JOINING THE 

GREAT WAR

APRIL 1917–APRIL 1918

THE U.S. ARMY 

CAMPAIGNS OF WORLD WAR I

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CMH Pub 77–3

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

(Library of Congress)

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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
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JOINING THE GREAT WAR

APRIL 1917–APRIL 1918

by

Eric B. Setzekorn

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Center of Military History

United States Army

Washington, D.C., 2017

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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 
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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
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JOINING THE GREAT WAR

APRIL 1917–APRIL 1918

America’s entry into the World War in April 1917 presented 

the United States Army with its greatest challenge in the nation’s 

history. For almost three years, the great powers of Europe had 

bloodied themselves in a vicious and brutal conflict that consumed 

men and materiel at a staggering rate. Millions had died on 

multiple fronts in what was the largest armed conflict yet seen in 

human history. The United States sought to remain neutral, but 

events in early 1917 conspired to pull Americans into a war they 

were unprepared to fight. The task of developing a force capable 

of playing a major role in the conflict presented the nation with 

tremendous administrative, logistical, and doctrinal challenges 

that would take more than a year to overcome. As a consequence, 

both the U.S. industrial base and its armed forces underwent a 

period of frantic—and often mismanaged—adaptation to the 

necessities of modern warfare. 

This commemorative pamphlet examines the U.S. Army’s 

involvement in the Great War from the declaration of war on 6 April 

1917 through the initial phase of the German Spring Offensive in 

March–April 1918. On the home front, the War Department struggled 

to create the mechanisms to raise, train, and equip millions of new 

soldiers. American leaders faced a series of obstacles including a 

lack of facilities and materiel, poorly coordinated rail and shipping 

networks, and institutional bureaucracies that were not designed 

to wage war on such a large scale thousands of miles from the 

nation’s shores. In meeting these challenges, U.S. civilian and 

military leaders fundamentally altered how the United States went 

to war, implementing a system of national conscription and linking 

the economy and society to the military to a degree far surpassing 

that of the Civil War. Never before or since have the U.S. armed 

forces experienced a comparable period of massive expansion 

coupled with unprecedented organizational transformation in 

such a brief period as during 1917–1918.

In Europe, the United States joined a military coalition wellversed in the methods of modern warfare but lacking in consistent 
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battlefield success. The American commander, General John J. 

Pershing, had to coordinate with foreign countries for training, 

logistical support, and operational planning. Nevertheless, he 

maintained total authority over American military operations 

in Europe, and his decisions ensured the development of a 

distinctive American military identity. This arrangement produced 

considerable friction and animosity as he rejected strenuous 

efforts to amalgamate American manpower into European armies, 

but he maintained the independence and integrity of what would 

be known as the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). As in 

the United States, the U.S. Army had to overcome considerable 

obstacles in building up its forces in Europe, and American soldiers 

would face a steep learning curve once they entered combat.

Although the War Department struggled to rapidly expand 

the U.S. Army during its first year in the war, sufficient numbers 

of American soldiers arrived in France by the spring of 1918 for 

the AEF to play a role in blocking Germany’s eleventh-hour push 

to win the war. Decisions made in that first year also established 

the infrastructure for a modern U.S. Army, capable of fighting 

alongside British and French forces and contributing to the final 

defeat of Germany. In the process, a generation of young officers, 

such as George C. Marshall, George S. Patton, and Douglas A. 

MacArthur gained valuable experience. They would build on many 

of those hard-earned lessons throughout the decades separating 

World War I and World War II. The period from April 1917 to April 

1918 thus represents the birth of the U.S. Army as a global force and 

laid the institutional foundations of future American world power.

Strategic Setting

During the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, rapid 

economic growth and the desire for increased international 

power prompted leaders such as Presidents William McKinley and 

Theodore Roosevelt to develop a more activist American role on 

the global stage. By the early 1910s, the United States had become 

a burgeoning economic world power with massive industrial and 

commercial strength along with newly acquired overseas territories. 

However, despite improvements and increases to its navy, the 

nation retained a small army suitable only for constabulary duty. 

The United States also had no standing international partners, 

adhering instead to George Washington’s call for the nation to 

“steer clear of permanent alliances.” As European politics grew 
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increasingly unstable by 1914, 

the United States observed 

those unsettling developments 

from the periphery. 

After the assassination of 

Archduke Franz Ferdinand of 

Austria on 28 June 1914 led to 

military mobilization across 

Europe and declarations of 

war by early August, most 

Americans took solace that the 

Atlantic Ocean shielded the 

United States from the conflict. 

The Chicago Herald summed 

up the popular support for 

isolation from Europe’s strife, 

“Peace-loving citizens of this 

country will now rise up and 

tender a hearty vote of thanks to 

Columbus for having discovered 

America.” Germany’s invasion of 

neutral Belgium brought Great 

Britain into the war and divided 

Europe into two great camps. 

Britain joined France and Russia to form the Triple Entente, more 

commonly referred to as the Allied Powers. Opposed to them were 

Germany and Austria-Hungary, making up the Central Powers. 

President Woodrow Wilson believed that the immoral nature of 

European politics created entangling alliances that transformed 

a regional conflict into a global war that threatened world peace. 

The president delivered a Declaration of Neutrality to Congress on 

19 August, calling on all citizens to remain “impartial in thought, 

as well as in action.” However, between late 1914 and early 1917, 

the escalating conflict tested American traditions of isolationism 

as it threatened to draw the nation closer to the war.

The initial German offensive against France ended in September 

at the Battle of the Marne, after which both sides attempted a 

series of flanking maneuvers to gain the advantage. Neither side 

proved capable of overcoming the killing power that machine guns 

and rapid-firing artillery brought to the defensive, and the battle 

lines on the Western Front stabilized in a vast system of trenches 

stretching from Switzerland to the English Channel. This was a 

President Wilson

(Library of Congress)

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new type of warfare with soldiers subjected to prolonged stress 

and danger with little chance for daring heroics or martial glory. 

Behind the trenches, the development of sophisticated supply 

systems that were able to support millions of men and massive 

levels of firepower and the ability to rush reserves to block any 

potential enemy breakthrough led to a vicious stalemate. On the 

broad expanses of the Eastern Front, Germany and Austria were 

locked in a brutal war of attrition with Russia where logistics and 

artillery shells counted for more than bravery. 

To break the deadlock, the combatants attempted to smash 

through enemy lines with ever larger offensives. Attacks in 1915 

saw tens of thousands of soldiers and hundreds of artillery 

pieces deployed along only a few miles of the front, trying to win 

through sheer weight of numbers and ordnance. The result was 

thousands of dead and gains measured in yards after weeks of 

constant fighting. Poison gas, first used by the Germans in April 

1915 and later adopted by every nation, added to the daily misery 

and danger. By 1916, as the industrial economies of Germany, 

France, and Britain became fully geared toward war production, 

battles increased in scale and destructiveness. In the fight over the 

fortress of Verdun between February and December, the French 

and Germans suffered more than one million casualties combined. 

On the first day of the Somme Offensive on 1 July 1916, the British 

and French fired more than two million artillery shells into the 

German lines in support of nineteen divisions attacking along a 

twenty-mile front. Despite this colossal weight of numbers, the 

British alone suffered 57,000 casualties on the first day and did 

not break German defenses. By the time the Somme ended in 

mid-November, all sides had suffered more than a combined one 

million casualties while the front moved fewer than ten miles. As 

a result, Verdun and the Somme became synonymous with the 

slaughter and destruction that defined the Western Front.

As the stalemate in France continued, U.S. political and public 

opinion began to shift from neutrality toward support for the Allies. 

German atrocities in Belgium, at times exaggerated by Allied 

propaganda, shocked many Americans. Additionally, in early 1915 

the Germans began an effort to isolate the British Isles by using 

submarines, known as Unterseeboote or “U-boats,” to attack British 

merchant shipping. The German campaign, which consisted of the 

unrestricted sinking of any merchant vessel bound for Britain, was 

portrayed by American newspapers as a cowardly and immoral 

method of warfare. On 1 May 1915, a German U-boat sank the 
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British liner RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 people, including 

128 Americans. After the attack, the New York Times called on 

President Wilson to “demand that the Germans shall no longer 

make war like savages drunk with blood.” Fearing that such action 

could pull the United States into the war, and concerned over 

British violations of American shipping rights, President Wilson 

continued his policy of neutrality. Seeking to take the moral high 

road, he proclaimed, “There is such a thing as a man being too 

proud to fight. . . . There is such a thing as a nation being so right 

that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.” 

However, after the Germans sank the French passenger ferry SS 

Sussex in March 1916, Wilson threatened to break off diplomatic 

relations with Germany. In May, the Germans pledged to abandon 

unrestricted submarine warfare, though they reserved the right to 

attack legitimate targets such as armed merchant ships or those 

vessels carrying war materiel.

As Germany’s submarine campaign damaged its relations 

with the United States, America’s economic relationship with 

Britain and France expanded. Faced with a war of attrition, the 

Allies relied on American agricultural and industrial resources to 

support their war efforts. Despite a British blockade that severely 

cut American commerce with the Central Powers, U.S. trade with 

Europe more than doubled from 1913 to 1917. U.S. companies not 

only provided civilian goods but also war materiel. Bethlehem 

Steel alone supplied the Allies with over twenty million artillery 

shells between 1914 and 1918, while major weapons manufacturers 

like Remington and Winchester sold rifles and guns. Allied 

governments relied heavily on the U.S. banking industry for billions 

in loans to finance their war. 

Despite the United States’ growing economic ties to the 

Allies, the American public still preferred that the nation remain 

neutral. The British government’s brutal suppression of the 1916 

Easter Uprising in Ireland angered many Americans, as did its 

continued violation of American neutral shipping rights through 

its blockade of Germany. As the casualty lists grew during 1916, 

most Americans were thankful they had not been drawn into the 

carnage engulfing Europe. In November, President Wilson won 

reelection by a narrow margin, largely on the slogan, “He Kept 

Us Out of War.” However, circumstances changed rapidly in early 

1917. Germany’s increasingly desperate strategic situation led to a 

resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare on 31 January 1917. 

This action broke the earlier German pledge to respect passenger 
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shipping and convinced President Wilson to break diplomatic 

relations with Germany on 3 February.

Soon after, the British government provided the Wilson 

administration an intercepted communication from the German 

foreign secretary, Arthur Zimmermann, to the German envoy 

in Mexico. In the telegram, Zimmermann proposed that if the 

United States joined the war on the Allied side, Germany and 

A political cartoon referring to German submarine warfare

(Library of Congress) •••••••••••••••
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Mexico should enter into an alliance. In return for Mexico taking 

up arms against the United States, Germany would supply 

financial assistance. Once victory was achieved, Mexico could 

reclaim territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The State 

Department released the telegram to the Associated Press on 

28 February, and American public opinion turned sharply as 

many became convinced of German duplicity and aggressive 

intentions. No longer was the war seen as simply a horrific folly 

by the European powers, but rather as a clear indication of the 

danger of unchecked militarism. With the abdication of the Russian 

czar in February and the rise of a provisional representative 

government, Americans came to see the war as a struggle that 

pitted democracies against aggressive, authoritarian imperialists. 

Faced with this clear contrast, President Wilson addressed a joint 

session of Congress on 2 April, declaring his desire that 

we shall fight for the things which we have always carried 

nearest our hearts—for democracy, for the right of those who 

submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for 

the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion 

of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace 

and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.

On 6 April 1917, with concrete evidence of German hostility to the 

United States, to international peace, and to liberal democracy, 

Congress declared war on Germany.

The U.S. Army Before the War

The U.S. declaration of war was greeted by widespread public 

enthusiasm both within the United States and among the Allied 

Powers, which viewed American military assistance as vital to 

winning the war. Despite this temporary fervor, an objective 

assessment of the American military, especially the U.S. Army, 

revealed glaring deficiencies that could not easily be remedied. 

Army mobilization during the brief War with Spain in 1898 had 

been a debacle with poor coordination of transportation assets 

leaving thousands of troops sitting in Florida while the crucial 

battles were being fought in Cuba. In the words of Theodore 

Roosevelt, who served as a colonel in Cuba with the 1st U.S. 

Volunteer Cavalry (the famed Rough Riders), the American effort 

was “within measurable distance of a military disaster” due to 
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poor planning and logistical failures. On a positive note, although 

the U.S. Army in 1917 was small, it had already taken some steps 

toward modernizing and reforming itself.

The War Department had begun to create a more centralized 

and professional staff organization to handle mobilization of 

manpower and war materiel following the Spanish-American 

conflict. In 1899, Secretary of War Elihu Root began to reshape 

the War Department using European models. Root was convinced 

that “our trouble will never be in raising soldiers; our trouble will 

always be the limits of possibility in transporting, clothing, arming, 

feeding and caring for our soldiers, and that requires organization.” 

In 1900, Root expanded the number of cadets at the United States 

Military Academy (West Point) by over 40 percent, adding more 

trained officers to the Army. In 1901, he established the Army 

War College to train senior officers. Finally, in 1903 Root created 

a general staff in Washington, D.C., to increase coordination and 

streamline logistics. Root’s efforts helped design the organizational 

framework necessary to address the mobilization challenges of 

twentieth-century warfare.

Reforming the Army was complicated by the division of 

authority between the Regular Army and National Guard. National 

Guard units reported to their state government in peacetime, and 

their level of training and overall military competence varied. For 

decades, advocates of a stronger and more centralized Regular 

Army, such as Brig. Gen. Emory Upton, portrayed the National 

Guard as an ill-trained militia with limited use in times of war. 

Defenders of the National Guard, including many politicians, saw 

it as a cost-effective force, which also supported the American 

tradition of citizen-soldiers. The Militia Act of 1903, known as the 

Dick Act, addressed these competing viewpoints by establishing a 

much closer relationship between the National Guard and Regular 

Army. National Guard officers became eligible to attend Army 

schools, and federal funds paid for more intensive local drills. 

