MacArthur pointed out that the title of chief of a divisional staff called for a full colonel’s rank, while he was only a major and thus ineligible, to which Baker further flabbergasted MacArthur by announcing, “You are now a colonel. I will sign your commission immediately.” And when Baker asked MacArthur if he wanted his commission in the Corps of Engineers the answer was “No, the Infantry,” thus positioning himself for faster opportunities of promotion to higher rank, which are always accorded to the infantry in time of war.
When Baker asked MacArthur how they could give “maximum effect” to President Wilson’s decision to send the National Guard to war, MacArthur suggested that they call up units from as many states as possible, “so that a division would stretch over the whole country like a rainbow,” and thus was born the famous “Rainbow Division” of World Wars I and II fame—all in all 27,114 U.S. citizen soldiers.
With good reason MacArthur was well pleased with “the excellent caliber of both officers and men.” Most members of the regular army tended to look down on the National Guard and reservists as inferior troops, undertrained and underdisciplined, but as MacArthur noted in his memoirs with no idle boast that from the ranks of the 42nd Rainbow Division “came many of the great names that enrich the tablets of military fame.” He noted the “splendid relationship” between the officers and enlisted men and the “comradeship” between the men themselves. The 42nd Division, he said, “soon took on a color, a dash, a unique flavor that is the essence of that elusive and deathless thing called soldiering.” In other words, they set out to prove they were just as good as regular army soldiers.
As chief of staff, MacArthur had wide latitude in selecting the senior officers of the division, often choosing men he had known at West Point. From France, Pershing telegraphed that, in observing British and French officers at the front, it was imperative that “only officers in full mental and physical vigor should be sent here.” As for the enlisted men, he said, “Long experience with conditions in France confirms my opinion [that it is] highly important that infantry soldiers should be excellent shots.”
On October 19, 1917, escorted by two destroyers and the cruiser Seattle, leading elements of the 42nd Division sailed from New York in half a dozen troop transports. MacArthur, aboard the USS Covington—formerly a German ocean liner seized at the beginning of the war—set the scene for what he called an “unnerving experience.” Life belts were worn at all times. The ship was dark at night with no smoking in the open. All lifeboats were let down to deck level and all rafts unlashed and placed along the rail. The six-inch guns were constantly holding target practice with periscope-like targets that were towed. After ten days at sea they neared the coast of France and entered the high-danger zone for enemy U-boats. The ship began zigzagging in the freezing air and ice-cold sea and a report came in that enemy submarines were “moving in for the kill.”8
Nothing came of it.* After several more days they spotted the lights of Belle Isle and the mouth of the Loire where they docked in “a misty, drizzling rain” at Saint-Nazaire and the infantry shipped out in the little “40 and 8” French boxcars. To his consternation, MacArthur found that all the careful attention he had paid to supplies was for naught. Most of the machine guns, uniforms, blankets, hats, rolling kitchens, munitions, food, and other vital items—including some fifty thousand pairs of marching shoes—had been confiscated by Pershing’s headquarters “to make up for deficiencies in other divisions.” Worse, almost, all but two of MacArthur’s thirty-three meticulously hand-picked staff officers were “ordered away” by the General Staff.9
Worse still, he learned upon arrival that plans were in the making to dismember the Rainbow Division, breaking it up as replacements for a new corps that was just then forming. As it turned out, though, Pershing’s chief of staff was an old friend of MacArthur’s from the Manila days. He went to see this worthy and invited him to visit the 42nd and see for himself “whether such a splendid unit should be relegated to a replacement status.” He did come, he saw, and he changed his mind, thus saving the 42nd for its future glory. The incident, however, also reared in MacArthur’s suspicious mind a twinge of paranoia as he wrote long afterward that it “created resentment against me among certain members of Pershing’s staff.”10
AT THE BEGINNING OF SEPTEMBER 1917, the Americans were still not yet in the fighting; the leading elements of the First Division were just as yet landing in France and would have to undergo extensive training before going to the front. Patton naturally found himself bored with garrison duty and chaffed to get into the action, but the closest he came was being named temporary town provost marshal, and even that was dull by comparison with war. “Yesterday,” he wrote Beatrice, “I had to arrest a man for carrying a woman down the street in an inverted position. She was very angry when we arrested the man and [he] said he was only playing.”11
To Beatrice, he gave an account of himself on September 17, 1917: “I ride from 8 to 9. I inspect barracks & kitchens from 9 to 10. Attend to various jobs in my capacity as adjutant from 10 to 12:30. Eat lunch from 12:30 to 1:30. Do a thousand and one things from 1:30 to seven. Read the 3 Musketeers [in French] from 8:30 to 10:30 and so to bed. I take a bath every morning.”
