierce Lambs^ 11.

11 Ibid.. 16.

12 Ibid.. 15.

13 Ibid., 31.

14 Ibid.% 30.

15 Link, Woodrow Wilson, 75. General works on the preparedness movement include C. Joseph Bernardo and Eugene H. Bacon, American Military Policy: Its Development Since 1775 (Harrisburg, 1955); Corrine Bacon, Selected Articles on National Defence (New York, 1915); Allan L. Bensen, Inviting War to America (New York, 1916); Granville Fortescue,

Fore-Armed: How to Build a Citizen Army (Phi 1 adc 1 phia, 1916) ; Hudson Maxim, Defenceless America (New York, 1915) and Theodore Roosevelt, Fear God and Take Your Own Part (New York, 1916) and National Strength and International Duty (Princeton, 1917).

16 Link, Woodrow Wilson, 177.

17 Russell F. Weigley. Towards an American Army: Military Thought from Washington to Marshall (New York, 1962), 210.

18 Link, Woodrow Wilson, 177.

19 A good example of alarmist literature is Julius W. Muller, The Invasion of America: A Fact Story Based on the Inexorable Mathematics of War (New York, 1916).

20 Probably the most influential account of America*s long history of military unpreparedness was written by Emory Upton, (The Military Policies of the United States) in the 1880*s. This volume was reproduced by the Government Printing Office in 1912. Upton, also a tactician of note, believed that only a larger professional army had any hope of securing America against an invasion.

21 Frederick Huidekoper, MThe Lessons of Our Past Wars,** The Worldfs Work. February 1915, 406-419. See also Weigley, Towards, 204.

22 Frederick Huidekoper, The Military Unpreparedness of the United States (New York, 1916), 269-272.

23 Captain Henry J. Reilly, Why Preparedness (Chicago, 1916), v, vi.

24 Weigley, Towards, 210. Reilly, Why Preparedness, vi.

25 Robert D. Ward, MA Note on General Leonard Wood*s Experimental Companies,*1 Military Affairs, vol. XXXV, no. 3 (October, 1971), 92-93. Also Weigley, Towards; and Major Charles E. Kilbourne, ed., National Service Library (5 vols.: New York, 1917) , I, 287.

26 Ibid., 288.

27 Ibid..

28 Ralph Barton Perry, The Plattsburg Movement (New York, 1921),

11.

29 Ibid., 2, 12.

30 Army nncl Navy Journal, vol. LI, no. 2 (October 15, 1913),

229.

31 Kilbourne, National Service Library, I, 137.

32 Army and Navy Journal, vol. LI, no. 1 (September 6, 1913), _

33 lluidekoper, "The Lessons," 416.

34 Army and Navy Journal, vol. LII, no. 42 (January 19, 1915), 1323:

35 Kilbourne, National Service Library. I, 134. Huidekoper, "The Lessons," 416.

36 Army and Navy Journal, vol. LIII, no. 29 (March 18, 1916),

933. For description of life in the Students' Military

Training Camps see Allen French, At Plattsburg (New York,

1917); or Perry, The Plattsburgh Movement.

37 Ibid.. 5, 22.

38 Army and Navy Journal, vol. LII, no. 11 (November 14, 1914),

333. See also 0.0. Ellis and E.B. Garey, The Plattsburg Manual (New York, 1917), 4.

39 Army and Navy Journal, vol. LI, no. 9 (September 6, 1913), 17.

40 Ibid.. vol. LI, no. 48 (August 1, 1914), 1530.

41 Ibid.. 1523. See also Ibid., vol. LI, no. 50 (August 15, 1914),

1593.

42 Ibid.. vol. LIII, no. 2 (September 11, 1915), 48.

43 Churchill, Over Here!. 47.

44 Francis E. Frothingham, "Plattsburgh Lessons," Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States, vol.

LVIII, no. 200 (March-April, 1916), 205.

45 Huidekoper, "The Lessons," 417.

46 Bernardo and Bacon, American Military Policy. 334.

47 Army War College, A Statement of the Proper Military Policy

for the United States (Washington, 1916), 29.

48 Ibid.. 41-45.

49 8ee Weigley, Towards, 218.

50 Army War College, A Statement, 47.

51 See Weigley, Towards. 219; Bernardo and Bacon, American Military Policy, 344, 345; Link, Woodrow Wilson, 179-196; Weigley, History of the United States Army (New York, 1967), 348-350; Coffman, The War, 18; and T. Miller Maguire, MThc War Policy of the United States," Journal of the Royal United Services Institution, vol. LXII, no. 446 (May 1917), 260-268.

52 Weigley, History. 350.

53 Ibid..

54 Ibid., 351. See also Frank E. Vandiver and the Editors of Silver Burdett, John J. Pershing (Morristown, 1967), 68.

55 Hoehling, The Fierce Lambs, 34-35.

56 Ibid., 36-42.

57 Churchill, Over Here.1 , 43.

58 Coffman, The War, 25.

59 Ibid.; Weigley, History, 354; Leonard Wood, The Military Obligation of Citizenship (Princeton, 1915), 33-34.

60 Coffman, The War, 25.

61 Ibid., 26-28. Bernardo and Bacon, American Military Policy, 349-362; Weigley, History, 354; Peyton C. March, The Nation at War (Garden City, 1932), chapt. xviii.

62 Coffman, The War, 28. See also Ayres, The War with Germany; Weigley, History, 357.

63 Ibid.. Coffman, The War, 29.

64 Quoted in Hoehling, The Fierce Lambs, 54.

65 Ibid., 53.

66 Ibid., 64.

6)7 Official Bulletin, no. 3, 6. Published daily under order of the President by the Committee on Public Information, George Creel, Chairman. Hereafter cited as OB, 3: 8.

68 OB, 118: 1.

69 Frank Freidel, Over There: The Story of America1 s Ftret Great Overseas Crusade (Boston, 1964), 11.

70 Coffman, The War. 29. Prior to the war a War College report had recommended divisional as superior to regimental camps.

71 Ibid.; OB, 220: 16-26.

72 Coffman, The War. 26ff.

73 OB, 220: 23.

74 Ibid.« 25. See appended map for location of camps.

75 OB, 97: 2.

76 Churchill, Over Here!. 86.

77 Freidel, Over There. 11.

78 For financial and legal details of cost-plus contracts for cantonment construction see OB, 26: 16; 34: 6.

79 OB, 97: 1-2.

80 Coffman, The War. 31. Also OB, 97: 1; 220: 24.

81 For an overdrawn but humorous account of first entry into camp see Ring W. Lardner, Treat fEm Rough: Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer (Indianapolis, 1918), 17-19.

82 Freidel, Over There. 13.

83 Nelson Lloyd, low We Went to War (New York, 1919), 61; Chris Emmet, Give *Way to the Right: Serving with the A.E.F. in France During the World War (San Antonio, 1934), 7. OB, 89: 2. Some effort was made to prescribe remedial exercises for those who could be helped by them. Close attention was paid to detecting organic nervous diseases and mental deficiencies, as well as alcohol and drug addiction. See OB, 73: 1.

84 Lardner, Treat fEm Rough, 18. Each recruit received,if available, two pairs of boots, one hat with cord, five pairs of socks, two shirts and three pairs of breeches.

85 See William Howard Taft, Frederick Harris, Frederic Houston Kent and William J. Newlin, eds., Service With Fighting Men: An Account of the Work of the American Young Mens1

Christian Associations in the World War (2 vols: New York, 1922). Also OB, 147: 8.

86 W.M. Baines, ed. , Houston's Part in the World War (Houston, 1919), 91-92; Ralph D. Cole and W.C. Howells, The Thirty- Seventh Division in the World War, 1917-1918 (Columbus, 1926), 205ff; Alice Palmer Henderson, The Ninety-First at Camp Lewis (Tacoma, 1918), 141, 155, 157; Lardner, Treat 'Em Rough, 58,

87 Freidel, Over There, 22; Coffman, The War, 36, 65.

88 OB, 39: 7; Churchill, Over Here!, 95-96; Franklin H. Martin, ed,, Digest of the Proceedings of the Council of National Defence During the World War (Washington, 1934), 264.

89 Clipping from Army and Navy Journal in Major General Charles D. Rhodes, 1918: Diary of the World War (Unpublished manuscript) , 1-2.

90 Churchill, Over Here!. 53-90.

91 John S0P. Tatlock, Why America Fights Germany (Cantonment Edition) (Washington, 1918), 3-5.

CHAPTER TWO

TRAINING IN 1917: AMBIGUITY, ADVENTURE AND ACCOMPLISHMENT

General Joffre, "Victor of the Marne," carried with him to

America as head of a visiting French delegation a well-deserved

reputation for imperturbability. His incontrovertable composure,

reinforced with a massive frame and impenetrable aura of portly

capability, would serve France well in the spring of 1917. For

unbeknown to an idolizing public, much less to harried War

Department officials desperately seeking consolation in the chaos

of sudden mobilization, Joffre came not as a military messiah

but as the representative of a beaten, demoralized, mutinous

army. Scant weeks before, General Nivelle's bull-dog attempt to

smash through the German lines had cost 120,000 men in two days.

Between Paris and the enemy there now lay not a single reliable

division. Order was to be gradually, cautiously restored by

the new commander-in-chief, General Henri Philippe Petain, only

because he promised to "await the tanks and the Americans.

Because her own troops would tolerate no more offensives, France

needed the Americans as surrogate soldiers for her generals1

strategic appetites. In order to survive, the French would

attempt no less than to capture the soul of an army.

As a result of the Joffre visit, and possibly encouraged

2 by his insistence that trench warfare required little training,

the War Department decided to dispatch to France a regular division,

3 brought up to strength by new recruits. Of much more influence

33

on the future of the American Expeditionary Force to be assembled

in Europe was Secretary Baker*s decision to ask the British

and French for instructors to assist ‘in training the new divisions

being raised at home.^ Generous French instructional and

material assistance was gratefully accepted in the confusing

summer of 1917, Who was to know that it was seductively and

cynically proferred on the theory that unity in materiel between

French and American forces would lead to tactical unity; that

American reliance on French weapons, particularly artillery,

was expected in turn to create a dependence on French instructors,^

French tactics, French doctrine, French leadership? Joffre*s

final report stated that Americans were strong, able to assimilate

knowledge quickly, and likely to make good soldiers. The

fifteen page letter, to Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau himself,

also stressed that should the French actively encourage the

formation of an autonomous, separate American army, France would

c. be the more likely to win American support than Britain.

In the first two months of the war, the situation at the

War Department was "... as nearly a perfect mess as can be imagined.**^

Five semi-independent bureaus competed with one another in

placing supply contracts. Few surplus stocks with which to equip

the swarms of recruits that would enter the cantonments in September

had survived the Mexican campaign. Care had to be taken not to

interfere with vital Allied needs already under production in

the nation's factories. And to make matters worse, Congress

34

g passed no appropriations until June 15. General T.M. Bridges

of the British Military Mission regarded the War Department

as an octopus without a head:

The Chief of Staff is past his work, and nearly all the heads of Departments in the War Office are over sixty years of age.9

Joffre noticed hesitancy among staff officers in making decisions,

incertitude about organization, ignorance of facts, and a penchant

to consult President Wilson on everything.^*® But despite outward

appearances of confusion, delay, or even ineptitude, a General

Munitions Board had been established, civilian talent was being

recruited, and provisions made to stimulate public involvement

to the utmost.*^ On May 14, the transfer of "a proportionate

number of men of each grade” from regular to newly created regiments

had been ordered as a first step in creating cadre for the

12 training camps under construction. Even as foreign critics penned

thier dispiriting despatches, the education of an army was

well under way.

Officer training was by far the most urgent problem facing

the War Department. Without sufficient qualified officers,

training the private soldiers who would descend upon the army in

September would be absolutely impossible. The usual ratio of

officers to men is one to twenty. If an army of one million were

to be created in September, there would have to be 50,000 officers

on hand. Only enough men could be spared from the regular army

to provide commanders and staff officers from battalion level

13 up. Many National Guard officers lacked training. No time

was wasted in solving America's gigantic leadership problem.

35

America's junior leaders for World War One were not born.

It was necessary to make them. Some officers command by charisma;

some by caste; some by contrivance. Charisma, being a gift

beyond the power of man to bestow, remained valuable but not

mandatory for successful command. Caste often evoked unquestioning

obedience and trust in European armies, including the class-ridden

British. But American society bestowed no birthright to command.

Obedience was owed no man except he who earned it by demonstrating

his superiority to those placed under him. Farsighted and

astute attention was paid by the military professionals,

who selected candidates for commissions, to the social

prejudices and habits which the civilians soldier would

bring with him to camp and battlefield. For the first time in

American history, unfaltering effort was made to adhere to the

"merit principle" alone in choosing officers.

An "experienced class of men" was sought after, with

varying degrees of success, for officer candidacy. The

preferred age was over thirty-one, although men as young as twenty

years and nine months were eligible if they could prove

"preeminent qualifications or considerable military experience.

Interested persons were informed that "no man need make application

whose record is not in all respects above reproach and who does not

posses the fundamental characteristics necessary to inspire respect

and confidence.Particularly prized were an ability, coupled

with mental and physical energy, to instruct, manage and lead

new regiments as they formed.^ As many suitable enlisted

36

men an possible were to be given the opportunity to earn

commissions, contingent only upon the principle that "it

is better to rely on the excellent men of the next camp than

to rely on weak men, no matter how experienced."^

On the fifteenth of May began the sixteen First Series

Officers* Training Camps, located at thirteen army posts.

Approximately 38,000 candidates, of whom 8,000 were reserve

18 officers, attended. Pressure on limited positions was immense:

160,000 applications for 30,000 vacancies.^ when the first

camps ended on August 14, 27, 341 new officers were available

with which to begin training the first 500,000 enlisted men

20 two weeks later. Most commissions were granted in combat

branches, with three infantrymen graduating for every artillerist

In order to supply replacements for officer casualties, and

provide leaders for a second half million troops, another series

of officers* training camps was conducted at nine different posts

between August 27 and November 27. One thousand civilians

22 entered from each of the army*s sixteen territorial divisions,

in addition to 7,000 promising enlisted men, ex-officers, US

citizens qualified as non-commissioned officers (NCOs) in Allied

armies, and individuals with "valuable military experience and

adaptability for commissioned grade.1' Enthusiasm having

been chastened by the imperious notices of the War Department

concerning youthful applicants, it became necessary to relax

the proscription on men in their twenties in order to solicit

21

37

enough applications to ensure Wide selectivity. "Men under 31

years of age are what are particularly wanted in this camp,"

recanted the General Staff. "Lack of military training in no

way bars availability." Brains, courage and physical ability to

stand the test of war became the new yardsticks by which eager

civilians assessed their last immendiate opportunity to lead

men.^ Applications, after a slow start, again soared above

25 vacancies by the July 15 deadline. In December the camps

made available another 17,237 officers. Henceforth, candidates

would be accepted only from among enlisted men^ and members

27 of military programs at selected universities. Graduates in

the new year were to be commissioned only when needed to replace

officer losses.

Throughout most of the war, the General Staff groped for

the best means of organizing officer training. The first two

camps had attempted to draw off qualified persons from army and

society in general. After the second camp, it was decided to

cease operating separate schools at scattered posts. Officer

training was put under the direct control of the divisions being

built up since September. Each division commander was to operate

his own school and select his own candidates. Accordingly, a

third series of camps took place from January 5 to April 19 in

each of twenty-seven divisional training areas, producing 11,659

eligible officer replacements.In the spring of 1918, the

prospect that most divisions would hurriedly depart for France

in the near future made it unlikely that sufficient time would

38

be available to train a fourth series of officers. Furthermore,

events of the preceeding winter, both at home and in France,

had finally convinced the War Department to establish firm

central control over training and tactical doctrine. Hence 46,000

candidates, attending division schools since mid-April, were

transferred in June to the five newly established Central Officers1

Training Schools (three infantry, one machine gun and one field

artillery) that were to provide replacements for the gigantic

71 army of 1919. Senior students at 647 institutions commenced

on leadership programs as well. But by the time uniform

training standards and a coordinated flow of officers had been

3f ensured by this final reorganization, the war was over.

Plattsburg proved to the army that much could be expected

of the intelligent officer candidate. The same type of training

33 would be followed now, with students being expected to master

the basics of soldiering in one month, and the essentials of

34 infantry or artillery command in a further eight weeks. No

veteran of those early camps would forget how impossible it

seemed to rise to that challenge upon which the lives of thousands

35 would depend. Perhaps mercifully, lack of spare time

squelched such worries with sheer hard work. Reveille sounded

at 5:30, followed by a half-hour of "setting-up exercises," group

calisthenics designed to develop physique and muscular coordination.

After breakfast and inspection, the morning passed in a frantic

oscillation of parade square drill, classroom discussions of

the Infantry Drill Regulations, and communications or weapons

practice. Hard study in the evening followed a busy afternoon

filled with target practice, grenade throwing competitions,

39

tactical problems or short route marches.

An atmosphere of grave dedication precluded any complaints

about the strenuous six day week. If one were to qualify as

"trench digger, clerk, target operator, prosecuting attorney,

37 chambermaid, landscape artist and second lieutenant," it was

necessary to temper good intentions with a "grimness that bodes

ill for the enemy." One had not only to develop the mind;

indifference to hardship and ungrudging acceptance of discipline

were prerequisite to leadership. The cadet soon realized that

his status, "six inches below that of the assistant janitor,

could only be elevated by a combination of aggressive study,

attention to detail, and firm resolve to "obey the law and keep

your mouth shut."^

Basic infantry training comprised the first month1s curriculum

for all cadets. Each camp was formed into an infantry regiment,

with cadets alternating as privates, non-commissioned officers

and platoon guides.^ The prospective officer began his

professional education by learning how to stand at attention,

move in various directions on the parade square, and give drill

commands to the other eight members of his squad. He memorized

the parts of his rifle, and learned how to care for and aim it.

His shooting skill was refined on the rifle range. Packs, tents

and cooking utensils became familiar items through a series of

short practice marches which developed the physique and accustomed

one to living in the open with large groups of men. The basic

40

methods of advancing against enemy fire be spreading out in

long thin lines or running from cover to cover were made second

nature by repeated "extended order*'-drills. Commands and signals

for concentrating rifle fire on the enemy prior to the final

42 assault with bayonet were relentlessly practiced. One cadet

described his afternoon as "like hosing the garden on a rainy

day and lying down every few minutes,"^ Hours of sleep had

to be sacrificed in order to study infantry or field service

regulations, those "perplexing, problematical, particular, pre-

43a sumptive propositions" which read like Webster's Dictionary. H

During the final two months of training the officer

candidate was exposed to the essentials of either artillery or

infantry up to company level. This period of "intensive drill,

long study and nerve-wracking examinations"^ was even more

demanding than the first four weeks had been. Infantry candidates

mastered the intricacies of large parade formations, studied

the convolutions of court martial procedure, and attended

conferences on hygiene, first aid, or military regulations.

