For the Common Defense
Page 49
Led by the Army’s few veteran aviators and American pilots who had flown with the Royal Flying Corps or the Lafayette Escadrille, the Air Service joined the war for the use of the air space above the Western Front. The aviators’ mission was largely to observe and photograph enemy troop dispositions and movements. This observation mission, which included the use of balloons, required a pursuit force to drive off enemy attackers. Air operations could also be offensive: Strikes at enemy air bases, attacks on enemy troops and depots, bombing runs on enemy trains and trucks. But the Air Service organization reflected its role: Twenty pursuit squadrons, eighteen observation squadrons, and seven bombing squadrons. At a loss of 235 men and 289 planes, this force destroyed 781 German aircraft and 73 balloons. The air effort still left its participants dissatisfied with the focus on observation and air superiority operations and convinced that Army conservatism had constrained their effectiveness.
Although Pershing committed his divisions to the Allies’ desperate defensive operations, he and his staff estimated that the Allies could stop the Germans with their own reserves. Establishing corps headquarters to control his scattered divisions, Pershing ordered the consolidation of his best divisions around the Marne salient for the counteroffensive planned for mid-July by the French high command. Pershing had become convinced that French generals had no special expertise, and he feared that the “temporary” use of American divisions in French corps might become a permanent arrangement. When the Allied Aisne-Marne counteroffensive (July 18–August 6) began, the AEF made its first appearance in major strength. Eight American divisions operating primarily in American corps launched many of the attacks that drove the Germans back to their defensive positions along the Aisne and Vesle Rivers. In the meantime, the reinforced BEF launched a series of punishing attacks that continued into early September. The first attack on August 8 produced an unusual event, the complete rout of the defending German divisions. It was, as Ludendorff noted, “a black day” for the German army. The subsequent days were little better, as the attacking BEF inflicted twice as many casualties on the Germans as it received, another new experience that signaled a precipitous decline in German effectiveness and morale.
Even as the Aisne-Marne counteroffensive flickered out along the poison-gas-choked banks of the Vesle, Pershing declared the U.S. 1st Army operational and assembled its five French and fifteen American divisions around the St. Mihiel salient, southeast of the Aisne-Marne battlefields. Pershing intended not only to reduce the salient, but, if German resistance faltered, to drive against the major defenses in front of Metz. The Allies had other ideas. Encouraged by the BEF’s successes, Field Marshal Haig proposed a giant “compressing” envelopment against the German army. One wing would be the BEF driving directly eastward through Belgium and northern France; the other wing would be the U.S. 1st Army and French forces driving north through the Meuse River–Argonne Forest region. If this right wing of the Allied attack could penetrate five German defensive zones and fight its way across some forty miles of inhospitable terrain, it could cut the major German railroad supply lines at Sedan and Mezieres and force the Germans to fall back along either side of the mountainous Ardennes region. Without any better plan of his own, Marshal Foch adopted Haig’s scheme and persuaded Pershing to reduce the objectives of the St. Mihiel offensive. Pershing agreed to redeploy his army and be ready to begin the Meuse-Argonne offensive in late September.
The St. Mihiel offensive (September 12–16, 1918) produced mixed results. In terms of ground recaptured, the American attack achieved its objectives, and the Air Service, AEF, coordinated its support of the ground assault with ardor and skill. The bag of Germans killed and captured did not meet Pershing’s expectations, for the enemy had already begun a tactical withdrawal to strong defensive positions across the base of the salient. The Germans also brought up reinforcements, and Pershing’s staff doubted that the 1st Army could have continued the attack. Pershing thought otherwise, but he conformed to his promise to Foch to limit the offensive.