Moreover, five training days every year were to be joint National 

Guard and Regular Army maneuvers. In return, National Guard 

units were held to Regular Army standards and regulations. Despite 

these improvements, the Regular Army remained the core element 

of American war plans and preparations, with the National Guard 

providing vital support in the event of large-scale mobilization.

These reforms, however, did not offset the fact that the Regular 

Army consisted of fewer than 85,000 personnel in 1914. Eighty 

percent were serving in dozens of small garrisons throughout the 
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American West or manning coastal defenses in the continental 

United States, while the remainder was deployed to the Philippines, 

Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Panama. Following the outbreak of 

war in Europe, the Army General Staff recommended increasing 

the authorized size of the Regular Army from 100,000 to 230,000 

men. Army officers also argued for compulsory military service 

of three to six months in order to create a large pool of trained 

reserve troops. Military leaders testified to a skeptical Congress 

that compulsory military service would “inspire [new recruits] 

with the spirit of patriotism and sense of duty and responsibility 

with which each generation must be imbued if we are to continue 

our high mission as a nation.”

Despite the Army’s increasing concern over a lack of trained 

manpower, political leaders were divided on how to balance 

American traditions with military requirements. Some, including 

Roosevelt and Root, supported a “preparedness movement” that 

advocated compulsory military training for all men when they 

turned eighteen. It was hoped that six months of training would 

provide a large pool of potential soldiers in the event of a major 

war, undercutting the need for a large peacetime army, which 

was both expensive and contrary to American values. Many in 

the Democratic Party argued that the preparedness movement 

was a partisan critique of Wilson rather than a coherent program, 

and they placed their faith in the well-established National 

Guard system. Disagreements over the proper direction for Army 

development grew so divisive that Secretary of War Lindley M. 

Garrison resigned on 10 February 1916, exhausted by political 

infighting and what he perceived as President Wilson’s lack of 

support for a comprehensive reform program.

During the debate, the nation deployed troops to the U.S.-

Mexican border in response to Mexican rebel Francisco “Pancho” 

Villa’s attack on Columbus, New Mexico, in March 1916. Over 

100,000 National Guard troops were mobilized to assist the 

Regular Army’s Mexican Expedition against Villa’s forces. The 

operation strained Army resources but provided a vital test of 

mobilization procedures and the integration of National Guard 

troops into the Regular Army command structure. Moreover, the 

logistical challenges in Mexico, which had a limited transportation 

infrastructure, helped spur the Army to adopt new technology, 

such as motor vehicles.

By early June, Congress settled on the compromise National 

Defense Act of 1916, which boosted U.S. Army strength to 175,000, 
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increased funding of National Guard units, and established a 

voluntary “summer camp” system to train reserve officers. These 

policy changes sought to build the largest standing army in U.S. 

history, but attracting qualified manpower through a volunteer system 

proved difficult. By the spring of 1917, Regular Army strength stood 

at only 121,000 men, with an additional 181,000 in the National Guard.

Overall, in early 1917, neither the military nor the nation was 

prepared for war in Europe. Army modernization and reform had 

come too slowly, and there was no precedent or well-conceived 

plan for a large-scale foreign deployment that could be taken from 

the nation’s historical experience. American military and political 

leaders had to confront wartime challenges through trial and error, 

and the U.S. Army would need to make fundamental reforms and 

organizational changes without time for careful study and analysis.

American Military and Civilian Leadership

Once at war the Wilson administration needed to decide 

what form the American contribution would take. Although 

some Americans favored having only naval forces deploy to 

Europe to hunt U-boats and protect shipping, President Wilson 

and public opinion supported the mass mobilization of the Army. 

Wilson viewed the war as an opportunity to stamp out European 

militarism and autocracy and replace them with progressive and 

democratic governments. To do this and to secure America’s place 

in creating that new, postwar system, the United States needed to 

send an expeditionary force to Europe that could fight shoulder 

to shoulder with Britain and France. President Wilson relied on 

Secretary of War Newton D. Baker to oversee this effort.

Baker appeared to be an unlikely wartime leader. Born in 

1871 into a family that supported the South during the Civil War, 

Baker’s intellectual gifts and hard work propelled him to a degree 

from Johns Hopkins University when he was twenty-one and a law 

degree two years later. Rejected from U.S. Army service in the War 

with Spain due to poor eyesight, Baker settled in Cleveland, Ohio, 

and became involved in progressive politics. He rose to become 

mayor in 1911 and campaigned vigorously for Wilson’s election 

the following year. After leaving office in January 1916, Baker was 

appointed secretary of war the following March. Baker’s selection 

was surprising given his lack of military experience, as well as 

his having at times declared himself a pacifist. However, he was a 

proven administrator with the drive and energy to reform the War 
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Department in response to the 

growing threat from Europe. 

The president left it to Baker 

to run the War Department 

when the nation went to war in 

April 1917 as Wilson had little 

personal interest in military 

issues.

As the secretary of war, 

Baker’s position within the 

War Department was clear. The 

same was not the case as to 

the chief of staff of the Army. 

The General Staff Act of 1903 

originally made the chief of staff 

the administrative leader of the 

General Staff, but it did not give 

him command authority over the 

entire Army. While the position 

rose in prominence over the 

next decade, the office’s role 

in wartime remained unclear. 

The chief of staff in April 1917, 

Maj. Gen. Hugh L. Scott, told 

Congress, “There should be one 

and only one organ through which the Secretary of War commands 

the Army—the Chief of Staff.” Although a sophisticated and welleducated officer whose experience dated back to the frontier 

wars of the 1870s, Scott was set to retire from active duty at age 

sixty-four in September. His replacement, Maj. Gen. Tasker H. 

Bliss, was a similarly distinguished soldier with over forty years of 

experience. Unlike Scott, Bliss believed that in wartime the chief of 

staff should function as an assistant to the field commander. Baker 

supported this view, going so far as to say that the secretary should 

“select a commander in whom you have confidence; give him power 

and responsibility, and then . . . work your own head off to get 

him everything he needs and support every decision he makes.” 

In addition, Baker’s Civil War readings led him to conclude, “The 

military man is commander-in-chief [and] civilian interference 

with commanders in the field is dangerous.” To avoid this, Baker 

would empower the field commander with supreme authority and 

allow his decisions to set military policy for the War Department.

Secretary Baker

(Library of Congress)

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Selecting the right commander for the American Expeditionary 

Forces was of paramount importance. Secretary Baker needed 

someone who could handle both the complicated tasks of 

building an army thousands of miles from home and also 

command troops in battle. Due to communication difficulties 

(transatlantic telephone service did not exist until the 1920s), the 

AEF commander would need diplomatic tact and the complete 

confidence of the American civilian leadership to make major 

decisions without the need to consult Washington. However, like 

Scott and Bliss, the overwhelming majority of senior Army officers 

in 1917 had spent decades in the small, peacetime Army, slowly 

rising in rank due to strict promotion schedules based solely on 

seniority. Only two officers had the level of experience, character 

attributes, and talent to make a successful commander in France.

The first option was Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood. After entering 

the Army in 1886 as a surgeon, he took part in the last campaign to 

capture the Apache leader Geronimo, earning the Medal of Honor in 

the process. He commanded the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry during 

the War with Spain and eventually rose to command a cavalry 

brigade. Wood also proved himself an effective administrator, 

holding civil-military governorships in Cuba and the Philippines 

before becoming chief of staff of the U.S. Army in 1910. As the only 

medical officer to serve as chief of staff, he helped to solidify the 

U.S. Army’s General Staff and worked to centralize authority in the 

War Department. After stepping down in April 1914, he commanded 

several military departments within the United States. Despite 

this sterling record, Wood’s outspokenness on political matters, 

along with his close relationship with former President Roosevelt, 

led both Baker and Wilson to distrust the general. In addition, 

Wood had chronic health issues due to weight and a recurrent 

brain tumor that led Baker to fear that he would not be up to the 

physical strain of command in France.

The other leading candidate for command of the AEF was 

Maj. Gen. John J. Pershing. Born in 1860, Pershing entered West 

Point in 1882 for the free education. Quickly adjusting to military 

life, he rose to become First Captain of the Corps of Cadets. After 

being commissioned as a second lieutenant, he held a series of 

assignments in New Mexico, Arizona, and North Dakota before 

returning to West Point in 1897 as an instructor. During the 

War with Spain, Pershing made a positive impression on Col. 

Theodore Roosevelt at the decisive battle for San Juan Heights 

during the campaign in Cuba. Pershing went to the Philippines 
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in 1899, where he subdued the 

Moros on Mindanao before 

being assigned to several key 

administrative positions. In 

1905, he served as military 

attaché to Japan during the 

Russo-Japanese War. That same 

year, he married Helen Francis 

Warren, the daughter of the 

chairman of the Senate Armed 

Services Committee, Wyoming 

Senator Francis E. Warren 

(Republican). Although still a 

captain in the Regular Army, 

Pershing’s political connections 

and service record secured his 

promotion to brigadier general 

by President Roosevelt in 1906. 

This jump in rank over 862 

senior-ranking officers led to 

some grumblings among his 

peers, but no one could discount 

his ability as a soldier. Pershing 

went on to various commands over the next nine years in the 

Philippines and the United States. Tragically, in 1915 his wife 

and three of his four children died in a fire on the Presidio of 

San Francisco, California. While grieving, Pershing commanded 

the Mexican Expedition in 1916 in pursuit of Pancho Villa’s rebel 

forces. Although the expedition withdrew in February 1917 with 

Villa still at large, the operation provided Pershing and the Army 

with valuable experience.

Pershing’s record up to 1917 indicated his ability to operate 

in complex diplomatic and military environments where orders 

from distant headquarters had to be interpreted and modified to 

suit local conditions. He also had a background leading diverse 

commands, composed of volunteers as well as Regular Army and 

National Guard troops. Furthermore, Wilson and Baker considered 

Pershing to be trustworthy and nonpolitical because he had not 

publicly criticized the administration despite systemic supply 

and transportation difficulties that had plagued the Mexican 

Expedition. While he possessed no greater understanding than 

any other American officer of the type of warfare the U.S. Army 

General Pershing

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

would face in Europe, Pershing had accelerated the adoption of 

new technology and equipment during the Mexican campaign and 

sought to modernize American forces along European models. 

Finally, his contemporaries viewed Pershing as a soldier of 

unyielding character and stern attention to detail who would not 

be intimidated by foreign leaders or the challenges of wartime 

command. All of these factors convinced Wilson and Baker that 

Pershing was the right man for the task, and they appointed him to 

command the AEF on 26 May 1917. He sailed for Europe two days 

later on the SS Baltic, taking a staff of sixty officers and about 

one hundred support personnel.

The Amalgamation Debate

Before the first American soldiers departed for Europe, 

officials in the War Department began working with the British 

and French to determine the manner in which Americans would 

be best used in combat. To their dismay, U.S. leaders learned that 

coordination and joint command had been a source of perpetual 

frustration for the Allies. The British and French had yet to develop 

a solid mechanism to align major plans, share intelligence, or 

develop a congruent, overall strategy for achieving victory on 

the Western Front. American entry into the war exacerbated this 

fundamental flaw in the Allied command arrangements. Further 

complicating the matter, the United States did not formally join 

the alliance against the Central Powers because President Wilson 

refused to link American economic and military power to the 

Allied cause if victory meant a reversion to status quo great-power 

politics. Instead, the United States would fight as an “associated 

power,” working with the Allies but pursuing its own national 

strategic objectives. These evolved over 1917 as Wilson’s goals 

expanded from defeating German militarism to establishing a 

new international order. In an address to Congress on 8 January 

1918, Wilson espoused a statement of principles for peace, known 

as his “Fourteen Points.” The speech represented Wilson’s vision 

of creating an international system based upon democracy, free 

trade, and self-determination. Achieving this objective required an 

independent American military to provide the United States with 

diplomatic and strategic leverage once the war ended.

The state of relations between the Americans and the 

Europeans also influenced Wilson’s decision not to enter into a 

formal alliance. Many Americans in the early twentieth century 
•••• 21 ••••

were deeply suspicious of Great Britain. It was the only power 

that rivaled the United States in the western hemisphere, and a 

British alliance with Japan formed in 1902 threatened to challenge 

America’s growing interests in the Pacific. Strong anti-British 

sentiment among the Irish American population also made a close 

relationship with the British difficult, despite the shared language 

and President Wilson’s Anglophile inclinations. 

In contrast, the American public held warm and supportive 

opinions about the French. During the spring of 1917, American 

and French leaders repeatedly emphasized the historical alliance 

between France and the United States during the American 

Revolution. Deft French political maneuvers, including numerous 

public ceremonies welcoming American entry into the war, helped 

to solidify these feelings of mutual friendship. The arrival of a 

French military mission to the United States in late April 1917 

provided the opportunity for speeches, parades, and laudatory 

press coverage of the new partnership. After appraising the 

situation, Secretary Baker wrote to President Wilson, “I think 

popular sentiment in our own country would approve cooperation 

with the French first rather than with the English.”

Despite this stark difference in trust and respect between 

the United States and the Allied nations, the Europeans wanted 

American manpower as quickly as possible to fill their depleted 

forces. Marshal Joseph J. C. Joffre, who commanded the French 

Army until 1916 and was now a member of the French military 

mission to the United States, bluntly summarized the Allied 

position, “We want men, men, men.” Each nation advocated the 

amalgamation of American manpower in some form into the Allied 

armies. French plans in 1917 proposed integrating 150 to 200 

battalions of American soldiers into French regiments in order to 

stabilize the front lines until an American-led independent army 

could be created. The British, not hindered by language issues, 

sought to integrate American soldiers into existing units. Lt. Gen. 

G. T. M. Bridges, the British military representative in the United 

States, proposed immediately sending 500,000 Americans to 

England for training and placement in British Army units. Neither 

proposal appealed to the Americans.

