Eyewitness: General George C. Marshall Looks Back on His AEF Experience

 

From VMI Cadet to Key Staff Officer of the AEF

In 1957, 39 years after the 1918 battles in France, George Marshall was interviewed by his official biographer Forrest Pogue. In the past, I've drawn on the recordings of these revealing  interviews to gain insights on events like the Meuse-Argonne Offensive or personalities such as General Pershing or Premier Clemenceau, with which Marshall had direct experience.  In this article, the focus is on Marshall, himself. I've combed the manuscripts of the interviews for places where the general—an austere, highly reticent individual—revealed interesting aspects of his personality and unique experiences in the Great War. These are excerpts from those interviews in which the questions and spontaneous comments from the general jumped around chronologically. I've tried to rearrange them at least semi-chronologically. MH

1.  Going Over There

I left San Francisco [in May 1917] . . . and went directly to Governors Island. The next thing of excitement that occurred was that General Pershing arrived, headed for Europe. I found out that he had asked for my services. He didn't do it personally, but his chief of staff did-his new chief of staff, General Harbord. But when General Pershing found that I was with General Bell, he had them drop the request and, therefore, I didn't go, though I didn't know of it at that time. . . General Pershing arrived in civilian clothes and straw hat. We put him on the ferryboat at Governors Island at a secluded dock and sent him over to the Baltic which he boarded for his trip to Europe [28 May 1917]. 

Then I received a telegram that my services were requested by General Sibert, the man who had built the Gatun Dam [at Panama Canal]. . .  He had asked for me to go and I was to report to him. He made my desk, my  services, the headquarters for troops just coming in to go to Europe in the first convoy, which was to be the First Division. [Subsequently] we got on board the Tenadores [4 June 1917], and I was in the same stateroom with [future WWII General] Lesley McNair.  

[During the voyage] something occurred there that I never forgot, because it was about as significant an indication of our complete state of unpreparedness as I have ever seen. I was standing up under the bridge and they had mounted a three-inch gun on a pedestal mount on the forward part of the deck, and these trim-looking naval files under a naval noncom were rigging up the gun. Having dealt with this multitude of recruits in this regiment as we had and their complete ignorance of their weapons or anything, I thought to myself, "Well, thank goodness, there is one thing that's organized, the Navy." Just then the captain called down to this yeoman, or whatever he was, in charge of this detail and said to him in a very strong voice, he said, "Have you your ammunition?" And this fellow in a rather offended voice replied, "No, sir, we haven't any ammunition." Well, I thought, "My God, even the naval part isn't organized here and we are starting off to Europe." It was altogether a terrible exhibition of our paucity of means with which to go to war.

2.  Called to the Front [1918]

[While Marshal was at a school in Langres] the great German offensive broke loose March 21st and was going on at the time I lectured. The first day, the 21st, of course we just got the news of the affair and a little bit of the extent of the affair. You will recall the British Fifth Army was literally destroyed in this first part of this offensive and a great gap was made in the line. . . The second day the thing was getting very much hotter, we could tell that. The German advances were far greater than had been customary in trench warfare. They generally made very, very short advances. . . 

[On 29 March] we were having breakfast when an order came in for me to return to the First Division immediately and a car would meet me north of Chaumont near Domremy. About a half an hour later, or less than that, because I got out as fast as I could, I left for the First Division.  I got up there and found it was just preparing to leave for the scene of the battle where the British Fifth Army had been driven out and very badly handled. . . We moved immediately, going south of Paris motoring. The troop trains were going south of Paris, too, and the motor trains and all were going south of Paris, because there was too much confusion north of Paris in supplying the French Army and everything to meet this great German offensive.

Then the next morning we started again up the trail. We were now west of Paris and we finally came into these assembly areas as they called them. I learned a great deal about troop movements during this procedure, because it was a tremendous affair and I thought perfectly, beautifully done by the French in their handling of the railroads. The trains would come through, it seemed to me, at ten minute intervals, and I would have to be at the train when it came in because I didn't know who was on it-maybe part of a French division or part of an American division. If it was an American division, I had to catch the fellow and give him his orders as to where he was to march to after he detrained. So we had a very hectic time there grabbing these trains as they came in.

3. Early Experience of Combat

We learned a great deal about fighting up at this time. It was a continuous affair, terrifically heavy artillery bombardment. The night was just hideous. I used to try to sleep upstairs in this chateau, but they drove me down when they began hitting the building with these 8-inch shells which sounded like the end of the world. So I found more composed rest down in this deep wine cellar that I have already referred to. Then we had a very difficult situation. We had the first mustard gas attack and that was a vicious thing. The brigade commander had directed the regimental commander at this town-he sent word up to him-to evacuate the town and go out into the fields and woods. Well, it was raining hard and shells were breaking all over the place. So the fellow preferred his dugout. Of course, the worst thing you can do with mustard gas is get in a wet dugout. That just permeates the whole business. They were ordering him out and he wasn't going. So I was sent up. The brigade commander didn't go. I was sent up from division headquarters with orders to relieve him, and that isn't very pleasant.

4.  The Performance of the AEF at St. Mihiel

It went off pretty well; it went off very well, as a matter of fact. I think we could have gone a little farther at the end if the corps commanders had followed out their orders. The order provided that when they got to the line rigidly specified, specifically outlined, and there was any opportunity to go forward, they should send forward battalions with some artillery and reconnaissance units and push ahead as fast as they could. They didn't do this. In one division this was proposed and that was done by Douglas MacArthur, who was chief of staff of the Forty-second Division. He wanted to push right on at that time. The trouble was none of the others had gathered themselves, and General Drum and the army commander thought we should leave well enough alone. Undoubtedly, if they had pushed on, they would have gone much closer to Metz at the first lunge. However, they already had authority to organize a battalion or regiment in the division and push ahead with that, but they didn't do that. Of course, it was their first big battle and there's always much confusion and there's always much uncertainty as to what the exact conditions were which is to be carefully considered when you are trying to judge whether you did this just right or not. You didn't have a Stonewall Jackson who had been experienced in many fights already.

