Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 20 - Meuse Argonne Offensive Ft. Angry Staff Officer

Episode Date: October 8, 2018

Joe is joined by Historian, writer, and host of the War Stories Cast Angry Staff Officer to talk about the 100th Anniversary of the Meuse Argonne Offensive and the development of the US Army from a stick wielding joke to a super power. Follow the show on Twitter @lions_by Follow Joe @jkass99 Follow Angry Staff Officer @pptsapper and check out the War Stories Cast here https://warstoriescast.com

Hey, everybody. This episode is brought to you by Lift Big Eat Big's new workout program, The Phalanx Method. Coach, powerlifter, strongman, and historian, Brandon Morrison, took a unique approach in his creation to this three-block, six-month-long effort. Using ancient sources and modern techniques, he was able to recreate the training of one of history's most destructive military forces, the phalanx. And it's not just the sales line either. This is only three days a week in the gym, and it's brutal. And it's not just the sales line either. This is only three days a week in the gym and it's brutal. I've competed in powerlifting, CrossFit, and spent way too much time doing brutal army PT. And this is the hardest thing I've ever done before. And you can do it at

a commercial gym or like me from your garage. He also includes little historical tidbits every week to keep you interested and to keep you hooked. If you want to challenge yourself or just try something new, go to www.liftbigeatbig.com and enter the promo code donkey to get 15% off the phalanx method. Are you ready to become a warrior of oak and bronze? Over there, over there, said the word, said the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. I am your host Joe and joining me today is Angry Staff Officer from clear across the country. He is a historian, military officer, and host of the War Stories cast, which is a podcast you should probably already be listening to. If you're not, you need to catch up on that.

How are you doing today? I am doing outstanding. And yes, if you are not drinking right now, correct yourself. That's my direction to the audience at this moment. You know, I made a substantial choice today, and that is I'm not drinking whiskey. I switched to gin for you. You did not. For me?

Yeah, I actually went out and got some from safeway and uh safeway safeway sells gin i don't want to know they have a whole liquor section um at least in washington they do oh that's highfalutin yeah uh like i know uh where i came from before you had to go like a specialty liquor store like you could buy beer and wine in a grocery store but you had to like go to the store right next door. Cause they're always in the same Plaza to get your booze. Yeah. I'm waiting.

Yeah. I'm waiting for like military special gin to hit the shell, like hit the mainstream. Once hipsters realize that, Hey, I can buy all of the gin that I will ever need in my life for $5. Uh, you know,

of course it tastes like rubbing alcohol, but it's military special that's why you know it's good yeah it's what the troops drink but at the same time i've also seen someone drink like pine salt so you know whatever look are you are you saying the troops aren't always right the troops are always right that's the first that's the first rule of the internet is the troops are always right how's troops with a Z at the end? With a little trademark above it, the troopies. Right.

So today is kind of special in that, well, we missed the 100th anniversary of the Muse-Argonne offensive by a couple of days. It was back on September 26th is when it began. But it is also, I mean, you're the actual historian here i'm just some guy who yells at the internet uh but that's what historians are too we just make all this stuff up you guys you guys call us historians and say that it's for real i mean i've just got some pieces of paper and i'm also yelling at the internet so yeah it turns out some dude back in the day was totally like yeah we we we did this but in reality they just like sat in camp and did nothing right everybody just sat everyone did what everyone in the army always does which is like

all right we're gonna move on this uh shoot it's all broken uh we're just gonna sit here and clean weapons for eight hours you know could you imagine history books like a hundred years from now when they're just like, and on this day, private so-and-so posts on Facebook. Oh geez. It's going to be terrible. And I'm glad I'll be awful.

You realize like the, the, there's gotta be some sort of a matrix of, um, historians, alcohol consumption with the progression of modern times, especially military historians, where you look at...

Do you remember back when... It was right after Pokemon Go came out, and they were doing that in Kurdistan, and they were Peshmerga fighters running around playing Pokemon Go and fighting ISIS at the same time. I. I'm so sad I didn't know that before. Oh, my God. It was like it was like, what reality are we even living in? I mean, you've got all sorts of insanity with that war of of, you know, people shit talking each other through social media.

Peter Singer's new new book, Like War, which I'm currently reading right now, is awesome. And it talks about it like talks about how social media has infiltrated onto the front lines of the battlefield to the point where like guys are literally found each other on facebook or whatever social media and then are shit talking each other or playing pokemon go um or you know advancing armor without infantry support which is just about as insane and or stupid as all the other things because you just watch all the toe videos from Syria and you're like, dude, you just put that T-72 in the middle of a field with no one around you. You just want to lose tanks. You know, and I feel like that's what's going to happen if there's ever a massive civil war in a country that, I mean, a huge generalization here, but in a place with a massive military complex ruled by a dictator, but no real military education.

We've got all this shit. Yeah. I mean, you see that a lot in like Saddam era Iraq, where they had a saying, it's like a good bath is better than a good soldier. So like you have people who are incredibly politically indoctrinated but have no idea what they're doing with their millions of dollars of equipment but it's cool because they have a uniform right and like with as much bling on it

as you can possibly fit like the more bling it means that's how qualified you are yeah that's pieces of pieces of flair it's like it's like your orb or erb it's like uh whoa he's got doodads everywhere he must be very good at this oh no he's not he doesn't know that tanks are supposed to be maneuvered and not static artillery pieces yeah and that's why i i so i contracted an artist to come up with our show's logo. And I said, I just want a stupid donkey and Idi Amin's uniform. That's literally what I told him. And he was like, OK, and it's what I got. And it's perfect.

