It was a meat grinding mess.
Americans, by and large, were loathe to participate. Some did, as volunteers, with French, British, and Canadian units; but, U.S. politicians cemented their election campaigns with promises to keep "our boys out of the war."
Unrestricted submarine warfare by the Germans ended up targeting American ships and the mood in America began to turn. By the spring of 1917, German submarine "atrocities" -- denounced by an increasingly vociferous American press -- finally precipitated U.S. entry into the war on the side of the French and British.
Enter the most influential (and largely unknown) Mississippian of the 20th Century -- Fox Connor. Then-Colonel Connor, of Slate Spring, Mississippi, was the operational brains of Pershing's American Expeditionary Force (AEF).
When President Wilson tapped "Blackjack" Pershing to command the AEF, he gave Pershing one overarching commandment -- do not allow American men to be fed piecemeal into the trenches. Pershing's and Connor's plan was to build a 3 million-man American army in France that would be ready by the spring of 1919 -- two years after America's declaration of war on Germany -- for a war of movement to leave the trenches behind and take the fight to the heart of Germany. A rather grandiose strategy given the condition of the American military in early 1917.
In April of 1917, the United States of America had less than 5% of the men needed in uniform. The plan to build 100 divisions from scratch, train and equip them, and transport them to France was mind boggling. There was no one in American uniform with experience commensurate with the task -- the U.S. Army hadn't conducted a multi-division operation against a peer adversary since the end of the Civil War. The arms and equipment of the American army were antiquated at best. But, a year later, the AEF was beginning to grow rapidly and Pershing and Connor were confident that given another year they would have a force ready to end the war.
German military planners were well aware of the game-changing nature of a full-up AEF, and they were determined to end the war on terms favorable to Germany before the AEF was ready. When Russia dropped out of the war and signed an armistice with Germany, German high command immediately began transferring scores of divisions from the Eastern Front to the West. By March of 1918, a German offensive designed to breach the Allied defensive lines between the British and French sectors and roll up the British flank was ready to go.
Germany needed to reduce the effectiveness of the British army in France to the point that it was no longer capable of participating in the war on the continent. With the British army eliminated, the German army could brush aside the French army and take Paris. They needed to do all of this before the AEF was strong enough to make a difference.
To effect the breakthrough, the German high command had created several elite "shock troop" divisions by taking the best and most experienced troops from the rest of their divisions. When the offensive kicked off at the end of March 1918, these lead divisions accomplished their mission. However, the follow-on divisions, with many of their most effective small unit leaders gone and hampered by logistics shortfalls, were not able to accomplish their missions of quickly eliminating British strongpoints bypassed by the lead divisions. And, attacking over ground churned by over three years of continuous artillery barrages slowed the German advance to a crawl. The Allies were able to shift forces quickly enough to restrict the overall German advance.
By this time, the AEF had only a handful of divisions considered combat ready in France. To get as much manpower to France as quickly as possible, Connor and Pershing maximized the shipping available by forming divisions with minimal training in the United States and then moving them to France without any heavy equipment (trucks, artillery, heavy machine guns). This necessitated extensive training time for divisions once they arrived in France. And, despite continual French and British appeals, Connor and Pershing persisted in their refusal to feed American troops into the trenchworks as a manpower infusion to depleted French and British units.
With the German offensive blunted, the Allies desired to reduce the salient in their lines. A position on high ground near the village of Cantigny provided German forces excellent observation from which to direct artillery fires onto French forces, and was the target for a planned Allied counterattack. Connor and Pershing lobbied the Allied high command for the mission to be assigned to an American division. Their reasoning was that a successful attack would help them to continue to make their case that American divisions would soon be ready for commitment to Allied offensive operations under American command.
The most experienced and ready U.S. division was the 1st Division (aka The Big Red One), held in reserve behind the French line. At first light on the 28th of May, the 28th Infantry Regiment (Reinforced) of the 1st Division climbed over trench parapets and advanced under a rolling artillery barrage. For the first time since America entered the war a year previous, her boys were in the attack in American units under American command. Within the hour, they swept over the German position and advanced to more easily defended terrain a half mile beyond. Over the next two days, the 28th Infantry Regiment withstood several determined German counterattacks. They stood their ground, proving to the world that American fighting men could indeed fight.
The American victory at the Battle of Cantigny would be quickly overshadowed by bigger and bloodier victories over the remaining five months of the war, but the 199 men who fell should be remembered foremost.
Until Cantigny, French, British, and German soldiers doubted the elan and effectiveness of American soldiers. After Cantigny, the French and British had confidence in the AEF, and the Germans had a first taste of American steel. The German army would test American mettle in the coming days -- at Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood.
But, that story is for another post.