The British and French plans for incorporating American 

manpower into their armies made military sense. The Allies already 

had the mechanisms in place for turning vast numbers of Americans 

into trained soldiers in a short amount of time. Amalgamation 

would allow scarce shipping to concentrate on transporting combat 
•••• 22 ••••

troops rather than auxiliary support personnel. It would also ease 

the burdens on American officers, who were too few in number and 

inexperienced in handling complex staff duties or commanding 

large units on a grand scale. Despite these arguments, the Americans 

remained skeptical. Secretary Baker worried that favoring one 

nation over the other would create more political problems than 

military solutions. The Americans also looked unfavorably upon 

Allied military strategies and operational capabilities, which had 

produced millions of casualties over the past three years of bloody 

stalemate. Many believed that the British and French would use 

American manpower to create a colonial force on the model of 

the British “Sepoy” Indian Army or the French Troupes coloniales

(Colonial Troops). “Col.” Edward M. House, a trusted adviser to 

President Wilson, remarked, “If once we merge with them, we will 

probably never emerge. The companies and battalions placed with 

them will soon be mere fragments . . . and will never get the credit 

for the sacrifices they make.” Most of all, without an independent 

army, the United States would not have the standing to shape a 

postwar settlement.

General Bliss expressed strong doubts that funneling American 

manpower into a war of attrition would produce a decisive result. 

He argued instead that U.S. troops should be trained and deployed 

as a cohesive force in order to strike “the final, shattering blow” 

against Germany. He also feared that accepting amalgamation 

would mean “when the war is over it may be a literal fact that 

the American flag may not have appeared anywhere on the line 

because our organization will simply be parts of battalions and 

regiments of the Entente Allies. We might have a million men 

there and yet no American army and no American commander.” 

The final argument against amalgamation was that the American 

public would not support its young men fighting and dying under 

foreign leaders or flags. Secretary Baker feared that high casualties 

among American troops under foreign command would rapidly 

erode home-front morale. Given these concerns, American leaders 

unanimously rejected large-scale amalgamation.

Secretary Baker implanted into his order to General Pershing, 

stating that

in military operations against the Imperial German Government 

you are directed to cooperate with the forces of the other 

countries; but in so doing the underlying idea must be kept in 

view that the forces of the United States are a separate and 
•••• 23 ••••

distinct component of the combined forces, the identity of 

which must be preserved. This fundamental rule is subject to 

such minor exceptions in particular circumstances as your 

judgment may approve. The decision as to when your command 

or any of its parts is ready for action is confided to you, and 

you will exercise full discretion in determining the manner of 

cooperation.

This unprecedented delegation of power gave Pershing 

complete authority over all American soldiers in Europe and 

made him the final arbiter for American military policy on the 

Western Front. No other American field commander had possessed 

such sweeping powers and command authority in the nation’s 

history. Pershing would utilize his position throughout the war 

as a bulwark against repeated Allied efforts to amalgamate U.S. 

forces. With Wilson’s and Baker’s support, Pershing committed 

to building an independent AEF. What he needed now was men.

Mobilization of Manpower

Once Wilson decided that the United States would raise an 

independent army for service in France, the administration had to 

determine whether it would do so through voluntary enlistments 

or conscription. Voluntary military service had a special place in 

American beliefs, stretching back to the Minutemen of Lexington 

and Concord during the Revolutionary War. Conversely, conscription 

during the Civil War produced mass resentment and civil unrest, 

including the bloody New York City draft riot of 1863. Some popular 

voices, including former President Roosevelt, called for spurring 

enlistments by carrying on the tradition of forming volunteer units 

as seen in the War with Spain. Others advocated creating statesponsored units for which governors could appoint officers as in the 

Civil War. Wilson and his advisers acknowledged these issues but 

ultimately decided that volunteerism would not produce enlistments 

in sufficient numbers. Wilson and Baker, with General Scott’s 

support, wanted to maintain federal control over mobilization and 

sought a more reliable means of addressing the nation’s manpower 

needs. Only conscription could meet these requirements.

Secretary Baker worked closely with Congress to overcome 

lingering concerns by developing a conscription policy that relied 

more on local authorities than on federal agencies. The resulting 

Selective Service Act, enacted on 18 May 1917, called for all males 
•••• 24 ••••

between twenty-one and thirty years of age to register with 

local draft boards on 5 June for military service. Draft boards 

classified men into five categories: eligible, deferred, exempted 

but available, exempted due to hardship, and ineligible. Several 

more registrations would be held in 1918, with the top age rising to 

forty-five. Overall, more than twenty-four million men registered 

over the course of the war, and 2.8 million were inducted into 

the armed services (comprising 66 percent of the 4.2 million who 

served). This included just under 370,000 African Americans, of 

which roughly 180,000 served in France in segregated units.

The draft law did not increase the size of either the Regular 

Army or the National Guard, but it did permit the president to fill 

each to its maximum authorized strength as set in the National 

Defense Act of 1916 and to federalize the National Guard. The 

core of the new legislation empowered the president to raise 

one million men through conscription as part of a new “National 

Army.” The War Department introduced a new numbering system 

to distinguish between the three organizations. The Regular Army 

would form into divisions numbering 1 through 25 as needed. 

Divisions drawn from the National Guard received numbers from 

Secretary Baker drawing a lottery number for the draft

(National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 25 ••••

26 to 75. Finally, National Army units received numbers above 

75. Both enlisted and conscripted personnel served in Regular 

Army, National Guard, and National Army units, and as the war 

progressed these designations lost much of their meaning. 

James Montgomery Flagg and his most famous recruitment poster

(National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 26 ••••

Increasing the supply of capable officers proved more 

challenging as military authorities struggled to train qualified 

soldiers to satisfy the demand for tens of thousands of new leaders. 

The Army’s traditional source of officers, the United States Military 

Academy, was not designed to produce large numbers of leaders 

in a short time frame. When the National Guard was called to 

federal service, more than 12,000 National Guard officers became 

available for assignment, but many of these men were ill-trained or 

judged to be medically unfit for lengthy wartime service. A partial 

solution to the problem came from an experimental program 

begun in 1915. The Army supported summer camps designed to 

introduce college-age men to the military lifestyle and teach them 

basic military skills. The program was subsequently expanded 

by offering “professional” men the opportunity to participate in a 

four-week course in Plattsburgh, New York. Famous participants 

included the mayor of New York City, John Mitchel; two members 

of the Roosevelt family, Quentin and Theodore Jr.; as well as the 

manager of the New York Times, Julius Ochs Adler. These programs 

proved successful, and almost half of the Army’s new officers were 

commissioned following short-term training programs based on 

the Plattsburgh model. Even so, the Army struggled throughout 

the war to secure sufficient numbers of trained leaders capable 

of wartime service.

As the Army worked out its personnel issues it also faced a lack 

of facilities to accommodate the planned increases. Existing training 

camps could handle new enlistees, but not the proposed hundreds 

of thousands of new inductees. To address the problem, Secretary 

Baker ordered the creation of an independent Cantonment Division 

of the Quartermaster Corps to work with a civilian Committee on 

Emergency Construction to provide adequate training facilities 

within six to twelve months. By the summer, 200,000 civilian 

workers were constructing the new Army posts, each designed to 

hold 40,000 men for initial training. The quantity of construction 

material required by this immense building project was equivalent 

to building a city for 1.3 million people. When the Army began 

calling up thousands of newly drafted soldiers in September, their 

introduction to Army life came at one of thirty-two hastily built or 

expanded training camps. (See Map 1.)

Army camps in the United States focused on teaching basic 

military skills with special attention given to bolstering morale 

and instilling a patriotic spirit. When the first draftees and newly 

commissioned officers began arriving at the sometimes-unfinished 
•••• 27 ••••

camps, they often had to drill in their civilian clothes for weeks 

while military supplies trickled in. Wooden “prop” machine guns 

and broomstick rifles were pressed into service due to a lack of 

actual weapons. While more than 700 British and French officers 

came to the United States to teach inductees battlefield tactics 

and provide firsthand accounts of trench warfare, a shortage of 

equipment and specialized facilities hindered detailed instruction. 

The six-month training program at the camps was designed to 

build military skills in stages. The first sixteen weeks of the 

cycle were focused on areas of rifle marksmanship, physical 

fitness, and close-order drill. Larger regimental, brigade, and 

divisional maneuvers occupied the final two months of training. 

On average, stateside camps devoted forty hours each week to 

military training, with time off on Wednesday afternoons and on 

the weekend from Saturday afternoon to Sunday evening. Once 

soldiers were deemed proficient in basic skills, they prepared for 

deployment to France, where they could receive more advanced 

training conducted according to the AEF’s training program.

In an effort to help draftees adjust to life in the military, new 

soldiers were given substantial moral inspiration in addition to 

their military instruction and training. War Department officials 

were sensitive to cultural stereotypes of Army men as heavy 

Building a mock trench system

(Library of Congress)

•••••••••••••••
Map 1

Camp Funston

Camp Lewis

Camp MacArthur

Camp Cody

Camp Kearny 

Camp

Fremont 

Ca

Camp D

Camp Trav

UTAH

ARIZONA

NEW

MEXICO

COLORADO

WYOMING

NORTH

DAKOTA

SOUTH

DAKOTA

NEBRASKA

KANSAS

IDAHO

OREGON

WASHINGTON

MONTANA

CALIFORNIA

NEVADA

TEXAS

OKLAHO

TRAINING CAMPS AND CANTONMENTS

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

1917–1918

National Army Training Camp

National Guard Training Camp

Embarkation Facility

Signicant Railroad Route
Camp Greene

Camp Wadsworth

Camp Sevier

Camp Hancock

Camp Jackson

Camp Lee

Camp Meade

Camp Dix

Camp Colt

Camp Upton 

Camp Merritt

Camp Mills

Newport News

Camp Devens

Camp Sherman

Camp Taylor

Camp Dodge

Camp Grant

Camp Custer

Camp Gordon 

Camp Pike

Camp Wheeler

Camp McClellan

Camp Sheridan

Camp Shelby

Camp Beauregard

amp Bowie

oniphan

Camp Logan

vis

MINNESOTA

WISCONSIN

OMA

IOWA

OHIO

GEORGIA

KENTUCKY

V I R G I N I A

WEST

VIRGINIA

ALABAMA

LOUISIANA MISSISSIPPI

TENNESSEE

NORTH

CAROLINA

SOUTH

CAROLINA

ILLINOIS

INDIANA

MISSOURI

ARKANSAS

CONNECTICUT

MASSACHUSETTS

MARYLAND

NEW JERSEY

DELAWARE

PENNSYLVANIA

NEW YORK

VERMONT

MAINE

NEW 

HAMPSHIRE

RHODE

ISLAND

F L O R I D A

M I C H I G A N
•••• 30 ••••

drinkers and gamblers and were well aware of the rapid growth 

of public and congressional interest in military affairs. They 

hoped that offering “wholesome recreation” would limit criticism 

of potential misbehavior. Baker established the Commission on 

Training Camp Activities to advise officers on maintaining morale 

and providing instruction on moral issues. Civilian groups such as 

the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), American Library 

Association, local sports teams, and the Salvation Army used 

sporting events, lecturers, and libraries stocked with wholesome 

reading material to promote “social hygiene” among draftees. As 

part of this effort, no Army post allowed alcohol, and the Selective 

Service Act made it illegal to serve liquor to anyone in uniform. A 

popular training camp activity was organized sports, which had 

the added benefit of improving the physical fitness of new soldiers. 

The prewar Regular Army had often used sports as a way to build 

unit morale and cohesion, and the training camps continued the 

practice. Instructors organized boxing matches, track and field 

competitions, and baseball and football games. Because many 

newly drafted soldiers had previous athletic experience, these 

games often proved highly competitive and popular with the 

public. The Army football team from Camp Lewis, Washington, 

drew 25,000 spectators when it played a team of U.S. marines in the 

Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, on 1 January 1918. Regrettably, 

the soldiers lost to the marines 19-7.

Despite these attempts to smooth the transition into military 

life, many inductees struggled to adjust to the new environment 

and the overwhelming diversity among their new comrades. Most 

had never traveled more than a few miles from their homes, or 

encountered the vast array of nationalities and ethnicities within 

the United States. One new soldier from rural Tennessee, Alvin 

C. York, described his fellow trainees as “bartenders, saloon 

bouncers, ice men, coal miners, dirt farmers, actors, mill hands and 

city boys who had growed [sic] up in the back alleys and learned 

to scrap ever since they was knee high to a duck.” The bewildering 

mixture of regional accents and foreign languages soon prompted 

widespread English language classes to improve literacy and basic 

communication. The camps also provided assorted instruction 

in civics in an effort to turn the new soldiers into better citizens.

On completion of their training, soldiers boarded troop 

trains for the journey to the East Coast where they would await 

transport across the Atlantic. The largest embarkation facility 

was Camp Merritt near Tenafly, New Jersey, ten miles from New 
•••• 31 ••••

York City with easy access to the Erie Railroad and the West 

Shore Railroad. Constructed between August 1917 and June 1918, 

the sprawling 770-acre camp had space for more than 40,000 

troops in 611, two-story barracks. Soldiers often stayed no more 

than forty-eight hours before transport by ferryboat to the main 

port in Hoboken. Prior to embarking, troops were issued new 

uniforms and individual equipment such as knapsacks. In the 

two-year period from the summer of 1917 through 1919, more than 

one million U.S. soldiers passed through Camp Merritt, out of the 

roughly 1.6 million who traveled through the ports around New 

York City. Newport News, Virginia, functioning as the secondary 

embarkation port for soldiers, processed nearly 300,000 personnel 

over the course of the war. Another 140,000 soldiers departed from 

ports ranging from Baltimore, Maryland, to Québec, Canada.

