The Illusion of Victory

by Thomas Fleming

  38. Pershing, My Experiences, 2:28–29; and Smythe, Pershing: General of the Armies, 115.

  39. O’Connor, Black Jack Pershing, 236.

  40. Baldwin, Canteening Overseas, 74.

  41. Marshall, Memoirs of My Services, 13–14.

  42. Coffman, The War to End All Wars, 80–81; and Schaffer, America in the Great War, 104–105.

  43. Baldwin, Canteening Overseas, 170.

  44. Ibid., 74-75.

  45. Millard, I Saw Them Die, 18–19.

  46. Ibid., 20–21.

  47. Smythe, Pershing: General of the Armies, 125, 107–108.

  48. Coffman, The War to End All Wars, 156–158.

  49. Allan Reed Millett, The General: Robert L. Bullard and Officership in the U.S. Army, 1881–1925 (Westport, Conn., 1975), 363–364.

  50. Smythe, Pershing: General of the Armies, 129; and Millett, The General, 365–366.

  51. Marshall, Memoirs of My Services, 96; Smythe, Pershing: General of the Armies, 127–128; and Millett, The General, 366.

  52. Smythe, Pershing: General of the Armies, 128.

  53. Ibid., 128–129; and Millett, The General, 367–368.

  54. New York Times, March 31, 1918.

  55. Liddell-Hart, The Real War, 412.

  56. Charles B. Flood, Hitler: The Path to Power (Boston, 1989), 24–25.

  57. Pershing, My Experiences in the World War, 2:65.

  58. Dallas, At the Heart of a Tiger, 534.

  59. Toland, No Man’s Land, 375.

  60. Ibid., 275–276; and Dallas, Heart of a Tiger, 535–538.

  61. O’Connor, Black Jack Pershing, 263–264.

  62. Toland, No Man’s Land, 277.

  63. Robert B. Asprey, At Belleau Wood (Denton, Tex., 1996), 141–144. See also Vandiver, Black Jack, 896–897.

  64. Asprey, At Belleau Wood, 178. Laurence Stallings lost his leg to machine-gun bullets in this attack and acquired the disillusion that pervaded his novel Plumes and the play What Price Glory. He was a marine lieutenant.

  65. Toland, No Man’s Land, 287.

  66. Harbord, The American Army in France, 296.

  67. Joseph Dickman, The Great Crusade: A Narrative of the World War (New York, 1927), 267–272.

  68. Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences (New York, 1964), 58; and Henry J. Reilly, The Rainbow at War (Columbus, Ohio, 1936), 246–247.

  69. Binding, A Fatalist at War, 254.

  70. Robert B. Asprey, The German High Command at War: Hindenburg and Ludendorff Conduct World War I (New York, 1991), 437. Asprey sees this attempt to revive the offensive in the north as a forlorn, desperate gesture by Ludendorff, who sensed the failure to break through on the Marne meant the war was lost.

  71. Mead, The Doughboys, 253; and Douglas V. Johnson II and Rolfe L. Hillman, Jr., Soissons 1918 (College Station, Tex., 1999), 53. Some 150,000 Vietnamese served in the French army as labor troops. Another 500,000 troops—many of them draftees—came from French colonies in Africa (J. M. Winter, The Experience of World War I [New York, 1989], 216–217).

  72. Carl Andrew Brannen, Over There: A Marine in the Great War (College Station, Tex., 1996), 31–32.

  73.Proceedings (of the U.S. Naval Institute), November 1987, 60; Military Affairs, October 1987, 178; and Pershing, My Experiences, 2:167.

