Authors: Terence T. Finn
Tags: #History, #Asia, #Afghanistan, #Military, #United States, #eBook
The next occasion in which the AEF went into action involved far more men than had fought at Vaux and Belleau Wood. Once the German spring offensive came to a halt, Ferdinand Foch was keen to strike back. He wanted to recover territory lost to the Germans, and he also wanted to damage Ludendorff’s army, which he believed by then to be under considerable stress. He directed Pétain to prepare a plan of attack, which the French army’s commander in chief did. The plan included substantial participation by the Americans.
Two U.S. divisions, along with a French Moroccan unit, spearheaded the attack. They were part of the French Tenth Army. Pershing had once again agreed to allocate American units to Pétain’s forces. Three other AEF divisions were assigned to the French Sixth Army, while a further three were part of the force held in reserve. Ultimately, some three hundred thousand American soldiers were involved. The attack, along a twenty-five-mile front in the vicinity of Soissons, began on July 18. It was over by August 2. Approximately thirty thousand Germans were taken prisoner. Such was the success that afterward the kaiser’s son wrote his father that the war was lost.
This battle is usually referred to as the Second Battle of the Marne. One key result of this battle was Ludendorff’s decision to call off a major attack against the British in the north. The German commander had hoped once and for all to crush Field Marshal Haig’s forces in France. That had been the decisive victory Ludendorff had designed his spring offensives to achieve.
Meanwhile, Sir Douglas had planned an offensive of his own, one to which Foch as Supreme Commander readily agreed. On August 8, the British Army attacked near Amiens. Among the assault troops were Canadians and Australians, whom the
West Point Military Series
account of World War I says were “generally regarded as the finest infantry fighters on the Allied side.” The outcome was a stunning success for British arms. Haig’s losses were light, suggesting that the British, at last, had mastered the art of trench warfare. German losses were substantial. Some seventy thousand troops were out of action. Of these, thirty thousand had surrendered without much of a fight. In his memoir, Ludendorff, who offered to resign after the battle, termed August 8 “the black day of the German army.”
The British victory at Amiens was one of the more decisive battles of the First World War, but not because of territory gained or men lost. Rather, it was important because of its psychological impact on the Germans. After Amiens the German high command realized that defeat was now likely. For Germany, the war was lost once its generals believed the war was lost. After their drubbing by the British in August 1918, that’s exactly what they began to believe.
Two days after the British launched their attack from Amiens, the American Expeditionary Force established a new combat organization. Previously, the AEF had organized divisions as its primary fighting units. As we’ve seen, these went into battle as components of various French armies. By August, however, the number of American divisions had increased so as to warrant a larger combat unit. On August 10, 1918, the First American Army was brought into being. It was comprised of fourteen divisions organized into three corps. Its commander was John J. Pershing, who remained in charge of the AEF, of which First Army became the principal American combat unit.
By early October, the number of American soldiers justified the establishment of the U.S. Second Army. Its commander was Major General Robert Lee Bullard, who had been in charge of the 1st Division at Cantigny. By then, First Army had a new commander. He was Hunter Liggett, also a major general. Both Liggett and Bullard reported to Pershing, who then was at the same level as Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig and General Philippe Pétain, each of whose command encompassed several separate armies. Above Haig, Pétain, and Pershing was the supreme commander, Ferdinand Foch.
In early September Foch had been content to have Allied troops conduct limited offensives along the entire Western Front. For the AEF this meant the elimination of the St. Mihiel salient.
In military terminology, a salient is a wedge, a protrusion in the battle line often shaped like an arrowhead. In 1914, the Germans had created such a wedge sixteen miles deep into the French lines, with the tip of the salient at a small town well to the east of Paris. Several times, the French army had attempted to eliminate it. Each time the army had failed.
