Cross referencing my review from Michigan Wart Studies Review:
Richard S. Faulkner, Pershing's Crusaders: The American Soldier in World War I. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2017. Pp. 776. ISBN 978-0-7006-2373-0.
On July 4, 1917 General John J. Pershing's, Commanding General of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), and his staff stopped before the Marquis de Lafayette's grave at the Picpus Cemetery in Paris. Colonel Charles Stanton, a member of Pershing's staff, captured the moment when he uttered the unforgettable phrase, "Lafayette, we are here." Although Pershing and Stanton were but a small vanguard of the AEF, over 2 million Americans would arrive in France charged by President Woodrow Wilson to “make the world safe for Democracy.” Who were the “we” of the AEF who came to re-pay the overdue debt to Lafayette? What were their experiences? Why did they enlist or how did they respond to conscription? How were they trained? What did they expect? These are some of the important questions Richard S. Faulkner, a professor of Military History at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, addresses in his sweeping Pershing's Crusaders: The American Soldier in World War I.
This is not a history of battles, command decisions, generalship, or politics. Pershing is mentioned briefly, usually only in reference to his orders. Other generals, President Woodrow Wilson, and Secretary of War Newton Baker are mentioned only in passing. Inspired Bell Wiley's classics Johnny Reb and Billy Yank– indeed, he dedicates the book in part to the Civil War author – Faulkner presents more of a social history of the Doughboy from his entry into service through to post-war occupation of Germany and subsequent return home.[1]In twenty-four chapters organized topically, Faulkner examines such Doughboy experiences as training camp, voyage across the Atlantic, instruction in Europe, learning how to use new weapons, interactions with Allied civilians and soldiers, anticipation anxiety, combat experiences, fear, patrols in no-man's land, illnesses, wounds, medical treatment and facilities, life as a prisoner of war and treatment of German prisoners, entertainment, and post-war adjustment.[2]He covers the basic needs of clothing, food and water, shelter, and sleep. The roles of ethnicity, morality, race, religion, and sex each receive their own distinct treatment. The preponderant emphasis is on the infantry soldier, for they made up the majority of the AEF, but airmen, artillerymen, chaplains, Marines, service of supply troops, and tankers, also receive attention. There were significant tensions between the infantry, who suffered higher rates of casualties and deprivation, and those whom they believed were living the easy life in the rear.
Pershing’s Crusadersconcentrates on the experiences of the rank and file soldiers. Inexperienced officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) had to earn the respect of their men largely by sharing their experiences. Faulkner makes the point that the Doughboys, the product of a democratic society, considered their relationship to their commanders to be more of a social contract than one of blind obedience. Soldiers promised to follow officers who did not recklessly throw away their lives and who provided the necessities of life. Resistance to untested, replacement officers, for example, crippled the performance of the Fifth division in October 1918.
Although chapters are arranged topically, they unfold chronologically and give the book the feel of a quick flowing narrative. For this reason it is a much faster read than one might think of a 776-page tome. While there are many facts and figures, they are presented judiciously. Instead, the author uses the experiences of individuals or groups to illustrate his points. This gives the reader a strong, almost personal connection to the Doughboys. The writing is well done, and Faulkner turns more than a few humorous passages. For example:
Faulkner draws several important conclusions about the Doughboy's experience. He argues that the Doughboys, shaped by their unique experiences, played critical roles affected post-war social movements. Inspired by sense of contribution to a national cause and experience of greater social acceptance in France, African-American soldiers returned home committed to defending civil rights.[3]This is not a necessarily a novel claim, but Faulkner presents another view of race that has not received as much consideration. He notes that in the decade following the war, many white Doughboys joined the resurgent Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Unlike its Reconstruction forerunner, the 1920s KKK was urban, northern, and anti-immigrant. If the army took its responsibility to function as the melting pot for foreign-born and first generation recruits seriously, white solders, it seems, emerged with an unfavorable impression of their ethnic white comrades.
Second, Faulkner argues that Doughboys "were pioneers of the American sexual revolution." (3) Wrenched from their quiet and safe small town lives, thrown together in camps with others from around the United States, shipped out from New York City, exposed to the looser sexual mores of French war time society, and faced with a battlefield death, the solid pre-war moral world of the Doughboys was shattered. Both American citizens and the government feared this would happen. In April 1917 moral crusaders who had been shutting down red light prostitution districts for a decade were given extensive authority to purge communities around training camps of sin and vice. The War Department created a morale branch to coordinate and monitor these anti-vice campaigns. The situation in France was quite different. French leadership tolerated and licensed prostitution. They criticized the AEF for its puritanical suppression of sexual activity. Unlike the Poilus who received condoms, Doughboys were scolded about the pitfalls of sexually transmitted diseases and how unfair it was to bring these dreaded illnesses home with them to their wives and girlfriends. Pragmatic concerns led the AEF to moderate its policy over time, but it never approached the openness of the French. Nor did repression work. There were 357,969 reported cases of venereal disease among American soldiers. (396)[4]Among their souvenirs and memories and battle scars, these men brought home looser sexual mores.