It's like the dumbest uniform I could think of. He has awards down to his stomach. Well, Idi Amin is also known not only for his fantabulous awards, but also for his inspirational quotations. Have you have you seen that series of inspirational posters? That's just the quotes of dictators, but with an inspirational background. I haven't, but I've seen the opposite of that, where it was like pictures of Taylor Swift, Swift with Hitler quotes. I shouldn't have laughed so hard at them as I did. The corollary. Yeah. The corollary is, uh, yeah, it works. And, um, it's very weird when you send one of those to somebody

as a joke and they come back with, Oh, thank you so much. I really needed that today. And you're like, that was from EDM. That wasn't inspirational inspirational that's supposed to make you frightened i don't know maybe they were really maybe one of their things they had they just had to latch on to to get through their day was really keeping down the british empire right well you know as he says he's the he's the defeater he's defeated the british what's the quote he like uh it was his title his massive title yeah which but it's but it's it's it's like he leaves out of all the lands uh of all the lands the beast and then like the british empire in particular in particular but also ruler over the beasts of the field um and the birds of the air but not the fish of the sea. Because he's like, yeah, you know what, man?

Like, even I have limits. I can't control those motherfuckers. I don't know what they do. He knew that was clearly the domain of Aquaman. And to step over that was beyond the pale. That would just destroy his dictatorship. I mean, Uganda isn't known for their strong naval presence. Right. dictatorship i mean uganda isn't known for their strong naval presence right uh so i guess we should get on point or on topic eventually uh well you know like world war one we will eventually get

there through the most convoluted convoluted means possible in the most unlikely ways which is how world war one began with just like some guy getting shot and then Europe being like, you know what? Fuck it. We haven't had a good war for a while. Let's just go at it. And then, you know, three and a half years later, the U.S. is like, things are looking pretty bad over there.

You guys can't contain it. All right, fine. We're coming over. over there you guys can't contain it all right fine we're coming over um but you know the weird thing about world war one and i say this as a guy who spent the past few years reading pretty much only world war one stuff after a lifetime of never reading anything about world war one and just being like oh yeah that was some stupid boring war is for us, uh, in the army. And those of us who are veterans of the military, um, that war is more similar to what we do now than any other aspect of,

um, of anything that came prior to it. Like you couldn't take a Joee from today and throw him in 1863 at gettysburg or chancellor's bill or chancellor's bill or vicksburg and be like all right you know what to do they'd be like the fuck i do it is so hot why am i wearing all this shit what is this 10 pound rifle why why am i doing this you all are the worst i can't even post this on instagram right how how am i supposed to where i can't take a selfie with these cameras they take forever my hand in my jacket just to to look like george mcclellan who's the worst general of all he's not the general of all time but debate for another time. But I posit that you could take a soldier from modern day conflicts,

throw them in World War I, they'd be like, yep, this is recognizable. I've got machine guns, I've got mortars, I got mortar men to make derogatory comments about. There's lots of artillery, there's aircraft there's armor you know it's the birth of combined arms operation which like I said gets me

circuitously to the the Mir's Argonne offensive which is not many people know it it is america's uh largest and bloodiest battle to date i mean that that has not changed since 1918 mainly but there's like so there's something interesting to that um and i'm sure you'll get into it mean, was was the carnage involved in the battle? And we'll get more into the battle. More of a.

A symptom of the war in general or the fact that the United States is fighting with a war that not that long ago is training with wooden sticks. So the U.S. Army of 1917 looked way more like the army of the spanish-american war um and if you know anything about the spanish-american war like the i as a historian i get sucked into the really minute petty tiny details that everyone else is like my god why why are you still talking about that that's so stupid i'm guilty i'm like right but like you look at the spanish-american war which is you know 30 years past uh the civil war and which is itself weird like you've got veterans of the civil war like who are company grades who are now general officers in the spanish-american war and you'd be like oh these guys know what

they're doing um you'd be wrong i've never thought that that's really strange you had confederate you had former confederate officers as general officers in the spanish-american war oh i see something wrong with that oh i know it's profoundly disturbing it's so weird well it's just like so like a third or 20 years prior to the civil war you have the mexican war which is all these good buddies in this tiny u.s army fighting together down in mexico and they make friendships and you got um general grant and and uh general longstreet from the confederate side being buddies uh all these relationships formed in that tiny old army and then they end up fighting each other uh then the old guys die off. And then you've got the young guys from the Civil War, sort of, you know, the Confederates who came back to the US Army, now fighting together in Cuba and Puerto Rico. you'd think they'd do a pretty good job of it but oh my god it's terrible like someone should write

a comedy like a black comedy about the u.s army in the spanish-american war like nothing went the way that it was supposed to and even pretty much the only thing we hear about is like oh teddy roosevelt and his rough riders and don't forget about the main and then right history just kind of like don't look at the rest of it we're going to move on exactly yeah it's like we're going to focus on yeah yeah san juan hill kettle hill that's awesome don't look over into the corner where all the dead bodies from disease are because disease killed so many people that have caused the u.s army to leave cuba they're like all right we're gonna all right we won this we're gonna do army. They're like, all right, we're going to, all right, we won this.

We're going to do army of occupation. Oh shit. No, we're not. We're going to leave like 10 dudes in a mule here. Uh, and we're going to go take care of things in the Philippines. Those will be over in about five.

