THE U.S. ARMY

IN THE

WORLD WAR I ERA

THE U.S. ARMY 

CAMPAIGNS OF WORLD WAR I

•••

•••
THE U.S. ARMY CAMPAIGNS OF WORLD WAR I 

COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

Series Editor: Brian F. Neumann

The U.S. Army in the World War I Era

The Mexican Expedition, 1916–1917

Joining the Great War, April 1917–April 1918

From Defense to Offense, April–June 1918

The Marne, July–August 1918

Supporting Allied Offensives, August–November 1918

St. Mihiel, 12–15 September 1918

Meuse-Argonne, 26 September–11 November 1918

Occupation and Demobilization

The Russian Expeditions, 1918–1920

Cover: Soldiers in Bombed-Out Town, by Samuel Johnson Woolf, 

circa 1918. (Army Art Collection) •••••••••••••••

CMH Pub 77–2
•••

THE U.S. ARMY

IN THE WORLD WAR I ERA

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Center of Military History

United States Army

Washington, D.C., 2017
••• 

EDITOR’S NOTE

The following pamphlet is drawn largely from American 

Military History, which the Center of Military History (CMH) 

first published in 1956 as a textbook for senior Reserve Officers’ 

Training Corps courses. The historians at CMH have continually 

revised and updated the books over the years, but the primary 

intent has remained the same. This is equally true of this latest 

revision: namely to support military history education and to 

provide Army personnel with a concise, authoritative, yet also 

readable history of the institution in which they serve. As such, 

this volume is included as a part of the CMH Commemorative 

Pamphlet Series “The U.S. Army Campaigns of World War I” as a 

brief overview of U.S. Army in the years leading up to and including 

the First World War.
•••• 5 ••••

•••

INTRODUCTION

A century ago, the great powers of Europe became engulfed 

in what was then called the Great War. It signaled a new age in 

armed conflict in which mass armies supported by industrial mass 

production brought an unprecedented level of killing power to the 

battlefield. By the time the United States entered the war in 1917, 

the combatants were waging war on a scale never before seen 

in history. The experience defined a generation and cast a long 

shadow across the twentieth century. In addition to a tremendous 

loss of life, the war shattered Europe, bringing revolution, the 

collapse of long-standing empires, and economic turmoil, as 

well as the birth of new nation-states and the rise of totalitarian 

movements.

The modern U.S. Army, capable of conducting industrialized 

warfare on a global scale, can trace its roots to the World War. 

Although the war’s outbreak in August 1914 shocked most 

Americans, they preferred to keep the conflict at arm’s length. 

The United States declared its neutrality and invested in coastal 

defenses and the Navy to guard its shores. The U.S. Army, 

meanwhile, remained small, with a regiment as its largest standing 

formation. Primarily a constabulary force, it focused on policing 

America’s new territorial possessions in the Caribbean and Pacific 

as it continued to adapt to Secretary of War Elihu Root’s reforms 

in the years following the War with Spain. It was not until June 

1916 that Congress authorized an expansion of the Army, dual 

state-federal status for the National Guard, and the creation of a 

reserve officer training corps.

In early 1917, relations between the United States and Germany 

rapidly deteriorated. The kaiser’s policy of unrestricted submarine 

warfare threatened American lives and commerce, and German 

meddling in Mexican affairs convinced most Americans that Berlin 

posed a danger to the nation. In April 1917, the president, out of 

diplomatic options, asked Congress to declare war on Germany. 

But the U.S. Army, numbering only 133,000 men, was far from 

ready. The president ordered nearly 400,000 National Guardsmen 

into federal service, and more than twenty-four million men 

eventually registered for the Selective Service, America’s first 
•••• 6 ••••

conscription since the Civil War. By the end of 1918, the Army had 

grown to four million men and had trained 200,000 new officers 

to lead them. As it expanded to address wartime needs, the Army 

developed a new combined-arms formation—the square division. 

Divisions fell under corps, and corps made up field armies. The 

Army also created supporting elements such as the Air Service, the 

Tank Corps, and the Chemical Warfare Service. The war signaled 

the potential of the United States as not only a global economic 

power, but also a military one.

In June 1917, the 1st Division deployed to France, arriving 

in time to parade through Paris on the Fourth of July. The first 

National Guard division, the 26th Division from New England, 

deployed in September. By war’s end, the American Expeditionary 

Forces, as the nation’s forces in Europe were called, had grown 

to two million soldiers and more than forty divisions. During 

1918, these American “doughboys” learned to fight in battles of 

steadily increasing scale: Cantigny, the Marne, Aisne-Marne, St. 

Mihiel, and Meuse-Argonne, adding thirteen campaign streamers 

to the Army flag. Overall, in roughly six months of combat, the 

American Expeditionary Forces suffered more than 255,000 

casualties, including 52,997 battle deaths (as well as more than 

50,000 nonbattle deaths, most due to the influenza pandemic). 

The war that the United States entered to “make the world safe 

for democracy” ended with an armistice on 11 November 1918, 

followed by a controversial peace. American soldiers served in 

the Occupation of the Rhineland until 1923, before withdrawing 

from Europe altogether. 

The United States will never forget the American soldiers 

who fought and died in the World War. America’s first unknown 

soldier was laid to rest on 11 November 1921 in the Tomb of the 

Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery, where soldiers 

still stand guard. The United States created permanent American 

military cemeteries in France, Belgium, and Britain to bury the 

fallen. To this day, memorials to their sacrifice can be found across 

America, and the date of the armistice has become a national 

holiday honoring all those who serve in defense of the nation. 

The last surviving U.S. Army veteran of the war died in 2011. It is 

to all the doughboys, those who returned and those who did not, 

that the U.S. Army Center of Military History dedicates these 

commemorative pamphlets.

JON T. HOFFMAN

Chief Historian
•••• 7 ••••

•••

THE U.S. ARMY

IN THE WORLD WAR I ERA

World War I remains one of the defining events in the history 

of the U.S. Army. In all, more than four million served and half of 

them deployed overseas. The conflict capped a period of reform 

and professionalization that transformed the Army from a small, 

dispersed organization rooted in constabulary operations to a 

modern industrialized fighting force capable of global reach and 

impact. Aviation went from an experiment to a significant element 

of combat power. Tanks and chemical warfare appeared for the 

first time. Improvements in artillery, machine guns, and small 

arms increased the impact of firepower by orders of magnitude. 

The Army adopted the general staff system and robust command 

echelons for divisions, corps, and armies, and learned how to 

deploy and employ mass formations. Many modern units and 

installations trace their lineage to the vast expansion of the Army 

for the war. The U.S. participation in the war marked the arrival of 

the United States as a leading power on the world stage. In sum, 

a soldier from today could go a century back in time and feel at 

home in the Army of 1917, while a soldier from the latter 1800s 

transported forward two decades would have been thoroughly 

disoriented by the vast change. The commemoration of World 

War I allows today’s Army to connect with an important element 

of its past and gain an appreciation for the impact of institutional 

transformation.

The Prewar Army, 1899–1917

For the United States the opening years of the twentieth century 

were a time of transition and change. At home it was a period of 

societal transformation, often designated as the Progressive Era, 

when political leaders such as Presidents Theodore Roosevelt 

and William H. Taft worked to address the economic and social 

problems arising out of the rapid growth of large-scale industry 

in the late nineteenth century. In foreign affairs, the country had 

to begin adjusting its institutions and policies to the requirements 
•••• 8 ••••

of its new status as a world power with colonial responsibilities. 

Those same issues inevitably affected the nation’s military 

establishment. During nearly two decades between the War with 

Spain and American involvement in World War I, the Army would 

undergo important reforms in organization and direction. 

Modernizing the Armed Forces

The intensification of international rivalries led most of 

the great powers of Europe to seek additional protection and 

advantage in diplomatic alliances and alignments. By the early 

years of the twentieth century the increasingly complex network 

of agreements had resulted in a new and precarious balance of 

power in world affairs. This balance was constantly in danger of 

being upset, particularly because of an unprecedented arms race 

among the European powers characterized by rapid enlargement 

of armies and navies and the development of far more deadly 

weapons. While the United States remained aloof from such 

“entangling alliances,” it nevertheless continued to modernize and 

strengthen its own armed forces, giving primary attention to the 

Navy as its first line of defense.

The Army, aware of the serious deficiencies revealed in the War 

with Spain and of the rapid technological changes taking place 

in the methods of warfare, worked to modernize its weapons and 

equipment. Development of high-velocity, low-trajectory, cliploading rifles capable of delivering a high rate of sustained fire had 

already made obsolete the Krag-Jörgensen rifle, which the Army 

had adopted in 1892. In 1903 the Regular Army began equipping 

its units with the improved bolt-action, magazine-type Springfield 

rifle. The campaigns of 1898 also had shown that the standard rod 

bayonet was too flimsy; starting in 1905, the Army replaced it with 

a sturdy knife bayonet. Combat at close quarters against the fierce 

charges of the Moros in the Philippines demonstrated the need 

for a hand weapon less cumbersome and having greater impact 

than the .38-caliber revolver. The Army found the answer in the 

recently developed .45-caliber Colt automatic pistol, adopted in 

1911, a mainstay of the Army for most of the rest of the century. 

Far more significant in revolutionizing the nature of twentiethcentury warfare was the rapid-firing machine gun. American 

inventors, including Hiram Maxim, John Browning, and Isaac N. 

Lewis took a leading role in developing automatic machine guns 

in the years between the Civil War and World War I. Many of the 
•••• 9 ••••

armies of the world adopted weapons based on their designs, but 

few realized the significant advantage of machine guns in modern 

tactics until fighting began in World War I. In the years between 

1898 and 1916, Congress appropriated only an average of $150,000 

annually for procurement of machine guns, barely enough to 

provide four weapons for each regular regiment and a few for the 

National Guard. Finally, in 1916 Congress allocated $12 million to 

equip the Army, but the War Department held up the expenditure 

until 1917 while a board tried to decide which weapon best suited 

the needs of the Army.

Development of American artillery and shells also lagged far 

behind that of the European armies. The Army did adopt a new 

basic field weapon in 1902, the 3-inch gun, with an advanced recoil 

mechanism. Domestic production was sufficient in 1903 to supply 

most American artillery for the small Regular Army, but it did not 

match the number or variety of artillery pieces being developed 

in Europe.

Of the many new inventions that came into widespread use 

in the early twentieth century, none was to have greater influence 

on military strategy, tactics, and organization than the internal 

combustion engine. It made possible the motor vehicle, which, 

like the railroad in the previous century, brought a revolution in 

military transportation, as well as the airplane and tank, both of 

which would figure importantly in World War I. In the new field 

of military aviation, the Army failed to keep pace with earlytwentieth-century developments. Contributing to this delay were 

the reluctance of Congress to appropriate funds and resistance 

within the military bureaucracy to the diversion of already limited 

resources to a method of warfare as yet unproved. Between 1908 

and 1913, it is estimated that the United States spent only $430,000 

on military and naval aviation, whereas in the same period France 

and Germany each expended $22 million; Russia, $12 million; and 

Belgium, $2 million. Congress did not authorize the establishment 

of a full-fledged aviation section in the Signal Corps until 1914. 

The few military airplanes available for service in 1916 soon broke 

down, and the United States entered World War I far behind the 

other belligerents in aviation equipment, organization, and doctrine.

Reorganization of the Army Bureaucracy

After the War with Spain the Army also underwent important 

organizational and administrative changes aimed in part at 
•••• 10 ••••

overcoming some of the more 

glaring defects revealed during 

that conflict. Although the 

nation had won the war with 

comparative ease, the victory 

was attributable more to the 

incompetence of the enemy 

than to any special qualities 

displayed by the Army. No 

one appreciated the need for 

reform more than Elihu Root, 

a New York corporation lawyer 

whom P re sident Wi l l ia m 

McKinley appointed secretary 

of war in 1899. The president 

had selected Root primarily 

because he was qualified to 

solve the legal problems that 

would arise in the Army’s 

administration of recently 

acquired overseas possessions. 

But Root quickly realized that 

if the Army was to carry out its 

new responsibilities, it had to 

undergo fundamental changes in organization, administration, 

and training. Root saw the Army’s problems as similar to those 

faced by business executives. “The men who have combined 

various corporations . . . in what we call trusts,” he told Congress, 

“have reduced the cost of production and have increased their 

efficiency by doing the very same thing we propose you shall do 

now, and it does seem a pity that the Government of the United 

States should be the only great industrial establishment that 

cannot profit by the lessons which the world of industry and 

of commerce has learned to such good effect.” Root adopted 

recommendations made by his military advisers and views 

expressed by officers who had studied and written on these 

issues, outlining in a series of masterful reports his proposals 

for fundamental reform of the Army to achieve “efficiency.” 

Concluding that the true object of any army must be “to provide 

for war,” Root took steps to reshape the U.S. Army by better 

integrating the bureaus of the War Department, the scattered 

elements of the Regular Army, and the militia and volunteers.

Elihu Root

(Library of Congress)

•••••••••••••
•••• 11 ••••

Root perceived the chief weakness in the organization of the 

Army to be the longstanding division of authority, dating back to 

the early nineteenth century, between the commanding general 

of the Army and the secretary of war. The commanding general 

exercised discipline and control over the troops in the field; while 

the secretary, through the military bureau chiefs, had responsibility 

for administration and fiscal matters. Root proposed to eliminate 

this division of authority and to reduce the independence of the 

bureau chiefs by replacing the commanding general of the Army 

with a chief of staff who would be the responsible adviser and 

executive agent of the president through the secretary of war.

Another obvious deficiency revealed by the War with Spain 

was the lack of any long-range Army planning. Root proposed 

the creation of a General Staff, a group of selected officers who 

would be free to devote their full time to preparing military plans. 

Pending congressional action on his proposals, Root appointed an 

ad hoc board in 1901 to develop plans for an Army War College, 

but it also acted as an embryonic General Staff. In early 1903, in 

spite of some die-hard opposition, Congress adopted the secretary 

of war’s recommendations for both a General Staff and a chief of 

staff but rejected his request that certain bureaus be consolidated.

Congressional legislation enacting Root’s reform plan could 

not quickly change the long-held traditions, habits, and views of 

most Army officers or of some congressmen and the American 

public. Secretary Root realized that the effective operation of the 

new system would require an extended program of reeducation. 

The Army War College, established in November 1903, would 

meet that need. Its students, already experienced officers, 

would receive education in problems of the War Department 

and of high command in the field. As it turned out, they devoted 

much of their time to war planning, becoming in effect the part 

of the General Staff that performed this function. The Army 

also reorganized and refined the rest of its educational system 

in order to improve the professionalism of its officers. The 

General Staff and Service College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 

henceforth trained officers in the employment of combined 

arms and prepared them for staff and command positions in 

large units. The Army expanded its service schools by adding 

the Signal School in 1905, the Field Artillery School in 1911, and 

the School of Musketry in 1913.

In the first years after its establishment the General Staff 

achieved relatively little in the way of genuine planning and 
•••• 12 ••••

policymaking, devoting much of its time to routine administrative 

matters. Through experience, however, officers assigned to 

the staff gradually gained awareness of its real purpose and 

powers. In 1910, when Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood became chief of 

staff, he reorganized the General Staff, eliminating many of its 

time-consuming procedures and directing more of its energies 

to planning. With the backing of Secretary of War Henry L. 

Stimson, Wood dealt a decisive blow to that element within the 

Army that opposed the General Staff. In a notable controversy, 

he and Stimson forced the retirement in 1912 of the leader of this 

opposition, Maj. Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, the Adjutant General.

Reorganization: The Regular Army and the Militia

In the years after the War with Spain nearly a third of the 

Regular Army troops, on average, served overseas. To carry out 

its responsibilities abroad and to maintain an adequate defense 

at home, the Regular Army from 1902 to 1911 had an average 

of 75,000 officers and men, far below the 100,000 that Congress 

had authorized in 1902 to fill thirty infantry and fifteen cavalry 

regiments supported by a corps of artillery. To make up for this 

deficiency in size of the regular forces and at the same time to 

remedy some of the defects revealed in the mobilization for the 

War with Spain, the planners in the War Department recommended 

a reorganization of the reserve forces.

Secretary Root took the lead in presenting to Congress in 

1901 a program for reform of the National Guard. In response, 

Congress passed the Militia Act of 1903 (commonly known as 

the Dick Act), which thoroughly revised the obsolete Militia Act 

of 1792. It recognized the National Guard as the nation’s primary 

militia force and provided that over a five-year period the National 

Guard’s organization and equipment would be patterned after 

that of the Regular Army. To help accomplish these changes in 

the National Guard, the Dick Act made federal funds available; 

prescribed drill at least twice a month, supplemented with short 

annual training periods; permitted detailing of regular officers to 

National Guard units; and directed the holding of joint maneuvers 

each year. However, the new measure failed to significantly modify 

the longstanding provisions that severely restricted federal power 

to call up National Guard units and control personnel, which 

limited its effectiveness. Subsequent legislation in 1908 and 1914 

reduced these restrictions to some extent, giving the president the 
•••• 13 ••••

right to prescribe the length of federal service and, with the advice 

and consent of the Senate, to appoint all officers of the National 

Guard while it was in federal service.

