26 chapters
5 hour read
Selected Chapters
26 chapters
CHAPTER I THE LANDING OF PERSHING
CHAPTER I THE LANDING OF PERSHING
A SHIP warped into an English port. Along her decks were lines of soldiers, of high and low degree, all in khaki. From the shore end of her gang-plank other lines of soldiers spread out like fan-sticks, some in khaki, some in the two blues of land and sea fighters. Decorating the fan-sticks were the scarlet and gold of staff-officers, the blue and gold of naval officers, the yellow and gold of land officers, and the black of a few distinguished civilians. At the end of one shore-line of khaki on
7 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER II "VIVE PAIR-SHANG!"
CHAPTER II "VIVE PAIR-SHANG!"
T HE Invicta came into Boulogne harbor in the early morning, to find that her attempts at a secret crossing had amounted to nothing at all. Everybody within sight and ear-shot was out to show how pleased he was, riotously and openly, indifferent alike to the hopes of spy or censor. The fishing-boats, the merchant coastwise fleet, the Channel ships and hordes of little privately owned sloops and yawls and motor-boats all plied chipperly around with "bannières étoilées" fore and aft. The sun was v
15 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER III THE FIRST DIVISION LANDS
CHAPTER III THE FIRST DIVISION LANDS
T HEY saw the gray troop-ships steaming majestically into the middle distance from the gray of the open sea, with the little convoy fleet alongside. It was a gray morning, and at first the ships were hardly more than nebulous patches of a deeper tone than sea and sky. As they neared the port, and took on outline, the watchers increased, and took on internationalism. The Americans, who had come to see this consequential landing, some in uniform and some civilians, had arrived in the very early mo
12 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER IV THE FOURTH OF JULY
CHAPTER IV THE FOURTH OF JULY
T HE first they knew of it in Paris—barring vague promises of "something to remember" on the American fête that had appeared in modest items in the newspapers—was when a motor-bus, jammed to the guards with American soldiers, suddenly rolled into the Avenue de l'Opéra from the Tuileries Gardens, and paraded up that august thoroughfare to the tune of incredible yelling from everybody on board. It was the afternoon of July 3. A few picked Americans had known about it. A sufficient number of Americ
7 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER V WHAT THEY LIVED IN
CHAPTER V WHAT THEY LIVED IN
T HE American training-camp area spread over many miles and through many villages. It had boundaries only in theory, because all its sides were ready to swing farther north, east, south, and west at a day's notice, whenever the Expeditionary Force should become army enough to require it. But its focus was in the Vosges, in the six or seven villages set apart from the beginning for the Americans, and as such, overhauled by those first marines and quartermaster's assistants who left the coast in e
11 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VI GETTING THEIR STRIDE
CHAPTER VI GETTING THEIR STRIDE
T HAT part of France which became America in July, 1917, was of about the shape of a long-handled tennis-racket. The broad oval was lying just behind the fighting-lines. The handle reached back to the sea. Then, to the ruin of the simile, the artillery-schools, the aviation-fields, and the base hospitals made excrescences on the handle, so that an apter symbol would be a large and unshapely string of beads. But France lends itself to pretty exact plotting out. There are no lakes or mountains to
12 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VII SPEEDING UP
CHAPTER VII SPEEDING UP
W HILE the soldiers were still, figuratively speaking, in their own trenches and learning the several arts of getting out, the officers of the infantry camp were having some special instructions in instructing. Young captains and lieutenants were placed in command of companies of the Blue Devils, and told to put them through their paces—in French. It was, of course, a point of honor with the officers not to fall back into English, even in an emergency. One particularly nervous young man, who had
12 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VIII BACK WITH THE BIG GUNS
CHAPTER VIII BACK WITH THE BIG GUNS
T HE American Expeditionary Force which went into the great training-schools of France and England was like nothing so much as a child who, having long been tutored in a programme of his own make, an abundance of what he liked and nothing of what he didn't, should be thrust into some grade of a public school. He would be ridiculously advanced in mathematics and a dunce at grammar, or historian to his finger-tips and ignorant that two and two make four. He would amaze his fellow pupils in each re
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER IX THE EYES OF THE ARMY
CHAPTER IX THE EYES OF THE ARMY
A MERICA'S beginnings in the air service were pretty closely kin to her other beginnings—she furnished the men and took over the apparatus. And although by September 1, 1917, she had large numbers of aviators in the making in France, they were flying—or aspiring to—in French schools, under American supervision, with French machines and French instructors. There existed, in prospect, and already in detailed design, several enormous flying-fields, to be built and equipped by America, as well as ha
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER X THE SCHOOLS FOR OFFICERS
CHAPTER X THE SCHOOLS FOR OFFICERS