Lt. Marshall, 1907
Instructor, School of the Line, Ft. Leavenworth

5. The Move from St. Mihiel to the Meuse-Argonne

[After St. Mihiel] the  complications now began. I had been concerned now with the full battle. Now suddenly I was called over to headquarters, which was across the street, and they outlined the Meuse-Argonne, That's the first time I'd ever heard of it, and that's what the other fellows on the staff had been working on-the plan for the deployment for the Meuse-Argonne and the initial plan for the battle. I was told to concentrate the troops and I was given the line-up they were to have in the battle. That was my first intimation of the Meuse-Argonne battIe.

Finally came the great concentration for the Meuse-Argonne. It went across the rear zone of the St. Mihiel battle and then cut up towards the Meuse-Argonne front. When I went to work on this troop movement, it was one of the most difficult ones I have ever heard of in military performance prior to the great rush across Europe in the last war. I found that I was familiar with the names of practically every village and every city, more so almost than the little villages near my home, because they were all on this Griepenkerl [a German tactical guide adopted by the U.S. Army] map and had all been involved in Griepenkerl problems and were right in the track of these great moves we were making towards the Meuse-Argonne front. It seemed rather a commentary on the fact that we were being criticized, even in Congress, for using German maps, and all when it developed afterwards they were most useful to us in our being familiarized with the very ground we were going to fight over.

6.  Problems in the Meuse-Argonne

Once we got into the battle, the great problem was to resume the advance. The division on the left, the division next to the Meuse-Argonne forest, got into trouble and the First Division had to be hurried out of support position and carried up to the front. They had to travel more or less off the road over these deep trenches and, with the machine gun carts and all, it was a very difficult thing to do. No Man's Land was some kilometers in width and it was a morass that didn't look like there was a space ten yards square that hadn't been struck by a great shell. It was a morass. There was no trace of the roads left at all except the Route National, and there was some trace there, but in the retirement from a German attack, the Italians had blown up the road so successfully that we had a terrible time getting around the crater.

So it was the crossing of No Man's Land and getting the artillery across that was so very difficult and so very important. One commander, who had previously lost his regiment for something a long time back and now had it again-he didn't have the light [artillery] regiment this time-he had a ISS-mm regiment and these heavy guns. And he hastened up on his own initiative, crossed No Man's Land, and the weight of these guns completely wiped out this very poorly ballasted trail that we had made across No Man's Land and set the affair back about a day and a half, which was a great tragedy at the time, as we were trying to get light artillery across and supporting troops across.

As a matter of truth, the men advanced very well at the start. Then they got into these dugouts and they got after souvenirs. They went into the dugout for a German in a sense and then they stayed for a souvenir and the whole advance lost its momentum, and the Germans very quickly readjusted themselves and put up a vicious defense from there on. As a matter of fact, if the troops could have been kept together and have gone straight ahead, they probably could have gone as far that first day as we made in the first month, because we fought a very desperate battle with the Germans after that halt or loss of momentum.

7.  The Final Push in the Meuse-Argonne

We finally came up against what you might call the northern line and there we got ready for the great attack which led up to Sedan. I've forgotten how many divisions took off in that, but we tried to get them rested a little bit. In order to do that, we had to hold the other divisions in line when they were just tired to death. But there was no other way to manage it. It was very necessary to go and see the division commanders and see the regimental commanders. In some of them, the regiments had lost all organization and were just groups of men, but they had to hold on and they fought on so that these partially rested divisions could go forward in the final attack on November 1st, I think it was, which led up finally to the heights above Sedan.

I would go up to the battle front and it was very hard to get up there on account of the traffic. After you got across No Man's Land, the only way you could do it was to get on a horse and go up there that way. I did that and I did that with General Drum, who was chief of staff of the [First] Army, and, of course, we had a great deal of our debating while we were riding. . . 

The great trouble here was keeping the various organizations along the front really aware of what was happening along other portions of the front, because each one thought he was the only one who was having this desperate situation, when, as a matter of fact, everyone was having it pretty much and we were now getting into some French troops over towards Verdun where we had both Americans and French. The Germans had hard luck on this front. They had had several Austrian divisions on that front. They were a little bit leery about them and, as you recall, the Austrians surrendered first. So they kept some Germans there to stiffen up the Austrian front which was to the east and northeast of Verdun. Nothing happened on that front at all, so they withdrew the German divisions that were stiffening up the Austrians and the next day we attacked on that front and the Austrians pretty largely folded up and let us make a considerable advance.

A Postwar Assignment as Pershing's Aide Kept
Marshall on the Road to High Command

8.  About His Superiors

General Pershing as a leader always dominated any gathering where he was. He was a tremendous driver, if necessary; a very kindly, likeable man on off-duty status, but very stern on a duty basis.

I wasn't on intimate terms at all with Marshal Foch, though I travelled with him quite a bit in this country and saw him quite often with General Pershing.  He was rather resentful if I said anything when I was with General Pershing. Nobody below the grade of a full general would say anything in front of Foch in the French army, and I was talking up there with a very much lower rank to General Pershing when he was in conversation with Marshal Foch.

I know when I received the Croix de Guerre in the plaza at Metz [30 April 1919]. . . the French general that  was tried afterwards and imprisoned? I was very fond of him, came to know him very, very well. (Petain?) Yeah, Petain.

