← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · edward gibbon
Thread ID: 5422 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2003-03-08
2003-03-08 19:28 | User Profile
Americans have long had a highly inflated opinion of ourselves in time of war. When the Wehrmacht rolled over France in 1940, the American military was in pathetic shape and would have had a hard time beating an armed Girl Scout troop.
George Marshall remembered American preparedness for World War I.> **General Marshall mentioned the part the United States did play in the war was well known, but many blundering steps by America were not known to the general public.ÃÂ Painfully remembered by Marshall was sailing to Europe with the First Division in June, 1917 in the first convoy shortly after America declared war.ÃÂ Some 80 percent of the men in the ranks were recruits who got their rifles on the train between the Mexican border and Hoboken.ÃÂ Marshall admitted all the men were good Americans, but they were not soldiers.
The listeners were reminded from the day his ship landed in France on June 26, 1917 to September 12, 1918 when the American Army deployed in battle in divisional size, the Allies protected the American Army in the rear.ÃÂ American units did engage in some combat duty, but not in divisional size.ÃÂ American forces were protected on the field for a over a year while the vaunted American Army got ready.ÃÂ George Marshall thought Americans who were quick to remember Valley Forge and the American Revolution did not realize that in France of 1917 the American Army was in a similar situation.ÃÂ Marshall saw troops of the First Division without shoes and with feet wrapped in gunnysacks march 10 or 15 kilometers through ice or snow.ÃÂ The strength and sacrifice of the Allies held the enemy at bay for a year.ÃÂ This great effort enabled the fighting of battles which ended the war.ÃÂ David Lloyd George, British Prime Minister at war's end, in his memoirs remembered with deserving petulance the concession to General Pershing on maintaining American divisional formations and Pershing's refusal to merge American infantry with British force.ÃÂ Pershing relinquished American command temporarily only for training.ÃÂ Could Pershing have imagined the reaction of the British and French to having untried American formations fighting adjacent to their men while facing a formidable enemy like the Germans?ÃÂ Did he have much concern for the risk he was placing Allied troops under?
Lloyd George swore American troops in battalion strength had expressed satisfaction at suggestions of being incorporated into British formations. Moreover, he quoted Pershing writing at the end of February, 1918 of Pershing's disappointment at American progress and the possibility of having to stand by almost helplessly while the Allies were assaulted by the Germans and were suffering losses in the hundreds of thousands while struggling against defeat.ÃÂ Lloyd George noted a high proportion of American troops as of February 28, 1918 were non-combatants and the rest were poorly trained.**
Clemenceau likewise denigrated the American military.
Even in World War I German General Ludendorf denigrated American prowess:> A most interesting interpretation of the American effort in the war was given by General Erich von Ludendorff, the great genius behind the Kaiser's war machine, for Atlantic Monthly magazine in May 1922.ÃÂ The editors wisely let General Ludendorff's authorized English translation be printed verbatim as it lent an authentic Teutonic sentence structure and sense to his analysis.ÃÂ Ludendorff asserted from the beginning the United States had never been neutral and had intervened every time Germany had tried to cut England's thread of life - commerce.ÃÂ Ludendorff gave seven specific examples of how alleged American neutrality was compromised by American actions regarding Allied shipping.ÃÂ The American proclamation declaring the use of submarines as illegal was virtually tantamount to a declaration of war as it would have required Germany to cease using U-boats.
