1918 Read online

  The action of 137th Brigade on 29 September, according to one postwar assessment, offered ‘not much to be learned tactically … but it is a good example of what can be done by good organization, fine leadership and fighting spirit’.27 Luck, good intelligence, and the outstanding quantity and quality of artillery support also helped. The 46th Division operation also demonstrated some of the problems their opponents were struggling with by this stage, however. The German 2nd Infantry Division, responsible for the defence of Riqueval and Bellenglise, concentrated 30 of its 36 rifle companies in or near the forward positions, leaving almost no reserve.28 This was partly because its companies were so worn down that it was necessary to maintain the integrity of the front line. Additionally, however, this was because the Germans exaggerated, and became fixated on, the strength of the defensive position offered by the canal, while underestimating the tactical ability of the BEF. An important lesson of 29 September is that, by this stage, it was not just elite formations which the Germans had to fear tactically.

  Conclusion

  We have seen that a range of factors underpinned British success. Much of it was the result of mistakes and institutional weaknesses by and within the German Army. Historians, often because they were seeking answers to the urgent questions of their day, have tended to downplay those. This has led in turn to an overestimation of the British Army’s capabilities by this stage of the war. This chapter has demonstrated that the British Army of 1918 was far from a new model army of uniform excellence. The British troops of 1918, like those of 46th Division, were a mixture of the green and the hard-bitten. Mainly citizen soldiers serving only for the duration, many had become skilled warriors, as or more adept at the highly technological new ways of fighting than their enemies. Others, inevitably, lacked the experience or training to reach the same level. The peaks of performance were high, the troughs depressingly familiar. By the end of the year, however, the profit and loss ledger contained more pluses than minuses, and that was all that mattered. They only had to be good enough. Success was built on a mix of new sciences and old arts. Modern machines and techniques, married to old-fashioned virtues such as leadership and courage, delivered a year of the largest victories British land forces have ever won. About one in three of the Allied troops in France at war’s end were British, and they captured nearly half of all the Germans taken prisoner between the middle of July and November.29 Their efforts on the Western Front for the first time made the British Army as valuable to its allies as Britain’s sea power and financial resources had been for centuries.30 The fact that Great Britain was able to fight and win in France, while simultaneously conducting active campaigns in East Africa, central Asia, the Middle East, Russia, the Balkans, and Italy, and also maintaining garrisons worldwide, vividly demonstrates the superpower it remained even after the most terrible war to date. Ultimately, that superpower was built on the backs of men like Charlton, Openshaw, and, appropriately, Smith.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE US ARMY IN 1918

  Professor Mitch Yockelson

  Introduction

  When the United States joined its British and French comrades in their fight against Germany by entering the Great War on 6 April 1917, tremendous optimism erupted among the Allied commanders who assumed that the raw, inexperienced doughboys soon to be mustered for service in the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) would amalgamate into their armies for training and combat. They were sorely mistaken. America would essentially fight under its own terms. President Woodrow Wilson considered the United States an ‘Associated’ partner and not an ‘Ally’, so that America was not bound by pre-existing agreements among the Allies. One month after declaring war Wilson and his Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker, drove home this point when they selected General John J. Pershing to lead the AEF. Wilson and Baker gave Pershing much latitude in his role as Commander-in-Chief, and one simple order: that he cooperate with the Allies in conducting military operations, but that his soldiers must fight as an independent, American command.

  Pershing and his small staff headed to Europe in June 1917 on board the Baltic to meet with the Allied commanders and organize the AEF. The American commander was hindered by the fact that he had inherited a force that would literally have to be built from ground up and would not be ready for combat until the next year. Miraculously, Pershing did build the AEF in relatively short order, but to the dismay of Allied leaders such as Ferdinand Foch and Sir Douglas Haig, the doughboys would not make their presence known on the battlefields until spring 1918. To better understand Pershing’s army, it is helpful to glance back to the beginning.

  No officer in the US Army was more qualified to lead a fighting force in Europe than Pershing. Much of his military career had been spent abroad, where he represented his country as a soldier and a politician. A West Point class of 1886 graduate, Pershing served with a cavalry regiment on the frontier in New Mexico, taught military science at the University of Nebraska, and was cited for bravery during the Spanish–American War, and in the Philippines; his impressive work as both a department commander and a military governor helped him catapult over a long list of other junior officers for promotion to brigadier general. Pershing’s stellar military career was marked by tragedy when a fire at the Presidio in San Francisco on 27 August 1915 took the life of his wife and three out of four of his young children. Now more than ever he was dedicated to army service and in March 1916 was tapped to lead the Punitive Expedition in pursuit of the Mexican bandit Pancho Villa. Secretary of War Baker also recognized Pershing’s leadership ability and never expressed any regrets in selecting him to lead the AEF. After the war Baker revealed the ideal partnership between a war secretary and his commanding general: ‘Select a commander in whom you have confidence; give him power and responsibility, and then … work your own head off to get him everything he needs and support him in every decision he makes.’1 Baker and Pershing maintained a solid, respectful relationship throughout the war.