The military legislation passed in 1908 contained one additional 

provision that was to have far-reaching consequences. On 23 April 

1908, the creation of the Medical Reserve Corps authorized the 

placement of several hundred medical personnel on a Federal 

Reserve status to be called to active duty if needed to augment the 

regular medical doctors. This was the small and humble beginning 

of the U.S. Army Reserve.

Although the largest permanent unit of the Regular Army in 

peacetime continued to be the regiment, experience in the War with 

Spain, observation of new developments abroad, and lessons learned 

in annual maneuvers all testified to the need for larger, more selfsufficient units composed of combined arms. Beginning in 1905, the 

Field Service Regulations laid down a blueprint for the organization 

of divisions in wartime, and in 1910 the General Staff drew up a plan 

for three permanent infantry divisions to be composed of designated 

Regular Army and National Guard regiments. Before that could be 

implemented, trouble along the Mexican border in the spring of 

1911 required hasty organization of a provisional maneuver division 

consisting of three brigades of nearly 13,000 officers and men and 

its deployment to San Antonio, Texas.

The effort only proved how unready the Army was to mobilize 

quickly for any kind of national emergency. Assembly of the 

division required several months, drawing Regular Army troops 

and equipment from widely scattered points in the continental 

United States. Even so, when the maneuver division finally 

completed its concentration in August 1911, it was far from 

fully operational: none of its regiments were up to strength or 

adequately armed and equipped. Fortunately, the division was not 

put to any battle test, and within a short time its component units 

returned to their home stations. The Army had three divisions on 

paper, but its forces remained scattered in garrisons that averaged 

700 troops each.

The Army on the Mexican Border

Even as the storm clouds of war were brewing in Europe 

early in the twentieth century, the Army found itself frequently 

involved in problems with the United States’ southern neighbor, 

Mexico. Beginning in 1911, revolution and civil war in Mexico 
•••• 14 ••••

led to recurrent incidents along the border, posing a serious 

threat to Americans in the region. Full-scale civil war broke out 

in 1913. In February 1914, the arrest of American sailors in the 

port of Tampico further inflamed tensions. Woodrow Wilson, 

who had succeeded Taft as president, authorized U.S. marines 

and sailors to occupy the port of Vera Cruz in late April. Naval 

gunfire checked a Mexican counterattack and by the end of the 

month an American force of nearly 8,000 (about half marines and 

half Army troops) under the command of Maj. Gen. Frederick 

Funston held the city. Soon after, Francisco “Pancho” Villa 

launched yet another rebellion and proceeded to gain control 

over most of northern Mexico. Villa instigated a series of border 

incidents that culminated in a surprise attack by 500–1,000 of his 

men against Columbus, New Mexico, on 9 March 1916. His troops 

killed eighteen American soldiers and civilians and destroyed 

considerable property before units of the 13th Cavalry drove 

them off. The following day President Wilson ordered Brig. Gen. 

John J. Pershing into Mexico to assist the Mexican government 

in capturing Villa.

On the Border, August 1916, by Donna Neary, depicts a column 

of soldiers of the 2d Connecticut Infantry on the march in Arizona.

(Army Art Collection)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 15 ••••

On 15 March the advance elements of this punitive expedition 

entered Mexico. For the next several months Pershing’s troops 

chased Villa through unfriendly territory for hundreds of miles, 

never quite catching up with him but managing to disperse most 

of his followers. The Mexican government protested the continued 

presence of American troops in Mexico and insisted upon their 

withdrawal. Some clashes with Mexican government troops 

occurred, the most important taking place in June at Carrizal, 

where scores were killed or wounded. The heightened threat 

of wider conflict led President Wilson to call 75,000 national 

guardsmen into federal service to help police the border. Wilson 

sought a diplomatic solution, but before the two nations could 

reach any agreement, relations between the United States and 

Germany reached such a critical stage in early 1917 that Wilson had 

no alternative but to order withdrawal of the Mexican Expedition.

Pershing failed to capture Villa, but the activities of the 

American troops in Mexico and along the border were not entirely 

wasted. The intensive training of both the Regular Army and 

National Guard troops who served on the border and in Mexico 

would aid them in the coming months when they would begin 

preparing for service in Europe. Additionally, many defects in the 

military establishment, especially in the National Guard, came to 

light in time to be corrected before the Army plunged into the war 

already under way in Europe.

War in Europe and the National Defense Act of 1916

The United States could not ignore the huge conflict that began 

to rage in Europe in July 1914. President Wilson proclaimed the 

United States’ neutrality and encouraged all Americans to avoid 

taking sides. Even so, it seemed at times as if the country was going 

to be dragged into the war, only to retreat from the precipice each 

time. In 1915 Germany began pursuing a strategy of unrestricted 

submarine warfare, vowing to sink any vessel that came into Allied 

waters. The subsequent sinking of the U.S. merchant ship Gulflight 

on 1 May 1915 and then the British liner Lusitania a week later with 

the loss of 128 American lives caused tremendous uproar among 

the American public. Germany pledged to suspend the practice 

after Wilson threatened to break off diplomatic relations, but it 

was becoming clear that the United States might have to become 

more fully involved in the war. Former Secretaries of War Root 

and Stimson, as well as former President Roosevelt, led a growing 
•••• 16 ••••

chorus calling for greater military preparedness. General Wood, 

whose term as the Army’s chief of staff expired in 1914, lent his 

support to continue a practice he had introduced of conducting 

summer camps where college students paying their own way could 

receive military training. In 1915, his effort led to a four-week camp 

for business and professional men at Plattsburg Barracks, New 

York. Known as the Plattsburg Idea, its success justified opening 

other camps, assuring a relatively small but influential cadre 

possessing basic military skills and imbued with enthusiasm for 

preparedness.

Continuing to champion neutrality, President Wilson was 

becoming more aware of the necessity for military preparedness. 

Near the end of a nationwide speaking tour in February 1916, he 

not only called for creation of “the greatest navy in the world” but 

also urged widespread military training for civilians, lest someday 

the nation be faced with “putting raw levies of inexperienced men 

onto the modern field of battle.” Some of the president’s growing 

inclination toward the cause of preparedness could be traced to 

increasing concern on the part of members of his administration, 

Plattsburg Reserve Officers’ Training Camp, 1916. Instruction for 

an M1902 3-inch field gun. (Library of Congress) •••••••••••••••
•••• 17 ••••

most notably the Secretary of War, Lindley M. Garrison. As an 

annex to his annual report in September 1915, Garrison had 

submitted a study prepared by the General Staff entitled “A Proper 

Military Policy for the United States.” Garrison proposed more 

than doubling the Regular Army, increasing federal support for the 

National Guard, and creating a new 400,000-man trained reserve 

under solely federal control.

The proposal drew support in the Senate, but not enough 

to overcome opposition in the House of Representatives from 

supporters of the National Guard. Garrison soon grew tired of 

the political infighting, and believed that Wilson was not pushing 

the reforms strongly enough. He resigned as secretary of war and 

was replaced by Newton D. Baker, a progressive ally of Wilson 

and novice regarding military affairs. The military reforms might 

have bogged down had not Villa attacked Columbus. Facing 

pressing requirements on the Mexican border, the two halls 

of Congress at last compromised. Passed in May and signed 

into law the next month, the National Defense Act of 1916 was 

a major piece of comprehensive military legislative reform. It 

authorized an increase in the peacetime strength of the Regular 

Army over a period of five years to 175,000 men and a wartime 

strength of close to 300,000. Bolstered by federal funds and 

federally stipulated organizational structures and standards of 

training, the National Guard would increase more than fourfold 

to a strength of over 400,000 and would be obligated to respond 

to the call of the president. The act established both an Officers’ 

and an Enlisted Reserve Corps, expanding beyond the Medical 

Reserve Corps into a full-spectrum federal reserve force. The 

law created a new Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program 

at colleges and universities, which subsequently facilitated the 

mobilization and training of over 89,476 officers during World War 

I. On the negative side, the law also contained a severe restriction 

inserted by opponents of a strong General Staff, sharply limiting 

the number of officers who could be detailed to serve on the staff 

at the same time in or near Washington, D.C.

Going beyond the recognized province of military legislation, 

the National Defense Act of 1916 also granted power to the 

president to place orders for defense materials and to force 

industry to comply. The act further directed the secretary of 

war to conduct a survey of all arms and munitions industries. A 

few months later Congress demonstrated even greater interest 

in the industrial aspects of defense by creating the civilian 
•••• 18 ••••

Council of National Defense made up of leaders of industry 

and labor, supported by an advisory commission composed of 

the secretaries of the principal government departments, and 

charged with the mission of studying economic mobilization. 

The administration furthered the preparedness program by 

creating the U.S. Shipping Board to regulate sea transport while 

developing a naval auxiliary fleet and a merchant marine. As 

broad as the reforms were, however, the United States would be 

drawn into the war before many of them could take full effect.

At War

An End to Neutrality

As 1917 began, German leaders realized that their manpower 

losses over the previous year at Verdun and on the Somme required 

that they assume a defensive posture on the Western Front. Fearing 

that they would lose a protracted war if the strategic situation 

remained the same, the Germans turned to their submarines, of 

which they now had close to 200, to tip the scales in their favor. By 

resuming an unrestricted campaign against all shipping, whatever 

the nationality, in waters off the British Isles and France, the 

Germans believed they could defeat the British within six months. 

While they recognized that such a move ran the strong risk of 

bringing the United States into the war, they believed they could 

starve the British into submission before the Americans could 

raise, train, and deploy an army. They were nearly right.

On 31 January 1917, Germany informed the U.S. government 

and other neutrals that beginning the next day U-boats would 

sink all vessels without warning. While President Wilson still 

searched for some alternative to war, the British intercepted a 

German telegram that clearly showed German intentions toward 

the United States. This message, sent in January from the German 

Foreign Secretary, Arthur Zimmermann, to the German envoy to 

Mexico, proposed that in the event of war with the United States, 

Germany and Mexico would affect an alliance. In exchange for 

Mexico’s taking up arms against the United States, Germany 

would provide generous financial assistance. Victory achieved, 

Mexico was to regain its lost territories of Texas, New Mexico, 

and Arizona. On 23 February, just over a month after intercepting 

the telegram, the British turned over a copy to the American 
•••• 19 ••••

ambassador in London. When President Wilson received the news, 

he was angered but still unprepared to accept it as cause for war. 

He released the message to the press with the goal of prompting 

Congress to pass a bill authorizing the arming of American 

merchant ships. Congress and most of the nation were shocked 

by the revelation of the Zimmermann message, but pacifists and 

pro-Germans countered with a roar of disbelief that the message 

was authentic. From Berlin, Zimmermann himself silenced them 

when he admitted having sent the telegram.

In the next few weeks four more U.S. ships fell victim to 

German U-boats. Fifteen Americans died. At last convinced 

that no viable diplomatic options remained, the president went 

before Congress late on 2 April to ask for a declaration of war. 

Four days later, on 6 April 1917, the United States declared war 

on Germany. (The United States did not, however, declare war on 

any of Germany’s allies at this time.)

Because the United States went to war largely over the issue 

of Germany’s submarine warfare, the Wilson administration 

conceivably could have pursued a purely naval campaign against 

President Wilson asks for a declaration of war, 2 April 1917. 

(Library of Congress) •••••••••••••••
•••• 20 ••••

the German submarines. But there was little support for such a 

limited role. British and French leaders, dealing with massive 

losses in their own armies, urged Wilson to reinforce the Western 

Front that stretched from Belgium to Switzerland. Despite the 

carnage, the Army’s military leaders and planners saw the Western 

Front as the only place that the United States could play a decisive 

role in defeating Germany. The U.S. Army, however, was far from 

being prepared to take on that task. Peacetime reform packages 

since the end of the War with Spain had vastly improved the 

nation’s land force, but the scale and ferocity of the war in Europe 

would shortly mandate the wholesale remaking of the U.S. Army 

yet again.

The United States had joined a war that was entering its fourth 

bitter year by the summer of 1917. After the opening battles of 

August 1914, the British and French armies and their German 

foes had settled into an almost continuous line of elaborate 

entrenchments that stretched for hundreds of miles across Belgium 

and France. To break this stalemate, each side sought to rupture 

the other’s lines, using huge infantry armies supported by massive 

and sophisticated artillery fire, as well as poison gas. Nevertheless, 

against the barbed wire and interlocking machine guns of the 

trenches, compounded by the mud churned up by massive artillery 

barrages, these attempts floundered and failed to make meaningful 

TRENCHES

European armies had first utilized trenches in the seventeenth century, 

but they appeared on an unprecedented scale during World War I 

after machine guns and rapid firing artillery defeated major French 

and German offensives in 1914. Trenches were most prominently used 

on the Western Front in France and Belgium, where continuous field 

fortifications stretched along a nearly 1,550-mile front. The combination 

of trenches and improved firepower made it almost impossible for 

attackers to force a breakthrough. In the intervals between large-scale 

attacks raiding parties constantly crisscrossed the shell-crated expanse 

known as “No Man’s Land” to harass their opponents. From 1915 onward, 

the major combatants focused all of their national resources on breaking 

the strategic deadlock as increasing numbers of soldiers succumbed to 

disease, weather, and combat.
•••• 21 ••••

penetrations. Into this stalemate the U.S. Army would throw a force 

of over two million men by the end of the war. Half of these men 

would engage in battle, mostly in the last six months of the war. 

The U.S. Army Arrives in Europe

Soon after the American declaration of war, the French and 

British governments sent delegations to the United States to 

coordinate assistance and offer advice on the form of American 

involvement. Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour, Maj. Gen. G. M. T. 

Bridges, and the rest of the British mission arrived first; a few days 

later the French mission followed, led by former French Premier 

René Viviani and Marshal Joseph J. C. Joffre. Characteristic of the 

lack of planning and unity between the two Allies, the missions 

devised no common plan for U.S. participation and did not even 

meet with each other before meeting with the Americans. Each 

delegation pressed its own national interests and viewpoints.

Neither of the Allies believed that the United States would 

be able to raise, train, and equip a large army quickly. Marshal 

Joffre, the former French Army commander and victor of the 1914 

Battle of the Marne, suggested that the United States quickly send 

a division to France to symbolize American participation and 

bolster sagging French morale. He proffered French help with the 

training of the American units, but he was careful to point out that 

the United States should eventually form its own army. General 

Bridges, a distinguished divisional commander, proposed that the 

United States rapidly mobilize 500,000 Americans and ship them to 

England, where they would be trained, equipped, and incorporated 

into the British Army. This idea, known as amalgamation, would 

be the first of many schemes to integrate American battalions and 

regiments into the Allied armies.

Amalgamation had the advantage of expanding the existing 

field armies arrayed against Germany rather than establishing an 

entirely new one. If the United States decided to build a separate 

force, it would have to start at the ground level to create a modern 

army and then ship it overseas. That would require shipping and 

time, both of which were in short supply in 1917. Conversely, 

using American troops in foreign armies would be an affront to 

national pride and a slur on American military professionalism. 

Furthermore, amalgamation would decrease the visibility of the 

American contribution and lessen the role American leadership 

would be able to play in the war and in the peace that followed. 
•••• 22 ••••

For these political and patriotic reasons, President Wilson rejected 

the proposal of having American troops serve under the British 

flag; however, he did agree to Joffre’s recommendation to send a 

division to France immediately.

With Wilson’s decision, Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Hugh L. Scott 

directed the General Staff to study a divisional structure of two 

infantry brigades, each consisting of two infantry regiments. In 

consultation with Joffre’s staff, the Army planners, headed by Maj. 

John M. Palmer, developed a four-regiment division organization 

with 17,700 men, of which 11,000 were infantrymen. After adding 

more men, Maj. Gen. Tasker H. Bliss, Scott’s deputy, approved this 

“square” organization—four regiments in two brigades—for the 

initial division deploying to France. Scott also asked Maj. Gen. John 

J. Pershing, commander of the Army’s Southern Department at Fort 

Sam Houston, Texas, to select four infantry regiments and a field 

artillery regiment for overseas service. Pershing chose the 6th Field 

Artillery and the 16th, 18th, 26th, and 28th Infantries. Although these 

regiments were among the most ready in the Regular Army, they all 

needed a large infusion of men to reach full strength. By the time the 

regiments left for France in June as part of the 1st Expeditionary 

Division, they were composed of about two-thirds raw recruits. 

