America's race to victory

Introduction

In "America's Race to Victory " Lieutenant Colonel Requin has presented a vivid and stimulating picture of the problem which our country faced in April, 1917, the faulty organization with which we at first attempted its solution and the gradual steps by which our national endeavor gained momentum until it swept everything before it in what was, indeed, a " race to victory."

To this work of appreciation of the military, industrial and political effort of another nation Colonel Requin applied a mind stamped with the General Staff "doctrine" of Marshal Foch and the French Ecole Superieure de Guerre and developed by battle experience during the first two and half years of the war.

Until his arrival in the United States with Marshal Joffre in May, 1917, Colonel Requin knew little of our military resources and nothing of our national character, our political system or the obstacles which were to be overcome. But he at once comprehended our povi INTRODUCTION

tential military stren^h, our military attributes hidden beneath our apparent commercialism and all the intricacies of our national existence.

With the trained eye of the experienced general staff officer he saw also the weak points of our military system and, with infinite tact, unremitting industry and a keen perception of relative values, set about the difficult and delicate task of helping us produce strength where there had been weakness and order where there had been chaos.

Colonel Requin's assistance contributed materially to our military success. As he himself says, he " never for one instant doubted the Army of the United States." This intimate collaboration with American comrades and this undying faith in our arms have given him a peculiar fitness to undertake the interpretation of the development and employment of our army.

" America's Race to Victory " does not profess to be a comprehensive history of our participation in the war. It is rather a tribute to our national spirit rendered affectionately and proudly by a comrade in arms who was close enough to see our faults but yet at the same

INTRODUCTION vii

time able to retain the perspective necessary to visualize our effort as a whole and who never lost the faith which made success a foregone conclusion.

(Signed) P.C.March,

General, Chi^f of Staff,

COMMAND IN CHIEF OF GENERAL HEADQUARTERS

THE ALLIED ARMIES

The Marshal June 19th, 1919

Note For Lieutenant-Colonel R^quin

I am returning to you herewith your manuscript on "America's Race to Victory/'

Aside from a few little matters of detail, which you will find noted in Chapter VIII, the quality, and general tone of the work, and the spirit in which it was conceived, appear to me most praiseworthy,

I cannot do otherwise than approve its publication.

Cordially yours,

(signed) Foch.

IX

Foreword

The motives which determined me to write this book are three-fold :

I was struck by the difficulty experienced equally by my co'mpatriots and by my friends in America in forming a correct mental picture of the great work accomplished by the army of the United States, and by its Chiefs on both sides of the Atlantic.

I had observed that, according to the point of view at which they were placed and the impressions which they received, either from the front or the rear, their judgments were apt to fluctuate in the course of the last year of the war between unreserved admiration and the most unjustified disillusion.

Lastly, in putting these still recent memories in order, I have experienced a personal satisfaction which I shall not try to hide, in realizing that, alike in the darkest hours and in the most glorious of days, I never Had an instant's doubt of the Army of the United States.

This is not a history of the war, nor even of that final period in which the American

xi xii FOREWORD

army took such a splendid part, for the moment has not yet come to pass judgment on the operations themselves.

It is solely the military effort and its results that I have undertaken to discuss — an effort judged by a Frenchman who had the rare good fortune to follow it from its beginning, and the distinguished honor of sometimes collaborating in it.

At this moment, when the echo of the formidable battles which have shaken Europe for four and a half years still rings in our ears, and may well confuse our brains, I do not pretend to set forth here the whole truth, not even regarding the events which took place apart from the field of battle. But in striving to reach as near as possible to the truth, I may perhaps aid the reader to find it for himself. I dedicate this study to all those alike from far or near, — those who came to us from the United States or who remained at home to organize victory, — who have personally aided vis in gaining it: to you, my comrades, who marched to the music of the cannon from the new world to the old, impatient to intervene in the great drama of battle, and who fell in full glory in the fulfilment of the last act.

FOREWORD xiii

May your names remain piously graven on the memory of every Frenchman, just as the lofty and humane ideal for which you died remains forever inscribed upon the folds of your Star Spangled Banner.

(Signed) Lieutenant Colonel E. Requin.