T HE first economy effected after the broad sweep of training was in swing was to segregate the officers for special training, and these officers' schools fell into two types. First, there was the camp for the young commissioned officers from Plattsburg, and similar camps in America, to give them virtually the same training as the soldiers had, but at a sharper pace, inclusive also of more theory, and to increase their executive ability in action; second, there was the school established by Gene
4 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XI SOME DISTINGUISHED VISITORS
CHAPTER XI SOME DISTINGUISHED VISITORS
S O satisfactory to itself was the progress of the American Expeditionary Force in becoming an army that by the end of its first month of training it was ready for important visitors. True, the first to come was one who would be certain to understand the force's initial difficulties, and who would also be able to help as well as inspect. He was General Petain, Commander-in-Chief of the French Army, and he came for inspection of both French and American troops on August 19, three days after Gener
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XII THE MEN WHO DID EVERYTHING
CHAPTER XII THE MEN WHO DID EVERYTHING
I F the American Expeditionary Force had landed in the middle of the Sahara Desert instead of France, it would not have been under greater necessity to do things for itself, and immediately. For even where the gallant French were entirely willing to pull their belts in one more notch and make provision for the newcomers, the moral obligation not to permit their further sacrifice was enormous. And although, as it happened, there were many things, at first, in which the A. E. F. was obliged to ask
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIII BEHIND THE LINES
CHAPTER XIII BEHIND THE LINES
T HE difficulty of describing the American organization behind the lines in France lies in the fact that the story is nowhere near finished. The end of the first year saw huge things done, but huger ones still in the doing, and the complete and the incomplete so blended that there was almost no point at which a finger could be laid and one might say: "They have done this." But at the end of the first year all the foundations were down and the corner-stones named, and though much necessary secrec
10 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIV FRANCE AND THE MEDICOES
CHAPTER XIV FRANCE AND THE MEDICOES
T HE history of the A. E. F. will be in most respects the history of resources cunningly turned to new ends, of force redirected, with some of its erstwhile uses retained, and of a colossal adventure in making things do. Where the artillery was weak, the A. E. F. eked out with the coast-artillery. Where the engineer corps was insufficient, the railroads were called on for special units, frankly unmilitary. A whole citizenry was abruptly turned to infantry. But one branch of the service, though s
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XV IN CHARGE OF MORALE
CHAPTER XV IN CHARGE OF MORALE
I F the army as a whole was a story of old skill in new uses, certainly the most extraordinary single upheaval was that of the Y. M. C. A. Though it had grown into many paths of civil life, in peace-times, that could not have been foreshadowed by its founders, probably the wildest speculation of its future never included the purveying of vaudeville and cigarettes to soldiers in France. Yet just that was what the Y. M. C. A. was doing, within less than a year from the American Army's arrival in F
7 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XVI INTO THE TRENCHES
CHAPTER XVI INTO THE TRENCHES
A FTER months of training behind the lines the doughboys began to long for commencement. It came late in October. The point selected for the trench test of the Americans was in a quiet sector. The position lay about twelve miles due east from Nancy and five miles north of Lunéville. It extended roughly from Parroy to Saint-Die. Even after the entry of the Americans the sector remained under French command. In fact, the four battalions of our troops which made up the first American contingent on
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XVII OUR OWN SECTOR
CHAPTER XVII OUR OWN SECTOR
T HE Lunéville sector was merely a sort of postgraduate school of warfare, but shortly after the beginning of 1918 the American Army took over a part of the line for its very own. This sector was gradually enlarged. By the middle of April the Americans were holding more than twenty miles. The sector lay due north of Toul and extended very roughly from Saint-Mihiel to Pont-à-Mousson. Later other sections of front were given over to the Americans at various points on the Allied line. Perhaps there
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XVIII A CIVILIAN VISITOR
CHAPTER XVIII A CIVILIAN VISITOR
D ESTINY always plays the flying wedge. There is always the significant little happening, half noticed or miscalculated, which trails great happenings after it. On March 19, 1918, a derby hat appeared in the front-line trenches held by the American Army in France. This promptly was accorded the honor by the army and the Allied representatives of being the first derby hat that had ever been seen in a trench. The hat had the honor to be on the head of the first American Secretary of War who had ev
10 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIX A FAMOUS GESTURE
CHAPTER XIX A FAMOUS GESTURE
W HEN America had put the power of all her eloquence into the growing demand among the Allies for a unified command, and when, as a result of this pressure, General Foch, chief of staff of the French Army and hero of the battle of the Marne, had been made generalissimo, General Pershing put into words in what the French called a "superb gesture" the final sacrifice his country was prepared to make. The first of the great German drives of 1918 had halted, but the battle was nowhere near its end.
