Crucible of Leadership
We reveal how the American experience of World War I and the command of General John J Pershing helped to shape a generation
How WWI forged a generation of American leaders
When US forces landed in Europe in 1917 it was to prove a turning point in American foreign and domestic policy. America was engaging with the world beyond its borders in a way it had not done before. President Woodrow Wilson had actually made it a pillar of his presidency that the US would remain neutral during the Great War. But all of that changed when Germany began attacking American ships in the Atlantic.
And while the events on the ground (and at sea) were important, just as influential in the long term were the leaders who emerged from this conflict. Historic names like President Harry Truman, generals of the army George Marshall and Douglas Macarthur, and commander of the Third Army George S Patton all came up through the ranks under the leadership of General John J Pershing, commander in chief of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF).
We spoke with Major General (ret) David T Ząbecki and Colonel (ret) Douglas V Mastriano, editors of Pershing’s Lieutenants, which profiles many of the men who were integral to the US war effort in WWI and beyond, to learn more about the impact on the Great War on America and the influence of General Pershing on a generation of leaders.
What was significantly different about the Great War compared to other conflicts the United States had been engaged in up to that point?
Until the United States did so in 1917 and 1918, no country in history had tried to deploy a two-million-man force over 4,800km from its own borders and engage a major enemy army close to its own home territory. Furthermore, the United States starting in 1916 had to ‘grow’ a huge army in a matter of just months. Starting with a total of about 300,000 Regular Army and National Guard troops, by the end of 1918 the US Army had four million soldiers. Half that number was in Europe, and much of the remainder in America was preparing to deploy. A force of that size required more than 200,000 officers, who had to be recruited and trained. Those officers already in uniform quickly found themselves commanding brigades, divisions and even corps-echelons of command that had not existed in the US Army since the end of the Civil War in 1865.
Our readers will know names in your book like Marshall, Patton and Truman, but General Pershing may be less familiar. Why was he important?
Some of the familiar names in this book were also major figures during WWII. Pershing, of course, was long retired by then. The vast majority of America’s senior leaders in WWII, however, learned their trade under Pershing during WWI. And for all Pershing’s shortcomings as a tactician of modern warfare, he was still the essential driving force and the organiser of the
AEF that arrived on the battlefield in 1918. When Pershing was selected to command the AEF in mid-1916, he was the only serving American officer who had commanded above the regimental level, having commanded a brigade on the Mexican border earlier that year.
How different was the logistical challenge Pershing faced compared to those who would follow him in WWII?
During WWI, America was not the ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ that it would be in WWII. American industry was ill-prepared to equip and support the massively expanded US Army.
American troops in France had to borrow heavily from the British and especially the French for artillery, tanks, aircraft, mortars and communications equipment. The American political and economic leadership did a poor job of mobilising for war. But the hard lessons learned were well applied during WWII.
How influential would you say the experience of WWI was on this new generation of American leaders?
The influence was decisive. For 50 years prior to America’s entry into the war, the US Army had been little more than a frontier constabulary. Its one brief experience in large-scale warfare, the Spanish-american War of 1898, exposed chronic weaknesses in the ability to recruit, organise, train, equip, deploy and sustain combat forces in the field. Most of the officers who remained in the Army after 1918 were convinced that sooner or later they would have to fight a major war abroad again. Despite the severe economic restraints and the wave of isolationism that swept America during the 1920s and 1930s, many of the officers who remained worked hard to lay the foundations for the future they knew was coming.
So many key leadership figures for the US emerged from WWI. Was it an exceptional generation of Americans or was WWI a crucible in which they were forged?
The answer is both. Americans like to call the WWII generation ‘The Greatest Generation’. But the members of that cohort were the young men who came of age during the Depression and went on to serve during WWII as the Army’s frontline soldiers, NCOS, and company-grade and lower-ranking field-grade officers. Their senior leaders, those who provided the operational and the global strategic leadership, were of the earlier WWI generation. Thus, there were really two American great generations in WWII, with the older one arguably being the greater. It is impossible to understand the Marshalls, the Macarthurs, the Pattons, the Donovans and the Theodore Roosevelt Jrs of WWII without examining their WWI experiences. The same can be said of Britain’s Alan Brooke, Bernard Montgomery, William Slim, Harold Alexander and Brian Horrocks.
How influential was WWI on American military policy in the years that followed?