Contents

PAGE

Introdoction V

Note ix

Foreword xi

Chapter I Military Situation In Europe In The Spring Of 1917

An Estimate of Available Forces. The Nature OF the War Problem Faced by the Allies . 1

Chapter II The Military Power Of The United States In April, 1917

The War Problem Faced by America and the Manner in which She Solved It 16

The Decision to Send Over an Expeditionary Force and to Organize a Great Army — The Passage op the Conscription Act 16

XV xvi CONTENTS

Chapter III The Military Preparation In The United States

PAGE

I. The Reorganization op the Army and the Spirit which Inspired This Reorganization 36

The First Expeditionary Division . . 45 The Problems of the American General

Staff 46

General Pershing's Plan 49

Building the New Army 54

II. Material Organization of the Camps.

Equipping and Arming the Army . . 62

III. American War Industries 73

Small-Arms 74

Artillery Materiel 75

Aviation 80

IV. Training the Army 82

V. The Plan for Transportation 100

VI. Great Administrative Reforms 105

CHAPTER I MiLiTAHY Situation in Europe in the Spring of 1917

An Estimate of Availohle Forces. The Nature of the War Problem Faced by the Allies

The United States entered the war at the moment when the Entente were ahout to undertake operations of a decisive character agreed upon by the Commanders in Chief, November 15, 1916, at the Inter- Alhed Conference at Chantilly.

The plan of action thus estabHshed at the close of 1916 for the year 1917 amounted in effect to concerted offensives on all the fronts of the Coalition, at a date approximating as nearly as possible to April 1st, with due allowance for the climatic conditions of each theatre of operations.

Since America did not declare war upon Germany until April 6, 1917, her army could not take part in the campaign of 1917.

If we wish, however, to realize the unquestionable value, both national and moral, of her intervention early in 1917, we must recall how the great and well founded hopes of the Coalition crumbled under the double blow of the Russian collapse and the prolonged disorganization of the Inter- Allied High Command.

Accordingly, it is easy to understand that the promised despatch of American troops to the French front, and their arrival in 1917, were a potent factor in effacing the painful impression of the events of the spring.

The campaign of 1917 had been planned by the Allies to the end of obtaining a decisive victory, and it was to this end that they ought logically to have planned it.

The Allied armies had, in point of fact, attained at the opening of 1917 a maximum strength which they were certain that they could not surpass, and which they were not sure of being able to maintain, in view of the losses suffered by their armies and the relative exhaustion of their resources in men.

The old principle of war, which consists not only in uniting all your means before acting, but quite as much in acting on the instant that all your means are united, at last found its application in the forces and plans of the Entente.

The new British armies, sent to the front in 1916 and transformed by organization and training into an instrument of war of the highest value, comprised a total of 79 divisions, of which 62 were in France, equipped with 3000 field guns, 2000 heavy guns, almost all modern, and supplies of ammunition amounting to 11 million shells for field artillery and 4 million shells of large calibre.

But the British General Staff already foresaw that the measures taken by the Home Office for maintaining the army's strength at the front would be insufficient. New methods were being studied to remedy this, without any clear certainty that they would prove successful.

The Italian army, augmented by 10 divisions during the winter, attained a total of 55 divisions (52 of which were on their ovni front), to which were added numerous formations amounting numerically to about 10 more divisions. Italy would be able to maintain her strength throughout 1917, even allowing for heavy losses; her military cooperation promised to be serious and well ordered.

The Belgian army comprised 6 divisions of full strength, perfectly equipped, regularly trained, in excellent condition both physical and moral, ready for action, but without sufficient reserves to maintain a prolonged battle.

The Russian army, utilizing its enormous resources in men, was expected to augment its strength by some 60 divisions before the summer of 1917, according to the plan announced by the High Command at the Conference of November, 1916. Even granting that this programme should not be carried out, Russia would nevertheless, so it seemed, enter the campaign with her 200 existing divisions, 185 of them on the European front, assuming an increase of 39 divisions since the Inter- Allied Conference of November 15th. The Allies had furnished Russia with important resources in artillery materiel and ammunition. She in return could have furnished an additional 2,000,000 of fresh troops, had it not been for the difficulties and delays that the Revolution engendered in her military organization. It is true that the eventual outcome of this Revolution, then barely launched, was largely speculative. Nevertheless the Provisional Government seemed to be making genuine efforts to overcome the difficulties of the moment, and it was still possible to hope that the Russian army, better equipped than it had ever been before, would bring to the Coalition the serious support of its enormous strength in men.

The Roumanian army was reorganizing rapidly with the aid of a French military mis^ sion of high efficiency; and it was already assumed that it would return to the front before the summer of 1917 under highly honorable conditions.