I saw General Charles Summerall, who was really the iron man. He was the nearest approach to the [Stonewall] Jackson type that I saw in the war. He was a wonder to watch when the fighting was on as a leader. His influence on the men was tremendous.

I thought [Chief of Staff] Peyton March was a great administrator and a very arbitrary, tactless man. I think his greatest error was having around him a number of men that copied his type. He needed exactly the opposite type as his principal functionaries, it seemed to me.

I would say this in regard to all this being written about my being hostile to General MacArthur. In the first place, it is damn nonsense. . . I don't think I ever said an adverse word about General MacArthur in front of the staff, though he was very difficult-very, very difficult at times-particularly when he was on a political procedure basis. I don't ever recall saying a word in front of the staff, and I do recall suppressing them. I wrote his citation for the Medal of Honor to see that he got it.

9. In the 1939–41 period, did you have the feeling that you were seeing 1915–1916 all over again?

In 1939-1941 I saw very much reflections of the things of '15-'16 all  over again. In fact, in some ways, very little occurred that didn't seem to me was a repetition, but what disturbed me most of all was to find the army, the War Department, and the country in the same shape again. In the same shape again! I was getting rather hardened to coming in when everything had gone to pot and there was nothing you could get your hands on, and darned if I didn't find the same thing when I came into the Korean War. There wasn't anything. We had a terrible time getting ourselves together.

10.  Lessons for Future Wars?

. . . Why, it was a continuous series of lessons. Most of them, what to do and quite a number what not to do. I learnt the technique of high command, the technique of logistics, the technique of a great many of those things, and I saw troops under various conditions. I saw their regard for them in many ways that were an education to me, and I saw so many of the things they did wouldn't have worked with American troops at all. That was all very, very helpful and I would find myself leaning on that knowledge in dealing with things in World War II. 

The big thing I learnt in World War II was the urgent necessity of frequent visits. Well, as I used a plane all the time and about every other week, I would go on the road before we got into the general war. I would visit most of the places in the United States with fair frequency. I know when I went out to Fort Sill the first time, I found out it was the first time the chief of staff had ever been there in the history of the place. I was there time after time, but I could move quickly and I could act quickly. I was abreast of what was going on all over the place. I could sense their reactions and I could see how they felt urgently about this or that, which we at headquarters did not really feel so much, but I would come to an understanding in those ways and I could correct things almost instantly, particularly after Congress-without my request-placed first $25 million and then $100 million at my disposal with no accounting required.

Source:  Transcripts of the entire collection of 10 tapes covering Marshall's entire career can be found starting HERE.

"I Didn't Get Over": A World War I Short Story by F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald as an Officer Candidate

Introduction from the National World War One Museum:  

Born in September 1896, Francis Scott Key (F. Scott) Fitzgerald was 20 years old and attending Princeton University in 1917, when he chose to drop out and join the army. On 26 Oct. 1918, Fitzgerald and his unit were moved again—this time to Camp Mills on Long Island, New York, with plans to be sent to France. Fate would intervene: the Armistice was signed on 11 Nov. He never went “Over There.”  

Fitzgerald always seemed to regret never experiencing the war firsthand, as suggested in his 1936 story “I Didn’t Get Over.” Yet World War I, its veterans and the new world that emerged from it deeply shaped his post-war writings, including This Side of Paradise (1920), "May Day" (1920), "The Crack-Up" (1936), The Beautiful and the Damned (1922) and "Winter Dreams" (1922). And of course The Great Gatsby, published in 1925.

_______________________________

I was 'sixteen in college and it was our twentieth reunion this year. We always called ourselves the "War Babies"–anyhow we were all in the damn thing and this time there was more talk about the war than at any previous reunion; perhaps because war's in the air once more.

Three of us were being talkative on the subject in Pete's back room the night after commencement, when a classmate came in and sat down with us. We knew he was a classmate because we remembered his face and name vaguely, and he marched with us in the alumni parade, but he'd left college as a junior and had not been back these twenty years.

"Hello there–ah–Hib," I said after a moment's hesitation. The others took the cue and we ordered a round of beer and went on with what we were talking about.

"I tell you it was kind of moving when we laid that wreath this afternoon." He referred to a bronze plaque commemorating the 'sixteeners who died in the war, "–to read the names of Abe Danzer and Pop McGowan and those fellows and to think they've been dead for twenty years and we've only been getting old."

"To be that young again I'd take a chance on another war," I said, and to the new arrival, "Did you get over, Hib?"

"I was in the army but I didn't get over."

The war and the beer and the hours flowed along. Each of us shot off our mouths about something amusing, or unique, or terrible–all except Hib. Only when a pause came he said almost apologetically:

"I would have gotten over except that I was supposed to have slapped a little boy."

We looked at him inquiringly.

"Of course I didn't," he added. "But there was a row about it." His voice died away but we encouraged him–we had talked a lot and he seemed to rate a hearing.

"Nothing much to tell. The little boy, downtown with his father, said some officer with a blue M. P. band slapped him in the crowd and he picked me! A month afterwards they found he was always accusing soldiers of slapping, so they let me go. What made me think of it was Abe Danzer's name on that plaque this afternoon. They put me in Leavenworth for a couple of weeks while they investigated me, and he was in the next cell to mine."

"Abe Danzer!"

He had been sort of a class hero and we all exclaimed aloud in the same breath. "Why he was recommended for the D. S. C!"

"I know it."

"What on earth was Abe Danzer doing in Leavenworth?"

Again Hibbing became apologetic.