The St. Mihiel offensive confirmed some characteristics of war on the Western Front and American tactical practices that did not bode well for the Meuse-Argonne offensive. Basically, an attacking infantry force could sustain its momentum for about four days and/or a distance of about ten miles. Then the strength of the defenders (presumably reinforced) grew as the power of the attackers diminished. The factors that limited sustained offensives were numerous. As the infantry began to outdistance the range of the prepositioned artillery, casualties—inflicted largely by artillery, gas, and machine guns—climbed. The fire support for infantry attacks became limited to mortars, machine guns, and the few light tanks that survived mechanical breakdowns, tank traps, and enemy fire. Unit effectiveness dwindled with the losses among officers and NCOs, fatigue, anxiety, thirst, and hunger. While the exhausted, overburdened infantrymen collapsed into defensive positions, the rest of the army struggled forward. Units found it difficult to move along clogged country roads turned into quagmires by the autumn rains and intense shellfire. It was particularly difficult for artillery batteries to move forward with adequate ammunition for more heavy barrages. Allied observers found an enormous traffic jam of field kitchens, ammunition carts, supply trucks, horse- and tractor-drawn field guns, and logistical units behind AEF lines. Normally it took the hard-pressed engineers, reinforced by infantry reserves, about four days to repair the roads from the original line of departure to the front. It took another four or five days to organize another attack. The Germans exploited this grace period by preparing another defensive position.
Aware of the 1st Army’s limitations but determined to use it to the best of its ability, Pershing massed his forces for the Meuse-Argonne offensive, the most ambitious American military effort in history. From as far distant as sixty miles, 600,000 American troops and 4,000 guns moved toward the new front. Depots behind the front swelled with 40,000 tons of ammunition and similar quantities of other supplies. The movement alone showed a degree of skill in staff planning and logistical management that brought the AEF up to European standards. Huddled over maps and accompanied by the roar of typewriters and mimeographs, division, corps, and 1st Army staffs drafted the complex operational plans that had become a feature of modern warfare.
Emerging from the pages and pages of map overlays, artillery fire-plans, and troop lists came a vision of the offensive marked by unwarranted optimism. Pershing approved a three-corps attack (nine divisions) between the Meuse and the Argonne Forest. French troops would support the Americans west of the forest and east of the river. The central American corps would mount the main effort, a head-on drive through Montfaucon into the third German defensive line at Romagne and Cunel. The left-flank corps would clear the forest and the Aire River Valley to Grandpre, also a major bastion in the third German line, or Krimhilde Stellung. The right-flank corps would fill the area between Cunel and the river. The offensive was supposed to cover eight miles and penetrate the main defenses, manned by five divisions, in only two days’ time.
Following an intense three-hour barrage the U.S. 1st Army moved in infantry waves against its first objectives on September 26, beginning the AEF’s most sustained offensive effort. Only the Armistice on November 11 halted the American attack. The offensive did not, however, move with mechanical smoothness. Only four of the assault divisions had seen serious combat, and four had not worked closely with their artillery. Although the right-flank corps accomplished most of its missions, the center and left-flank corps immediately found themselves tangled in woods and deep ravines or punished in the open hills by machine guns and converging artillery fire. Two days of heavy assaults did not reach the main German defensive position, and two more days of local attacks did not change the situation. In the meantime, the Germans hurried six reinforcing divisions into the Grandpre-Romagne-Cunel line. On October 1, Pershing admitted the original plan had failed and called for his own reserves. The halt allowed the artillery and supplies to creep forward al
ong the ruined roads. The French, meanwhile, argued that the U.S. 1st Army should commit its reserves to the French flank armies. Some French officials, including Premier Clemenceau, suggested also that the AEF needed a new commander.