  On the afternoon of 16 June 1917, Pershing met with Général de Division Henri Philippe Pétain, the hero of Verdun and now commandant en chef des armées françaises, to discuss how US soldiers would support the Allies in their struggle against the German forces on the Western Front. Pershing made it known his troops would fight as an independent army with their own sector and chose Lorraine, a region stretching between the Argonne Forest and the Vosges Mountains. To supply the AEF, the Americans were provided access to the ports of St Nazaire, La Pallice, and Bassens on the western coast, as well as French railways that converged in the Lorraine region.

  Organization of the AEF in 1917

  Over the summer and early autumn of 1917, Pershing and his staff laid the foundation for the AEF and how it would be deployed for combat on the Western Front. Every aspect of the AEF’s operation and organization – from training and tactics to troop strength and shipping – had to be deliberated. Pershing initially had few troops to draw from. The regular US Army had an aggregate strength of 127,588 officers and men; the National Guard could count another 80,446. Together they totalled just over 208,000 men; a paltry sum when compared to the Allied and German forces. Just as problematic the US arsenals were mostly bare of artillery and machine guns, now the primary tools of modern warfare.

  To grow the AEF with new recruits, US Congress passed the Selective Service Act. Conscription was used for the first time since the Civil War and it proved highly successful, providing the army with about two-thirds of the soldiers who served in 1917–18. All males between the ages of 21 and 30 (later extended to include ages 18 to 45) were required to register. Ten million men complied, and the army eventually drafted 2.7 million.2

  The War Department General Staff organized the soldiers into divisions, which consisted of just under 28,000 officers and men; twice the size of an Allied or German division. Regular Army divisions (professional soldiers) were numbered from 1 to 25. Numbers 26 to 75 were reserved for the National Guard (state units federalized by President Wilson)
and higher numbers for divisions of the National Army (drafted and volunteer troops).

  Exactly how large an army the United States needed depended primarily on General Pershing’s plans and recommendations to meet the operational situation on the Western Front. In July 1917, Pershing and his staff called for a field army of about one million men to be sent to France before the end of 1918. By the end of the war the US Army had actually formed 62 divisions, all but 19 were sent overseas.

  Amalgamation issue

  Toward the end of 1917, an urgent Christmas Eve cable from Secretary of War Baker arrived at Pershing’s Chaumont headquarters.3 It informed Pershing that ‘both the English and French are pressing upon the President their desires to have your forces amalgamated with theirs by regiments and companies’. Baker also indicated that ‘we do not desire loss of identity of our forces, but regard that as secondary to the meeting of any critical situation by the most helpful use possible of the troops at your command’. He added that ‘the President desires you to have full authority to use the forces at your command as you deem wise in consultation with French and British commanders-in-chief’.4 Pershing was in no hurry to respond and waited almost a week to do so.

  On 1 January 1918, Pershing finally replied to the Christmas Day cable by writing to the American Supreme War Council representative, Major General Tasker Bliss, not Secretary of War Baker. His long message assured Bliss: ‘I do not think an emergency now exists that would warrant our putting companies or battalions into British or French divisions’.5 Pershing echoed his long-held conviction that if American troops were amalgamated, they would lose their national identity, and that the methods of instruction in the Allied armies might interfere with AEF training doctrine. ‘Attention should be called to prejudices existing between French and British Governments and Armies,’ he wrote, ‘and the desire of each to have American units assigned to them, and the exclusion of similar assignment to the other.’6 A cable to Bliss three days later showed he was beginning to soften his views, albeit slightly. He now entertained the idea of the British transporting and assisting in the training of American troops, as long it was ‘strictly supplementary to our own regular program’ of fielding an American army.

  Pershing recognized that British help was needed to transport troops to France, and he had to make a concession.7 To discuss this matter, General Sir William Robertson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, met with Pershing on 9–10 January 1918. The two men had last conferred in November 1917, but that discussion had accomplished little. Now it was a new year and a fresh start for both. Robertson brought a proposal that offered to transport 150,000 troops (150 battalions) from divisions still in the United States that were not already scheduled for overseas duty. He also suggested breaking them up as the British had done with some Territorial Force and New Army divisions in 1915 to supply reinforcements and lines of communication troops. The proposal, he reiterated to Pershing, related only to infantrymen and machine gunners needed by the British to reinforce understrength units. Robertson also sought to reassure Pershing by reminding him that he in no way wished to interfere with the build-up of an independent American army.