Oh damn it. 30 years later. Someone to promote that mule. Everybody else is dead. Yeah. It was so bad. Like whole, like,

um, I was reading a great article again, super, super nerdy rabbit hole that nobody would find as interesting, but it's like the mobilization process for getting the U.S. Army to Cuba. And army that like hasn't moved troops in significant numbers over any bodies of water for a really long time really ever at that point i mean i mean you've got some stuff like like to to mexico but you know it's not a lot um and you've got you've got some um some stuff during the civil war but really like if you're talking like massive like not even amphibious operations like landing under fire it's literally just how do we move 20 000 troops from point a to point b over the water and everyone goes uh have them line up and get in ships all right where are we going to find the ships

shit uh what are they going to eat um here's some old pork that is spoiling in the hot florida sun uh where are we going to mobilize them out of tampa first mistake right there i went to tampa once and i barely lived to survive so i wouldn't muster an army there yeah exactly it was so it was a disaster so that's the army that the u.s has um it's gotten a little better um by by 1917 because they've done this thing where they've uh they've applied funding uh that always helps uh having a sustainable budget that's good too um but it's still like 120 000 men uh which balloons to by the time of the Merz Argonne offensive in September 26th, uh, all of a sudden you've got like close to 3 million people in the U S army. And that's,

you know, regular army, uh, army national guard. And then this new thing called the national army, which is made up of all the people who, um, didn't want to go right away, uh, but then had to go cause they got a slip of paper, uh, from the draft. So, um, some of them are not as enthusiastic as, as you would have probably imagine if you're like, I'm just going to give this whole, uh, global war thing a miss. Oh shit. Good thing. They're only asking for volunteers. God damn it. oh shit good thing they're only asking for volunteers god damn it damn it i knew this was gonna happen um so yeah i mean it's it's stupendous like um and it's really cool because the army one of the beauties of that army is it's so new it's so uh open to change like they're so they'll they'll assume all kinds of risks just to like get stuff to happen so like for example they're the army's like the war department's like uh i

don't know how we clothe and equip two million men uh but sears does uh Uh, so like, no, I, I shit you not. They nationally, they didn't nationalize Sears, but they went to Sears leadership. We're like, we need this. If you, if you can provide it, we're going to commission you all like literally. Congratulations. You're now a Colonel, Mr. Mr. Mid-level CEO.

Uh, yeah, no, exactly. Like they, and that was CEO. Field Marshal Rolbach. Yeah, no, exactly. And that was actually that happened between both World Wars I and II is that the War Department gave commissions to civilian industry

employees or magnates or whatever who could provide the type of skill set that we just don't have in the army because we're you know we're we're made for war not necessarily supply chains well we were now we're apparently in every business but um but that you know that was one of the cool things that develops in in world war one is you get all these guys um That was one of the cool things that develops in World War I is you get all these guys in specific. It would be like now like nationalizing Amazon and making Jeff like and like commissioning commissioning everybody in Amazon, which is kind of a scary thought, actually. That might happen.

Or they'll just take over. Yeah. happen or they'll just take over yeah i mean we have moved to the point of getting rid of a lot of low-level logistics jobs or mos's and then giving them to contractors that we definitely have and in that aspect we're much more similar to uh the civil war um which is kind of alarming because the term shoddy, as in made cheaply, is crap, comes from contractors selling to the government during the Civil War. Oh, boy. Good thing that hasn't happened.

Right? Anybody who's ever deployed with KBR? Maybe I shouldn't throw names out there, but no, definitely KBR. KBR, DynCorp. I mostlyBR. KBR, DynCore. I mostly worked with KBR and DynCore. Yeah, I did some. Oh, what was the big one? Oh, crap. Anyway, it's an affiliate of them.

But yeah, that's kind of... I don't want to paint all contractors with a broad brush because i have known good contractors but i think it's a it's a danger that lies therein with uh yeah i agree i i i know plenty of people i worked with who are good people who end up becoming contractors there we go i like the way you put that yeah Yeah. I haven't seen them in years, but, um, you assume that they still have a moral compass and that, uh, you know,

a, I would hope so. Your salary per year hasn't destroyed it. I would hope so. Um, but also then there's things like, you know, they send contracts with the government and then,

uh, you know, a lot of those contracts are like, we'll supply X amount of people. And, you know, the idea is that people like, well, the former Blackwater and people like them would supply hundreds of these professionally trained, like former ranger types. And when in reality, there are a bunch of random dudes from third world countries getting paid 20 bucks a month and forced to live in Connexes. getting paid 20 20 bucks a month oh yeah and forced living connexes i loved i loved walking out um to the minefield behind our talk and be like oh who's clearing this oh shit it's some dude with the with like a face shield riot helmet and a leather like uh like those you know those

leather um smocks that you get when you go to get an x-ray yeah yeah that was totally protect against frag yeah and they're poking at the ground with sticks and shovels i'm like oh shit okay i'm going back behind the heskos now um yeah that was that was a that was a nice for like first or second day in afghanistan but um but you know that that um wow that was kind of happening at higher levels um down at the lower levels it was much more a um you know the army sustained itself and drove itself and which which in itself was incredible um some of the logistics feats um of the american expeditionary force in world war one are just absolutely stupendous, especially considering they did all this in a year and a half.

They put 2 million U.S. troops in Europe in 18 months. Yeah. I don't even know if we could do that. I don't think we could. I don't know. I mean, they had never done it before. It was just like, well, let's see what happens. We got to do this.