"Oddly enough I was the man who arrested him. But he didn't blame me because it was all in line of duty, and when I turned up in the next cell a few months later he even laughed about it."

We were all interested now.

"What did you have to arrest him for?"

"Well, I'd been put on Military Police in Kansas City and almost the first call I got was to take a detail of men with fixed bayonets to the big hotel there–I forget the name–and go to a certain room. When I tapped on the door I never saw so many shoulder stars and shoulder leaves in my life; there were at least a brace apiece of generals and colonels. And in the center stood Abe Danzer and a girl–a tart–both of them drunk as monkeys. But it took me a minute's blinking before I realized what else was the matter: the girl had on Abe's uniform overcoat and cap and Abe had on her dress and hat. They'd gone down in the lobby like that and run straight into the divisional commander."

We three looked at him, first incredulous, then shocked, finally believing. We started to laugh but couldn't quite laugh, only looked at Hibbing with silly half-smiles on our faces, imagining ourselves in Abe's position.

"Did he recognize you?" I asked finally.

"Vaguely."

"Then what happened?"

"It was short and sweet. We changed the clothes on them, put their heads in cold water, then I stood them between two files of bayonets and said, forward march."

"And marched old Abe off to prison!" we exclaimed. "It must have been a crazy feeling."

"It was. From the expression in that general's face I thought they'd probably shoot him. When they put me in Leavenworth a couple of months later I was relieved to find he was still alive."

"I can't understand it," Joe Boone said. "He never drank in college."

"That all goes back to his DSC," said Hibbing.

"You know about that too?"

"Oh yes, we were in the same division–we were from the same state."

"I thought you didn't get overseas."

"I didn't. Neither did Abe. But things seemed to happen to him. Of course nothing like what you fellows must have seen–"

Field Training Stateside

"How did he get recommended for the DSC," I interrupted, "–and what did it have to do with his taking to drink?"

"Well, those drownings used to get on his nerves and he used to dream about it–"

"What drownings? For God's sake, man, you're driving us crazy. It's like that story about 'what killed the dog.'"

"A lot of people thought he had nothing to do with the drownings. They blamed the trench mortar."

We groaned–but there was nothing to do but let him tell it his own way.

"Just what trench mortar?" I asked patiently.

"Rather I mean a Stokes mortar. Remember those old stove-pipes, set at forty-five degrees? You dropped a shell down the mouth."

We remembered.

"Well, the day this happened Abe was in command of what they called the 'fourth battalion,' marching it out fifteen miles to the rifle range. It wasn't really a battalion–it was the machine gun company, supply company, medical detachment and Headquarters Company. The H. Q. Company had the trench mortars and the one-pounder and the signal corps, band and mounted orderlies–a whole menagerie in itself. Abe commanded that company but on this day most of the medical and supply officers had to go ahead with the advance, so as ranking first lieutenant he commanded the other companies besides. I tell you he must have been proud that day–twenty-one and commanding a battalion; he rode a horse at the head of it and probably pretended to himself that he was Stonewall Jackson. Say, all this must bore you–it happened on the safe side of the ocean."

"Go on."

"Well, we were in Georgia then, and they have a lot of those little muddy rivers with big old rafts they pull across on a slow cable. You could carry about a hundred men if you packed them in. When Abe's 'battalion' got to this river about noon he saw that the third battalion just ahead wasn't even half over, and he figured it would be a full hour at the rate that boat was going to and fro. So he marched the men a little down the shore to get some shade and was just about to let them have chow when an officer came riding up all covered with dust and said he was Captain Brown and where was the officer commanding Headquarters Company.

"'That's me, sir,' said Abe.

"'Well, I just got in to camp and I'm taking command,' the officer said. And then, as if it was Abe's fault, 'I had to ride like hell to catch up with you. Where's the company?'

"'Right here, sir–and next is the supply, and next is the medical–I was just going to let them eat–'

"At the look in his eye Abe shut up. The captain wasn't going to let them eat yet and probably for no more reason than to show off his authority. He wasn't going to let them rest either–he wanted to see what his company looked like (he'd never seen a Headquarters Company except on paper). He thought for a long time and then he decided that he'd have the trench mortar platoon throw some shells across the river for practice. He gave Abe the evil eye again when Abe told him he only had live shells along; he accepted the suggestion of sending over a couple of signal men to wigwag if any farmers were being bumped off. The signal men crossed on the barge and when they had wigwagged all clear, ran for cover themselves because a Stokes mortar wasn't the most accurate thing in the world. Then the fun began.

"The shells worked on a time fuse and the river was too wide so the first one only made a nice little geyser under water. But the second one just hit the shore with a crash and a couple of horses began to stampede on the ferry boat in midstream only fifty yards down. Abe thought this might hold his majesty the captain but he only said they'd have to get used to shell fire–and ordered another shot. He was like a spoiled kid with an annoying toy.

"Then it happened, as it did once in a while with those mortars no matter what you did–the shell stuck in the gun. About a dozen people yelled, 'Scatter!' all at once and I scattered as far as anybody and lay down flat, and what did that damn fool Abe do but go up and tilt the barrel and spill out the shell. He'd saved the mortar but there were just five seconds between him and eternity and how he got away before the explosion is a mystery to me."

At this point I interrupted Hibbing.

"I thought you said there were some people killed."

"Oh yes–oh but that was later. The third battalion had crossed by now so Captain Brown formed the companies and we marched off to the ferry boat and began embarking. The second lieutenant in charge of the embarking spoke to the captain:

"'This old tub's kind of tired–been over-worked all day. Don't try to pack them in too tight.'