Skills with pistol and rifle were further honed. Hours x^ere

spent thrusting bayonets into sandbags, digging trenches, throwing

grenades, flapping semaphore flags, and studying for endless

examinations in tactics, administration or the abstractions of

trench warfare.^

All infantry candidates were expected to make close friends

with Sergeant Hill, a creation of some imaginative officers from

41

the Army Service Schools at Fort Leavenworth, Problems selected

from Studies in Minor Tactics, 1915 provided all types of

vicarious combat experience for cadets who would have few

opportunities to lead their fellows because of a plethora of

students coupled with paucity of time. A group of students

might be required to place themselves in the role of commander

of a small patrol hidden beside a road deep in enemy territory.

Suddenly, a few enemy soldiers, blissfully unaware of proximate

danger, approach the patrol. What whould the commander of the

patrol do? Why? How would he return to friendly lines? What

would he report? To answer such questions one had to know the

tactical objectives of the mission, the most prudent and

effective means of carrying it out, the capabilities and limitations

of friend and foe. Passages laboriously memorized from field

service or drill regulations had to be rapidly exhumed from

tired minds, and logically applied to the peculiarities of the

situation in which one was placed. The imminent certainty of

urgently needing such knowledge in war, needless to say, more

than compensated for any failings of the imagination with a

dogged determination to le arn.

Artillery training being a much more technical matter than

infantry, most effort was expended in a crash program to make

cadets familiar with the basic mechanism and operation of guns,

caissons, wagons, signal and range finding equipment, and pro-

fa jectiles. It was still necessary to learn how to train, care

for and drive the horses which pulled field pieces. Instruction

42

in fire control, planning barrages and other advanced aspects

of artillery usage was severely handicapped by a shortage of

equipment that was not rectified until well into 1918. Cadets

were obliged to learn how to adjust fire onto targets chalked

47 on blackboards. Much reliance had to be placed on abstract

study of selected passages from the Field Artillery Drill

Regulations. which covered everything from basic equipment to

signals or the movement of assembled batteries in parade and

, , 48 battle.

Lack of equipment and absence of central control were the

major criticisms made by General Snow when appointed Chief of

Artillery in early 1918, and charged with developing a truly

effective training system. Instructors at Fort Sheridan at

one point had only four three-inch guns with which to train

49 six batteries. Partly due to unequal distribution of what

little equipment was available, but mainly because of the

virtually independent control that each camp or division commander

exercised over training in his area, General Snow remarked that

as late as December 1917

the only uniformity among (officer training camps] was the ... wholly inadequate course of instruction, ... incompetent instructors and ... inefficient equipment.

Late one October night, a thin, haggard, nervous looking

man in an odd blue uniform was apprehended wandering through

the rain soaked streets of the Plattsburg Officers1 Training

43

Camp. Brought into one of the cadre*s quarters to dry, the

stranger identified himself as Second Lieutenant Henri Poire,

of the 8th Battalion, Chasseurs a Pied, French Army. An in¬

auspicious entree. An unassuming rank. A friendly, open,

helpful man. This battered veteran, and dozens like him, was

to become the object of some of the most venemous memoranda and

bitter recriminations ever exchanged in the torpid, duplicity-

ridden record of Allied coalition warfare.

Baker*s request for British and French instructors was still

being processed at the end of August--too late to be of any

influence on the first officers* camps.^ The French were

particularly anxious to despatch instructors to America as soon

as possible **to enable them to exercise their influence from the

52 outset.*' It was hoped that five officers, fluent enough in

English not to be disadvantaged by their British colleagues,

could be sent to each camp to teach artillery, machine guns,

53 bombs and grenades, liaison and fortification. One hundred

and thirty French officers reached the second series of camps,

54 with another 120 being placed in divisional cantonments. By

October 14, an advance party of 55 British officers and 101

senior NCOs had departed the Tower of London for American training

camps. Eventually 261 British officers were employed teaching

gas, bayonet drill and physical training. A total of 268 French

officers concentrated on artillery and staff work.“^

Almost from the outset, subtle rivalry set in between the

44

French and British advisory missions for the tactical convictions

of the Americans, The British wished, on the advice of the US

military attache in London, to concentrate all their instructors

in a central school which would train American specialists.^

Authorities in the War Department chose rather to disperse

58 British and French instructors through all the training camps.

No instructors above the rank of captain were desired as the

recent arrival of British majors had caused the French to accuse

59 their Allies of currying undue favour. In March 1918 the

same complaint was still being made,^ although British majors

sent to USA served as captains,^ and the attache always stressed

tact in dealing with the French.^

Foreign instructors were seldom in direct contact with

American troops. Rather, they served as advisors to those

63 American officers directly involved in training. In the

absence of strong central authority and snooping supervisers,

it was only natural that inexperienced American officers slipped

into excessive reliance on their foreign assistants, even for

training decisions. American troops looked up to the decorated,

confident, foreign officers, acknowledged experts in the strange,

fascinating, frightening art of killing. Very soon, major changes

in emphasis began to appear in training.

From August 11 to August 14, candidates at the First Series

officers' camps engaged in a three-day field exercise, based

on open warfare tactics as taught by the Infantry Drill Regulations

45

of 1911. Company was pitted against company. Advancing groups

put scouts out in front of their formations, and held support,

reserve and main groups in readiness to deploy should major

resistance be encountered. Surprise attacks proved a constant

threat. When in defense, positions were prepared as directed

by field service regulations. There was much exciting scout

work, heated clashes, rifle snappings and "battles strenuously

fought, with victory claimed by both participating sides.

Trench warfare too lad not been neglected. Cadets at Fort Sheridan

spent nights in a realistic strongpoint, successfully repulsing

dark forms which attempted to work their way forward by a

caterpillar-like succession of rushes across the furrowed ground.^

Those who attended the Second Series had different, less

attractive experiences. At Plattsburg, the week of September 24

was completely occupied in digging trenches. The process was

repeated on October 15, culminating in a twenty-four hour occupation

66 of the complex. Cadet Chester V. Easum at Fort Sheridan re¬

marked that the trenches he occupied could not be drained, "so

we sloshed in the mud in the cold weather. For sheer hardship

67 this surpassed the trenches in France." Conditions at his

camp provided very realistic training for European warfare.

Exact battle conditions were reproduced as faithfully as possible,

with rifle fire and salvos of artillery keeping up a continuous

roar day and night. Enemy patrols attempted to steal past

sentries, wiring parties went out after dark, careful camoflagc

46

was insisted on as part of a meticulous trench routine.

Captain Georges Etienne Bertrand of the Chasseurs Alpins seemed

particularly pleased to see Americans expending such effort to

69 learn the realities of modern war.

Much vehemence in the future debate on officer training

was perhaps unjustified. Fate had indeed been kind to the

American army in the summer and autumn of 1917. Shortcomings

in artillery training excepted, the nation had been able to

produce enough officers to commence training her soldiers in

September. Despite the lack of central control and standards

for the camps, general use of the same set of drill regulations

had been possible. Had prewar work assignments at the War

College been different, many manuals might not have been written

in time for the hurried training of 1917. The effect on America*s

crash instruction efforts would have been severe. As it was,

a well-chosen group of exceptionally intelligent, extremely motivated

and usually experienced men was exposed to enough training and

information to set it on the path of successful self-education,

once assigned to divisions.

Like long, bewildered lines of school children, the non¬

descript recruits filed into their training camps in the first

weeks of September. One observer, at Camp Travis, described

them as

less impressive than any other outfit £he had ever] seen. In intelligence, it was probably a little below, the American average, in education certainly. ... Its manners were atrocious, its mode of speech appalling, its appetites enormous, its notions of why we were at war rudimentary.

47

Every effort had been made to prepare draftees in the summer

before camps opened. The Official Bulletin, which was displayed

in all public buildings and probably reached most persons,

7/ printed a thirty-lesson course for the prospective recruit. He

was enlightened on America*s mission to protect the rights of

man. He learned what type of training to expect. And he was

prepared for a dramatic personal change:

You will be less wrapped up than you have been in many purely personal questions. You will cut loose from many of the petty details that tend to smother a man's individuality.72

The reader was advised to avoid poor food, alcohol, tobacco, and

indolence. Especially stressed was the necessity to eschew

**those things which tend to promote sexual excitement and desire,

particularly obscene conversation, reading matter and pictures.u/°

Creating an army at short, notice falls most heavily on the

recruit. After assigning men to their units within the division,

primarily infantry and artillery, basic training commenced. By

a relentless process of ,,drill, drill, drill, drill and then

occasionally ... details more tiresome than drill," it was

hoped to teach the recruit in three weeks what his prewar

7 fi predecessor had learned in three months. Life was orchestrated

to the sound of the camp's steam whistle, from reveille at 5:45

until lights out at 10 p.m.^ The intervening hours passed in

rigorous drill, save for an hour or two of lectures on the articles

of war, America's war aims, or the need for "soap and sunshine"

at all times, flies being regarded as "more dangerous to soldiers

than bullets.

48

Basic training is intended to cultivate discipline and

physical fitness. The American army, unlike most of its counter¬

parts, made an appeal to the intelligence of the average

recruit in order to obtain fullest cooperation as he underwent

the troubling transformation from individualism to a sense of

corporate identity, mission and responsibility. “As a citizen

soldier you are chosen for a post of special distinction,“ said

the Official Bulletin. General Hugh L. Scott, then Chief of

Staff, made known his conviction that

The conditions under which modern wars are fought are ever making increasing demands on the individual soldier. ... The individual soldier must know how to interpret accurately orders and signals, for the enemy*s fire may so isolate him from his leaders and comrades ... that he may be thrown on his own initiative in making his actions conform to those of the whole line; he may have to use his own judgement in opening fire, in advancing, in intrenching.79

Qualities of loyalty, obedience, physical fitness, intelligence,

cleanliness, cheer, spirit, tenacity and self-reliance were

express criteria by which the best recruits would be selected

as non-commissioned officers to replace their regular instructors

80 after basic training was finished.

Every day, following breakfast, company commanders inspected

quarters, causing one Private C.W. Stubbs to report that he

was “learning another trade, ... laundress.Each soldier

mounted guard once a week from noon one day until noon the next,

thus learning the intricacies of the Manual of Interior Guard

Duty. Evening parade and retreat, when the flag was reverently

49

lowered and furled, preceeded supper and such evening recreation

82 at the YMCA as tired bodies could sustain.

For most of the day, it was "fall in, fall out"®^ under

"lynx eyed officers"®^ who explained to the skeptical that

success in winning victories is the object for which the Army exists. In comparison nothing else matters. ... It is usually the Army with the strongest sense of team spirit that fights its way through to victory.35

Drill taught instant unquestioning obedience. Insistence on

the minutia of guard duty introduced the individual soldier to

direct personal responsibility for the safety of his comrades,

that was to be discharged in a definite, precise manner. As

groups of men saluted, changed step, marched by a flank or

turned on fixed pivots, they were acquiring new habits of

humility, precision, concentration, timing, and most important--

teamwork.^

Infantry soldiers were taught that the rifle was their best

friend. In 1917, there were insufficient Model 1903 Springfield

rifles to equip all recruits, so recourse had to be made to

British Lee Enfields or Krag Jorgensens left over from the

88 Spanish American War. Leonard Wood, training a division at

Camp Funston, was obliged to have his soldiers whittle rifles

89 out of wood in order to practice the Manual of Arms. By

demonstration if necessary, recruits learned the parts of a rifle,

90 and how to strip, assemble and clean it. The first targets

were pieces of paper held on the end of a stick, as future

snipers learned how to hold and aim the weapon, control breathing

50

and gently squeeze the trigger. By early November, rifle ranges

had been completed, usually a day*s march from camp. Most

soldiers gained experience at ranges up to one hundred yards,

with some exceptionally well-trained units shooting at six

91 hundred.

Tactics to the soldier of 1917 meant "extended order drill."

Means by which to advance toward an enemy position and once

within rifle range to fire effectively upon it prior to bayonet

assault were taught successively by squad, platoon and company.

Squads of eight men learned how to spread out in a long extended

line on receipt of the command "as skirmishers deploy" from

their corporal. They were also practiced in the acrobatics of

springing from the ground, running forward a few yards, and falling

down again behind cover. It took some time to learn how to

fling oneself into a full run from lying flat on the ground,

without first advertising one's intentions to the enemy sniper

by bracing legs or raising elbows and torso. Loading and firing

in positions on the ground or behind cover also became matters

of squad drill. What was believed by the army's tacticians to

be basic survival skills were pounded into the soldier until

92 they became second nature.

Section drills for forming skirmish lines, or reassembling

into marching columns, were duplicated on a grander scale at

platoon and company level. When the company commander decided

that enemy fire was too heavy to permit further advance in

51

vulnerable dense columns, the order was given to deploy by

squads or platoons in a particular direction. Again, corporals

would select their part of the skirmishing line and columns of

men would dissolve at the double in a swirl of organized con¬

fusion as a thin line of men was formed. Sections or platoons

might be directed by turns to rush or crawl a few yards closer

to the enemy, until the entire skirmish line had worked its way

close enough for effective fire and bayonet assault.

Fire control, as much as the evolution of combat formations,

was a vital aspect of extended order drills. Elaborate hand

signals were devised by which the company commander could indicate

where and at what rate he wanted his men to shoot. Platoon

commanders, lying behind their men, would look to the rear on

hearing a whistle blast for the hand signals of the company

commander. Corporals, lying behind the middle man of their section,

would be watching for platoon commanders to pass on signals

received from the captain. The section commander would then pull

the leg of the man in front of him, crawl up and whisper the

new fire information in his ear. This man would then pass

the changes in target or rate of fire down the line of riflemen.

Warfare as envisaged in 1917 was an intricate affair. Aside

from the usual habits of obedience and self-reliance that must

be inculcated into any soldier, a man had to learn where to

move on receipt of various hand signals from higher authority,

how to operate his rifle rapidly and accurately under any conditions,

52

and what advantage to take of hillocks, trees, heaps of earth,

rocks, gullies, or ditches as cover from enemy fire. A common

means of indicating targets had to be established throughout

the company so that the shooting efforts of 250 men could be

controlled, despite the confusion and noise of battle, by one

man. Natural fears could only be overcome by education and

discipline. It took time to convince recruits that "a man

93 running rapidly toward the enemy furnishes a poor target.*1

Only long, hot hours of strenuous exertion could develop the

physique and tenacious determination to advance against a

rested foe taking cool aim behind elaborately constructed

defenses.

Marching, according to the Infantry Drill Regulations, con-

94 stituted the principal occupation of troops in campaign.11

Lives could be saved by constant practice in advancing under

fire, outshooting the enemy and storming his position with

bayonet. Energy was to be conserved for battle by teaching the

men how to live in the field and march great distances with

minimal exertion. From the outset, daily practice marches

hardened the feet and famliarized recruits with packs, shelter

tents, entrenching tools and the rest of the sixty pound load

designed to render him self-sufficient for several days. One

learned how to drain blisters, or make a canteen of water last

the entire day. It soon became easy to erect a tent in seconds,

or dry boots by placing hot pebbles in them. Such training

53

evidenced itself, often dramatically, in faces bronzed, backs

straightened and shoulders squared. Carriage and mannerisms

changed. By Christmas the recruit of September was regarding

himself as a veteran, looking contemptuously upon the constantly

arriving newcomers.^5

Artillery training suffered for at least five months from

96 a severe lack of equipment. Little could be accomplished

toward training efficient gun crews or skilled fire planners.

Use of demonstrations and printed material, plus the rotation

of available equipment through regiments, permitted some useful

activity. Important progress was made in October, when the

Army War College published a sixteen-weelc syllabus for the

guidance of artillery commanders, many of them inexperienced.

The first four weeks were to be devoted to subjects common

to all field artillery soldiers. Nomenclature and service of

guns, care and riding of horses, dismounted foot drill, calisthenics,

interior guard duty and hygiene received careful attention.

Some instruction was possible in outdoor cooking, protection

97 from gas attack, signals and side arms. 7

Twelve weeks of specialist training filled the final three

months of the War College syllabus. Personnel were grouped

into signallers, telephone operators, mechanics, horseshoers,

98 saddlers, drivers, cooks, and of course gunners. Once these

specialists had mastered their trades, artillery units were to

go to the field for battery live firing exercises designed to

54

perfect efficiency in operating pieces. Only then could be

developed the skills of officers in analyzing types of fire

appropriate to different targets, adjusting points of impact

or planning various barrages. Most such advanced training was

99 not to take place until well into 1918.

For the first two months, training in the cantonments was

a matter of harried commanders and inexperienced junior officers

throwing together such information as they felt necessary from

their own understanding of existing regulations and unfamiliar

conditions on the Western Front. In early November, foreign

instructors arrived at the canps.^® Immediately, these veterans

of the European trenches expressed scorn for teaching the

rigid drills and tactical precepts of manuals written as long

as six years ago. Trench warfare, they said, was not a matter

of drill and mass formations, but rather one of specialists and

small teams. Emphasis at most camps, under the dynamic and

overbearing influence of British and French instructors shifted

from drill to class work. All grasped eagerly for the exotic

new skills introduced by the foreign experts, officers lining

up to do the bidding of tactfully workmanlike British sergeants

or the ingenuously versatile French.Subtly but unquestionably

the overriding emphasis in training altered from attacking an

enemy in the open by dash and determination to outsmarting him

in defence, inflicting casualties by artifice and sophisticated

application of a wide range of special weapons.

55

Immediately upon arrival of French and British instructors,

bayonet, sniping and special weapons schools appeared at each

102 camp. Grenades being rare, soldiers learned the awkward

overhand pitch necessary to obtain high trajectory by throwing

103 stones or tomato cans into rings laid out at various distances.

Gas attacks, ,fnot the kind your father has,11^®^ were the subject

of constant sombre foreboding, the box respirator destined

for notoreity as the greatest single nuisance in a soldier's

life. Individuals selected to be members of the machine gun

nsuicide club" received long and demanding training in giving

fire orders, estimating ranges, locating a camouflaged enemy,

judging windage, or stripping and assembling a complex weapon

in the dark. Those not firing became acquainted with the

insatiable appetite of this Concentrated essence of infantry,11

carrying ammunition to the firing points while awaiting their

turn on the target range.