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XX THE FIRST TWO BATTLES
CHAPTER XX THE FIRST TWO BATTLES
W HILE Generalissimo Foch was strengthening his long line, with American troops as flying buttresses, those sectors delegated to the Americans in their own right saw two battles, within a few weeks of each other, which attained to the dignity of names. The battle of Seicheprey, the first big American defensive action, and the battle of Cantigny, the first big offensive, the one in the Toul sector, the other in Picardy, were the occasions of the American baptism of fire. The one was so valiant, t
10 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XXI TEUFEL-HUNDEN
CHAPTER XXI TEUFEL-HUNDEN
N O branch of service in the American Army was so quick to achieve group consciousness as the marines. To be sure, these soldiers of the sea had a considerable tradition behind them before they came to France. The world is never so peaceful that there is nothing for the marines to do. Always there is some spot for them to land and put a situation into hand. It is no fault of the marines that most of these brushes have been little affairs, and they have found, as Mr. Kipling says, that "the thing
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XXII THE ARMY OF MANŒUVRE
CHAPTER XXII THE ARMY OF MANŒUVRE
W HILE the American Army was showing its quality in the minor battles of Seicheprey, Cantigny, Château-Thierry, and Vaux, and its quantity was showing itself in leaps of hundreds of thousands of men a month, a destiny was shaping for it, equally in circumstances and in the mind of Generalissimo Foch, which was to be even greater than that it had sacrificed in late March, when it submerged its identity and said: "Put us where you will." For when, on July 18, the fifth German offensive suddenly sh
15 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XXIII ST. MIHIEL
CHAPTER XXIII ST. MIHIEL
H ISTORIANS and military experts are fond of taking one particular battle or campaign, and saying: "This was decisive." It enables one to simplify history, to be sure, but often any such process is more simple than truthful. After all, every battle is to some degree decisive, and the great actions of the war are so closely connected with smaller ones that it is difficult to separate them. It is the fashion now to speak of the second battle of the Marne as the deciding factor in the war. Indeed,
10 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XXIV MEUSE-ARGONNE BEGINS
CHAPTER XXIV MEUSE-ARGONNE BEGINS
H AVING successfully accomplished one piece of work, the American Army received as its reward another piece of work. The reward consisted in the fact that the second task assigned to Pershing's men was, perhaps, the hardest possible at any point in the line. Since 1915 the Argonne Forest had been a rest area for the German Army. Everything had been done to make the position impregnable, and so it was in theory. But the Americans broke that theory and took the forest. So confident were the German
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XXV CEASE FIRING
CHAPTER XXV CEASE FIRING
B EFORE taking up the final phases of the Meuse-Argonne campaign, and the final phases of the war, it is fitting to follow the fortunes of some divisions which saw action in other parts of the front. The Second Corps, for example, remained with the British and saw desperately hard service and won corresponding fame. This corps was composed of the Twenty-seventh and Thirtieth Divisions, and in conjunction with the Australian Corps it participated in the attack which broke the Hindenburg line near
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
GENERAL PERSHING'S REPORT
GENERAL PERSHING'S REPORT
B ATTLES F OUGHT BY A MERICAN A RMIES IN FRANCE FROM T HEIR O RGANIZATION TO THE F ALL OF S EDAN [CABLED BY GENERAL PERSHING TO MR. BAKER, SECRETARY OF WAR, AND MADE PUBLIC WITH HIS ANNUAL REPORT, DEC. 5, 1918] November 20, 1918. My dear Mr. Secretary: In response to your request, I have the honor to submit this brief summary of the organization and operation of the American Expeditionary Force from May 26, 1917, until the signing of the armistice Nov. 11, 1918. Pursuant to your instructions, im
5 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter