Customer Reviews

To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918 The Epic Battle That Ended the First World War

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I bought this book as a gift for a friend. His grandfather was an infantryman in the AEF and as we were going through the proverbial old shoebox we came across a World War I Victory Medal with a battle clasp that read Meuse-Argonne. Though something of an amateur military historian I know the battles of World War I only as a list of names. Just as I was trying to find out about the Meuse-Argonne this book was published, so I decided to get one for myself too. It is extremely readable and the opening chapters establish a context for the battle to follow. Short personal biographies familiarize us with the people involved. Some, like Patton, are familiar to us from a later war. Some, like Hunter Liggett, unfortunately forgotten. But this is really a story about the Doughboys and in that respect is equal to Stephen Ambrose's "Citizen Soldiers" and Rick Atkinson's "An Army at Dawn". Though the battle descriptions tend to be similar, this is more due to units being thrown over and over into frontal assaults against entrenched German defenses than any literary failure on the author's part. Hindsight is 20-20 and it is easy for us to be horrified by the carnage, but Lengel reminds us that not only did inexperienced American Doughboys confront a veteran enemy, but due to a failed supply system, they often did it hungry, sick and without sleep. Too often the military history of America has been a tale of a terrible price in blood paid until the lessons of survival and triumph could be learned. In this the boys of 1918 stand on equal terms with their brothers of 1775 and 1861, and as in those other eras, they learned and they triumphed.
As I read of Pershing's Phase 3 Offensive I was reminded of Joseph Balkoski's "Omaha Beach" and "Utah Beach". As the Doughboys of the 1st Division's 16th Infantry, the 29th Division's 116th and the 82nd Infantry Division assaulted the hills and ridges of the Meuse-Argonne I thought how 26 years later these same units (with the 82nd now morphed in the 82nd Airborne Division), filled with the G.I. sons of these very Doughboys, assaulted the beaches and hedgerows of Normandy. The fathers were certainly no less courageous than the sons and now, finally, their story is well-told.

Lengel seems to be very critical of Pershing and of what Brian Linn describes in his recent book of the "warrior," type of ideology in the American army, while Lengel praises Liggett who seems to be a "manager," according to Linn. Pershing ignored the advice of his European allies, who argued for a set piece attack or bit and hold strategy that favored a combined arms approach with infantry and artillery working together, instead the AEF relied upon the infantry and its "warrior" type spirit to overcome the German defenses. Because of this flawed doctrine the American infantry lost massive amounts of men in the closing months of 1918, but American commanders still led their men into useless offensives hoping that somehow the Germans would collaspse. This soon changed during the last two weeks of the war when Liggett took over and implemented European tactics in the AEF, and as a result the German defenses crumbled. The only weakness of this book is that Lengel ignores recent work by Mark Grotelueshen and Peter Owen which suggests that commanders at the lower level ignored Pershings doctrine of open warfare and practiced European type tactics. Nevertheless Lengel reminds us that the "warrior," spirit that Ralph Peters and Robert Kaplan praise is out of date in the era of modern warfare.

I haven't read much about World War I over the years. For one thing, maneuver was in short supply in the war, and as a result nothing much happened in many of the battles, beyond a large number of deaths. For another, the American Army didn't participate until the last year of the conflict. I'm not opposed to reading stuff about other armies (notably Napoleon and the Eastern Front in World War II) but for some reason that has reduced my interest. And finally, trench warfare was incredibly depressing, and I have found it wearing to read books about it.

This current entry is a very good book about the battle of the Meuse-Argonne, the one truly American battle during the war. General Pershing argued with everyone who would listen on both sides of the Atlantic that Americans should lead America's armies, and that they should fight as one army rather than being parceled out among our allies. The result was a horrific battle where the Americans learned all of the lessons that their Allies learned three and a half years earlier, like not attacking German machineguns frontally, how to work around the flanks of enemy positions. Casualties abounded while American generals ignored what was going on, avoiding the front and fighting the war from dugouts far from the fighting.

The book recounts the course of the battle intelligently, following the action in considerable detail. The fighting is covered at a divisional, brigade, regimental, and even occasionally battalion level. Individual actions, such as Sgt. York's winning of the Medal of Honor, are covered at some length. Many of the individuals involved, from people everyone knows, like Douglas Macarthur and George Patton, all the way around to Hunter Liggett and Bullard, are covered, and each gets a capsule biography that places them in their proper context.

This is a really well-written book, intelligent and an interesting account of the only real American battle of the First World War. I would recommend this book to almost anyone interested in the War.