Bayonet skills received some mention in the US infantry

drill regulations. British instructors, usually hardened

sergeant majors with rasping voices and boundless energy, made

of cold steel a fetish. "Every goddam mother* s son is scared,"^"*

reported one soldier after viewing his instructor careen wildly

from sandbag to sandbag, screaming like a Bantu at the top of

his lungs and lunging viciously at the inoffensive, inert forms

laid out to represent a hapless foe. Training in this supreme

manifestation of the will to conquer began with simple movements,

56

progressed through man-to-man duels with masks, pads and long

sticks, and concluded on a serpentine bayonet course with straw

bundles hanging off gallows to represent human targets. Through

strenuous practice under the biting harrassment of bellicose

instructors, the soldier developed confidence in his ability

to "put it where he wants it." The apt pupil could make as

many as three lunges in a flash, any one of which would be lethal.

Some students entered into the game so heartily that they broke

their bayonets pulling them out of dummy Huns. Very scien¬

tifically, and with painstaking attention to detail, the primordial

savagery of hitherto amiable boys was nurtured.

November brought with it a crucial decision to base all

artillery instruction on French methods, largely to bring

training in the US into line with that of the American Expeditionary

108 Forces. More time was to be devoted to building shell-proof

emplacements, establishing elaborate telephone circuits with

forward observation posts, and taking precautions agAinst sudden

gas attack. Pamphlets on recent operations in France were dis¬

tributed in the evening officers1 classes to supplement existing

T _ 109 regulations.

Trench warfare was an element of American doctrine before

the war. Readers of the Official Bulletin the previous summer

were advised that it would be foolish

to look on practice in digging trenches as if it were drudgery. Skill in seeking and making cover from the enemy1s fire is far from being a sign of weakness.

57

. . . The clay is gone when either officers or men are expected to stand out in the open. They should use every effective means of self-protection as long as it helps to gain ground and defeat the enemy, -J^Q

Most instructors had not had time to teach much about trenches

by November. Foreign instructors changed matters immediately.

Every camp was soon filled with sweating, cursing men as elaborate

trenches were laboriously dug. Defensive positions constructed

by the 27th Division at Camp Wadsworth eventually totalled eight

miles.Once constructed, these full-scale trenches became

objects of all the sanguinary techniques of attack and defence

developed over three }ears in Europe.

After lectures describing trench routine, troops occupied

112 their subterranean positions for between 24 and 72 hours. A

vast jargon had to be acquired: duckboard, sap, listening post,

sump channel, mortar plate, parados, and parapet all came to

signify not simply lines on a neat chart, but items paid for with

hours of punishing labour. Once acquainted with defensive

routine, one learned how to crawl by night across tortured ground

without getting lost, how to cut wire quietly without receiving

a welcoming burst of machine gun fire, how to work down an enemy

trench by throwing grenades. A full scale assault with supporting

artillery fire climaxed a usually thorough course of instruction

that left most soldiers confident that when the time came they

113 would go "through them Dutchmen like they was fly paper."

Trench warfare is a mixture of utter monotony and unmitigated

drudgery, punctuated with demoniacal intoxicants of a sudden

attack, an eventful raid, a precarious defence. Training for it

58

was very realistic, including live gas attacks, generous use of

available artillery, target ranges lit with flickering lights

to simulate flares, and full scale battles with bayonet and

barrage. But high American officers were loath to see their

troops subtly seduced by machinery and gradually subverted out

of their traditional reliance on accurate marksmanship as

the prime means to destroy the enemy. General Dickman wrote

that great attention was being devoted to instruction in

defensive warfare, "grenades and bayonet being considered equal

to, if not superior in value to, rifle fire.11 This looked to

many of his colleagues like "false doctrine, ... a departure

from the traditional American dependence of bkill with the rifle.

In their conviction tha: the novelty of trench warfare was "often

exaggerated, "^5 America's military leaders by the end of 1917

were forming an implacable resolve to ensure that training

returned to first principles: discipline, marching, target

practice, and the spirit of the offensive.

Optimism about America's military prowess had considerably

declined by the end of 1917. It had been a cold, sobering winter.

Once the novelty wore off and September's sunshine became

October's winds and November's frost, the camps took on the

dreary appearance of lumber mills or mine shafts. Tarpaper

shacks floating in mud puddles, the rough hewn barracks with their

sparce, cold rooms offered little solace after a day's hard

drill in the rain. A nagging insistence on discipline, particularly

59

saluting "ninety-day wonder" officers, was never well received

by the troops.British observers noted a "false democratic

sentiment which places officers and men on equal footing off

parade," officers who failed to assert themselves, an NCO class

118 without authority. Most soldiers doubtless did not feel

any such absence. For many, the winter of 1917 was the most

trying period of their service. There was the relentless

constancy and sameness of drill.There were nagging discom¬

forts: lack of cots, no warm clothing, oppressive cold. Suicides

120 and rebellion were not unknown.

Progress in forming a vast army was nevertheless' spectacular.

No less than forty divisions, or one million men, had been

inducted, housed, and given at least rudimentary training. If

Pershing*s loyal followers believed after the war that the adoption

by the General Staff of the "heresy of the trench warfare cult"

imported by foreign instructors "merely meant that invaluable

121 time was wasted," the retort can be made that American doctrine

had not come to grips with the developments in war, and that

troops destined for European service could not but have learned

much from experienced European soldiers.

General Pershing knew his mind and did not waste time. More

independent than perhaps any overseas commander in US history,

the purposeful and demanding chief of the American Expeditionary

Force selected the Lorraine sector personally as his army*s area

of operations and training. The trenches between the hills of

the Vosges and the forests of Argonne were to be America*s

60

122 crucible. French plans to establish American training camps

in Lorraine were already in existence as early as May 28, two

weeks before Pershing*s arrival in Paris. It was envisaged that

infantry troops would be billeted alongside a*French division

which would train specialists and officers in its own schools,

as well as provide instructors for the general soldiers. Billets

at Gondrecourt and Neufchateau were soon ready. Artillery was

to be detached from parent division for separate training at

Le Valdahon, near the Swiss border. As training would total

three months, camps were to be available to newly arriving

divisions just as their predecessors in turn departed for active

service. On June 28, Pershing*s headquarters approved the

French scheme.

Four divisions would arrive in France before the end of 1917:

the 1st and 2nd "regulars** and the 26th and 42nd National Guard.

All would comprise mainly untrained recruits, experienced men

having been leached out to fill new units being developed in USA.

Instruction of the embryonic AEF had to begin at the lowest

level.The first month was passed under the tutelage of

French divisions, who taught basic weapons and trench warfare:

grenades, trench mortars, machine guns, automatic rifles, the

126 37-mm cannon, rolling barrages, bombing teams, night patrols.

American officers tried to ensure that instruction in basic

open warfare drills and essential discipline was not overlooked.

A second month passed gaining direct experience holding a quiet

61

sector of trenches under the command and supervision of a French

division. At this point artillery units rejoined their divisions

to help provide fire support. The division remained together

for a third month of open warfare maneuvers which culminated

127 the training process. Hopefully, by then the unit was fit

both to occupy trenches in the immediate future and exploit the

inevitable breakthrough of the following year.

By a combination of design and circumstance, the small

American Expeditionary Force of the summer of 1917 was destined

to develop into an independent army in all but name, symbolized

by the overseas cap and the Sam Browne belt. Pershing from

the outset provided the sort of central control and overriding

authority that was lacking in America. He had an outstanding

staff selected from among the best of the nation*s officers to

assist him. Paternalistic but thoughtful care was taken to

ensure that morale remained high. Special postal regulations

129 kept up a supply of American reading material, ruthless

suppression of prostitution virtually eliminated veneral disease,

and the establishment of the Stars and Stripes provided a

131 sense of corporate identity to a widely scattered army.

Despite undeniable elements of truth in the allegations

of critics that General John J. Pershing was an autocrat unable

**to distinguish determination from stubborn obstinacy in his

own conduct,*' that he was incapable of honest self-examination

132 and surrounded by sycophants, Pershing was a man of such

130

62

iron character to be capable of genius and error on only the

grandest scale. Bearing without complaint the wretched loneliness

of the truly superior, he became impervious to criticism--both

petty and pertinent. Through a long series of constant carping,

nagging intrigue and relentless pressure to conform to Allied

concepts of war, Pershing clung to his unshakeable convictions

about how an army must grow and fight.

Discipline of West Point standards was expected at all

times in the AEF. In September, Pershing wrote in the first of

many pleas to Washington that he could not

too strongly impress on the War Department the absolute necessity of rigid insistence that all men be thoroughly grounded in the school of the soldier. Salutes should be rendered in ... most military manner. ... The loyalty, readiness and alertness indicated by strictest adherance to this principle will immensely increase the pride and spirit of our troops.^33

Discipline accustoas men to doing the unreasonable, the inexplicable,

the unpleasant. It also accustoms them to doing dangerous things,

and thus justifies itself.

Underlying Pershing1s stress on discipline was a conviction

that open warfare alone could bring decisive victory. Trench

training was not to interfere with the development of expertise

and confidence in offensive field operations. Men had to be

made capable of exploiting the impending breakthrough by fighting

fluid battles and winning by superior initiative.For such

combat, Pershing insisted that rifle and bayonet were the decisive

weapons; marksmanship and teamwork, winning skills.

63

In August 1917 Pershing took the novel step of removing

training responsibility from his Adjutant General and placing

it under the independent control of a separate branch of the

staff--G-5, under Major General Paul B. Malone. Malone*s

organization was to develop courses, establish and operate

training centers, determine doctrine, investigate methods of

IOC instruction, write manuals and promulgate regulations. Forceful

directives soon began to flow from General Headquarters at

Chaumont to arriving troops.

No more than in America could the AEF be trained without

making provisions for qualified instructors. One thousand lieutenants

from the First Series Officers* Training Camps were sent to

French or British schools immediately upon arrival. By October

1 they were sufficiently trained to be sent to the 1st Division

as specialist instructors in gas warfare, machine gunnery and

136 minor tactics. During the same two months independent American

schools were being established to instruct platoon and company

leaders, teach the use and tactical employment of various

infantry weapons, and train instructors for such specialties

as gas warfare or camouflage. Plans were made for a staff college,

courses for higher commanders, and aviation and artillery facilities.

On October 15, the first corps schools opened, which produced

137 12,235 more instructors and leaders by December 21. ' Artillerists

138 and engineers were emerging from French schools and staff

139 officers hard at study in Langres by November.

64

Very soon after arrival, Pershing decided that his officers

and men were "far and away superior to the tired Europeans.

Early establishment of what was to be an extensive system of

AEF schools ensured that sometime in 1918 the Americans would

be totally free of any reliance on the Allies for training. In

the interim, forced to use French instructors while his own

were educated, Pershing watched very closely the content of the

training of his first divisions and impatiently awaited the

day when he would not have to exorcise heresy from his command.

Winter of 1917 symbolized and consummated three years of

European misery. The weather was colder than the ubiquitous

old men could remember. Food was meager, fuel rare, luxury

vanished. In the major cities, such joy as was seen seemed

overcast with desperation or shrouded in cynicism. Women were

past weeping. There was no more youth to weep for.

Elements of the 1st Division began landing at St. Nazaire

on June 17.One battalion paraded in Paris on the Fourth of

July, inspiring hope from the desperate and despair from the

knowledgeable. An American observer thought the troops of the

I/O 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry looked "very young and very green." 4

One man in the crowd was known to remark that "if this is what

we may expect from America, the war is lost. These men are

not soldiers; they are a uniformed rabble.'1 The correspondent

of L1Illustration felt that

with their olive-green uniforms, their broad-rimmed

65

felt hats, their pocketed belts and their appearance reminding one of the cowboys of the American West, they brought a new and piicturesque note into our war atmosphere,

Both seemingly contradictory observations were accurate. America*s

first military emmissaries to France were at once totally

untrained and unreservedly enthusiastic. How literally one might

take their image as a blood transfusion for the battered Allied

armies would depend on the training they were about to receive

as much as on their undeniably invaluable spirit.

Exuberance was soon put to the test*. By the 14th of July

infantry was at Gondrecourt and artillery at Le Valdahon. Hardship

and inconvenience soon became familiar. Bed might be a niggardly

pile of rotting straw under a leaky rook in a filthy barn. Rain

and mud provided an unchanging backdrop to a dreary life of

interminable drill and fitfull sleep. It was cold, and fuel

strictly rationed. The French were cordial but odd--especially

for their lack of cleanliness. Manure piles had to be shovelled

away from doorways, and proper urinals built with pictures of

the Kaiser in them so the natives would feel encouraged to change

their sanitary habits. Food often amounted to little more than

hardtack, weak coffee, boiled potatoes, and a few spoonfuls of

rice. Pay was a farce.

At five o*clock in the morning, shivering men crawled out

of bed and cooked their greasy bacon. Usually while it was

still dark the recruits marched several miles to the training

fields. There eight hours passed in relentless drill, regardless

66

of weather. At four o'clock, as darkness approached again,

troops marched back to their billets to chase rats, shoot craps

and sleep. For those officers not attending schools, evening

passed in frantic study for the next day's teaching.

French instructors provided some comic relief. A short,

scrawny, sloppy individual with wispy black moustache and

truncated gait, "Froggy" was anything but stentorian. One

soldier, underlining with exaggeration a universal impression,

noted that his tutor

smokes cigarettes somethin awful and dont say much. ... It must be awful not to talk English, think of not bein able to say nothin all your life without wavin your arms around and then lookin it up in a dickshunary. £icj U6

In fact, men of the 1st Division were trained by the elite Chasseurs

Alpins—"Blue Devils" of the famed 42nd. Language problems still

cannot be overcome by martial prowess. Continual demonstrations

without explanations required both liberal patience and imaginative

gesticulation. Soldiers nevertheless learned not to throw a

grenade like a baseball. Training accidents gruesomely shocked

the dilletante into respecting this weapon. Considerable progress

was made learning to assemble and strip the Hotchkiss machine

gun and Chauchat automatic rifle. Some difficulty was encountered

coming to the realization that machine gun fire tends to go

high unless carefully watched, that gas masks must be fitted

in the smoke room, that dirty rifle grenades misfire.

Once familiar with basic weapons, the men of the 1st progressed

to combined operations, with bombers working from shell hole to

67

shell hole under the protection of bayonet and rifle men, Chauchats

firing on the flanks, and 37-mm cannon blasting machine gun

nests.Extensive trenches were dug, including a complex

known as Washington Center, large enough to stage divisional

attacks. Soldiers became accustomed to trench routine, the

tactical employment of various weapons, the conduct of small

raids, the technique of regimental attack and defense. Brilliant

rocket displays livened 'communications practice with artillery.

Dramatic demonstrations put on by the Blue Devils included

rolling barrages, bangalore torpedoes, and perhaps some hint

of the old French elan.^^

Pershing was never far away. Like a husband teaching a

scatter-brained wife how to drive an auto, he continually made

unannounced visits to examine the content of French training

and ascertain the progress of the division. Though the French

might teach pragmatic survival skills acquired at agonizing cost

at Verdun or on the Somme, American soldiers were not to be

distracted from open warfare training. Every suitable hill

butt became a rifle range. Afternoons passed in turnip fields

forming skirmish lines, rolling in the mud, charging through

the snow, and marching, marching, marching.Memoranda

flowed from Chaumont to the 1st Division and its compatriots.

Always stressed were close order drill, the bayonet, the daily

march, the infantry drill regulations.

Artillery regiments progressed rapidly in their tidy, com¬

fortable camp. Four and one half hours each day passed in live

68

firing, gun crews mastering their drill in this most direct

fashion.Pershing interfered very little with the syllabus,

content to trust the famous French reputation in matters of

gunnery. American theoretical training at the officers' camps

the preceeding summer had been sound. For most officers, only

the perfection of theoretical knowledge and practice of skills

were necessary. Gun crews learned nomenclature, orientation

and drill regulations, then moved on to live firing. Afternoons

were devoted to a critique of the morning's performance on

the range. At the end of the first month, specialists departed

for separate training as liaison officers, aerial observers

and orientation experts. By the time the artillery brigade

rejoined its division for practical trench duty, it was able

to adjust fire from different points of observation, plan and

adjust all types of barrages, neutralize targets and move

152 efficiently on the march.

Save for a surprise German raid which killed three men on

the night of 2/3 November, little of note happened during the

month the division spent in the trenches between Luneville and

Nancy. Artillery fired desultory shots, the usual patrols went

out, the odd rifle fusilade sounded forth. But in general it

was a quiet sector which the French did not wish to see spoiled

. 153 by naive, rambunctious Americans. The division departed without

medals or citation, but rather with the invaluable confidence

that comes from having been under hostile fire and survived. A

69

sense of maturity outweighed the frustration of those like

Private Ray Congledon, who announced to the Literary Digest

how badly he wanted to

Lick the guy whom you have cursed for months and who is the cause of all your hardships and sufferings.^54

Yet the intoxicants of 1914, imbibed As it were from the weeks

esconced along old battlefields, flowed strongly in the veins

of American troops. Only a battle of a nightmare could check

effectively the eagerness of a generation raised on peace,

progress and patriotism. It was as if the Allies had resurrected

their dead of 1914. The Germans might transfer a score of

divisions from the Eastern front, but they were tired troops.

Enthusiasm, even according to the most pessimistic French

observers, was the most valuable asset of the American Expeditionary

Force.

Pershing did not want enthusiasm sapped by sedentary training.

On October 6, he expressed his dissatisfaction with the French

in a strong document which directed all instruction "to contemplate

the assumption of a vigorous offensive. Attack was to be

a habit of thought. "The general principles governing combat

remain unchanged," asserted G-5. Special weapons may have their

use, but training was to be directed and assessed according to

the venerable trinity of Drill Regulations, Small Arms Firing

Manual and Field Service Regulations. Rifle, bayonet and

discipline were to receive maximum stress.

In early December, the 1st Division, under a new commander

70

and thoroughly purged by Pershing, began a month’s open warfare

maneuvers. Full scale assaults were conducted at Washington

Center. Miles of telephone wire were unreeled, command posts

set up and closed down, aircraft flown, gas alarms sounded.

Hot food from the mobile kitchens gave tired soldiers 6ome hope

of survival until they had finished "training their officers."