Secretary Baker soon chose General Pershing to command all 

American forces in France. Ultimately, there was little doubt of 

the selection, even though Pershing was junior to five other major 

generals, including former Chief of Staff General Wood. Wood 

and the other candidates were quickly ruled out from active field 

command because of health or age, while Pershing, at 56-years-old, 

was vigorous and robust. Pershing’s record throughout his three 

decades of military service was exceptional. By 1917 he had proven 

himself as a tough and experienced leader. In particular, his 

command of the Mexican Expedition made a favorable impression 

on Secretary Baker. In addition to having gained recent command 

experience in the field, Pershing demonstrated that he would remain 

loyal to the administration’s policies, although he might personally 

disagree with them. In early May Pershing received orders to report 

to Washington.

Shortly after Pershing arrived in Washington, he learned 

of his appointment as the American Expeditionary Forces 

(AEF) commander. In turn he began selecting members of his 

headquarters staff, starting with the resourceful and energetic 

Maj. James G. Harbord, a fellow cavalryman of long acquaintance, 

as the AEF chief of staff. Together, they settled on thirty other 
•••• 23 ••••

officers, including Maj. Fox 

Conner, who would end the war 

as the AEF’s chief of operations 

(G–3), and Capt. Hugh Drum, 

who would later become the 

chief of staff of the U.S. First 

Army. As the staff prepared 

to depart for France, Pershing 

reviewed the organization of 

the 1st Expeditionary Division, 

d i scu s sed t he mu n it ion s 

situation, and went over the 

embarkation plans. He met 

with both Secretary Baker and 

President Wilson (the only time 

the AEF commander met with 

the president until after the 

war). On 28 May 1917, Pershing 

and his headquarters staff of 

191 set sail for Europe.

Pershing and his staff 

began much of the preliminary 

planning on the nature, scope, 

and objectives for the future 

AEF while en route to Europe. 

First in England and later in France, the group met their Allied 

counterparts, coordinated with the staffs, and assessed the 

conditions of wartime Europe. One staff committee inspected 

ports and railroads to begin arranging for the American lines 

of communications. Amid ceremonies and celebrations, the 

blueprints for the future AEF slowly took shape.

On 26 June the advance elements of the 1st Expeditionary 

Division joined Pershing and his staff in France. From St. Nazaire, 

the port of debarkation, the division traveled to the Gondrecourt 

area in Lorraine, about 120 miles southwest of Paris. There, the 

division would undergo badly needed training. Not only had the 

War Department brought its regiments up to strength with new 

recruits, but it had also siphoned off many of their long-service, 

well-trained regulars to provide the nucleus for the new divisions 

forming in the United States.

As the bulk of the division settled into its new home to 

learn the basics of soldiering, the French authorities persuaded 

General Pershing

(National Archives)

•••••••••••••
•••• 24 ••••

Pershing to allow a battalion of the 16th Infantry to march through 

Paris on the Fourth of July to encourage the French people. The 

parade culminated at Picpus Cemetery, burial place of Gilbert du 

Montier, the Marquis de Lafayette. At the tomb of the American 

Revolution hero, on behalf of Pershing, Col. Charles E. Stanton, 

a quartermaster officer fluent in French, gave a rousing speech, 

ending with the words “Lafayette, we are here!” Mistakenly 

attributed to Pershing, the words nevertheless captured the 

sentiments of many Americans: repaying an old debt.

Organizing the American Expeditionary Forces

Before Pershing departed for France, Secretary Baker told 

him: “I will give you only two orders, one to go to France and the 

other to come home. In the meantime, your authority in France will 

be supreme.” Baker thus had given Pershing a free hand to make 

basic decisions and plan for the shape and form of the American 

ground contribution to the war in Europe. No other American 

field commander has been given as much power in the nation’s 

history. Consequently, during the summer of 1917, Pershing and 

his small staff went about not only building the AEF’s foundations, 

but making decisions that would establish policy objectives for 

the Army as a whole.

In late June 1917 the most crucial decision that Pershing 

needed to make concerned the location of the American zone of 

operations. With the advanced elements of the 1st Expeditionary 

Division due to arrive in France by the end of the month, it was 

essential that the staff lay out the training areas. Moreover, the 

selection of supply lines and depots all hinged on the establishment 

of the AEF sector. The French advised the Americans to place 

their troops somewhere in the eastern half of the Allied line. 

Accordingly, Pershing ordered his staff to make a reconnaissance 

of the Lorraine region, south and southwest of Nancy. For the 

American commander, the prime consideration in exploring this 

area was its potential for development and employment of a large, 

independent AEF in a decisive offensive.

With the massive armies of Germany, France, and Great Britain 

stalemated in the trenches of northern Europe since 1914, there was 

little chance of the Americans’ exercising much strategic judgment 

in choosing their zone of operations. On the Allied northern flank, 

the British Expeditionary Forces guarded the English Channel ports 

that provided their logistical link with Great Britain as well as an 
•••• 25 ••••

escape route from Europe in case the Western Front collapsed. To 

the British right, nationalism compelled the French armies to cover 

the approaches to Paris, the French capital. Moreover, the Allied 

armies were already straining the supply lines of northern France, 

especially the overburdened Paris railroad network. Any attempt to 

place a large American army west of Verdun would not only disrupt 

the British and French armies and limit any independent American 

activity, but it would also risk a complete breakdown of the supply 

system. These considerations left Lorraine as the only real choice 

for the American sector.

Although the proposed American sector would be far from 

the coastal ports, neither Pershing nor his staff lamented the 

circumstance. On the contrary, they believed that Lorraine was 

ideally suited to deploy a large, independent AEF. Logisticians 

supplying an American army in Lorraine would avoid the congested 

northern logistical facilities by using the railroads of central 

France that stretched back to the ports along the southwestern 

French coast. Furthermore, the Americans could move into the 

region with relative ease, and without disturbing any major Allied 

forces, because only a limited number of French troops occupied 

Lorraine. The AEF could settle down to the task of training its 

inexperienced soldiers and developing itself into a fighting force 

in a sector that had remained generally quiet since 1915.

Once Pershing had organized and trained the AEF, it would be 

ready to attempt a major offensive. His planners believed that the 

area around Lorraine offered excellent operational objectives. If 

the American forces could penetrate the German lines and carry 

the advance into German territory, they could deprive Germany 

of the important Longwy-Briey iron fields and coal deposits of 

the Saar. More important, an American offensive would threaten 

a strategic railroad that the Germans used to supply their armies 

to the west. Cutting the vital railroad would seriously hamper 

German operations and might even cause a withdrawal of some 

forces along the southern portion of the German line.

On 26 June, the day after Pershing accepted his officers’ 

recommendation, he met with General Henri Philippe Pétain, the 

hero of Verdun and now overall commander of French forces. 

Pétain readily agreed to the Americans’ taking the Lorraine 

portion of the Western Front. By the beginning of July elements 

of the newly redesignated 1st Division began to move into the 

training areas near Gondrecourt. Within three months three more 

American divisions would join the 1st Division in France.
•••• 26 ••••

With the decision to situate the AEF in Lorraine, Pershing 

and his staff turned their attention to the next order of business: 

a tactical organization for the AEF. Pershing himself wanted the 

AEF to be employed in decisive offensive operations that would 

drive the Germans from their trenches and then defeat them in a 

war of movement. That the AEF would fight in primarily offensive 

operations would be the guiding principle for the American 

planners, headed by Lt. Col. Fox Conner and Maj. Hugh Drum. As 

they developed their organizational schemes, they relied heavily 

on the General Staff’s provisional organization of May 1917 and 

consulted with both their French and British counterparts. Before 

finalizing their recommendations, they met with another American 

group, under Col. Chauncey Baker, which the War Department 

had commissioned to study the proper tactical organization for 

the U.S. Army. The result of the AEF staff’s studies and planning 

was the General Organization Project, which guided the AEF’s 

organization throughout the war.

The General Organization Project outlined a million-man field 

army comprising five corps of thirty divisions. While the infantry 

division remained the primary combined-arms unit and standard 

Soldiers embark for France, 1917. (National Archives) •••••••••••••••
•••• 27 ••••

building block of combat power, the AEF planners helped bring the 

modern concepts of operational corps and field armies to the U.S. 

Army. The organizational scheme was based on two principles: 

both the corps and division would have a square structure, and 

the division would contain a large number of riflemen adequately 

supported by artillery pieces and machine guns.

The AEF’s proposed organization emphasized staying power 

for prolonged combat over rapid mobility. In a war of masses and 

protected flanks, the AEF planners believed that success would 

come with powerful and unrelenting blows delivered by a square 

organization—corps of four combat divisions and divisions of 

four regiments. This organization would permit the division to 

attack on a frontage of two brigades, each with a regiment in front 

and the other in reserve. Similarly, a corps could attack with two 

divisions on line and two divisions in reserve. In these formations, 

once the strength of the attack was drained from losses or sheer 

exhaustion, the lead units could be relieved easily and quickly by 

units advancing from behind. The fresh units would then continue 

the attack. Thus the depth of the formations would allow the AEF 

to sustain constant pressure on the enemy.

To maintain divisional effectiveness in the trenches of the 

Western Front, the General Organization Project enlarged the 

division to a strength of 25,484 (increasing to just over 28,000 

including supporting logistics units), about twice the size of 

Allied divisions. Increasing both the number and the size of the 

rifle companies accounted for more than three-quarters of this 

expansion. The project added one company to each of the division’s 

twelve rifle battalions and increased the size of a rifle company by 

50 men for a total strength of 256. Three artillery battalions of 72 

artillery pieces each and 14 machine gun companies with 240 heavy 

machine guns would support the division’s 12,000-plus riflemen.

The AEF’s organizational plan also created modern corps and 

army command echelons. Rarely used by the Army in the past and 

always small, the new headquarters had the manpower and capability 

to command, control, and coordinate their large and complex 

subordinate echelons. The field army had a headquarters of about 150 

officers and men, while the corps had one of 350 personnel. Moreover, 

both echelons of command had a significant amount of combat power 

beyond their organic divisions. An AEF corps normally would have a 

brigade of heavy artillery and an engineer regiment as well as cavalry, 

antiaircraft, signal, and support units, totaling about 19,000 troops. 

The field army had a massive artillery organization of twenty-four 
•••• 28 ••••

regiments as well as large numbers of engineer, military police, and 

supply units that numbered up to 120,000 men.

Consistent with the AEF planners’ emphasis on sustained 

combat over a period of time, they also created a system to feed 

trained replacements into the units at the front. In addition to 

four attached combat divisions, each corps contained two base 

divisions that would supply replacements to the combat divisions, 

first from their own ranks and later from replacement battalions 

sent from the United States. Heavy losses in future campaigns 

would fully test this system.

In August the War Department incorporated the AEF’s 

proposed divisional structure in its table of organization. It also 

approved the six-division corps and the five-corps army. Over the 

summer and early fall of 1917, Pershing and his small headquarters 

laid the groundwork for a large American force deployed to the 

Western Front. This foundation helped shape every aspect of the 

AEF’s operation and organization, from training and tactics to 

troop strength and shipping. 

The War Effort in the United States

Pershing and his staff understood that they would be limited 

in what they could realistically do in 1918 because the U.S. Army 

FIELD ARTILLERY

When the war began in August 1914, all European armies possessed 

mobile artillery capable of operating with infantry and cavalry. 

Industrialization and technological development enabled the Germans 

and the Allies to manufacture ever larger cannon that could deliver a 

staggering level of firepower. Lacking the resources to implement similar 

improvements, the American military remained a keen observer of events 

in Europe. The first three years of the war saw the adoption of new tactics, 

to include employing thousands of guns in lengthy bombardments, 

improving first-round accuracy, and directing artillery from airplanes. 

When the American Expeditionary Forces disembarked in France 

during summer 1917, its artillery component possessed the necessary 

theoretical knowledge but lacked the equipment and practical skills to 

immediately enter combat.
•••• 29 ••••

was in no position to make its weight felt in the near future. In 

April 1917 the Regular Army had an aggregate strength of 127,588 

officers and men. The National Guard could count another 80,446 

on federal service (out of a total strength of 181,620), and the 

Philippine Scouts contributed another 5,523 soldiers available for 

regular service. The total of 213,557 men (9,693 officers; 203,864 

enlisted) was minute compared to the armies already fighting in 

Europe. The small Army barely had enough artillery and machine 

guns to support itself, and before the formation of the 1st Division 

in June not a single unit of that size existed. Although service in 

the Philippines and Mexico had given many of the officers and men 

of the small Regular Army important field skills and experience, 

it had done little to prepare them for large-scale planning, the 

maneuvering of divisions and corps, and the other logistical and 

administrative challenges of this new war. The task of managing 

the Army’s necessary expansion into a large, modern force fell 

largely to Secretary Baker.

Baker seemed out of place heading America’s war effort. A 

longtime friend of President Wilson, Baker had been appointed 

secretary of war in the spring of 1916, despite his pacifistic attitudes. 

Although as a progressive mayor of Cleveland he had changed that 

city’s government into an efficient organization, as secretary of war 

he would often pursue a moderate, uncontroversial course rather 

than strike out on a new path. Yet in the bureaucratic chaos that 

ensued after the United States’ entry into the war, Baker proved 

an unflappable leader who was flexible enough to force change if 

he had the correct tools.

The War Department started off by addressing the means to 

raise an army for service in the war. It drafted legislation for what 

would be the Selective Service Act, enacted on 18 May 1917, which 

enabled the United States to obtain the necessary manpower for 

the conflict while avoiding the difficulties and inequities with 

conscription that the Union had experienced during the Civil 

War. The result was a model system. Based on the principle of 

universal obligation, it eliminated substitutes, most exemptions 

and bounties, and assured that conscripts would serve for the 

duration of the emergency. Initially, all males between the ages 

of twenty-one and thirty had to register; later the range expanded 

to include males from eighteen to forty-five. At the national level, 

the Office of the Provost Marshal General under Maj. Gen. Enoch 

Crowder established policy and issued general directives. The 

administration of the draft, however, was left to boards composed 
•••• 30 ••••

of local citizens, who could grant selective exemptions based on 

essential occupations and family obligations.

The Selective Service Act was hugely successful. The Army’s 

prewar strength of a little over 200,000 men grew to almost 4.2 

million by November 1918. About two-thirds of this number was 

raised through conscription. The Selective Service process proved 

so successful at satisfying the Army’s needs while ensuring that 

essential civilian occupations remained filled that voluntary 

enlistments ended in August 1918. For the rest of the war, 

conscription remained the sole means of filling the Army’s ranks.

The act also established the broad framework for the Army’s 

structure. It outlined three components of the Army: the Regular 

Army, the National Guard, and the National Army. As time passed 

these distinctions lost much of their meaning as new soldiers filled 

out all three elements. By mid-1918 the War Department changed 

the designation of all land forces to one “United States Army.” 

The most significant remaining distinction was in the numerical 

designations; Regular Army divisions were numbered from 1 to 

25, those originating from the National Guard were 26 through 75, 

and the National Army formations went from 76 upward.

Secretary Baker chooses the first number for the second draft. 

(National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 31 ••••

Just how big an army the United States needed depended in 

large measure on General Pershing’s plans and recommendations 

to meet the operational situation in France. In the General 

Organization Project of 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. The War Department in turn translated Pershing’s 

proposal into a plan to send thirty divisions with supporting 

services—almost 1.4 million men—to Europe by 1919. As the 

Germans launched their spring offensives in 1918 and the AEF 

began more active operations, Pershing increased his estimates. 

In June 1918 he would ask for three million men with sixty-six 

divisions in France by May 1919. He raised this estimate to eighty 

divisions by April 1919, followed shortly (under pressure from 

the Allies) by a request for one hundred divisions by July of the 

same year. Although the War Department questioned whether 

one hundred divisions could be sent to France by mid-1919 and 

even whether that many would be needed, it produced plans to 

raise ninety-eight divisions, with eighty of them to be in France 

by the summer of 1919. These plans increased the original goal 

for divisions in France by the end of 1918 from thirty to fifty-two. 

Drafted men reporting for service, Camp Travis,

San Antonio, Texas, 1917 (National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 32 ••••

In the end the Army actually would form sixty-two divisions, of 

which forty-three went overseas.

To train these divisions the Army would eventually establish 

thirty-two camps throughout the United States. How much 

training incoming soldiers needed before going overseas had 

long been a matter of debate, but in 1917 the War Department 

settled on four months. It established a sixteen-week program 

that emphasized training soldiers by military specialty such as 

riflemen, artillery gunners, supply or personnel clerks, or medical 

specialists. Division commanders at each camp had latitude 

to train their men progressively from individual to battalion 

level with a primary focus on individual and small-unit skills. 

