The Americans Enter the Fray: June - August 1918 - Richard Faulkner

The U.S. Armed Forces played pivotal roles in some of 1918’s major conflicts. One hundred years later, join award-winning historian and Lt. Colonel (ret.) Richard Faulkner of the Command and General Staff College for a discussion of how pivotal engagements, including the Second Battle of the Marne and Battle of Soissons, shaped the outcome of the war. Take an in-depth look at the actions of this crucial time and explore the enduring impact of the year of the Armistice. Presented in conjunction with the centennial exhibition Crucible Life and Death in 1918.
For more information about the National WWI Museum and Memorial visit theworldwar.org

[@adyboggs9323]

My dream lecture series. Richard Faulkner and Victor David Hanson. I'd pay good money to watch or listen to that

[@jona.scholt4362]

Victor Davis Hansen? Hard pass. I'd replace him with Spencer Jones

[@alganhar1]

Robertson was not a General at this point, he was the CIGS, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, the senior Uniformed Officer in the British Army at the time, and was a Field Marshal. He was an interesting guy, he is the ONLY soldier of the British army, ever, to rise from Private to Field Marshal (Field Marshal being the highest possible rank in the British Army). Morever, he was lower class, his father was a Postmaster. Point is, this was NOT a stupid guy. Haig was also not upper class, his father was a brewer, a successful one, and a wealthy one, but he was far from being one of the landholding elite. While he was a cavalry Officer he was also one of those Cavalry Officers who wrote the Cavalry Field Manual of 1908. Interesting thing about that manual? Only about a quarter of it dealt with Cavalry tactics, the rest was essentially the Infantry Field Manual of 1908. In other words, British Cavalry before WWI were trained as mounted infantry. Haig was also not a stupid guy, one thing I do disagree with Dr Faulkner about. If you give credit to Pershing for building the AEF, then you HAVE to give Haig the same credit for building the BEF as it existed in 1918. Like Pershing, Haig was not the best battlefield commander, but he WAS a superb organiser. While he made mistakes he DID learn from them. To illustrate that you only have to look at the 3rd Battle of Ypres, and the Battle of Amiens. In the former battle he kept it rolling far longer than he should have, in the second he had learned that lesson and refused Joffres demands to continue the Offensive once German resistance had stiffened. Another example is even *during* the Somme he had manuals published, two being important for this, the first being dedicated to the proper spacing of infantry in the attack, the second being dedicated to the organisation of the Infantry platoon. The latter was literally the birth of the modern combined arms platoon in the British army. Problem with WWI is war had changed, the old book was obsolete, and the Generals had to write a new one. What surprises me is not that they made mistakes, but that they learned so quickly.... Oh... they were also crippled by communication issues.... but thats another matter.

[@markjohnson9455]

I agree that warfare had become industrial which is why the loss of life soared into the millions. I wonder if it could have been prevented if there was an international order that existed before possible war became a history making event or if the war was inevitable. I do not dismiss conspiracy theories, but I do think and study to see if it is even a possibility. I like what you said about the generals who learned from their mistakes although the shame is they had to learn from their mistakes as they went along.

[@Garwulf1]

> In other words, British Cavalry before WWI were trained as mounted infantry. I did my MA thesis on the creation of British cavalry doctrine prior to the war, and this isn't quite right. There was a distinct difference between the cavalry and the mounted infantry - the cavalry was expected to be able to conduct a shock charge when appropriate, while the mounted infantry was not. That said, British cavalry doctrine by 1910 was based on combined arms tactics, and the cavalry was expected to be able to function as effective mounted infantry when necessary. So, it wasn't so much that they were treated as mounted infantry - they weren't - it was that they were trained in mounted infantry tactics in addition to their traditional roles.

[@wuffothewonderdog]

@@Garwulf1 It was General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien who turned the British cavalry into mounted infantry, during his command of the Aldershot Command 1907-13, when he ended their knee to knee lance and sabre charges and put them to learning musketry, to such an extent a lancer subsequently won the King's Prize for shooting. He also tried to get the money to equip the army with the Vickers machine gun, but the government would not provide the money. His action on the cavalry made enemies of French and Haig, who later colluded to sack Smith-Dorrien in 1915 when he wanted to retire to a more defensible area. They owed hm their lives after his courageous control of the battle of Mons and his fighting retreat with half the BEF had saved the other half from being overwhelmed by the Schlieffen Plan.

[@UmaticSota]

Good camerawork on this, not often the case on these sort of lectures.

[@mcfontaine]

Brilliant talk, can’t wait for the next one.

[@shanemedlin9400]

I'm constantly astonished at how unknown these uploads are. Only 26 comments! Oh, well, I guess people have more important facebooking to do.

[@davidmaslow399]

Thank You for this!

[@philipinchina]

Very good. Thank you for your service, colonel.

[@jaylysne211]

Great lecture!

[@tbmb9531]

Incredible lecture. Enjoyed every second

[@markwilliford5319]

Having been involved with a few wars, George Washington said it best, "In time of peace prepare for war" also, he left out the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas for Officers.

[@laurentdrozin812]

"Si vis pacem, para bellum." Washington, like most founders of the US did know his classics, and was wise to quote them.

[@charlesbaker7703]

He forgot to mention the other star of "...Liberty Valence," BGen (ret) James Stewart.

[@lawrencemyers8329]

Excellent presentation. I'm not knowledgeable enough about whether America should have gone to war in 1917, but the fact remains that we did and were terribly unprepared to do so. That in itself is lesson enough to remember what the Doughboys and Marines endured and accomplished.