We got a war on. So so the U.S. Army really. So the first units get there in 1917 in the summer. And they're just they're very like they're a mixed motley force of some guys from first ID and some engineers and support units. And they're like, you know, they're paraded around like the Americans are here. And they're like, yeah they're paraded around like the americans are here and they're like yeah there's 10 of us um but uh but eventually by wasn't that pershing's big speech of uh lafayette we've returned or something like that yeah lafayette we are here which was delivered by one of his staff officers actually a major okay it wasn't even him yeah

exactly he gets credit for all of it though but um yeah lafayette we are here which you know um another random history rabbit trail but the french gave us independence like any idea that we could have ever won independence without french intervention is laughable um absolutely because they tied down the royal navy and uh and we were actually able to get supplies in our country and we're like oh what are these oh wow weapons that work phenomenal food this is nice and you know money ironically uh lafayette himself would going to be denounced during the revolution have to run for his life. So, yeah, yeah, it was just just just awesome. And then the the one of the saddest tragedies, I think, is, you know, the the after World

War One, the French were were so thankful for our intervention. I mean, in the French. Oh, you're in danger of starting me down like a rant right now, but I will. I will. I'm a european history major it's what i do but like we see everything everything the u.s that we see about world war one is british themed sure and i'm guilty of that myself same like i grew up an anglophile and i'm like oh gosh the british at the psalm oh they must have won the war the brave chaps um and then you look at the french numbers and oh, they must have won the war, the brave chaps.

And then you look at the French numbers and you're like, holy motherfucking shit. I didn't know that there were that many people around who carried rifles because they're all dead now. Yeah. Oh, my God. And it shadows a lot of, you know, interwar history. How could they possibly believe that the Maginot Line was a good idea? Why did they want such a punitive treaty with Germany? And if you

take off the rose-tinted glasses of it being 2018, I fucking get it. Oh, yeah. Definitely. And not only that, but they maintain all the jokes about, oh, the French Army sucks, the French Army's never been able to do anything. I'm like, you mean and and not only that but they maintain like all the jokes about oh the french army sucks the french army's never been able to do anything i'm like i mean they apart from when they were the

premier land power from like uh i don't know like 800 to 1939 uh like yeah you're right i guess they never really did much of anything other than have a really good army. Like, yeah, from a from a historical perspective, looking at the like the 18th century, like if you wanted good soldiers before a unified Germany. Yeah, you could go to Prussia, but they were like, you know, they're still reading their assholes and half of them are still reading philosophy. They're still reading. Yeah. They're assholes. And a half of them are all still reading philosophy. Like,

uh, they haven't decided if they're going to, you know, become statist militants or not. They haven't established a military dictatorship quite yet. Right. Yeah. They're,

they're on their way. Um, but you know, if you want soldiers, you go to France. If you want sailors, you go to England. Um,

if you want people who know how to drink, you know, you go to Spain or Holland and actually, no, if you want money, you know how to drink you know you go to spain or holland and actually no if you want money you go to holland but um there was a point oh yeah so after world war one uh france was so grateful for our assistance that they any any plot of land that had americans buried in it um was made into a cemetery and they gave that land to us. That is American soil. Same with the the wood of the Marine Brigade, Bella Wood or the whereas it should be called the Second Division Wood. But I don't know if I want to pick a fight with the Marines again today.

I'll join in the net all day um so but they gave that in in gratitude to the united states like gave their soil in comparison it wasn't until like 96 or 98 that is 1998 um that the u U S finally got around to figuring out the names of the 600 Frenchmen who had died outside Yorktown, uh, helping us win independence. And you're like, come on guys.

Like that's, that's cold. Like these guys were really appreciative of our help. And, uh, yeah, I mean, it would end up biting them in the ass but

yeah i completely agree so so um so yeah we we get there and we're like what's this war thing like uh you know we've we've we've done some wars and they're like yeah this is like a new type of war the british and french are like when the the Americans get there, they're like, alright, look, you're gonna wanna run out there in straight lines, but take it from us, we tried that. It doesn't work, unless you wanna get everybody killed.

So just listen, but the Americans, you know, being American, Pershing has this idea that he's gonna win this thing by getting out of these trenches that have kept people down inside them for too long and they're becoming risk averse they don't want to take

action they don't have audacity and they don't use rifles anymore they keep using pistols and knives and clubs in the trenches they need to use rifles like real Americans and he's going to take the war into the open. And you see...

Like every other military commander before him. Right. And I mean, as a model, he was using Grant's Overland Campaign from 1864. And you're like, dude, the only good thing about the Overland Campaign of 1864 is that Grant kept advancing. Not that he like fell back to DC every time he had a battle.

Literally nothing else is to be admired out of that. And it's ignoring so much. I mean, yeah, it's ignoring the entire rest of World War One that has already happened. Right, right.

So so what happens is so Pershing creates these massive divisions, 28,000 men per division. None of these guys who are commanding them have ever maneuvered 28,000 men or it's not going to be 28,000 because you've includes all your support and sustainment and everything. But you know what I mean? Um, like each, each infantry regiment is 3,800 men.

Um, and you've got four of them in a division and all of a sudden you're like whoa this is a lot of men and a lot of firepower because you've got a lot of firepower stocked up in those divisions with three three artillery regiments uh composed of 48 gun tubes each um like ready to lay down some massive hell um and how big is that in comparison to modern times to moderate well i mean it's hard to say because we've got the bct which is a plug-in play um and our division like divisions are just a headquarters element i mean back then this was organic to the division every division had four infantry regiments three artillery regiments an engineer regimen uh and then uh various supply train or um like uh you had uh ammunition train um you know you know i mean like all the all the i'm not gonna call them pogues

because technically as an engineer i am a pogue um but i also have a blue cord that i used to wear so yeah all the pogues uh but um it's it's way bigger than i mean we can flex a bct up now but it's it's way bigger um okay like we by world war ii we were like yeah no the square because it was called a square division because i had four uh based around four infantry regiments were like yeah square square is, yeah, we can't do that. We can't maneuver that many men. The span of control is just too big. And so we brought it down to a triangular division, which was right around between 15,000 and 18,000,