The St. Mihiel salient was in the American sector of operations. Not surprisingly, General Pershing decided to have his First American Army remove the wedge. Initially, he planned to have the army continue on to Metz, then a heavily fortified German stronghold. Such a move, if successful, would have had strategic consequences, threatening the position of all German forces on the Western Front. Foch, however, intervened. He wanted Pershing to abandon the attack on St. Mihiel and strike northwest into the Meuse-Argonne rather than northeast towards Metz. The Supreme Commander also wanted to insert a French army into the attack and place some of the American troops under French command. Pershing reacted strongly to both proposals, and the conversation between the two commanders became heated. The net result was a compromise. The American army would move against the salient but not proceed beyond it. And it would do so with fewer troops. But, acceding to Foch’s desires, the American First Army, with a large number of soldiers, then would advance into the Meuse-Argonne, striking northwest as the supreme commander wished.
The attack on the salient began on September 12 with an artillery barrage from 3,010 guns. Then, seven U.S. infantry divisions struck from the east. One American division attacked from the west, while French units advanced at the tip. In total, five hundred thousand American soldiers went into battle along with one hundred thousand French troops. Within two days, the salient was reduced. Pershing’s men took thirteen thousand prisoners and captured a large number of enemy guns. American casualties numbered approximately seven thousand.
Among the artillery pieces employed were the fourteen-inch naval guns. Mounted on railroad cars, they shot a projectile up to twenty-three miles and, if on target, were devastating to the enemy. The challenge, of course, was in correctly aiming the gun and properly gauging the ballistics of the projectile. At first the gunners had difficulty in hitting some of their targets. Help came from a young army captain. Edwin P. Hubble, who understood mathematics and the science of trajectories, provided the solutions. He later became an astronomer of note, winning a Nobel Prize. When in 1990 the American space agency, NASA, placed a powerful telescope in low earth orbit, the instrument was named for Dr. Hubble.
St. Mihiel was an American victory and celebrated as such. Once again, as at Cantigny, Château Thierry, and Belleau Wood, the AEF troops had fought hard. Indeed, the German high command took note of the Americans’ aggressive spirit. But the sense of victory from St. Mihiel must be tempered. It is generally conceded that a more experienced army would have taken a greater number of prisoners. In addition, the German army, aware of the forthcoming assault and of its vulnerability within the salient, had begun to withdraw. The fight was not as fierce as it might have been. Nonetheless, the American First Army had gone into battle and won.
Next time, at the Meuse-Argonne, the fight would be far more difficult.
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Noteworthy in the attack upon the salient at St. Mihiel was the widespread use of aircraft. More than fourteen hundred airplanes took part in the operation. They were flown by American, British, and French pilots (and a few Italians). In command of this aerial armada was Colonel Billy Mitchell, who, postwar, would become a leading advocate of American airpower.
The airplane came of age in the First World War. Armies and navies alike saw opportunities in the use of aircraft. They pushed aeronautical technologies such that planes became faster, more versatile, and somewhat more reliable. They also became weapons of war. Machine guns were carried, though at first their impact was slight. But when interrupter gears were developed so that machine guns could be fired safely through spinning propellers, airplanes became deadly killing machines.
These machines were called pursuit planes, what today are termed fighters. They carried a crew of one, the pilot, and could attain speeds of up to 140 mph. In Germany and Britain, in America and France, and in other countries as well, pursuit pilots became national heroes, especially those who destroyed five enemy aircraft, thus winning the coveted (but unofficial) title of ace. Famous still today is the German ace Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron. His score of eighty kills was the highest tally of any pilot in World War I. The leading American ace was Eddie Rickenbacker who, flying French-built aircraft, knocked down twenty-six German planes.
Despite the fame associated with pursuit pilots, they and their aircraft did not play a decisive role in the war. Nor did the bombers. These were larger machines, multiengine, with a crew of three or four. From 1915 on, they were heavily engaged, bombing enemy troops and installations. But the size and number of bombs they could carry were slight and the accuracy of their aim uneven. So they too played a secondary role.