Initially, much to the dismay of Pershing and his staff in France, 

this training only emphasized trench, or positional, warfare and 

excluded rifle marksmanship and other elements of a more open 

and mobile warfare. Moreover, there was no time for larger units 

to come together to train as combined-arms teams. Until the end 

of the war, the training managers at the War Department had 

various degrees of success as the department worked to establish 

a consistent training regimen and to move away from the 

emphasis on trench warfare. The Army, however, was never able 

to implement an effective method for combined-arms training 

at the regiment and division levels before the units deployed. 

It would remain for the AEF in France to either complete the 

training of the incoming divisions or, more commonly, to send 

them into combat not fully prepared.

The training of replacements also remained problematic 

throughout the war. As early as the late summer of 1917, Pershing 

knew that sooner or later he would have to deal with the problem 

of replacing combat losses in his divisions. He complained to the 

War Department that he did not have the resources—especially 

time—to train replacements and instead recommended that a 

stateside division be assigned the mission of providing trained 

replacements to each of his corps in France. The War Department 

did not act on his proposal and did little on its own to resolve 

the problem until early 1918. A major obstacle to a replacement 

training system was the Wilson administration’s concern that 

the establishment of replacement training centers would imply 

that the government anticipated wholesale American losses. 

Nevertheless, several centers were established in April 1918 to 

train infantry, artillery, and machine gun replacements. Though 

the Army continued to make progress on creating a viable program, 
•••• 33 ••••

the replacements overwhelmed the nascent system; again, it was 

left up to the deployed forces to deal with the problem. 

The mobilization and training of manpower had been a major 

concern of a century of American military thought, but in World 

War I the demands of arming, equipping, and supplying a threemillion-man Army meant that American industry also had to 

be mobilized. The National Defense Act of 1916 had to a degree 

anticipated this need with the creation of the Council of National 

Defense to provide a central point for the coordination of military 

industrial needs. Even before America’s entry into the war, the 

council had created the Munitions Standards Board to establish 

standards for the production of ordnance. Soon, however, it became 

apparent that the enormous materiel requirements of industrialized 

warfare would need careful management; thus the Munitions 

Standards Board grew in stages to become the War Industries Board. 

With both civilian and military representatives, it had broad powers 

to coordinate all purchasing by the Army and Navy, to establish 

production priorities, to create new plants and convert existing ones 

to priority uses, and to coordinate the activities of various civilian 

war agencies. Under the vigorous leadership of industrialist Bernard 

Baruch, the War Industries Board would become the chief agency 

of economic and industrial mobilization for the war. In general, the 

Army’s liaison with civilian mobilization agencies was coordinated 

through Baruch’s board; however, it maintained separate liaison 

with the administration’s Shipping and Railway War Boards that 

governed transportation requirements.

Even with these efforts, the demand for arms was so immense 

and immediate and the time required for contracts to be let and 

industry to retool so lengthy that the Army had to depend heavily 

on Allied, especially French, weapons. For the AEF’s Air Service, 

the United States had 2,698 planes in service, of which 667, less than 

one-fourth, were of American manufacture. Of the almost 3,500 

artillery pieces the AEF had in France, only 477 were American 

made and only 130 of those were used in combat. Despite possessing 

the world’s largest automotive industry, the United States had to 

rely on French tanks for the AEF’s Tank Corps; in some instances 

British and French tank battalions supported U.S. troops.

American industry had better success with infantry weapons. 

Almost 900,000 rifles were on hand for the Army’s use when the 

war broke out. Two Army arsenals were producing the excellent 

Model 1903 Springfield rifle and could step up production. Three 

private companies were producing the Lee-Enfield rifle for the 
•••• 34 ••••

British; when they completed their contract, they began turning 

out Enfields modified for American ammunition. Because the 

Army had not purchased a large number of machine guns in 

the prewar period, the AEF was armed almost exclusively 

with French machine guns and automatic rifles until July 1918. 

American industry, however, was able to recover relatively 

quickly and by the end of the war had produced excellent results. 

By the late summer of 1918 new American units were armed 

with superb Browning machine guns and the famous Browning 

Automatic Rifle (also known as a BAR); these weapons were 

among the best of their kind in the world.

Industry also did well in terms of the soldier’s personal needs. 

The Army worked closely with the War Food Administration to 

avoid the food scandals of earlier wars. Inductions had to be 

slowed briefly until sufficient uniforms could be accumulated, 

and shortages in some items persisted; but this resulted less 

from industry’s failures than from a cumbersome quartermaster 

contracting system, which was eventually corrected.

Production line for 3-inch shells, Bethlehem Steel Company, 

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 35 ••••

The one area where the War Department was supremely lacking 

was in its own ability to manage the war. In the spring of 1917 the 

Army’s General Staff was a small war-planning agency rather than 

a coordinating staff for the War Department and its bureaus. The 

National Defense Act of 1916 had limited the number of General 

Staff officers that could be stationed in Washington to fewer than 

twenty, less than a tenth of England’s staff in August 1914. Once 

the United States joined the conflict many talented officers left 

Washington for overseas or commands, even as the staff needed 

to undergo a massive expansion. Without a strong coordination 

agency to provide oversight, the staff bureaus ran amok. By July 

more than 150 War Department purchasing committees competed 

against each other, often cornering the market for scarce items 

and making them unavailable for the Army at large. While the 

General Staff at least established troop movement and training 

schedules, no one set up industrial and transportation priorities. 

To a large degree the problem was that Baker did not have a strong 

chief of staff to control the General Staff and manage the bureaus. 

Both General Scott and his successor, General Bliss, were near 

retirement and distracted by special assignments. Baker did little 

to alleviate these problems until late 1917.

By then the situation had become a crisis. Responding to 

pressure from Congress and recommendations from the General 

Staff, Baker took action to centralize and streamline the supply 

activities. First, in November, he appointed industrialist Benedict 

Crowell, a firm believer in centralized control, as the assistant 

secretary of war; later Crowell would also assume duties as 

director of munitions. On the military side, Baker called back from 

retirement Maj. Gen. George W. Goethals, who had coordinated 

the construction of the Panama Canal. First appointed acting 

quartermaster general in December, Goethals quickly assumed the 

mantle of the Army’s chief supply officer. Eliminating red tape and 

consolidating supply functions, especially the purchasing agencies, 

he also brought in talented administrators from both the military 

and the civilian sector to run the supply system.

In the meantime, the secretary of war was beginning to 

reorganize the General Staff. Congress had increased the size of 

the staff, but it wasn’t until Maj. Gen. Peyton C. March became the 

chief of staff in March of 1918 that the General Staff gained a firm, 

guiding hand. Over his thirty years of service, the 53-year-old 

March had gained an experience well balanced between line and 

staff. He had been cited for gallantry as a junior officer in the 
•••• 36 ••••

War with Spain and in the Philippine Insurrection. He also served 

tours of duty with the Office of the Adjutant General and most 

recently had been Pershing’s artillery chief in France. Forceful 

and brilliant, March was unafraid of making decisions. 

March’s overarching goal was to get as many men as possible 

to the AEF in Europe to win the war. To achieve this, he set 

about making the General Staff and the War Department more 

effective and efficient, quickly clearing bureaucratic logjams, 

streamlining operations, and ousting ineffective officers. In May 

1918 he was aided immeasurably by the Overman Act, which 

granted the president authority to reorganize executive agencies 

during the war. Moreover, he received the additional authority 

of the rank of four-star general. March quickly decreed that 

the powerful bureau chiefs were subordinate to the General 

Staff and were to report to the secretary of war only through 

the chief of staff.

In August 1918 March drastically reorganized the General 

Staff, creating four main divisions: Operations; Military 

Intelligence; Purchase, Storage, and Traffic; and War Plans. The 

divisions’ titles fairly well explained their functions. Notably, 

with the creation of the Purchase, Storage, and Traffic Division, 

for the first time the Army had centralized control over logistics. 

Under this reorganization, the total military and civilian strength 

of the General Staff increased to just over 1,000 and took on a 

much more active role.

By the end of the summer of 1918, Generals March and 

Goethals and their talented military and civilian subordinates 

had engineered a managerial revolution in the War Department. 

Inefficiency, pigeonholes, and snarled actions were replaced by 

centralized control and decentralized operations.

The AEF Settles In

As the War Department struggled with the complexities of 

manpower and economic mobilization, Pershing went about 

organizing and training his forces. To provide logistical support, he 

created a commander of the Line of Communications, subsequently 

renamed Services of Supply, responsible directly to him. After a 

series of short-term commanders, Maj. Gen. Francis J. Kernan, 

a capable administrator, headed the Services of Supply; Kernan 

would be followed in mid 1918 by Maj. Gen. James G. Harbord, 

Pershing’s first chief of staff. Headquartered in Tours along the 
•••• 37 ••••

Loire River, the supply organization was divided into base sections 

at each of the French ports, an intermediate section for storage and 

classification of supplies, and an advance section for distribution 

to the zone of operations. Once the AEF entered combat, the 

advance section’s depots loaded supplies onto trains that moved 

forward to division railheads, and then the divisions pushed the 

supplies to the front in wagons and trucks. Like Goethals’ supply 

organization in the United States, Kernan and Harbord relied 

heavily on businessmen temporarily in uniform, such as Charles 

G. Dawes, a Chicago banker who acted as the AEF’s General 

Purchasing Agent in Europe, and William W. Atterbury, a vice 

president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, who supervised the AEF’s 

transportation system.

Pershing also established his own General Staff in France. 

Reflecting the French system, Pershing’s AEF staff ultimately 

included a chief of staff, a deputy chief, and five assistant chiefs 

supervising the sections: G–1 (Personnel), G–2 (Intelligence), G–3 

(Operations), G–4 (Co–ordination), and G–5 (Training) (Chart 1). 

Under the commander’s watchful eye, the staff developed into 

a confident, competent, and loyal team that understood his 

goals and standards. As the war progressed, the staff officers 

could and did act and speak for Pershing without waiting for his 

personal approval. This practice would sometimes raise the ire of 

subordinate commanders, who were more accustomed to direct 

contact with their commanding officer than receiving directives 

and guidance through staff officers. Nevertheless, Pershing’s 

staff officers freed him of the details of intricate planning and 

administration and allowed him to coordinate on strategic matters 

with the allies, confer with his subordinate commanders, and 

inspect and inspire his troops.

One advantage that many of Pershing’s staff officers shared was 

their training at Fort Leavenworth’s service schools. A component 

of the Root reforms at the turn of the century, these schools 

provided comprehensive training in the tactics, administration, 

and employment of large-scale units. Eight of the twelve officers 

to serve as AEF principal staff officers had Leavenworth training, 

as did a great majority of the division, corps, and army chiefs of 

staff. Because of their common educational experience, this group 

was called, somewhat disparagingly, the “Leavenworth Clique.” 

There is little question, however, that this common background 

and doctrinal training served the officers well as they coordinated 

the activities of the massive American force.
COMMANDING GENERAL

Administrative

Section

Source: United States Army in the World War, 1917–1919, vol. 16, General Orders, GHQ, AEF (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1992), p. 14.

GENERAL STAFF Chief of Staff

Assistants to the Chief of Staff

Secretary to the Chief of Staff

Intelligence

Section

Operations

Section

Co-ordination

Section

Headquarters

Commandant

ADMINISTRATIVE AND TECHNICAL STAFF

Adjutant

General

Inspector

General

Judge

Advocate

Chief

Quartermaster

Chief

Surgeon

Chief

Engineer

Officer

Chief

Ordnance

Officer

Chief

Signal

Officer

Chief of

Air Service

General

Purchasing

Agent

Chief of

Gas Service

Director

General of

Transportation

Commanding General

Line of 

Communications

Chief of

Red Cross

Provost Marshal

General

Training

Section

Chart 1—Organization of Headquarters, American Expeditionary Forces, 5 July 1917
•••• 39 ••••

Pershing placed great value in the benefits of a Leavenworth 

education. Its graduates knew how to move large concentrations 

of men and equipment to battle, how to write clear and precise 

operation orders, and how to coordinate the staff and line to effect 

these operations. An unexpected windfall was the officers’ great 

familiarity with the Metz area by virtue of Leavenworth’s reliance on 

German maps—rather than inferior American maps—for exercises 

and terrain analysis. The officers’ common Leavenworth experience, 

moreover, permitted the AEF staff to speak the same language and 

to approach strategic and tactical situations in a similar manner. 

“Except for an ominous rumble to the north of us,” one graduate 

noted in the fall of 1918, “I might have thought that we were back at 

Leavenworth . . . the technique and the talk were the same.”

In September 1917 Pershing moved his General Headquarters 

(GHQ) to Chaumont, about 150 miles southeast of Paris. Perhaps 

symbolic of the growing autonomy—at least in thought—of the 

American leaders in France, Chaumont was also centrally located 

to the prospective American front lines and to the American 

training areas. From Chaumont, Pershing and his staff would 

oversee the training of the AEF divisions.

With the massive infusion of new recruits into the Army, the 

AEF commander knew that all American units were badly in need 

of training. The extensive regimen for the incoming divisions had 

three phases. The first emphasized basic soldier skills and unit 

training at platoon, company, and battalion levels. In the second 

phase, battalions joined French regiments in a quiet sector to gain 

frontline experience. Finally, the division’s infantry and artillery 

would come together for field training to begin to work as a 

combined team. Throughout the phases, regiment, brigade, and 

division staffs would conduct tactical command post exercises. 

Then the divisions would be ready for actual, independent combat 

operations.

By the fall of 1917 Pershing had four divisions to train. The 1st 

Division had been in France since late June 1917. It was joined by 

the 2d Division, with a brigade of soldiers and a brigade of marines; 

the 26th Division comprised of National Guard units from New 

England; and the 42d Division, called the “Rainbow Division” 

because it was a composite of guardsmen from many states. In 

all four, many of the men were new recruits. Only in mid-January 

1918, six months after the 1st Division’s arrival in France, did 

Pershing consider it ready to move as a unit into a quiet sector of 

the trenches. The other three divisions would follow later in 1918.
•••• 40 ••••

For training in trench warfare, Pershing gratefully accepted 

the help of experienced Allied, especially French, instructors. For 

its training, the 1st Division was paired with the crack French 47th 

Chasseur Alpin Division. The AEF also followed the Allied system 

of setting up special training centers and schools to teach subjects 

such as gas warfare, demolitions, and the use of hand grenades and 

mortars. Pershing, however, believed that the French and British 

had become too imbued with trench warfare. Because he strongly 

held that victory could come only after driving the Germans from 

their trenches and defeating them in open warfare, he insisted on 

additional training in offensive tactics, including a focus on rifle 

marksmanship and use of the bayonet.

Ideally, the divisions would go through their training cycle 

in three or four months. Unfortunately, soldiers and units often 

arrived from the United States with less-than-expected training in 

basic skills. Also, officers and men were too often sent away from 

their units to attend schools or perform labor details. Moreover, 

due to the German Spring Offensives of 1918, divisions were 

pressed into line service before they completed the full training 

regime.

Wanting to ensure that the Americans would not stumble in 

taking their first step, Pershing waited until late October 1917 to 

allow the 1st Division to have its first trial experience in the line. 

One battalion at a time from each regiment spent ten days with 

a French division. In early November one of these deployments 

GAS IN WORLD WAR I

The Western Front had seen extensive chemical operations since April 

1915, utilizing agents such as phosgene, chlorine, and mustard gas. 

Although the German Army was the first to use chemical agents, all 

nations were soon incorporating chemical weapons into their arsenals. 

The United States, however, entered the war essentially unprepared for 

chemical warfare. The U.S. Army and Marine Corps had to rely heavily 

on French and British expertise for chemical training, doctrine, and 

materiel. Building on this imported knowledge base, the Army eventually 

established a separate Chemical Warfare Service to coordinate the 

offensive, defensive, and supply problems involved in using chemical 

weapons. Gas inflicted over a quarter of all AEF casualties.
Soldier and horse in gas masks

(National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 42 ••••

resulted in the first U.S. Army casualties of the war when the 

Germans staged a trench raid against the same battalion that had 

paraded in Paris. The Germans captured eleven Americans and 

killed three: Cpl. James B. Gresham, Pvt. Thomas F. Enright, and 

Pvt. Merle D. Hay.

German Offensives and the AEF’s First Battles

By late 1917, as the AEF methodically pursued its training 

program, the Allied situation on the Western Front had reached 

low ebb. The French armies were still recovering from the 

disastrous Nivelle Offensive of April 1917 and subsequent mutinies 

in which the French soldiers told their officers that they would 

defend France but would no longer attack. The British armies, 

under Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, suffered shocking losses 

in the Passchendaele Campaign during the latter half of 1917. As a 

consequence of this offensive, British Prime Minister David Lloyd 

George withheld replacements to assure that Haig would have to 

remain on the defensive. The Allies appeared to have no alternative 

for 1918 but to grimly hold on until enough American troops arrived 

to assure the numerical superiority essential to victory.