"But the captain wouldn't listen. He sent them over like sardines and each time Abe stood on the rail and shouted:

"'Unbuckle your belts and sling your packs light on your shoulders–' (this without looking at the captain because he'd realized that the captain didn't like orders except his own). But the embarking officer spoke up once more:

"'That raft's low in the water,' he said. 'I don't like it. When you started shooting off that cannon the horses began jumping and the men ran around and unbalanced it.'

"'Tell the captain,' Abe said. 'He knows everything.'

"The captain overheard this. 'There's just one more load,' he said. 'And I don't want any more discussion about it.'

"It was a big load, even according to Captain Brown's ideas. Abe got up on the side to make his announcement.

"'They ought to know that by this time,' Captain Brown snapped. 'They've heard it often enough.'

"'Not this bunch.' Abe rattled it off anyhow and the men unloosened their belts, except a few at the far end who weren't paying attention. Or maybe it was so jammed that they couldn't hear.

"We began to sink when we were half way over, very slowly at first, just a little water around the shoes, but we officers didn't say anything for fear of a panic. It had looked like a small river from the bank but here in the middle and at the rate we were going, it began to look like the widest river in the world.

"In two minutes the water was a yard high in the old soup plate and there wasn't any use concealing things any longer. For once the captain was tongue-tied. Abe got up on the side again and said to stay calm, and not rock the boat and we'd get there, and made his speech one last time about slipping off the packs, and told the ones that could swim to jump off when it got to their hips. The men took it well but you could almost tell from their faces which ones could swim and which couldn't.

"She went down with a big whush! just twenty yards from shore; her nose grounded in a mud bank five feet under water.

"I don't remember much about the next fifteen minutes. I dove and swam out into the river a few yards for a view but it all looked like a mass of khaki and water with some sound over it that I remember as a sustained monotone but was composed, I suppose, of cussing, and a few yells of fright, and even a little kidding and laughter. I swam in and helped pull people to shore, but it was a slow business in our shoes . . .

"When there was nothing more in sight in the river (except one corner of the barge which had perversely decided to bob up) Captain Brown and Abe met. The captain was weak and shaking and his arrogance was gone.

"'Oh God,' he said. 'What'll I do?'

"Abe took control of things–he fell the men in and got squad reports to see if anyone was missing.

"There were three missing in the first squad alone and we didn't wait for the rest–we called for twenty good swimmers to strip and start diving and as fast as they pulled in a body we started a medico working on it. We pulled out twenty-eight bodies and revived seven. And one of the divers didn't come up–he was found floating down the river next day and they gave a medal and a pension to his widow."

Hibbing paused and then added: "But I know that's small potatoes to you fellows in the big time."

"Sounds exciting enough to me," said Joe Boone. "I had a good time in France but I spent most of it guarding prisoners at Brest."

"But how about finishing this?" I demanded. "Why did this drive Abe hell-raising?"

"That was the captain," said Hibbing slowly. "A couple of officers tried to get Abe a citation or something for the trench mortar thing. The captain didn't like that, and he began going around saying that when Abe jumped up on the side of the barge to give the unsling order, he'd hung on to the ferry cable and pulled it out of whack. The captain found a couple of people who agreed with him but there were others who thought it was overloading and the commotion the horses made at the shell bursts. But Abe was never very happy in the army after that."

Chow Time Stateside

There was an emphatic interruption in the person of Pete himself who said in no uncertain words:

"Mr. Tomlinson and Mr. Boone. Your wives say they're calling for the last time. They say this has been one night too often, and if you don't get back to the Inn in ten minutes they driving to Philadelphia."

Tommy and Joe Boone arose reluctantly.

"I'm afraid I've monopolized the evening," said Hibbing. "And after what you fellows must have seen."

When they had gone I lingered.

"So Abe wasn't killed in France."

"No–you'll notice all that tablet says is 'died in service.'"

"What did he die of?"

Hibbing hesitated.

"He was shot by a guard trying to escape from Leavenworth. They'd given him ten years."

"God! And what a great guy he was in college."

"I suppose he was to his friends. But he was a good deal of a snob wasn't he?"

"Maybe to some people."

"He didn't seem to even recognize a lot of his classmates when he met them in the army."

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I say. I told you something that wasn't true tonight. That captain's name wasn't Brown."

Again I asked him what he meant.

"The captain's name was Hibbing," he said. "I was that captain, and when I rode up to join my company he acted as if he'd never seen me before. It kind of threw me off–because I used to love this place. Well–good night."

Source:  Originally published in Esquire in 1936; found in Project Gutenberg Australia

 

Royal Navy Grand Fleet 1914-1918: Britain’s last supreme naval fleet

Spithead Review, 1914

By Angus Konstam

Osprey Publishing, 2025

Reviewed by David F. Beer

You might think the dreadnoughts and other powerful ships of the Royal Navy’s Grand Fleet were destined to find the German High Seas fleet somewhere in the North Sea, engage it in a battle reminiscent of Trafalgar, and thus win the sea war for Britain. However, this did not happen. Apart from the indecisive Battle of Jutland and a few smaller conflicts such as Dogger Bank and Heligoland Bight, the Grand Fleet spent much of the war at anchor in Scapa Flow or making routine sweeps of the North Sea. This was instrumental in winning the war but disappointed the British people, who were proud of their navy. 

The real intent of the Admiralty was not sea battles but the prevention of arms, materials, and food from reaching the enemy. By mid-1916, the blockade was having a real effect, and food and raw materials became increasingly scarce in Germany. Nevertheless, the story of the Royal Navy and its growth, organization, and operations during the war is a complex one, and the author provides an extremely detailed and readable account of these topics. The numerous illustrations, maps, and photos in the book are also enlightening and greatly help the reader gain a clear view of the Royal Navy’s structure, battles, and goals during this period.