  74. Harbord, The American Army in France, 336–337.

  75. Brannen, Over There, 35–36.

  76. Johnson and Hillman, Soissons 1918, 144.

  77. FMB, letter undated, cable June 16, 1918.“Ham” is Quentin’s Harvard classmate, Hamilton Coolidge.

  78. TR Collection, June 18, 1918.

  79. Renehan, The Lion’s Pride, 175–178.

  80. Ibid., 193.

  81. Edward V. Rickenbacker, Fighting the Flying Circus (New York, 1919), 56.

  82. FMB, QR to FPW, June 25, 1918.

  83. FMB, letters of July 3, 6.

  84. Roosevelt, Quentin Roosevelt, 163–164.

  85. Ethel, FMB collection; and Roosevelt to Whitney, Elting P. Morrison, ed., Letters of Theodore Roosevelt (Cambridge, Mass., 1954), 1351.

  86. FMB, AR to FPW, July 13, 1918; and Renehan, The Lion’s Pride, 191.

  87. Roosevelt, Quentin Roosevelt, 170.

  88. Derby Papers, FPW to QR, June 19, 1918.

  89. Joseph Gardner, Departing Glory: Theodore Roosevelt As Ex-President (New York, 1973), 390.

  90. Roosevelt, Quentin Roosevelt, 179–181.

  Chapter 7: Politics Is Adjourned, Ha-Ha-Ha

  1. Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned, 115.

  2. Ibid., 105–106.

  3. Ibid., 106–110.

  4. Kennedy, Over Here, 237–238.

  5. Case and La Follette, Robert M. La Follette, 872.

  6. Charles M. Thomas, Thomas Riley Marshall: Hoosier Statesman (Oxford, Ohio, 1939), 180–183.

  7. Ibid., 181. See also Case and La Follette, Robert M. La Follette, 870–871.

  8. Case and La Follette, Robert M. La Follette, 869, 873. Joseph Davies remained a prominent Democrat, serving as ambassador to Moscow in the late 1930s.

  9. PWW, 48:162–166.

  10. Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned, 135; and Blum, JoeTumulty and the Wilson Era, 160–161.

  11. Hagedorn, Leonard Wood, 283–284, 297.

  12. Ibid., 294, 303.

  13. Ray Stannard Baker,Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters, vol. 8, Armistice (New York, 1939), 209.

  14. Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned, 159–160.

  15. Kennedy, Over Here, 238–239.

  16. Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned, 139–140; 160–162.

  17. Ibid., 163–164.

  18. Blum, Joe Tumulty and the Wilson Era, 155–156.

  19. Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned, 166–167.

  20. Baker,Woodrow Wilson, vol. 8, Armistice, 75–76. The speech also reflected Wilson’s reaction to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which convinced him there was no hope of a negotiated peace with the German government (Wheeler-Bennett, Brest-Litovsk: The Forgotten Peace, 364–366).

  21. Melvyn Dubofsky,“Big Bill” Haywood (New York, 1987), 121. After the war, Haywood was freed on bail while his sentence was appealed. When the higher courts upheld it, he fled to Moscow, where he died in 1928.

  22. Peterson and Fite, Opponents of War, 184.

  23. Nick Salvatore, Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist (Chicago, 1982), 288–289, 292–293.

  24. Ibid., 295–296.

  25. Ward, The Motion Picture Goes to War, 55–56.

  26. Ross, Propaganda for War, 262–263.

  27. Ward, Motion Picture Goes to War, 56–57. Heart of Humanity also featured a scene in which German soldiers dumped milk donated by the American Red Cross while starving Belgians watched.

  28. Baker,Woodrow Wilson, vol. 8, Armistice, 213.

  29. Ward, Motion Picture Goes to War, 57.

  30. Newell Dwight Hillis, German Atrocities: Their Nature and Philosophy (New York, 1918), 139–140; and Peterson and Fite, Opponents of War, 183.

