John J. Pershing: America's general in World War I

When the United States entered World War I in 1917 it had a small army, few supplies, almost no aircraft and no experience of industrial-scale European war. John J. Pershing built the force that helped tip the balance, and he fought the Allies almost as hard as the Germans to make sure it went into battle as America's own army. Stern, rigid and private, he won the respect of his men, if not their affection, and his career was marked by a personal tragedy few commanders have had to carry into war.²

From Laclede to the frontier

Pershing was born on 13 September 1860 in Laclede, Missouri. He graduated from West Point in 1886 and was commissioned into the 6th Cavalry, then campaigning against Geronimo and the Chiricahua Apache in the Southwest. In 1890 he served in the campaign against the Ghost Dance movement and the Sioux in Dakota, although his unit took no part in the massacre at Wounded Knee. In 1891 he became an instructor in military science at the University of Nebraska, where he also earned a law degree, and in 1897 he went back to West Point to teach tactics.³

Black Jack

His nickname came from his service with a Black regiment, the 10th Cavalry, the Buffalo Soldiers, early in his career. Over the years "Black Jack" came to stand for his stern bearing and rigid discipline. He kept his ties to the 10th: it rode with him into Mexico in 1916.⁴

Cuba, the Philippines and Japan

The Spanish-American War opened the way to rapid promotion. Pershing served in Cuba through the Santiago campaign in 1898, and in November 1899 he went to the Philippines as adjutant general of the department of Mindanao, where he campaigned against the Moros until 1903 and worked with them on local government. In Washington he met Helen Frances Warren, a Wellesley graduate and daughter of Senator Francis E. Warren of Wyoming; they married with President Theodore Roosevelt in attendance, just before Pershing left for Tokyo as military attaché. He spent months as an observer with the Japanese army in Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese War.⁵

In 1906 Roosevelt promoted him straight from captain to brigadier general, passing over 862 more senior officers. Pershing returned to the Philippines as commander of the department of Mindanao and governor of Moro Province until 1913, the year he led the Mount Bagsak campaign against Moro holdouts.⁶

Fire at the Presidio

In January 1914 Pershing took command of the 8th Infantry Brigade at the Presidio of San Francisco, but trouble on the Mexican border soon sent the brigade to Fort Bliss, Texas. His wife and four children stayed behind in the family's two-story Victorian house at the Presidio. On 27 August 1915 hot coals spilled from the hearth onto the waxed floor and the house was quickly consumed. Frances and their three daughters, aged eight, seven and three, died in the fire. Only their five-year-old son, Warren, survived, carried out by Pershing's long-time orderly. Visiting the ruins, Pershing could only say, "They had no chance." After the funeral he went back to Texas and buried himself in his work.⁷

After Pancho Villa

In March 1916 the Mexican revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa raided Columbus, New Mexico, killing soldiers and civilians. President Woodrow Wilson ordered a punitive expedition, and Pershing organized 10,000 men for it, among them his old 10th Cavalry. He led columns deep into Mexico. Villa was never caught, but the expedition ended in an understanding with the Mexican president, Venustiano Carranza, to keep raiders like Villa out of the United States, and it gave the army valuable field experience. In 1917, after the death of Major General Frederick Funston, Pershing succeeded him in command on the border.⁸

An American army

After the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, Wilson chose Pershing to command the troops being sent to Europe. He landed in France with his staff on 13 June 1917, and in July submitted a General Organization Report calling for an army of one million men by 1918 and three million by 1919. Earlier American plans had imagined nothing of the kind; the Allies had asked mainly for money, supplies and ships.⁹

Britain and France, bled white after three years of war, wanted American soldiers fed in small units into their own depleted formations. Pershing refused this "amalgamation." He demanded separate camps for his men and training by American officers and sergeants, and he opposed sending troops to secondary fronts. An independent American army, he argued, would hit German morale harder and lift American self-confidence for good, and he saw anything less as a sacrifice of national prestige.¹⁰ › The Greatest American Commanders

