America's Deadliest Battle: Meuse-Argonne, 1918 (review)

America's Deadliest Battle is historian Robert H. Ferrell's most recent World War I monograph. Based on his research and analysis, the book should be titled America's Incompetent Battle. From page one Ferrell offers ample proof of how leaders from President Woodrow Wilson on down to the lowest field commanders contributed directly to the loss of 26,000 American soldiers killed and tens of thousands wounded during the course of forty-seven days on the western front between the Argonne Forest and the Meuse River. Eventually more than one million troops took part in this operation. America's Deadliest Battle is the first full-scale narrative of the Meuse-Argonne operation since 1924, if one dismisses the disappointing A Test of Battle, by Paul Braim (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1987), as Ferrell rightly does.

The commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), General John J. Pershing, is taken to task for conducting the unnecessary operation in the St. Mihiel salient less than two weeks before the Meuse-Argonne jump off, then having to shift thousands of men, supplies, and artillery on inadequate roads to the new sector. Some divisions did not make it in time and as Ferrell stresses, "involvement in the attack at St. Mihiel made it necessary to employ inexperienced divisions in the Meuse-Argonne" (p. 38).

A focal point of America's Deadliest Battle is the lack of training in open warfare, which Pershing vehemently advocated, and failure of division commanders to properly coordinate the artillery. The 35th was once such division that ran into trouble early on. The National Guardsmen from Kansas and Missouri fell apart three days after jumping off and were relieved by the veteran 1st Division. Ferrell devotes a chapter to analyzing why this happened and concludes that the division commander, Traub, failed to recognize the limitations of his men, or question the unreasonable demands placed on them by superior officers. Other divisions suffered similar fates and after two weeks the AEF was bogged down and the French were calling for Pershing's removal.

Stories of constant blundering by AEF commanders get tedious at times, and one wonders if anything went well for the Americans in autumn 1918. Thankfully the answer is yes. During the last two weeks of October Pershing reorganized the AEF. He removed himself from First Army and placed the able Hunter Liggett in command, then created a Second Army under the direction of Robert L. Bullard. More importantly, Pershing relieved the AEF of dead weight like division commanders Clarence Edwards and Omar Bundy. Then on 1 November, the now rested AEF resumed the offensive and, as Ferrell correctly surmises, although "everything was not perfect . . . the army was a far more impressive force than it had been at the beginning" (p. 130). A major change was how the Americans utilized artillery. At the commencement of the offensive, it had been largely ineffective. Now the doughboys were firing the 75s with the skill of a veteran army. By the 11 November armistice, the AEF had grown in size and confidence and if the war had continued into 1919, the American Army would have been the predominant force on the western front. There were heroes among the doughboys, Alvin York and Sam Woodfill being the most notable, and the author gives them their due.

As expected from the scholarship of Robert H. Ferrell, Meuse-Argonne is impeccably researched and written in a pleasing style. It will certainly appeal to students of the AEF and should be required reading at the Army War College, the Command and General Staff College, and West Point. Casual military history buffs may find the shifting battle scenarios confusing, or have trouble keeping the names of unit commanders straight. The inclusion of a chronology and order of battle would have been a great help. America's Deadliest Battle does include an ample selection of many previously unpublished Signal Corps images...