Reckoning with the Myth of the American Expeditionary Force: The United States and the Allied War Coalition, 1917-1918

National histories are often distinguished by myths. For the United States, one of the most pervasive in the twentieth century is the belief that the Central Powers’ defeat in the Great War of 1914–1918 occurred only because of the intervention of the American Expeditionary Force (the AEF). Thus, not only were American economic and financial resources essential in allowing the Entente war coalition to fight against Germany and its allies from at least mid-1915 onwards but, after April 1917, the AEF proved to be decisive in achieving military victory on the Western Front. Popular and serious histories of American military intervention in the war produced in the United States for three-quarters of a century have largely accepted the idea of the indispensable role of the AEF in defeating Wilhelmine Germany. ¹ More important, American politicians, diplomatists, and soldiers from the 1920s onwards have also accepted that the United States was crucial to Allied victory: in the interwar period, this affected foreign policy toward Europe. After 1945, when the United States again came to Europe’s rescue, the notion of American military support for saving Europe, which had its roots in 1917–1918, became a sine qua non of American Cold War rhetoric. In total, for most Americans, this has meant a belief that for much of the twentieth century, the United States has been Europe’s saviour and the ultimate guardian of liberal democracy and capitalism in Britain and on the continent.

Now, a distinguished American military and diplomatic historian has questioned the basis of these beliefs. In his important book, The AEF and Coalition Warmaking, 1917–1918, David Trask reexamines the role of the AEF in the final eighteen months of the Great War. In doing so, he shows clearly that to suggest that the AEF was decisive in achieving Allied victory serves only to encrust further a myth of major proportions. The genesis of this myth derived from the final report and, later, the memoirs of General John J. Pershing, the commander-in-chief of the AEF. ² Pershing argued that the AEF’s monumental contribution to the defeat of the Central Powers occurred despite “a bumbling War Department at home and perverse interference from the Allies abroad” (p. 1). That a victorious general should seek to put the best interpretation on his wartime efforts and those of his forces is not surprising. Most Great War generals did the same thing. ³ It is surprising however, that most professional American historians should have accepted uncritically Pershing’s interpretation of the AEF and its contribution to victory — popular writers, journalists, and politicians can be excused such an oversight, as they are less concerned with accuracy and more with dialectical success in their arguments.

Thus, the value of Professor Trask’s book emerges. He joins a group of scholars, especially those contributing to the British side of the war, who have been revising the history of the Great War over the past two decades. ⁴ He bases his cogent analysis around two unexplored aspects of AEF operations in 1917–1918: its lengthy — and incomplete — mobilization before the German surrender in November 1918; and its specific contribution to the final Allied victory that came from meeting the great German offensive of 1918. In both cases, no doubt exists that American soldiers helped to hasten German defeat. Indeed, in the battles of 1918, they fought bravely and with some effect. Yet the French and British armies bore the brunt of the fighting; and they met what proved to be the final German offensive with the application of strategy and tactics on the battlefield conditioned by their longer experience in trench warfare. In this context, the AEF had a subordinate role.

When Woodrow Wilson appointed Pershing commander-in-chief of the AEF in April 1917, he gave him strict orders to keep the AEF independent of...