157 On January 5, the division was finally decreed ready for combat.

Training of the 26th Division, which arrived on October 31,

was slowed by the need to use large bodies of men in construction

gangs along the AEF line of communications. A sound, and rare,

background in marksmanship gained in the USA provided some

relief from a crowded training schedule, basically the same as

that followed by the 1st Division although located at another

158 camp with another French instructional unit. The 42nd

Division arrived on November 8.^-^ On December 12 a three day

march brought the division to a new area. A third move commenced

on December 26 that was to take the division 100 miles in five

days. With ill-fitting boots supplied only hours before

departure, and heavy packs, twelve miles through driving snow

were covered in the first day. Lunch was two slices of cold

bacon on a piece of bread; bed, an icy wooden floor. Bleeding

feet marked the division’s path the following day. Upon arrival

at Perrogney five days after setting out, this division was

inoculated to suffering and learning the wisdom of soldierly

160 stoicism.

71

Allied reaction to the performance of the Americans in

the first eight months of the war was much akin to that of a

weary teacher to a clever but truculent pupil. Enthusiasm

among the troops was admired by all. But what of their numbers

and quality? By January 1918 only five divisions had arrived

in France. One was ready for action. Things were moving

slowly in America, too. An unsigned report of the French

Military Mission in USA predicted that Americans would not

fight in great numbers during 1918, due mainly to an excessively

long period of abstract training, shortage of equipment and

insufficient transport. ^1 The "slowness of American military

administration, ... and the backward state of mind of some of

162 its leaders” was also attacked by Field Marshal "Wully"

Robertson, who accused the Americans of "proceeding as if they

had years in which to prepare.” The Chief of the Imperial

General Staff regarded Pershing as "rather tired," lacking "a

considered view of the nature of his task, or how to set about

it." America seemed, with some justification, "a very weak

, , -I ,,163 reed to lean upon.

Not only the Allies wanted change in America1s mobilization

performance. General Sibert, when commander of the 1st Division,

remarked that his troops soon became bored under French

instructors. He wished the Allies to provide only advice and

163 guidance in trench warfare exercises for officers. Pershing

heartily agreed, writing to Pdftain on January 6 that "our troops

72

have made better progress under their own instructors and

according to our own methods."164

Things were being done to Pershing*s army that he did not

like. Preventive action would have to be taken before troops

set foot in France. On October 2, Pershing noticed some men

of the 1st Division failing to use their rifles while taking

165 trenches. A cable was immediately sent to Washington, whence

it was promulgated to training camps throughout USA. Pershing

suggested that all troops receive a complete course in rifle

practice before departure for France as rifle ranges were

scarce in the AEF. Trench warfare was on no account to be

allowed to interfere with the basics of marksmanship and extended

order drill.^6 But t^e chief Qf the AEF could only suggest,

not prescribe, training in America*s camps. Befuddled, over¬

worked minds in Washington proved pliable to the suggestions

of a large and assiduous Allied training mission. One circular

stated trench warfare to be of paramount importance, particularly

maddening Pershing.^7 Some sort of coordination between

training in America and training in France was being requested

by both Allies and AEF, although for different reasons.

By December, America was revealing her inherent impatience.

Dramatic shortcomings, especially in clothing and weapons, 00

provoked Chairman George B. Chamberlain of the Senate Military

Affairs Committee to charge that **the military establishment of

America has fallen down ... because of inefficiency in every

73

department of the Government of the United States." Ships

were known to have been loaded before coal was available for

them to sail, while other vessels full of coal stood idle.

Space had been wasted shipping bath tubs, cuspidors, floor

170 wax and lawn mowers to an exasperated Pershing. Shivering

troops in the cantonments represented a slap in the face to

the trust of American parenthood.

Most supply problems were on their way to solution by

December. The need for more rigid training organization had

been recognized by foreign advisers, overseas commanders and

the War Department. America’s army was getting pondorously

to its feet, like a massive dinosaur goaded into fight. Problems

had been identified and solutions proposed. But war remains

essentially a race against time. Would the new year catch

America’s soldiers short of life-saving training? And would

their training fit them for the realities of imminent combat?

NOTES

1 Barrie Pitt, 1918: The Last Act (New York, 1962), 61. Also Weigley, History, 355; and especially Richard M. Warot, Dare Call It Treason (New York, 1963) .

2 Field Marshal Joffre, The Personal Memoirs of Joffre (New York, 1932), 571, 574.

3 Weigley, History, 335.

4 Army and Navy Journal, vol. LV, no. 1 (September 1, 1917), 1. Spiers to Fagalde, August 13, 1917, Public Records Office, London: American Expeditionary Forces, War Office, lo6/474/ELS 201 2. Hereafter cited as PRO, AEF, WO 106/474/ELS 201 2.

5 Tardieu to Ribot, July 16, 1917, Quai d'Orsay, Etats-Unis, Armees Americaines, vol. 1, 190-191, no. 707 MO.

6 Joffre to Clemenceau, May 20, 1917, Vincennes, Mission Militaire Fran^aise, carton 17, dossier 2.

7 Hugh Johnson, author of the Selective Service Act, quoted in Coffman, The War, 31.

8 Ibid., 33.

9 General T0M. Bridges to Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) May 3, 1917, PRO, AEF, WO 106/351.

10 Joffre to Clemenceau, May 20, 1917, Vincennes.

11 Weigley, History, 361.

12 OB, 28: 3.

13 See Ayres, The War with Germany, 29; Bernardo and Bacon, American Military Policy, 363.

14 OB, 25: 3.

15 Ibid..

16 OB, 26: 9.

17 Ibid..

18 Historical Section, Army War College, Order of Battle of the United States Land Forces in the World War (Washington, 1931), I, 79-86.

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

OB, 48: 1.

Colonel de Chambrun and Captain de Marenches, The American Army in the European Conflict (New York, 1919), 24; OB, 33: 6; George H. Allen, et. al.. The Great War (Philadelphia, 1921), V, 179; Historical Section, Order of Battle. Ill, 78-86.

OB, 86: 3.

OB, 33: 6.

Ibid..

OB, 48: 1.

OB, 51: 2 and 72: 8; 73: 6.

OB 126: 10; Each division commander could appoint up to 1.7% of his enlisted strength for officer training.

See OB, 126: 10; 287: 1.

Historical Section, Order of Battle. Ill, 84.

Ibid.. 86-87. De Chambrun and de Marenches, The American Army. 179.

0B, 358: 9. Allen, The Great War. V, 179.

Ibid.. 56.

Coffman, The War. 35.

Ibid.. 55.

Ayres, The War with Germany. 29.

Myron E. Adams and Fred Girton, The History and Achievements of the Fort Sheridan Officers' Training Camps (Fort Sheridan, 1928), 333.

Ibid.. 186, 339.

Kay Pea, From Private to Shavetail (New York, 1918), 10.

Adams, History and Achievements. 197.

The Plattsburger, 1917 (New York, 1917), 20.

0B, 40: 2.

0B, 24: 2.

42 Ibid,,

43 Adams, History and Achievements, 197; Pea, Private, 11.

43a Ibid,. Coffman, The War, 35.

44 Historical Committee, 79th Division Association, History of the Seventy-Ninth Division, AEF, During the World War, 1917-1919 (Lancaster, 1922), 31.

45 OB, 28: 2. See also Captain James P. Cole and Major Oliver Schoomaker, Military Tactics Manual (New York, 1917), 2-39 for an exact daily schedule for the second officers* training camp held at Plattsburg.

46 Adams, History and Achievements, 202.

47 OB, 29: 2.

48 Adams, History and Achievements, 342.

49 Ibid., 212.

50 Coffman, The War, 58.

51 Spiers to Fagalde, August 13, 1917, PRO, AEF, WO 106/474/ ELS 201 2.

52 Spiers to Fagalde, August 13, 1917, PRO, AEF, WO 106/474/ M 105 8.

53 Spiers to Fagalde, PRO, AEF, SO 106/474/ELS 210 3, dated August 15, 1917.

54 Army and Navy Journal, vol. LV, no. 1 (September 1, 1917), 10.

55 I.C.Chambers to General Officer, London District, October 6, 1917. PRO, AEF, W0 106/468/0. 153/2820 pt. 4, no. 74.

56 Ayres, The War with Germany, 20.

57 Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff (DCIGS) to Military Attache, Washington, October 6, 1917, PRO, AEF, WO 106/474/42645 cipher 6.

58 PRO, AEF, WO 106/468/T./156 pt. 4, no. 85.

59 Military Attache, Washington to Director of Military Intelligence (DMI), October 31, 1917, PRO, AEF, W0 106/484/T.207 4.

60

61

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

83

84

85

Tardieu to Jusserand and Foch, March 20, 1918, Quai d'Orsay, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, 7423/mo.

Military Attache, Washington to DMI, October 20, 1917, PRO, WO 33/924/44771 cipher /Ti35 2609A.

CIGS to Military Attache Washington, November 5, 1917, PRO AEF, WO 106/484/44771 cipher 13.

Army and Navy Journal, vol. LV, no. 1 (September 1, 1917), 10.

Adams, History and Achievements. 205,208.

Ibid..

Cole and Schoomaker, Military Tactics Manual. 2-39.

Coffman, The War, 57.

Adams, History and Achievements. 355-372.

Ibid.. 352.

Hoehling, The Fierce Lambs. 74.

OB, 80: 7.

OB, 90: 7.

OB, 86: 8.

OB, 99: 6.

Wisconsin National Guardsman John C.Acker quoted in Coffman, The War. 65. One miserable duty seems to have been peeling onions. A soldier at Camp Travis did it with his gas mask on--see HEidel, Over There. 18.

Freidel, Over There. 11.

Ibid.. 15.

OB, 85: 3.

Ibid..

Freidel, Over There. 24.

OB, 81: 7; 82: 9.

OB, 84: 7.

Churchill, Over There. 92.

Cheseldine, Ohio in the Rainbow (Columbus, 1924), 59.

OB, 91: 7.

86 Manual of Interior Guard Duly, para. 8.

87 0.0. Ellis, The Plattsburg Manual, 28ff, 63ff.

88 Coffman, The War, 38.

89 Churchill, Over Here!, 92.

90 Gregory Mabry, Recollections of a Recruit: An Official History of the 54th US Infantry (New York, 1919), 21.

91 Lardner, Treat 'Em Rough. 11. Also L. Wardlaw Miles, History of the 308th Infantry, 1917-1919 (New York, 1927), 17; Colonel Joseph B. Sanborn, The 131st Infantry in the World War (Chicago, 1919), 20.

92 Ellis, The Plattsburg Manual provides one of the clearest accounts of extended order drill and tactical doctrine in use during the period under s tudy.

93 0B, 100: 7.

94 Infantry Drill Regulations, para. 623. See also 0B, 87: 7.

95 Miles, History of the 308th Infantry. 13.

96 Major General William J. Snow, Signposts of Experience: World War Memoirs (Washington, 1941); Cole, The Thirty- Seventh Division, 326; Rhodes, 1918, 1. The author, commanding the 7th Field Artillery Regiment, 33rd Division at Camp Logan, Texas had only 5 out of 24 guns, one-third of necessary saddles, very few sidearms. Rhodes himself was a cavalryman with no artillery experience.

97 Army War College, Field Artillery Training, Enlisted, 8-14.

98 Ibid., 15ff.

99 See Cole, The Thirty-Seventh Division, 327.

100 Charles F. Dienst, History of the 353rd Infantry Regiment, 89th Division, National Army, September 1917-June 1919 (Wichita, 1921), 8-10; History of the Seventy-Ninth, 30.

101 History of the 353rd Infantry, 11.

102 Mabry, Recollections, 14; Gerald F. Jacobsen, History of the 107th Infantry USA (New York, 1920), 11.

103 Lardner, Treat fEm Rough, 77.

104 Henderson, The Ninety-First, 230.

105 Churchill, Over Here!, 94.

106 Frcidel, Over There, 25.

107 Ibid..

108 Vignal to Minister of War, Washington, November 11, 1917, Quai d'Orsay, £tats-Unis, Armies Americaines, II, 194. See also Spiers to Fagalde, November 12, 1917, PRO, AEF, WO 106/484/ELS 976.

109 Jay M. Lee, The Artilleryman: The Experiences and Impressions of an American Artillery Regiment in the World War: 129th Field Artillery. 1917-1919 (Kansas City, 1920), 27-28.

110 OB, 88: 7.

111 Jacobsen, History of the 107th Infantry. 11.

112 Ibid. . For (drawings of the ideal tr.ench system see Pitt, 1918, 9-11.

113 Lardner, Treat 'Em Rough, 67.

114 Dickman, The Great Crusade, 19.

115 OB, 107: 7.

116 Dickman, The Great Crusade, 19.

117 Emmett, Give 'Way, 75.

118 Spiers to Fagalde, January 18, 1918, PRO, AEF, WO 106/ 474/ELS 198 10.

119 Emmett, Give 'Way, 75.

120 Ibid., 32. Also Cole, The Thirty-Seventh Division, 359; Rhodes, 1918.

121 Major General Robert Alexander, Memories of the World War, 1917-1919 (New York, 1931), 2.

122 Coffman, The War, 125.

123 Historical Division, Department of the Army, United States Army in the World War, 1917-1919: Training and Use of American Units with British and French (Washington, 1948^ 238. Memorandum from Chief, Liaison Group, GHQ to Chief of American Military Mission, Paris, dated GQG, French Armies in France, Compiegne, May 29, 1917. Hereafter cited as OH, III. See also Coffman, The War. 1.

124 Adjutant General, General Headquarters, American Expeditionary Force: 226 Report, Paris, July 28, 1917, in OH, III. Hereafter cited as AG, G1IQ, AEF.

125 Weigley, History, 376.

126 OB, 26: 3.

127 John Spencer Basset, Our War with Germany: A History (New York, 1919), 109. See also de Weerd, President Wilson Fights His War: World War I and the American Intervention (New York, 1968), 214; History of the First Division During the World War, 1917-1919 (Philadelphia 1922), 19.

128 OB, 26: 3.

129 OB, 72: 6; 42: 2.

130 See Coffman, The War, 133.

131 See Sergeant Alexander Woollcott, The Command is Forward: Tales of the AEF (New York, 1919), vi.

132 Pitt, 1918, 66-67; Stallings, The Doughboys, 28-31.

133 Quoted in Freidel, Over There, 115.

134 Ibid., 116. Also Weigley, History, 355-371.

135 Report of Commandant R£quin, Paris, July 21, 1917, Vincennes Fonds Clemenceau 62, Forces Expeditionnaires Americaines en France. Also De Chambrun and de Marenches, The American Army 46.

136 Shipley Thomas, The History of the AEF (New York, 1920), 45. See also Pershing1s Official Report to the Secretary of War on September 1919 in MThe Vast Reorganization of America for War,11 The Great Events of the Great War, V, 429.

137 Thomas, History, 37; OH, III, 355 (General Order, AEF, 1917, no. 45, October 8, 1917); de Chambrun and de Marenches, The American Army, 71.

138 Weigley, History, 387.

139 OH, III, 247.

140 Quoted in Ibid., 355.

141 General John J. Pershing, General Pershing's Official Story of the American Expeditionary Forces in France (New York, 1919), 8.

142 John Gardner Coolidge, A War Diary in Paris, 1914-1917 (Cambridge, 1931), 246; Churchill, Over Here!, 80-81; History of the 1st: Division, 10.

143 Hoehling, The Fierce Lambs, 91.

144 Quoted in General Richard Tlioumin, The First World War (New York, 1963), 357.

145 See History of the 1st Division. 10-19; Stallings, The Doughboys, 27; Coffman, The War, 132; Heywood Broun, Our Army at the Front (New York, 1919), 56-63; Freidel, Over There, 86.

146 Streeter, Dere Mable: Love Letters of a RooKe (New York, 1918), 50; Broun, Our Army at the Front, 87-90.

147 See note 115. Also Broun, Our Army. 90; And They Thought We Wouldnft Fight, 87-90.

148 History of the 1st Division, 20-22.

149 Ibid., 136; Broun, Our Army, 87; Stallings, The Doughboys, 27-34; Coffman, The War, 136-137.

150 OH, III, 427. Memoranda of July 18, September 10, October 5, 1917.

151 Coffman, The War, 138.

152 History of the IstDivision, 26.

153 Hoehling, The Fierce Lambs„ 148.

154 Quoted in Churchill, Over Here!, 139.

155 Hoehling, The Fierce Lambs; History of the 1st Division, 30.

156 Quoted in John J. Pershing, Official Report of September 1, 1919 in "The Vast Reorganization of America for War," The Great Events of the Great War, V, 429.

157 History of the 1st Division, 35-40.

158 Located at Training Area 4--see appended map. OH, III, 594.

159 Ibid., 645.

160 See Walter B. Wolf, A Brief Story of the Rainbow Division (New York, 1919), 9-10; OH, III, 664.

161 Unsigned report, French Army, Washington, January 8, 1918, Vincennes, Fonds Clcmenccau 61.

162 E. Requin to Minister of War, Washington, August 11, 1917, Ibid., no. 44/B.

163 Robertson to War Cabinet (after interview with John J. Pershing in Paris, 9/10 January 1918), January 12, 1918, PRO, AEF, WO 106/440/0.1/135/388 39.

164 General William L. Sibert to Pershing, in Freidel, Over There, 117-118. See also letter to Pershing, October 8, 1917 in OH, II (Policy Forming Documents), 56-57. AG, GHQ, AEF: 3140.

165 Pershing to Petain, January 6, 1918, in OH, III, 262.

166 MGood Advice from General Pershing, Importance of the Rifle," Army and Navy Journal, October 17, 1917, 232.

167 Ibid..

168 Pershing, My Experiences, I, 258.

169 Coffman, The War, 36.

170 Ibid., 160. See also Weigley, History, 367.

171 Hoehling, The Fierce Lambs, 135.

CHAPTER THREE

TRAINING IN 1918: PERFECTION VERSUS NECESSITY

Pondorously, relentlessly, inexorably, the Russian steamroller

was moving during the closing months of 1917. But it was

moving in reverse. On the night of November 6/7, unpaid

soldiers and subverted sailors threatened to turn their guns

on Alexander Kerensky*s bewildered cabinet, which for six

months after the abdication of the Czar had been attempting to

drag Russia kicking and screaming into the twentieth century.

Kerensky was determined to honour his country*s commitment

to fight the Germans to the finish. That commitment had

already cost over nine millions. But the liberals in Petrograd

did not realize that it was Russia that was finished. The next

morning, their government fled. Lenin took power as exhausted,

humiliated and sick of suffering, the Russian armies walked

away from war. On December 22, negotiations commenced between

the Soviet regime and the Germans at Brest-Litovsk, a dreary,

isolated railway siding in occupied Russia. The Allied

sledge hammer poised threateningly in the German rear had

dissipated into the arctic mists, leaving the Western Front

naked before the inevitable onslaught of the entire German army.

