HEROES: March’s War

To the question “Who commanded the Army during the War?” nine persons out of ten will erroneously answer “Pershing.” Command of the Army was (and is always) vested in the Chief of Staff at Washington under whom General Pershing served as a subordinate in charge only of the A. E. F. During the 19 months of U. S. war four generals in succession were Chief of Staff—Hugh Lenox Scott, Tasker Howard Bliss, John Biddle and Peyton Conway March, General March, long, lean, bearded son of a college professor, took command in March 1918 and carried the Army through the Armistice. Last week appeared his The Nation at War* to take its place beside General Pershing’s Pulitzer-prize-winning My Experiences in the World War, General Liggett’s A. E. F., General Harbord’s Leaves From a War Diary and Frederick Palmer’s Newton D. Baker.

When General March was recalled to Washington from France where he was in command of the A. E. F.’s field artillery, he “went sick at the stomach” with regret. As Chief of Staff his story is the story of the nation’s domestic effort, industrial as well as military, to win the War. He found things started ; he reorganized and finished them on a titanic scale. His major aim was to get as many men to France as quickly as possible. He yammered for ships until he got them and then packed troops in like cattle. Stiff and stern, he barred all politics from the military, worked the General Staff day & night, saved the Treasury millions. General March evidently has no high opinion of General Pershing. The Nation at War tends to deflate My Experiences in the World War. He implies that the A. E. F. commander was not a top-notch general officer because he had been jumped from captain to general by the impulsive Roosevelt without the requisite training of intermediate grades. Credit for the idea of a separate A. E. F. is denied General Pershing, given to the General Staff, General Pershing’s insistence upon a program of 100 U. S. divisions in France by 1919 is ridiculed as a physical impossibility. General Pershing’s refusal to have General Wood in France with him is ascribed to the latter’s “insubordinate and disloyal” volubility. According to General March the U. S. air plane program failed first because aviation enthusiasts claimed too much for it and, second, because General Pershing kept vacillating on the types of planes he wanted. The Chief of Staff also criticizes the A. E. F. commander for overtraining his men, needlessly delaying their actual fighting. General March declares that he saw the Armistice coming long in advance, stopped troop shipments Nov. 1 and supply purchases Nov. 7 whereas General Pershing, much closer to the facts, kept dunning the War Department for men and supplies for a 1919 campaign right up to the signing. General Pershing “passed the limit of forbearance” when he attempted to dictate generalships to President Wilson. “General Pershing,” writes General March, “had about as few qualifications for diplomacy as any man I knew. [He] relates with evident pride of thumping the table and declining to be ‘coerced’ at a meeting of the Supreme War Council. … I have never been a desk thumper and I do not think profanity lends force to my orders. … As the A. E. F. increased in size, General Pershing’s inability to function in teamwork with his legal and authorized superiors increased. . . . General Pershing’s differences with Foch were accentuated by a profound ignorance of the French military policy. . . . He ascribed to the French a military ‘defensive’ policy. The fact is precisely the opposite. The entire French military policy has been founded on the attack. … I gave General Pershing the greatest support any American general has ever received from a military superior in our history.”

A military autocrat, General March writes his story with supreme self-confidence. His counsels always appear to have been the counsels of success. He is unterrified by the word “I.” He alone seems able to anticipate military events. He writes:

“President Wilson only interfered twice with military operations while I was Chief of Staff and both times he was wrong. The first of these was the Siberian Expedition; the other sending troops to northern Russia. … I opposed at all times the slightest diversion of our troops [from France]. . . . [the result was] the complete failure of these expeditions to accomplish anything.”

*Doubleday, Doran ($3).