Lastly, measures were being taken to maintain, if not to reinforce, the small and unconquerable Serbian army, whose fighting qualities had once more been proved by its successes at the end of 1916 in the sector of Monastir,

The French army, which since 1914 had been sustaining the heaviest drains, because of the intensity and continuity of its effort, had attained its maximum strength: 118 divisions, of which 109 were in France; 2,965,000 men under arms, of whom 192,000 were in the Orient; guns and ammunitions of war estimated, on its own front, at :

5800 field guns 3650 heavy guns 20 million shells for field guns 7 million shells for large calibre guns

But from the opening of 1917, the problem of numerical strength claimed the attention both of the General Staff and the Government of the Republic. It became apparent that its maintenance during 1917 was going to impose such sacrifices upon the nation that in the comparatively near future it would be necessary to make reductions in either the composition or number of the large units.

On the enemy's side the principal adversary, Germany, was putting forth an exceptional effort to utilize the sum total of her resources in men, and to intensify her industrial output. She recalled the difficult conditions under which she had been obliged, in 1916, to replace Austrian forces with a part of her own forces, in order to check at any cost the victorious thrust of the Russians ; and her object now was evidently to send to the front the largest possible number of fighting units, in order to be prepared for any new development of a similar sort. At the beginning of April, 1917, the German army already numbered 214 divisions, of which 150 were on the Franco-British front; and the programme for her new formations was expected to raise these figures to a total of 24.2 divisions before the end of 1917. This, apparently, was to be Germany's maximum effort, and from this epoch onward the French General Staff predicted that the maintenance of such a number of divisions in a battle of prolonged duration and sustained intensity would exceed even Germany's possibilities, — a prediction which was justified in 1918.

Germany's war materiel was estimated at 9200 field guns or light howitzers and 6800 heavy guns.

To sum up, the German army still appeared to be a redoubtable adversary that had developed its strength to the limit, but to this end had mortgaged the future unconditionally.

Austria, far from forming new divisions as Germany was doing, had been obliged to reduce her army by two or three large units, in consequence of the losses of 1916. Her resources in men were of small value, partly because they included many hospital cases reenrolled for the fourth time, and partly because of the extreme youth of the class of 1919, which had already been called to the colors. She numbered at most 79 divisions, of which 45 were on th.e Russo-Roumanian front.

Taken as a whole, the value of her army had diminished; its morale had been shaken; and the keen jealousies of its mixed races were steadily hastening its disintegration. In the eyes of the French General Staff it was a structure whose outer walls were still standing, but seamed with cracks that foreshadowed its collapse if Germany did not hasten to prop it up.

The most that can be said of the 13 Bulgarian divisions is that they still constituted a solid armyj with sufficiently well stocked supply depots, but an army that was visibly weary of war.

As for the Turks, their manifestly and rapidly diminishing forces had dropped from 50 to 45 divisions, and these incomplete and insufficiently equipped, with resources in fresh troops limited to approximately 200,000 men for the needs of the coming campaign of 1917.

Accordingly, the available forces of all the armies at the outset of April may be summed up as follows :

178 Allied divisions against 150 German divisions on the Anglo-French front ;

62 Italian divisions against 32 Austrian divisions on the Italian front ;

200 Russian divisions ( without counting the small handful of Roumanians) against 127 divisions of Germans, Austrians, Bulgarians and Turks on the Rus so-Roumanian front ;

24 Allied divisions against 15 Enemy divisions (the latter, to be sure, of fuller strength than the Allied divisions) on the Macedonian front.

Considering only these figures, it was evident that on all the fronts there was a numerical superiority in favor of the Allies. This superiority could not be modified or destroyed except by the bringing into action of some 30 solid divisions of the newly formed German troops, or by that element of political uncertainty which is inherent in every coalition when put to the test of time.

Numerical strength, however, was only one factor in forming an estimate; other factors were the High Command, the morale, the training of the troops and the use which they could make of the new, complete and varied equipment.

Seen from these different points of view, the Anglo-French armies united all the conditions required for conducting a decisive action, with just one exception — the most important of all — unity of command. The Allied Governments, having been unable to reach an agreement on this essential point, had hoped to make up for it with understandings or formulas that, unfortunately, were too vague to work success-

fully.

This did not alter the fact that the British and French armies, in position to bring into line as the opening move of the campaign, a total of 100 divisions, represented together an offensive force that had never been surpassed.

The form of battle contemplated by the High Command relied largely upon manoeuvres to break up the methodical organization of the German offensive. But this plan, conceived at the close of 1916, gave no promise of great results except on the sole condition that they could acquire and maintain throughout the entire duration of the action a considerable numerical superiority. Now, from the time when the plan had been conceived, the numerical superiority of the combined Anglo-French forces had not ceased to shrink day by day, through the arrival of new German divisions coming from the East.

Consequently it was upon the other armies, and particularly the Russians, that the task reverted of facilitating by concerted and sustained offensives the manoeuvres upon which the Coalition relied for success. On the Russian side this hope was doomed to disappointment.