[@kylemiller7840]

What a fantastic speaker! They don't get any better than this guy

[@oldguysdoingstuff6216]

I *think* he mixed up McDowell and McClellan when mentioning the Army of the Potomac. Maybe.

[@billolsen4360]

That's exactly right. I remember a lot about studying McClellan in depth, his abilities in training troops, promoting the right officers at the right time & place, creating esprit de corps among his troops and his timidy in battle. Kind of a half-general.

[@deepcosmiclove]

McDowell was commander of the Union Army @ 1st Bull Run in July 1861. The presented is correct.

[@lifeisgood12341]

"god has a special providice for drunks, small children and the USA" -Otto VonBismarck Best thing ive learned today

[@SSNewberry]

In the Civil War, the Union in 1861 was green but the Confederates were not. The Confederates were not veterans but they were not green. As a side note, Luddendorf is Pinky, who was the genius while the Brain was insane.

[@tobijug]

Who is this Foesh ? It is a French name, pronounced it as such. Foch. It rhymes with tosh,

[@nickhomyak6128]

In the America's Bribery and small military subject others; why would in 1917 we want to intervene in Europe or any place outside America; why in America itself one may ask?? Remember War to most is an adventure', and then a cause to die for..

[@billolsen4360]

?

[@darrelgustafson2507]

The war started in April 1917? Really?

[@mjinnh2112]

His pronunciation is frightening.

[@booradley6832]

The Americans trying to use the .30-06 chauchat that was not correctly calibrated to properly cycle made it much worse. .303 Lewis guns were on the docks of france, 20k of them and Pershing said no. He got men killed doing that. I know he didnt want to reveal the BAR but my god the Lewis gun was so big. And the logistics trains already existed by the european armies, all he had to do was replace 8mm lebel with .303 enfield. Pershing was a great and terrible commander at the same time.

[@southernmankeepinghishead1009]

Why does no speaker mention the 30th Division? The 30th and 24th Divisions were detached from the other US Army forces and sent to northern France and Belgium. These 2 Divisions saw hard battle conditions, worse that the rest of the US Army and fought off the German offensive in 1918. They never get the credit they are due! They broke the Hindenburg Line in bloody, mud of northern France and Belgium while taking huge casualties. I am the proud grandson of a private in the 30th Division. THE XXX DIVISION DID MORE AND AT GREAT COST AND SUFFERING than the other US Army Divisions! Please give the 30th and 22nd Divisions their due!

[@willboudreau1187]

The Spanish influenza hit the United States in 1918, not during the deployment as the speaker implies.

[@RAB6969]

it had been going around in milder forms in the USA since January of 1918. it made it’s rounds in europe through the spring and summer. it was a serious form, but not like the second wave that was observed in late Oct.-Nov. it was that second wave of the flu that caused the majority of the deaths, in USA and other places.

[@mcmxli-by1tj]

This was not our fight. We shoulda stayed home..

[@alganhar1]

Unlikely to have made any difference in any case. Germany pretty much had to take the Offensive in 1918 as the Home Front was busily collapsing, and the french and British had held the Spring Offensives before significant US troops had entered the Line. But then the plan was always for the AEF to enter its peak numbers in 1919 rather than 1918. Most people by that point were expecting the war to drag on until 1920. As it happened, the Spring Offensives tore the heart and soul out of the German Army. It suffered around a million casualties, about half of those fatalities (the British and French suffered around the same). Because of the German habit of concentrating its best troops in the Stosstruppen Divisions the majority of those casualties were suffered by their finest troops, troops they had gathered by stripping them out of their other divisions.... Would the British and French won in 1918 if the US had not been there? I doubt it, but they would have won by 1919. And being there gave Wilson leverage, NATO and the UN were born of the League of Nations, and though the League of Nations failed, the UN arguably, and certainly NATO have not... yet....

[@alganhar1]

Oh, and I am not denigrating the US here. I think US involvement in the Great War was vital to the world as we know it today because they learned absolutely critical lessons from it. They were also the recipients of incredible economic benefits because of it. The latter would have occured anyway, but the former? What did the US learn that was so important? How to take a traditionally small peace time army of around 100,000 men and expand it so much that your Officer Corps alone is two and a half times larger than your peace time army, and how to do that in less than 2 years. Have you any idea how difficult that is? It led to training issues of mind boggling magnitude, it made the degradation of the Soviet military leading up to 1941 look easy to deal with (that was caused by the same reason, massive expansion, not the purges). The US was able to do that in WWII because it learned HOW to do it in WWI, the US learned from the mistakes it made and ensured it never made them in 1941. It also led to the Two Oceans policy for the US Navy, and to the massive expansion of the US Navy in the Interwar years. Which meant the US Navy was in a position to fight in 1941 even AFTER the losses of Pearl Harbour. Not even the industrial might of the US could build Battleships and Carriers overnight. that inter war expansion, which was driven by the US experiences in WWI, was absolutely critical. And whether the Entante won with or without US help in 1918 or 1919 is not really relevant... as WWII was a certainty as soon as a certain Mr Hitler came to power.

[@jeffersonwright9275]

mcmxli1941 So you are okay with German submarines (or anyone else’s) sinking US ships on the high seas AND Germany promising Mexico support if they invaded southwestern America (Ca, Az, NM and Tx)?

[@CJ87317]

We definitely were justified in entering, if for nothing else since the Germans were dickering around in our country with the various sabotage and espionage rings.

[@cedim620]

I agree we should have let the Germans alone, sadly we are the muscle for the brits.