This book is primarily a narrative of the only great offensive by the American Army in WW I. The book begins with the story of the pressures on Pershing, beginning with an utter lack of strategic or political direction from Woodrow Wilson (who apparently only met once, very briefly, with Pershing) and continuing with the Allies's attempt to get American units allocated to British and French formations rather than operating as a discrete American army. Pershing resisted this mightily and successfully, backed by the Secretary of War. The Allies argued that operating with veteran Allied units would save lives among the inexperienced and relatively poorly trained Americans. Whether this be true or not, and this book recites experiences with French army "cooperation" that suggests that it was not, I suspect that it would have been politically impossible for Pershing to adopt the Allied suggestion.

The book is also good in describing the utter unpreparedness of the United States for modern war and the near impossibility of just getting an enormous Army into the field in France in a short time, let alone properly equipping and training it. The Army in the Meuse-Argonne was relatively untrained, almost totally inexperienced at every level (except for neo-colonial actions) and deficient in the rudiments of a powerful WW I army: Artillery, machine guns and air cooperation.

According to the author, Pershing believed that machine guns were overrated and emphasized rifle and assault tactics. The favored tactics were the direct, head-on assault. I would have liked to see a little more discussion on why Pershing believed this would work since it flew in the face of the Allied experience on the Western Front in 1914-17. It is hard to see how any competent professional soldier in 1918 could have thought that head-on attacks based on rifle firepower and guts could work without prohibitive losses, if at all. It is equally hard, however, to see how the US could have implemented any but the most rudimentary training and still placed a mass army in France in mid-1918 as the Allies were so desperately demanding. As the book makes clear, the American assaults did work but took much longer than planned and were extremely bloody.

Once the offensive begins, the book is written primarily from the view point of the doughboy and his company and battalion officers. The horrorific nature of the combat is abundantly clear. Also clear is the amazing courage of the American troops who continued to make attacks that they knew would trade too many lives for too little ground, sometimes to the point of near annihilation. The author sees this as entirely an infantry battle. American artillery was utterly inept until it improved slightly in the last stages of the battle. The Air Corps had its own agenda and offered no support to the infantry. Tanks were largely useless, especially in an Army not trained in tank-infantry cooperation. As with other armies, the high command (division and above) seemed completely ignorant of conditions at the front and insisted on attack after attack without any kind of finesse.

Except for the incredible bravery of the men under catastrophic conditions, this is a grim story. No army could continue to operate like this without breaking down, so it is a very good thing that the war ended less than two months after the Meuse-Argonne began.

The book has some flaws. The maps are too few. Eight is not enough for an operation on this scale. Moreover the maps do little more than sketch the terrain roughly and indicate general lines of advance. It is often difficult to relate the text to an appropriate map. Second, there is relatively little discussion of the fighting from the German perspective. Finally, there is a sameness to the narratives of the various attacks. Time and again men assault in bad conditions with inadequate preparation, suffer awful losses, gain some ground (and often lose it again) and grind ahead again soon after. I have no doubt that this reflects reality but it becomes hard to differentiate the various actions. Anyone who wants a feel for the battle experience of American doughboys in France, however, will get it here.

While stories around the Meuse Argonne are very well covered, like the Lost Battalion or Sgt. York, the battle itself just hasn't been covered in detail before. Edward Lengel has written the history of the battle that places the stories that are more well known within the larger context in which they took place. Prof. Lengel wrote a very fascinating book that gives you the information you need to understand what took place in the battle. At the same time, he covers in detail many of the people and their stories which gives you and understanding of what men had to do to survive and even thrive in one of America's worst battles.

I really enjoyed the way he wove the characters into the larger picture so that you could have personal contact at the same time as he described the strategy (what there was of it) and tactics (when they were applied) of the battle itself. He spares no words of praise for the men, and some women, involved in America's greatest effort in the Great War. He also spares few words of condemnation for the lack of skill and imagination in the general officer corps.

It all comes together for an enjoyable and informative read.

This book does well at two levels: As a description of the battles, it's similar in spirit to Rick Atkinson's books and even Cornelius Ryan's books. It also has some good discussions at the highest levels of command, particularly on Pershing's relationship with his allies, and on the Corps commanders underneath Pershing.

I thought the book was a bit weak in understanding and presenting everything that goes on between high command and the actual conduct of battles. To me, one of the untold stories of WW I is how the Army learned to deploy and sustain forces the size of our (very large) divisions and corps.

Probably not the last word on US Involvement in World War I, but it's a great place to start, and the right book to read if you want a single volume understanding of the US experience.

Do I recommend "To Conquer Hell"? Once started, I couldn't put it down. Want to know about America's involvement in the First World War? Start with this.