  31. Peterson and Fite, Opponents of War, 195–197.

  32. Ibid., 200.

  33. Luebke, Bonds of Loyalty, 3–10.

  34. Peterson and Fite, Opponents of War, 203–204.

  35. Baker,Woodrow Wilson, vol. 8, Armistice, 102–103.

  36. PWW, 49:98.

  37. Peterson and Fite, Opponents of War, 210–212.

  38. Ibid., 209.

  39. Ibid., 224.

  40. Ibid., 225.

  41. Washington Evening Post, August 25, 1918.

  42. Baker,Woodrow Wilson, vol. 7,War Leader, 165 n.

  43. Ellis, Race, War and Surveillance, 102–103.

  44. Ibid., 103–104.

  45. Frank Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Apprenticeship (Boston, 1952), 337–338.

  46. Ward, A First-Class Temperament, 383.

  47. Ibid., 385; and Morgan, FDR, 194.

  48. FDR Diary, 1918, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Papers 1913–1920 (hereafter cited as ASN
Papers) Box 33, 5.

  49. Ibid., 7–8.

  50. Ward, A First-Class Temperament, 392–399.

  51. FDR Diary, ASN Papers, 37.

  52. Ibid., 38.

  53. Renehan, The Lion’s Pride, 205–206.

  54. Ward, A First-Class Temperament, 399; and Morgan, FDR, 197.

  55. FDR Diary, ASN Papers, 40–41.

  56. Ibid., 44.

  57. Ibid., 42.

  58. Ibid., 46.

  59. Ibid., 47; and Ward, A First-Class Temperament, 400–401 n.

  60. FDR Diary, ASN Papers, 48.

  61. Morgan, FDR, 199.

  62. Ward, A First-Class Temperament, 411–412; and Morgan, FDR, 200–201.

  63. Millard, I Saw Them Die, 42–44.

  64. Ibid., 37.

  65. Ibid., 78.

  66. Baker,Woodrow Wilson, vol. 8, Armistice, 266.

  67. Gardner, Safe for Democracy, 170.

  68. Ibid., 172.

  69. Ibid., 177.

  70. Ferrell,Woodrow Wilson and World War I, 270 n.

  71. George F. Kennan, The Decision to Intervene (Princeton, 1958), 421.

  Chapter 8: Fights to the Finish

  1. James, Years of MacArthur, vol. 1, 1880–1941, 156–157, 181.

  2. Ibid., 191.

  3. Millett, The General, 386–387; and Coffman, The War to End All Wars, 253.

  4. Robert Lee Bullard, Personalities and Reminiscences of the War (Garden City, N.Y., 1925), 236–237; and Millett, The General, 387–388. By way of compensation, Bullard wryly noted, the French issued a communiqué saying the Americans had stopped a German counteroffensive. Hervey Allen, Toward the Flame (New York, 1926), 236ff, describes the Fismette massacre in horrendous detail.

  5. Toland, No Man’s Land, 414.

  6. Smythe, Pershing: General of the Armies, 176.

  7. Pershing, My Experiences, 2:247–248.

  8. Ibid., 358.

  9. Dale E. Wilson, Treat ’Em Rough: The Birth of American Armor, 1917–20 (Novato, Calif., 1990), 112, 114.

  10. Harry S. Semmes, Portrait of Patton (New York, 1964), 54–55.

  11. Smythe, Pershing: General of the Armies, 193.

  12. Timothy K. Nenninger,“Tactical Dysfunction in the AEF,” Military History, October 1987, 180.

  13. Paul Braim, The Test of Battle (New Haven, 1988), 104–105.

  14. Ibid., 115.

  15. Toland, No Man’s Land, 466–467. Summerall blamed the inadequate amount of artillery allocated to each division for the American inability to deal with enemy machine guns. But he was also an early convert to the British doctrine of HCI: high casualties inevitable. Hillman, Soissons, 1918, 41, notes Summerall once said: “Sir, when the 1st Division has only two men left, they will be echeloned in depth and attacking toward Berlin!” Hillman adds:“He would have been a wonderful ‘talking head’ on CNN.”

  16. Nenninger, “Tactical Dysfunction in the AEF,” 180; and Bullard, Personalities and Reminiscences of the War, 249ff. General Bullard opined that if the war had continued for another year, the Americans would have had to shoot as many stragglers as the British did annually to keep divisions in the front lines.