While the Allies were smarting from their losses, Germany 

triumphed on its other fronts. The Bolshevik Revolution and 

German battlefield victories led Russia to drop out of the war in 

October. Using forces freed from the Eastern Front, the Germans 

spearheaded an Austro-German offensive along the Isonzo River 

in late October that drove back the Italians more than sixty miles 

in less than a month. The Germans now could concentrate their 

forces on the Western Front for offensive operations.

Against this strategic backdrop, the Allies pressed Pershing to 

abandon his plans to wait for 1919 to make a large-scale commitment 

of American forces. With Pershing unwilling to discard the 

objective of an independent American army, the questions over 

amalgamation surfaced anew at the end of 1917. The Allies had 

experienced commanders and units and the necessary artillery, 

aviation, and tank support; but they lacked men. Meanwhile, the 

American situation was the reverse. Amalgamation would permit 

American manpower to be quickly brought to bear to hasten the 

victory. Toward this end, the British opened the next round of the 

debate by going directly to the American leadership in Washington.

In late 1917 Prime Minister Lloyd George approached “Colonel” 

Edward House, President Wilson’s close adviser, on the possibility 
•••• 43 ••••

of American infantry companies training and fighting as part of 

British units. President Wilson and Secretary Baker deferred the 

decision to Pershing, who stubbornly refused. The issue arose 

again early in 1918, when the British offered to transport 150 

battalions of riflemen and machine gunners, which would be used 

to temporarily fill out British divisions. Pershing again refused 

but made a counterproposal for the British to ship six complete 

American divisions instead of only infantry battalions. These 

units would train with the British, although their artillery would 

train with the French. Once the training was over, the battalions 

and regiments would be formed into divisions under their own 

American officers. The British reluctantly consented to this 

six-division agreement. For the French, Pershing made another 

arrangement to have the four American divisions then in France 

serve under the French in Lorraine. In addition, Pershing agreed 

to transfer the four African American infantry regiments of the 

93d Division to the French Army, where they were eventually 

incorporated into French divisions.

In opposing the amalgamation of the American troops 

into Allied commands, Pershing was not callous to the Allied 

situation. While he appreciated the threat of a German attack, 

both he and his staff believed that the British and French could 

withstand the potential German offensive and that neither was at 

the brink of collapse. Pershing steadfastly held to his objective 

of an independent American Army, following his own beliefs in 

the wisdom of that option and his instruction from Washington 

to create “a separate and distinct force.” Amalgamation would 

squander American forces in the present, instead of looking 

toward the future, when the United States could provide the bulk 

of the Allied forces under the U.S. flag. Pershing explained to 

Secretary Baker that men were not pawns to be shoved from one 

army to another, that Allied training methods differed, and, most 

important, that once the American troops were put into Allied 

units they would be hard to retrieve.

As the Allies debated, the German high command planned 

a series of offensives to end the war. While Germany was now 

temporarily able to achieve numerical superiority on the Western 

Front, strategically its manpower reservoir was shrinking, its 

economy was stretched to the limit, and its population faced 

starvation. To achieve victory, the German Army needed to 

act before the strategic difficulties overwhelmed its short-term 

battlefield advantages. With new tactics for massing artillery and 
•••• 44 ••••

infiltrating infantry into the Allied lines, the German military 

leaders believed they could strike decisive blows before American 

manpower and resources could weigh in for the Allies.

On 21 March 1918, the first German offensive fell on the British 

along the Somme. After a massive artillery barrage, sixty-two 

German divisions smashed the British line and achieved a 

penetration along a fifty-mile front. They were heading toward 

Amiens, a communications hub on the Somme that if seized 

would effectively split the French and British armies. British 

forces rallied to prevent the capture of Amiens, and by the first 

week of April the German offensive had bogged down. The 

Germans nevertheless had achieved a brilliant tactical victory: an 

advance of forty miles in eight days, 70,000 prisoners and 200,000 

other Allied casualties. Strategically, the result was empty. The 

Germans had failed to destroy the British armies or separate 

them from the French.

Operationally, at this point, the Americans could do little 

materially to assist the British. On 25 March Pershing offered 

General Pétain any AEF division that could be of service and 

postponed the idea of fielding American divisions under the 

American I Army Corps. Appreciating the offer, Pétain preferred 

for the Americans to replace French divisions in quiet sectors, 

freeing the more experienced French divisions for action against 

the Germans. Marshal Haig specifically asked Pershing for any 

INFILTRATION TACTICS

Infiltration tactics encompass a range of improvements in small-unit and 

combined-arms methods developed by armies during the Great War to 

overcome the static nature of trench warfare. They commonly utilized 

the coordination of artillery barrages targeting enemy communication 

and transportation systems behind the lines with highly trained light 

infantry assaults against weak parts of the line, isolating strong points 

that could be reduced with follow-on attacks. The resulting confusion 

would force the entire line to collapse. The most famous example of 

these methods was the German Sturmtruppen (“storm troops”) used in 

the Spring Offensive in 1918. Although they made impressive gains, 

infiltration units continued to struggle to maintain momentum during 

attacks as they outran support elements.
•••• 45 ••••

available heavy artillery or engineer units. Pershing had no heavy 

artillery available but sent three engineer regiments north.

The German offensives also jarred the Allied leadership into 

building a stronger joint command structure. After the Italian 

defeat at Caporetto in November 1917, the British and French 

leaders agreed to the creation of the Supreme War Council to 

coordinate actions and strategy on the Western Front. In addition 

to political leaders, the council provided for a committee of military 

advisers. General Bliss, the former chief of staff, more than ably 

served as the American representative. Although the council 

provided a useful forum for the Allies, committees are rarely able 

to provide firm direction. Consequently, when the German attack 

fell on the Somme, the Allies saw the need to coordinate the British 

and French responses. They chose General Ferdinand Foch, both 

respected and capable, to coordinate the forces around the Amiens 

salient. Later, he was charged with coordination of all Allied land 

forces. Although Foch never had the full authority to command 

the Allied forces, through persuasion and force of character, he 

was able to successfully influence the other strong-willed Allied 

commanders, including General Pershing.

In April the Germans launched another attack on the British 

lines, aimed along the Lys River, to the north of the Amiens 

salient. Once again the Germans achieved tactical victory but 

operationally only created another salient in the Western Front.

Firing at German aircraft (National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 46 ••••

With the German advances in March and April, the Allied 

leadership again pressed Pershing for the service of American 

troops with their armies. At the end of March the Supreme War 

Council had drafted Joint Note No. 18, which recommended that 

priority of shipping go to American infantry. To the British, this 

looked to nullify the six-division agreement of January; they 

wanted to ship just riflemen and machine gunners for the next 

four months (April–July). Pershing refused. Over the next few 

weeks, in a series of confused and often contradicting negotiations 

in London, Washington, and Paris, the Allies and the Americans 

bickered over American manpower. At the end of April Pershing 

and Lord Alfred Milner, the new British war minister, consented to 

a modified six-division agreement: British shipping would transport 

six American divisions to train with Haig’s armies, but Pershing 

agreed to have all the infantry and machine gunners shipped first.

At the May summit of Allied and American leaders (only 

President Wilson was absent) at Abbeville, France, the Allies, led 

by French Premier George Clemenceau, again brought up the issue 

of amalgamation. Over the two-day conference, virtually all the 

Allied leaders pressed Pershing to bring over American infantry 

at the expense of the rest of the divisional elements throughout 

the summer of 1918. At one point, General Foch asked Pershing in 

exasperation, “You are willing to risk our being driven back to the 

Loire?” Pershing replied: “Yes, I am willing to take the risk. Moreover, 

the time may come when the American Army will have to stand the 

brunt of this war, and it is not wise to fritter away our resources 

in this manner.” Pershing continued to believe that the Allies were 

overestimating the effect of the German offensives and exploiting 

the situation to recruit American soldiers for their armies.

Finally, after two days of acrimonious debate, Pershing 

proposed to continue the agreement with Milner for both May and 

June. Discussion of troop shipments in July would be delayed for 

the time being. The Allies unhappily accepted this arrangement. 

The Abbeville Agreement held that 130,000 Americans were to be 

transported in British shipping in May and 150,000 in June. American 

shipping would be used to transport artillery, engineers, and other 

support and service troops to build a separate American army.

In the meantime AEF divisions fought their first two 

engagements, albeit in only local operations. In late April Maj. 

Gen. Clarence Edwards’ 26th (Yankee) Division held a quiet 

sector near St. Mihiel. On 20 April the Germans opened a heavy 

bombardment followed by a regimental attack. Boxing in the 
•••• 47 ••••

defenders with artillery, the Germans overwhelmed two American 

companies and seized the trench line. The 26th Division botched 

the counterattacks; when it finally advanced, the Americans 

found that the enemy had withdrawn. The Germans left behind 

160 dead, but they took over 100 prisoners and inflicted over 650 

casualties. Pershing was infuriated. In the midst of the debate 

over amalgamation, he did not need a humiliating setback that 

raised questions about the Americans’ ability to handle divisions 

and corps.

Much more satisfying to Pershing and the American leadership 

was the battle at Cantigny. In mid-April the 1st Division went north 

in response to the German Lys Offensive. Pétain had selected its 

sector near Montdidier, where the Germans had been stopped in 

front of Amiens. Once in line, the division’s new commander, Maj. 

Gen. Robert L. Bullard, an aggressive, long-time regular, urged 

his French corps commander to give him an offensive mission. 

Finally, Pétain agreed that Bullard’s men should attack to seize 

the village of Cantigny on commanding ground near the tip of 

the salient. Even with careful preparations and rehearsals, the 

American attack was not a sure thing: twice before, the French 

had taken and lost the key piece of terrain.

On the morning of 28 May, Col. Hanson Ely’s 28th Infantry, 

supported by American and French artillery and by French 

Americans advance upon Cantigny. (National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 48 ••••

tanks, took the village in a well-executed assault. Thereafter 

the supporting French guns withdrew to deal with another large 

German offensive, leaving the Americans with only their own 

organic artillery to deal with German attempts to retake the 

area. The American gunners, however, proved up to the task and 

assisted in breaking up several actual or potential counterattacks. 

Altogether, the Americans threw back six counterattacks. After 

three days of fighting and constant artillery shelling, Ely and his 

men were replaced by the 18th Infantry. During their efforts in 

taking and holding Cantigny, the Americans lost almost 200 men 

killed and suffered another 800 casualties. It was a forerunner of 

successes to come.

Americans Help Stem the Tide, May–July 1918

On 27 May, the German high command launched its third 

spring offensive at the French lines in the Chemin des Dames 

area northeast of Paris. By the end of the first day the attackers 

had driven the French over the Aisne River, the second defensive 

line. By the next day they were across the Vesle River and driving 

toward the Marne. When the offensive eventually ground to a halt, 

German troops were within fifty miles of Paris, almost as close 

as they had come in 1914.

The offensive had caught the Allies flatfooted. With most of 

their reserves in the north, Foch and Pétain struggled to scrape 

up enough local reserves to form a new line. To the west, the 

American 1st Division extended its lines to free a French division 

for redeployment. On 30 May, Maj. Gen. Omar Bundy’s 2d Division 

and Maj. Gen. Joseph T. Dickman’s 3d Division began entering the 

line near Château-Thierry on the Marne and came under French 

command.

Loaded on trucks, troops of the 3d Division’s 7th Machine 

Gun Battalion arrived on the Marne first and were in position to 

help French troops hold the main bridge over the river on 31 May. 

The next day Dickman’s infantry arrived. For the next week, the 

division repulsed the limited German attacks in its sector. On 6 

June the division assisted the French 10th Colonial Division in an 

attack to Hill 204 overlooking the Marne. The 3d Division held an 

eight-mile stretch of ground along the Marne for the next month.

On 1 June, Bundy’s 2d Division assumed defensive positions 

astride the Paris-Metz highway west of Château-Thierry. In 1918 

the 2d Division had a distinctive organization: it had a brigade of 
•••• 49 ••••

Army regulars and a brigade of marines. Bundy placed the two 

brigades abreast with the marines to the west and the regulars 

to the east. As the Americans settled into their positions, the 

French troops withdrew through the 2d Division’s lines. Across 

from Bundy’s lines, the Germans moved into Belleau Wood and 

the surrounding area while their artillery shelled the American 

positions. Nevertheless, the German advance had shot its bolt and 

the Americans had no difficulty holding their ground.

The French then ordered the 2d Division to seize Belleau Wood 

and the villages of Bouresches and Vaux to the east. The attack 

began on 6 June. Over the next month the infantrymen and marines 

fought a bloody, toe-to-toe battle against four German divisions. 

The struggle for Belleau Wood was particularly hard fought, with 

the Germans testing the mettle of the Americans. By 17 June the 

marines had taken Bouresches. Six days later they cleared Belleau 

Wood, and on 1 July the infantrymen captured Vaux. Though the 

Americans had gained their objectives and inflicted over 10,000 

casualties on the Germans, the price was reciprocally steep. 

Bundy’s division suffered over 9,777 casualties, including 1,811 

dead. One of the opposing German commanders noted that the 

division “must be considered a very good one and may even be 

reckoned as storm troops.” The AEF had proved itself in combat.

While the 2d Division continued its battle in the tangled forest 

of Belleau Wood, the Germans launched their fourth offensive. 

One German army attacked southwesterly from the Amiens 

salient, while another launched a westward attack from the 

Marne salient. The German high command hoped to shorten their 

lines and ease their logistical difficulties by joining the two bulges 

in their lines. The French, however, having been forewarned of 

the offensive, launched a vigorous artillery strike on the German 

assault troops and disrupted the force of the attack. By 13 June 

both attacks were halted after only limited gains.

With these meager gains, the German high command 

planned yet another offensive against the French. Once again 

the Germans wanted to use two converging attacks to shorten 

their lines and draw off reserves from the British sector, thus 

setting the conditions for their future operations in Flanders. 

On 15 July one German army attacked south from positions 

east of Reims while another attacked southeast from the Marne 

salient. Again, the Allies were aware of the pending operation 

and launched a counterbarrage against the Germans. Moreover, 

the allied forces, now including the U.S. 42d Division and three 
•••• 50 ••••

African-American infantry regiments of the 93d Division, 

withdrew from the forward lines, leaving the German artillery 

and infantry assaults to hit an empty bag. By the time the 

Germans reached the French and American main defensive 

line, their attack was played out.

The exception was the Marne sector, where French 

commanders did not want to allow the enemy a foothold over 

the river and so kept units exposed in their forward positions. 

The U.S. 3d Division had occupied the eastern flank of the 

French line since early June. Initially, Dickman’s force was 

deployed in depth with two regiments forward and two in 

reserve, but by mid-July the division was defending a ten-mile 

front with four infantry regiments abreast. Nevertheless, 

Dickman established as much of an echelon defense as he 

could: an outpost line of rifle pits along the Marne River, 

backed by the main defensive line along the forward slopes 

of the hill line about 1,500 yards from the river, and a reserve 

line about 3,000 yards back.

In the early morning hours of 15 July the Germans began their 

attack against the 3d Division with a creeping barrage followed 

shortly by an assault crossing of the Marne. The weight of the 

attack came against Col. Edmund Butts’ 30th Infantry and Col. 

Ulysses Grant McAlexander’s 38th Infantry. After heavy fighting 

in the morning, when the 30th Infantry inflicted horrendous 

casualties on the Germans, Butts’ men were forced back to a 

line along the hills where they stopped the Germans. Elsewhere 

BARBED WIRE

Barbed wire was invented in the United States in 1873 as agricultural 

fencing. By the outbreak of World War I it had become an important 

element of field fortifications. Barbed-wire entanglements ten or more 

yards deep combined with trenches and machine guns to make the Western 

Front essentially impassible to large bodies of troops. The emplacement, 

maintenance, and removal of barbed-wire entanglements consumed the 

bulk of infantry patrols and much of the combat-engineering effort. New 

tactics and the introduction of improved equipment such as tanks and 

Bangalore torpedoes reduced, but by no means eliminated, barbed wire 

as a battlefield obstruction.
•••• 51 ••••

in the Marne sector the Germans made greater headway, up to 

five miles beyond the river at some points. McAlexander faced 

a more precarious position when the adjacent French division 

hastily retreated, leaving the 38th Infantry’s right flank exposed. 

Turning some of the regiment to defend that flank, McAlexander 

also had to deal with a penetration of his main line. Although 

fighting on three sides, the riflemen and machine gunners of the 

38th Infantry held, earning the sobriquet “Rock of the Marne.” By 

the end of the day the 3d Division had stopped the German attack. 