Determined neither to lose his independent army nor surrender the AEF’s hard-won influence on the course of the war, Pershing mounted a series of attacks throughout October. The new attacks, which began on October 4, initially profited by the commitment of Pershing’s most veteran divisions. The German reinforcements were equally veteran, and the fighting raged at close quarters. As one artillery corporal recorded, “We are pouring over all sorts of hell on Fritz’s head. No wonder he is suing for peace. Nevertheless, he is putting up a terrible resistance. Half the infantry of the First Division in our front have become casualties . . . and we are being shelled day and night.” The relative stability of the lines, however, allowed the Americans to mass overwhelming artillery and feed more divisions into the line. Position by position, the key German bastions fell. To the east and west additional American divisions assisted the parallel French advances against such strongholds as Blanc Mont and the heights east of the Meuse. The major American tactical innovation during this phase of the fighting was to launch several night attacks, which, mounted without preliminary bombardments, surprised the Germans and allowed the Americans to penetrate their lines and force several sudden withdrawals. The Americans had discovered through hard experience the same tactics the Germans had introduced in March 1918. In addition, the best American divisions showed considerable skill in combining artillery fire, close air support, poison gas, and tanks with their infantry attacks. The terrain, weather, and German defenses, however, seldom provided opportunities for tactical imagination at the division level, and uneven leadership at lower levels ensured that American casualties remained high.
Having bludgeoned its way through the Krimhilde Stellung, the U.S. 1st Army, now commanded by Lieutenant General Hunter Liggett, exploited its success in another series of attacks that began on November 1 and ended with the Armistice. During this exploitation phase of the Meuse-Argonne operation, Pershing opened another front on the approaches to Metz with the U.S. 2d Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Robert L. Bullard. On November 6 the U.S. 1st Army reached the heights above the Meuse at Sedan and bombarded the German railroad. Some of its divisions pushed units across the river east of Sedan, while on November 10–11 the U.S. 2d Army launched a limited advance. Joined with French divisions that bridged the gap between the two American armies, Pershing’s army group ruptured the entire German position between Sedan and Metz. In the meantime the BEF had hammered the northern German army groups backward toward the Rhine. At the same time the Central Powers’ fragile lines in Italy, the Balkans, and Palestine broke. Faced with global disaster and the defection of the Austrians and the Turks, the German government accepted the Allied armistice terms. On November 11 the fighting dwindled and ended on the Western Front. The exhausted, numbed soldiers of the AEF climbed from their holes. Lighting warming fires, they savored the silence.
Measured by their own national experience, Pershing and his staff viewed the AEF’s accomplishments with awe and pride. When the war ended, 1.3 million Americans had served at the front in twenty-nine combat divisions. These troops had provided the margin in numbers that allowed the Allies to grind the German army into surrender. In 200 days of combat, the Americans had lost 53,402 men killed in action or died of wounds. Over 200,000 more were wounded in action. Disease deaths, largely associated with the flu epidemic of 1918, claimed the lives of another 57,000 soldiers at home and abroad. As amateur Civil War historians, some of Pershing’s officers could not help drawing comparisons with their Army’s heroic past. In area and type of terrain, the Meuse-Argonne operation resembled the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864. There the similarities ended, as the AEF’s struggle made the Wilderness pale by comparison. The Wilderness lasted four days, the Meuse-Argonne forty-seven. The Union Army fought with 100,000 men, the AEF with 1.2 million. In the course of the campaign Pershing’s artillerymen fired a tonnage of munitions that exceeded the totals fired by the entire Union Army during the course of the Civil War. About half the total AEF casualties occurred in the Meuse-Argonne.
As Woodrow Wilson learned at Versailles, however, the Allies did not view the American achievements and sacrifices with similar reverence. In a four-and-a-half-year war that claimed the lives of 8 million soldiers, the United States fought late and at relatively small cost. Despite its profligate mobilization, the United States bore only one-fifth of the Allies’ war costs. Quickly forgetting their relief at the arrival of the AEF’s big divisions in 1918, Allied generals minimized the American contribution to the final victory. The Germans convinced themselves after the war that they had been defeated by the war-weary revolutionaries at home and the British at the front. As the AEF’s generals expected, few of their countrymen appreciated the scope and complexity of the American war effort. Yet for all the AEF’s problems, its role in the Allied victory was crucial, and the Americans who fought in France, professionals and citizen-soldiers alike, knew they had participated in a critical turning point in their nation’s military history. They had gone to Europe, and they had fought a mass, industrialized war with allies against a modern national army noted for its expertise. “Over there,” they had seen the face of future war.
