Alternatives to Pershing as AEF Commander

Assume Black Jack is unavailable. Who else would you have as AEF commander & what would the long term effects be? Bonus to anyone who has information on the short list for this command, & infor on the senior US Army line up of 1917.
 
Last edited:

Driftless

Donor
If Wilson isn't elected in 1912 or re-elected in 1916, wouldn't Leonard Wood have been the presumptive guy - at least with Funston's passing?
 
Leonard Wood maybe? He had as much experience as any other US general. Wrong politics though, I believe.
Good point! Woodrow Wilson was notorious for being one sided when it came to Republicans being given important positions. There was no love lost between Teddy Roosevelt and himself and Leonard Wood was a personal friend of Roosevelt's. (Rough Riders in 1898). He refused to give Teddy a command during the Great War and he refused to bring any Republicans with him to the Paris Peace Conference, and then expected them to just ratify the Versailles Treaty. (Though he did name Hebert Hoover to run the Food Administration.). I think his Former Confederate roots, being raised in secessionist Virginia during the Civil War, worked against him when it came to his politics. I find it ironic he elevated Black Jack Pershing, considering Pershing's admiration for Black troops whom he commanded both before and during the Spanish-American War. Wilson a known racist, did not resemble modern Democrats what so ever.
 
Frederick Funston

Assuming he didn't die of a heart attack just beforehand he'd be perfect with his recent experience of the National Guard mobilisation on the Mexican border. Pershing could then be a corps commander and step up to army command when enough units are in Europe.
 

Driftless

Donor
One of the common knocks against Pershing was the continuing of massed frontal assaults, even though they were not effective. Would Funston(assuming he lives longer), Wood, or ??? have run the show differently?
 
Last edited:
Its a spurious criticism. There were no open flanks, to attack. But more important is the army that formed the AEF had not existed a year earlier. 90% of the officers and NCO had been civilians in April 1917. Those in the state militia had not been any better off & there was no Army Reserve as we know it. six or ten months was not time enough to learn sophisticated tactics, even the Germans had trouble making the Stosstruppen units and infiltration tactics work correctly. The AEF did what it could. In the Mont Blanc attack the corps commander could have gone for the high ground as per the text book. Instead he avoided the strongest defense in front of it and made the main attack to the flanks, technically a frontal attack, but the flank attacks forced the defenders off Mont Blanc without focusing on the main defense.
 
Top