Securing adequate shipping for men and materiel proved 

another concern for U.S. Army planners, especially with 

German U-boats ravaging the British merchant fleet. Soon after 

the declaration of war, the U.S. government chartered seven 

troopships and six cargo ships, creating a transport fleet of 94,000 

tons as of 1 July 1917. As the need for shipping increased, the Army 

Training at Camp Hancock, Georgia

(U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 32 ••••

began purchasing vessels at a rapid rate, growing the transport 

fleet to just less than 3.25 million tons by December 1918. These 

included 39 troopships, 38 animal transports, 18 refrigerated 

ships, 4 tankers, and 228 bulk cargo ships. The U.S. Army also 

occupied German-owned piers and leased new shipping space in 

the New York area. Seized German passenger vessels provided vital 

shipping space, with the luxurious passenger liner SS Vaterland, 

rechristened Leviathan, carrying more than 100,000 American 

troops to Europe between April 1917 and November 1918.

Even with these increases, the American transport fleet could 

not keep up with the demand, and the United States had to turn to 

the Allies for aid. While American vessels carried the bulk of U.S. 

materiel, they transported only 45 percent of American soldiers 

sent to Europe. The remainder traveled in foreign berths, with 

British vessels carrying 49 percent of soldiers bound for the AEF. 

Half of the Americans who went to France passed through Great 

Britain and had to be transported across the English Channel. The 

United States began operating a cross-Channel fleet totaling 7,000 

tons of shipping in October 1917. This eventually grew to almost 

340,000 tons by the end of 1918. Despite the increased size of the 

transport fleet and the continuing threat of German attack, the 

United States lost only 200,000 tons of shipping over the course 

SS Leviathan being used as an American troopship

(National Archives) •••••••••••••••
•••• 33 ••••

of the war, including 142,000 tons to enemy attacks. No troop 

transports were lost on the eastward journey across the Atlantic.

Building the AEF, 1917

During their crossing, Pershing and his officers began what 

would be a six-week process to create the basic policies and 

organizational framework for the AEF. It was a new phenomenon, 

as the U.S. Army had never deployed overseas on such an enormous 

scale. In the words of historian James Cooke, they were “building 

something from nothing with very little time.” The Americans faced 

a steep learning curve if they were to assemble, deploy, and supply 

a world-class army in time to make a significant contribution to the 

war in Europe. They would rely a good deal on trial and error, at 

times utilizing an ad hoc approach that eventually proved unsuited 

to the challenges they faced. 

Pershing and his officers used the opportunity offered by their 

transatlantic journey aboard the SS Baltic to decide a number of 

questions, including the size and organization of the units being 

built in the United States; the constitution of the AEF’s staff system 

and its function; the type of armaments and equipment the AEF 

would use; the order and priority of shipping men and materiel to 

France; the organization of their overseas supply system (initially 

known as the Line of Communications); the type of training their 

forces would need before entering combat; and, finally, how and 

where those forces would be employed. These issues would present 

a daunting task for even the most seasoned staff, let alone one just 

created from scratch. 

Luckily, Pershing could rely on a generation of company and 

field-grade officers who had benefited from improvements in the 

U.S. Army’s educational system over the previous decades. Having 

trained at West Point, the schools at Fort Leavenworth, and the 

Army War College, they brought fresh ideas and a professional 

ethic to their duties. A small core of capable staff officers, such 

as Maj. John L. Hines, Maj. Fox Conner, Maj. John M. Palmer, 

and Capt. Hugh A. Drum, would form the backbone of the AEF. 

Moreover, along with men like Charles P. Summerall, Malin Craig, 

and Douglas MacArthur, the AEF’s officers would provide the U.S. 

Army with direction and leadership for decades to come. 

To make and implement decisions on the myriad of issues facing 

him, Pershing organized what would become the AEF General 

Headquarters (GHQ). He first appointed Lt. Col. James G. Harbord 
•••• 34 ••••

as his chief of staff. Given Pershing’s cool and detached personality, 

Harbord served as the ideal foil, smoothing egos, easing tensions, 

and molding the staff into a coherent and efficient organization. 

Following the Army’s 1914 Field Service Regulations as a guide, 

the staff worked out what Pershing termed “a skeleton outline of 

principles” that would form the basis for a larger organization. 

Their initial plan called for a combat staff of three sections—

Administrative, Intelligence, and Operations—each headed by an 

assistant chief of staff. 

Senior American officers soon realized they needed to add two 

more staff sections—Training and Co-ordination. The Training 

Section would oversee specialized combat training in Europe, 

where they could expose soldiers to more realistic and strenuous 

conditions before sending them into battle. The Co-ordination 

Section was responsible for monitoring and assisting logistical 

services, ensuring that shipping and resupply efforts meshed 

with operations. The new system went into effect in early July 

1917. The headquarters also would include an administrative and 

technical staff with fifteen different services, departments, or 

organizations, such as adjutant general, inspector general, and 

chief quartermaster (Chart 1). 

After a four-day stop in England, Pershing and his staff arrived 

in France on 10 June, where they were met by a euphoric public 

desperate for relief after years of war and suffering. The overflow 

of emotion left the Americans shaken. Harbord noted that “it 

brought home to us . . . a full appreciation of the war weary state 

of the nation.” Meeting with members of the French military and 

government, the Americans learned just how dire the situation 

was. The French Army was experiencing a series of mutinies 

that threatened to grind the French war effort to a halt following 

disastrous offensives launched in April. The American arrival 

boosted French morale, but the effects were unlikely to last if 

more U.S. soldiers did not follow shortly and in large numbers.

The French wanted the AEF to deploy 300,000 to 400,000 

combat-ready forces by April 1918. To this end, Pershing sent a 

request to the War Department in early July that “plans [should] 

contemplate sending over at least one million men by next May.” 

The number did not reflect the War Department’s capabilities in 

terms of training or transportation, but the AEF commander left 

those details to be figured out at a later date. Instead he continued 

to plan on how his forces would be organized once they reached 

France. He and his staff were aided by an independent mission 
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

Training

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

Chart 1—Organization of Headquarters, American Expeditionary Forces, 5 July 1917
•••• 36 ••••

of twelve officers sent to France by the War Department to study 

the French and British militaries and make recommendations 

regarding U.S. policy. Led by Col. Chauncey B. Baker, the mission 

met in conference with Pershing’s staff on 7–8 July. The combined 

group approved the initial call for a force of a million men by early 

summer 1918, growing to at least three million by mid-1919.

When considering the size of American divisions, AEF planners 

took into account both the need for combat power and the dearth 

of available officers within the U.S. Army. They settled this by 

designing a division consisting of 28,000 officers and men—

two to three times the size of the depleted British and French 

formations—arranged in a “square” organization of two 8,500-man 

infantry brigades, each with two regiments. Regiments had three 

battalions, each with over 1,000 men at full strength. Each battalion 

included four 250-man infantry companies, along with a machine 

gun company, a supply company, and a headquarters company. 

The divisions also included a 5,000-man field artillery brigade with 

three regiments—two “light” (75-mm.) and one “heavy” (155-mm.). 

The large divisions enabled the use of mass to overcome enemy 

defenses while minimizing the number of officers needed. 

The next two layers of commands consisted of corps and 

armies. Each corps supervised an average of four combat 

divisions with support units. Armies directed multiple corps. In 

the American Civil War, corps and army staffs were small because 

they were designed solely to coordinate actions and issue broad 

guidance. In the AEF, the corps-level staff would include 350 

officers and men, while the army-level headquarters would have 

150 personnel. These large staff organizations not only provided 

much more detailed instructions to combat units but worked to 

coordinate support units such as engineers, communications, 

and heavy artillery. Like the divisions, the sizes of the corps and 

armies were configured to facilitate the grinding down of German 

opposition by American manpower.

While the division, corps, and army organizational templates 

leveraged available manpower to generate combat power, it created 

problems in managing such large formations. Inadequately trained 

and newly commissioned junior officers were now commanding 

59-man infantry platoons and 250-man companies. While corps 

and army staff sections were often manned by Regular Army 

officers, many held wartime responsibilities far above their 

peacetime experience. Systemic problems in maneuver and supply 

operations resulted as the sheer bulk of American units made 
•••• 37 ••••

effective management difficult. In an attempt to maximize his 

scarce pool of trained officers, Pershing ordered the creation of 

“replacement divisions” assigned to every corps, which would act 

as a ready reserve of manpower and would feed trained soldiers 

into the combat divisions to replace losses. Pershing hoped this 

would allow his frontline officers to remain focused on the enemy 

by continuously adding fresh personnel rather than switching out 

units and commanders.

The flow of divisions to France brought up a sensitive issue 

for Pershing and the AEF regarding the type of units they were 

receiving. Throughout 1917 and into early 1918, the AEF absorbed 

numerous National Guard formations, which had deployed 

overseas while the large National Army of draftees trained. 

Pershing harbored growing reservations over the quality of 

the officers and men arriving in France as he established an 

AEF sector of the front line and formed the new GHQ system. 

The AEF commander’s concerns were rooted in the belief that 

National Guard combat units were neither well-led nor adequately 

trained because their officers were promoted based on political 

connections rather than merit. His views reflected those of most 

Regular Army officers critical of National Guard officers for being 

older and less professional in their training than their active-duty 

counterparts.

General Pershing believed that many senior officers in the 

Regular Army, and more especially the National Guard, would 

not be able to adapt to wartime demands: “I fear that we have 

some general officers who have neither the experience, the energy 

nor the aggressive spirit to prepare their units or to handle them 

under battle conditions as they exist today.” This problem was 

compounded by Pershing’s unprecedented decision to create a 

powerful GHQ. To fill his new staff, Pershing hand-picked many 

of the best and brightest officers in the Regular Army, and many 

field commanders, especially National Guard officers, struggled 

with the assertiveness, even arrogance, of the youthful GHQ staff 

officers. As a result, field commanders had to deal with not only 

the Germans, but also the sometimes equally difficult challenge 

of satisfying GHQ representatives carrying out Pershing’s orders.

During the fall of 1917, Pershing formalized his officer 

evaluation system, ordering the creation of examination boards 

for officers who had “demonstrated unfitness.” When these boards 

were centralized in the French town of Blois, the doughboy slang 

phrase, “go blooey” (meaning to fail or break down), became a 
•••• 38 ••••

feared term among AEF officers. With Pershing’s firm support, 

the examination boards ruthlessly sacked and reassigned officers, 

sometimes after only days in their position. In 1917, roughly 10 

percent of National Guard officers were discharged from federal 

service upon recommendation of Regular Army commanders. Over 

time, Pershing would attempt to replace nearly all National Guard 

division commanders with Regular Army officers, but political 

supporters of the National Guard, centered in Congress, frequently 

forced Pershing to back down.

After resolving the most pressing personnel and structure 

issues, the AEF planners began looking for a sector where they 

could build their independent army. Several factors went into the 

decision. First, holding a sector of the line solely with American 

troops would help protect the AEF from continuing British and 

French interest in amalgamation. Developing an independent 

sector also would simplify supply operations by enabling the AEF 

staff to develop an American-operated network of ports, railroads, 

and supply depots reaching from the coastal ports to the frontline 

trenches. An area along the Franco-German border known as 

Lorraine emerged as the natural choice. Located between Verdun 

to the northwest and the Swiss border, the region presented 

several areas for combat operations. Pershing believed his forces 

eventually could strike at a salient in the line around the town of 

St. Mihiel. Once they reduced the salient, the AEF could drive on 

the important town of Metz, cutting vital rail lines that supplied 

German forces to the west.

Additional considerations went into the selection of Lorraine 

as the area of American operations. The British were firmly 

committed to protecting Flanders, which shielded the vital ports 

on the English Channel. However, the logistical infrastructure 

within the region was so overloaded supporting the British 

Expeditionary Force (BEF) that placing a large American force in 

the area would have been impractical. As for the central sections of 

the Western Front, the French were unlikely to relinquish control 

over the regions immediately northeast, east, and southeast of 

Paris. They also had created their own supply system, which 

was incapable of supporting another large army. By choosing 

Lorraine, the Americans could not only keep clear of the political 

issues found along other portions of the front, but they also could 

construct their own training and logistical network. 

As the first American units arrived over the summer of 1917, 

Pershing made plans to relocate his headquarters. He wanted to 
•••• 39 ••••

escape the limited office space and constant distractions that Paris 

offered, and he needed to be closer to his forces as they grew. In 

early September, he selected the provincial town of Chaumont, 

150 miles east of Paris and 50 miles behind the front lines, as the 

permanent site for the AEF GHQ. The town sat at the convergence 

of several major rail lines and possessed enough office space and 

billets for all officers within the headquarters, as well as all of its 

enlisted personnel. Chaumont quickly became the hub of the AEF, 

with thousands of officers and men passing through it during the 

war. Its name eventually became synonymous in the AEF with the 

GHQ as well as Pershing’s overall command.

American Soldiers Begin Arriving

In order to demonstrate the United States’ full commitment 

to the Allied cause, the War Department hastily formed the 1st 

Division from several independent Regular Army regiments 

and sent it to France in mid-June 1917. Nicknamed the “Big Red 

One” because of its distinctive shoulder patch, the unit marched 

through the streets of Paris on 4 July 1917 to show the flag and 

The first American troops arrive at St. Nazaire, France.

(National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 40 ••••

provide a boost to French morale. The high point of the celebration 

came in a ceremony at the Marquis de Lafayette’s tomb. A hero 

of the American Revolution and a symbol of the bond between 

the two nations (he had reportedly been buried in American 

soil), Pershing’s appearance to pay his respects drove home the 

symbolism of the United States repaying its long-held debt. In a 

speech designed to make just such a point, an American officer 

proclaimed in French, “Lafayette, we are here!” The crowd 

responded with vigorous applause as they looked to the arrival of 

the promised American multitudes. Unfortunately, the wait would 

prove to be a lengthy one.

The 1st Division initially consisted of only 14,000 men; the 

final form for AEF divisions had yet to be established. The 

majority of its soldiers had served under Pershing during the 1916 

Mexican Expedition. Despite the fact that many of its officers and 

noncommissioned officers possessed some military experience, 

the War Department added numerous raw recruits to bring the 

division up to strength before sailing. Its commander, Maj. Gen. 