  17. Coffman, The War to End All Wars, 340.

  18. Shipley Thomas, History of the AEF (New York, 1920), 298–300; and Braim,Test of Battle, 126.

  19. Toland, No Man’s Land, 468–473.

  20. Smythe, Pershing: General of the Armies, 208.

  21. Ibid., 209; and Marshall, Memoir of My Services in the World War, 176.

  22. James, Years of MacArthur, vol. 1, 1880–1941, 217–220; and Smythe, Pershing: General of the Armies, 214.

  23. Ibid., 217–218.

  24. Millard, I Saw Them Die, 92–107.

  25. Baldwin, Canteening Overseas, 125–145.

  26. Renehan, The Lion’s Pride, 178–179.

  27. Ward, A First-Class Temperament, 409.

  28. Garraty, Henry Cabot Lodge, 341.

  29. Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned, 212.

  30. Garraty, Henry Cabot Lodge, 341.

  31. Case and La Follette, Robert M. La Follette, 892.

  32. Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned, 182–183.

  33. Blum, Joe Tumulty and the Wilson Era, 148; and Case and La Follette, Robert M. La Follette, 892.

  34. Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned, 183–184.

  35. Norman H. Clark, Deliver Us from Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition (New York, 1967), 94ff, 125–126.

  36. Ibid., 128–129.

  37. Ibid., 129; and Blum, Joe Tumulty and the Wilson Era, 149.

  38. Blum, Joe Tumulty and the Wilson Era, 149.

  39. Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned, 172, 176.

  40. Blum, Joe Tumulty and the Wilson Era, 158–159.

  41. Seymour, Intimate Papers of Colonel House, 4:64–65.

  42. Ibid., 71–72.

  43. Ibid., 71.

  44. Ibid.; and Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned, 214.

  45. Asprey, German High Command at War, 447–450.

  46. Ibid., 462. See also Ferrell,Woodrow Wilson and World War I, 130.

  47. Asprey, German High Command at War, 466–467; and Roger Chickering, Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914–1918 (Cambridge, 1998), 187.

  48. Richard M. Watt, The Kings Depart: The Tragedy of Germany, Versailles and the German Revolution (New York, 1968), 136–147.

  49. Chickering, Imperial Germany and the Great War, 188.

  50. Seymour, Intimate Papers of Colonel House, 4:73–74; and Chickering, Imperial Germany and the Great War, 168.

  51. Seymour, Intimate Papers of Colonel House, 4:74–75.

  52. Ibid., 75.

  53. Ibid., 76.

  54. Case and La Follette, Robert M. La Follette, 896.

  55. Seymour, Intimate Papers of Colonel House, 4:78–79; and Robert H. Ferrell, Ill-Advised: Presidential Health and Public Trust (Columbia, Mo., 1992), 14. Grayson limited Wilson’s workday to four hours whenever possible.

  56. Seymour, Intimate Papers of Colonel House, 4:78–79; and Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned, 214–215.

  57. Blum, Joe Tumulty and the Wilson Era, 163; Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned, 216; Baker, Woodrow Wilson, vol. 8, Armistice, 495.

  58. Seymour, Intimate Papers of Colonel House, 4:84.

  59. Ibid., 75–79; Ferrell, Woodrow Wilson and World War I, 130–131; and Asprey, German High Command at War, 481.

  60. Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned, 216; and Garraty, Henry Cabot Lodge, 342.

  61. PWW, 51:381–382.

  62. Baker, Woodrow Wilson, vol. 8, Armistice, 513–514 n; Blum, Joe Tumulty and the Wilson Era, 165; Garraty, Henry Cabot Lodge, 342; and Case and La Follette, Robert M. La Follette, 899–900.