which is still a hell of a lot of people. It's still huge. Yeah, so the reason he did this, the British, French, and German did this, um, the British, French and German divisions were all around 14,000. Pershing designed these massive divisions to be able to take sustained losses and still continue offensive movement. So that kind of gives you an idea of what he was thinking. He's in the same mindset. I mean, going back a couple of years, well, still currently, I believe I haven't thinking. He's in the same mindset. I mean, going back a couple of years,

we'll still currently, I believe I haven't looked. He has the same ideas like Luigi Cadorna. Yeah. We just have to attack. It's all we have to do. All we have to do is attack. We just keep attacking and,

um, and we'll be good. So they do this. So the first, the first big American expeditionary force, um, engagement is in the summer of 1918. And this is where they've halted the allies and the U.S. because the U.S. hadn't entered into an alliance. They'd halted the big, massive spring and summer offenses of the Germans.

Dan Carlin in Hardcore History does a really awesome job about talking about like this size and scope of these offensives. His series, was it called the Blueprint to Apocalypse? Yeah. It is fucking outstanding. It's unreal. It's like you listen to it and you're like, oh my God, why do I do this podcast thing?

Yeah. I mean like that's why it's really hard to come up with topics like this because like well dan carlin's the matter mike duncan's done that right and they don't just do them they fucking kill them so right so so they've halted them and and they realize you know, as any good infantry guy knows, like, you know, you let the enemy advance. Enough to the point where they're worn down a little bit or worn down more, you know, you let them advance through a couple of lines, they break through, they're going to get tired, they're going to move further away from their lines of supply and communication. And this is essentially what the allies do. They allow them to overextend and then they counterattack. The big counterstroke comes in July of 18. And this is where you've got like multiple division, U.S. divisions now attacking. And the lessons learned that come out of the nmar defensive which is um you know july into uh july into august of of 18 is uh the american troops are very eager they're very

um they have high morale uh their physical fitness is excellent um Which is kind of funny because I found some of those old PT videos. It looks like a solid battalion is all working out together. And they're all in calisthenics. Yeah, they're all wearing their full uniforms and then doing toe touches in sequence. Right. Yeah, but by excellent physical fitness, I, they haven't been stuck on the Western Front for three years with malnutrition, rats and gas. Yes.

That certainly helps. It definitely does. So they, you know, and the French and British are like, we love you guys are great. You have to stop walking into the machine guns because like the butcher, the butcher's bill that comes out of this is unreal. Like it may all of a sudden the U S like you read the newspaper accounts and like, Oh, our boys are doing great. Our boys are doing great.

And they'll have like for like a hometown paper, like the first guy who's killed in action gets this massive spread. Um, and then like a few guys after that, yeah, they get blurbs too. And then by the summer offensives, it just like this laundry list of names.

It's actually, it's heartbreaking. Um, because all of a sudden they realize, Oh my God, like this is a, this is a bloodletting that's going on over there. Um,

and just in just a matter of a couple weeks yeah we really should have listened to our allies maybe right right we should definitely listen to her and it wasn't it wasn't all the division you know there's some divisions that that that managed to do combined arms properly but pershing the american doctrine was so much focused on speed and surprise rather than using artillery to knock the living hell out of your opponent as much as you could. And

it's not until Sanmiel so we learned very quickly. I mean, by September, we rolled into our own mini offensive to reduce the Sanmiel salient where we launched up to that time. It was our, our, our biggest battle.

And we do, we finally do it. We do combine arms. We've got infantry, armor, um, artillery and aviation all working together. Not great together. And this is a, they, they got huge numbers of the French Renault FTs than they, uh, for their tanks rather than the giant Mark fives. Yeah,

no, we didn't, we didn't really use any Mark fives. We got a patent patent when he went to the, um, when he established the tank school, um, he went around and test drove tanks and he said he really liked Renault FG

one seven. Um, he said it leaps up like a horse and and will roll over small trees and everything which you know it was a good light tank the American did well with it again you have to consider

communication within a tank it was terrible if they had none right it was literally kicking the driver in the head. I mean, to be fair, it hasn't changed that much. Right. The gunner slash tank commander

kicked the driver in the head depending on which way he wanted him to turn. So, you know, anytime there's a tanker who complains about comms now, just be like, hey, look, you used to be. We kicked him in the head. Now we just kick him in the head just for fun.

Yeah. I have a few old tank commanders who apparently were born in the wrong generation. Right, exactly. So that's something else, and it goes pretty well, especially because it was our own U.S.-led operation. We wrote the op board for it. We resourced it on.

Yeah, we used French equipment, but we used French equipment for literally everything except for our rifle on our sidearm. Everything else was French or British. So that's what happens when you don't have a defense industry for like ever. You suddenly have to arm a lot of men really fast. Yeah. But that'll never happen again. Hmm. I wonder what,

yeah, exactly. Yeah. This is why they keep the historians in the back room because we're just gloom and doomers. Yeah. We're just like, Oh yeah.