However, one particular bomber is worth mentioning. This is the German Gotha G IV. Powered by two Mercedes six-cylinder engines, the airplane had a top speed of 88 mph at twelve thousand feet. More noteworthy was its range. The Gotha could fly from Ghent, Belgium, to London and back, which it did on more than one occasion. As did German zeppelins, rigid-framed airships. Together they constituted the first-ever effort at strategic bombing. Even though they killed some fifteen hundred people in England, the damage they caused was insignificant. Their principal impact was to alarm civil and military authorities, forcing both to devise appropriate defenses and, with good cause, to worry about what the future might bring.
The one function performed by aircraft during World War I that did make a difference on the battlefield was reconnaissance. Airplanes were used to locate enemy positions and to track the movement of enemy troops. In 1914–1918 these planes usually were two-seaters. Up front was the pilot. To his rear was the observer who, when the need arose, also functioned as a gunner. Often useful, observation aircraft occasionally proved decisive. In 1914, for example, they alerted Joffre to the gap opening between the German First and Second Armies as the two enemy forces approached the Marne.
Later in the war, observers would employ specially developed cameras with which to photograph the enemy. On both sides, aerial photography was extensive. Such was the extent of this activity that a principal function of pursuit planes was the destruction of enemy aircraft devoted to observation.
Another important task given to observation aircraft was spotting for artillery. The soldiers who fired the cannons needed to know where their shells were striking. Many times in the course of the war they were so informed by aircraft aloft for that very purpose.
The first Americans who fought in the sky did so as part of the French Air Service. Many of these initially served as ambulance drivers, in units supporting the French army. Indeed, as noted previously, the first Americans to see the ugly face of war transported wounded French soldiers to medical facilities in the rear. They had arrived in France well before the United States entered the war in 1917. Such was their service that 225 of them won citations of valor. No recounting of America’s involvement in the First World War is complete without reference to their work.
In April 1916, the French Air Service established a squadron of pursuit planes piloted primarily by Americans. Like the ambulance drivers, these pilots were volunteers. Eventually, thirty-eight Americans flew in this squadron that became known as the Lafayette Escadrille. With French officers in charge, the squadron flew more than three thousand sorties and downed more than fifty enemy aircraft. One of the Escadrille pilots, Raoul Lufbery, an American born in France, was an ace with seventeen victories to his credit. Once the United States entered the war, the Lafayette Escadrille ceased to exist, becoming the 103rd Aero Squadron of the American Air Service. Three months later, Lufbery was gone. He jumped (or fell) to his death from a burning aircraft. Pilots back then did not wear parachutes.
In both France and the United States, the Lafayette Escadrille won great fame, not just for its exploits in combat, or because its mascots were two cute lion cubs named Whiskey and Soda. The squadron gained prominence because it represented the desire of many Americans to aid France in that country’s hour of need. As time passed and the war continued, more Americans joined the French air corps, many serving with distinction. Today, David Putnam, Frank Baylies, and Thomas Cassady are names no longer remembered. But each flew for France to the regret of more than a few German aviators.
American pilots also flew in British squadrons, even after the AEF arrived in Europe. Forty-one of them scored five kills or more. Among these aces were two brothers from New York, August and Paul Iaccaci. Both flew in No. 48 Squadron of the Royal Air Force, and remarkably, both downed seventeen aircraft. Another of the American pilots in British service was Howard Burdick. He flew the Sopwith Camel, considered by many to be the best of the Allied pursuit planes. Burdick downed six enemy aircraft in September and October of 1918. Years later, during the Second World War, his son Clinton destroyed nine German planes while piloting a P-51 Mustang of the American Eighth Air Force.
In both Great Britain and America, in France and Germany, pursuit pilots were considered to be men of dash and daring, knights of the sky who bravely confronted the enemy in airborne chariots. Less attention was given to their victims, of whom there were many. The top eight French aces of World War I, for example, killed at least 339 German flyers. These men joined 7,873 others of the kaiser’s air service who did not survive the war. Britain’s Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service, combined in 1918 to form the Royal Air Force, counted 9,378 men who died in their aerial operations. Many of these were boys of nineteen or twenty whose flying skills were limited. Due to the demand for pilots they had been rushed into battle. Needless to say, their chances of survival were slim.