  Accordingly, Pershing and Bliss met with Lloyd George, Lord Milner, Robertson, and Haig on 29–30 January 1918, and after two days of tense discussion, both sides accepted an ‘agreement between the commanders-in-chief of the American and British forces in France regarding the training of the American troops with British troops’.8 They settled on the American plan for the British to transport six complete divisions, less artillery, to France for a ten-week training programme. The artillery units would be trained in American camps located in the French sector, while the British took responsibility for feeding and supplying the Americans. Pershing emphasized that the American divisions were on loan to the British Army and could be recalled at his discretion.9 Soon after the agreement was sealed the number of divisions sent to the British sector was increased to ten and they would be organized as American II Corps under the eventual command of Major General George W. Read.

  Pershing made sure the agreement clearly outlined how training would proceed. Perhaps the most important proviso of the agreement stated that once platoons, companies, battalions, and regiments of each division completed training, they would be designated ready ‘to take the field … and would then be handed over to the American commander-in-chief, under arrangements to be made between the various commanders-in-chief.’10 This gave Pershing the assurance he insisted upon – that American divisions were only temporarily assigned to the British. The British also enhanced the agreement by proposing that American commanders and staff officers be attached to corresponding British headquarters for additional instruction. Also, this clause benefited Pershing since it gave his inexperienced officers the training they never would have received in the US.

  Mostly forgotten during the negotiations were the French, and their reaction to the British proposal was one of disappointment. Since December 1917, Pétain had requested transfer of AEF divisions in France to his army for amalgamation. He was anxious to strengthen his divisions before the impending German attack. Pershing, of course, rejected this request. Nevertheless, he had great fondness for Pétain and wanted to ensure that good American–French relations continued. As a matter of courtesy, Pershing met with Pétain on 21 January to inform him of the British proposal. He refused to say why his troops were headed to the British, but he did indicate that he hoped this decision did not hurt their friendship, or show any lack of respect toward the French Army. It was a necessity to accept the British offer to transport troops since the Americans lacked shipping, he explained.

  Once they began arriving in Europe Pershing promised his troops would then go to the French Army for advanced training. He also immediately offered them four black infantry regiments that were formed into the 93rd Division. This included the 369th Infantry, which had trained briefly at Wadsworth until racial tension with the citizens of Spartanburg forced the unit from the Jim Crow south. In France, the ‘Harlem Hell Fighters’, as they were called by the French, would distinguish themselves in combat during the spring and summer of 1918.11

  Training at home

  To train American divisions before they deployed overseas the US Army established 32 camps or cantonments throughout the United States. US soldiers would spend six months learning the rudiments of war from officers, who in many cases knew only slightly more than they did. Both the British and French helped out by sending officers across the Atlantic to assist with the instruction. It was an eye-opening experience for the foreigners, some of them veterans of Verdun and the Somme. They travelled from one training camp to another, preaching trench warfare to young recruits who carried wooden guns and were without proper uniforms and equipment. It was hard to point out the benefits of grenades, flamethrowers, and artillery when it would be months before many American troops would actually see combat.

  Training was hampered by the fact that many of the new recruits had not yet received a full complement of equipment. For instance, the commanding general of the 30th Division complained to the War Department that it was two months before all units had been issued with rifles for the infantry. The infantry rifle was the heart of what Pershing preached in his open warfare doctrine. He criticized both the British and French armies because they had ‘become mired in trench warfare’, and, as a result, their offensive capabilities were diminished to a defensive posture on the Western Front.12 Pershing was fearful that if his own army adopted trench warfare, it would also lose the offensive spirit. He envisioned aggressive movement and pursuit to force the enemy into the open. His thinking drew from experiences of the old frontier army during the Indian wars, when part of the infantry consisted of expert marksmen and scouts. Much to his dismay Pershing heard that training in the US at camps focused on trench warfare with little emphasis on open warfare tactics. He found the news distressing and repeatedly cabled the War Department to complain that training with the rifle was not bei
ng sufficiently stressed at home and when the divisions arrived in France, they would be re-trained to his liking.

  First combat

  Two weeks after the United States passed the one-year mark of entering the war, an AEF division saw combat for the first time. On 20 April 1918, a German bombardment, then infantry assault, surprised the 26th Division in a so-called quiet sector near the village of Seicheprey. That morning veteran German stormtroopers quickly captured the village. But by afternoon the American doughboys counter-attacked, re-occupied the village, and drove German forces into the surrounding woods. Fighting continued the next day when the 26th Division massed rifle power and forced the enemy to scatter. Although the Germans intended the attack as a limited operation to test American fighting capability, it was a costly affair for both sides. Around 160 German troops were killed, while the Americans suffered 634 casualties and the loss of 136 men as prisoners.13 In the months ahead more American units became engaged in combat, albeit in minor operations. Two regiments of the 1st Division had attacked the village of Cantigny on 28 May. And on 4 July, elements of 33rd Division, attached to the Australians, fought at Hamel.14