After remarking on the use of enemy propaganda and how it should not be undervalued, Ludendorff ruefully stated "available space does not allow me to dive into the matter".ÃÂ He noted especially well trained and well composed Australian and Canadian troops who had suffered little in past battles.ÃÂ <span style='color:blue'><b>Then he noted the American soldier had "fought unskillfully, but bravely, and in full control of his fresh nerves".ÃÂ At the end of the essay Ludendorff concluded the Americans had enough common sense to know that lucky circumstances favored them greatly.</b></span>ÃÂ He was unkind to point out American intervention occurred some four years after the war began, and American forces had a somewhat dubious advantage of having their nerves intact.ÃÂ Conversely, the Germans had suffered greatly after four years of heroic fighting against an enemy with overwhelming superiority in numbers and through a blockade which induced starvation.ÃÂ Lastly, he blamed enemy propaganda and the agitation of the Independent Social Democrats from within for poisoning the beautiful spirit of the German army.**
On World War II
Alexander, who never lost his low opinion of the fighting quality of American troops, was too much of a professional to let hatred for the enemy cloud his judgment of their skills.àAt the crest of the fighting for Monte Cassino in Italy when attacking New Zealand troops under Bernard Freyberg were being steadily repulsed by German paratroopers, Alexander wrote to Field Marshal Brooke: "Unfortunately we are fighting the best soldiers in the world - what men!... I do not think any other troops could have stood up to it except those para boys".àGeneral Brooke when being battered prior to Dunkirk recognized German success in his diary as phenomenal and had no doubt ââ¬Å[color=blue]they are the most wonderful soldiersââ¬Â.[/color]à[color=red]German General Kesselring likewise gave his professional opinion as the French being the best Allied troops in Italy.**[/color]àMajor General Freyberg, who was wounded nine times during World War I and would be wounded one more time in World War II, commanded his Kiwi countrymen regarded by many on the allied side as their best troops.àFreyberg's valor in the First World War won him the Victoria Cross and four D.S.O.'s, the second highest award for courage, and at the end of the war he was 29 and a Brigadier General.àThis accomplishment was even more impressive considering Freyberg had passed his dentistry examinations and was qualified to practice prior to the war.àFreyberg's commanding general at Monte Cassino, the American Mark Clark, had been exposed to a few weeks combat at most in the First World War, but this did not deter him from assuming the most arrogant demeanor in his command.àYet Bernard Law Montgomery surmised that Clark would be delighted to receive quiet advice on how to fight his army.àMonty allowed if Clark received good and clear guidance he would do rather well.
The counterpart to Alexander on the civilian side was Harold MacMillan who served as Eisenhower's chief political adviser and Churchill's personal representative.ÃÂ Like Churchill MacMillan had an American mother, born in the wilds of Indiana, and a British peer for a father.ÃÂ MacMillan, four times wounded in the First World War, and once so seriously he had to read the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer in Greek and the Aeneid of Vergil in Latin to calm his nerves, counseled incoming British officers to the Eisenhower staff to regard themselves as Greeks of old in the American empire.ÃÂ The classically trained MacMillan compared the British to Greeks in the Roman empire who ran the operations of the Emperor Claudius.ÃÂ The new arrival would find the Americans to be big, vulgar, bustling people with more vigor, but also more idle, and with more unspoiled virtues, but also more corrupt than the British.ÃÂ Over the years the real meaning of the phrase "unspoiled virtues" as used by MacMillan has become clear and should be translated as "naivete".ÃÂ Later MacMillan, as Prime Minister of Great Britain, was to be available to tutor a callow John Fitzgerald Kennedy.**
George Patton disparaged the performance of the American infantry in both wars against Germany. George Marshall admitted the German soldiers were distinctly superior in both wars when compared to American soldiers. Trevor DePuy who in his 80's accurately predicted the American victory in 1991 against Iraq better than any other forecaster decided the Germans were distinctly superior in Army performance to the American army. Israeli historian Martin van Creveld did the same thing.
Americans demand to be told that they are the most virtuous people ever to trod the earth. Nobody understood this better than Bill Clinton in my adult lifetime.
2003-03-10 18:32 | User Profile
Clemenceau reminded General Pershing and his staff that he was in Richmond one full week before Grant entered. He told the assembled that the American army must permit the French army teach them how fighting was conducted along the front. If Americans did not allow the French to do so, most assuredly the Germans would.