Customer Reviews

The Doughboys: America and the First World War

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While many Americans assume that out belated entry into World War I led to the rapid demise of the war, Mead writes that many people, including most of the American allies in the war, thought much less of the American role and efforts. As an Englishman, Mead appreciates and extols the Americans.
Death and destruction on a grand scale, with gas, tanks, machine guns, and blatantly incompetent leaders were the way of the war for three long years before the Americans arrived, however woefully unprepared they were for trench combat. Pershing thought that flexible fighting, using the almost discarded rifle (the Allies had come to prefer a sack of grenades as the weapon of choice), could overcome the stalemate of the muddy ditches. Mead shows the importance of the American combat troops and, perhaps most important, their boost to materiel and morale at a time when the Allies, especially the French, were near paralysis if not collapse. The French troops' mutiny and executions of a few of those convicted makes the point.

The detailed exceprts from diaries and reports from those at the front, including those who did not survive the war, make this a great tale to tell. General Pershing's had to fight the Allies to achieve and maintain American independence in the face of Allied presumption that he would simply surrender his troops and command to the British, French, or Italians (e.g., "If you could just send us 1,000,000 troops, we'll equip them and let them fight with my men.") The British were worse; they assumed that since their ships transported American troops, that the Americans ought to fight under British command.

The diappointment is in the book's organization and, painfully, the maps. There is a needless side trip to the Siberian "front". Mead jumps around time and places. The maps appear at apparently random places in the book, with later battle maps preceding earlier ones, and the lines of advance and the cities and places where troops fought were exasperatingly difficult to match up. The "Lost Battalion" received little attention and the maps left me lost trying to find them.

Thanks for salvaging the American contribution. But give me good maps!

This is a readable account of the involvement of the United States' ground forces in the Great War, the emphasis being on the Western Front, complemented by a short and generally unsatisfactory account of their intervention in Russia in the Civil War period. It is necessarily somewhat superficial as a result of the vast canvas covered but it does provide a good introduction to anybody who intends to follow-up with more detailed reading on specific topics. The writer moves at breakneck speed from Wilson's volte-face on involvement in the conflict, through the declaration of war, through mobilisation, training and deployment overseas of vast numbers of troops, and on to their commitment in battle. Pershing's conflicts with his British and French counterparts as regards how the initially small but ever-growing influx of inexperienced American troops should be employed are outlined and the arguments of both sides are generally presented with fairness and colourful vignettes are provided of the secondary as well as the main players. One of the major ironies of the story is that though the US was already by 1917 the second most powerful Naval power (and, even more ironically, this proved almost irrelevant to the overall outcome) it was also, despite three years of world conflict, a practically demilitarised nation in land-force terms. For this lack of preparedness the sanctimonious Wilson must carry a heavy responsibility. This applied as much in matters of military doctrine as of equipment - Pershing and many of his officers are shown here to have had little understanding initially of the realities of trench warfare - though they, and their troops, learned quickly, albeit at high cost in casualties.

Descriptions of combat and battles is possibly the weakest part of the book, probably since the actions involved deserve considerably longer treatment to put them into the overall context of operations on the Western Front. Actions such as Belleau Wood and the St.Mihiel offensive were, in absolute terms, large-scale actions, but seen in the context of the overall Western Front their relative importance decreases significantly. The greatest contribution of the American forces was, in the end, a moral one, representing massive potential for deployment in 1919 and playing a powerful role in convincing the German High Command that resistance beyond late 1918 was futile even if a tactical withdrawal to the homeland were to be achievable. By this stage however the German forces had been soundly and comprehensively thrashed in the field, with the contribution of British, despite massive earlier losses, the decisive factor.

This book is at its best when it draws on an extensive archive of first-hand reminiscences from servicemen: quite surprisingly, these have apparently not been used to any significant extent by previous writers. These accounts lend significant immediacy and colour to the narrative. In general however the extracts are too short - often little more than quotes - and one would like to see a larger selection in the future in one or more dedicated volumes, ideally arranged on a thematic basis.