Only America could succour the exhausted British and French,

The loss of Russia, threats to Italy, and the impending numerical

superiority of Germany on the Western Front put Allied leaders

84

in a position where they could no longer be obsequious or even

diplomatic in requesting immediate, massive American military

commitment. Impatience was understandable: in January, only

one American division was available for combat.'*' Total AEF

strength was only 120,000 semi-trained men scattered throughout

2 France. Shipping was scarce, training time-consuming, Pershing

seemingly uncooperative.

General Pershing commanded the AEF virtually without

supervision from President or War Department. His original

instructions from Newton D. Baker directed him

to cooperate with the forces of the other countries employed against the enemy; but in so doing the underlying idea /was toj be kept in view that the forces of the United States were a separate and distinct component of the combined forces, the identity of which must be preserved.

This fundamental rule of military autonomy was subject only to

"such minor exceptions in particular circumstances11 as Pershing*s

judgement approved. How much Pershing would be required to

cooperate with the Allies was left ultimately to his **full

3 discretion.'* President Wilson and Secretary Baker, despite

the pleas and pressures of Allied leaders, never violated this

rule. If the Allies wished to use American troops, they would

have to convince Pershing to deny his own overweaning ambition

\

of commanding a unified army.

Petain, supreme commander of the French army, approached

Pershing in late December with a new training proposal to speed

the entry of American troops into battle.^ Each American

85

infantry regiment, bolstered with artillery and engineers,

was to be attached directly to a French division for two or

three months* training and combat experience. After this period,

which was not to be limited to quiet sectors, these regiments

would be regrouped as American divisions. Pershing promptly

turned down the plan, partly because he foresaw French reluctance

to weaken those divisions from which American regiments would

be withdrawn after training, but mainly because of the language

barrier to effective instruction, and the impossibility of

high-ranking American officers gaining any useful staff and

command experience while their regiments were under French

control.^ French designs to engage Pershing*s troops on her

own front, under the guise of a training expedient, may also

£

have been suspected.

Judgi_ng by the training of the 1st and other divisions the

previous autumn, it seemed to Pershing that the French had

little to offer in return for the use of American divisions

under training as temporary reserves. The British, on the other

hand, could provide invaluable shipping which would speed the

assembly of the American Expeditionary Forces. Britain too was

short of reserves, Lloyd George himself writing in December

that '*even half-trained comjanies or battalions would fight well

if mixed with two or three year veterans. **^ Colonel House,

Woodrow Wilson*s personal confidant, was asked by the British

ambassador to consider presenting a proposal for shipping and

86

O

training assistance to the President. Pershing, after initial

reluctance to acquiesce in Wilson1s decision to cooperate with

the British, began discussing training arrangements a few

weeks later. On January 30 1918 it was decided that the British

would ship six complete American divisions to France and train

them in the British area prior to releasing them to Pershing.

Not only would the British provide complete infantry training,

with combat employment limited to emergencies in rear areas,

9 but much equipment would be supplied by the British. This

arrangement allowed for more rapid application of American

manpower to winning the war, speeded the shipment of at least

six divisions to France, and aided in the procurement of equipment

Training for officers and men was placed under firm American

supervision after the creation on February 20 of II Corps,

directly linked to GHQ, AEF and charged with coordinating all

matters of instruction with Malone1 s training staff.'*''*'

Those divisions already in France continued their training,

comprising drills in the countryside and short spells in quiet

12 sectors under French supervision. The Second Division was

13 ready for service by March 14. Valuable lessons were learned.

A full scale raid conducted by the 1st Division in the St.

Mihiel sector exemplified a widespread need for better night

navigation skills. The loss of four hundred men during a German

raid on Seicheprey of March 20 underlined the need for constant

14

10

patrols to provide information on enemy activity. French

87

divisions in the quiet Baccarat sector were relieved in the

crisis week of April 5 by the 26th and 42nd Divisions, "excited,

interested and happy" to have responsibility at last for their

own sectors.All American formations engaged in aggressive

16 patrolling to sharpen fighting skills. The inevitable

sobering experiences accumulated. Not untypical was an eager

soldier of the 26th Division wandering out alone looking for

Germans, only to be shot by a friendly sentry as he tried to

return. Rescue being impossible, the youth bled to death

before the eyes of his comrades, a dreary huddle of trumped-up

glory.17

With devastating force, the German offensive of March 21

pushed the British back behind the Somme. The entire Fifth

Army was wiped out, Amiens threatened, the Germans surging 40

miles before encountering serious opposition. On March 26,

Foch was appointed to coordinate the Allied armies. A week

later, Pershing offered all possible assistance to Foch,^ by

now holding full powers of supreme command. German attacks were

to continue with diminishing force up and down the Allied line

until the middle of July, but under Foch*s coordination each

spasmodic advance of the enemy would be checked.^ American

training during the months of crisis between March 21 and July 15

became a matter of expediency juggled with deliberation. The

AEF would have to perfect its curriculum and training facilities

under constant pressure to get troops into action as quickly as

88

possible. But if Pershing*s army were to tip the scales in

France, the forty-one divisions being prepared in America

would first have to arrive much more rapidly than had their

predecessors.

In January, the 32nd Division arrived, only to be q?lit

up as a reserve. The 93rd Provisional Division, which arrived

in February, was disbanded two months later. On April 6, the

3rd Division arrived at Bordeaux, destined for six weeks* training

in Area 9 (CtuJteauville) before entering the line on May 31.^

As late as March 18 the AEF comprised only six divisions, or

22 325,000 men, a mere mockery of America*s potential to turn

defeat into victory.

Soon after the German attacks, Lloyd George expressed willing¬

ness to ship 120,000 American troops each month for April

through to July if the British Expeditionary Force could train

them. President Wilson agreed, contingent on Pershing*s

23 approval. Because the British wished to transport only

desperately needed infantry and machine gun troops, Pershing

disliked the shipping plan. He wished that only complete divisions,

including artillery, be sent to France. Moreoever, Pershing

did not believe that the American people would approve of combat

under the British, **even though the President and his advisors

9 / should learn that way.'* As late as the first of May, Pershing

seemed adamant, preferring to see the British pushed into

the sea and the French behind the Loire, rather than risk piece¬

meal amalgamation of his troops into harrassed foreign divisions.

89

Victory would in any event be inevitable once a united American

army bad assembled and singlehandedly beaten the Germans after

25 proper preparation.

On May 2, Pershing relented, possibly due to an awareness

that without British ships the AEF would never grow fast enough

to prevent Allied collapse. The British immediately began

transporting 10 divisions to their own area for training.26

Only infantry, engineer, machine gun and signal troops, plus

divisional and brigade headquarters, were shipped. Artillery

27 and corps troops followed as space became available. As a

result of British sea power, arrivals soared from 11,000 in April

to 244,407 in May, 277,894 in June, and 306,302 in July.^

Pershing built a quarter of his ultimate force of two million

on close cooperation with the British. Whether the additional

shipping space was worth subjecting ten American divisions to

British training seemed a pointless question in May 1917. With

the Germans driving toward Paris, insistence on tactical cant

was a luxury Pershing could not afford, and Foch could not allow.

It was the bayonet that provided the first connecting link

between British and American tactical thought. Bayonet displays

by British instructors were often spectacular, involving

laying out every German through three successive lines of trenches,

clearing dugouts, firing accurately after strenuous exertion.

"The more foolish the game, the more rapturously the British

29 joined in," remarked one observer. Another more august critic,

90

General John J. Pershing, noticed with approval the British

or\ stress on aggressiveness and self-confidence. u American troops

undergoing British instruction would be exposed at worst to

an excessive emphasis on trenches or certain weapons--not to

31 totally false attitudes such as those of the French.

Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, phlegmatic commander of

the British Expeditionary Force, cooperated candidly and

scrupulously with Pershing. In an order of March 12, he directed

that training be ,!in accordance with American regulations and

32 ... instructions recently issued or to be issued.11 It was

impressed on the Director of Training, General Bonham, that

Americans were not to be ordered about, but helped by advice

and experience to become leaders and instructors. Particular

attention was to be paid to discipline, route marching, musketry

and staff work.33 Haig, in a rare burst of thoughtfulness, even

directed that the peculiar appetites of his guests be attended

to, with bulk rations such as Hominy or rice increased.34-

Training was patterned after theoriginal January agreement,

Pershing himself believing that "it could not be improved

3 5 upon." On arrival, American troops were affiliated with

British cadre divisions in rear areas for a month*s preliminary

training in drill, marksmanship, and special weapons such as

the machine gun, Lewis gun, trench mortar, grenades and gas.

American officers and NCOs, once returned from British specialists*

schools, were to play a direct role in this training. Three

91

weeks were to be spent in British trenches, attached to companies

as platoons, then to battalions as companies, brigades as

battalions, and divisions as regiments. Staff officers would

serve with appropriate headquarters. A final month would pass

practising open warfare at regimental level under American officers,

whereupon divisions would be reassembled and sent to Pershing.^

Major General George W. Reed's II Corps administered and

supervised all troops passing through British hands, maintaining

close liaison with Pershing, who also had personal representatives

attached to Haig's headquarters. American officers were at

all times responsible for the administration and welfare of

37 their troops. At the end of May, five divisions were located

with the BEF (94th, 28th, 35th, 77th and 82nd) all of which

were ordered elsewhere by Foch before training could be com-

39 pleted. Most of the five additional divisions sent to the

British (27th, 30th, 33rd, 78th and 80th) remained long enough

to complete the instructional program. In August, Haig uncom¬

plainingly released the 33rd, 78th and 80th Divisions to

Pershing, the 27th and 30th fighting with the BEF until the end

of the war.^

American soldiers made a strong impression on the British.

One veteran of the 38th Division described an American sergeant

attached to his unit for instruction as

a splendid type, brim full of the old enthusiasm we had in 1915. As for me I have been weary, so weary,

and this strong American soldier glowing with health

and strength and a desire to do his bit and make up

92

for lost time makes me ashamed I have fallen off and can only pray that fresh enthusiasm may come to me again.41

Sir Philip Gibbs noticed a high level of intelligence among

the rank and file of the American 77th Division, which would

combine with health, optimism and modest training to produce

/ o excellent fighters.

As few men received exhaustive rifle instruction before

departure for France, there was little difficulty adjusting to

the British Enfield that replaced the Springfield rifle in the

first week of training.^3 Contentment about British food,

however, was less than universal. MWe are on the British ration

here so we are all losing weight as no one could get fat on

their ration,11 wrote one private in the 6th US Engineers.^4

Another soldier recalled that ,feveryone admired the limeys for

their guts, and there were few fights between us. We admired

them even more when we ate the kind of chow they fought on."^3

Boiled eggs and "barn rat" notwithstanding, most Americans

respected the British, although few were not aware of the

exhaustion among even the best units. It was apparent to most

students that the British "had learned through the school of

hard knocks just about what is necessary to beat the Germans,"

and that America was "benefitting by being taught ... things

that otherwise she would have to learn herself.Officers

from the 27th and 33rd Divisions were particularly impressed

with a course offered at the Gas Defence School, which was

93

"thorough, business-like and excellent in every respect, ...

as at all British schools. The instructors aimed to teach

... the essentials learned after four terrible years of exper-

ience--everything else was eliminated.

British training by 1918 offered the residue of lessons

learned from three years1 hard fighting. Instructors circulated

from combat to teaching duties to ensure that new tactical

concepts were immediately introduced into training programs.

Men were taught to master particular jobs with a thoroughness

often exasperating to Americans unaccustomed to memorizing

perfectly the convoluted formulae of asphyxiating gasses or the

myriad sear springs and cotter pins of a machine gun. But

hard practicalities had long since replaced theories in British

schools after the pitilessly dashed hopes of Loos and the Somme.

Training progressed rapidly from bayonet and rifle exercises

to very realistic tactical problmes for small infantry formations.

Attacks on machine gun nests by groups of platoon size were

particularly stressed, convincing many that real action was not

far in the offing.^ British NCOs could illustrate graphically

to the novice the need to treat one’s sidearm as a personal

friend in a way no tongue-tied Frenchman or inexperienced American

49 could hope to emulate.

A few weeks in the slimy trenches of the visceral Belgian

lowlands cured cocky tendencies such as that of Lewis gunners

50 to impatiently dismantle weapons with hammer and chisel.

94

Troops hardened to boredom, discomfort, and casualties. Officers

applied lessons of earlier map problems and tactical walks,

and made some progress toward that cool state of expertise and

confidence that makes it possible to dominate men. The 33rd

Division completed its training most realistically in a model

Australian tank and infantry assault on Hamel, earning ungrudg¬

ing praise from General John Monash, himself one of the most

52 innovative amateurs of the war.

Haig, reflecting the prevalent British view, considered the

Americans to be "some of the most splendid men he had ever seen. J

Fresh troops picked up new training very quickly, said the

British, and proved robust and adaptable enough to go into the

line much sooner than expected. Such compliments, however

flattering to the American soldier as an individual, did not

include any praise for the organization to which he belonged.

In May 1918 the American army had yet to coordinate training

between the AEF and the camps at home. A constant British

complaint was the high number of untrained men arriving in France,

usually mixed at random with units possessing anything from

minimal to considerable training.The 27th Division, for

example, possessed little experience except foot drill and

physical conditioning. The 33rd Division, at least, was grounded

in basic military skills.^ When the 4th Division hurriedly

departed for the Marne on June 10, many members of the 39th

Infantry had never fired a rifle. The 8th Field Signal Battalion

95

still had not been properly equipped, possessing holsters but

57 no pistols. Clearly, if the AEF were to function without

the tutelage and paternalistic indulgence of Allied armies, the

nation*s excellent human resources would have.to be better

assessed, organized and equipped to fill varied positions in

a complex, constantly fluid organization subjected to the acid

test of war.

On Monday, January 28, 1918 the hearing room of the Senate

Committee on Military Affairs was hushed not with the expectation

of momentous decision, but rather with the anticipation of

incisive, vitriolic, devastating criticism that would demolish

Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. In a few terrible hours,

the diminutive, precocious little man would be frightened back

to his idealistic, naive coterie of intellectual incompetents

in Cleveland. Too often, powerful, ambitious men mistake small

stature for simplicity; humility, for impotence. The **gnome

in a big black hat,'* jokingly referred to as **Newtie Cootie,**

administered a lesson in human nature to Senator George Chamberlain

and his fellows, winning their full support in a clear, well-

informed and tactful report on the operations of the War

Department since the outbreak of hostilities.

Most glaring shortcomings in supply and organization were

demonstrated to be exceptions to a spectacular performance in

CO

the face of great confusion and haste. Armed with a new fund

of public support, Baker on March 4 appointed Peyton C. March,

chief of artillery in the AEF, as the new Chief of Artillery. March

96

immediately reorganized the entire General Staff, and assured

its complete control over army activities in USA by placing

all matters of supply and transportation under Major General

George W. Goethals, who untangled America* s logistical problems

in short order. Bernard Baruch as head of a rejuvenated War

Industries Board bludgeoned business into cooperation when

necessary by withholding raw materials. Organizing, equipping

and training the armies destined for Europe could now progress

Smoothly under strong and expert central control from Washington,

finally free of demoralizing public criticism, bureaucratic

rivalry and the caprice of incompetents. 7

Drastic measures taken to improve artillery training in

February 1918 set a pattern for the elaborate system of instruc¬

tion which existed in the American army at the end of the war.

Only 275 artillery officers in April 1917 had more than one

year's experience. The need to, rely on unqualified instructors

in 1917 was further complicated by a dearth of equipment.®® When

Major General William J. Snow occupied the new post of Chief of

Artillery in February 1918, he found levels of training in

such basics as fire discipline, occupation of position, communi¬

cations and calculations ranging from ghastly incompetence to

marginal mediocrity. Troops lacked a sense of urgency, technical

knowledge, proper equipment, qualified American instructors,

and basic discipline.Refusing to allow exasperation to

cloud deliberation, Snow set limited, realistic standards of

gun drill, calculation, knowledge of weapons and fire planning

97

to be attained by all units. Equipment was to be redistributed,

training coordinated with the AEF, and special centralized

63 schools established for all artillery instruction.

Because it would take too long to develop American weapons,

it had been decided to rely on French 75-mm and 155-mm guns as

standard field pieces. But use of French guns made unavoidable

an all too often supplicant reliance on French instructors.

When Snow assumed his challenging position in February, French

officers at each divisional artillery camp had gained so much

power as to be setting training syllabus and schedule without

any control from American authorities. The senior French officer

at Camp Funston practically commanded the artillery brigade

of the 89th Division, and demanded to be made Assistant Commandant

of the School of Fire at Fort Sill. Removal of such undue

foreign influence would not be easy. French guns were borrowed

for training purposes on condition that French officers and

NCOs accompany them. Until their departure in August 1918,

French officers continued to interfere with and even defy the

instructions of an ever more irate Chief of Artillery.^

Pershing and Snow had a similar problem with foreign

instructors. Neither could operate an adequate training estab¬

lishment without outside experts; yet lack of control and the

propagation of what were regarded as incorrect notions could not

be honestly tolerated by any commander. Solutions to this

emasculating dilemna came only with the development of an

extensive American school system at home and in France. Just

98

as Pershing placed immediate stress on building an elaborate

instructional organization, Snow moved quickly to centralize

and rationalize artillery training in USA. All artillery troops

were placed in separate camps, beginning in early May. Officer

preparation was centralized at Camp Zachary Taylor, graduates

being dispatched to the artillery replacement depots at camps

Jackson and Zachary Taylor to instruct recruits until called

for by the A1F. The School of Fire at Fort Sill was enlarged.

Centers where brigades could fire at will on ample ranges

under experienced AEF veterans appeared at Camp Jackson, S.C.,

Fort Knox, Ky., and Camp McClellan, Ala. All specialist training

in such fields as radio or surveying were taught by the artillery

school, ending a previous debilitating reliance on rejects

from the engineer or signal corps.^ While America's supply

of instructors grew, the ability of the French to spare

qualified officers from their own hard-pressed organizations

diminished.®® By August 1918, the return home of French

instructors may have been as much relief as rebuff to the

exhausted matron of Napoleon, the master-gunner.