Between the 30th and 38th Infantries the Americans had defeated 

six regiments from two German divisions. One German 1,700-man 

regiment was so badly cut up that the German leaders could 

only find 150 survivors at nightfall on 15 July. On the negative 

side of the ledger, four rifle companies of the 28th Division 

from the Pennsylvania National Guard had been attached to 

the French division to the east of the 38th Infantry. When the 

French retreated, they neglected to inform the Pennsylvanians 

and the riflemen became surrounded. Most of them were killed 

or captured; only a few fought their way to the south to rejoin 

their parent division.

First Aid Station, by Lester G. Hornby, 1918 (Army Art Collection) •••••••••••••••
•••• 52 ••••

The Growing AEF

Prior to March 1918 Pershing’s efforts to create a distinct 

American ground combat force had been checked by the shortage 

of transportation available for troops and the objectives and 

demands of the Allies. In December 1917 only 183,000 American 

soldiers were in France, comprising parts of five divisions and 

performing various service support functions. During the first 

three months of 1918 the number of Americans doubled, but only an 

additional two combat divisions had arrived. However, after April 

1918 the various shipping arrangements with the Allies, along with 

improvements in the War Department, had begun to pay dividends 

as American troops began to pour into Europe. At the end of June 

over 900,000 Americans were in France, with 10,000 arriving daily.

In early July the AEF had reached the million-man mark, with 

twenty-three combat divisions (the equivalent of almost fifty Allied 

divisions). Six of the AEF’s divisions had seen combat over the 

previous two months: two of those were holding segments of active 

front lines and four were in reserve positions. Six other divisions 

were training in the American sector around Chaumont, and 

another five were training with the British behind the front lines 

in the north. Four more were brigaded with French divisions for 

training along quiet sectors of the line, while the regiments of the 

93d Division served in French divisions.

Since late 1917 Pershing had envisioned as the next step 

in establishing an independent American army the creation 

of American corps organizations with tactical command over 

American divisions. Toward this end he had established I Corps in 

January 1918 under the command of the unassuming but extremely 

capable Maj. Gen. Hunter Liggett. Over the next six months 

Liggett held administrative control over four American divisions, 

overseeing their training and interceding on their behalf with the 

French commanders. With the assistance of his effective chief of 

staff, Col. Malin Craig, Liggett also ensured that his corps staff 

and headquarters were trained. The I Corps spent much of its time 

collocated with the French XXXII Corps in the Pont-à-Mousson 

region north of Toul. 

By the end of June the AEF had formed three more corps 

headquarters. In late February 1918 the II Army Corps assumed 

administrative control of the American troops training with the 

British. In June Maj. Gen. George W. Read took command; until 

that time the corps staff had reported directly to GHQ. During 
•••• 53 ••••

the late spring the III and IV Army Corps came into existence and 

managed Americans training with the French Seventh and Eighth 

Armies, respectively. Eventually, General Bullard would assume 

command of the III Corps, while General Dickman would take 

over the IV Corps.

At the same time the AEF was organizing its first corps, 

Pershing was eyeing the front north of Toul, along the St. Mihiel 

salient, as the sector to employ them. Ever since the 1st Division 

initially occupied a sector north of Toul in early 1918, the AEF 

staff had planned to expand that sector into an area of operations 

first for an American corps, then for an American army. In May, 

once the military situation stabilized after the failure of the 

German offensives in March and April, General Foch proposed 

concentrating available U.S. divisions to establish a separate AEF 

sector and left it to Pétain and Pershing to work out the details. 

Subsequently, the two national commanders agreed that once 

four American divisions were in line along the Toul front, the 

sector would be turned over to the AEF. The AEF headquarters 

began to make arrangements to move units into the region, then 

Army Camp, by George Harding, 1917 (Army Art Collection)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 54 ••••

the Germans struck with their Marne Offensive on 27 May. The 

available U.S. divisions were sent northward to help stem the tide 

along the Marne.

By June nearly five American divisions were positioned in the 

Château-Thierry area. Forgoing the Toul sector for the time being, 

Pershing decided to use this concentration of American forces for 

the first tactical employment of an AEF corps. In mid-June, the 

AEF’s GHQ ordered General Liggett and his I Corps headquarters 

to prepare to move to the Château-Thierry region. This marked 

a shift in doctrine resulting from the piecemeal commitment of 

divisions to stem the German offensives. Instead of operating with 

permanently assigned divisions, the corps echelon would consist 

of only a headquarters and some artillery, aviation, engineer, and 

technical units, with divisions and other subordinate formations 

assigned temporarily as the situation dictated. The change also 

reflected the French system of a more flexible corps organization 

that could be adapted to a particular mission.

Liggett and his I Corps staff arrived at La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, 

southwest of Château-Thierry, on 21 June. There, the I Corps 

assumed administrative control over the 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, and 

28th Divisions. More important, the corps began to work with 

the French III Corps that was holding the sector just west of 

Château-Thierry. A little less than two weeks later the I Corps 

took tactical control of the sector with the French 167th Division 

and the U.S. 26th Division. Perhaps fittingly, the corps assumed 

command on American Independence Day, 4 July 1918. Fourteen 

days later the I Corps would provide the pivot for the first largescale Allied counteroffensive in 1918.

The AEF in the Aisne-Marne Campaign, July–August 1918

Even as the Germans launched their June and July offensives, 

General Foch had been looking for an opportunity to strike a 

counterblow. The Marne salient presented an excellent prospect. 

(See Map 1.) The bulge in the line was inherently weak as the 

German forces relied on a single railroad through Soissons for the 

majority of their supplies. In mid-June Foch directed Pétain to plan 

an attack against Soissons. After French intelligence warned that 

the Germans would attack east of Château-Thierry beginning on 15 

July, Foch set the date for his counterattack as 18 July. Consequently, 

as the Germans were attacking on the eastern flank of the salient, 

the Allies would be striking against their western flank.
•••• 55 ••••

The Allied plan called for two French armies to advance on 

18 July toward Braine on the Vesle River. In the north, the French 

Tenth Army would conduct the main attack between the Aisne 

and the Ourcq Rivers; in the south, the French Sixth Army would 

attack between the Ourcq and the Marne. Their mission was to cut 

the German lines of communications in the salient. The French 

Fifth and Ninth Armies on the eastern flank would join the attack 

after defeating the German offensive. Foch expected the reduction 

of the Marne salient to follow.

Under the cover of the forest of Villers-Cotterêts, the 

assault forces for the French Tenth Army gathered efficiently 

and secretly in the three days prior to the attack. Against the 

German defenders along the western flank of the salient, Foch 

had been able the gather twenty-three first-class divisions. 

Among them were the 1st and 2d Divisions assigned to the 

French XX Corps. Administratively the two U.S. divisions fell 

under General Bullard’s III Corps, which had been rushed 

to the sector. Pershing had wanted Bullard to command the 

American troops; but Bullard arrived in the assembly areas too 

late to properly exercise tactical command, and he was instead 

attached to the XX Corps as an assistant commander. Three 

more American divisions would take part in the initial days 

of the operation. In the French Sixth Army area, the U.S. 4th 

Division supported two French corps with an infantry brigade 

apiece, while Liggett’s I Corps with the 26th Division held the 

eastern flank of that army. Meanwhile, the 3d Division supported 

the French Ninth Army.

On 18 July the Franco-American attack came as a tactical and 

operational surprise to the Germans. To preserve secrecy many 

of the assault units had moved into attack positions during the 

night. Darkness, heavy rain, and mud hampered the U.S. divisions’ 

movements to the front, and some of the 2d Division’s infantry 

reached their jump-off point with only minutes to spare. The Allies 

also made very limited use of artillery prior to the attack to avoid 

revealing their intentions, employing only short but intensive 

preparatory fires. Once the attack began, a rolling barrage and 

550 tanks supported the infantry. 

Spearheading the French Tenth Army’s attack, the XX Corps 

began a dawn assault to seize the high ground to the south of 

Soissons and cut the key rail lines. It attacked on a three-division 

front: Maj. Gen. Charles Summerall’s 1st Division on the northern 

flank, General Harbord’s 2d Division on the southern, and the 
Map 1

9–27 Apr 1918

21 Mar–6 Apr 1918

8 Aug–11 Nov 1918

18 Aug–11 Nov 1918

19 Aug–11 Nov 1918

20 Nov–4 Dec 1917

27 May–5 Jun 1918

9–13 Jun 1918

15–18 Jul 1918

18 Jul–6 Aug 1918

LYS

SOMME DEFENSIVE

SOMME OFFENSIVE

OISE-AISNE

YPRES-LYS

CAMBRAI

AISNE

MONTDIDIER-NOYON

CHAMPAGNE-MARNE

AISNE-MARNE

E

N

G L I S

H

C

H

A

N

N

E

L

PARIS

BRUSSELS

FRANCE

UNITED

KINGDOM
24 Oct–4 Nov 1918

( in ITALY )

26 Sep–11 Nov 1918

12–16 Sep 1918

VITTORIO VENETO

MEUSE-ARGONNE

ST. MIHIEL

BELGIUM

NETHERLANDS

GERMANY

LUXEMBOURG

Miles

0 50

20 March 1917–11 November 1918

WESTERN FRONT

Front Line, 20 Mar 1918

German Operation MICHAEL, 21 Mar–5 Apr 1918

German Operation GEORGETTE, 7–29 Apr 1918

German Operation BLÜCHER-YORCK, 27 May–6 Jun 1918

German Operation GNEISENAU, 9–12 Jun 1918

German Final Oensive, 15–17 Jul 1918

Allied Oensive

ST. MIHIEL, 12–16 Sep 1918

MEUSE-ARGONNE, 26 Sep–11 Nov 1918

Front Line, 11 Nov 1918
•••• 58 ••••

Moroccan 1st Division (French Army) in the center. On 18 July 

both American divisions made remarkable progress, advancing 

over three miles and achieving their objectives by 0800. The next 

day the corps renewed its attack. The Germans, however, had 

been heavily reinforced with machine guns and artillery during 

the night; the French and American infantry found the advance 

slower and more costly. After a day of hard fighting, Harbord 

asked for the relief of his division; it was replaced by a French 

division. In two days the 2d Division had advanced more than 

eight miles and captured 3,000 prisoners and 66 field guns, at a 

cost of almost 4,000 men. Summerall’s division remained in line 

for another three days and cut the Soissons–Château-Thierry 

highway and the Villers-Cotterêts railroad and held the ground 

that dominated Soissons. In its five-day battle the 1st Division 

captured 3,800 prisoners and 70 guns from the 7 German divisions 

used against it. For these gains, the division paid a heavy price: 

7,000 casualties (1,000 killed and a 73 percent casualty rate among 

the infantry’s field officers). Despite the high cost, the XX Corps’ 

attack was an operational success. To counter the attack south 

of Soissons, the German high command halted its offensive east 

of Château-Thierry and withdrew from its footholds over the 

Marne. Furthermore, the interdiction of the supply line through 

Soissons made the Marne salient untenable and the Germans 

began to withdraw.

TANKS

After two years of stalemate on the Western Front, the Allies began 

searching for technological solutions to the deadlock. Both France and 

Britain independently began producing an armored chassis on caterpillar 

tracks armed with cannon and machine guns that could overcome German 

defenses and break through the lines. The British initially used a small 

number of these vehicles with limited results in September 1916. The 

Germans developed countermeasures in time to blunt the first use of 

massed armor by the French in April 1917. Although these early “tanks” 

proved mechanically unreliable, demand for additional vehicles remained 

high. However, neither French, American, nor British industry could 

supply vehicles in large numbers, and only a limited number of tanks 

were available for American use in late 1918.
•••• 59 ••••

To the south of the Tenth Army, the Sixth Army also attacked 

on 18 July, with Maj. Gen. George H. Cameron’s 4th Division 

supporting the French II and VII Corps. From 18 to 20 July 

Cameron’s division advanced about four miles in two separate 

sectors. More significantly, Liggett’s I Corps advanced up the 

spine of the Marne salient for four weeks. With the American 26th 

Division and the French 167th Division, I Corps pushed beyond 

the old Belleau Wood battlegrounds and advanced about ten 

miles from 18 to 25 July. For the next three weeks the corps made 

steady gains against the tenacious German defenders. Advancing 

with the 42d Division from 25 July to 3 August and then the 4th 

Division from 3 to 12 August, the American corps crossed the 

Ourcq and then the Vesle, a distance of almost fifteen miles. On 

12 August, Liggett and his headquarters were withdrawn to the 

Toul sector in preparation for the next offensive.

To the east of Château-Thierry, the AEF troops also played 

a significant role. The 3d Division had been a mainstay of this 

portion of the Marne line since early June. Initially, its role was to 

pin down German forces as the Sixth and Tenth Armies advanced. 

After 20 July, as part of the French XXXVIII Corps, the division 

crossed the Marne, cleared the northern bank, and pursued the 

Germans as they withdrew. The division pushed forward until 

relieved by the 32d Division on 29 July. The 32d Division continued 

Street in Soissons, September 1918 (National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 60 ••••

the advance until it reached the Vesle. On 1 August, Bullard’s III 

Corps arrived and assumed tactical control of the 32d, 28th, and 

3d Divisions from the French XXXVIII Corps. Thus for a few days 

the American I and III Corps stood side by side on the front lines.

At the end of the first week of August, the Aisne-Marne 

Campaign came to a close. The campaign successfully removed 

the threat against Paris and freed several important railroads for 

Allied use. It also eliminated the German high command’s plans for 

another offensive against the British in Flanders. More important, 

the campaign effectively seized the initiative from the Germans 

and gave it to Foch and his national commanders. The chance 

had passed for Germany to defeat Britain and France before the 

United States could intervene in force.

To maintain pressure on the Germans, Foch had Pétain 

continue the advance beyond the Vesle. From mid-August to 

mid-September this operation included troops from the American 

III Corps before they withdrew southward to join the new American 

First Army. From 28 August to 1 September Maj. Gen. William G. 

Haan’s 32d Division attacked north of Soissons, seizing the key 

town of Juvigny and making a two-and-a-half-mile penetration 

of the German lines. In early September, the 28th and the 77th 

Divisions attacked northward, almost reaching the Aisne River 

by 16 September.

An American Army and St. Mihiel, September 1918

Shortly after the dramatic advance of the 1st and 2d Divisions 

south of Soissons, Pershing renewed his efforts for an independent 

American field army. On 21 July he approached Pétain about 

organizing an army and establishing its own distinct area of 

operations. Pershing wanted one sector in the active Marne 

front and another in a more quiet sector, the Toul area, where he 

could send exhausted units to rest and refit. He wanted to form 

the American First Army in the active sector and take command 

himself. Pétain agreed in principle to Pershing’s plans, and together 

they met with Foch. Foch was favorably disposed to the plan but 

made no firm commitment.

Three days later, as the Allied forces were approaching 

the Ourcq River, Foch called a meeting of his senior military 

commanders to lay out his plan to maintain the initiative on the 

Western Front. He envisioned a set of limited offensives aimed 

at freeing important railroads and key resources. Beside the 
•••• 61 ••••

ongoing Marne Campaign, these included operations to reduce 

the Lys and Amiens salients in the north and the St. Mihiel salient 

in the south. The latter was to be an American operation. Upon 

completion of these limited operations, Foch wanted a general 

offensive along the entire front, pushing to end the war in the 

summer of 1919.

On the same day, Pershing officially announced the formation 

of First Army, with an effective date of 10 August 1918. When on 

4 August the I and III Corps assumed adjacent sectors south of 

the Vesle, arrangements were made to extend both their fronts to 

cover the entire French Sixth Army’s sector. By 8 August the two 

corps held a front of eight miles and had control of six American 

and two French divisions. Pétain’s headquarters issued orders 

affecting the relief of the Sixth Army by the American First. On 

10 August Pershing achieved one of his major objectives for the 

AEF, the formation of an independent American army composed 

of American corps and American divisions.

These arrangements were quickly overtaken by events. By the 

time Pétain and Pershing could establish a sector for an American 

army, the situation along the Vesle had stabilized. With no need or 

desire to occupy an inactive sector, Pershing arranged with Pétain 

to begin moving his army headquarters southward to prepare for 

operations against the St. Mihiel salient. Leaving Pétain with the 

American III Corps of three divisions, Pershing began shifting 

other American units to the St. Mihiel region. American troops 

from the Vesle region, the Vosges, the training areas around 

Chaumont, and the British sector were concentrated along the 

salient. Initially, the forces available to the American First Army 

were three American corps of fourteen divisions and a French 

corps of three divisions.

Just as the concentration of American forces was making 

headway, Foch, newly promoted to Marshal of France, came to 

Pershing’s headquarters on 30 August. Pershing and his staff had 

been planning to achieve Foch’s desire to reduce the St. Mihiel 

salient and then push the Germans back along the whole front 

as stated at the 24 July conference. But now, several weeks later, 

Foch had reconsidered the need for the St. Mihiel operation. 