Right. You're like, Oh, you're doing that thing again? When did you hear how that worked out last time? No? Okay. This is why I don't get invited to parties or staff meetings anymore, which has mixed benefits. But anyway, Moors are Gone kicks off in one of the craziest,

it's like, all right, some biggest American battle ever, with like over 300,000 troops engaged. All of a sudden, in two weeks, and this is the deal that Pershing made with Marshal Foch, the

Allied Commander-in-Chief. Pershing's like, let me have my own offensive, and Foch is like, yeah, but we need you here for the actual real big one where we're going to win the war. And Pershing's like, I can do it. And Foch is like let me have my own offensive and Fosch is like yeah but we need you here for the actual real big one where we're going to win the war and Pershing is like I can do it and Fosch is like okay sure and so they

pivot from Sanmiel ending on September 14th to the Merzargan beginning September 26th so that's like two weeks to suddenly move hundreds of thousands of men

supplies ammunition into a sector at night in secret how that worked out it actually worked out really really really really really well um the germans knew that an attack was coming at some point they didn't know when but like to give you

an example of the like ah just like the freaking yankee ingenuity that these guys had so the 28th division was a national guard division from pennsylvania the keystone division still still are actually um so they had to set up in sort of the beginnings of the argon forest um the argon by the way is like um it's like that evil forest that like you always see in fairy tales. That's not a good sign. Yeah, that's where little German kids walk into and are never seen of again. And there are witches.

But also, that's no shit where a lot of those stories came from. So the Americans are begging for their own sector. And the French are like, you can have this part because it sucks. Because it's like this, it's nightmare land. Um, and also the Germans have been there for four years and they've entrenched the living shit out of it. It's like multiple lines of trenches built with concrete because the Germans

built in concrete because they intended to live. Um, the allies didn't because, they didn't want people to get too comfortable there. So, you know, the German trenches got to the point that they almost sound better than some of the fobs.

I was in Afghanistan. Did you ever go up to Mazar-e-Sharif? Uh, I did not. Okay. So best trip I ever took, cause I, you know, as a weenie staff officer, I, up to Mazar-e-Sharif to the German? I did not. Okay, so best trip I ever took, because as a weenie staff officer, I was doing

recons everywhere, and best trip I took was up to Mazar-e-Sharif because all the US fobs and cops are crap. They're dirty. They're nasty and filthy. They're laid out like an imbecile built them, which I'm a combat engineer. I'm an engineer, and yeahbecile built them which yep you know i'm a combat engineer i'm an engineer

and and yeah we built them probably but like you get out like we flew in and i like walk out onto onto mez and i'm like oh my god that's like a that's like a beautiful chapel over there built out of rock where did they get the rock well all these streets are paved there's like actual irrigation ditches but built out of concrete and then like i see all the i see all the park german uh armored fighting vehicles i'm like oh yeah germans were here definitely that makes sense it's kind of funny because my first tour in afghanistan uh which was not in my book uh i will i spent a lot of time with the french military and uh in kapisa yeah and uh fobs morales frazier and fob kuchbach and they are piles of shit like i i believe it was morales frazier who actually was missing a wall they uh oh my gosh

they had three sides hesco baskets and the fourth side was just a dirt berm oh my god uh marquis de valbonne the famous french engineer who really created engine like military engineering would be so sad by that and it was the alpine troops when i was there the uh the lads with the giant berets and yeah they're like oh yeah we were gonna fix it but the guys before us that they were gonna fix it so we'll just leave it for the guys after us because they did like four to six months long tours oh yeah i'm like come on man i'm here for the whole year right i was like us like the b huts the b huts that we were living in were built by aviation guys don't ever send aviation to build anything like oh this is uh i lean on this it will fall down awesome good deal makes me glad i didn't fly in helicopters often

ah well you know you can fly with them fine just don't like ask them to build wooden structures but yeah so the germans the germans uh like this is an area they had four lines of entrenchments all named after a witch out of um uh what is it it's the it's like the ring cycle by wagner because of course it is it's like yeah you've got like brunhilde and uh krim held uh you know i'm pretty sure i'm making them up at that point but uh you get the you get the picture um four lines of so like every trench is going to have a front line trench a supporting line so it's not just like one trench it's a network and it's a series and they're all pieced together with communication trenches and you're going to have layers of barbed wire and pillboxes and um you know all the good stuff that goes with the defense in depth right and this is what the americans have to attack into

so the 28th division yeah the artillerists of the 28th these good pa boys um they have orders to go set up battery positions on the inner edge of the Argonne. Problem is, you start felling trees. One, that's a lot of noise. Two, any German recon flight is going to be like, oh, obviously that's a battery position. So these guys are fucking geniuses.

They wire the tops of trees together along their gun lines they cut the base and then that way all they have to do is snap the wire all the trees fall down in a perfect pattern and you can immediately fire that is impressive like it's like how the hell did you think of that? And who was the guy who came up with that idea in a staff meeting? And everybody was like, yeah, that seems reasonable.

Right. Right. Probably, probably didn't even get an end of tour award. Give that guy an AAM. Yep. He'll be all right. Certificate of appreciation.

Why won't anyone realist? It's the hard copy. High five is all that. So, uh, so the, so they assemble, um, uh, anyone re-enlist? It's the hard copy high five is all that is. So they assemble 15 divisions, but really you've got nine attacking divisions for the US

and then on either side you've got French. And it's part of Foch's 100 days offensive to end the war. So I mean the Americans and the French are going to attack and then later on the British are going to have an offensive to end the war. So, I mean, the Americans and French are going to attack, and then later on, the British are going to have an offensive, and then the French are going to have an offensive as well. So it's really, they're slamming the German line at multiple points.

So September 26th, this thing starts off in the morning with an artillery bombardment that fires more munitions than were fired in the entirety of the U.S. Civil War. artillery bombardment that fires more munitions, uh, then were fired in the entirety of the U S civil war. It hasn't about what, three hours. It was four hours long for the main bombardment. Some areas,

some sectors had longer, uh, up to six or seven. Um, but that is like a, I can't even process that amount of of high explosive. Yeah, and that's living in that. The World War One era bombardments have always kind of blown my mind.