However much as the shock and violence of war affected American soldiers, Faulkner praises the Doughboys for their successful resistance to the nihilism and dehumanization of the war.[5]He writes:
"Whether the doughboy viewed his German enemy as a lethal, harsh schoolmaster, a devious and deluded Hun, or a pitiful and dejected prisoner, he should be commended for his ability to overcome the vicious and dehumanizing propaganda of the era to treat his foe with humanity. Although the Americans sometimes gave into stereotypes and the passions of the war, it seems that these incidents were rather limited and not unique in the experiences of the war's other combatants." (324)
It is no surprise to those familiar with the topic that Faulkner is critical of the inadequate training that the Doughboys received. While Pershing's decision to focus on rifle tactics and open ground combat was partly responsible, a large measure of the failings to prepare troops could be attributed to logistics and poor planning.[6]To be blunt, the American army was an amateur operation. No plan existed for the rapid expansion, which leaves the student of the period to wonder what the War Department had been doing since 1914. One regiment of the 4thdivision, for example, arrived in France without ever having fired a shot during their training. Untrained officers did not know how or when to schedule eating breaks for their men. The M1917 uniform was poorly designed. The leg wrappings and puttees might have looked martial in photographs, but this ensemble cut off the circulation to feet that proliferated the spread of debilitating trench foot. Pershing's Crusadersis full of such examples that might have been avoided with greater consultation with our allies who had been at war for three years by the time the first elements of the AEF arrived in Europe.
Faulkner highlights another important contributing factor to the high rate of AEF casualties in the summer and fall 1918. If experienced and hardened NCOs are the backbone of any effective military, the United States had a weak spine during the Great War. With no cadre to call upon, inefficient NCO selection, and poor training exacerbated this deficiency and likewise contributed to the high casualty rates.
Pershing's Crusadersis the culmination of twenty years of work on the subject. Faulkner examined the diaries, letters, and photographs of thousands of Doughboys, amassing his own impressive private collection in the process. He is careful not to make unwarranted generalizations when unsupported by the facts, such as this summation of religious experience:
"It is possible that most soldiers simply passed through the war without having their faith greatly altered by the experience at all," he wrote. "Unlike much else in the record of the doughboys' experiences, the record of their religious beliefs is too idiosyncratic and incomplete to make too many bold declarations on their spirituality." (430)
In the first chapter, Faulkner wrote that he "intended to give the reader an understanding of what it meant to serve as a Doughboy in the Great War." (2) Pershing's Crusaderssucceeds admirably in fulfilling this goal. It stands out among the recent monographs for its breadth and depth. Many will find this a valuable and entertaining read. Any historian or common reader with an interest in World War I, military history, the Progressive Era, and the 1920s, as well as genealogists seeking to understand the experiences of their ancestors, will find this an excellent source to understanding the lives of the American soldier at the defining moment of the twentieth century.
[1]Bell Irvin Wiley, The Life of Billy Yank; the Common Soldier of the Union(Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1971); Bell Irvin Wiley, The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978).
[2]Faulkner finds that the World War I veterans felt stiffed by a stingy government. He does not carry that argument on as Jennifer Keene does to claim that these disappointed Doughboys lobbied for the G.I. Bill of Rights in the next world war. See Jennifer D. Keene, Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America, War, Society, Culture (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).
[3]Although unmentioned by Faulker, the 1919 Chicago race riot is one example. See William M. Tuttle, Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996).
[4]To the French this was evidence of American puritanical foolishness. It was proof that unprotected soldiers having sexual encounters with unregulated prostitutes cost the army millions of man hours and weakened its effectiveness as a fighting force.
[5]Using surveys as his main source, Edward Gutierez argues that it was only after they returned home did the AEF veteran fully understand the brutality of the war. See his Doughboys on the Great War: How American Soldiers Viewed Their Military Experience(Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2014), 15.
[6]American commanders felt vindicated by the successes of the German stormtrooper tactics in 1918, which they considered rifle-base tactics removed from the trenches. See Mark E. Grotelueschen,The AEF Way of War: The American Army and Combat in World War I(Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 47
