“It was between the front lines, in the maze of old abandoned trenches, and in the marshy No Man’s Land between these, that the American Army in France had its first taste of real patrolling. Each night, every battalion in the line would send out a patrol on some mission or other; and every now and then the Germans would send one out, and occasionally these two would mix in the pitch black night and fight it out. The Americans were very brave, while the Germans were very skillful, so the honors at first went mostly to the enemy until it was learned by sad experience that it does not pay to send a patrol of ten men out every night at precisely the same hour, through the same gap in the wire, on the same sort of mission. The capture of one such patrol of the 16th Infantry Regiment taught the whole American Army a lesson.” Shipley Thomas, The History of the A.E.F. New York: George H. Doran Company, 1920), p. 59.
World War I in Europe
End of February 1918 – On the Eastern Front and the Americans coming…but still months away…
“At the end of February 1918 the Eastern front had gone out of existence. Russia, disjointed and anarchical, lay helpless in the grip of harsh treaties, and Germany was able to bring westward sufficient troops to abolish the small Allied numerical superiority. Already she exceeded their numbers, and she could at will call up a further reinforcement which would give her a margin of more than a quarter of a million men. On the Allied side there was no chance of such immediate increment. The American forces were slowly growing, but at the normal rate of increase several months must still elapse before they could add materially to the trained numbers in the field, and it would be the autumn at least before they could form separate armies.” John Buchan, History of the Great War, Vol. IV (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1923)), p. 178.
February 24, 1918…This day 100 years ago…
“On the 24th of February the diplomats took over the conduct of affairs, and more and more obviously it fell into the hands of Count Czernin. Secretary of State von Kuhlmann did not take the prominent place which our prestige, our co-operation in the defeat of Rumania and our military situation warranted. General von Arz might not care whether peace was made today or tomorrow; not so the German General Headquarters. I often requested the Imperial Chancellor to have the proceedings accelerated, and I gave instructions in the same sense to General Hell, Chief of the General Staff at von Mackensen’s Headquarters, who also represented General Headquarters. To the great detriment of the German cause, Colonel Hentsch, Chief of the General Staff of the Military Governor of Rumania, died at this time, and General Hell was not able to see this matter through. I had expected that, in view of our extremely strong military position–since we could attack them from all sides–my insistence would lead to our dealing drastically with the Rumanians. But the Imperial Government thought fit to reply to my demand by giving way. This simple fact illustrates the fundamental difference between the ideas of the Government and my own.” General Ludendorff, My War Memories 1914-1918, Vol. II (London: Hutchinson & Co, 1919), p. 570.
100th Anniversary of the Tank Corps
General John J. Pershing, Commander-in-Chief, American Expeditionary Forces, appointed Colonel Samuel D. Rockenbach, Chief of the Tank Corps on December 23, 1917. The Americans were assembling their forces to deploy to the European theatre of war and did not have tanks in their inventory. The war, with its barbed wire, trenches, gas and machine guns needed an armored big gun to shoot through all those defenses. Rockenbach would have to decide on the type of tank, organization, training, tactics and logistics–and he had only nine months before the first American tank units entered combat at the Battle of St. Mihiel. He details his amazing story in Operations of the Tank Corps A.E.F.