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TWELVE
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Military Policy Between the Two World Wars, 1919–1939
Like the lights of Europe that winked out in 1914, Woodrow Wilson’s hopes for peace dimmed during the negotiation of the Treaty of Versailles. By the time his internationalist foreign policy died in the presidential election of 1920, the outlines of postwar American diplomacy and national security policy had emerged. In strategic terms the Fourteen Points and associated idealistic sentiments shrank to three goals: Defending the continental United States and its overseas possessions from foreign attack, deterring European intervention in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere, and preserving China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The exhaustion of the European powers in World War I did much to ensure that the United States could achieve its strategic goals without increasing its military power. Germany had disappeared as an imperial power; revolutionary Russia could not muster the forces to do much more than wage civil war; Great Britain, France, and Italy did not have the resources to expand their influence and instead chose to further exhaust themselves by defending their weakened hold on their existing foreign possessions. The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, in fact, set off a wave of wars of independence and decolonization and the creation of new nations that went on unabated into the 1990s.
Caught between its sympathy for national self-determination and its distaste for great power politics, as well as its desire for expanded international economic influence, the American foreign policy elite returned to traditional notions of unilateralism and noninvolvement in Europe’s affairs. After rejecting membership in the League of Nations, the United States focused on foreign trade policy, which became increasingly protectionist in the 1920s, and the collection of war debts assumed by the European nations. Rejecting any commitment to collective security through the League of Nations or any less binding defensive ties to its former partners in World War I, the United States made it less likely that Great Britain and France would find the will and resources to maintain the European balance of power. Even before the end of the 1920s some astute Americans observed that the First World War had simply planted the seeds of a second, even greater, global struggle. They also predicted that the United States would be no more successful in avoiding the second world war than it had the first.
Surveying the political wreckage of 1919, the planners of the Joint Army-Navy Board realized that the most immediate strategic problem was the enhanced international ambition and strategic power of Imperial Japan. More than a decade earlier, Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japa
nese War and deteriorating U.S.-Japanese diplomatic relations prompted the joint board to formulate a contingency plan for conflict with the emerging Asian power. In 1911, the board formalized Plan ORANGE, which called for defending the Philippines and Guam while concentrating U.S. naval forces for an offensive through the central Pacific to isolate Japan. Joining the Allied cause in 1915, the Japanese had extended their military power on the Asian mainland and across the reaches of the central Pacific. Japanese domestic politics, economic weakness, and European-American resistance had snuffed out the Japanese enclaves in China and Siberia by 1921, but the world war left the Japanese the dominant power in the Pacific as far east as the international date line. Securing its conquest of Germany’s Pacific holdings, Japan placed itself in a favorable position to return to mainland Asia free of American and European interference. By developing bases in the Caroline Islands, the Marianas (with the exception of American Guam), and the Marshall Islands, Japan made it unlikely that the U.S. Navy could steam to the defense of the Philippines or stop either another incursion into China or attacks on the rich but weak colonial regimes of the Dutch East Indies, French Indo-China, and British Malaya. With the U.S. Navy’s trans-Pacific reach blunted by the potential Japanese naval-air-defense system in the central Pacific, a continued Russian military presence in Siberia became even more important in deterring Japan. Should, however, the Soviets become involved in a European war, their ability to involve Japan in a two-front Asian war was likely to disappear. As the Navy’s General Board recognized when it reviewed War Plan ORANGE in 1919, Japan did not menace the continental United States and the Western Hemisphere, but it now stood in a favorable position to close the Open Door and deal a death-blow to the imperial system in Asia, which was still critical to the economic reconstruction of Great Britain and France.