The Doughboys: America and the First World War

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Summary: The Doughboys: America and the First World War
Review: An impressive historical debut that gazes behind time's curtain at the startling, pivotal experiences of the American fighting men of WWI. Financial Times journalist Mead swings for the fences in his self-proclaimed attempt to rescue the experience of the two million men who served in France and Russia in 1917-18 from an odd ahistorical perspective that undeniably awards more veneration to tales of more recent, resonant wars. It's an extremely dense work, scrupulously researched, with efforts made to capture a vanished pre-1920s American idiom, which engrosses the reader despite some awkwardness of scale. Mead asserts that "without the Doughboys the Allies (Britain and France) would not have defeated the Central Powers"; yet he also explores the conflicts between the officers and aims of the American Expeditionary Force and those of their European allies, citing "tremendous antipathy" that resulted in privations for American soldiers, while their contributions were overlooked. Mead uses original sources, including doughboy journals, letters, and memoirs, which eloquently convey the unschooled early-century elegance of simple men hurled unsuspectingly into the abyss; although he evinces great respect for these men, a more acid tone creeps in when addressing the pompous founts of war fever among politicians, hack journalists, and munitions-makers holding Allied debts. Much narrative is devoted to crisp, hair-raising depictions of what awaited the American conscripts on the Western Front, seemingly with scrupulous attention to true military chronology. Yet Mead also evokes the major personalities behind the war, like General Pershing and his often irritating Allied counterparts, as well as the frosty, idealistic President Wilson. The author balances an essentially military history with perceptive portrayals of the war at home, examining the strangulation of civil liberties and the mob vengeance directed at naturalized Germans and war resisters; he also devotes sober discussion to the cruel lot of African-American doughboys, who found themselves excluded from the "freedom" they fought for, and whose valor was falsely impugned. A fine account of the Great War that deserves consideration alongside recent, more acclaimed studies.

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Summary: Excellent book
Review: Dramatic, well documented and for someone living in France, chilling that the allies could be so harmful to one another.

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Summary: Not Really the Story of the Doughboys
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Not Really the Story of the Doughboys
Review: 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.

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Summary: The story of the more than three million soldiers
Review: 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.

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Summary: An Introduction to the US ground-role in the Great War
Review: 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.

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Summary: Detailed, delayed praise, disappointing
Review: 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!

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Summary: Very good book on a very overlooked subject!
Review: 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.

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Summary: Masterfully Done...Unlikely Perspective
Review: 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.