Meantime, lists of promotions were coming over the wire every day. Many of Patton’s classmates had been promoted to major, especially, he noticed, in the artillery. “There is a lot of talk about ‘Tanks’ here now,” he wrote Beatrice, “and I am interested because I can see no future to my present job.”†
ONE OF GEORGE MARSHALL’S initial staff assignments was to move the First Division from Saint-Nazaire to Gondrecourt, about fifty kilometers south of Saint-Mihiel. This was to be his first encounter with the notorious French battle trains, with their 40 hommes–8 chevaux boxcars that created great excitement among the Americans when it was pointed out that hommes were men and chevaux were horses, and the soldiers began looking to and fro for the herds of horses they were to ride with. In the coming months these trains would become as familiar to U.S. forces as they were to their allies, designed to move divisions around the battlefields, one regiment at a time—about fifty cars, half flat cars for equipment, the other half boxcars for men, with a couple of second-class passenger cars for officers at the end of the train and perhaps a first-class car for the commander. As operations officer for his division, Marshall organized all this while begging his superiors for a combat assignment. He was too valuable a staff officer, he was told, to be sent into the danger zones.
He came close in early October, however, when word came back in the dead of night that the first Americans had been killed. Marshall was sent to investigate the matter and just after sunup found himself at the scene of the action, staring down at the three dead men in a trench. One had been shot, another’s throat had been slashed, and the third had his head bashed in by a rifle butt. The men belonged to the 16th Infantry Regiment, which had been among the first U.S. combat outfits to arrive in France with the First Division.
In order to “accustom” the American units to the rigors of trench warfare, U.S. divisions had been paired off with French infantry divisions and placed in what was known to be a “quiet sector” of the front.
It did not remain a quiet sector for long. When the Germans got wind of Americans in the front lines they immediately organized a trench raid in the middle of the night. Standing atop the trench, Marshall could see where things had gone wrong. An enormous gap had been blown in the Americans’ barbed wire, clearly marked with white tape that led from the German lines to the Allied positions. Twelve American soldiers had been taken prisoner and an equal number seriously wounded.
Following a brief but vicious artillery bombardment the Germans—about fifty of them—rushed across no-man’s-land and exploded a Bangalore torpedo‡ in the wire, then leapt down into the American trench. The U.S. soldiers—most of them—had been sheltering from the barrage in bunkers built into the trenches, and here was where they were shot or captured.
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A French general was on hand to question the lightly wounded, and Marshall was appalled that his questions seemed to imply that American cowardice was responsible for the incident. As the division’s acting chief of staff, Marshall interceded and demanded to know why an order from the French command had forbidden the Americans from sending patrols beyond the wire. He further threatened to bring the matter to General Pershing himself, which caused the Frenchman to go stiff, but Marshall persisted. (In fact, the French and the German and Austrian units on the other side of this particular stretch of no-man’s-land had adopted a kind of live-and-let-live attitude toward one another, and the French didn’t want to spoil it with any American patrols stirring up trouble.)
The idea that Marshall was about to bring the matter to the attention of the American commander in chief became an anxious issue within the higher ranks of the French army, and several lower-ranked French officers begged Marshall to let the matter rest. He refused, however, on grounds that Americans had been killed, wounded, and taken prisoner, which might have been prevented with vigorous patrolling, and that was all there was to it.12
The following day, perhaps by way of apology, the French high command staged a magnificent funeral to honor the fallen Americans, featuring a battalion of French infantry, a troop of cavalry, and miscellaneous troops “representing every unit in the French corps.” Presiding over this was the French general with whom Marshall had quarreled, Major General Paul E. Bordeaux. He gave an eloquent benediction over the fallen soldiers that he concluded by saying: “The mortal remains of these young men [will] be left here, be left to us forever. We will inscribe on their tombs ‘Here lie the first soldiers of the famous United States Republic to fall on the soil of France for justice and liberty.’ The passer-by will stop and uncover his head. The travelers of France, of the Allied countries, of America, the men of heart, who will come to visit our battlefield of Lorraine, will go out of the way to come here, to bring to their graves the tribute of their respect, and of their gratefulness. Corporal Gresham, Private Enright, and Private Hay, In the name of France I thank you. God receive your souls. Farewell!”§,13
The French command continued to plead with Marshall to resist taking up the no-patrol issue with Pershing. American intervention was a godsend for the French, who felt in danger of losing the war. That an order issued by them might have caused the first deaths of American servicemen was nearly too embarrassing to contemplate.
Marshall understood, and even felt bad, but nevertheless he took up the matter with Pershing, who quickly had the antipatrolling order reversed. It was pure Marshall—no matter the pressure he knew the right thing to do and did it. However, it also showed Marshall’s tendency to stand up to superior officers when he felt he was right, a practice that, in the army, is known to be dangerous.
