On Oct. 3, 1917, Gen. John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces in France during World War I, visited the First Division to see training in trench warfare. Acting Chief of Staff Capt. George Marshall arranged for Maj. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., to demonstrate a new method for attacking the enemy in their trenches. Pershing […]
She wrote the book on code breaking for the U.S. Army, and taught the first cryptography classes to soldiers in WWI. In three months, she decrypted two years of backlogged Coast Guard messages, using only a pencil and paper. She was the only woman employed by the Coast Guard at the time. She served as […]
After the United States declared war on the Central Powers April 6, 1917, the first U.S. troops arrived in France at the end of June 1917. Gen. Pershing, American Expeditionary Forces commander, refused to allow American soldiers to be used to fill in shorthanded Allied units, and the French and British were leery of the […]
Recently we looked into whether George C. Marshall made any statements regarding the 1918 influenza pandemic. Marshall does note divisions being out of commission here due to illness, but does not offer many opinions or feelings on the matter. What most affected Marshall was in 1917, before his journey overseas. While mobilizing troops, General Bell was […]
George Marshall never led troops into battle, and this fact disappointed him. In World War I, though he asked to be assigned to combat troops, he was pulled from 1st Division to General Headquarters after planning the pivotal attack at Cantigny. His superiors felt that his talent for planning and logistics was more valuable on […]
The 100th anniversary of the end of World War I takes place on November 11th. This blog contains three passages regarding the Armistice. The first is an anecdote from Marshall’s book Memoirs of My Services in the World War, 1917-1918, in which Marshall describes an incident in the officers’ mess hall when speculating on the […]
One of the most iconic “doughboy” photos to come out of World War I depicts a group of American soldiers resting in a church in the French village of Vaux. It was November 5, 1918, a week before the Armistice, and the men were heading toward Sedan. In the image, Howard Brock plays the organ […]
At 5 a.m. on the morning of November 11, 1918, the Armistice, which ceased hostilities during World War I as a prelude to peace negotiations, was signed. In the trenches on the often quoted ‘eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month’ was Private Homer E. Simpson, a soldier from Covington, Virginia, who […]
Welcome to the first of what will be a regular series of blogs from the GCMF. These blogs will pertain to General Marshall, his life, times and legacy and the vitally important role of the foundation in ensuring that those considerations find expression both today and tomorrow. Here at the Marshall Foundation we are preparing […]