Centerdv. Wars: World War I

3709. Dickinson, John. The building of an army; a detailed account of legislation, administration and opinion in the United States, 1915–1920. New York, Century, 1922. 398 p. 22–12553 UA25.D5

On April 1, 1917, the United States, a completely unmilitary nation, had 127,000 men under arms. Nineteen months later the American Army consisted of 3,665,000 men, of whom nearly two million were in Europe. This book supplies a thoughtful narrative of how the Selective Service Acts of 1917 were utilized to achieve this result.

3710. Harbord, James G. The American Army in France, 1917–1919. Boston, Little, Brown, 1936. xviii, 632 p. 36–6451 D570.H275

General Harbord’s experience was one of the most varied in World War I. During the first year of the A. E. F. he was Pershing’s chief of staff; he commanded the Marine Brigade at Belleau Wood (May 1918) and the 2nd Division in the Soissons offensive (July); at its conclusion he took over the Services of Supply for the duration of the war. For each of these phases General Harbord provides a clear, direct, and critical narrative worthy of the intelligent and incisive administrator that he was. A more perfunctory outline covers the aspects of the A. E. F. with which he was not personally concerned.

3711. Holley, Irving B. Ideas and weapons; exploitation of the aerial weapon by the United States during World War I; a study in the relationship of technological advance, military doctrine, and the development of weapons. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1953. 222 p. (Yale historical publications. Miscellany, 57) 52–13971 UG633.H6

"Bibliographical note": p. [179]–209.

One of the Air Force historians of World War II here applies his experience to explaining the aerial failure of 1917–18.He tracks it down in the spheres of doctrine, equipment, and organization. The men in charge failed to develop any clear ideas concerning the purposes and composition of an American air force. They failed to recognize the fluidity of the technological factor, necessitating constant improvements in airplane design. They failed to create efficient agencies for decision, information, and research. As a result of their emphasis on quantity rather than quality of production, American-made planes proved obsolete by the time they began to reach the front in quantity, and the American air force had to be equipped with aircraft of allied manufacture.

3712. March, Peyton C. The nation at war. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, Doran, 1932. 407 p. 32–25157 D570.M35 1932a

General March (1864–1955) was the original selection for commander of the A. E. F.’s artillery and held that post, occupied in organizing and training, until Jan. 1918, when Secretary Baker recalled him to head the General Staff. His volume, from that early point, is in large part polemic, to justify the Staff against the criticisms, real or supposed, in General Pershing’s reminiscences (no. 3715). March put the staff on 24-hour duty, reorganized it according to function, reduced paper work, and drove it hard. "Raising the men; putting them in camps; clothing them; equipping them; training them; shipping them to France; sending ammunition, rifles, and supplies to France to make the A. E. F. a going concern: all that was done by the vast military hierarchy at home, working under me as Chief of Staff of the Army."

3713. Palmer, Frederick. Newton D. Baker; America at war. New York, Dodd, Mead, 1931. 2 v. 31–28311 D570.P32

Baker (1871–1937) was an Ohio Progressive with pacifist convictions whose selection for the War Department provoked some derision, but who proved an exceptionally able mediator between the military organization and civilian groups and interests. Palmer, an experienced war correspondent, used Baker’s own papers as well as official war agency records to relate in detail Baker’s distinguished services in coördinating the American war effort and facilitating the task of the soldiers at home and in France. Baker was made a special target by assailants of the Wilson administration, but the military leaders are well-nigh unanimous in testifying that his genuine concern for civil liberties did not in the least get in the way of his effective mastery of the gigantic administrative problems of his office.

3714. Palmer, Frederick. John J. Pershing, General of the Armies, a biography. Harrisburg, Pa., Military Service Pub. Co., 1948. 380 p. 48–8289 E181.P512

Palmer, a friend and admirer of "J. J. P.," completed this biographical sketch in 1940, and added the two final chapters after Pershing’s death in 1948. It is without references and contains little on Pershing’s career before 1917, and less on his life after 1919. However, it adds color to Pershing’s own narrative (no. 3715) of his war experiences, and it emphasizes, as Pershing does not, the magnitude of his achievement in maintaining the integrity ofthe A. E. F. against the insistent pressure of the allied commands that American men and materiel be employed to fill the gaps in their own organizations.

3715. Pershing, John J. My experiences in the World War. New York, Stokes, 1931. 2 v. 31–10662 D570.P44 1931

Pershing (1860–1948) was in his 57th year, the junior major general of the U. S. Army, and in charge of the Southern Department when, in May 1917, he was chosen to head the American Expeditionary Force. He took over a decade in the careful preparation of these memoirs. They are strung upon entries in his official diary and mirror very faithfully the outlook from American G. H. Q. They are for the greater part concerned, as was Pershing, with problems of planning, organization, training, supply, and inter-allied relations in every sphere. Operations are encountered only in volume 2, and are somewhat formally described.

3716. Sims, William Sowden. The victory at sea. In collaboration with Burton J. Hendrick. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, Page, 1920. 410 p. 20–18578 D589.U6S6

American warships played a vital part in winning World War I, for if our dreadnoughts never saw action, our cruisers and destroyers were numerous enough to permit the adoption of the convoy system, which finally shook off the German submarines’ stranglehold upon British commerce. With the help of a veteran journalist, the commander of the American fleet in European waters tells the fascinating story in untechnical language.