Thanks for the recommendation here - I am a fan of Lacey's other work, but have not read this one - it is now on my "to-read" list. I anticipate an imminent acquisition...
In return, let me note another Pershing-focussed work along with the brief review I wrote of it on Good reads:
Pershing in Command: A study of the American Expeditionary Force in the Great War
by William Stroock
An excellent overview of the AEF in World War I, its creation, deployment and year in combat. The title implies a command study of Pershing during the war, but the bulk of the narrative is a battle history with a primary focus on the various American commanders, and their influences, broadly, on the course of American operations. I had hoped for more Pershing - his presence in the narrative is not as in depth as the title would lead us to think. That said, his success in retaining the AEF as an army independent of the French and British forces was hard won. The high level machinations of our allies attempting to disperse and amalgamate US forces among and within their forces was relentless, and Pershing, as perhaps only a Pershing could, stood fast against it. This is touched on vividly as it occurred, again and again, but as with the rest of the book, not in depth. The battle history is similarly an overview - seldom venturing below the division level of fighting and maneuvering, with some brigade level actions and an occasional battalion level action. The best value in this book is as a starting point to acquaint an interested reader with the unprecedented difficulty of creating, training, transporting, organizing and fighting a three-million strong army out of literally nothing... starting from what was effectively a 300,000 man colonial occupation force. All credit to General Pershing for this stupendous feat, in the face of adamant and relentless pressure to merely feed manpower into French and British armies, and despite the doctrinal mistakes that led to unnecessarily high casualties among American troops. But they learned - they changed, albeit slowly - and they prevailed.
As an aside, the short introduction puts the American experience and World War I into context, and does so in such a compelling and evocative manner as to make the reader impatient to read more. What a perfect introduction and invitation into the subject matter!
Urey -- Thanks for the great review and scoping of Stoork's book, and for your comment on the creation of the American army out of virtually nothing and getting it ready to fight. Not glamorous, but getting the force ready to fight is really hard stuff and not an easy feat to say the least. Great point. Thanks again for your comment and Happy New Year! vr/ Phil
I hope the book discusses his actions on November 11, 1918. After the armistice was signed and the fighting would stop at the 11th hour, thousands of casualties still occurred in the morning hours for no reason at all. That was definitely a failure on his part. Definitely the best leader of our military in the early 20th century and created the WWII generals but he wasn’t perfect either.
Hello Koba -- The book does go into much greater detail on the war’s conduct and many other points than I could not provide justice to in a short posting. Any shortfall in summarizing the book is on me. You’re right, on the last day of the war, there were something in the neighborhood of 11,000 casualties (both sides) of which more than 2,700 were killed in action. It is sad how in any war termination there are, unavoidably, casualties in those last hours. With the sides having finally agreed to the armistice around 5 a.m. on 11 Nov., I’ve read that some units still had not fully received the word until after the 1100 hour when the armistice went into full effect. For more on the final moments of the war, one quick source is the Commonwealth War Grave Commission (https://www.cwgc.org ). Related, the book does highlight that Pershing did advocate for unconditional surrender terms, but he did not prevail. The allies settled on a negotiated armistice. Of note, Pershing identified with General Grant, whom he said was America’s greatest General, and a role model. Pershing was certainly not without his flaws and limitations which Lacey does write about. He wasn't a particularly 'warm' leader whom the troops loved. He was, however, very much a respected, tested and highly adept military leader. Certainly the right guy for the time/job. Regarding war in the trenches: Pershing eschewed trench warfare and the deadly strength of the defense supported by machineguns and artillery. He yearned to breach the trench and get to a concept of “open warfare,” which I gather in his description is aligned to our present concept of maneuver warfare. He believed that trained infantry could overcome technology in the defense of WW1, and he was slow to see the use of tanks and airplane in a leading role, but thought them as much needed supporting forces. His limitation, in hindsight perhaps, is you had to break through the trench first. He judged the best way to broach the trench, was by coordinated precision fires by infantry massed supported by tanks and artillery (which he did in the St Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne operations). Whereas the coordinated infantry centric combined arms operations were successfully, they were so at a terrible cost. That did weigh on him greatly. But he was not at all alone in this limitation of vision - the leadership of the time experienced warfare differently in their careers up until then. I think it is important that see and judge leaders in the context of the times. Only later in the post war did tacticians developed the idea of tanks and aircraft lead combined arms that maneuvered around strong points to exploit the enemy’s logistic and communications rear areas with highly mobile warfare., but’s a different book on WW2. vr/ Phil
As we learned at Quantico, Rommel developed infiltration tactics that allowed infantry to take opposing trench lines. Luckily for us, his innovation occurred late in the war.
Matt – Thanks for your comment and please pass along our compliments to Dr Lacey! Thank you also for the additional deeper reads! I did come across Dr Greenwood’s book in my research and would like to read it – it gets to my interest in learning how he (Pershing) thinks and I am particularly interested in a deeper look at his take on the Russo-Japanese war and how it influenced his thinking going forward. Thanks again and Happy New Year! Vr/ Phil
Thanks for the recommendation here - I am a fan of Lacey's other work, but have not read this one - it is now on my "to-read" list. I anticipate an imminent acquisition...