William L. Sibert, was an engineer who had served ably on the 

construction of the Panama Canal but had never commanded 

American troops parading in Paris, 4 July 1917

(National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 41 ••••

large numbers of troops. In August, the division adopted the 

square organization and eventually doubled in size as new units 

arrived. Like the rest of the U.S. Army, the 1st Division displayed 

America’s military potential, but it would need time to become an 

effective combat force.

Three additional American divisions arrived in France over 

the course of 1917. The 26th Division (dubbed the Yankee Division) 

was formed from New England National Guard units federalized 

on 25 July 1917. Commanded by Maj. Gen. Clarence R. Edwards, 

many of these units also had served in the Mexican Expedition. 

They were among the first units mobilized by their home states 

after the declaration of war. The division was reorganized around 

the new square division template prior to sailing for France, with a 

small number of vacant positions filled by regulars. After a stormtossed Atlantic crossing, exacerbated by poor food and cramped 

conditions, the 26th Division began to unload at French ports in 

late September 1917.

The regular 2d Division (known as the Indianhead Division) 

initially formed around the 5th Regiment (Marines), which had 

been sent to France over the summer. In late September, the 

War Department ordered two Army regiments, the 9th and 23d 

Infantry, along with the 6th Regiment (Marines), to France where 

they would form the 2d Division upon arrival. The two Marine 

regiments were joined together in France to form the 4th Brigade 

(Marines). The 2d Division established its headquarters on 26 

October 1917 with Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Charles A. Doyen 

as its provisional commander. When the Army regiments finally 

arrived, Army Maj. Gen. Omar Bundy assumed command.

The last American division to deploy to Europe in 1917—

designed to build broad public support for the war—drew 

on National Guard units from twenty-six states, including 

California, New York, Ohio, and Alabama, to form the 42d 

Division, also nicknamed the “Rainbow Division.” Brought 

together for training at Camp Mills, New York, the division 

overcame a rocky beginning, with frequent fights in camp 

between the soldiers from diverse backgrounds. Its composite 

units began arriving in France in November. One of the most 

famous American units of the war, its ranks included Douglas 

MacArthur, later chief of staff; William J. Donovan, founder 

of the Office of Strategic Services in World War II; and Father 

Francis Duffy, who would become the most highly decorated 

chaplain in U.S. Army history.
•••• 42 ••••

Training the AEF

The units arriving in France in 1917 formed the core of 

the AEF, and they played a valuable role in refining the AEF’s 

training system and combat doctrine. Pershing wanted at least 

75,000 American soldiers ready to enter the trenches by April 

1918. To bring these four divisions to combat readiness, the 

AEF had to develop a comprehensive school system. Designed 

to teach soldiers the realities of twentieth-century European 

warfare, it included programs ranging from grenade assault 

courses to corps-level staff-officer training. Especially important 

were technical schools for chemical weapons, machine guns, 

and artillery. Officer schools, such as a staff training center in 

Langres, gave newly commissioned officers a crash course in 

the organizational challenges of overseeing major formations of 

thousands of men. Graduates then rejoined their units for largescale unit training and a period of shared frontline duty with a 

French division. Unfortunately for the AEF, these schools slowed 

the deployment of American troops to the front and hindered 

unit cohesion by separating junior officers and noncommissioned 

officers from their men for extended periods. Even so, the process 

was necessary and by the end of 1918 the system produced large 

numbers of well-trained personnel (Map 2).

Although new divisions underwent a sustained training 

program of twelve weeks’ duration soon after arriving, their 

component parts did not train together. The AEF had directed that 

regiments and battalions take part in courses of instruction tailored 

for the various combat arms, particularly infantry and artillery. 

Infantry training occurred in three four-week increments, with the 

first focused on small-unit training, the second on battalion-level 

training with the French, and the third on brigade-level training 

and higher. The complicated methods of laying smokescreens and 

moving artillery fire ahead of the infantry as it advanced, known as 

a “creeping barrage,” required highly technical training. As a result, 

American artillery units were detached for six weeks of intensive 

training in barrage techniques and fire-support principles. Once 

artillery units completed their specialized training, they rejoined 

their parent division for the second phase of infantry training. The 

original program survived only until the spring of 1918 when the 

situation on the front forced the AEF to curtail infantry training. 

Pershing did not, however, shorten the artillery training schedules. 

As a result, divisions entered combat during the conflict’s final year 

without proper training in coordinating infantry and artillery, or 
Map 2

2

1

5

7

4

3

6

6

Coëtquidan

Meucon

St.-Jean-de-Monts

Angers

Saumur

Tours

St.-Aignan

Foëcy

Bourges

Issoudun

Le Blanc

Limoges

La Courtine Clermont-Ferrand

Sathonay

Bron

Valbonne

Angoulême

Libourne

Le Courneau

Cazaux

Sougé

Decize

Autun

Clamecy

Gien

Fontainebleau

Paris

Mailly

St.-Dizier

Gondrecourt

Jonchery

Chaumont

Langres

Is-sur-Tille

Valdahon

Châtillon

Vitrey

Colombeyles-Belles

Le Mans

ITALY SWITZERLAND

BELGIUM

GERMANY

LUXEMBOURG

Base Sections 1–7District of ParisIntermediate SectionAdvance Section–Lorraine Region

LOGISTICAL SECTIONS

1917–1918

AEF TRAINING SITES

FRANCE

Training SiteSection Boundary

0 150 100 50

Miles
•••• 44 ••••

they were supported by French cannons until their own artillery 

component completed its training.

As the AEF’s school system came into being, some U.S. 

units took advantage of the opportunities offered by “hands-on” 

experience. After months of rear-area training, the 1st Division 

jointly occupied a quiet sector of the front held by a French 

division. It was here that soldiers from the division fired the first 

American shot of the war on 23 October 1917. Two days later, 

they suffered the first American combat deaths of the Great 

War when three men were killed and eleven captured during a 

German trench raid. After four weeks on the front line, the Big 

Red One soldiers were pulled out for rest and recuperation. They 

were replaced by the 26th Division, which had received French 

weapons and training. 

After initial familiarization with their new equipment, each 

American regiment was assigned a French battalion to assist 

in training. Although poor weather in December and January 

hindered the exercises, the Americans received the basics of what 

was called “trench work,” consisting of grenade throwing, gas 

instruction, wire breaching, and bayonet drills. The collaborative 

effort fostered a sense of camaraderie between American units 

and French trainers. 

Faced with the unfamiliar challenges of trench warfare, 

Pershing and his staff were compelled to adapt U.S. Army tactical 

doctrine to current operating conditions. After surveying the 

battlefields of the Western Front, Pershing concluded that to 

defeat the Germans the AEF needed to get out of the trenches 

and fight what he called “open warfare.” The concept began with 

well-trained and aggressive infantry breaching enemy lines rather 

than the heavy artillery barrages and sophisticated fire support 

plans preferred by the British and French. Pershing thought Allied 

operational thinking flawed, explaining later in his memoirs, “It 

was my opinion that victory could not be won by the costly process 

of attrition, but it must be won by driving the enemy out into the 

open and engaging him in a war of movement.” To achieve this, 

the AEF GHQ ordered that “all instruction must contemplate 

the assumption of a vigorous offensive. This purpose will be 

emphasized in every phase of training until it becomes a settled 

habit of thought.” Creating a doctrine of open warfare set the tone 

for the AEF’s combat training, emphasizing rifle marksmanship 

and offensive movement rather than trench-fighting techniques 

and mass artillery fires.
•••• 45 ••••

The decision to develop an open-warfare doctrine also 

stemmed from a variety of internal factors that limited 

American willingness to copy the tactics and methods of 

more experienced French and British forces. Pershing was 

concerned that American forces, operating far from home, 

would become demoralized as well as ineffective in a largely 

defensive posture. In addition, positional warfare relied on 

staff work by experienced officers, coordinated artillery, and 

veteran NCOs in the trenches to gain an advantage over the 

enemy. The AEF was extremely weak in these areas, so adopting 

a doctrine of positional warfare based on firepower would only 

accentuate their deficiencies. Developing a distinct American 

doctrine also provided Pershing with further justification to 

oppose amalgamation of U.S. troops into British and French 

units. American units following a separate doctrine would have 

difficulty conducting operations under foreign command. At 

the same time, an independent doctrine entailed more training, 

further delaying the AEF’s readiness for combat.

Whatever combat doctrine U.S. forces employed, the embryonic 

American supply system meant that they initially would have to train 

and fight with a hodge-podge assortment of weapons supplied by 

the British and French. General Pershing later remarked, “We were 

American soldiers getting accustomed to trench conditions

(Library of Congress)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 46 ••••

literally beggars as to every important weapon, except the rifle.” 

Rifle production was perhaps the only bright spot in U.S. wartime 

manufacturing, despite the fact that the Army’s preferred individual 

firearm, the M1903 Springfield rifle, produced at the Springfield, 

Massachusetts, and Rock Island, Illinois, government arsenals, 

was difficult to manufacture. Fortunately, American firearms 

manufacturers had invested in the tooling necessary to mass produce 

an export version of Britain’s Lee-Enfield prior to 1917. As a result, 

three in four American troops in France carried the M1917 “American 

Enfield” while the remainder received the more accurate Springfield.

For many of its infantry weapons, the U.S. Army turned 

to legendary gun designer John M. Browning. His .45-caliber 

M1911 pistol proved itself an outstanding service weapon. In the 

close confines of trench warfare, with constant dust and debris, 

American soldiers greatly appreciated the M1911’s reliability and 

stopping power. The M1911 pistol remained the standard U.S. 

Army sidearm until 1985. Soldiers also used shotguns designed 

by Browning, including the Winchester M1897 and the Browning 

Auto5. These weapons proved so fearsome that the German 

government issued a formal protest in late 1918 stating that they 

Lt. Val Browning holding the automatic rifle designed by his father

(U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 47 ••••

violated the rules of war and threatened to summarily execute 

anyone captured with one. The U.S. government rejected the claim 

and promised swift reprisals should the Germans carry out the 

threat. The war ended before the matter could be resolved, and no 

executions for the use of shotguns were ever recorded.

But the machine gun was most identified with the World War, 

and the U.S. Army again turned to Browning. In testing what would 

become the M1917, a .30-caliber heavy machine gun capable of 

firing 450 to 600 rounds a minute at a maximum range of 5,000 

yards, the Browning fired 21,000 rounds continuously in forty-eight 

minutes without fail. Unfortunately, manufacturing delays slowed 

the weapon’s production, and it only arrived on the battlefield in 

the last months of the war. The same was the case with Browning’s 

light machine gun, the Browning Automatic Rifle M1918. Weighing 

in at 17 pounds, the weapon was considerably more portable than 

the 53-pound heavy machine gun and saw extensive service at the 

end of the war. However, production difficulties prevented many 

of these superb weapons from getting into the hands of soldiers 

early in the war. 

As undesirable as it may have been to have to rely on French 

and British weapons, the arms they provided were mostly 

satisfactory. The French Hotchkiss M1914 and British Vickers 

M1915 heavy machine guns had proved themselves good and 

reliable weapons through years of combat. The same could be said 

of the British 3-inch Stokes mortar, a simple yet highly effective 

weapon used to good effect by American units. But one of the worst 

Allied weapons was the French Chauchat M1915 light machine gun. 

Designed to be portable so that soldiers could carry it forward 

into battle, the weapon was crudely designed. Its magazine had 

exposed slits on the sides (theoretically to allow soldiers to see 

how many bullets remained) that let in dirt and mud, leading to 

frequent jamming. The Chauchat was so poorly made that parts 

frequently were not interchangeable. Rather than repair it when 

broken, Americans often tossed the gun aside in favor of a more 

reliable bolt-action rifle.

As unsatisfactory as the Chauchat proved, the American 

infantry did not lack for firepower. An American infantry regiment 

commonly included 192 automatic rifles, which provided mobile 

firepower, and 16 heavy machine guns used for area suppression 

and defensive operations. For indirect fire support, each regiment 

had six Stokes mortars and three 37-mm. cannons. The Stokes 

mortar proved very popular with troops for its ability to lay 
•••• 48 ••••

smokescreens and knock out enemy strongpoints with ten-pound 

shells that could be fired at a distance of nearly 800 yards. To 

maintain its autonomy, the AEF chose to purchase all of the 

weapons it received from the Allies outright, rather than accept 

them on loan. This decision enabled Americans to control the 

distribution of supplies, although it also caused delays in the 

transport, storage, and issuance of equipment to AEF units.

While American infantry employed an assortment of U.S. and 

European small arms and light weapons, the AEF relied exclusively 

on the Allies for larger and more specialized firepower. American 

units used an assortment of artillery pieces throughout the war, 

but the mainstays were the 75-mm. field gun (the famed French 

75) and the 155-mm. howitzer. The artillery brigade of every AEF 

division contained forty-eight rapid firing 75-mm. guns to pummel 

enemy personnel and twenty-four howitzers to destroy fortified 

positions and strongpoints. Over the course of the war, the French 

supplied the AEF with thousands of artillery pieces and millions 

of rounds of ammunition. 

The French also provided self-propelled fighting vehicles clad in 

bulletproof armor plating, known as tanks, originally designed by 

the British to push through enemy defenses. When it joined the war, 

the U.S. Army had minimal experience with those vehicles. Pershing 

created the AEF Tank Corps in December 1917 and put Capt. George 

S. Patton in command of a tank training center near Langres. The U.S. 

Army also set up a tank school under the command of Capt. Dwight 

D. Eisenhower at Camp Colt on Gettysburg National Military Park, 

Pennsylvania. Having no supply of American-made tanks, the AEF 

primarily used two-man light (6-ton) French Renault FT17 vehicles 

augmented by a few of the larger (28-ton) British Mark V designs.

French assistance also was essential to developing the U.S. Air 

Service. Prior to the American entry into the war, U.S. volunteers 

had won honors serving with the French in the Lafayette Flying 

Corps, which included the Lafayette Escadrille fighter squadron. 