The 80 glossy pages of this oversized book are organized into five chapters: Introduction, The Fleet’s Purpose, Fleet Fighting Power, How the Fleet Operated, and Combat and Analysis.  With its 20 dreadnoughts in service by August 1914, more being built, some older battleships, over 120 cruisers, plus destroyers and other vessels, Britannia really did rule the waves. It increasingly did so with ships powered by newly developed steam turbines, not coal. How ships were organized into fleets consisting of squadrons and flotillas, and how these ships were armed, is also fully covered with text and graphics.

Order This Work HERE

Special attention is given to the major naval figures of this time. The personalities and careers of Vice-Admiral David Beatty, Admiral "Jackie" Fisher, and a host of other lesser-known senior officers are described. A chart lists the names of the First Sea Lords during the war. German naval leaders are also given their due. We become familiar with Naval Intelligence and the cryptic Room 40 of the Admiralty with its use of radio and ability to monitor German naval activity. Tragedy is inevitable in war, and Jutland took its toll. HMS Indefatigable was lost with over a thousand British sailors, and later the battlecruiser Queen Mary blew up, with only eight survivors of her crew of over 1,200 men. 

This is an unusually detailed 80-page study of the Royal Navy in the Great War, and the graphics and paintings within the text make it even more informative and readable. An index and a list for further reading add to its value. The author, illustrator, and Osprey Publishing have all produced an impressive volume, and I highly recommend it.

David F. Beer

A Gallery of Warriors: Paintings and Photos

 

Albrecht, Duke of Württemberg, Commanded
an Army Group at War's End

Raoul Lufbery Legendary Ace of the Lafayette Escadrille
and U.S. Air Service, by Leroy Baldridge

Soldat Jean-Louis Rouly, 138th Inf. Rgt,
Grandfather of Roads Contributor Olivier Pierrard (Insert)

Cpl. Harold Roberts,  KIA 1918, Argonne Sector, First
U.S. Tank Corps Member to Receive the Medal of Honor

Alan Seeger, French Foreign Legion, KIA 4 July 1916

General Leman, Defender of Liège

Stood and Fought at Le Cateau

Victor Chapman, Lafayette Escadrille

Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck,
Lion of Africa

Mustafa Kemal in Janissary Uniform

Adrian Carton de Wiart, Veteran of the Boer War and
Both World Wars

Sergeant Georgiy Zhukov, Future Soviet Marshal

The Restoration of Lafayette’s Memorial Wreath

By James Patton

The Wreaths of Lafayette's Tomb

The wreath shown above was not the one laid by Gen. Pershing on 4 July 1917 at Lafayette's Tomb in Picpus Cemetery, Paris. On that day, on  his behalf, his Chief Disbursing Officer Col. Charles E. Stanton (1858–1933) delivered the stirring "Lafayette we are here!" speech (Nous voilà, Lafayette). A floral wreath was laid that day and Pershing  rendered a salute. 

 

In December, soon after his arrival, President Wilson made a similar visit to Lafayette's Tomb and the Saint Louis Dispatch Journal reported: “Entirely unannounced, the President drove to the old Picpus Cemetery, where the amazed gatekeeper was almost too flustered to unlock the gates when he learned who his caller was.” 

Dr. Cary T. Grayson, who was also present, wrote in his diary: "The President removed his hat, entered the tomb, carrying a large floral wreath composed with oak leaves and laurels which he had arranged for. In the center, he had attached his personal card on the back of which he had written with his own handwriting: “In memory of the Great Lafayette, from a fellow Servant of Liberty, Woodrow Wilson. December 1918.” As the president placed the wreath on the tomb, he bowed his head and stood silent before the resting place of the famous Frenchman who helped America in her fight for liberty.

President Wilson and Premier Clemenceau

In the course of his many months in France, President Wilson decided he wished to make the gesture permanent, and he commissioned French sculptor Auguste Seyesses to create a bronze replica of his wreath, plated in gold. This  metal  wreath was laid in front of Lafayette’s tomb by President Wilson on 8 June 1919, shortly before the conclusion of the Versailles Conference. Wilson paid for the bronze creation himself (“It cost me a pretty penny”).  The inscription reads exactly like that of his earlier wreath: "To the Great Lafayette, from a fellow Servant of Liberty", Woodrow Wilson, December 1918. 

One hundred and three years passed. On a biking excursion in Paris, two members of the Society of Cincinnati, American student John Beall and his host, Yorick de Guichen, visit Picpus Cemetery. They noticed a weathered metal plaque  behind and detached from the tomb, —one part was missing.  They came to  realize it is a wreath and learned its story. They decided they had a mission to restore President Wilson's wreath. Eventually, their organization, the Society of Cincinnati, the Curator of Picpus Cemetery, and the Military Governor of Paris combined resources to restore the wreath, and it was rededicated on 5 July 2022.

Considering the value of the metal content, it’s amazing that it’s still there. It was restored in July 2022 to like-new condition by the Society of the Cincinnati (the oldest hereditary organization in America) to honor the marquis, who was a member.

Lafayette's Tomb without the Wilson Wreath

What Is the Society of the Cincinnati? 

Founded in 1783 by Gen. Henry Knox (1750–1806), the society is named for the Roman soldier and statesman Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (519–430 BCE), who is regarded as a model of civic virtue and devotion to duty. The first president was George Washington, and the second was Alexander Hamilton. Full membership was originally restricted to officers who served with the Continental Army or who died while in service (including eligible foreigners), then to their direct male heirs according to primogeniture, or their collateral heirs (if there are no direct heirs), but there can be only one member at a time from a hereditary line, even though there may be more than one eligible heir. 

