WWI and the AEF

[USMC-03]

Fantastic subject gentlemen; I'm reading all posts with enthousiasm!

Seabee, please expand on your objections to the "Pershing way" and advocacy of the "enlightened way." What are the elements of each? I have read the article you linked to and would be very interested in learning more about what your outlook is and how you formed your position.

And just in the intrest of accuracy, as I recall the 2nd ID was commanded by Army MG Harbord at the time of Belleau Wood; USMC MG Lejune assumed command later when Harbord was transfered to an AEF staff billet.

[Pete]

Generally the Pershing way was a suicidal frontal assault without much artillery and the so-called enlightened way was to use terrain, fire and maneuver to pry the enemy from his positions. The celebrated marksmanship skills of Marines and Army guys at the time were probably exaggerations that gratified the gun nuts back in the States, but even if only 10 or 15 percent of riflemen put their long-range marksmanship training into practice the results would have been deadly.

[Pete]

It might be unfair to Pershing to say he wanted suicidal frontal assaults; he did however want objectives to be secured and was impatient when they were not. I've read of battalions that were pinned down and had lost cohesion being told by higher headquarters to keep pounding away anyway. That's when good leaders come up with other ways to accomplish the mission, whether they are part of doctrine or not.

[Bob's World]

It might be unfair to Pershing to say he wanted suicidal frontal assaults; he did however want objectives to be secured and was impatient when they were not. I've read of battalions that were pinned down and had lost cohesion being told by higher headquarters to keep pounding away anyway. That's when good leaders come up with other ways to accomplish the mission, whether they are part of doctrine or not.

You could replace Pershing with Bradley and not be far off. We did not evolve much at the opertional level between the wars.

[Ken White]

You could replace Pershing with Bradley and not be far off. We did not evolve much at the opertional level between the wars.

Or Bradley with Westmoreland or Westmoreland with Sanchez...

[USMC-03]

Please forgive my piecemeal response, but here it is...

RJ, you might enjoy this forum. During WW I many British had the opinion that we threw away the lives of our own men needlessly--we lost about the same number of men during our six months of fighting in that war as during the entire time of our involvement in Vietnam.

One word to our British cousins who are of that opinion; July 1, 1916. They have my highest respect but have no room to criticize anyone about wasting lives in the Great War...

The US came to the war late, but I do believe we helped end it quickly. My father fought in the AEF and was wounded at Chateau Thierry.

RJ, I'd be very interested in learning more about your father; if you wouldn't mind please write about what you know of his experiences and post for the benefit of all.

The first senior British officer to visit the U.S. after we declared war, Maj. Gen. Tim Bridges, a cavalrymen who had distinguished himself in 1914 at the battle of Mons, at first proposed that Americans enlisting or being conscripted for war service should perform their service in the British Army, thereby avoiding the need for American officers. Secretary of War Newton Baker refused to go along with it, and he told Pershing he shouldn't either.

Pershing…believed that the American male was superior to his European counterpart because a sense of adventure running strong in their families genes had drawn them to the North American frontiers !

He believed that inborn marksmanship and fieldcraft combined with an American knowledge of open warfare is what would split the German front wide open.

He, and his higher command poo-pooed effiminate European things like artillery and machine guns...

It seems to me that neither General Pershing nor his allied counterparts had a high opinion of each other, at least at the infancy of the AEF. The untested Yanks, snobbish Brits and feeble French… Some of it deserved, much was not.

In 1934, the Infantry School (via one COL George C. Marshall) published what amounted to an anthology of small unit tactics from WWI - (some US, some allied, some enemy). The work was updated in 1938 by two of the editors (Harding and Lanham) who worked closely with Marshall on the first edition.

I've downloaded it and begun perusing; thanks for the link…

The 2nd Divisions actions at Belleau Wood, then a few weeks later at the village of Vaux showed how succesful a division could be when they shook of Pershings arrogance and incorporated tactics used by their allies....

http://www.kaiserscross.com/257543/284222.html

Read the article on Vaux; interesting information, thanks.

I highly recommend a CRITICAL reading of Pershing's memoirs from "The Great War".

I have a set of Pershing's memoirs and read them with a great deal of interest. And while as Old Eagle note they should be read critically, I do highly recommend them for anyone interested in the AEF.

Generally the Pershing way was a suicidal frontal assault without much artillery and the so-called enlightened way was to use terrain, fire and maneuver to pry the enemy from his positions. The celebrated marksmanship skills of Marines and Army guys at the time were probably exaggerations that gratified the gun nuts back in the States, but even if only 10 or 15 percent of riflemen put their long-range marksmanship training into practice the results would have been deadly.

It might be unfair to Pershing to say he wanted suicidal frontal assaults; he did however want objectives to be secured and was impatient when they were not. I've read of battalions that were pinned down and had lost cohesion being told by higher headquarters to keep pounding away anyway. That's when good leaders come up with other ways to accomplish the mission, whether they are part of doctrine or not.

I believe General Pershing was short sighted with an emphasis on the infantry charge during the attack (it worked at San Juan Heights didn't it?), but I'm not going to be overcritical. Pershing also championed maneuver warfare instead of attrition in the trenches and maintaining the AEF as an army separate from either the French or British; both correct in my view. It also seems that the actual ability of artillery to keep up with the infantry and provide effective support, once the stalemate in the trenches had been broken, was something of an unknown, especially when viewed through the prism of trench warfare and considering communications of the day.

When the 2nd ID, commanded at the time by Army Major General Harbord, was ordered up to the line by the French corps commander in June of 1918 it was little more than the little boy plugging a hole in the dyke. The German offensive had smashed the French lines and the only cohesive units of any size between them and Paris were the largely untested American 3rd and 4th Brigades. They had poorly coordinated artillery support and little to no time for detailed planning; by default they were forced into an infantry centered attack with inferior tactics and formations taught by the French. Casualties were certainly high but the last German offensive of the war was stopped cold and the allies got the respite they sorely needed and were able to take up their own.

It is very true that the role played by the 3rd Brigade (made up of troops from the pre-war regular army organized into the 9th and 23rd Infantry Regiments and 5th Machinegun Battalion) in halting the Germans has been largely overshadowed by the combat encountered in Belleau Wood 4th Brigade (make up of troops from the pre-war regular Marine Corps and organized into the 5th and 6th Marine Regiments and 6th Machinegun Battalion). The role of the 3rd Engineers in direct support of the marines in Belleau Wood is nearly ignored. A large part of this disparity goes back to the army news censors at the time; while specific unit designations were expressly forbidden to be reported, by no less than General Pershing himself, the used of the word "marine" was allowed to slip and so many correspondents, hungry for details to report, made extensive use, sometimes incorrectly, of the label when sending dispatches to their papers back home.

[Pete]

Stormtroop Tactics: Innovation in the German Army, 1914-1918
by Bruce I. Gudmundsson

People reading the current thread on infantry squad tactics might consider reading this book by one of Small Wars Council's own members, Bruce Gudmundsson. It also gives the lie to the idea that tactical thinking was morimund between the years of 1914 to 1939.

[carl]

One word to our British cousins who are of that opinion; July 1, 1916. They have my highest respect but have no room to criticize anyone about wasting lives in the Great War...

This is rather unfair to the British. The British Army of 1918 was not the British Army of 1916. They learned.

The British and the French both advised that the AEF do what they did, lots and lots of artillery and machine gun support, very detailed planning and limited objectives. The AEF eventually ended up fighting about like the British and French did because that is what worked.

I know I am a broken record but please refer to "The AEF Way of War." It covers exactly what this thread is about in detail.