Measures began taking effect in the first half of 1918 to

coordinate training between the AEF and US camps, as well as

to put all home instruction under central control. In December

1917 a Committee on Training had been established under Major

General J.F. Morrison. This group never obtained firm power

to direct instructional activities throughout the country, but

was able to function as a coordinating agency through which to

99

make arrangements with Allies and Pershing, Morrison*s board

made no ruling on the controversy of what balance between

trench warfare and open fighting was to be set in the training

syllabus. Instruction remained essentially unchanged from

that of the preceeding year. A sample program printed in

the Infantry Journal in July 1918 provided for an almost even

balance between rifle and extended order training, and education

in gas warfare, the bayonet, bombing, special weapons and trench

construction. Marches were interspersed with realistic recreations

of trench warfare much alike those of 1917, but more elaborate

68 due to the greater availability of resources. Many of both

AEF and French suggestions were ignored, possibly because the

Training Cimmittee could not make up its mind on who to believe

and consequently preferred to do nothing.^

Moulding a motley group of twenty-five thousand strangers

into an integrated, uniformly trained division in the American

army was as elementary as trying to hold water in a sieve. Results

were not so much disappointing as bewildering. Throughout the

war, a constant complaint from British, French and Pershing

alike was the unevenness of training possessed by virtually all

American divisions. The BEF found itself receiving men with

six months1 training side by side with raw recruits.^® Artillery

brigades from the same divisions, sent to French camps while

the British trained their infantry comrades, were no less

diverse in levels of accomplishment. Reports of the French

100

Mission in Washington described one brigade as having "one reg¬

iment in fair shape, the other two not well instructed.11

Another brigade had just received forty-one green officers

from the Replacement Depot. Almost all brigades were labelled

as "not prepared for overseas duty." Discipline and thorough

71 training were often lacking. General Harbord, Chief of

Staff of the AEF, wrote laconically in his memoirs that many

troops

were arriving From America who had never fired a rifle or marched a mile, who knew nothing of gas protection, though fairly well set up, with a working knowledge of customs and courtesys of the service.

Harbord sardonically added that

nearly all had drilled and ... sung in mass singing under leadership. With that lack of thoroughness in training, some sang but once more, and that the swan song before the enemy.72

If Pershing and the Allies agreed on only one thing, it was that

America1s system of dispatching troops to Europe, and reinforcing

those already there, needed drastic revision.

Famous fighting organizations do not spring into existence

simply because several thousand brave, eager young men are

brought together in one place and given some sort of training

that enables them to function as a team. Divisions must be

nurtured. But until the last months of the war, most American

units were continually being pruned as soon as they started to

blossom into effective combat formations. The first divisions

101

sent to France lost many of their best men to training camps.

Half the so-called regulars who arrived in France in 1917 were

raw recruits. The process of transferring men indiscriminately

from a division in training in USA to another about to depart

for France continued through the first half of 1918.

As soon as sufficient officers and NCOs were accumulated

in a division to allow combat effectiveness, many of the most

competent persons would be called away to provide instructors

for other formations. The 79th Division, for example, was

worn down by constant drafts to less than 15,000 men at the

end of March.^3 After three months1 training, 3,000 newly

qualified men from the 82nd Division were called away to special

schools. Other men were transferred to divisions higher on

the priority list for shipping overseas. Infantry companies

in the 78th Division fell from 175 to less than 59 men between

November 1917 and January 1918. In the first half of April,

the division was still less than half strength. Yet this same

organization departed for France at full strength two months

later--at the expense of some other divisions even lower on

the priority list.^

During the rapid buildup of the AEF in the spring of 1918,

it became blatantly apparent that the depot brigade located at

each cantonment, intended to provide specialists and replacements

for the parent division, was unable to perform its function

without cannabilizing some other unit. Chief of Staff Peyton

102

C. March decided to set up separate infantry, artillery and

machine gun schools which would send men directly to any needy

division after training. The new centralized system of training

involved the use of then revolutionary new means of personnel

selection. All soldiers began filling out five by eight inch

cards describing their civilian qualifications and experience.

These cards were to be used when making branch assignments,

along with tabulated results from the "alpha and beta11 exami¬

nations administered by a group of experts under the direction

of Dr. Walter D. Scott of the Carnegie Institute of Technology.^

It was planned to sort men by capability and intelligence, thus

streamlining training by fitting recruits to the tasks to

which they were suited.

Pershing was unable to benefit much from Peyton C. March1s

changes in training and reinforcement organization at home.

During the Meuse Argonne offensive, entire divisions were

disbanded to provide reinforcements for others. No help came

from home, perhaps because politicians feared linking training

directly to reinforcement. Creation of mammoth training complexes,

photographed in newspapers and captioned as reserve depots for

the AEF, would have indicated to the public that the government

expected massive casualty lists. Scattered cantonments, on

the other hand, bore much more remote resemblance to slaughter

pens. Most inhabitants came from the same part of the country,

and had other things in common than an uncertain future in combat.

103

But the precedent set by the end of the war would be invaluable

in organizing America*s future mobilizations. At last the

principle of selecting men carefully, making maximum use of

talents and education possessed on entering the army, and permit¬

ting units to draw qualified reinforcements of known ability

from a central depot had been stumbled upon after a year of

trial and error. Twelve months1 spastic fumbling by the War

Department for an efficient means of organizing training at

home so as to ensure a reliable, homogeneous flow of properly

trained men to France had nevertheless been a costly passage

from bewildered confusion to unruffled competence. The gyrations

of America*s emerging pattern of military instruction proved

in fact an unspectacular but extremely sanguinary danse macabre,

the cost of which would be borne by Pershing*s polyglot legion

of innocents.

By means far more deliberate than those of the authorities

in USA, Pershing had developed an integrated, sophisticated and

productive training organization by July 1918. Army schools were

educating staff officers, officer candidates and instructors

for the three corps school systems established to supply teachers

and specialists to the divisions in the field.^ Most schools

were located near Chaumont, as were the divisional training

areas. Close personal supervision by Pershing and G-5 was as

simple and convenient as an hour*s drive by auto.^

Under the deliberate program of education initiated by

104

Pershing in August 1917, the Army General Staff College at

Langres had produced 554 graduates by the end of the war; the

School of the Line, 497 tacticians; the Infantry Specialists1

Schools, 5,382 experts in musketry, bayonet, light trench

mortar, 37-mm cannon, grenades and sniping. The Infantry

Candidates School had 1,370 graduates and 5,500 students on

hand when the war ended. Three series of corps schools, the

last of which began operations on September 2, graduated 12,235

instructors in special weapons, machine guns, field engineering,

signals and gas warfare.

Pershing was more than wearied of being forced to allow

his troops to imbibe Allied pessimism while procuring inappropriate

education. In June 1918, with a steady flow of American

specialists emerging from the Army and Corps schools, the commander

of the AEF decided to "insist very strongly11 to the Allies on

getting his troops f,out of leading strings.,f,y In this resolve

Pershing had the full acquiescence of irascible Harold B. Fiske,

Chief of Training since February 1918. On July 4, Fiske gave

vent to his patriotic faith in the AEF by an acrimonious attack

on Allied instruction. The French lacked aggressiveness; the

British, initiative, thundered G-5. To allow American troops

to associate with demoralized armies was to condone the assimi¬

lation of bad attitudes and habits which would be impossible to

eradicate. Moreover, the time had come to stand up to the smug

Allied belief that the Americans were incapable of training their

105

own men. Because the British and French fatuously distrusted

American methods of fighting, they continually blocked training

in open warfare and tore down what shreds of individualism

the AEF had attempted to graft onto lopsided training. Allied

tutelage hindered the development of responsibility and self-

reliance, stunted the growth of an independent army, and pro¬

vided more and more insult to American prowess with less and

less justification to train men rapidly for action. Eloquently

and effectively, Fiske begged General Pershing to secure

80 American "emancipation from Allied supervision." Accordingly,

Allied instructors started disappearing from the Staff College

at Langres and other AEF schools. The process was not complete

at war's end, but American dominance of her own institutions

was unquestioned.

Throughout June, July and August, American troops flooded

into France, only to be replaced in the camps at home by a

massive new draft of twenty divisions, twelve regular and eight

National Army. America's follow-up punch never reached France

before the armistice on November 11. The six divisions that

arrived in June 029th, 37th, 83rd, 90th and 92nd) had an

organized longevity of approximately eight months, although all

included a large percentage of men drafted as recently as four

months previously. Men of the 89th Division were given an

intensive, exhausting six-week training program on arrival in

France. This "crash" course, intended mainly to make raw members

106

of the division fit for combat as rapidly as possible, comprised

extended order drill, compact training for specialists, and

a great deal of marching. The division conducted trench exercises

in the Washington Center at Gondrecourt and suffered through

81 a ten mile forced march before assignment to a quiet sector.

As the crucial events of the summer occurred with ever

accelerating momentum, newly arriving units were directed to

lose no time in rest areas or awaiting the development of the

tactical situation. Lectures, night classes, and short demonstra¬

tions filled the day, along with spot tests in first aid, care

82 of the feet, protection against rifle fire or trench routine.

The 91st Division, one of the seven July arrivals (along with

the 6th, 36th, 79th, 81st and 85th) passed the month before

departure for the front on September 7 in long, exhausting marches,

oo incessant drill and frequent extended order exercises. Men of

the 79th Division buiiilt target ranges for those comrades who,

by the vicissitudes of the reinforcement system, had arrived in

France without so much as firing a rifle. Each division sent

an advance party to the AEF to report on the state of training

of arriving units, and coordinate with G-5 an intensive

instructional program intended to ensure that no man entered

84 combat totally untrained. Remedial training prescribed for

the 79th Division was particularly trying. None failed to realize

suddenly "that the lessons of Camp Meade had been little more

thein the primer of warfare." Entry into combat did not end

107

training. The 77th Division caught up on open warfare training

believed to have been neglected in the confusing months between

rushed British instruction and hurried participation in the

Vesle operations. Field maneuvers were conducted on August 11,

during a lull in combat.

A man of Pershing1s organizational genius could not be

expected to remain satisfied with a haphazard policy of ten day

refresher courses and "on-the-job" training as his main means

of ensuring that all combat units were exposed to the basics

of survival and victory. As early as December 1917, the 41st

Division had been designated a depot division. Located on the

line of communications that fed new arrivals into the American

training zone, the 41st gathered together miscellaneous newcomers,

discharged hospital patients and stragglers, equipped then,

apportioned them to temporary training units and provided as

much instruction as possible before individuals were called

for by the fighting formations. By the end of the war, five

more divisions (33rd, 76th, 85th, 39th and 40th) were performing

87 a similar function. Nevertheless, despite the iron grip

of G-5 on all Americans at loose in France, insufficient

reinforcements were coming through the pipeline at the end of

the war to supply the hard-pressed forces in the Meuse Argonne.

By November, at least six divisions had to be skeletonized (31st,

34th, 38th, 84th, 86th, 93rd and 4th) to provide reserves for

88 an increasingly exhausted army. °

108

American artillerists have always been a complacent

crew. Ever since the days of John Knox, the United States

government has taken trouble to produce technologically advanced

gunners, though the rest of the atmy might languish in in¬

competence, obsolescence, or even apathy. Good luck, as usual,

accompanied the field artillery in the AEF. Their training

camps were pleasant and habitable, whereas the infantry passed

its rodent existence in filthy hovels and rat infested holes.

The French had a good reputation in field artillery, and opened

their schools to the Americans without hesitations. Pershing

seemed to trust the artillery to manage its own training. By

the end of hostilities, American light artillery was training

at Le Valdahon, Coetquidan, Meucon, Souge, La Courtine, Ornans,

Redou, Bordeaux, Rennes and Poitieres. Heavy artillery method¬

ically operated its guns at Liboume, Limoges, Clermont and

Angers.The most discomforting experience was wearing gas

90 masks on surprise drill. Intellectual challenge was readily

available, with 800 officers a month attending the Saumur and

Fontainebleau artillery schools, and otherrlearning specialties

such as tractor operation and maintenance, aerial observation

91 and railroad or motorized artillery. American regiments, when

returned to their divisions, proved competent and provoked few

complaints when the AEF finally threw its pondorous weight into

the delicate strategic situation of a twilight war.

World War One was for America a dream-like experience. Serious

109

combat opened for the AEF in a frantic series of desperate,

last-minute reinforcing actions as the Germans staged their

last drive between Soissons and Rheims. It is likely that the

sudden influx of eager, ardent Americans, anomalously avid

for the fray, was instrumental in stopping the German drive

92 toward Paris, during the first six weeks of the summer.

Determined American assaults on Belleau Wood, Vaux and Cantigny

demonstrated the sort of ardour and blind offensive fury unseen

for years on the Western Front.^3 Qn june 20, Foch opened

his grand offensive that crumbled the German army, resulting

in the peace of exhaustion of November 11. Nine American

divisions took part in a drive across the top of the Soissons

salient, which forced the Germans to retreat to their starting

94 point of the previous March. The AEF had made the transition

from a sprawling military school to a potent fighting force.

On August 10, the First American Army came into existence,

and commenced planning for the first large AEF operation of

the war--the reduction of the St. Mihiel salient which had so

long threatened communications between Paris and beleagered

Verdun. The assault of September 12 has a euphoric quality very

rare for World War I. Seven American divisions (assisted by

French infantry, artillery and tanks) advanced against minor

resistance to clear the entire objective in four days. Boasting

14,500 prisoners and 443 captured guns, Pershing*s army shifted

west, through the pastoral countryside of Verdun, toward

the convoluted, contorted, treacherous tongue of land between

95 the river Meuse and the forests of the Argonne.

110

Nightmare descended on the Americans on September 26. Tightly

packed divisions were to smash through the German outer defenses

in one day, leading to a triumphant march into the enemy*s

vitals such as had been intended at St. Mihiel. But the German

'*outer defense** was cleverly sited and carefully prepared with

interlocking lanes of machine gun fire. It was to take

not days, but long, dreary, discouraging weeks of continual

frontal attack, not to mention hours of personal desperation,

before the five layers of wily human and malevolent natural

obstacles would be pierced. Divisions, whether Veteran or

novice, aggressive or indolent, were decimated. When armistice

mercifully ended the struggle, Pershing had been forced to

use eight of the thirteen divisions that had arrived since the

end of July as reserves for fueling the hellish baptism of

the AEF.96

How well did the AEF perform in combat? The Germans did

not regard the Americans as serious tacticians. One report

attributed to the German General Staff the remark that the

97 AEF supplied comic relief in the deadly drama of 1918. The

enemy seemed to have been impressed with the efficiency of US

98 artillery, and amazed the intrepidy of American troops. But

leadership that allowed infantry to attack in dense masses, despite

the lessons of 1914 to 1917, came under acid criticism from

both Ludendorff and Ilindenburg, who believed that a heavy

price had been paid in learning the lesson that *'the business

of war cannot be learned in a few months.**^

Ill

American training was too disorganized and diffuse through¬

out most of the war to allow accurate analysis of its role in

the successes and shortcomings of the AEF. It is apparent

that as late as September 15 inadequate men were being sent

to Pershing, who was forced to send some into combat with only

five or six days1 instruction,But the necessary schools

had been established, and an efficient organization moulded,

by the end of 1918. Had the war continued into the next year

as originally anticipated, a dramatic improvement in training

would have occurred. Tactics, less than perfect during the

Meuse Argonne campaign, would also have been likely to change.

On September 6, Pershing directed that instructors be completely

rotated between combat and depot divisions every five months.

Experienced men would have brouglt battle field tested techniques

into the classrooms within months.'^'*'

Poring over movements reports in an effort to ascertain

how long a division was in training is useless. In World War

One, men flowed so rapidly in and out of different military

organizations that the only means to obtain an accurate picture

of the AEFfs training record would be to study each individual

who served. This the General Staff did after the war, discovering

that the average man obtained six months of instruction; four

in USA and two in France. The average division had been organized

in USA for eight months before departure for Europe, where it

102 trained for two additional months before entering the line.

112

Despite erraticisms, foibles, blunders and mishaps, the guns

fell silent on a massive, and dynamic, American achievement;.

Forty-two divisions, each twice the size of its British and

French namesakes, were in France. By July 1919, thirty-eight

more, all much better trained, could have arrived. But

strategic statistics meant little to the homesick soldier.

Insomnia once again replaced nightmare. A few days* extra

sleep, a move to more comfortable quarters in the Rhineland,

and Pershingfs crusaders found themselves crawling once again

through turnip patches, marching to rifle ranges, sweeping

the parade square. But this time there was no villain to

promote ardour, no cause to sanctify suffering. As fast as it

had sprung into existence, the AEF disintegrated into a surly

mob of individualists, each charting his own course and setting

his sights on a bright future in elysian America.

Besides, the surly soldier of 1919 was a veteran. He knew

the realities of combat, and had legitimate questions to ask

about the same old drills that filled the dismal days before

embarking for home.

NOTES

1 Historical Section, Army War College, The Genesis of the American First Army (Washington, 1938), 9.

2 Memorandum on the American Army, General Staff, 3eme Bureau, GQG, December 8, 1917, Vincennes, Fonds Clemenceau 61, no. 8420; Spiers to Fagalde, February 27, 1918, PRO, WO 106/474/ELS 2826 11.

3 Quoted in Pitt, 1918. 65.

4 Historical Section, Genesis, 9ff.

5 Pershing, My Experiences in the World War (2 vols: New York, 1931), I, 272.

6 See Tardieu to Clemenceau, New York, January 8, 1918, Quai d'Orsay, Operations Strategiques, Dossier General VIII, 29-31, no. 4543.

7 Lloyd George to Reading, December 5, 1917, PRO, WO 106/313/0.1/135/388 41.

8 Extract from Minutes of War Cabinet, December 5, 1917, PRO, AEF, WO 106/478/ war cab 292. Also General Tasker H. Bliss' agreement to open suggestion to Pershing--DCGS to C.M. Wagstaff, December 13, 1917, PRO, AEF, WO 106/466 1; Pershing's initial refusal, although Harbord sympathetic, Wagstaff to DCGS, December 18, 1917, PRO, AEF, W0 106/ 484/BL 451 3; Pershing's final decision to consider the plan, Wagstaff to DCGS, December 1917, PRO, AEF, WO 106/466/36/ 410 2.

9 See Versailles agreement, January 30, 1918, PRO, AEF, WO 106/466. Also Notes on Discussion with the Americans, February 4, 1918, PRO, WO 106/466/14A/OB/2141.

10 OH, III, 1-2.

11 Ibid.. 3.

12 Pitt, 1918. 62.

13 See Coffman, The War. 152; OH, III, 491.

14 See Page, "The Truth About Our 110 Days' Fighting,I," The World's Work (April, 1919), 627.

15 Sec Sibley, With the Yankee Division in France (Boston, 1919), 53-59; Freidcl, Over There, 134-141; Wolf, A Brief History of the Rainbow Division (New York, 1919), 14; Coffman, The War, 147; Cheseldine, Ohio in the Rainbow, 123.