  63. Blum, Joe Tumulty and the Wilson Era, 165–166; and Selig Adler,“The Congressional Election of 1918,” South Atlantic Quarterly, October 1937, 459.

  64. Davis, FDR:The Beckoning of Destiny, 541. In this first volume of his landmark biography of Franklin Roosevelt (unfortunately unfinished), this remarkably forthright historian saw with an unrelenting eye Wilson’s tragic mistakes.

  65. Seymour, Intimate Papers of Colonel House, 4:160–165.

  66. Ibid., 165–169.

  67. Ibid., 183–184.

  68. Ibid., 188–189.

  69. Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned, 224–225.

  70. Baker,Woodrow Wilson, vol. 8, Armistice, 558; and Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned, 226–227.

  71. Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned, 230–236; and Thomas, Thomas Riley Marshall, 182.

  72. Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned, 226; and Kennedy, Over Here, 244.

  73. Kennedy, Over Here, 244; and Thomas J. Knock, To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (New York, 1992), 184.

  74. Knock, To End All Wars, 185–186.

  75. Case and La Follette, Robert M. La Follette, 902, 910–911.

  76. Baker,Woodrow Wilson, vol. 8, Armistice, 563.

  77. Seymour, Intimate Papers of Colonel
House, 4:121.

  78. Harry R. Rudin, Armistice 1918 (New Haven, 1944), 186.

  79. Toland, No Man’s Land, 551–552; Smythe, Pershing: General of the Armies, 231; and Baker, Woodrow Wilson, vol. 8, Armistice, 570–571.

  80. Baker,Woodrow Wilson, vol. 8, Armistice, 572.

  81. Walter Henry Nelson, The Soldier Kings: The House of Hohenzollern (New York, 1970), 434.

  82. Ibid., 436–437.

  83. Pershing, My Experiences, 2:375. The author’s father, Thomas J. Fleming, was a sergeant in the 312th Regiment of the 78th Division during the Argonne struggle. Commissioned in the field when all the officers in his company were killed or wounded, he went to officers’ training school in France after the war. His papers reveal the new tactics Hunter Liggett and his staff devised to deal with machine guns. Charging guns was specifically repudiated. “The platoon that advances all at once plays into the enemy’s hands. Even though the position be taken, the enemy is well satisfied with the losses he has been able to inflict.” Instead attacks were carried out by twelve-man “platoon gangs” led by corporals. Each gang consisted of three automatic riflemen, two grenade riflemen, three “bombers” (grenade throwers) and three ordinary riflemen. The gangs maneuvered on the battlefield using the firepower of the automatic rifles and rifle grenades to keep the enemy machine guns and supporting infantry busy while the rest of the gang—and nearby gangs—attacked from the flanks (Papers of Lieutenant Thomas J. Fleming, World War I Survey, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle, Pa.).

  84. Smythe, Pershing: General of the Armies, 228–229; and O’Connor, Black Jack Pershing, 329–330.

  85. Rolfe L. Hillman, “Crossing the Meuse,” Relevance (Journal of the Great War Society) 2, nos. 2–4 (1993): 2.

  86. Ibid., 17–18.

  87. Mead, The Doughboys, 338.

  88. Ibid., 338–339.

  89. Coffman, The War to End All Wars, 356.

  90. Nelson, The Soldier Kings, 439–440.

  91. Millard, I Saw Them Die, 108–110.

  92. Smythe, Pershing: General of the Armies, 232; and Toland, No Man’s Land, 573–574.

  93. Smythe, Pershing: General of the Armies, 231.

  94. Ibid., 233; and Pershing, My Experiences, 2:395.

  95. DeWeerd, President Wilson Fights His War, 392. Mead, The Doughboys, 353; and Schaffer, America in the Great War, 202. Some historians have reduced the AEF’s days in action to the largescale combat that began at Cantigny on May 28, 1918, and escalated when the Germans reached the Marne two days later (Arthur Wilson Page, Our 110 Days of Fighting [New York, 1920]).