Like somebody did. Something where they made a recreation of a World War One artillery bombardment. And trying to get the drum fire effect. Yeah. And they're like, yeah, go ahead and put that on surround sound and listen to it the drum fire effect yeah and uh they're like yeah go ahead and put that on surround sound and listen to it for four days straight right right in the german the germans came up with the idea of drum fire which like like um most german terms is you know it's incredibly uh evocative like yeah like you you hear it and you're and you hear the word, you can immediately

imagine that effect. The effect is to try to destroy the morale and physical being of anybody in the area. But really a lot of it was morale, especially I wrote a piece a couple years back on the effects of World War I artillery and

being under constant shell fire it literally causes your skin to contract, of World War I artillery and being under constant shell fire, it literally causes your skin to contract, your eyes to begin to bulge out of your head. If you are caught in the open, the overpressure from the blast is going to get you as much as the high explosive or shell fragments are. So it's really just, you know, it's, it's a psychological terror and it is a physical terror because, uh, you know, there's nothing like,

um, nothing like shards of flying steel going right through you to make you reconsider your, your enlistment contract. Um, and actually during Samuel, the, the, uh, they did a thing where they actually paused the bombardment for five minutes to allow for sound ranging from the engineers. And in that time, Germans came out of their trenches to respond to the attack that they knew was coming. And then the Americans opened up again with high explosive and shrapnel. Shrapnel being, you know, that lovely like bunch of metal balls that flies overhead and then explodes and sends all the metal casings downward and it's just really really lovely and causes really horrific wounds um yeah i think it was uh ernst younger who said being trapped in a bombardment is like being tied to a wooden post and then every time a shell fires somebody swings a hammer at your head and you have to try to dodge it over and over and over again

right right yeah it's it's utterly wild um and so you know imagine that type and we're not just so you've got everything from the 75 millimeter um like field guns to the 155s uh the schneiders which are the uh like those were the us sort sort of heavy, medium field artillery. But then back further from the line, you've got the real railway guns. Um, you know, 14, 12,

12 inch, 14 inch, 16 inch guns. Like those are huge. They're enormous. They're, they're battleship guns or at the, actually at the time they're coast artillery guns that were sent over from

the coast defenses in the U.S. to France. But I mean, just like the massive punch that those things could throw, you know, just decimating a trench line. And so, you know, it's no surprise that on the morning of the 26th, you know, the U.S. goes over the top, nine divisions slamming up against the line. Things are going pretty good, the U.S. goes over the top nine divisions is slamming up against the line. Things are going pretty good. First of all, you know, they they everyone's making pretty good advances. And then there's the 79th and the 37th, the Buckeye division from my my old state of Ohio.

Boo. Yeah. Yeah. You're just sad because you couldn't get Toledo. That's definitely a topic I'm going to be covering at a later point. I mean, the question now is, why would anybody want Toledo? You know, at the time. I agree.

And as someone who's been to the Upper Peninsula, I get it. But still. So weird. It's the principle of the thing. Also, our governor was like 20. Right. No. So weird. It's the principle of the thing. Also, our governor was like 20. Right. So so these two divisions, they're they're assaulting the hill called Mont Falcone or the hill of the Falcon, which used to have a village on it. And then because it was World War One, that village got destroyed.

Just wiped from the face of the planet pretty much I was in France in July and like most of the area like a lot of the areas that were where the summer fighting was have been kind of rebuilt or pretty much all rebuilt then you get into like the Merzar gone

and they'll just be like you'll be driving along and we'll just be like a sign that says a village name and like in parentheses under it, like, you know, extinct or, you know,

whatever the right word is. Uh, and, and there's like, it's just ruins and they, yeah, they could have rebuilt them, but I mean,

a lot of it is they want to keep them as a perpetual memorial. And France has a tendency of doing that. They did that with a village that was wiped out by the SS in World War II. And then there's the Zone Rouge, which is completely contaminated with unexploded ordnance, but is also kind of a memorial with all the trenches still dug in and everything. And you will come across that. It is impossible to travel through Western France

without coming across traces of world war one i mean to the extent you have the little things which is you know every every single village is going to have a memorial with the names of the 1418 la grande guerre um and then you'll you'll just be walking along and we'll be like, um, a random us Memorial. And you're like, what the hell did that come from?

Um, we're like, Oh yeah, that's right. Wherever we go, we put up shit. Yeah. But,

um, so, so, you know, there's a more Falcon and had been largely destroyed. And so the Germans like took that hill, it's a decent sized hill too and built observation towers on there and fortified the everlasting crap out of it um and even though the americans are advancing behind a creeping barrage like literally like

every five minutes it would be time to shift forward 200 meters because it was timed with the advance of the infantry, which gives you an idea. These guys aren't running. They're walking. And that's still like terrifying. Like as you're walking, artillery is dropping right in front of you. Oh, yeah. No, like you can watch videos of U.S. troops advancing. You're like, run, you assholes.