July 2022 Re-dedication Ceremony

U.S. President Franklin Pierce (1804–69) was a direct heir; the British prime minister Sir Winston Churchill (1874–1965) was a collateral heir through his American mother Jennie (née Jerome) Spencer-Churchill (1854–1921), and Sir Winston’s great-grandson is a current member. 

Twenty-three signers of the U.S. Constitution and five Nobel Peace Prize laureates were hereditary members. Additionally, hundreds of VIPs have been made honorary (non-voting) members, including an additional 15 U.S. presidents, the most recent being George H.W. Bush. 

Lafayette's Tomb Today

Is there a connection between the society and the city in Ohio? Yes. In 1790, a member of the society, Maj. Gen. Arthur St. Clair (1737–1818), the governor of the 1787 Northwest Territory renamed Losantiville, a settlement on the Ohio River, as Cincinnati in honor of the society. 

Source: "What Two Giants of History Say to Each Other in Silence," The Society of the Cincinnati, 2022

Why Was Admiral John Jellicoe Dismissed As First Sea Lord?

Admiral Sir John Jellicoe (1869–1935)

Canadian Naval Historian Robert L. Davison provides some context on the embarrassing Christmas Eve 1917 firing of Admiral Sir John Jellicoe:

Indeed, in the crucial year of 1917 the Admiralty seemed paralysed in the face of unrestricted submarine warfare. . .The experience of the Great War was profoundly traumatic for the RN's executive officer corps. Before 1914, forces associated with the ongoing revolution in naval affairs had exerted considerable pressure on naval officers. Despite these forces that altered, and even challenged, the status of executive officers, self-confident assertions about the corps' fitness to command remained untested. That changed with the outbreak of war in 1914. Professional officers were faced with a conflict dramatically different from what had been expected. The war presented innumerable tasks that did not involve exercising command from the bridge of a man-of-war. For these demands, officers were not well prepared. The result was intense frustration, and the claims made by officers were exposed to searching criticism not merely from outside the profession but also from within.

The incapacity of the Admiralty machinery and the senior executive officers to deal with the reality of industrialized warfare caused a crisis of confidence that was not confined to parliament or public opinion but also extended into the [officer] corps itself.

The loss of confidence in the legitimacy of the [1917] Jellicoe regime resulted in a letter of dismissal from First Lord of the Admiralty Eric Geddes to the first sea lord on Christmas Eve 1917. Vice-Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss replaced Jellicoe as first sea lord. A temporary crisis among the remaining sea lords was averted, and they were persuaded to stay on. Jellicoe went on half pay and was not employed again.

Alarm in the Press

But why, specifically, was one of the world's most notable naval leaders chosen to "Walk the Plank"? I've gathered some ideas about this from the sources listed below. In the aggregate, though, they seem to describe a situation in which it was simply time for the good admiral to go.

1.  The most widely stated reason is his reluctance to support the convoy system, which was strongly supported by the Lloyd George government, a large number of proponents within the Royal Navy, and key admirals like the Commander in Chief of the Grand Fleet, David Beatty, and the U.S. Navy—as represented by its senior officer in Europe, Admiral William Sims.

Admiral Jellicoe's memoirs make patently clear his very traditional and limited understanding of what exactly “defeating the U-boats” meant. “Our object,” he wrote, …was to destroy submarines at a greater rate than the output of the German shipyards. This was the surest way of counteracting their activities. It was mainly for the purpose of attack on the submarines that I formed the Anti-Submarine Division of the Naval Staff." His thinking about defeating the U-boats was limited to a hunt-and-destroy strategy.

Eric Geddes and David Lloyd George

2.  The admiral had a strained and deteriorating relationship with both Prime Minister David Lloyd George and First Lord of the Admiralty Geddes. His distinguished reputation and the distractions of the 1917 land campaigns for his superiors possibly kept him in office too long. 

3.  Jellicoe's pessimistic and somewhat contagious frame of mind made it across the Atlantic and into history books when after his first meeting with Sims, the American cabled to Washington, “Briefly stated, I consider that at the present moment we are losing the war.”

4.  Neither a bureaucratic in-fighter nor a visionary

The British Admiralty of World War I was, to expand on Professor Davison's point above, and to use fellow naval historian Michael Simpson’s phrase, a “creaking giant” that was organizationally incapable of visualizing the U-boat problem. A report by the American novelist Winston Churchill (no relation to the prime minister) to President Wilson on the state of the Admiralty cited by Simpson was scathing on this score:

I have become convinced that the criticism of the British Admiralty to the effect that it has been living from day to day, that it has been making no plans ahead, is justified. The several Sea Lords are of the conservative school, and they have been so encumbered by administrative and bureaucratic duties that they have found insufficient time to decide upon a future strategy. The younger and more imaginative element of that service has not been given a chance to show its powers, nor has it been consulted in matters of strategy. . . . [T]he Admiralty is still suffering from the inertia of a tradition that clings to the belief that the British navy still controls the seas, and can be made to move but slowly in a new direction.

Sadly, the man whose strategic command at Jutland ensured surface dominance for the remainder of the war was the wrong man to take on the novel U-boat threat when it emerged.