The Revolution, by first weakening and later disorganizing the Russian army, progressively set free forces which the German General Staff hastened to transfer to the Western front; it was while these transfers were being made that the Allies opened the battle of April 14th.

The very limited success of the French offensive at its opening gave rise to a disappointment that was at least premature, followed by a halt in operations. The inevitable consequences were a change of French Commander in Chief, and a wave of demoralization throughout the army which even the energy of the new Commander in Chief, General Petain, had no small difficulty in counteracting.

By the end of April the game of 1917 had been played. The fighting was destined to be resumed at various points, but under the form of a warfare of attrition. We were destined to see numerous Commanders in Chief of equal distinction try out numerous other plans, perhaps equally good, fight numerous British or French battles, all equally glorious — but with no decisive result.

Although American military intervention could not modify the result of the campaign of 1917 — since, I repeat, the game had already been played and lost for the current year — it was none the less necessary that it should take place without a delay.

Accordingly, the first manifestation of force resulting from the despatch of American troops to Europe was destined to have a profound influence not only upon the morale of the army, following as it did upon the morrow of the above mentioned crisis, but also upon that of the whole nation profoundly stricken by the events of April. If the France of 1917, weakened not so much in her material forces as in her morale, recovered rapidly, she was powerfully aided in this recovery by the United States.

From the American point of view, an immediate participation in the struggle was the best means of making the whole American nation understand the character of the war and the burdens that it imposed.

It was, besides, the only way of hastening the organization of an effective war machine which, as will be seen further on, had to be built up in all its detail.

In regard to the enemy and the neutrals, the landing of American troops on French soil would be a clear declaration that America pledged herself without reserve, and that she would employ, to borrow the expression used by President Wilson, "All her power and all her resources to bring the Imperial German Government to terms, and force it to end the war."

From the point of view of the direction of operations and of the future campaign, an examination of the forces of the Coalition revealed the difficulty of keeping these forces at the level attained in 1917, and showed that in view of the situation created by events in Russia, the small addition of an American army had become indispensable for carrying out in 1918 any new plan of action of a decisive character. Now, in order to be ready in 1918, the American army, assuming that one existed, would have to be landed in Europe in 1917, and undertake and complete in France those great works of installation and communication without which a modern army is foredoomed to impotence.

Since this army, in point of fact, did not yet exist, it was doubly necessary that, as soon as it was created, it should be brought over at the earliest possible moment to complete its organization and its training in France, in that atmosphere of battle which doubles every energy, intensifies every effort and hastens every decision.

To sum up, the campaign of 1917 might have been decisive. Logically it ought to have been. But it was not decisive, and even in the montli of April, 1917, it was clearly seen that it would not be. Nothing remained to the AlHes but the hope of winning a decisive victory in 1918, and it was towards this single goal that they must bend their entire energies. This was the moment for America to enter the contest; it was equally her duty to enter it now.

For, considering the rate of losses suffered by the Allies, and the cost in material and in morale to the nations at war since 1914, it was becoming evident that if the Allies did not win the war in 1918 they ran the risk of being forced into a lame and halting peace by unforeseen events, beyond the control of their guiding minds. Dissatisfaction was increasing in all the countries. It was the expression of a general reaction of the whole organism of Europe against the sufferings of a prolonged war.

It was this conviction which, with implacable logic, proclaimed the necessity of not losing a single day, of accomplishing the indispensable at once, even at the cost of wounding personal vanities, of shaking off inertia, breaking down resistance, arousing the half-hearted, all with the sole motive of one and all working together for the decisive battle of 1918; it was this conviction, I repeat, which the Allies strove to impress upon the United States. In spite of slowness, delays and blunders, in spite of everything, it is due to the fact that the United States had awakened to this conviction while there was still time, that she was able to play in the last act of the world war that part upon the battlefield which she had elected to play.

Such being the problem of the war in the spring of 1918, how did America propose to solve it?

CHAPTER II The Military Power of the United States IN April, 1917

" It is plain enough how we were forced into the war. The extraordinary insults and aggressions of the Imperial German Government left us no selfrespecting choice but to take up arms in defence of our rights as a free people and of our honor as a sovereign Government."

{President Wilson's speech, June Uth, 1917.)

The War Problem Faced by America and the Manner in which She Solved it

THE DECISION TO SEND OVER AN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE

AND TO ORGANIZE A GREAT ARMY THE PASSAGE

OF THE CONSCRIPTION ACT

We know why America entered the war. President Wilson made it clear to whole world. He repeated it to the first troops that sailed, when he reminded them that they were going to France to defend the honor and liberty of the United States.