16 See 42nd Division, March 9, in Coffman, The War, 151; nightly 3-man patrols, Cheseldine, Ohio, 113-114, 133; 26th Division in April, Coffman, The War, 147ff; Freidel, Over There, 137-141.

17 Sibley, With the Yankee Division, 63.

18 See Pitt, 1918, 47ff.

19 See Pitt for full accounts.

20 Vandiver, John J. Pershing.

21 OH, III, 542; Wagstaff to DCGS, April 1, 1918, PRO, AEF, WO 106/466/EM 17/58. Destined to form III Corps with 5th, 35th, 4th, 33rd divisions--had the decision to train with the British not changed original plans.

22 Stallings, The Doughboys, 43; Bernardo and Bacon, American Military Policy, 356.

23 Pitt, 1918, 141.

24 Ibid..

25 Ibid., 143.

26 Pershing, My Experiences, I, 15.

27 Edmonds, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1918 (London, 1937), 444-445.

28 Weigley, History, 384; Pitt, 1918, 143; Edmonds, Military Operations, 584; Coffman, The War, 212.

29 Broun, At the Front, 92-94.

30 Pershing, My Experiences, I, 151.

31 British training in ,f0pen warfare and the spirit of the offensive" was being ordered by December 1917. See Haig Memorandum on Defensive Measures" of December 14, 1917, which expressly ordered defence in depth and frequent rifle and field firing practice, "so that infantry may develop confidence in their power to stop the enemy by rifle," Haig Papers, OAD, 291/29 "SECRET."

32 OH, III, 61.

33 Haig, Diary, May 3, 1918.

34 Ibid.. May 31, 1918.

35 Ibid., April 19, 1918.

36 OH, III, 36 —training agreement with British, Versailles, January 30, 1918, AG, GHQ, AEF 14903-2. Also R. Butler to AEF HQ, February 9, 1918, PRO WO 106/466/OB 2141 9; British orders of March 12, 1918, OH, III, 63ff; DuCane to Weygand, May 29, 1918, PRO, WO 158/72/ — .

37 Pershing to Haig, May 7, 1918, Haig Papers.

38 War Office to Bridges, May 3, 1918, PRO, WO 106/500/ 59284 cipher; Stallings, The Doughboys, 80.

39 OH, III, 191.

40 Ibid., 3.

41 Extract from British report on morale in France, May 3, 1918, Imperial War Museum, Thompson Papers.

42 Miles, History of the 308th Infantry, 34.

43 See Back, The Fourth Division (Garden City, 1920), 48.

44 ,fAmerican Troops with the BEF,n June 1-July 13, 1918, Imperial War Museum, Thompson Papers.

45 Stallings, The Doughboys. 238.

46 Letter of a private, Infantry, MAmerican Troops in BEF,n

June 1-July 13, 1918, Imperial War Museum, Thompson Papers.

47 Leland, From Shell Hole to Chateau with Company I (New York, 1958), 37-38.

48 Jacobsen, History of the 107th Infantry, 42; Leland, From Shell Hole to Chateau, 57.

49 See "Varied Ground," Infantry Journal, vol. XIV.

50 Letter of British soldier, July 3, 1918, in Imperial War Museum, Thompson Papers.

51 Major General Harold B. Fiske, new G-5, directed all American officers to inspect and tactfully correct British instruction, plus solve map problems each week to the satisfaction of

the British headquarters to which they were attached. II Corps held weekly tactical walks for all higher commanders in open warfare, OH. Ill, 142.

52 Sanborn, The 131st Infantry. 37; C. Bonham Carter for CGS to DuCane, July 11, 1918, PRO, WO 106/500/T/l/K.

53 Knowlsby Derby Diary, June 12, 1918.

54 Ibid..

55 See Bridges to DMO, May 17, 1918, PRO, WO 106/499B/1 (Report of GHQ, BEF, June 12, 1918).

56 OH, III, 151.

57 Stallings, The Doughboys. 159.

58 Coffman, The War. 20-21; Churchill, Over Here!. 46; OB, 320: 9-30 for direct reprint. ,

59 See Coffman, The War. 32, 49, 160-167, 176; Weigley, History. 366-367, 378-380; 0B, 191: 16 provides chart of labyrinth of War Department organization prior to reorganizing done by Peyton C. March; OB, 231: 6 details the reorganization begun December 22, 1917 under General Orders No. 160. P. C. March became Chief of Staff on May 25. On May 20 Goethals assumed control of logistics.

60 Order of Battle. Ill, 201.

61 Snow, Signposts. 23-25. On lack of equipment see Coffman, The War. 40-42; Weigley, History. 362; Churchill (then British Minister of Munitions), The World Crisis. 1916- 1918 (London. 1927), II, chapter xx.

62 Snow, Signposts. 24-25.

63 Order of Battle. Ill, 202.

64 Snow, Signposts. 41-46.

65 Ibid.. 52-57, 70-87; Order of Battle. Ill, 199-204; OB, 338: 8.

66 See Spiers to Fagalde, May 4, 1918, PRO, W0 106/474/ELS 3951-23; Tardieu to Clemenceau, May 9, 1918, Vincennes, Fonds Clemenceau 61, no. 9693 M0.

67 Pershing, My Experiences. I, 266; Oil, III, 256.

68 Infantry Journal, vol. XV, no. L (Jlily 1918), 19ff. See also Lee, The Artilleryman. 35; Freidcl, Over There. 28; Henderson, The Ninety-First Division, 188-220; Sanborn, The 131st Infantry. 25.

69 Lack of coordination from the General Staff was a constant French complaint. See unsigned French report of May 2, 1918, PRO, WO 106/474/40102 24; Tardieu to Clemenceau, May 14, 1918, Vincennes, Fonds Clemenceau 61, no. 91815 MO; Analysis of documents received by Franco-American Office, May 20-30, no. 1018 A/ll, Paris, May 30, 1918, Vincennes, Fonds Clemenceau 62, divers 1918.

70 Extract from Minutes of War Cabinet meeting, April 24, 1918, PRO Cab 23/6, para. 2; Reading to Lloyd George, May 24, 1918, PRO, W0 106/496/2356. Also OH, III, 149, Memorandum to G-5, GHQ, AEF, June 12, 1918 on polyglot rifle training of US units arriving for training with BEF.

71 Snow, Signposts, 64.

72 Harbord, The American Army in France, 1917-1919 (Boston, 1937), 485.

73 History of the 79th Division. 31.

74 Coffman, The War, 76; Pershing, My Experiences, I, 379; Bernardo and Bacon, American Military Policy, 364; Order of Battle, III, 63. Infantry Replacement Centers were at Camps Lee, Gordon, Pike and Mac Arthur; Engineers at Camp Humphries;;FieldArtillery at Camps Jackson, Zachary Taylor and Machine Guns at Camp Hancock.

75 Coffman, The War, 59-61; 66, 68; OB, 214: 15; Batchelder, Camp Dix, Camp Lee, Camp Upton (Boston, 1918).

76 Pershing, My Experiences, I, 154-155; uTraining the AEF," Infantry Journal, vol. XV, no. 6, 487.

77 Ibid., 487. For infantry training areas, AEF, see appended map. Corps schools were located at Gondrecourt, Chattillon- sur-Seine and Clamency.

78 Best account of American schools is in de Cliambrun and de Marenches, The American Army, 65-71. See also Major George C. Marshall, "The American Army in France,11 chapter LXVI of The History of the First World War (New York, 1965), 1101- 1118. On courses at Langres and doctrinal jealousy between British, French and Americans see Thomas, History of the AEF, 36-37; T. Cunninghame, Chief of British Instructors at American Staff School, Langres, to Wagstaff, September

9, 1918, PRO, WO 106/499A; "Training the AEF,,f Infantry Journal, vol. XV, no. 6, 490-492.

79 Pershing.My Experiences, II, 189-190.

80 See memorandum from G-5 to Chief of Staff, July 11, 1918,

in Pershing Papers, National Archives, Record Group 120;

also "General Pershing and his Headquarters in France,"

Military Review, vol. XX, no. 78 (September 1940), 5-9;

Colonel Grant, Notes of conversation with General Weygand,

June 24, 1918, PRO, WO 106/1456; "United States Army:

Notes on Present Situation," by S02b, July 9, 1918, PRO,

WO 106/516--.

81 See Dienst, History of the 353rd Infantry, 33-43.

82 Ibid.. 34. See also Emmett, Give 'Way. 98-110 for similar

experiences of the 90th Division.

83 Story of the 91st Division, 1-7.

84 De Chambrun and de Marenches, The American Army, 58.

85 Story of the 79th Division, 46-47.

86 Miles, History of the 308th Infantry, 57-75.

87 See Robert Alexander, Memories of the World War. 1917-1919 (New York, 1931), 20; "Training the AEF," Infantry

Journal,vol. XV, no. 6, 487; Order of Battle, III, 1,

1310-1316.

88 Ibid.. Also J.P. DuCane to CIGS, October 19, 1918, PRO

WO 106/513/--225/.

89 De Chambrun and de Marenches, The American Army, 62-63;

Les Armees Francaises dans la Grande Guerre, Tome 6,

vol. 1 (Paris, 1931),198.

90 Lee, The Artilleryman. 50.

91 De Chambrun and de Marenches, The American Army, 69-70; Rhodes, 1918 is a very good account of training in France

in the summer of 1918 for artillery units.

92 The period from May 31 to July 15 comprises the battles

at Chateau-Thierry on June 1 and July B (2nd and 3rd Divisions),

and the defence of Rheims (42nd Division). See Stallings,

The Doughboys. 78-89; Coffman, The War, 214-227; Vandiver,

John J. Pershins, 81-82 and especially Pitt, 1918, 142-

183.

93 On Belleau Wood, June 6-26, see Stallings, The Doughboys, 91-109; Vandiver, John J. Pershing, 81; Coffman, The War, 215-220; Pitt, 1918, 142-183.

94 See Stallings, The Doughboys< 141-171; Coffman, The War, 234-257; Vandiver, John J. Pershing;, 82; Pitt, 1918, 186-191.

95 See Stallings, The Doughboys, 217; Vandiver, John J. Pershing, 82; Basil H. Liddell Hart, The Real War (Boston, 1930), 450-452; Coffman, The War, 263-283; Pitt, 1918, 134, 224-231.

96 See Pitt, 1918, 231-237; Vandiver, John J. Pershing, 83-84; B.H. Liddell Hart, The Real War, 380, 461-466; Coffman, The War, 305-351; Stallings, The Doughboys, 225-248; Crutwell, A History of the Great War, 1914-1918 (Oxford, 1936), 567.

97 Information from the entourage of the King of Greece after a visit to the front, furnished by General Hutchinson, ADC to King George V, Lausanne, April 18, 1918, Quai d*0rsay, Operations Strategiques, Front de l'Ouest, VI, 278-281.

98 Intelligence Officer of High Military Command of German Army, reporting on battle of St. Mihiel, September 25, 1918, quoted in Page, ,fThe Truth, 11" 84.

99 Hindenburg, Out of My Life, 437; Ludendorff, My War Memories, I, 610-630, 676.

100 Cable of September 15, 1918, Pershing, My Experiences, II, 278. Some men of the 89th Division got one week of training in the USA and two weeks in France,then were thrown into combat without having fired a rifle, thrown a grenade or handled automatic rifles. Some had to be shown how to load rifles at the last minute--personal note by Captain Francis Leigh, OC B Coy, attached to Dienst, History of the 353rdl Infantry.

101 Historical Division, Department of the Army, United States Army in theWorld War, 1917-1919: Policy Forming Documents, American Expeditionary Forces (Washington, 1948), 597. Hereafter cited as OH, II, 597.

102 Ayres, The War with Germany, 25-34.

CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION: THE DEATH OF AUTOMATON TACTICS

At five o'clock on the morning of June 6, 1918 men of the

4th Marine Brigade sprang to their feet, took positions yard

abreast, and began advancing across the softly undulating

fields toward a blot on the horizon known as Belleau Wood.

No bitter memories of waste or muddle stunted the faith of

those troops in their leaders and training. None straggled,

no sergeants with drawn revolvers enforced the mordant rhythmn

of assault. Fifteen yards behind the first wave, another

line of soldiers started moving toward the woodline, followed

in succession by yet two more waves. Confidence was high.

Had not the artillery pounded and thundered for thirty minutes?

Would not this assault, practiced for months, make possible

the break in the enemy line that would bring about open warfare

at which Americans naturally excelled?

Suddenly, a flat, syncopated slapping sound started

chopping overhead. Then the ground was swarming with bullets.

As the German machine gunners adjusted their aim, .30 caliber

slugs started thudding into stomachs, shattering bone and

shredding flesh. Like corn stooks sheared off by a mechanical

reaper, Americans lay evenly spaced, in neat regular lines. The

survivers looked up from pockets of sheltering earth, some tried

to crawl forward or rush to likely fire positions. Again the

121

slapping sound. Again the cries of the wounded. Most of the

brigade never got across the field, let alone entered the

woods to clean them out with bayonet.^ Ambitious lines on

a chart at 2nd Division Headquarters looked no less silly

at nightfall than those on Haig's maps in the sullen, sorrow¬

ful summer of the Somme. The Americans had done no better.

Now, as had their enthusiastic British counterparts of two

years past, the Marines huddled in shell holes, squirmed for

cover from the machine gun fire, and awaited nightfall.

Eventually, three weeks later, Belleau Wood did fall, after

repeated assault and massive artillery preparation. Courage

never accomplishes absolutely nothing. Often in World War One,

it missed that nadir by a mere hair breadth. Persistence did

gain ground, but at such fearful cost that it became dangerous

to count losses. Calm assessment of progress and casualties

would have drawn the Allies out of the war years ago.

In later years of less apologetic mediocrity, World War

One generalship provided a great deal of comfort to those

intellectual narcissists who felt the need to carp at the indemnic

idiocy of the military. But if any truly useful lessons are

to be drawn from the tactical cant of the Western Front, an

honest effort must be made to understand the logic in the minds

of the authors of the drill regulations then in use. The same

generation that vowed never to fight for "king and country" in

the 'thirties did not suffer the consequences of bad tactics

122

in World War Two, largely because military thinkers learned the

lessons of 1914 to 1918 and translated them into appropriate

training. Although most of Pershing's close associates insisted

that "the Field Service Regulations of 1911 ... stood the

o test of the war better than those of any other army," a state¬

ment more modest than intended, the United States Army was

rewriting its manuals of instruction by 1920, incorporating

major changes in concepts of land warfare.

American open warfare tactics in World War One followed

the Infantry Drill Regulations composed in 1911. Published in

a small, blue book, with very close type and numbered paragraphs,

the drill regulations bore a scriptural quality that was not

mitigated by the tone of prose contained within. The intention

behind all the very detailed instructions crammed into the

manual was to fit troops for offensive campaigning in open

country. Marching, castramentation, close and extended order

drill, target training, fire control and the bayonet received

painstaking attention.

Basic principles of combat were implicit, when not explicit,

in the course matter of cadets in World War One. Verbatim

memorization of passages from the drill regulations inculcated

a prescribed habit of thought. Inaction is of advantage to the

enemy, offense alone delivers decisive results, quick, energetic

advance minimizes casualties. An enemy position could be

neutralized by accurate, well-controlled rifle fire, without

necessarily resorting to artillery support. Constant movement

123

toward the enemy, whether by rushes, crawling or skirmishing

lines, minimized the effect of his fire. The closer one was

to the foe, the less likely his chance to inflict casualties.

Positions once taken were to be held, for it was regarded as

death to withdraw in the face of enemy fire made more sure

o by the confidence of successful defence. Attack by rifle and

bayonet, with artillery and other weapons playing a secondary

role, was insisted upon as an inviolate, changeless recipe

for victory, regardless of recent developments in machine guns,

light cannon, trenches, grenades or wire.^

Harold Fiske, in a lecture on January 29, 1917 to graduates

at Fort Leavenworth, dealt with the question of altering drill

regulations in the light of events in the European war. He saw

no need to change tactics.-* Offense remained basic. To conduct

only a spectacular defence in the trenches was to be like a

boxer who can parry and block, but never drives home the knock¬

out punch. An enemy could not be shot out of position by

gunfire. It was necessary to frighten and pry him out with the

bayonet. Advance against modern firepower was still possible

in narrow columns, which made of the assaulting team poor

artillery targets. Gunners could not react quickly enough to

rapid, irregular rushes at constantly changing ranges. Heavy

casualties were unlikely before the scattered groups of infantry

had advanced and taken cover. The closer one approached the

enemy1s.position, the more rattled he became. The victim1s

124

increasingly shaky aim could be countered once within rifle

range by a sudden stream of well-directed steel from 250 weapons.

While the enemy was taking cover, an assaulting force could

approach safely and assault with the bayonet.^

In order to assure success in the type of war going on

in Europe, Fiske suggested not changes in tactics, but a reor¬

ganization of the infantry regiment so as to enable it to more

easily sustain the existing pattern of frontal advance and

bayonet assault. American regulations recommended that regiments

deploy for the attack in four groups: one to form a firing

line, followed by another to reinforce those marksmen lost

to enemy fire, a third group to conduct the final assault, and

a final group to reinforce the captured position against counter¬

attack. As established prior to Pershing's adoption of Fiske1s

suggestions, the company was not believed to be large enough

to successfully carry out any one of those functions without

mixing in men from the remainder of the regiment. Fiske re¬

commended a company of 250 men so each quarter of the regiment

could play its part in the standard attack tactics without

breaking up companies and confusing leadership. The AEF doubled

the size of its divisions in the process of expanding infantry

companies from approximately 120 to over 250 men, mute but

overwhelming testimony to Pershing1s faith in the drill regulations

of 1911.

Fiske did not wish more machine guns to be added to the

125

regiment, as they were heavy, consumed awkward amounts of

ammunition, and thus hampered offensive mobility. Gas and

grenade training was suggested, only as an ancillary aid to

assault and defence. Artillery was regarded as limited in

value because it could not move forward fast enough to aid

advancing troops. All the more reason, then, to insist on a

very high standard of marksmanship, for infantry ought to be

able to depend on rifle fire alone to cover its aggressive

movements.^

Tactical decisions according to American open warfare

doctrine rested with the company commander. It was he who

decided what formations to adopt for safe and rapid advance;

and it was he who selected targets and controlled rifle fire

prior to ordering the assault. Lieutenants, or platoon commanders,

served merely to train their men, and pass instructions from

the captain to their segment of the company. Infantry operated

in teams of 250 men, all of whom performed essentially the same

function with the same weapons. With enough training, 250

riflemen could maneuver well and produce devastating fire.