The U.S. Army had been an early supporter of American aircraft 

designers, and Pershing used airplanes during the Mexican 

Expedition. Nonetheless, low prewar budgets and a patent war 

between the Wright brothers and Glenn H. Curtiss hindered 

American military aircraft development. Pershing authorized 

aviation officers, such as Lt. Col. William L. “Billy” Mitchell, to 

develop plans for 260 squadrons of American planes along with 

assorted balloon units. However, the U.S. Air Service arrived in 

France with no planes capable of engaging in combat and had to 
•••• 49 ••••

rely almost solely on European aircraft, including the Frenchmanufactured SPAD S.XIII and the Nieuport 28C.1 biplanes. The 

Air Service expanded rapidly to 11,425 flying officers, but the 

only aircraft produced by the United States in quantity was the 

license-built British De Havilland DH–4 bomber, and substantial 

deliveries did not begin until the summer of 1918.

Finally, with highly sophisticated German attacks using new 

chemical agents becoming increasingly deadly, it was critical 

to sufficiently train American divisions in France to withstand 

mustard gas and blister agents. The U.S. Army once again turned 

to the French and British for assistance with this new type of 

warfare. Due to a lack of equipment, AEF units were forced to 

use whatever gas masks were available, making standardized 

training difficult. By January 1918, Allied instructors went to 

training camps in the United States to conduct courses on chemical 

weapons. Supervised by British and French instructors, American 

soldiers endured countless alarm drills designed to ensure that 

troops could don a mask within six seconds of an alarm being 

sounded. This training was often extremely uncomfortable, as 

World War I gas masks pinched the nose shut to ensure respiration 

occurred through the mouth air filter, and men only gradually 

American soldiers wearing gas masks

(U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 50 ••••

became accustomed to wearing the masks while sleeping. But 

the constant drilling and rehearsals were necessary if U.S. troops 

hoped to withstand enemy gas attacks.

Men and Materiel in the AEF

For the majority of American soldiers, the wartime journey to 

France was their first, and perhaps only, opportunity to experience 

life outside the United States. Unaccustomed to military discipline, 

eager to see the sights and sounds of a foreign country, with limited 

diversions to spend their pay on in camp, and alcohol strictly 

forbidden, many soldiers sought any opportunity to get away from 

their training bases. The warm reception doughboys received from 

many French citizens also encouraged a great deal of interaction 

and fraternization. The AEF sought to encourage positive moral 

behavior, and Pershing especially was adamant about preventing 

American soldiers from succumbing to perceived looser French 

morals. War Department officials worried that American public 

support for the Army would decline if conscripted troops were 

exposed to immoral and potentially unhealthy off-duty activities. 

Furthermore, before the advent of penicillin, sexually transmitted 

diseases often meant a solider had to be reassigned to light duties 

or given a medical discharge. Given these concerns, Pershing 

ordered a stringent program of lectures, bimonthly medical 

inspection of all personnel, and court-martial with forfeiture of 

pay for any personnel contracting a venereal disease. Unit disease 

rates also became a highly scrutinized part of officer evaluation 

reports. Even with these measures, instances of soldiers going 

absent without leave when not at the front, referred to as “French 

leave,” remained a problem throughout the war.

The inadequacy of AEF support facilities and the supply 

system also drove soldiers to slip away from their units in 

search of creature comforts. During their early months in 

France, American forces subsisted on a diet of British corned 

beef and hardtack, which could be combined into a hearty but 

bland cooked stew or eaten cold if required. Dissatisfied with 

this monotonous fare, soldiers scrounged and foraged whenever 

they could. The discovery of fresh eggs, bread, or prizes such 

as meat and cheese served as a welcomed distraction. Stories 

about adventures and exploits scouring the countryside for more 

nutritious sustenance became a recurring theme in the letters 

soldiers sent home from France. 
•••• 51 ••••

Food was just one of the enormous challenges involved in 

supplying the AEF. Pershing’s staff understood how vital logistics 

would be to the war effort. Colonel Harbord later wrote, “The 

paths of glory—if there is any glory in modern war—led out of the 

Supply Service, not into it.” Initially, American forces in Europe 

were totally dependent on their partners, especially the French, 

for supplies. With the projected strength of the AEF rising to 

over two million men by mid-1918, the AEF GHQ estimated that 

it would need over 45,000 tons per day to sustain its forces. Both 

Britain and France offered to ship and supply American combat 

troops but only on the condition that they be integrated into Allied 

units. Because the Americans rejected this proposal, the AEF 

needed to build its own independent supply system and logistical 

infrastructure—and it had to do so quickly. Accomplishing the 

mission demanded a great deal of ingenuity, but also a willingness 

to bend the rules on occasion.

Prewar U.S. Army policies did not specify how to supply an 

overseas army during wartime. Secretary Baker’s decision to give 

Pershing complete authority over the AEF resulted in the creation 

of two separate American systems, with the War Department 

controlling supply and logistics within the United States while the 

AEF GHQ built its own network in Europe. Officers at the AEF 

GHQ forecast their requirements to the War Department months 

in advance and worked to sequence supply deliveries between the 

United States and France. Coordinating the two systems proved 

daunting, and problems continued throughout the war. Within the 

AEF’s area of operations, disruptions in transatlantic shipping 

proved the primary issue. Pershing and his staff determined that 

they needed to maintain a ninety-day stockpile in France in order 

to keep the AEF functioning, though this was never achieved and 

was later reduced to forty-five days. Responsibility for receiving 

and storing supplies and getting them to the front fell to one of the 

technical bureaus: the Line of Communications (LOC). 

The French initially assigned the Atlantic ports of St. Nazaire, 

La Pallice, and Bassens to the AEF, which eased congestion in 

the English Channel. It also meant that at the end of a lengthy sea 

voyage, American troops and cargo had to be unloaded, wait for 

available transport, and then journey across 400 miles of poorly 

maintained French railroads before reaching most AEF depots, 

a process that frequently resulted in confusion and delays. The 

problem became so severe that the AEF eventually bought railway 

cars and operated its own railway service. Logistics coordination 
•••• 52 ••••

with combat forces also proved challenging. By August, Pershing 

and his staff decided to subdivide the AEF into separate combat 

and logistics elements. The combat-oriented force would continue 

to be directed from the AEF GHQ and encompass the battle zone, 

known as the advance section (Map 3). Technical and logistical 

operations remained under the LOC, which stayed in Paris after 

GHQ relocated to Chaumont in September. The LOC controlled 

all ports, supply trains, and depots from the coast to the railheads 

leading into the advance section. All facilities between the ports 

and the advance section were organized as an “intermediate 

section.” Along the coast, Pershing created nine “base sections,” 

each focused on a major port. The development of these different 

layers of control allowed commanders to focus on specific jobs, 

improving productivity and efficiency.

Even with the massive buildup of American production and 

transportation capabilities within the United States, the AEF 

could not rely exclusively on materials and supplies transported 

across the Atlantic Ocean. To this end, Pershing ordered the 

creation of a General Purchasing Board in August that could 

buy supplies in Europe. Although not technically authorized to 

establish such an organization, the AEF commander considered 

it a more efficient means for acquiring essential items. To 

head this new board, Pershing appointed his trusted friend, 

Charles G. Dawes, to be the AEF’s general purchasing agent. 

A prominent banker (and future vice president in the Calvin 

Coolidge administration), Dawes used his business acumen to 

cut through red tape and locate sources of supplies in Europe. 

He was particularly interested in acquiring bulky items, such 

as timber and coal, and even purchased 300 locomotives from 

Belgium. When criticized later for buying supplies at exorbitant 

prices, Dawes responded, “Damn it all, the purpose of the army 

is to win the war, not to quibble about a lot of cheap buying. . . . 

We weren’t trying to keep a set of books. We were trying to win a 

war.” By the end of the conflict, Dawes and the board purchased 

over ten million tons of supplies in Europe, compared to the 

seven million tons shipped from the United States. Talented and 

energetic businessmen like Dawes played a vital role in many 

aspects of the AEF’s development. Some were officially employed 

by the War Department while others worked through patriotic 

volunteer organizations. In one example, the railroad executive 

William W. Atterbury was commissioned a brigadier general and 

helped run the AEF’s railroad network. In another case, the War 
Map 3

2

1

5

7

4

3

6

Cherbourg

St.-Malo

Le Havre

Orléans Chaumont

Troyes

Château-Thierry

Reims

Gondrecourt

Toul

St.-Mihiel PARIS

Calais

Amiens

Soissons

Verdun

Dunkerque

Langres

Neufchâteau

Is-sur-Tille

Lyon

Dijon

Le Mans

Tours

Châteauroux

Cosne

Bourges

Angers

Nantes

St.-Nazaire

La Pallice

Brest

Lorient

Caen

Bayonne

Bassens

Toulouse

Nice

Marseille

Rouen

ITALY

SWITZERLAND

UNITED

KINGDOM

SPAIN

BELGIUM

GERMANY

NETHERLANDS

LUXEMBOURG

ANDORRA

Section Boundary

Base Sections 1–7

District of Paris

Intermediate Section

Advance Section–Lorraine Region

Principal Route

Secondary Route

Tertiary Route

KEY

LOGISTICAL SECTIONS RAILROAD SUPPLY ROUTES

March 1918

AEF LOGISTICAL NETWORK

FRANCE

0 100 200

Miles
•••• 54 ••••

Department worked with the American Telephone and Telegraph 

Company to recruit hundreds of female switchboard operators, 

known as "Hello Girls," for deployment to France to overcome 

difficulties the Americans encountered with French operators. 

Two charitable organizations, the YMCA and Salvation Army, 

maintained a large presence among American soldiers. Both sent 

hundreds of civilians to France to help boost morale, providing 

goods such as stationary, chocolate bars, and cigarettes as well 

as offering various forms of education and entertainment. Living 

and working alongside soldiers, dozens of these civilians would 

be decorated for their bravery and commitment.

Service in the logistical branches was not free from danger, 

and logisticians remained first and foremost soldiers. In the 

fall of 1917, a small number of American engineers supported 

the British offensive at Cambrai, notable for including the first 

large-scale deployment of tanks. In the three months leading up 

to the operation, elements from three U.S. engineer regiments 

American trucks awaiting shipment to France

(National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 55 ••••

constructed railroads near Cambrai. Once the offensive began 

on 20 November, they helped to extend the rail network forward. 

On 30 November, a German counteroffensive hit the southern 

face of what had become a British salient. The 11th Engineers 

(Standard Gauge Railway regiment) came under fire in the villages 

of Fins and Gouzeaucourt. Meanwhile, the 12th Engineers (Light 

Railway regiment) delivered ammunition to British artillery, 

and the 14th Engineers (Light Railway regiment) operated in the 

British VI Corps, providing ammunition to frontline units. The 

Americans suffered a few dozen casualties out of roughly 2,500 

men supporting the operations. British Field Marshal Sir Douglas 

Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force, made special 

note of the “prompt and valuable assistance” the Americans 

provided British units during the battle. 

Apart from the 1st Division in Lorraine and the engineers at 

Cambrai, the AEF had yet to make a notable appearance on the 

Western Front prior to the end of 1917. The four American divisions 

in France totaled less than 120,000 soldiers, a far cry from the 

million men Pershing wanted by late spring 1918. Progress had 

been made to build the apparatus to deliver vast numbers of 

American soldiers to the battlefields of France, with hundreds of 

thousands of men undergoing training and an immense logistical 

system under development. However, an unprepared U.S. Army in 

April 1917 and the rapid pace of mobilization resulted in mistakes 

both in the United States and in France. Many of the systems and 

policies instituted during the early months of the war were starting 

to prove incapable of meeting the challenges facing the Army. 

Those deficiencies had to be addressed in the coming months 

before the AEF could effectively take its place on the front lines.

The War Department: Challenges and Reform

By the winter of 1918, the patriotic enthusiasm shown by the 

American public and the staggering expenditures authorized 

by the U.S. government had yet to produce significant combat 

power in France. Policymakers understood that it would take 

time to build a force, but the Army bureaucracy in Washington, 

D.C., struggled due to a lack of focus and oversight. Secretary 

Baker relied on trusted subordinates to handle details and 

delegated major areas of responsibility, while he concentrated 

on managing public perceptions. He also tried to implement 

progressive reforms by creating new oversight boards and review 
•••• 56 ••••

panels, but their unclear lines of authority complicated the chain 

of command and confused subordinates. In one example, Baker 

rejected a major Army contract with the chemical giant DuPont 

for smokeless powder used in artillery shells because he objected 

to the company making high profits during wartime. He instead 

gave the contract to a company that was unable to produce powder 

until 11 November 1918, the last day of the war. These efforts to 

put political ideology over military expediency contributed to the 

War Department being overwhelmed by the challenges of modern 

industrial warfare for much of 1917.

The War Department’s internal structure also led to rampant 

inefficiencies. The General Staff, which was responsible for war 

planning and interdepartmental coordination, numbered only 

forty-one officers in April 1917. The German Army, by comparison, 

used over 600 specially trained officers for the same functions. The 

General Staff was neither designed to provide the Army with firm, 

centralized command, nor to make policy decisions in a timely 

manner. As a sign of its early dysfunction, it took an average of 

six days for a telegraph cable from Pershing to reach the chief of 

staff’s desk and another three to four days for the response to be 

sent back to France. 

These problems went beyond the General Staff, due to the 

War Department’s traditional reliance on autonomous bureaus to 

handle specialized issues. In peacetime, these bureaus competed 

for a share of the budget, and in wartime they often retained their 

focus on protecting bureaucratic “turf” at any cost. For example, 

the Ordnance Department ran arsenals at Springfield and Rock 

Island. Upon the declaration of war, the commander of the Rock 

Island Arsenal used his proximity to the stockyards in Chicago 

to corner the market in leather and refused to release supplies to 

other departments. In another case, the adjutant general had his 

staff make orders with every typewriter company in America, 

ensuring that only he had these crucial items. This decentralized 

system of narrow, bureaucratic interests was intended to prevent 

the concentration of power in any one body in order to block the 

rise of militarism. Unfortunately, the system proved ill-suited to 

addressing the challenges facing the U.S. Army in 1917.

