Training was handled by the Operations Section of the General Staff, A. E. F., until July 5th, 1917. On that date a separate Training Section was formed, and continued in operation throughout the war.
The first American troops to arrive in France went into training in June, 1917, under the direction of a French division. This experiment was found unsatisfactory: "The difference in language, temperament and methods caused little
progress to be made." In August, the Training Section began the preparation of an instruction program of its own. The plan adopted was for a three-months' divisional course. During the first month infantry instruction was to be in small units, followed by a month's service by battalions in a French division in a quiet sector. During this period, regimental and higher headquarters and staffs were to follow a course of instruction in technique, mostly without troops. The artillery in the meanwhile was to be placed in a separate camp where facilities for firing were available, regardless of the location of the division. Here it was to be armed with French material, instructed in its care and use, and given an opportunity to learn the methods of firing and tactical handling then in use at the front. It was to join its division towards the end of the second month. During the third month the division was to be assembled complete in a rear area for training as a unit. Many defects in this system were perceived and frankly admitted by the Training Section, but nothing better could be worked out practically.
Parallel with this troop training, a system of schools was provided. Each division was to conduct such elementary schools as it might find necessary for its own purposes. Each army corps was to set up schools for officers and for noncommissioned officers, and training courses for replacements. Army schools, under the immediate direction of GHQ, were to train staff officers, instructors for corps schools, officer candidates and specialists of various kinds; also, to fix and control the tactical doctrine to be taught throughout the expeditionary forces.
This last question was a serious and delicate one.
The French and British officers concerned naturally assumed that their duty was to teach the Americans exactly what they were doing themselves, in their own way. Americans were not Frenchmen nor Englishmen, and their ways were not our ways. Decided friction developed from this matter of methods alone; this was the difficulty that more seriously troubled the troops. GHQ was even more seriously troubled as to doctrine. The French and British, influenced by their experience in the peculiar direction the war had assumed, brought about by the universal use of trenches, had crystalized their experience into a definite doctrine. They had
been unable to study that doctrine objectively, at leisure, and in a detached frame of mind. Their long term of position warfare had blunted their aggressive spirit, and led them to accept stabilization as a normal situation and as a situation that would continue. They had lost the idea, so highly developed during our Civil War, that entrenchments are merely the indispensable instrument to enable troops to advance again; they had come to regard the tool as greater than the task, and to advance only that they might entrench again. They never had a high estimate of the value of rifle fire, and their esteem for this weapon had fallen to a point where it was regarded as only a bayonet handle.
General Pershing and his staff, arriving in France, were in a position to study and appreciate the tactical methods they found in vogue. They perceived at once the necessity of continuing these methods for the time being and they set themselves and their troops eagerly to learn them; but they refused to admit that the nature of warfare had suddenly undergone a complete change, and they kept always in mind that at some not distant period, warfare on the Western Front would revert to first principles. They saw in this reversion the only hope of ultimate success. The foreigner, not knowing the military background and competence of our leading minds, looked upon us as arrogant, ignorant novices, too self-centered to weigh advice. In a word, the minds of Americans and foreigners did not meet upon the question of tactical doctrine. While the foreign instructors were invaluable in teaching the numerous technical details connected with trench warfare, at the same time through them the doctrine of the trench defensive could filter into our ranks; and this was particularly true in the United States as here there was no close-range observation to counteract. However, the doctrine of an aggressive offensive and training in open warfare combat continued to be emphasized in our schools and wherever our training took place, and this was no small factor in our ultimate success.3
Before leaving the subject of training, it will be of interest to examine for a moment a training memorandum issued by General Pétain about the time the 2d Division left Bourmont.4
He points out that the instructions in force dated December 30, 1917, while discussing very fully and completely operations on stabilized lines, treat also of the advance on open ground. This fact apparently having been overlooked, the General finds its necessary to emphasize it, and to prepare for a phase of warfare in which "elaborately and developed positions on and under the ground have disappeared." He then lays stress upon rapidity of offensive movement; brief orders instead of elaborate plans; flexible formations; out-flanking in place of frontal attacks; assignment of general directions to larger units, specific objectives to small ones; adaptation of artillery fire to the ground and the conditions, rather than rigid barrage; direct fire of machine guns to support and accompany the attack; use of the rifle as the all-important arm of the infantryman; close tactical connection of all arms, including air forces and tanks; broader fronts for units in attack. To sum up: "rapidity and violence in preparation, flexibility in execution by both infantry and artillery. The artillery hammers the strong parts of the enemy's armor; the infantry seeks the weak spots, slips through, and takes him in reverse." This might have been written at General Pershing's headquarters. The American doctrine was justified.
The question of a proper tactical doctrine was an important one, as we have seen; but soon after General Pershing arrived in France another and greater problem arose, one that dogged his steps, causing innumerable discussions and controversies, lasting until the appearance of a great American army gave the final answer.
When America entered the war the constant neglect of her army had been practically a state policy. As a result, she had no standing among the nations of the world as a military power. Her lack of trained men, her lack of equipment, her lack of everything necessary for war was so evident that it appeared to some an impossible task to organize an army of American troops. There is reason to believe that the Allies never seriously contemplated an American army fighting in the front lines. The thought of a powerful force from across the sea growing stronger each day while the Allies
grew weaker, had no doubt a certain disquieting effect upon the minds of Allied soldiers, statesmen and diplomats. It suggested the picture of America exerting the preponderant influence at the Peace Conference. But be this as it may, no sooner had we entered the war than the Allies' influence was directed to limit our efforts to furnishing supplies and to feeding replacements into depleted French and British units. How impossible it would have been to carry out such a plan after the American public was informed did not occur to the Associated Powers. Our friends across the sea were insistent that Americans should be incorporated, individually or in small units, under foreign flags and alien commanders. It is not pleasant for us today to contemplate that at times this humiliating plan was perilously near adoption. The French and British Missions under M. Viviani and Mr. Balfour, early in the war, were keen to have American recruits to fill their armies. The French High Commissioner at Washington used his influence toward the same end. Mr. Lloyd George strongly urged this plan to Colonel House. Sir Douglas Haig approved, as did General Main. The French Premier, M. Clemenceau, cabled the French ambassador in Washington who, in turn, urged this plan directly upon the Secretary of War.
There stood between these proposals and their adoption one formidable obstacle—Washington called for the approval of General Pershing. But from first to last General Pershing said, "NO!". He saw too clearly that such a plan would not only place America in an inferior position but would be a precedent that could never be justified before a great people. When fully realized at home, it would come near wrecking America's efforts. In retrospect we can see that in insisting upon the creation of an American army we stood upon sound, precedence historically. Two hundred years before Marlborough and the English had stood in the same position as Pershing and the Americans. Marlborough had placed certain British troops under the orders of Prince Nassau-Saarbruck. Lord Cutts, while pledging himself to strict compliance, begged particularly that the orders should be issued to the British brigadier Ingoldsby and "not sent to particular regiments under his command without his knowledge," since a general officer "could not justify it to his King, the Nation,
and his own honor," if "he suffered himself to be a cipher at the head of an English army in a foreign country" (Atkinson, p. 8-9) .* In our Revolution England made very extensive use of American troops—Loyalists or "Tory" units. These aggregated 25,000 or 30,000 men, both horse and foot, and served in all parts of the theatre of war. These men fought gallantly, but their identity is lost. In the popular mind their achievements are set down as those of British troops.5 |