The author sets out his purpose, to set the record straight on Americans involvement in the Great War, right at the start of the book. The way he put the story together, with jumps in time & space, at first, it seemed like he was telling another story entirely since America had such a hard time right at the start of the war. Finally Mr. Mead, and America, gets his feet under him and the story takes off as success follows success. I especially enjoyed the emphasis on how abhorant the behavior of the British and the French were. While ultimately, they did try to teach us some useful information, their general treatment and demeanor, which caused Pershing to fight them nearly as often as the Germans, probably extended the war by a couple of months.

His chapters on the wars conclusions and aftermath were quite good as well.

While almost diametrically opposed in its treatment of the American military, this book is a good companion to Thomas Fleming's Illusion of Victory.

The author is certainly right when he asserts that the American role in World War I has been downplayed by both the British and the French. The British and French would not have won their war with the Germans without the Americans. In 1918, the French were spent as an offensive force and the British didn't have the resources. Thus, I applaud the author's -- a Brit -- conclusion. Most European writers about the war are not so generous or objective.

Mead isn't sparing in his criticism of the perfidious and obnoxious French and some of the British allies of the Americans. Nor does he ignore the faults of Pershing and other American commanders, including President Woodrow Wilson who gets my vote as the most over-rated President in American history. The author's description of the racism in the American army is valuable.

The virtues of "Doughboys" include a chart that shows the Americans had taken over more of the front lines than the British by the end of the war and two useful closing chapters that tally up the cost of the war and the aftermath. But I question Mead's assertion that little has been written about the American participation in World War I. "Yanks" by John S.D. Eisenhower is a similar book I would recommend and I've read several others. Perhaps he means that little has been written about the American doughboys by English and French authors.

The defects of the book are lousy maps and poor descriptions of battles. The author jumps back and forth between the grand strategists and the boys in the trenches but doesn't do a very good job in making the battles comprehensible. The book needs more maps showing who was where and when. Also, don't anticipate this to be a book primarily about the doughboys on the front lines of the war. It's more of a general history of American participation rather than a worm's eye view, although the author tells some excellent stories of individual American soldiers.

Smallchief

Nicely illustrated with 48 black-and-white historical photographs, Gary Mead's The Doughboys is the story of the more than three million men who comprised the American Expeditionary Force during the First World War. More than 50,000 of these men were killed in battle. Enhanced with maps and list tallies, the American involvement in 1917 and 1918 is carefully and accurately presented resulting in one of the best and most "reader friendly" presentations available to military buffs, American military history students, and anyone with an interest in America's first military involvement on European soil, an involvement that would establish America as a world power for the remainder of the twentieth century.

With the sparse titles available for WWI, this book tells a very good story. Two other books that cover the US entry and involvement in the great war (while great books as well) do not tell such a rich and full story as Mead's book. What I liked most is the way Mead describes the way the other allied nations tried to use the US troops to help their respective nations. It also reads like a mini bio of Gen Pershing, who was the commander, and biggest advocate of the AEF as a separate and effective fighting force. Very detailed, yet reads like a novel. A must buy.

The story is easily read and covers important issues such as the economic position of the U.S. prior to the U.S.'s entry into the war in 1917. Good coverage of the status of the U.S. troops, their training, equipment, and logistics challenges is provided and are valuable to understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the U.S. military in WW1. I especially enjoyed the discussions of lack of cooperation between the Allied forces and the condition and morale of British and French troops upon arrival of the U.S. troops. This is an important subject that should be studied by everyone who wants to understand 20th century history. This book does a good job of describing WW1 with emphasis on the U.S. military perspective.

I just finished reading this work. I concur with most other reviewers that the best parts address the issues of building, transporting, training, and deploying the American Expeditionary Force into combat in France in only one year's time.

The profile of General Pershing is revealing: a tough SOB but neither a great man nor a great soldier. He was loyal to President Wilson and stubborn to the end about not caving in to the British and French presumption that Americans would gladly fight and die in British and French armies under foreign command. The author also shows clearly that the biggest problem for the AEF on land and sea was logistics.