Ask yourself what was the largest and costliest battle ever fought by the military forces of the United States. Perhaps the Battle of the Bulge or Okinawa come to mind, or even Antietam. The answer though is the six week Meuse-Argonne offensive of 1918 in which a million American soldiers were engaged, 26,000 were killed, and 95,000 were wounded. Few Americans today have even heard of it. Lengel's account brings to life the heroism and agony of American troops fighting in France through the actual words of soldiers who fought and suffered through a war that was fought with poison gas and the weapons of the industrial revolution, weapons they at first understood only poorly if at all.

Drawing on the diaries and published accounts of American soldiers from privates to then Corporal Alvin York to General Pershing himself, here is an inspiring yet heart rending panorama of the American Expeditionary force in France during 1917-1918, told by Edward Lengel, a cousin of Alvin York. Lengel examines not only what American soldiers accomplished, but also where they came from, what they thought and what they said. This is military history from a human point of view, and includes chapter notes and bibliography.

World War I is horrific! Technology got ahead of offensive tactics by 1914; armies had not developed the technology to support attacks. They relied on a combination of Civil War and Franco-Prussian War ideas. None of these ideas was fully test in battle. The years prior to World War I was the age of colonial warfare. Most European style armies had never faced anything but native troops. These people, while brave, had none of the weapons and organization that was needed to carry the day. In addition, no one understood how imposing defensive warfare had become. Barbwire, poison gas, machine guns and vastly improved artillery supported defensive warfare. The Germans had almost three times the men they needed to hold any position on the Western Front. European armies learned hard lessons during the first years of the war. America had not paid attention to this training and maintained much of the pre war ideas. In 1917, America joined the war on the side of England and France; by 1918, an independent semi-trained American Army was in France. This army was the subject of much in fighting among the Americans, English and French. The Americans would not be parceled out as replacements to serve in allied armies. Nor would General Pershing allow his units to be attached to existing allied armies. Americans would serve in an American army, under American officers in an American offensive.
This book is an account of the great American battle of World War I. From September to November, this army would conduct the Muse-Argonne Offensive, a combination of arrogance, poor training and inability to manage an army this large create "the perfect storm", killing 26,000 and wounding another 100,000. This is the bloodiest battle in America's history and a story that is to often ignored. The author manages to capture the war in all the horror of the Western Front. His description of battles is excellent placing the reader in the mud. His description of the front is harrowing and brutally honest. His narration on the brigade/regiment level operations is excellent and allows the reader to understand the tactical problems that exist. In addition, he has the ability to insert personal stories and observations without breaking the narration. These stories both move the story forward and help us understand the real conditions these men face. The writing is excellent, with the right level of detail to make this an interesting and enjoyable read.
The problem is maps! There are not enough maps and they are poorly placed. Four maps, a theater map, a map of the central, eastern & western areas are what we have. The theater map is about five miles to the inch; the other maps are about two miles to the inch. This is a good scale but one map for almost eight weeks means that units may appear multiple times on a map, may not be on the map and may be out of position for what you are reading. The Central map is on page 87, the Western map on page 196 and the Eastern map on page 257. I look at maps when reading about a battle. It took me about 200 pages to understand how the maps were organized. For the balance of the book, I was flipping back and forth trying to find the division and where they are on that map for what I'm reading. This book needs a series of maps placed to work with the narration.
The maps are not a reason to bypass the book. This is an excellent book on a little known battle that requires effort to fully enjoy and understand. The book is worth the extra effort.

This is a well written and extensively researched account of American involvement in WWI from the perspective of the soldiers that fought in the conflict. First hand accounts of soldiers from enlisted men to officers are well integrated which allows the reader to experience the conflict from the perspective of the soldiers that participated in the conflict. Throughout the book, one gets the sense of what the war was really like. The book contains detailed descriptions of the different battles Americans participated in, how the battles were fought, how American troops interacted with their allies and also contains a section on how soldiers coped after the war.
This account is highly recommended.

First the good: the author set out to explain the efforts and sacrifices of the AEF in the Meuse-Argonne region and he accomplishes this very well. The reader understands what the typical AEF soldier experienced during those 5 to 6 weeks of combat. The interspersing of first hand accounts with the authors narrative style goes a long way towards delivering his message.

However, the microscopic level of details combined with the lack of maps to guide the reader required a little bit of flipping pages back and forth to ensure the reader understood the sequence of events. I found the details to take away from the central message of the book at times because I was trying to figure out to which unit the author was referring. Despite the detailed nature of the book, I would recommend it if you are interested in learning about the battle which led up to the end of WWI.