Based on a suggestion from Marshal Haig, the British commander, 

Foch wanted to launch a series of converging attacks against the 

Germans’ lateral lines of communications. This plan called for 

British forces to attack southeasterly and the Franco-American 

forces to attack northward from the Meuse-Argonne region in 
•••• 62 ••••

a vast double envelopment against the German Army. With the 

northward attack, a full reduction of the St. Mihiel salient would be 

unnecessary. Foch further complicated the situation by proposing 

to divide the American army into two pieces on either side of the 

Meuse-Argonne, separated by a French army. He made his proposal 

even more uninviting to the AEF by detailing two French generals 

to “assist” the Americans.

Not surprisingly, Pershing fervently objected to the suggestion 

of dividing the American forces. He offered counterproposals, 

which Foch dismissed as impractical. Quickly, the tempers of 

the two commanders flared. Foch demanded to know if the 

American commander wanted to go into battle. Pershing replied, 

“Most assuredly, but as an American Army.” Having reached an 

impasse, Foch departed.

Once again Pershing turned to his friend Pétain for 

assistance. Pétain wanted American support and cooperation 

and believed that a strong AEF with its own sector of the front 

was in the best interest of the French Army. Together, Pétain 

and Pershing met with Foch on 2 September. Supported by 

Pétain, Pershing offered to assume responsibility for the entire 

sector of the front from Pont-à-Mousson through the valley 

of the Meuse to the Argonne Forest, a length of about ninety 

miles. The AEF commander contended that the attack against 

the St. Mihiel salient could begin within two weeks and that it 

offered operational advantages to Foch’s desired attack along 

the Meuse as well as the potential to build confidence and 

experience in the American First Army. Foch insisted that the 

operation be limited to simply reducing the salient and that the 

Americans would have to attack northward by the end of the 

month. Pershing noted that after his army had eliminated the 

salient it could pivot and still launch its offensive against the 

Meuse-Argonne on schedule. Finally, the three commanders 

agreed to two distinct American operations supported by 

French troops and equipment: the elimination of the St. Mihiel 

salient beginning about 10 September and the larger offensive 

along the west bank of the Meuse starting between 20 and 25 

September.

With approval to proceed with the St. Mihiel Offensive, the 

AEF staff began the final planning for the operation. Resulting 

from a German offensive in September 1914, the St. Mihiel salient 

was a 200-square-mile triangle jutting 14 miles into the Allied 

lines between the Moselle and Meuse Rivers. Bounded by Pont-à-
•••• 63 ••••

Mousson to the south, St. Mihiel to the west, and the Verdun area 

to the north, the terrain was mostly rolling plain, heavily wooded 

in spots. After three years of occupation, the Germans had turned 

the area into a fortress with heavy bands of barbed wire and strong 

artillery and machine gun emplacements. Eight divisions defended 

the salient, with five more in reserve.

The Americans planned to make near-simultaneous attacks 

against the two flanks of the salient while an attached French corps 

of three divisions pressed the apex. On the western edge the newly 

formed V Army Corps would attack southeasterly toward Vigneulles 

with one American division, one French division, and one American 

brigade. The corps’ remaining infantry brigade would be held in 

reserve. General Cameron, who had impressed Pershing in the July 

operations, commanded the corps. On the salient’s southern flank 

the IV Corps, now under General Dickman, was in line to the right of 

the French and would attack with three divisions with one division 

held back in reserve. The experienced I Corps held the far right of 

the Allied sector. It would attack with four divisions on line and 

another in reserve. Pershing also had three additional divisions in 

army reserve. The I and IV Corps were to attack northward at 0500, 

the French corps an hour later, and the V Corps at 0800 (Map 2).

American tank crossing a trench at St. Mihiel (National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 64 ••••

Pershing was determined not to fail in his first operation as 

an army commander. To support his forces he arranged for the 

use of over 3,000 guns, 1,400 planes, and 267 tanks. The British 

and the French provided the vast majority of artillery, planes, and 

tanks, though a large number of the planes and some of the tanks 

were manned by Americans. Initially, to maintain the element 

of surprise, Pershing was going to have little to no artillery fire 

before the attack; but in the end he decided to use a four-hour 

bombardment along the southern flank and a seven-hour one 

along the western flank. In addition, Pershing, at the suggestion 

of Pétain, developed an elaborate scheme to deceive the Germans 

82

26

4

90

5

42 2

89

1

to Verdun

Meuse R

Moselle R

Moselle R

Vigneulles

ST.-MIHIEL

PONT-À-

 MOUSSON

METZ

COMMERCY

ST.-MIHIEL OFFENSIVE

12–16 September 1918

THE WESTERN FRONT

Miles

0 5 10

Front Line, 12 Sep Morning

Front Line, 12 Sep Midnight

Front Line, 13 Sep

Front Line, 16 Sep 

U. S. Division

Ground gained by French divisions 

attached to American Army

1

Map 2
•••• 65 ••••

into thinking that the first blow would come to the south near 

Belfort; the scheme worked well enough to get the Germans to 

move three divisions into that sector.

At 0100 on 12 September the artillery began its bombardments. 

As planned, four hours later the infantry and tanks of the I and 

IV Corps attacked on a twelve-mile front. Pivoting on the I 

Corps, Dickman’s infantrymen swept ahead over five miles. 

Meanwhile, the V Corps kicked off its attack at 0800, also 

making good progress. The Germans put up a determined 

defense long enough to retreat in good order. (They had been 

ordered to withdraw from the salient on 8 September but had 

been slow in executing the order.) By the end of the day the 

1st Division, advancing from the south, was within striking 

distance of Vigneulles and ten miles from the advancing 

columns of the V Corps’ 26th Division.

On the afternoon of 12 September Pershing learned that 

columns of Germans were retreating on roads from Vigneulles 

and urged both the 1st and 26th Divisions to continue their attacks 

through the night. Despite having made a very deliberate advance 

during the day, the 26th Division moved quickly throughout the 

night; one regiment captured Vigneulles by 0230 on 13 September. 

At dawn a brigade of the 1st Division had made contact with the 

New Englanders. With the capture of Vigneulles and the linkup 

of the two converging American columns, the critical part of 

AIRPOWER

All major European armies possessed airplanes prior to the opening of 

hostilities in August 1914, but none believed they would play a major 

role during a war. Military aircraft proved themselves far more capable 

than originally envisioned, however, and by mid-1915 the combatants 

actively sought to produce a new generation of technologically superior 

warplanes every twelve months or so. Aircraft development in the 

United States unfortunately remained stagnant due to limited funding 

and the Wright brothers’ efforts to monopolize the domestic aviation 

industry. When the AEF Air Service took to the skies over the Western 

Front in early 1918 it did so in borrowed French and British planes, 

and faced an experienced opponent equipped with the most capable 

combat aircraft in the world.
•••• 66 ••••

operation was over. By the end of the day the First Army had taken 

practically all its objectives.

In two days the American soldiers had cleared a salient 

that had remained virtually undisturbed for three years. While 

suffering 7,000 casualties, the American Army inflicted over 

17,000 casualties, mostly prisoners, on the German defenders 

as well as seizing 450 artillery pieces and a large amount of 

war stores. Although the defenders had planned to leave the 

salient, the attack’s timing came as a surprise and hurried their 

withdrawal. The operation freed the Paris-Nancy railroad and 

secured the American rear for the upcoming northward thrust. 

More important, the battle gave Pershing and his First Army staff 

experience in directing a battle of several corps supported by 

tanks and aircraft. It would be needed for the much larger and 

complicated operation along the Meuse.

The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, September–November 1918

With the end of major operations on the St. Mihiel front, the 

main effort of Pershing and the AEF shifted forty miles to the 

northwest along the west bank of the Meuse. Over the next two 

weeks, the AEF executed a complex and massive movement 

of troops, artillery, and supplies to its new battleground. The 

transfer involved 820,000 men: 220,000 French and Italian troops 

left the area, and about 600,000 Americans entered. Of the fifteen 

American divisions that took over the sector, seven had been 

involved in the St. Mihiel operation, three came from the Vesle 

sector, three from the area of Soissons, one near Bar-le-Duc, and 

one from a training area. The movement was confined to the 

hours of darkness to maintain secrecy and further limited by 

the availability of only three roads capable of supporting heavy 

traffic. That it took place without a serious setback was largely 

attributable to the careful supervision of a young staff officer from 

Pershing’s First Army, Col. George C. Marshall.

The AEF’s attack into the Meuse-Argonne region was part 

of Foch’s larger general offensive against the Germans, with the 

British and French attacking in their respective sectors, which 

would force the Germans to defend the entire front. Foch’s 

objective was to cut the enemy’s vital lateral rail lines and compel 

the Germans to retire inside their own frontier before the end of 

1918. For this grand offensive, Foch had 220 divisions, of which 

42 were the big divisions of the AEF.
•••• 67 ••••

The American First Army would attack northward in 

conjunction with the French Fourth Army. Its main objective was 

the rail line between Carignan-Sedan-Mézières, an artery of the 

important rail system running through Luxembourg, Thionville, 

Soldiers Marching Past Church, by Jules Andre Smith, 1919

(Army Art Collection)

•••••••••••••••
F o r ê t d ’ A r g o n n e

Bois de

Bourgogne

I CORPS

I CORPS

I CORPS

V CORPS

V CORPS

V CORPS

III CORPS

III CORPS

French

XVII CORPS

X X X

X X X

X X X

X X X

X X X

X X X

X X X

X X X

X X X X

Meuse R

Meuse R

Aire R

Aisne R

to St.-Mihiel

to Mézières

Montfaucon

Grandpré Cunel

Brabantsur-Meuse

Romagne

Barricourt

VERDUN

STENAY

MONTMEDY

SEDAN

B E LG I U M

F R A N C E

MEUSE-ARGONNE OFFENSIVE

26 September–11 November 1918

THE WESTERN FRONT

Miles

0 5 10

KEY

Front Line, 26 Sep Morning

Front Line, 26 Sep Midnight

Front Line, 4 Oct

Front Line, 1 Nov

Front Line, 3 Nov

Front Line, 11 Nov

Hindenburg Line (Krienhilde Stellung)

American divisions 

attached to French XVII Corps

Map 3
•••• 69 ••••

and Metz. That objective was about thirty miles from the jump-off 

line north of Verdun. In addition, by attacking east of the Argonne 

Forest, the First Army’s offensive would outflank the German 

forces along the Aisne, in front of their French counterparts to 

the west (Map 3).

The American army’s area of operations was fifteen to twenty 

miles wide, bounded by the unfordable Meuse River on the east 

and the dense Argonne Forest and the Aire River on the west. The 

heights of the Meuse dominated the east side of the American 

sector, while the Argonne sat on high ground that commanded 

the western side. Between the river and the forest, a hogback 

ridge ran southeast and northwest from Montfaucon, Cunel, and 

Barricourt. A series of three lateral hill lines presented barriers 

to a northward advance. In addition to the Argonne, the area was 

dotted with various woods that presented even more obstacles to 

the American advance.

For their defense of the area, the Germans took full advantage 

of the rugged terrain. The high ground on either flank gave them 

excellent observation points from which to rain artillery on the 

Americans. Moreover, like the St. Mihiel salient, the Germans had 

occupied the area for several years and had developed an elaborate 

defensive system of four fortified lines featuring a dense network 

of wire entanglements, machine gun positions with interlocking 

fires, and concrete fighting posts. In between these trench lines, 

the Germans had developed a series of intermediate strong points 

in the numerous woods and knolls. The defensive system was 

about fifteen miles deep with five divisions on line and another 

seven in immediate reserve. Petain believed that the defenses 

were so strong that the Americans would do well if they captured 

Montfaucon, on the second line, before winter.

Against this imposing defense, the American First Army 

mustered over 600,000 men. It would attack with nine divisions 

on line and another five in reserve, with Bullard’s III Corps on the 

east flank, Cameron’s V Corps in the center, and Liggett’s I Corps 

on the west flank. A total of 2,700 pieces of artillery, 189 tanks, 

and 821 aircraft supported the American infantrymen.

Pershing and his staff envisioned the offensive in two stages. 

First, U.S. forces would advance about ten miles and penetrate 

three of the German lines, clearing the Argonne Forest to link up 

with the French Fourth Army at Grandpré. The second stage would 

consist of an advance of ten miles to outflank the enemy positions 

along the Aisne and prepare for further attacks toward Sedan and 
•••• 70 ••••

Mézières on the Meuse River. Additional operations would then 

clear the heights along the east bank of the Meuse.

The initial attack would kick off on 26 September. The 

operations plan called for two thrusts on either side of the high 

ground around Montfaucon, with a linkup achieved before the 

Germans could bring in additional reinforcements. The V Corps 

would make the main attack, taking Montfaucon and penetrating 

the second German line. On either side, the I and III Corps would 

advance to protect the army’s flanks, while their corps artillery 

suppressed the German artillery. Pershing wanted to seize Cunel 

and, to its west, Romagne, by the end of the second day.

At 0530, after a three-hour artillery bombardment, the three 

corps launched their attacks. Despite a heavy fog, the rugged 

terrain, and the network of barbed wire, the weight of the American 

onslaught quickly overran the Germans’ forward positions. On 

both flanks, the corps made good progress. In the III Corps sector, 

Maj. Gen. John Hines’ 4th Division pushed ahead about four 

miles, penetrated the German second line, and defeated several 

counterattacks in the process. On the western flank, Liggett’s corps 

reached its objectives, advancing three miles on the open ground to 

the east of the Argonne. Maj. Gen. Robert Alexander’s 77th Division 

made lesser gains in the Argonne itself. In the center, however, 

the V Corps experienced problems and was checked to the south 

of Montfaucon; it was not until the next day that Cameron’s men 

were able to seize the position.

Throughout the remainder of September, the First Army slowly 

plodded forward. Heavy rains on 27–28 September bogged down 

the few tanks that had not already succumbed to mechanical 

failure. The rains also interfered with the forward movement of 

the supporting artillery and the resupply efforts as the already 

congested roads became muddy. Moreover, the Germans had used 

the delay in front of Montfaucon to rush local reserves to the strong 

positions in the center of their line, south of Cunel and Romagne. 

As the American battalions and companies encountered German 

machine gun positions in depth, the advance slowed further. Once 

the American infantry silenced the forward positions, supporting 

guns to the rear opened fire. In addition, the German artillery 

poured enfilading fire onto the attackers from the heights of 

the Meuse and the Argonne Forest. The advance had become a 

continuous series of bloody, hard-fought engagements.

Not all the First Army’s difficulties came from the enemy or the 

weather. Of the nine divisions in the initial assault, only three (the 
•••• 71 ••••

4th, 28th, and 77th) had significant combat experience. The 79th 

Division, which had the critical mission to take Montfaucon, had 

been in France for only seven weeks. The heavy fog and rain and 

the broken terrain exacerbated the situation for the inexperienced 

troops. Many divisions suffered from a lack of coordination among 

their own units and liaison with adjoining and higher units. 

Teamwork between the infantry and their supporting artillery 

often proved awkward and ineffective, especially in those divisions 

that had to rely on artillery brigades from other divisions because 

their own brigades were unavailable.

Overcoming these problems, the First Army advanced eight 

miles into the German lines by the end of September. Remarkably, 

it had fought through some of the strongest positions on the 

Western Front and captured 9,000 prisoners and a large amount of 

war supplies, including 100 guns. With the severity of the fighting 

and the intermingling of units in the twisted terrain, Pershing had 

little choice but to pause to reorganize. 

Elsewhere on the Western Front, the remainder of Foch’s 

general offensive had also slowed. The effort in Flanders had 

bogged down in the rain and mud, while the French armies in 

the center of the Allied line had not yet begun their attacks. 

Along the Somme, Haig’s British armies did make a penetration 

of the German Hindenburg Line, with the help of the 27th and 

30th Divisions of the AEF’s II Corps. The British expanded the 

penetration to create a gap all the way through the German 

fortifications; but at the beginning of October, the British had to 

pause to improve their own lines of communications.

During the first days of October, Pershing took advantage of 

the pause to rotate three battle-hardened divisions (the 3d, 32d, 

and 1st) into the line, relieving some of the less experienced (the 

37th, 79th, and 35th). As the First Army reorganized its line, the 

Germans also strengthened their position with six new divisions 

brought into the area for a total of eleven. The numerical odds 

were beginning to even.

At 0530 on 4 October the First Army renewed its general attack. 

The III and V Corps were to take the heights around Cunel and 

Romagne, respectively. Meanwhile, the I Corps was to neutralize 

the enemy’s flanking fire from the Argonne and gain some room 

to maneuver around the forest. The fighting was especially severe. 

The American infantry launched a series of frontal attacks to 

penetrate the German lines and then to exploit the exposed enemy 

flanks. Progress was slow. The III and V Corps made some gains 
•••• 72 ••••

against their objectives, but the Cunel and Romagne heights 

remained in German hands. On the west, the 1st Division advanced 

three miles and the I Corps captured an important ridge on the 

east edge of the Argonne. As new American divisions were rotated 

into line, the Germans continued their reinforcement efforts; and 

by 6 October they had twenty-seven divisions in the area.