Finally, the War Department struggled to find personnel 

possessing sufficient administrative skill. Pershing had selected 

a number of talented officers from the General Staff for service 

in France, and the continual demands of forming the AEF and 

its divisions put a premium on capable officers. Even the office 
•••• 57 ••••

of the chief of staff fell victim to needs beyond Washington, 

D.C. General Scott held the position until his retirement on 21 

September 1917, but he spent much of the summer on a mission 

to Russia observing the deteriorating military situation there. 

His replacement, General Bliss, officially held the office from 22 

September to 18 May 1918 but that included several months in 

Europe coordinating with the Allies, leaving the staff without 

clear direction. During these lengthy absences, Maj. Gen. John 

Biddle served as acting chief of staff from 29 October 1917 to 16 

December 1917, and again from 9 January 1918 through 3 March 

1918. An engineer by training, Biddle refused to make major 

policy decisions until Bliss returned. The situation left the War 

Department adrift and mired in petty bureaucratic squabbles 

that did little to advance the war effort.

By December 1917, growing complaints and news reports 

of dysfunction within the Army led to a series of congressional 

investigations into mismanagement, fraud, and waste. Oregon 

Senator George E. Chamberlain (Democrat), chairman of the 

Senate Military Affairs Committee, bluntly condemned the 

Wilson administration and the War Department. Chamberlain 

declared, “Let me say that the military establishment of America 

has fallen down. There is no use to be optimistic about a thing 

that does not exist. It has almost stopped functioning. Why? 

Because of inefficiency in every bureau and in every department 

of the Government of the United States.” Congress especially was 

alarmed at the poor conditions within the hastily constructed 

training camps that had resulted in outbreaks of contagious 

diseases at numerous posts. Thrown up during the summer of 1917, 

the camps often had rudimentary plumbing and heating systems 

that quickly broke down. When winter set in, troops who still had 

only summer clothing might wake in the morning to find snow 

piled on their sheets that had come through cracks in ceilings and 

walls. The result was a shocking rate of infection, particularly 

pneumonia, and many camps reported dozens of deaths per month.

Congress also was critical of the poor management and 

accountability within the Army supply and transportation system. 

Army depots and posts only inventoried equipment when it was 

shipped, not when it arrived at its destination, resulting in tens 

of thousands of tons of supplies left sitting in ports, rail yards, or 

sometimes simply dumped outside a U.S. Army post without any 

record. In an extreme case of supply problems, soldiers training at 

Camp Custer, Michigan, were forced to take turns wearing shoes 
•••• 58 ••••

for training because only half of the required shoes had arrived 

by the winter of 1917–1918. 

The American railway network faced its own problems 

moving large numbers of troops and equipment to embarkation 

ports. Transporting the 1st Division in June 1917 required more 

than 110 special trains dedicated solely to carrying troops. 

Not long after, the Army was using one-quarter of the total 

passenger cars in the United States. Because of the shortage of 

suitable cars, troops traveling to Camp Merritt for embarkation 

to France often waited days or even weeks until railcars became 

available.

Failures by other government agencies contributed to 

the War Department’s woes. In particular, the Federal Fuel 

Administration, which sought to coordinate the shipment and 

storage of oil and coal, created massive problems for railways 

and shipping due to poor management. The situation become 

so severe that all war-related industries east of the Mississippi 

were closed for five days in January 1918 due to a lack of coal. 

There were similar difficulties throughout American industry as 

it expanded to meet wartime needs. The Wilson administration 

had sought to coordinate this sector via a series of boards, such 

as the War Industries Board, Shipping Board, and War Trade 

Board, but progress was slow in coming for a federal government 

unaccustomed to direct involvement in the American economy. 

If the United States hoped to meet its objective of fielding and 

supporting an independent army in France, it needed change.

On 10 Januar y, Secretar y Baker defended the War 

Department with six hours of feisty testimony before Congress. 

“No army of similar size in the history of the world,” he insisted, 

“has ever been raised, equipped, or trained so quickly.” Even 

so, the secretary understood the War Department needed 

an infusion of new leadership. He increased the authority of 

Benedict Crowell, a financier recruited the previous November 

to bring direction to the War Department’s dealings with 

American industry. Baker also recalled to active duty Maj. Gen. 

George W. Goethals, builder of the Panama Canal, to serve as 

quartermaster general. Goethals, in turn, recruited a group of 

influential bankers, railroad executives, and businessmen to 

conduct a complete audit and reform of the Army purchasing 

system. By April 1918, Crowell and Goethals had created 

contracting and regional purchasing systems that for the first 

time gave the War Department the ability to track purchases, 
•••• 59 ••••

production, and shipping from the factory to French ports. 

They also provided more effective coordination with the 

War Industries Board and other federal agencies to improve 

efficiencies in production and supply.

In early March 1918, the War Department administration got 

a final, much-needed boost with the appointment of Maj. Gen. 

Peyton C. March as the acting chief of staff. (He took over the 

position outright in May.) A decorated veteran of the War with 

Spain, March was ten years younger than General Bliss and four 

years younger than Pershing. He had been a military observer in 

the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War and had spent several years 

serving in the War Department. As an artillery officer, he had an 

appreciation for the requirements of industrialized warfare. In 

July 1917, he had traveled to France where he took command of 

the 1st Division’s artillery brigade, overseeing its initial training 

near Valdahon. A stern but effective commander, he eventually 

Women working in military production in Detroit, Michigan

(Library of Congress)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 60 ••••

beca me the chief of A EF 

Artillery before being recalled 

to lead the War Department. 

March understood the issues 

facing the U.S. Army both 

in France and in the United 

States and was committed to 

providing the War Department 

the direction and leadership 

it so desperately needed. This 

included taking firm control 

over Army policy, even if that 

meant coming into conflict 

with Pershing.

Irascible and blunt, March 

had a domineering personality 

and a demanding work ethic. 

Upon a r r iva l at t he Wa r 

Department, he found the staff 

working a peacetime nine-tofive schedule with stacks of 

unopened mail and unsorted 

telegrams piled up outside office 

doorways. March soon put the department on a wartime footing 

and instilled in the staff his own sense of purpose and diligence. 

Frequently the first man in the office, March expected ruthless 

efficiency. Any officer found wanting was replaced with someone 

who could produce results. Unlike his predecessors, March had a 

clear understanding of his position. He commanded the military 

elements of the War Department and thereby the Army. To that end, 

he eventually corralled the independent bureaus and centralized 

authority within the General Staff. His sole focus was to get as many 

men to France in the shortest time possible. When projecting the 

number of beds needed on troopships, March cut the requirement 

by two-thirds, stating that three men could share a bed by sleeping 

in shifts. In response to complaints that he was too harsh, March 

replied simply, “You cannot run a war on tact.” The effort paid 

dividends when 100,000 men were shipped to France in April 1918, 

the first time the War Department reached that milestone. Troop 

shipments would not drop below this level for the remainder of the 

war, and by the summer months 10,000 Americans were arriving 

in France every day.

General March

(Library of Congress) •••••••••••••
•••• 61 ••••

Strategic Crisis on the Western Front

While Baker battled Congress over the state of the war effort 

on the home front, events in Europe put growing pressure on 

Pershing to hasten the flow of American troops to the Western 

Front. The collapse of the Russian Army in September 1917 led to 

the overthrow of the Russian government by Vladimir I. Lenin’s 

Bolsheviks. Allied uncertainties about Lenin were verified when 

the Communists agreed to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed on 

16 December. By ending the fighting on the Eastern Front, the 

treaty enabled the Germans to transfer dozens of divisions to 

the west. The Allies suffered another setback when a combined 

German-Austrian offensive smashed the Italians at the Battle of 

Caporetto. From 24 October to 19 November 1917, the Central 

Powers pushed the Italians back more than sixty miles, capturing 

hundreds of thousands in the process. Italian failures eventually 

resulted in the deployment of British and French forces to Italy 

to stabilize the front.

The combination of victories for the German and AustroHungarian forces threatened to shift the balance on the Western 

Front in favor of the Central Powers for the first time in the war. 

Allied leaders expected a German spring offensive in 1918 directed 

either at Paris or the English Channel ports. After three-plus years 

of war, the ability of British and French forces to block a strong 

German assault was in serious doubt. Facing the possibility of 

defeat in the west, British and French leaders again pressed for 

the immediate amalgamation of American soldiers into Allied 

units. The British offered to handle all shipping requirements 

for 150 battalions of American soldiers, provided they were 

integrated into British units. Pershing continued to reject such 

proposals, leading the British and French to approach Secretary 

Baker and President Wilson to press the issue. Baker responded 

by telegraphing Pershing in December, calling on him to disperse 

American manpower “as you deem wise in consultation with 

the French and British Commanders-in-chief.” Baker continued, 

“We do not desire loss of identity of our forces but regard that 

as secondary to the meeting of any critical situation by the most 

helpful use possible of the troops at your command.” 

Baker’s message offered Pershing some flexibility regarding 

amalgamation, but it was unnecessary. Pershing already possessed 

the formal authority to employ the AEF as he saw fit, and he was 

unlikely to accept amalgamation unless ordered to do so by Baker 

or Wilson. The AEF commander said as much in an 8 January 1918 
•••• 62 ••••

cable to the United States, stating, “Have expressed a willingness 

to aid in any way in an emergency but do not think good reason 

yet exists for us to break up our divisions and scatter regiments 

for service among French and British especially under the guise 

of instruction.” Pershing knew that the Allies had other sources 

of manpower, such as the nine British divisions operating against 

the Ottomans in the Middle East, or the fifteen British and French 

divisions bogged down on the Salonika Front in Macedonia. 

General Bliss, who was in France during December 1917 and 

January 1918 serving as the U.S. military representative to the 

Supreme War Council, supported Pershing’s position, arguing 

that “such a thing as permanent amalgamation of our units with 

the French and British units would be intolerable to American 

sentiment.” This left open the possibility of temporary assignment 

of American units to foreign control.

While this debate continued, President Wilson made a major 

speech to the U.S. Senate on 8 January 1918 in which he outlined 

his Fourteen Points for peace. These were much more far-reaching 

than the desire to “vindicate the principles of peace and justice” 

stated in the declaration of war in April 1917 or specific grievances 

such as submarine attacks. The AEF was the primary American 

tool to achieve Wilson’s expanded goals of a broad range of 

postwar political and economic reforms, but the president had 

to balance the weight of having an independent impact on the 

outcome of the war against the long-term reaction of allies who 

needed immediate assistance. 

Ultimately, a combination of political pressure and the grave 

military situation forced Pershing to modify his original plans. 

Pershing accepted a British offer to ship and train six full divisions in 

an effort to accelerate the deployment of American troops, although 

after instruction they would revert to American command. These 

divisions would augment the two divisions shipped every month on 

American transports. In addition, Pershing allowed four American 

divisions to serve under French corps command in Lorraine, but 

the American commanders and their staffs remained in charge. 

Last, Pershing agreed to transfer four African American infantry 

regiments to the French, where they were incorporated into French 

divisions. The concessions helped smooth political relationships, 

but Pershing still commanded the vast majority of American troops 

and continued the plan to field an independent AEF.

As Pershing built up the AEF’s combat forces, he found his 

own GHQ struggling with the same types of inefficiencies that 
•••• 63 ••••

afflicted the War Department. Service bureaus continued to 

operate with conflicting levels of responsibility, the general staff’s 

authority remained unclear, and, most importantly, too many 

people had direct access to the AEF commander. The first remedy 

was to move logistical services out of Paris. Chaumont was too 

close to the front to adequately coordinate the ports and railway 

networks and lacked sufficient office space for the entire GHQ. 

As a compromise solution, the logistics bureaus were relocated 

to the city of Tours in January 1918, 150 miles southwest of the 

French capital. The second phase of improving the AEF GHQ was a 

complete reorganization of the AEF headquarters, which Pershing 

approved in February (Chart 2). Most of the technical staff was 

pulled out of Chaumont and sent to Tours, where all logistics and 

support services were combined into the Services of Supply. The 

commanding general, Services of Supply, reported directly to 

Pershing and was charged with coordinating the administrative 

and technical staff in all matters related to procurement, supply, 

transportation, and construction.

At Chaumont, Pershing reformed the general staff by granting 

increased authority to his chief of staff, enabling him to direct the 

entire AEF in the name of the commander. Pershing also created 

a new deputy chief of staff, who would direct the staff if the 

commander and chief of staff were away from the headquarters. 

He redesigned the staff sections using what would become known 

as the G-system, with the general staff First Section becoming 

G–1, and the others G–2 through G–5, respectively. This system 

applied to all staffs down to the division level and has formed the 

basis of the U.S. Army’s staff structure ever since. These reforms, 

coinciding with those taking place in Washington, helped to 

improve the Army’s administrative and logistical capabilities just 

as its forces began to appear on the front lines.

The AEF Joins the Fight

On 16 January 1918, the 1st Division relieved a French division 

north of Toul. The division commander, Maj. Gen. Robert L. 

Bullard, established his headquarters at Ménil-la-Tour and 

assumed full command over the sector on 30 January 1918. The 

first appearance of a complete American division holding a sector 

of the line marked an important step in the AEF’s development. 

In February, the 26th Division deployed to a quiet frontline sector 

around Chemin de Dames, where it served under the temporary 
COMMANDER IN CHIEF

Assistant Chief

of Staff, First

Section (G–1)

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. 217.

GENERAL STAFF

Chief of Staff

Chief

Quartermaster

Chief

Surgeon

Chief

Engineer

Officer

Chief

Ordnance

Officer

Chief

Signal

Officer

Chief of

Air Service

General

Purchasing

Agent

Chief of

Gas Service

Provost Marshal

General

Judge

Advocate

Adjutant

General

Inspector

General

Deputy

Chief of Staff

Secretary

General Staff

Assistant Chief

of Staff, Second

Section (G–2)

Assistant Chief

of Staff, Third

Section (G–3)

Assistant Chief

of Staff, Fourth

Section (G–4)

Assistant Chief

of Staff, Fifth

Section (G–5)

Chief of

Tank Corps

Chief of

Artillery

Commanding General

Services of Supply

Chief of

Utilities

Headquarters

Commandant

SERVICES OF SUPPLY

Chart 2—Organization of General Headquarters, American Expeditionary Forces, 16 February 1918
•••• 65 ••••

command of the French Sixth Army. Although these were only two 

divisions, they provided a much-needed morale boost to both the 

British and the French and gave American soldiers the opportunity 

to experience life in the trenches on a large scale.

