The School of Hard Knocks: Combat Leadership in the American Expeditionary Forces

6. “My God! Th is Is Kitchener’s Army All Over Again”: Leader Training in the American Expeditionary Forces in France

140 6 MyGod! ThisIsKitchener’sArmyAllOverAgain” LeaderTraininginthe AmericanExpeditionaryForcesinFrance A soldier in the 105th Infantry recalled that after seeing his unit arrive at a British training area in France, one of the British instructors noted with tears in his eyes, “My God! This is Kitchener’s army all over again.”1 While the American chose to interpret the remark as a comment on the poor state of the British army in 1918, the statement could equally be applied to the Americans’ innocence and lack of training. Like the Kitchener divisions that swelled the ranks of the British army in 1916, the Americans of 1918 were young, energetic, and woefully unprepared for the shock of battle that awaited them. The arrival in France did not end the US Army’s problems with developing competent junior leaders. Officers and NCOs arriving overseas faced new sets of challenges and obstacles to their leadership development. The AEF’s own unique training policies, uncertain tactical doctrine, and mistrust of the Allies often hindered efforts to create leaders with the tactical and technical skills needed to overcome an experienced and able foe. Moreover, dramatic changes in the military situation in 1918 further sidetracked the AEF’s unit and leader training. By the time the American units became involved in large-scale combat in 1918, the AEF had made few breakthroughs in improving the readiness of its junior leaders to command in war. The training and doctrine of the AEF has long been a popular subject among historians of the era. James Rainey, Timothy Nenninger, and, more recently, Mark Grotelueschen have all examined the shortcomings of Pershing’s open warfare doctrine and the problems that the AEF faced in preparing its units for combat. Rainey noted that Pershing’s doctrine suffered from inherent contradictions, unrealistic visions of combat, and a rather vague looseness in its doctrinal definitions . He has also argued that this flawed doctrine, when combined with a faulty philosophy of training, shortages of equipment, and unsound personnel policies, undercut the AEF’s efforts to effectively train its units for war. Similarly, Timothy Nenninger maintained that while systemic problems with fielding a large army in France, and the German offensives of 1918, dogged Pershing’s efforts to weld “ 141 “Kitchener’s Army All Over” the AEF into an efficient fighting force, ultimately, things that were under the Americans’ control, such as doctrine and personnel policies , could have been better managed to increase the effectiveness of the AEF’s divisions.2 In The AEF Way of War, Mark Grotelueschen expands on the arguments of Rainey and Nenninger and agrees with their negative assessment of Pershing’s nebulous open warfare doctrine. However, Grotelueschen maintains that American divisions overcame the AEF GHQ’s doctrinal blunders and crafted their own firepower-centered combat methods. These methods, which eschewed the GHQ’s concepts of “self-reliant infantry” for ones that maximized the use of artillery , ultimately led to better combat performance in these adaptive units and fewer American casualties. He argues that despite the adherence of senior officers to the GHQ’s rifle and bayonet dogma, most of the new tactics were spawned by American officers who had been heavily influenced by Allied schools and advisors.3 I have little to add to the debate over Pershing’s open warfare doctrine . Rainey, Nenninger, and Grotelueschen have done a superior job of highlighting the problems with these tactics and the flawed assumptions upon which they were based. Thus, my discussion of open warfare will be limited to those points at which the doctrine intersected with the training of company-level leaders. It is interesting to note that in the War College Division’s Instructions for the Training of Platoons for Offensive Action, the authors used the terms “trenchto -trench attack” and “attack in open warfare” to distinguish between the different methods of attack. However, they also stated, “It can not be too thoroughly recognized that although it may be necessary to slightly vary the preparations and forms of assembly for the attack in these two circumstances, the actual tactics to be employed will usually be identical.”4 There is much wisdom in this statement, and at the company level and below, much of the debate over the tactics, formations , and realities of open versus trench warfare may well have been a tempest in a teapot. For the captains, lieutenants, and NCOs, the problem remained the same: how to cross terrain covered by enemy fire and end up with enough manpower and firepower remaining to...