As the two corps on the east continued their fight for high 

ground in the center of the First Army sector, Liggett’s I Corps 

executed an effective flanking operation. On 7 October, as the 77th 

Division attacked northward in the Argonne, Liggett sent the 82d 

Division almost due west into the rear of the German positions. 

By noon the Germans were withdrawing from the forest. By 10 

October, the I Corps had cleared the forest.

With the divisions of First Army fighting in the MeuseArgonne region, other American divisions were providing crucial 

assistance to the French and British advances. To the north, two 

divisions of General Read’s II Corps continued to support the 

British advance. The 2d Division (now commanded by Maj. Gen. 

John A. Lejeune of the Marine Corps) operated with the French 

Fourth Army on the First Army’s western flank. Lejeune’s soldiers 

and marines captured Mont Blanc Ridge, which provided the only 

natural defensive line south of the Aisne River, in a hard-fought 

battle from 2 to 4 October. On 10 October the 36th Division 

relieved the 2d Division and advanced to the Aisne River by 13 

October, which brought the French Fourth Army on line with 

the American First Army.

On 8 October Pershing had the French XVII Corps attack 

across the Meuse near Brabant, due east of Montfaucon. The 

corps’ two French and two American divisions advanced two miles 

and captured 3,000 prisoners and several important observation 

points. This limited operation also forced the Germans to divert 

divisions away from the main battleground between the Meuse 

and the Argonne.

On 14 October the First Army launched a general assault all 

along the German lines. The III and V Corps once again aimed at 

taking the fortified hills and forests of the Cunel-Romagne front. 

Over the next four days the 3d, 5th, and 32d Divisions battled for 

and captured the vital strong points. On the western flank, the I 

Corps advanced to the southern half of Grandpré on 16 October. 

By the third week in October the First Army had reached most of 

the objectives of the first phase of the campaign: penetration of 

the third German line and clearing of the Argonne.
•••• 73 ••••

By mid-October Pershing realized that too much of the 

operational and tactical direction of the war was concentrated 

in his hands. As AEF commander, he was the American theater 

commander responsible for the administration, training, 

and supplying of the American troops in France as well as 

coordination with the other national commanders. In addition, 

he was the field commander for three corps of fourteen divisions 

in a desperate fight over rough terrain. Moreover, the First 

Army had become unwieldy, with over a million men along an 

83-mile front.

On 12 October Pershing organized the American Second Army 

and named Bullard its commander. Bullard and his army assumed 

control over thirty-four miles of the front—the quiet sector 

between the Meuse and the Moselle south of Verdun. The active 

Meuse-Argonne sector remained the First Army’s responsibility, 

and on 16 October General Liggett assumed command of that army. 

SGT. ALVIN C. YORK (1887–1964)

On 8 October 1918, members of the 

82d Division (“All American”) were 

attacking westward into the Argonne 

Forest to outflank strong German 

positions. Among the attackers was a 

lean backwoodsman from Tennessee, 

Acting Sgt. Alvin York. When heavy 

enemy fire slowed his regiment’s attack, 

York and a patrol were sent to suppress 

the machine gun positions. Working 

its way behind the German lines, the 

patrol surprised an enemy battalion 

headquarters and forced its surrender. 

German fire soon wounded over half the 

patrol. York single-handedly silenced 

the German fire, killing around twenty 

of the enemy in the process. He and the 

remainder of the patrol led 132 prisoners 

back to American lines. York received 

the Medal of Honor for his actions.

Sergeant York

(National Archives)

•••••••••
•••• 74 ••••

Pershing could now focus his attention on the larger strategic 

issues of theater command.

After visiting the First Army’s corps and divisions, Liggett 

discovered that the Army was in deplorable shape after weeks 

of continuous and bitter fighting. Several divisions were combat 

ineffective, having less than 25 percent of their authorized strength. 

Liggett estimated that there were over 100,000 stragglers, which 

drained the army’s strength. A lack of draft animals immobilized 

the artillery. The army needed to rest and refit, so for the next two 

weeks Liggett allowed it to do just that and resisted pressure to 

do more than local attacks.

More important, however, Liggett retooled and remodeled the 

First Army. He took particular care in retraining his infantry and 

artillery. Some infantry received special training in techniques 

for attacking strong points, while the rest were trained to bypass 

these defenses. Artillery batteries laid out supporting plans 

to use interdicting fires to isolate objectives and to conduct 

counterbattery fires against German artillery. Liggett instilled in 

his commanders the need to maximize supporting fires and gas 

to suppress enemy defenses.

To prepare for the second phase of the offensive, Liggett 

ordered a series of limited attacks aimed at securing a suitable 

line of departure. Both III Corps, now under General Hines, and V 

Corps, now under General Summerall, launched local attacks to 

clear forests and seize hills in the center of the line. Some of these 

operations involved heavy and hard fighting, with the bloodiest 

being the I Corps’ ten-day battle to capture Grandpré, which fell 

on 27 October. Meanwhile, Liggett and his army staff ensured that 

supplies were stockpiled and roads repaired. By the end of October 

the First Army was ready for the next general attack.

On 1 November Liggett’s First Army resumed the offensive. The 

main objective was the Barricourt Ridge in the center, a realistic 

advance of five miles. Once the Americans secured the ridgeline, 

they would push west to maneuver around the Bourgogne Forest, 

link up with the French Fourth Army, then drive northeast toward 

Sedan. On the first day of the attack Summerall’s corps, in the 

center, easily gained control of the ridgeline. Hines’ corps, in the 

east, kept pace and advanced to the Meuse River. Only Dickman’s 

corps, in the west, failed to gain much ground. On the following 

day, however, the I Corps made excellent progress and cleared 

the flank of the French Fourth Army. Over the next several days, 

Liggett’s army continued to advance as fast as it could displace its 
•••• 75 ••••

artillery and supplies forward. At one point the advance was so 

rapid that it ran off the AEF headquarters’ maps. By 4 November 

the First Army had elements along the heights overlooking the 

Meuse and was able to place artillery fire on the railroad from 

Sedan to Mézières. The Americans had achieved their objective.

A trench of the Hindenburg Line, 3 November 1918

(National Archives) •••••••••••••••
•••• 76 ••••

Liggett’s careful preparation of the First Army paid off. Infantry 

and artillery coordination was superb. Troops pushed through and 

around German strong points, while special assault troops reduced 

them. Improved staff work and coordination afforded the First 

Army the flexibility to bypass German defenses. Unlike former 

attacks that made strong first-day gains followed by smaller ones, 

this attack was different: the advance on the third day exceeded 

that of the first. Under Liggett’s tutelage, the American units had 

finally developed into a well-trained, well-organized fighting force.

A week after Liggett’s forces reached the Meuse, the warring 

nations signed the Armistice. The fighting ended at the eleventh 

hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month—11 November 1918.

The Meuse-Argonne Campaign was the greatest battle that the U.S. 

Army had fought in its history. Almost 1.25 million American troops 

had participated during the course of the 47-day campaign. American 

casualties were high—over 117,000—but the results were impressive. 

The American First Army had driven forty-three German divisions 

back about thirty miles over some of the most difficult terrain and most 

heavily fortified positions on the Western Front. It had inflicted over 

120,000 casualties on the Germans and captured 468 guns.

After the Armistice

Immediate Postwar Duties

American soldiers remained in Europe for some time after 

the fighting ended, guarding against renewed hostilities. A newly 

activated Third Army, with eight U.S. divisions organized into three 

corps, crossed the French border into Germany on 1 December 

1918 to occupy the region around Koblenz, between Luxembourg 

and the Rhine River. Similarly, an Army regiment sent to Italy 

before the end of hostilities spent four months participating in the 

occupation of Austria. American occupation troops encountered 

no unusual difficulties with the populace, and their numbers were 

rapidly reduced after the Paris Peace Conference ended in May 

1919. They numbered only about 15,000 by the beginning of 1920. 

After rejecting the Treaty of Versailles that resulted from the 

peace conference, the United States technically remained at war 

with Germany until a separate peace was signed in the summer 

of 1921. Occupying forces gradually withdrew after that, until the 

last thousand troops departed on 24 January 1923.
•••• 77 ••••

After the Armistice, Army units continued to serve elsewhere 

in the world, including two generally unsuccessful expeditions into 

revolution-torn Russia. In August 1918 the chaos in Russia resulting 

from the Bolshevik seizure of power induced President Wilson to 

order the Army to join Allied forces in expeditions into Russian 

territory. Multinational forces entered Siberia via Vladivostok to 

safeguard various interests, and support anti-Bolshevik forces. 

One force, containing about 5,000 American troops under British 

command, suffered heavy casualties while guarding Allied war 

supplies and communication lines in the Murmansk-Archangel 

region of northern Russia before withdrawing in June 1919. A 

force of about 8,400, under Maj. Gen. William S. Graves, landed 

at Vladivostok. Its primary mission was to rescue Czech troops 

who had fought alongside the Russians with the goal of achieving 

independence for their homeland from the Austro-Hungarian 

empire, only to be trapped in the midst of the Russian civil war. 

Secondarily Graves’ force would curb Japanese expansionist 

tendencies in the region. The Siberian operation lasted until 

April 1920. Together these two forces incurred about 500 combat 

1st Division marching into Luxemburg, 21 November 1918 

(National Archives) •••••••••••••••
•••• 78 ••••

casualties. While seen in the West as only a footnote to World War 

I, the American and Allied intervention into Russia was deeply 

resented by the eventually triumphant Reds and fostered suspicion 

in the minds of Soviet leaders for years to come.

Demobilization

Planning for demobilization had begun less than a month 

before the Armistice, because few in the United States had 

expected the war to end so quickly. Almost all officers and men 

in the Army became eligible for discharge when the fighting in 

Europe stopped. The War Department had to determine how 

to muster out these men as rapidly and equitably as possible, 

without unduly disrupting the national economy, while also 

maintaining an effective force for occupation and other postwar 

duties. It decided that demobilizing by units was most likely to 

achieve those goals. Units in the United States relocated to thirty 

demobilization centers around the country so their personnel 

could be out processed and discharged near their homes. 

Overseas units returned as quickly as shipping space could be 

found for them, processed through debarkation centers operated 

by the Transportation Service, and moved to the demobilization 

centers for deactivation and discharge. In practice the unit system 

was supplemented by a great many individual discharges and 

by the release of certain occupational groups, such as railroad 

workers and anthracite coal miners.

In the first full month of demobilization the Army released 

approximately 650,000 officers and men, and within nine months 

it had demobilized nearly 3.25 million. Demobilization of war 

industries and disposal of surplus materiel paralleled the release of 

soldiers, but the War Department kept a large reserve of weapons 

and materiel for peacetime or new emergency use. Despite the 

lack of advance planning, the demobilization process worked 

reasonably well.

The Army faced one major concern as the process unfolded. 

Reflecting its lack of planning for the conclusion of hostilities 

and return to a peacetime posture, the Army had no authority 

to enlist men to replace those being discharged. On 28 February 

1919, Congress ended that dilemma by authorizing enlistments in 

the Regular Army for either one or three years. By the end of the 

year the Active Army, reduced to about 19,000 officers and 205,000 

enlisted men, was again a regular volunteer force.
•••• 79 ••••

In the summer of 1919, the War Department urged Congress 

to authorize the establishment of a permanent Regular Army of 

roughly 500,000 and a three-month universal training system that 

would permit quick expansion of this force to meet the demands 

of any new major war. Congress and American public opinion 

rejected these proposals. It was hard to believe that the defeat of 

Germany and the exhaustion of the other European powers did 

not guarantee there would be no major war on land for years to 

come. Although American leaders recognized the possibility of 

war with Japan, they assumed that such a war, if it came, would 

be primarily naval in character. Reliance on the Navy as the first 

line of national defense remained a cornerstone of U.S. military 

policy for the next two decades.

In keeping with a traditional distrust of foreign alliances 

and large military establishments, the American people proved 

unwilling to support an Army in being any larger than required to 

defend the Continental United States and its overseas territories 

and possessions, to sustain knowledge of the military arts, and to 

train inexpensive and voluntary reserve components. The Army 

Troops arriving home from France, 1919 (National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
The Doughboy, by Kerr Eby, 1919 (Army Art Collection) •••••••••••••••
•••• 81 ••••

between the wars was thus a small “mobilization army,” focusing 

much of its time and energy on planning and preparing for future 

expansion to meet contingencies. As threats seemed to diminish 

around the world, the interest in funding even that small army 

began to wane. And because the Army had huge stocks of materiel 

left over from its belated production for World War I, there was 

little spending on modernization.

The American Army and the Great War

When the war ended, the American participants were 

convinced that the AEF had played a decisive role in the defeat of 

Germany. In 200 days of fighting the AEF had captured about 49,000 

Germans and 1,400 guns. Over one million American soldiers in 

twenty-nine divisions saw active operations. The AEF lost over 

320,000 casualties, of which 50,105 were killed and another 193,602 

were wounded in action. In October the Americans held over 101 

miles, or 23 percent, of the Western Front; in November, as the 

front contracted with the German retreat, the AEF held over 80 

miles, or one-fifth of the line.

Obviously, some of these numbers paled in comparison to 

those of the rest of the Allies. For example, the French fought 

for four years with over 1.35 million men killed. Also, from July 

to November 1918, the French armies captured 139,000 Germans 

and 1,880 guns. Moreover, the AEF’s achievements would not have 

been possible without Allied assistance. The French and British 

helped train and transport the American soldiers and supplied 

much of the artillery, tanks, and airplanes for the AEF. The French 

especially engendered the cooperation of the American army. 

General Pétain himself often intervened on behalf of Pershing and 

the AEF to establish an independent American army fighting on 

its own sector of the front. More than other Allied leaders, Pétain 

seemed to understand what the AEF meant to the Allied cause.

More than its achievements on the battlefield, the 

two-million-man AEF helped the Allied cause by its mere presence. 

Throughout 1918, while Germany became weaker, the Allied 

military became stronger by virtue of the growing AEF. Besides 

the sheer weight of numbers, the Americans also helped rejuvenate 

flagging Allied spirits, both on and off the battlefield. In short, the 

AEF provided sufficient advantage to assure victory for the Allies.

Pershing’s AEF was the first modern American Army. It had 

deployed to Europe and fought alongside the Allies in a mass, 
•••• 82 ••••

industrialized war. It never lacked élan—from Soissons to the 

banks of the Meuse, the AEF aggressively attacked its enemy. 

Although at the beginning of active operations the American 

soldiers showed more courage than skill, they and their leaders 

learned quickly. Several months later, the best American divisions 

showed considerable tactical skill in their battles in October and 

November 1918. Leaders like Generals Liggett and Hines proved 

able tacticians and understood the conditions on the Western 

Front. At the higher levels, the AEF staffs proved the equal of their 

Allied counterparts.

For the U.S. Army, the ground forces of World War II would 

be direct descendants of the AEF of 1918. Many World War II 

generals had been captains, majors, and colonels in the AEF, 

learning their tactics and trade on the battlefields of France. The 

Army staffs of World War II were organized and operated based 

on the precedents of the general staffs of the AEF’s armies, corps, 

and divisions. In both wars, combat divisions were the means of 

projecting and measuring combat power, with divisions grouped 

in corps and supported by corps and army troops. A harbinger of 

the future, the American Army of World War I was more similar 

to those that followed than those that came before. The U.S. Army 

appeared ready to assume its place in the world as the land force 

of a great power.
•••• 83 ••••

•••

FURTHER READINGS 

Beaver, Daniel R. Modernizing the American War Department: 

Change and Continuity in a Turbulent Era, 1885–1920. Kent, 

Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2006.

Bruce, Robert B. A Fraternity of Arms: America & France in 

the Great War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003.

Coffman, Edward M. The War to End All Wars: The American 

Military Experience in World War I. Madison: The University 

of Wisconsin Press, 1986.

Faulkner, Richard S. Pershing’s Crusaders: The American Soldier 

in World War I. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2017.

Kennedy, David M. Over Here: The First World War and American 

Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.

MacMillan, Margaret. Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the 

World. New York: Random House, 2001.

May, Ernest R. The World War and American Isolationism, 

1914–1917. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959.

Smythe, Donald. Pershing: General of the Armies. Bloomington: 

Indiana University Press, 1986.

Woodward, David R. The American Army and the First World 

War. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Yockelson, Mitchell A. Borrowed Soldiers: Americans under 

British Command, 1918. Norman: University of Oklahoma 

Press, 2008.

For more information on the U.S. Army in World War I, 

please visit the U.S. Army Center of Military History Web site 

(www.history.army.mil).
PIN : 201596–000