Once they reached the front lines, the doughboys came face-toface with the front’s horrid conditions. Winter weather and years of 

artillery bombardments had reduced the landscape to a barren sea 

of mud pockmarked by shell holes. The sectors used by Americans 

in February and March required backbreaking efforts to keep troops 

supplied with food and water. Random gas shelling produced a few 

casualties, but the soldiers had received effective gas masks and 

thorough training that prepared them for the danger. What they 

were not prepared for was the squalor. The trenches were filled 

with years’ worth of the detritus of war. Enormous rats, fattened 

on discarded food and the bodies of the dead, tormented the men’s 

sleep. Soldiers were soon infested with body lice, called cooties, 

which left troops covered in sores and scabs. 

When not battling vermin, the men worked to repair and fortify 

the front. Digging parties often uncovered mass graves, containing 

partially decomposed and rotting bodies. In their down times, the 

soldiers lived on canned rations because of the danger chemical 

weapon attacks presented to field kitchens. Although food was 

often plentiful, water was difficult to transport and often in short 

supply. With local rivers and streams contaminated by poison gas 

and chemicals, bulky water containers had to be hand carried 

forward at night. One of the few comforts soldiers received came 

from the efforts of the Salvation Army, whose network of aid 

stations provided fresh food, hot coffee, and cigarettes. Often 

located in reserve trenches, Salvation Army dugouts were manned 

by American civilians and were highly praised by the troops. 

One soldier of the 26th Division remarked, “Greatest and best 

noncombat outfit, right at the line along with us. Wearing gas masks 

and helmets like us Doughboys, and made D.Nuts [doughnuts] right 

when the shells were flying.”

The initial impression of the front line for many in the AEF 

was wretched conditions and unceasing effort rather than actual 

danger. The French advised the Americans to maintain a defensive 

posture and not to prompt German attacks by launching raids 

or aggressive patrolling. A young lieutenant on his first trip to 

the trenches remarked, “Far from being determined to sell their 

lives or their sectors as dearly as possible, [French troops] were 

primarily interested only in survival, in holding their areas as 
•••• 66 ••••

cheaply as possible by being careful not to provoke ‘the Boche.’” 

In contrast, American commanders sought to create a more 

offensive mentality among their soldiers and encouraged frontline 

units to gain experience by conducting numerous small attacks. 

Not surprisingly, these actions resulted in retaliatory German 

artillery bombardments, introducing the uninitiated doughboys 

to the terror of enemy fire. A member of the 1st Division described 

the experience:

I saw a wall of fire rear itself in the fog and darkness. Extending 

to right and left a couple of hundred yards, it moved upon us with 

a roar, above which I could not hear my own voice. The earth 

shuddered. The mist rolled and danced. Sections of the trench 

began to give way. Then the explosives were falling all around 

me. The air was filled with mud, water, pieces of duckboard and 

shell splinters. As I dodged to shelter, the concussion from one 

blast knocked me forward on my face. Before I could get up, I 

was half burned by another explosion. I had been carrying my 

rifle in my left hand and pistol in my right. When I crawled from 

the debris, I could find neither weapon. 

After a period in the trenches ranging from three to seven 

days, troops were normally rotated to the rear to recuperate.

Soldiers traveling across France

(National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 67 ••••

The carefully managed introduction of American combat troops 

to the front soon devolved into a frantic race against time, as the 

Germans readied their forces to launch a massive offensive aimed at 

ending the war. Only one American unit, the1st Division, held its own 

sector, while the 2d, 42d, and 26th Divisions were paired with French 

divisions in a quiet sector for their final phase of training. The longanticipated German Spring Offensive (termed the Kaiserschlacht

or Kaiser’s Battle) began on 21 March with Operation Michael (Map 

4). With reinforcements drawn from the Eastern Front, 192 German 

divisions outnumbered the 180 British and French divisions on the 

Western Front. After a massive bombardment by more than 6,000 

guns, seventy-two German divisions smashed into the British in the 

Somme sector. German troops used infiltration tactics that relied 

on small groups of elite infantry bypassing strongpoints and moving 

quickly into the rear of Allied defenses, isolating frontline troops and 

disrupting communications. After a week of nearly constant attacks, 

the German Army had advanced more than forty miles, creating a 

huge salient in the line and inflicting more than 175,000 casualties on 

the British. The German efforts to drive a wedge between the British 

and French armies and push the British back to the English Channel 

appeared to be working. Although British forces rallied to block the 

Germans at Amiens, the threat remained severe. For the first time 

since 1914, panic gripped the Allies, who feared that the Channel 

ports or perhaps even Paris could be lost. 

Faced with this new crisis, senior Allied military leaders, 

including Haig, French Field Marshal Philippe Pétain, and Pershing 

gathered at Doullens, France, on 26 March to plan a joint response. 

Pershing offered Pétain any AEF divisions that could be put into 

the line, freeing up veteran French troops to move against the 

Germans. The only condition Pershing had was that American units 

be attached to French corps as complete divisions, with their full 

headquarters staffs remaining in place. Before they could agree on 

a policy, the conferees agreed to elevate French Marshal Ferdinand 

Foch to the position of commander in chief of the Western Front. 

This was eventually increased in April to commander in chief 

of Allied armies, or generalissimo. The position did not include 

command authority over the different national armies fighting the 

Central Powers, but it did give him coordinating authority, aligning 

Allied efforts to a degree yet to be seen.

On 28 March, Pershing pledged to Foch that “infantry, 

artillery, aviation, all that we have are yours; use them as 

you wish. More will come, in numbers equal to requirements.” 
Map 4

XXXXX

RUPPRECHT

XXXXX

CROWN PRINCE

XXXX

BELGIAN

ALBERT

XXXXX

BEF

HAIG

XXXXX

NORTH

FRANCHET D’ESPEREY

XXXXX

XXXXX

XXXXX

Lys R

Yser R

Somme R E

N

G L I S

H

C

H

A

N

N E L

Seine R

Seine R

Aube R

Oise R

Aisne R

Marne R

Fontainebleau

Châteaudun

Rouen

Compiègne

Amiens

Péronne

Doullens

Arras

Cambrai

Lille

Souchez

Drocourt

Ypres

Passchendaele 

Dunkerque

Calais

Dieppe

Mons

Mézières 

Reims

Soissons

Château-Thierry

Craonne

St.-Quentin

Troyes

Chalons

Maubeuge

PARIS

BRUSSELS

BELGIUM

FRANCE

UNITED

KINGDOM

Miles

0 50

Front Line, 20 Mar

German Operation MICHAEL, 21 Mar–5 Apr 1918

Front Line, 5 Apr

21 March–5 April 1918

WESTERN FRONT

0 200 400 800 and Above

ELEVATION IN METERS
XXXXX

GALLWITZ

XXXXX

ALBRECHT

XXXXX

EAST

CASTELNAU

XXXX

AEF HQ

PERSHING

XXXXX

Chaumont

XXXXX

XXXXX

Marne R

Meuse R

Maas R

Moselle R

Mosel R

Saar R Rhine R

Rhine R

Main R

Roer R

L O R R A I N E

Forêt

d’Argonne 

Forst

Hürtgen

F O R Ê T D E S A R D E N N E S

 Maastricht

Liège

Huy

Sedan

Stenay

Troyon

Langres

Mars-la-Tour

St.-Mihiel

Metz

Sarrebourg

Toul

 Ménil-la-Tour

Nancy

Mirecourt St.-Dié

Lunéville

Mulhouse

Colmar

Strasbourg

Bastogne

Aachen

Coblenz

Kaiserlautern

Karlsruhe

Frankfurt

Cologne

Verdun

Étain

Thionville

Düsseldorf 

SWITZERLAND

GERMANY

LUXEMBOURG

NETHERLANDS
•••• 70 ••••

While the statement offered the possibility of amalgamation 

and greatly soothed anxious French and British nerves, very 

little actually resulted from General Pershing’s rhetoric. The 

initial German offensive ground to a halt by 5 April, reducing 

the pressure on Pershing to accept amalgamation before he 

had to make any firm commitments.

American participation in British defensive operations 

remained limited despite the unexpected situation. The 12th 

and 14th Engineers maintained and operated light railways in 

the advance zone of the British Third and Fifth Armies and later 

helped to construct trenches north of Amiens. Elements from 

the 3d Division’s 6th Engineers had been assigned to the British 

Fifth Army in February for bridge construction near the town 

of Péronne, France. When the Germans attacked, the engineers 

mined the recently constructed bridges over the Somme and 

withdrew with the British. After rigging an engineer dump at 

Chaulnes for demolition and preparing new defensive positions 

at Démuin, the 545-man detachment deployed to the front west 

of Warfusée-Abancourt on 27 March. They were issued British 

U.S. Army engineers unloading steel rails for a narrow-gauge 

railway in France

(U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center)

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rifles and joined British units to hold the line. For four days, 

they weathered intense shellfire and repulsed a German attack, 

suffering numerous casualties in the process. The 6th Engineers 

was finally withdrawn on 3 April. The 17th, 22d, 28th, and 148th 

Aero Squadrons also served in the Somme defense, operating as 

part of the British Royal Flying Corps. Altogether, just fewer than 

3,000 Americans participated in this campaign.

The British withstood the German assault during Operation 

Michael. Despite the temporary assistance of AEF units already 

serving in the area, Pershing did not have to commit significant 

forces to assist in defensive operations. But the German 1918 

offensives were far from over. In the coming months, thousands 

of American soldiers would be called on to join the battle to block 

follow-on German attempts to win the war.

Analysis

Even with the benefit of a century of hindsight, the results of the 

American war effort after one year are difficult to assess. Crucial 

decisions by the Wilson administration set the tone for America’s 

involvement in the World War. Given the state of the U.S. Army in 

April 1917, the president’s decision to deploy an independent ground 

force to fight in France meant that the United States would have 

to undergo a lengthy mobilization period. The Americans risked 

allowing Germany time to defeat the Allies before U.S. soldiers 

could reach the battlefield in significant numbers. President Wilson 

chose to accept that risk in order to pursue the nation’s strategic 

objectives. As a result, the Allies would have to hold on until the 

Americans arrived, even as Germany made adjustments to try and 

win the war before that happened. 

In the United States, factors within the American military 

and enduring civil-military friction posed a challenge to the War 

Department, but many of the issues hindering the Army were the 

consequence of a lack of experience, organizational deficiencies, 

and the overall scale and pace of the mobilization. Unfortunately, 

critical problems in the buildup took too long to identify, and 

civilian and military leaders, particularly Secretary Baker and 

Generals Scott and Bliss, failed to provide clear direction to the 

nation’s war effort. Although they took steps to ensure better 

coordination of vital areas like war production and training camp 

construction, the administrative lapses resulted in avoidable 

delays and unnecessary deaths. Even so, the War Department was 
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able to expand the U.S. Army to the point that it could contribute 

to the overall war effort by April 1918.

An assessment of General Pershing’s role in the formation of 

the AEF is more positive. With the overall goal of developing an 

independent, functional army that could play a decisive role on 

the Western Front, Pershing and his staff worked diligently to 

create sufficient policies and doctrines for the AEF. Some of their 

decisions regarding training and the emphasis on “open warfare” 

eventually led to unnecessary casualties once the American 

soldiers entered combat, but there were few alternatives that would 

not compromise American command independence. Moreover, 

through his organizational design and military bearing, Pershing 

created the AEF to transform raw conscripts into a fighting force. 

His stubborn refusal to accept amalgamation in any but its most 

limited forms ensured that American forces would maintain their 

national character on the battlefields of France.

The difficult period from April 1917 through April 1918 laid 

the foundation for not only the AEF’s contribution to Germany’s 

eventual defeat, but also to the creation of the modern U.S. Army. 

Although the American mobilization’s rapid pace resulted in a 

difficult baptism by fire once U.S. soldiers entered combat, the 

creation of the AEF signaled the arrival of the United States not 

only as a global economic power, but also a military one.

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•••

THE AUTHOR

Eric B. Setzekorn is a historian with the U.S. Army Center of 

Military History and an adjunct professor at George Washington 

University, where he teaches courses on strategy and Chinese 

history. He has published academic research on a wide range of 

issues relating to U.S. military history, Asian (particularly Chinese) 

military history, and intelligence operations. His articles can be 

found in the Journal of American–East Asian Relations, Journal 

of Chinese Military History, Intelligence and National Security 

and the U.S. Military History Review. He received his Ph.D. in 

history from George Washington University in 2014.
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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.

Coffman, Edward M. Hilt of the Sword: The Career of Peyton C. 

March. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966.

Cooke, James J. Pershing and His Generals: Command and Staff 

in the AEF. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997.

Farwell, Byron. Over There: The United States in the Great War, 

1917–1918. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999.

Faulkner, Richard S. The School of Hard Knocks: Combat 

Leadership in the American Expeditionary Forces. College 

Station: Texas A&M Press, 2012.

Grotelueschen, Mark E. The AEF Way of War: The American Army 

and Combat in World War I. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge 

University Press, 2007.

Hallas, James H. Doughboy War: The American Expeditionary 

Force in World War I. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Reinner, 2000.

Smythe, Donald. Pershing: General of the Armies. Bloomington: 

Indiana University Press, 1986.

Trask, David F. The United States in the Supreme War Council: 

American War Aims and Inter-Allied Strategy, 1917–1918. 

Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1978.

Woodward, David R. The American Army and the First World 

War. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

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 : 201410–000

CAMBRAI 1917

SOMME DEFENSIVE 1918