A Question of Authority: Reassessing the March-Pershing “Feud” in the First World War

Current scholarship on the feud between American generals John J. Pershing and Peyton C. March during the First World War has generally argued that the dispute was overly exaggerated by contemporaries, with most of the conflict developing in the postwar era. The present study challenges this interpretation, arguing that the wartime conflict between March and Pershing was more severe than previously thought, and was founded upon the lack of a clearly defined command structure within the American Army as opposed to a collision of strong personalities.