But they provided a big target. And in World War One, there was

not enough time for exhaustive training. Most important, the

rifle faced newer weapons of immense firepower and range.

Draftees enthusiastic enough to read the course presented

in the Official Bulletin in the summer of 1917 were told that

machine guns had little effect against men lying on the ground

126

o

or crawling. By using the standard procedures taught in extended

order drill, troops could advance as well against machine guns

as rifles. Belleau Wood, not to mention the cauldron of the

Meuse Argonne, demonstrated that the rifle was not the master

of the battlefield, especially when set against machine guns.

The inability of American tacticians to understand the nature

of the machine gun goes far in explaining why they clung

stubbornly to outmoded drill regulations, as well as why the

best trained troops often gained no more ground than the worst.

Americans regarded the machine gun as a rapid fire, but

cumbersome, rifle. Rapid fire guns were sited alongside riflemen

in trenches as a source of additional firepower. Because one

bullet kills as effectively as twenty, it was thought that a

man could rush as many yards when surprising a machine gunner

as he could "steal" against a sniper. Once safely esconced

in some shell hole, a man was as safe against machine gun as

against rifle bullets. But the Germans did not oblige the

Allies by using machine guns in such a simplistic, wasteful

manner.

Any projectile follows a trajectory, which near the point

of origin is almost flat. Some distance from the weapon, the

trajectory attains such height as to no longer pose a threat to

a standing man. That portion of space covered by a bullet capable

of hitting a man directly from the front is termed the zone of

grazing fire. At a range of approximately 1,000 yards, the bullet

127

attains its maximum height, and begins to fall toward earth.

Bullets dropping vertically at the end of their trajectory

are termed plunging fire, and the ground beneath comprises

the beaton zone. Much like water being sprayed from a hose,

the size and shape of a beaten zone can be predicted and

controlled according to the angle of the gun and the contours

of the ground.

Obviously, hillocks, rocks, trees or gullies do not provide

any protection against plunging fire. The Germans, taking

advantage of the stability and accuracy of fixed machine guns,

sited their weapons to cover with plunging fire every inch of

ground before their defensive lines. Extremely accurate surveys

of the terrain which would have to be crossed by an attacking

enemy were possible over the long years of stalemate on the

Western Front.

Any low areas or reverse slopes which were immune to grazing

fire were covered by absolutely reliable plunging fire from

machine guns sited in front of and beside the main trench complex.

Outer systems of machine gun pill boxes, immune to all but a

direct hit by artillery, dotted the approaches to the German

defenses. Each gun had data with which to set trajectories

that would lace every inch of vital ground with death. Come fog

or darkness, the machine gunner had only to pull the trigger,

and a hail of plunging fire pulverized a substantial piece of

ground eight hundred to one thousand yards away.

128

Snipers make rough allowances for the rise anddrop of a

bullet*s trajectory when shooting at extended ranges. But

two hundred and fifty hurriedly trained men, frightened in the

heat of battle, cannot hold their rifles steadily enough to

play the machine gun*s game. Using direct grazing fire, the

maximum effective range at which a rifleman can engage an

enemy with firm hope of hitting him is six hundred yards. When

riflemen, whatever their formation, began to advance on the

Germans during World War One, they came under sudden machine

gun fire from the flank. Shooting at the side of an advancing

line of skirmishers at sufficient range for plunging fire, a

veteran machine gunner could place a long net of fire over the

helpless infantry. The attackers, when armed only with rifles,

could not retaliate as machine guns were beyond effective

range. It was impossible to maneuver 250 men under fire to

face an entirely different direction, as the punishing fire

came not from the main enemy position in front but from a

hidden source off to a flank. Unable to risk moving, subjected

to constant loss while trapped in the machine gunner*s zone

of fire, Americans found that attacking was not a matter of

invinceable onslaught, but of impotent misery until night

and the enemy's fatigue or mercy allowed stealthy, painful

progress back to friendly lines.

American experience against machine guns was not new.

Throughout the futile offensives of 1915 and 1916, the French

129

and British had endured similar ordeal and greater loss. The

instinct for survival eventually wore down the hidebound tradition

and pedanticism of even the British army. As the crux of

restoring mobility to the battlefield was elimination of

machine guns, some means of increasing the range and firepower

of an infantry team had to be devised. By the end of 1917, the

British and French had perfected a simple, reliable and powerful

series of weapons light enough to be carried in an assault.

The Lewis, a light automatic rifle, could spit 47 bullets toward

an enemy machine gun or trench in seconds. Easily changed

magazines were carried by the gunner’s assistant. A French

invention, the 37-mm cannon, was a miniature artillery piece

capable of smashing a one-pound shell into a pillbox. Rifle

grenades acted as miniature mortars, dropping explosives on a

tormenting machine gunner's head. In the ooze and gore of the

Ypres salient, young officers and grizzled NCOs perfected means

of using the new weapons in concert to immobilize, dominate

and defeat the enemy.®

In 1916 British manuals were little different from the

American drill regulations.^ A year later, a revolutionary new

system of assaulting pill boxes and entrenchments without undue

casualties had developed from the roots of the BEF. Platoons

were no longer mere rosters of riflemen trained only to shoot

and move on command. Each platoon now comprised four teams of

about eight men: a Lewis gun section, a section of bombers, a

130

squad of riflemen, and a group of rifle grenadiers. These four

elements of the platoon combat team practiced assaulting pill

boxes and trenches until action was taken without hesitation

to dominate and close with the enemy. On coming under fire,

Lewis gunners and grenadiers pinned down the enemy marksmen.

Meanwhile, riflemen and bombers worked their way forward by

clever use of covered approaches. Once the mobile half of the

platoon reached their objectives, Lewis gunners and grenadiers

shifted their fire to cut off any enemy retreat. Germans

cowering to evade bullets and shrapnel were stabbed with the

bayonet, shot, or blown to bits by grenades.^

Division of the platoon into four teams, each with its

own weapons and mission, transferred tactical decision from

company commander to lieutenant. Captains decided only whether

to reinforce hard-pressed platoons, or by-pass time consuming

opposition in an effort to drive as far as possible into the

enemy1s rear. Soldiers could no longer passively obey fire

orders. Lewis gunners had to switch their fire late enough

to prevent the enemy from manning his weapons, yet not so late

that friendly riflemen and bombers were endangered as they

approached the objective. Rifle grenadiers had to develop

unerring aim with an awkward weapon. Close cooperation between

riflemen and bombers was necessary to ensure mutual protection

and expedite destroying the enemy before he recovered from the

shock of sudden assault.

131

American observers charged the British instructors with

12 attaching excess importance to each particular weapon. Such

criticism reveals more than a natural desire to find fault

with those on whom one is unwillingly dependont. British

training was generally acceptable to American authorities,

largely because much stress was still laid on rifle and bayonet

as the climax of assault. But neither Pershing nor his colleagues

understood the nature of trench assault, or the technicalities

of the duel between machine gun and rifle. General Alexander

asserted after the war that the rifle was the prime weapon

13 of infantry. Pershing supported him in that conceit. The

AEF's leadership had not learned new tactics before the war

ended. It was probably a mercy that British and French instruction

was prevalent in the AEF. When hardened troops in the final

battles turned to new weapons when the rifle failed, some knew

how to operate the life saving tools.

Pershing underestimated the prowess of his Allies as much

as of his enemy. In his memoirs he wrote that

It was logical to expect that the French should take //the view that trench warfare training held first priority^ ... as they had been on the defensive, at least in thought, during the previous half century.^

It is difficult to believe that Pershing knew nothing of the French

theorists of the du Picq and Grandmaison schools, who blithely

despatched entire armies, clad in horse plumes, red trousers

and white gloves, to their death. The French developed a

132

swollen reliance on massive artillery preparation after the

slaughter of 1915, as the only available means by which to save

precious lives. French artillery training, reflected in the

performance of the AEF, was excellent. French infantry had

been developing a system of attack much like that of the British

since 1916. But Gallic troops made a poor impression on

Pershing. The Americans had not been in the war long enough to

appreciate the desperation with which exhausted armies grope

for cheap means of survival, if not final victory. Pershing

never empathized with the French dislike for casualties, and

supplemented the training of American troops with the same

infantry drill regulations that had served him so well from the

plains of Kansas to the howling wilderness of Mindanao. Whether

open warfare training would have made the battered French soldier

of 1918 more aggressive is doubtful. The poilu did not seek

more laurels. That he had survived was glory enough. The break¬

through Pershing trained for never occurred; the grandiose

expectations of open warfare tactics were never tested. But the

Germans in the Meuse Argonne proved that machine guns were as

mobile as an attacking force tangled up in supply problems

growing more severe with every yard of newly won ground. There is

no reason to expect that the unequal contest between machine gun

and rifle would have been any different in open ground than it

was between the trenches.

Pershing had an acute awareness of the vital role of morale

in successful combat. Ilis belief that open warfare training

133

developed initiative, aggressiveness and resourcefulness held

much truth, at least for fresh troops.^ Were morale not high

in the AEF, it is unlikely that as much would have been

accomplished by improperly trained troops as was apparent by

the end of the war. How much Pershing would have condoned the

sort of grass-roots resourcefulness that gave birth to the

British team tactics must remain one of the most intriguing

speculative questions of the war. By November 1918, officers

returning to training camps from combat units were injecting new

tactical concepts into the American army. Men were no longer

to be encouraged to deploy in skirmish lines at half-pace

intervals. Spacing expanded to fifteen feet at least between

men in extended order. Platoons were divided into two groups,

each one covering the advance of the other with the assistance

16 of a Lewis gun. A vital step had been taken in the evolution

of the tactics that were to prove successful in America's next

world war.

Throughout almost the entirety of its existence, the AEF

was confronted with a very unusual problem in American history.

Neither before nor after World War One has America been a junior

partner, forced to scrap for every shred of sovereignty. It

would be facile to criticize Pershing for failing to acquiesce

to Allied training and command. Reliance on another's ideas

was especially repugnant to the American of 1917. The only

coherent body of American tactical doctrine had been written

by the same group of men who dominated wartime training. It could

134

not be expected of them to foresake their own concepts of warfare

for the diffuse stream of tattered after-action reports and

training directives that set Allied instruction after the lessons

of three years.

War expresses more eloquently and profoundly the character

of a people than literature, music, dress or diversions. America

was an optimistic country. Her troops, despite tedium and

frequent poor leadership, displayed no serious lapse of enthusiasm

until well into the final battle. Civilians exerted themselves

to the utmost to master the skills of military life, and rapidly

began evolving new ideas to replace those that proved inapprop¬

riate in action. Great organizational talent manifest itself

in the development over one year of an intricate, dynamic and

efficient training system. And perhaps most important, the

ability of talented men to rise to positions of great responsibility

with relatively minor interference from privileged classes resulted

in a concentration of very able leaders at the head of the

training establishment in a very short period of time.

Troops returned home to prohibition, xenophobia, crazed

greed, cloying self-righteousness. America turned her back

on the world, partly out of moral outrage at Allied cynicism,

partly out of a disconcerting, although unspoken, realization

that her own people bore the same evils of mass paranoia and

militarism as the enemy. But frustration is not the most important

legacy of America's first crusade. The nation's record was

successful and gave her no cause to doubt her ability to make

135

decisive intervention in the affairs of the world. Americans

were also once again wakened to the cataclysmic proportions of

total war. Although not herself exhausted by 1918, it was

noticeable to America that modern war had no victors. In 1941,

there was no outburst of religious zeal such as that which

sent a million boys to camp in September 1917. Pearl Harbor

Day struck as much tragedy as enthusiasm into the hearts of a

new generation of citizen soldiers. Yet these youth could

return home four years later chastened but not embittered

largely because of very practical, mundane lessons learned by

America's military leaders in World War One. For a system

of fitting training and tactics to the changing realities of

modern weaponry and strategy had been evolved by 1918, and was

copied closely in a successful effort to save lives twenty years

later. Training in the world's most futile war presents the

paradox of mankind learning from history, and the promise of

past suffering attaining a small pittance of redemption in the

cultivation of human wisdom.

NOTES

1 Pitt, 1918, 64, 152-159, 192; Stallings, The Doughboys, 91-109; The Plattsburger, 1917, 14; Coffman, The War, 215-320; Johnston, First Reflections, 6.

2 Ibid..

3 See Captain J.JC Christian, What Every Soldier Ought to Know (Kansas City, 1917), 38.

4 Kilbourne, National Service Library, I, chap. IX, 114; OB, 108: 7.

5 Fiske, Notes on Infantry (Fort Leavenworth, 1917), 3.

6 Ibid., 17-21.

7 Ibid., 28. On reorganization of the American army see Coffman, The War, 47-48.

8 OB, 94: 7; Infantry Drill Regulations, para. 542, 545-546; Field Service Regulations, art. IX, 157-176.

9 On weapons see Dooly, Great Weapons of World War I (New York, 1969); on German tactics and machine gun siting see Longstaff, "The Tactics of the Machine Gun5*,11 Journal of the United States Cavalry Association, vol. XXVIII, no. 117 (January 1918), 117, 326ff.

10 See !,Infantry Tactics, 1914-1918," Journal of the Royal United Services Institution, vol. LXIV, no. 455 (August 1919), 455-460. See Anderson, The War Manual (2 vols: London, 1916), vol. 2 for British tactics in 1916. Applin, "Tactics of the Machine Gun," Infantry Journal, vol. XIV, no. 10 (April 1918), 755-763; Haking, Company Training (London 1913); Wakefield, The Platoon Commander's Vade Mecum (London, 1916); Stewart, Thirty-Minute Talks (Washington, 1920), 229.

11 On British tactics, see Major Donald McRae, Offensive Fighting (Philadelphia, 1918), recommended by Secretary of War; McKellar, Machine Gun Practice and Tactics (New York, 1917); Gillman, The New Platoon Commander: Complete in Tactics andDrill as Required in France (Cleveland, 1918); Dion, Tanks, Gas, Bombing and Liquid Fire (New York, 1917); Dyson, Grenade Fighting: The Training and Tactics of Grenadiers (New York, 1917).

12 Robert Alexander, Memories, 17.

Ibid.. 45. 13

14 Ibid.. Vandiver, Pershing. 76, 180, 187-188; Pershing, My Experiences, I, 153 on primacy of rifle.

15 Ibid., II, 152. On French tactics see Rouvier, Present- Day Warfare (New York, 1918); Chapuis, Infanterie: Instruction Theorique et Generale (Paris, 1917); Leroux, L'El^ve Soldat (Paris, 1918); Bertrand, Tactics and Duties of Trench Fighting (New York, 1918),

16 Dienst, History of the 353rd Infantry, 36.

APPENDIX A:

Composition of United States Army, 1916 & 1918.

Sources of Commissioned Personnel, 1917-1918.

Location of National Army Cantonments and National Guard Special Camps in

continental United States, 1917.

NATIONAL GUARD SPECIAL CAMPS

Division Camp Location

26 Green Charlotte, N.C,

27 Wadsworth Spartansburg, S. C. 28 Hancock Augusta, Ga. 29 McClellan Anniston, Ala. 30 Sevier Greenville, S.C.

31 Wheeler Macon, Ga. 32 McArthur Waco, Tex. 33 Logan Houston, Tex.

34 Cody Deming, N. Mex. 35 Doniphan Fort Sill, Okla. 36 Bowie Fort Worth, Tex.

37 Sheridan Montgomery, Ala. 38 Shelby Hattiesburg, Miss. 39 Beauregard Alexandria, La. 40 Kearney Linda Vista, Calif.

41 Fremont Palo Alto, Calif.

NATIONAL ARMY CANTONMENTS

Division Camp Location

76 Devens Ayer, Mass. 77 Upton Yaphank, L.I. 78 Dix Wrightstown, N.J. 79 Meade Annapolis Junction, Md 80 Lee Petersburg, Va. 81 Jackson Columbia, S.C. 82 Gordon Atlanta, Ga. 83 Sherman Chillicothe, Ohio 84 Taylor Louisville, Ky. 85 Custer Battle Creek, Mich. 86 Grant Rockford, 111.

87 Pike Little Rock, Ark. 88 Dodge Des Moines, Iowa. 89 Funston Fort Riley, Kansas 90 Travis ‘ Fort Sam Houston-, Tex. 91 Lewis American Lake, Wash.

OFFICERS' TRAINING CAMPS.

First Series, 15 May to 11 August, 1917

16 camps at 13 posts

Plattsburg Barracks, N.Y. Fort Sheridan, 111. / Madison Barracks, N.Y. Fort Logan H. Roots, Ark. Fort Niagara, N.Y. Fort Snelling, Minn. Fort Myer, Va. Fort Riley, Kansas Fort Oglethorpe, Ga. Leon Springs, Texas Fort McPherson, Ga. Presidio, San Francisco Fort Benjamin Harrison, Ind.

Second Series, 27 August to 27 November, 1917 16 camps at 9 posts

Plattsburg Barracks, N.Y. Fort Myer, Va. Fort Niagara, N.Y. Fort Benjamin Harrison, Ind Fort Oglethorpe, Ga. Presidio, San Francisco

Fort Sheridan, 111. Fort Snelling, Minn. Leon Springs, Tex.

Third Series, 5 January to 19 April, 1918

27 camps located under divisional control in the National Guard Special Camps and National Army Cantonments.

APPENDIX B: British Training Areas Used by the AEF, April-July 1918

Beljiurrf

p8>ii !wja$

Arrtts

Atotens

°3d

/^0t,//c(0u.d‘

O Dou /!et\S

O /4/n/e/jj

APPENDIX B: Billeting and Training Areas, AEF, 1917-1918

DIVISIONAL AREAS:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 50 51 52 53 54

General Headquarters, AEF

Services of Supply (SOS)

Gondrecourt Neufchateau Bourmont Rimaucourt Vaucouleurs Colombey-les-Belles Rolampont Nogent-en-Bassigny Chateauvillain Prauthoy Bourbonne-les-Bains Mussy-sur-Seine Bar-sur-Aube Aignay-le-Duc Angy-le-Franc Tonnerre Fays-Billot Donjeux Seinelay CHAUMONT Semur Norcy-le-Bourg (not used) Tronville-en-Barrois Wassy Le Valdahon Joinville Chalindrey Langres Vitrey

CHAUMONT

TOURS

(Map based on Statistics Branch, General Staff, Headquarters, Services of Supply, American Expeditionary Forces)

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Personal notes in the possession of Dr. Frank E. Vandiver, Rice University, compiled by Linda. J. Lasswell from original sources. All translations are hers.

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