In return, let me note another Pershing-focussed work along with the brief review I wrote of it on Good reads:
Pershing in Command: A study of the American Expeditionary Force in the Great War
by William Stroock
An excellent overview of the AEF in World War I, its creation, deployment and year in combat. The title implies a command study of Pershing during the war, but the bulk of the narrative is a battle history with a primary focus on the various American commanders, and their influences, broadly, on the course of American operations. I had hoped for more Pershing - his presence in the narrative is not as in depth as the title would lead us to think. That said, his success in retaining the AEF as an army independent of the French and British forces was hard won. The high level machinations of our allies attempting to disperse and amalgamate US forces among and within their forces was relentless, and Pershing, as perhaps only a Pershing could, stood fast against it. This is touched on vividly as it occurred, again and again, but as with the rest of the book, not in depth. The battle history is similarly an overview - seldom venturing below the division level of fighting and maneuvering, with some brigade level actions and an occasional battalion level action. The best value in this book is as a starting point to acquaint an interested reader with the unprecedented difficulty of creating, training, transporting, organizing and fighting a three-million strong army out of literally nothing... starting from what was effectively a 300,000 man colonial occupation force. All credit to General Pershing for this stupendous feat, in the face of adamant and relentless pressure to merely feed manpower into French and British armies, and despite the doctrinal mistakes that led to unnecessarily high casualties among American troops. But they learned - they changed, albeit slowly - and they prevailed.
As an aside, the short introduction puts the American experience and World War I into context, and does so in such a compelling and evocative manner as to make the reader impatient to read more. What a perfect introduction and invitation into the subject matter!
Urey -- Thanks for the great review and scoping of Stoork's book, and for your comment on the creation of the American army out of virtually nothing and getting it ready to fight. Not glamorous, but getting the force ready to fight is really hard stuff and not an easy feat to say the least. Great point. Thanks again for your comment and Happy New Year! vr/ Phil
I hope the book discusses his actions on November 11, 1918. After the armistice was signed and the fighting would stop at the 11th hour, thousands of casualties still occurred in the morning hours for no reason at all. That was definitely a failure on his part. Definitely the best leader of our military in the early 20th century and created the WWII generals but he wasn’t perfect either.
Hello Koba -- The book does go into much greater detail on the war’s conduct and many other points than I could not provide justice to in a short posting. Any shortfall in summarizing the book is on me. You’re right, on the last day of the war, there were something in the neighborhood of 11,000 casualties (both sides) of which more than 2,700 were killed in action. It is sad how in any war termination there are, unavoidably, casualties in those last hours. With the sides having finally agreed to the armistice around 5 a.m. on 11 Nov., I’ve read that some units still had not fully received the word until after the 1100 hour when the armistice went into full effect. For more on the final moments of the war, one quick source is the Commonwealth War Grave Commission (https://www.cwgc.org ). Related, the book does highlight that Pershing did advocate for unconditional surrender terms, but he did not prevail. The allies settled on a negotiated armistice. Of note, Pershing identified with General Grant, whom he said was America’s greatest General, and a role model. Pershing was certainly not without his flaws and limitations which Lacey does write about. He wasn't a particularly 'warm' leader whom the troops loved. He was, however, very much a respected, tested and highly adept military leader. Certainly the right guy for the time/job. Regarding war in the trenches: Pershing eschewed trench warfare and the deadly strength of the defense supported by machineguns and artillery. He yearned to breach the trench and get to a concept of “open warfare,” which I gather in his description is aligned to our present concept of maneuver warfare. He believed that trained infantry could overcome technology in the defense of WW1, and he was slow to see the use of tanks and airplane in a leading role, but thought them as much needed supporting forces. His limitation, in hindsight perhaps, is you had to break through the trench first. He judged the best way to broach the trench, was by coordinated precision fires by infantry massed supported by tanks and artillery (which he did in the St Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne operations). Whereas the coordinated infantry centric combined arms operations were successfully, they were so at a terrible cost. That did weigh on him greatly. But he was not at all alone in this limitation of vision - the leadership of the time experienced warfare differently in their careers up until then. I think it is important that see and judge leaders in the context of the times. Only later in the post war did tacticians developed the idea of tanks and aircraft lead combined arms that maneuvered around strong points to exploit the enemy’s logistic and communications rear areas with highly mobile warfare., but’s a different book on WW2. vr/ Phil
As we learned at Quantico, Rommel developed infiltration tactics that allowed infantry to take opposing trench lines. Luckily for us, his innovation occurred late in the war.
My recollection is that all of the powers engaged in such folly, not just the Americans.
Dr. Lacey is a friend and colleague, and his is a great, short, readable intro. If you want to go deeper, check out Donald Smythe’s two volume bio (1980s but still the scholarly standard - longer than Jim’s book but still very accessible and fully grounded in exhaustive primary research). Second volume on WW I and later is still in print and you should be able to find both at archive.org also. For those wanting to go *very* deep, Dr. Greenwood is following up his edition of Pershing’s prewar memoir with an annotated edition of his WW I papers. https://www.amazon.com/Pershing-American-Expeditionary-Forces-1917-1919/dp/081318133X/ref=pd_aw_sim_m_sccl_1/145-4206795-0476725?pd_rd_w=OmYSA&content-id=amzn1.sym.a2aa30ce-d4bc-4cb4-9a13-9988fc2c7596&pf_rd_p=a2aa30ce-d4bc-4cb4-9a13-9988fc2c7596&pf_rd_r=RDYE2RCEKECNC64G60NP&pd_rd_wg=tfgyP&pd_rd_r=4f3f641c-be49-4c88-8cec-21f5e1784447&pd_rd_i=081318133X&psc=1
Matt – Thanks for your comment and please pass along our compliments to Dr Lacey! Thank you also for the additional deeper reads! I did come across Dr Greenwood’s book in my research and would like to read it – it gets to my interest in learning how he (Pershing) thinks and I am particularly interested in a deeper look at his take on the Russo-Japanese war and how it influenced his thinking going forward. Thanks again and Happy New Year! Vr/ Phil
Same to you! Glad to have discovered your Substack.