The Yanks Are Coming! (40 page)

32
.
    
Woodrow Wilson speech at the Convention Hall, Philadelphia, 10 May 1915.

33
.
    
Quoted in Samuel Eliot Morison,
The Oxford History of the American People
, vol. 3,
1869 to the Death of John F. Kennedy, 1963
(New York: Mentor, 1972), 179.

34
.
    
Quoted in Brands,
T. R.
, 756.

35
.
    
Theodore Roosevelt statement to the press, 8 May 1915, quoted in Morris,
Colonel Roosevelt,
419.

36
.
    
Quoted in Brands,
T. R.
, 756.

37
.
    
In a speech of 20 April 1915; it is quoted in part in Cooper,
Woodrow Wilson
, 278.

38
.
    
Chad Millman,
The Detonators: The Secret Plot to Destroy America and the Epic Hunt for Justice
(New York: Little, Brown, 2006), 24.

39
.
    
The phrase comes from Rudyard Kipling's poem “Recessional.”

40
.
    
Quoted in Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski,
For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States
(New York: Free Press, 1994), 347.

41
.
    
Quoted in Edward J. Renehan Jr.,
The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 126.

42
.
    
This is the translation in Mike Sharp, Ian Westwell, and John Westwood,
History of World War One
, vol. 1,
War and Response, 1914–1916
(Tarrytown, NY: Marshall Cavendish, 2002), 271.

CHAPTER FOUR: THE ROAD TO CANTIGNY

1
.
      
The Senate voted for war on 4 April; the House of Representatives followed two days later.

2
.
      
The pace did pick up, however, and by the end of 1917, seven hundred thousand volunteers had enlisted.

3
.
      
Pershing had actually been recommended by Major Douglas MacArthur. In February 1917 MacArthur brought the news to President Wilson and Secretary of War Newton Baker that General Frederick Funston, their first choice to lead an American Expeditionary Force, had died of a heart attack. Baker asked MacArthur whom the Army would prefer as a commander; MacArthur answered that while he could not speak for the Army, he thought Pershing easily the best available man.

4
.
      
One exception was the “Buffalo Soldiers,” black troops of the American 92nd and 93rd Divisions who served under the French, and hence were actually the first American divisions to see combat, thought they weren't officially part of the American Expeditionary Force.

5
.
      
Baker rather effetely called his work “a happy confusion. I delight in the fact that when we entered this war we were not, like our adversary, ready for it, anxious for it, prepared for it, and inviting it. Accustomed to peace, we were not ready.” Quoted in Edward J. Renehan Jr.,
The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 160.

6
.
      
Quoted in Edward M. Coffman,
The War to End All Wars: The American Military Experience in World War I
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998), 32.

7
.
      
Quoted in Byron Farwell,
Over There: The United States in the Great War, 1917–1918
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 104.

8
.
      
This meant that troops trained on American artillery (the standard three-inch gun) stateside had to be retrained for the differently operated French artillery pieces (chiefly their 75mm gun).

9
.
      
John J. Pershing,
My Experiences in the World War
, vol. 1 (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1931), 44.

10
.
    
Quoted in Laurence Stallings,
The Doughboys: The Story of the AEF, 1917–1918
(New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 15. Whatever elation the French felt—and however flattered the doughboys were with all the attention they received—once the American troops were billeted, they were appalled at French ideas of hygiene and sanitation. The
mademoiselles
might be pretty, but the
man-sewers
were indeed just that.

11
.
    
Quoted in Robert B. Bruce,
Pétain: Verdun to Vichy
(Washington. DC: Potomac Books, 2008), 57.

12
.
    
Quoted in Farwell,
Over There
, 71. Sims took command of U.S. Navy forces fighting in British and European waters. He ended the war as a vice admiral.

13
.
    
British objections were not entirely irrational. The British system had been to attempt to secure shipping lanes. Convoys, in comparison, were slow; when they arrived they could overburden a port; and they required the cooperation of fractious merchant seamen. But the convoy system worked, and the British system didn't. The British, however, should be credited with devoting some of their shipping to transporting doughboys across the Atlantic—even if it meant that imports of food for British civilians made way for imports of troops.

14
.
    
Ironically, the first officer killed was a doctor, Lieutenant William T. Fitzsimmons, hit during a German bombing raid on Base Hospital Number 5 on 4 September 1917. Three American privates died with him.

15
.
    
The entreaties of Major Theodore Roosevelt Jr., stationed in France, and son of the former president, helped bring it to an end.

16
.
    
Quoted in Farwell,
Over There
, 114.

17
.
    
Gough, a veteran of the Boer War, came from a celebrated Anglo-Irish military family. His brother, his father, and a nephew, all generals, each won the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest decoration for bravery.

18
.
    
It was codenamed Operation Georgette.

19
.
    
American divisions were larger than their French counterparts.

20
.
    
The lieutenant, Oliver J. Kendall, was presumed to have been tortured. His body was found after the war, July 1919; his throat had been slit.

21
.
    
The effect of the tanks was more psychological than real. The Germans in this sector had not fought tanks before, but none of the awkward vehicles reached Cantigny.