During the 1920s and most of the 1930s, there were two strands of American military policy that ran counter to each other and only started to come together during the late-1930s. Most of the country wanted to retreat back into traditional US isolationism, with the naive belief that a large modern army was no longer necessary. As already noted, many American officers believed otherwise, and they fought to maintain the Army’s professional standards as the base for future expansion. In that sense, the US Army of the inter-war period was a cadre army. Many officers played key roles in this process, but three of the most important are George Marshall, Malin Craig, and Fox Conner.
Are there any examples of decisions made by American military figures during WWII that you could trace back to their experience of the Great War?
One of the most important lessons that Marshall learned as the chief of operations for the US First Army was the gruelling physical and mental demands placed on combat commanders at the most senior levels. Thus, one of his first acts when he assumed the office of Army chief of staff on 1 September 1939 was to purge the Army of many of its senior-most officers who were too old or too unfit to lead under the rigours of combat. It was a gut-wrenching process during which Marshall forced many long-standing personal friends into retirement. But as a result, Marshall had the flexibility to rapidly move forward younger and more dynamic officers, like Patton, Dwight D Eisenhower, Omar Bradley and Lesley J Mcnair. Another one of Marshall’s major decisions was to completely overhaul the standard structure of the US division. The American ‘square division’ of WWI consisted of two infantry brigades of two regiments each. It was a very large and unwieldy force. Marshall converted the US division to a ‘triangular’ structure, a far smaller but more flexible force of three infantry regiments.
Patton was a career cavalry officer and a devoted horse lover. Yet his experience in WWI with the primitive but evolving tank convinced him that the future of manoeuvre warfare was with mechanisation, and that the horse’s battlefield days were over.
“There were really two American great generations in WWII, with the older one arguably being the greater”
Billy Mitchell started his career as a Signal Corps officer, but he later qualified as a pilot. His experiences in WWI convinced him that command of the air was the newly emerged third dimension of warfare. Following the lead of Britain’s Sir Hugh Trenchard, Mitchell became a zealous proponent of air power and an advocate for the establishment of an independent US Air Force. Mitchell’s aggressive political tactics eventually cost him his military career, and the US Air Force did not become a separate service until 1947. But throughout WWII the US Army Air Forces were largely operationally independent from Army ground commanders.
Are there any key figures who worked under Pershing who you think have been forgotten by history that deserve greater recognition today?
Many of the very important officers profiled in this book have been largely forgotten today. Three, however, stand out especially. We tell their stories in some detail in this book. As mentioned above, Pershing was a wonderful and dynamic organiser, but as a combat commander he exhibited some serious shortcomings on the emerging modern battlefield. Pershing had a blind spot for what we today call combined-arms warfare. For him, wars were fought and won with the rifle and the bayonet. He placed little reliance or emphasis on machine guns, artillery, mortars, tanks and aircraft ground support. His subordinate, Hunter Liggett, had a far better appreciation of the modern battlefield. Liggett commanded US I Corps, and in the middle of the Meuse-argonne Campaign (September-november 1918), Liggett assumed command of US First Army from Pershing. With the creation of US Second Army, Pershing concentrated more on his role as an army group commander. Once Liggett took over, the entire way the First Army fought changed for the better, with the careful integration and coordination of all the elements of combat power. Liggett was the most skilful American battlefield general of the war.
Marshall is quite rightly remembered as America’s ‘Architect of Victory’ in World War II. But contrary to popular belief today, he did not start to rebuild the US Army from ground zero on the day he assumed office as chief of staff. His predecessor Craig laid a great deal of the groundwork for Marshall. Most importantly, Craig hand-picked and groomed Marshall to be his successor. Craig, more than anyone else, was responsible for Marshall being selected as his successor over the heads of 32 more senior general officers.
During the inter-war years Conner was the US Army’s ‘Mentor to the Stars’. As early as WWI, when he was the AEF’S chief of operations, he was an early mentor of Marshall, responsible for Marshall’s assignment as First Army chief of operations. Conner was also one of Patton’s mentors, who more than once over the years intervened to prevent the mercurial
Patton from ruining his own career. Conner is regarded today as ‘The Man Who Made Eisenhower’. In the early 1920s, when Eisenhower served under
Conner, he underwent a rigorous programme of directed professional development that resulted in his graduating from the US Army
Command and General Staff College at the head of the class of 1926.