Sources: "Jellicoe: Controversy and Dismissal", The Dreadnought Project; "The Royal Navy Executive Branch and the Experience of War", Robert L. Davison, The Northern Mariner, July 2005;  "U-boat Challenge—Convoy Solution", Jan S. Breemer, Over the Top, August 2017

Poilu Léopold Jules Maréchal's Book of Hours of the Great War, Part II: Maréchal’s War

Le Journal des Tranchées 

Working on Trench Defenses

By John Anzalone

French historian Laurent Gervereau notes the paradox inherent in the fact that soldier-artists seeking to bear witness to their war service often resorted to images that represented a quiet, humdrum war, without reference to real combat. In his record of his year and a half of front line service, Maréchal most frequently refers to simple experiences that readers of soldier memoirs will quickly recognize. He is hungry, always. He sleeps poorly and never enough. When not bored by the tedium of war, he confronts grave danger and fear, always with a quiet stoicism. Rarely moved to high emotion he speaks about violence and death in the matter of fact way of those for whom it has become a fact of life, and his text is accordingly discrete. 

But violence and death loom large and when they do appear in the narrative, Maréchal’s very reticence rises to an unusually resonant form of understatement. Here are two examples. In his first encounter with the enemy, there is the terse account of the cadaver of a dead soldier (identified as Old Mayer in the watercolor's inscription below) first seen under a walnut tree then buried the next day. 

The Corpse Under the Old Walnut Tree

 

The ruins give off a charred odor. And there’s another, more horrid smell, that of the corpses of those who were the first to fall, the soldiers of the 92nd. They are all around us, one in particular near the great walnut tree at the farm near Carmoye: he must have been on lookout behind that tree, but a bullet took him down. He fell with his backpack still on and his rifle in his convulsed hands. The poor devil is swollen and blue, with flies buzzing around him. In the fields that spread out behind us, we can see here and there splotches as red as poppies: the bodies of the dead, in their red trousers.

9th October, Friday night—at nightfall we are ordered to collect the bodies of two soldiers of the 92nd. One is the man under the big walnut tree, the other lies in the road just out in front of our trench. This is one of the most unpleasant chores. … We take all the pains in the world to load the bodies onto the stretchers using poles; given their advanced state of decay nobody wants to touch the corpses with their hands. Burial pits dug ahead of time receive the dead, all of them fully equipped—backpack, bayonet, cartridge belt around their mid-sections. We couldn’t take anything off of them because they were so bloated. I can still hear the sound—the metallic clatter—they made when they landed in their final resting place. 

The text relies for its evocative effect on color and sound: first the touches of red—that of the traditional “rouge garance” trousers—that help Maréchal discern the location of many more dead soldiers strewn across the fields; and then the metallic clatter the still fully equipped, bloated body makes as it is dropped into the makeshift grave. 

A second episode recounts the death during an artillery bombardment of a soldier named Salomon: 

         

Site of Salomon's Death

Once the bombardment is over, after 24 blasts and two double-blasts (I had time to count them), Boudon arrives; on his way to us he noticed the body of a comrade killed in a small dugout that had been gutted by a shell. He goes back to get a few men to help free the body of the unfortunate Salomon. The somber procession arrives, advancing clumsily down the narrow trench.

From far away I see a big red stain; the closer they get, the more the dreadful spectacle becomes clear. As they crowd in I manage to see the appalling scene close up. The whole top of the head has been sliced off horizontally just at the level of the eyebrows and the ears, as if with a saw. The inside of this poor head is completely empty and looks like the bottom of a red bowl! The face is completely blue, its deep creases filled with dust. The eyes are closed from the explosion.

I will never forget this spectacle, this poor face masking such emptiness…a pitiful mask and a gruesome image of war.

My comrade Wasseux, one of those who bore his body back, did something remarkably sensitive. He removed his long blue scarf and wrapped Salomon’s head in it, an act of decency to hide the horror.

 

Never Pass—Engraving at the Quarry by a French Soldier

This account too concludes with the similarly vivid details of a long blue scarf used to hide the horrific spectacle of the blood-stained, empty skull. Poignant details of this kind are scattered throughout the text; like shrapnel fragments, they tear holes in the “relative quiet” of quotidian routine.  Maréchal possesses above all the ability to bring his written narrative alive in the interplay of the narrative and the watercolors. These were executed on the spot fulfilling a goal he had set himself when he was mobilized: 

Compelled by the urge to draw, I brought along a small box of watercolors, pencils and a paintbrush. They made the entire Campaign with me and I never regretted having taken them; they allowed me to record my memories and gave substance to my notes by more accurately translating their spirit. What little I saw I described in writing, then I drew what I saw.

Sentry

Images then, are no mere accompaniment to the journal—they are its raison d’être. Maréchal sees his war as a series of pictures, in terms of colors, of moments, and especially of place, space and volume. Except for one extraordinary page in the manuscript devoted to mates from his unit, of whom he provides a set of expressive vignette portraits, individuals are usually seen from a distance, without identifiable physical or facial traits. 

Nor are there depictions of actual combat: the closest we come to a scene of warfare is in one of the nocturnal scenes at which Maréchal excels: the posing of a defensive wire structure known as a cheval de frise athwart a trench at the dramatic moment when a German flare has gone up. 

The majority of the drawings are of places, and these are rendered with such fidelity that local historians in the region of Montigny have been able to identify their exact locations, and to reconstruct from them Maréchal’s precise itinerary across the Oise sector until early 1916 when the manuscript abruptly comes to an end. The Machemontoise society now offers tours of that itinerary. 

Next:  In Part III of this series, to be presented on 4 April 2025, the aftermath of Maréchal's war service will be examined.

Part I of this series can be found HERE. 

3 April 25 NEWS!  The entire manuscript of Journal Des Tranchées  can now be viewed online HERE (in 4 sections) thanks to JSTOR.org.

About Our Contributor

John Anzalone is Professor of French and Media/Film Studies, Emeritus, at the Department of World Languages and Literatures, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY

Contact John at: janzalon@skidmore.edu