In the Second World War, Gen. George C. Marshall saw to it that American soldiers would never depend on foreign governments for sea transport, heavy weapons, horses and mules, trucks, or aircraft again.

The faults of the book are not grave but they are irritating. One is the British author's habit of seeing Americans as stock characters: big, brash, moneyed, and clumsy. Yes, this stereotype persists because it is often true. Nonetheless, this view of American soldiers by British writers is so predictable I'd like to see a contrarian write otherwise.

Secondly, the author doesn't really understand the American heartland, even if he appreciates its ability to produce hearty soldiers willing to charge hell with fixed bayonets. Yes, America has a puritanical streak, but libertarianism is just as American, probably more so. He incorrectly calls Prohibition a "conservative" cause when Prohibition, like Women's Suffrage, was Progressive to the core and resisted by convervatives, who don't trust laws to change human nature. His chapter about the homefront implies that the American heartland is populated largely by ignorant mobs, a widespread assumption in Europe but not reality. Moreover, the most fascist and heavy-handed persecution of dissenters in America was sponsored by the federal government and supported by the intelligentsia, the same Progressives who believed in the perfectibility of man.

Despite these criticisms, the main thesis of the book- that the AEF's formation, training, deployment, and combat effectiveness were both next-to-impossible and vital to the Allied victory- is well argued and illustrated with great stories by officers and enlisted men. I must agree with the author that on the whole, the enlisted men of the AEF, e.g., Sgt. Alvin York, were head and shoulders better than their officers, especially their officers over the rank of captain. The achievements of the AEF largely belong to these unknown and mostly unheralded enlisted men.

I concur with and commend the reviews by Donal A. O'Neill and Peter Lorenzi, above. The author, Gary Mead, presents a comprehensive survey of the Great War during 1918 with an emphasis on America's involvement during that year. However, Mead does not present the story of the doughboys.

I pre-ordered the book expecting real coverage of the soldier's experience, as suggested by the title, The Doughboys, and the editorial reviews (Booklist--"emphasizes the individual experiences of the doughboy," and Library Journal--"This is a soldier's story"). Instead, Gary Mead's engaging story mostly relates the macro story of America at war, and uses individual narratives sparely, situationally, and mostly to enliven the broad reporting.

Mead only superficially presents the doughboy's transition from civilian to solider, interaction with military personnel of other nations, or experience with European civilians. Even the combat sections provide only spare pictures of life in the trenches and actual fighting. Mead also omits some major experiences of the time. For example, although we can read in at least three places that soldiers became seasick during their Atlantic crossing, the flu epidemic of 1918 receives no mention-despite that the flu initially struck hardest at US military bases, killed some 43,000 soldiers during 1918-1919, and directly caused almost half of all American military deaths in Europe. Similarly, Mead omits any reference to the effect of anti-German sentiment in the US, which was a pervasive issue of the time, and affected tens of thousand of German-American doughboys.

As such, Mead's book should be read as a comprehensive introduction to America in World War I. Readers interested in social history, narrative history, or genealogy should plan to look elsewhere.

You know what's coming when you discover this history of American armed forces in World War One was written by an Englishman.
But you couldn't be more wrong.
Firstly, this is not one of those minute-by-minute descriptive accounts of every military engagement which involved American troops. True, as he must, Mead devotes objective analyses to the major encounters involving Doughboys. However, he devotes the major portion of his fascinating study to the battles that were fought behind the front lines...not against the German army, but rather among the so-called "Allies" themselves.
Mead is not subtle in his obvious dislike for Lloyd George and Clemenceau and he holds their feet to the fire for their hostility towards the country who sent its troops to Europe to rescue them from likely defeat. Ignored by many historians, but not by Mead, is the fact that while they were pleading for millions of American troops, the British, were refusing to supply trans-Atlantic troop transport unless American leaders agreed to have its troops fill in as replacements in the British and French armies...to fight under an alien flag.
Hostilities between Americans and French people grew to the point when, after the Armistice, some Doughboys questioned if they had fought on the right side.
Looking for the usual military history? If so, Mead's work is not for you. Looking instead a literary chateaubriand that sates the intellect? If so, this book is for you.