But how, — and by this I mean, with what fighting equipment, — did she enter the war? This is what we need to understand, before we can measure the extent and the might of her military effort.

In April, 1917, America brought to the service of the Allies, not only her 102 million inhabitants, but also her immense natural resources and that incomparable industrial activity which she had developed in times of peace.

Now, despite these resources ; notwithstanding the inflexible will of the President, the energy of the Chiefs to whom he was about to entrust the task of organizing an army, the quality of the men whom Acts of Congress would furnish, and lastly and most notably, the spirit which had enrolled this great people in the cause of liberty, — in spite of all this, it was nothing less than astounding to see in what a state of military unpreparedness the United States had undertaken to enter the war.

And surely, if we tell the whole truth it will tend, not to diminish, but rather to exalt the merit and the fame of those who controlled America's destiny and guided her military efforts. In view of the glorious goal achieved, there should be no hesitancy in revealing the starting-point, since between the two we behold a great people marching to the cannon's music, over-striding the Atlantic in pursuit of their immutable objective, which their national interests and their noble ideals had alike proclaimed from the day of their setting forth, and which their energy finally attained.

Those who belong, like us Frenchmen, to a nation perpetually obliged to maintain, in defense of its rights and its life, a military organization ever ready for service, cannot conceive of the incredible difficulties represented by the transformation into a modern military power, — and this, too, within the space of a few months, — of a nation whose geographic situation, past history, political ideals and established institutions had guided it solely toward the works of Peace.

At the moment when President Wilson decided to join the Allies of the West, to save the honor of America and the Liberty of the world, the American people were as far from war as their shores were distant from the European battlefields.

In comparison with the enormous armies that the two opposing Coalitions had at their disposal, what did the total military strength of the United States amount to?

A Regular Army of approximately 200,000 men and a National Guard of about 150,000.

The first was animated by the finest traditions of bravery and honor.

The latter drew its sole strength from that virtue which every American citizen possesses in a greater or less degree : his sense of duty.

Both of these forces were imbued with the purest patriotism, but their organization was out of date, their training and armament were totally insufficient and inadequate for the new form that warfare had assumed since the end of 1914.

The basic unit of this army was theoretically, at least, a Division, comprising three Brigades of three Infantry Begiments, three Artillery Begiments, one Cavalry Begiment, one Begiment of Engineers and the various other branches of the Service, — in short, a unit practically impossible to use in modern warfare.

All the belligerent armies had ended by adopting an approximately uniform type of Division, which represented the true fighting unit, comprising all the organic parts indispensable for living, moving, and carrying out an offensive or defensive action. These Divisions, British, French or German, were interchangeable in each army. They constituted, on the checker-board of modern warfare, the pawns which the High Command moved at pleasure to carry out its offensive and defensive combinations. These same Divisions were employed when going into battle. Now the American Division was found, in point of fact, as a result of its organization to be incapable of playing this role : it was too heavy owing to the large number of its regiments, too feeble owing to the insufficient proportion of artillery and machine guns, and the total absence of the new engines indispensable alike for attack and defense (howitzers, trench-mortars, hand grenades, rifle grenades, automatic rifles, infantry guns, etc.) .

For that matter, even assuming that the American Division could have been equipped with these various engines of war, its defective composition and its weakness in companies of infantry would have prevented it from making effective use of them.

Furthermore, these huge American units did not exist, excepting on paper, and practically the army had to be re-created on entirely new bases.

The American officers had been unable to follow the difficult phases of the formidable struggle, except from a distance, through the columns of the press, or the reports of their courageous ambulance drivers (both men and women) . And yet the United States had assigned a number of excellent officers as observers with the British and French armies. Unfortunately, the information which these officers furnished regarding both the material organization and the methods of combat of the Allied armies remained practically unutilized.

Both the Intelligence Department and the organization of the American General Staff were so defective that the information furnished by these officers was neither appreciated at its just value, nor put in order and used.

Consequently, what changes were taking place remained only imperfectly understood by the great majority of American officers. The profound reasons underlying these changes, the constant evolution in methods of combat, with their consequent effect on material means, on the training of troops and the instruction of the higher officers wholly escaped them. The best informed only got so far as to conceive, with no small effort, the superficial physiognomy of a battle as conducted in 19 IS. And even these constituted a very small number, without authority and without influence upon the others. The majority revealed, by the very nature and multiplicity of the questions they asked of their British or French colleagues, their total ignorance of the war they were about to engage in, and at the same time their eager desire for enlightenment.