CHAPTER FIVE: BELLEAU WOOD: “RETREAT, HELL. WE JUST GOT HERE!”

1
.
      
The Marine Corps' slogan “First to Fight” dates from the First World War.

2
.
      
Quoted in Joseph H. Alexander with Don Horan and Norman C. Stahl,
The Battle History of the U.S. Marines: A Fellowship of Valor
(New York: HarperCollins Perennial, 1999), 35.

3
.
      
A famous story of the Marine Corps' spirit in World War I was of an American woman visiting a field hospital. Scanning a row of wounded Frenchmen, she spied the apparent figure of a doughboy: “Oh, surely you are an American!” The laconic reply: “No ma'am, I'm a Marine.” The story can be found in many sources, including John W. Thomason Jr.,
Fix Bayonets!
(Naval and Military Press, no date), ix.

4
.
      
A. W. Catlin and Walter A. Dyer,
“With the Help of God and a Few Marines”
(New York: Doubleday, Page, 1919), 18–19.

5
.
      
Both quoted in Matthew C. Price,
The Advancement of Liberty: How American Democratic Principles Transformed the Twentieth Century
(Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008), 10–11.

6
.
      
Williams also prudently sent a message to his battalion commander that he had countermanded the French officer's orders to fall back, and added, “kindly see that the French do not shorten their artillery range.” Quoted in Dick Camp,
The Devil Dogs at Belleau Wood: U.S. Marines in World War I
(Minneapolis: Zenith Press, 2008), 63. Several Marines have claimed credit for Williams's famous rejoinder, as Camp discusses on page 64. Lieutenant Colonel Frederick “Fritz” Wise had a similar experience (see pages 60–61) arguing with a French officer urging him to retreat: “I have come to fight the Germans and this is where I intend to do it—and that is that, by God!”

7
.
      
Quoted in Robert B. Asprey,
At Belleau Wood
(Denton: University of North Texas Press, 1996), 89.

8
.
      
Quoted in Camp,
The Devil Dogs at Belleau Wood
, 64.

9
.
      
Thomason,
Fix Bayonets!
, 9.

10
.
    
Elton E. Mackin,
Suddenly We Didn't Want to Die: Memoirs of a World War I Marine
(Novato, CA: Presidio Press 1993), 18.

11
.
    
George B. Clark,
Devil Dogs: Fighting Marines of World War I
(Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 2000), 104.

12
.
    
Thomason,
Fix Bayonets
, 23.

13
.
    
Quoted in Camp,
The Devil Dogs at Belleau Wood
, 90.

14
.
    
Ibid., 107.

15
.
    
Thomason,
Fix Bayonets!
, 27.

16
.
    
See Alan Axelrod,
Miracle at Belleau Wood: The Birth of the Modern U.S. Marine Corps
(Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2010), 143–46, for a good discussion of Daly and his battle cry.

17
.
    
Quoted in John S. D. Eisenhower, with Joanne T. Eisenhower,
Yanks: The Epic Story of the American Army in World War I
(New York: Touchstone, 2002), 146.

18
.
    
The Germans allegedly referred to the Leathernecks as “dogs from hell.”

19
.
    
Quoted in Camp,
The Devil Dogs at Belleau Wood
, 124.

CHAPTER SIX: CHÂTEAU-THIERRY, “THE ROCK OF THE MARNE,” AND SOISSONS

1
.
      
Quoted in Allan R. Millett,
Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps
(New York: Macmillan, 1980), 304.

2
.
      
Quoted in Geoffrey Perret,
Old Soldiers Never Die: The Life of Douglas MacArthur
(Avon, MA: Adams Media, 1996), 95.

3
.
      
Quoted in Robert B. Bruce,
A Fraternity of Arms: America and France in the Great War
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003), 228.

4
.
      
Georges Clemenceau, who inspected these positions, found that the men “burned with an invincible resolution” even though, exposed as they were, they “had abandoned all chance of surviving to the triumph for which they offered their life.” As author Robert B. Bruce notes in his book,
A Fraternity of Arms: America and France in the Great War
, the discipline of the men in these forward positions belies “the commonly held assumption that the French soldier of 1918 was a dispirited, dejected, and near-mutinous soldier.” See page 230 for the Clemenceau quotation and Bruce's analysis.

5
.
      
Quoted in Laurence Stallings,
The Doughboys: The Story of the AEF, 1917–1918
(New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 138.

6
.
      
Quoted in John S. D. Eisenhower, with Joanne T. Eisenhower,
Yanks: The Epic Story of the American Army in World War I
(New York: Touchstone, 2002), 153.

7
.
      
These quotations can be found in Stallings,
The Doughboys
, 119.

8
.
      
Quoted in Stallings,
The Doughboys
, 134.

9
.
      
Quoted in Eisenhower,
Yanks
, 157. Laurence Stallings quotes Captain T. C. Reid expressing his regret to McAlexander that he had been “too busy” directing his troops to kill any Germans himself. See
The Doughboys
, 135.

10
.
    
Soon to be re-designated III Corps.

11
.
    
Replacements and supply troops brought the number to about 350,000.

12
.
    
Quoted in Douglas V. Johnson II and Rolfe L. Hillman Jr.,
Soissons 1918
(College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999), 41.