A few weeks earlier, Marshall had been on hand to witness a harsh chewing out by Pershing of the First Division’s commanding officer, Major General William L. Sibert. The incident occurred during a training session at which Pershing charged that the division showed little evidence of training, comprehending tactics, or following directives. Making matters worse, in Marshall’s estimation, was that Pershing “was severe with Gen. Sibert in front of all the officers.” As Pershing “dismissed the chief-of-staff with an expression of contempt and turned to leave,” Marshall stepped forward and put his hand on the general’s arm, and told him, “There’s something to be said here and I think I should say it because I’ve been here the longest.”14
“What do you have to say?” Pershing demanded. Everyone from Sibert on down was horrified that Marshall had the nerve and ill manners to actually touch the commanding general. Marshall, his temper on the edge of control, responded with “a torrent of facts,” not the least of which concerned a lack of supplies, help, and guidance from Pershing’s own headquarters. Pershing listened and then walked away, saying, “You must appreciate the troubles we have.” Marshall further horrified the staff by retorting, “Yes, General, but we have them every day and we have to solve them before night.”15
Certain that Marshall would be fired before the day was out, the others—including most of all Sibert—offered their appreciation and gave their sympathies. Marshall responded by saying, “All I can see is that I might get field duty instead of staff duty, and that certainly would be a great success.”16
In fact, there was no retribution; instead, whenever Pershing visited the First Division he immediately sought out Marshall and took him aside for private talks. “It was one of his great strengths that he could listen to things,” Marshall wrote later.17
PATTON HAD LONG SINCE GIVEN UP HOPE of getting Beatrice to France but had come up with a new scheme to bring her to England. The plan was that she would officially be a buyer for a fancy Boston furnishings establishment, which would give her a plausible justification to travel to London on an American visa. Meantime, he wrote her, “The English made a big attack yesterday that seems to have been successful but one can’t tell for four or five days as the Germans don’t hold well but make terrible counter attacks.”ǁ He added: “The Germans shoot a gas which makes people vomit and when they take off their masks to spit they shoot the deadly gas at them. It’s a smart idea is it not?”18
But it was still the inaction and tedium of staff duty that had gotten under Patton’s skin. He told Beatrice, “I am damned sick of my job … I would trade jobs with almost anyone for any thing.” Shortly afterward he told his diary: “Col. Eltinge asked me if I wanted to be a Tank officer. I said yes.” Though it was then in the formative stages, the American Expeditionary Forces was making arrangements with the French to supply and train American forces with as many as six hundred tanks, but as yet no formal unit had been organized.
On the advice of Eltinge, Patton wrote a letter to Pershing describing his desire to become a tank officer and explaining why he thought he was qualified. He put forth the novel theory that tanks—especially light tanks such as the French were producing—performed like cavalry “in normal wars,” and that he was a cavalry officer who had commanded a machine-gun troop.
“I have run Gas Engines since 1917 and have used and repaired Gas Automobiles since 1905,” Patton wrote. “I speak and read better French than 95% of American officers … I have been to school in France and always got along well with frenchmen. I believe that I am the only American that has ever made an attack in a motor vehicle,” he asserted, referring to the killing of General Cárdenas during the punitive expedition in Mexico. “The request is not made because I dislike my present duty or am desirous of evading it,” he lied, “but because I believe that when we get ‘Tanks’ I would be able to do good service in them.”
Meanwhile, he continued bemoaning his loneliness to Beatrice, writing her of a dance he attended that was given by American nurses in the local army hospital. “I have never seen such a lot of horrors in my life … and they dance like tons of brick. I don’t think I shall go again. It is too much work with people out of one’s class who are not dressed up.”
“I certainly don’t see any stars in prospect for me,” he wrote his wife, “but one can always try. Some times I think I don’t try as hard as I ought, but probably I do,” he said. “I would give a lot to have you console me and tell me I amounted to a lot, even when I know I don’t.” He was thirty-two years old.
Then two things happened in quick succession. On October 20 Pershing telegraphed the War Department recommending that Patton be promoted to a major of infantry, and on November 10 orders were cut sending him to visit select French tank installations, “for the purpose of studying and familiarizing [himself] with tanks.”
Patton wrote his father, “Here is the golden dream. 1st I will run the [U.S. tank] school. 2. Then they will organize a battalion. I will command it. 3. Then if I make good and the [tanks] do, and the war lasts, I will get the 1st regiment. 4. With the same ‘if’ they will make a brigade and I will get the star [of a brigadier general].”19
NEC
ESSITY BEING THE MOTHER OF INVENTION, the idea for the “tank” was conjured in late 1914 by a lieutenant colonel in the British army who one day observed a small caterpillar tractor in France. He thought if tractors could be armored, they would make formidable weapons on the battlefield where human flesh was utterly vulnerable. The enticing thing was that if a tank could be built large enough, it could cut the barbed wire, cross over the tops of the maze of enemy trenches, and get in the rear where it could do the most damage, with infantry following close behind. That had been the overarching tactical challenge for the past three years—how to break through the enemy’s line on a large scale.
Churchill, then still in charge of the Admiralty, liked the idea of a “land ship” and supported it, which led to the development in England in 1916 of the first thirty-ton Mark I “heavy” tank, which had a top speed of three miles per hour. To deceive the Germans when they were shipped to France, the machines were carried on rail and ship’s manifests as “water tanks,” which they somewhat resembled, and the name stuck.
The British foolishly used them in the last days of the Battle of the Somme in 1916, employing forty-nine of the contraptions desperately seeking a breakthrough at Flers, even as the battle was winding down after more than two months of slaughter. There were not nearly enough tanks to make a difference, their tactics had not been developed, and many had to be abandoned and were captured by the Germans. The Germans had been surprised, but in the end not intimidated—and worse, they were now alerted to this formidable new weapon. Though no one understood it yet, the tank would change the entire concept of battle in the future.