The crisis of 1918

His stand looked dangerous in the spring of 1918. Reinforced by divisions freed by the armistice with Russia, the German armies attacked to break the Allies before the Americans could arrive in strength, advancing 40 miles in the Second Battle of the Somme and taking some 70,000 prisoners. When the offensives of March to June threatened Paris, Pershing put all his resources at the disposal of the Allied commander, Marshal Ferdinand Foch.¹¹

American divisions went into the line to stop the German drive on the Marne. Throughout June 1918 they fought the bloody Battle of Belleau Wood, and in mid-July they were tested again at Château-Thierry. These victories helped end the last great German offensive of the war. When the Allies went over to the attack that summer, Pershing went back to his old policy.¹² › Battle of Belleau Wood, 1918

Saint-Mihiel

On 12 September 1918 Pershing finally led the US First Army into battle under its own command. Its target was the Saint-Mihiel salient, a bulge in the old Verdun line 25 miles long and 15 miles deep, held by the Germans since 1914. In a plan drawn up by a rising staff officer, George C. Marshall, two American "super" corps attacked with French support, while Billy Mitchell's air armada of more than 1,000 aircraft bombed the German positions and George Patton led his tanks from the front. The Germans were already pulling back, and the attack went so easily that Pershing ordered his commanders to speed up. By 13 September the Americans had met the Allied troops advancing from the west, and by 16 September the salient was cleared. American losses were about 7,000; the Germans lost at least 17,500, including 10,000 prisoners.¹³

The battle convinced the British and French that the Americans could fight on their own, and that independence would later give the United States a voice in the armistice and the peace.¹⁴

The Meuse-Argonne

Pershing then had to swing his army about 40 miles northwest to the Meuse-Argonne, moving some 600,000 Americans and 220,000 French and Italian troops by night in about two weeks, again under the careful supervision of Colonel George C. Marshall. Before them lay four German fortified lines about 15 miles deep, between the unfordable Meuse and the high, dense Argonne Forest. At 5.30 a.m. on 26 September, after a three-hour bombardment, nine American divisions attacked, supported by 2,700 guns, 189 tanks and 821 aircraft.¹⁵

It was the hardest fight the young army had known. Only three of the nine assault divisions had real combat experience, fog and rain bogged down tanks and guns, and the Germans rushed in reserves until they had 27 divisions in the sector. Pershing paused, rotated in veteran divisions, and attacked again on 4 and 14 October. By mid-October he realized he was trying to do too much himself, both as theater commander and as field commander of three corps and 14 divisions, and delegated more of the battle to his corps commanders. By 4 November the Americans stood on the heights above the Meuse, and the fighting ended with the armistice at 11 a.m. on 11 November 1918.¹⁶ › The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, 1918

In 47 days almost 1.25 million American soldiers took part in the campaign, the greatest battle the US Army had ever fought. American casualties exceeded 117,000. The First Army drove 43 German divisions back about 30 miles, inflicted over 120,000 casualties and captured 468 guns. Pershing was criticized for operational and logistical errors, but his creation of the AEF was a remarkable achievement.¹⁷

General of the Armies

Pershing came home in 1919 a national hero, and on 1 September 1919 he received the rank of General of the Armies of the United States, a rank never held before. It sits above the five-star General of the Army of World War II. George Washington received it posthumously in 1976, and the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act authorized it for Ulysses S. Grant, making him the third.¹⁸ › Ulysses S. Grant

Pershing stayed out of politics. He served as Army Chief of Staff from 1921, reorganizing the army, modernizing training, stressing physical fitness and founding professional schools for officers, and retired on 13 September 1924 by the Army's own record (the National Park Service gives 12 September) after 42 years of service. As chairman of the American Battle Monuments Commission he oversaw the memorials to the Americans who died in France. In 1931 he published his memoirs, My Experiences in the World War. In World War II he advised his old officers George Marshall and George Patton. He died on 15 July 1948 and was buried under a simple headstone in Arlington National Cemetery, among the men he had led.¹⁹

See the Marines' stand at Belleau Wood, the young officers he shaped, George Patton and Douglas MacArthur, the World War I, or what happened on 26 September, the day the Meuse-Argonne began.