Run. I've been near artillery and mortars when they went off. I cannot imagine just calmly walking as it's rained down 100 meters in front of you or whatever it was. Unbelievable. When you have

your expected losses from fratricide are like 10%. Jesus Christ. That was like a British calculation. And the Americans were like whoa like anything else we're going to do it bigger we're going to do it 20%

but yeah so they advanced behind the creeping barrage a wall of shells falling in front of you and you really better hope that those gunners know what they're doing and by and large you know i will say this about our our gun bunny friends their american artillery is really damn good and always has been um i don't know what it is one of those young officers was a future president harry truman he was in a delta battery of 129 field artillery

that's right good national guardsman that he was uh yeah yeah he was putting a lot of rounds down range that day um and they so they advanced behind this thing and everyone is doing pretty well um up and except like i said the 37th and 79th get hung up at mafalcon because literally um i was there and uh the pillboxes like german for rebar in these things they didn't use rebar they used railroad ties because fuck you and everyone around you that's why like these things are insane and and they've got tiny little firing port ports for the machine guns and that was typical of the entire murz argan line um and it's called the murz argan because i've got the murz river in um uh to the west near gone forest uh i'm sorry the mercer river on the east eastern side and the

argon forest on the uh the western side is sort of of the advance um and that's like their their right and left limits uh and so they're advancing up this this alleyway um of just guys who are dug in like this. And the German army is like in this area, it's like around 450,000 strong, um, uh, up against, you know,

much, you know, like you've got like three, you've got like, um, almost over a million, um, allied forces advancing against them,

but they keep moving. They're keep, they keep being able to move, uh, reinforcements back in every time that they're able to hold the allies up somewhere. They're able to pull a couple divisions from somewhere else and reinforce the lines. Of course, what this does is, you know, by the time when the British attack and when the French attack now that other part of the line is weaker. And so it really all goes to the benefit of the overall cause but what it

does is it means that these divisions after they crashed through their first forward points um they're confronted with yet another fresh division um and so Pershing's massive 28,000 man divisions

all of a sudden start getting used up like in a week. So that he, he planned for, well, what was his idea of an offensive where he just rapidly be able to replace his casualties like over a course of a day or two? Uh,

no, I mean you, the division was supposed to be able to advance for like two weeks. Oh yeah. So what happens is um these divisions are are getting slammed and um like over yeah like i said over the course of a week and they started having to be rotated out um the other thing i should say about those divisions that made the attack the majority of them were pretty new The veteran divisions had been the ones who were at Samiel.

There were a couple of veteran divisions in the groups that, and by veteran, I mean like they'd been there since the spring or winter. They'd survived a couple. Right, yeah, they'd survived a couple battles and they'd done some frontline trench defensive warfare duties. So, I mean, it's not like better, not like survive four years of conflict. And the whole rotating soldiers out is not a new idea. That had to be something else. He completely ignored

the Allies into telling him because the French had been doing that for years. So the French actually, they had been but they hadn't been doing it well. In 1917, French General Nivelle had been given the mission to retake the Chemin des Dames, which is a large ridgeline outside the city of Soissons in France, sort of northwestern France. Western France.

Um, very strategic position captured by the Germans, um, in, uh, I think it was 16, uh, or 16 or 15. Um,

and they dug in, you can stand up on that Ridgeland, like look down and you're like, Oh, I'm looking almost straight down. And the French were attacking up this and the Germans have basically the two 40 Bravo. Um, that's what the MGO eight was.

Right. Machine. I mean, it's very, very, very Bravo. Um, that's what the MGO eight was. Right. Machine. I mean, it's very, very, very similar. Um, and it's on.

So the, the French took insane casualties. The movie pads of glory was based around here. This is where you have whole divisions mutiny. Um, and okay. Yeah. That's where the,

it's like the French almost break with the unlikely hero being Field Marshal Patan. Right. You know, the guy who then becomes a Vichy collaborator in World War Two. Outright Nazi, effectively. Pretty much. Well, I mean, you can really look at he's he's one of those tortured characters of history where he's like, I watched my country die. I don't really feel like doing that again. I'll collaborate. Right. And I get it to an extent that like he's an interesting character of what are you willing to put up with to not go through with that again?

Right. Right. And exactly. And but but so he's the guy who has to come in and like repair this. And he does so he establishes new rotations of frontline units in and out of combat sectors implements a much more generous leave policy um uh you know it basically makes life a whole hell of a lot better for the average french soldier in the trenches um but uh so, uh, so the, in the Americans, um, we, we modeled our sectors very much off the French. Um, so we, even though we, like if a division

was on the front line, it would be like, um, you usually have two, um, or you usually have like, um, one battalion out of each of the four regiments forward and there'd be three three battalions in each regiment so you'd have one forward and one in support and then one in reserve so not everyone is always on the front line attacking um and that way you can kind of get a little bit of rest and a little bit of um you know time out of the fight um it didn't mean that like usually meant like you were attacking like every third day instead of every day and a little bit of time out of the fight. It didn't mean that, like, it usually meant, like, you were attacking, like, every third day

instead of every day. Take what you can get. Right. But these guys are getting used up in, like, a week. And a lot of them are National Army divisions, which is where you get the 77th coming in with the Lost Battalion, which the National Army Museum

did a whole tweet storm on that today, so I don't want to steal any of their thunder. coming in with the lost battalion, um, which the national army, uh, museum, um, did a whole tweet storm on that today. So I don't want to steal any of their thunder, but it's bizarre to me that like, um, most people, if they know anything about world war one, the U S and world war one,

they know the Marines of Belleau wood, they know the lost battalion and they know Sergeant York, Sergeant York. I get like the dude was a straight up badass crazy christian sharpshooter weird paradox some kind of christian terminator that uh we have yet to harness his strength once again right but like you know he's he's the the classic american paradox of of war i think like in a human person like i'm gonna kill in order for there to not be any more killing um yeah and then you've got

the marines at bella wood and i'm like all right first of all you have a second division at bella wood uh and without any artillery those marines are going to continue to be, um, well, basically shot down in the wheat fields like they were on the first few days of June when they attacked, um, until they finally took them a month to figure out that, oh, we need artillery to be able to advance in this thing. That's a whole other, whole other topic. Um, and then you've got the lost battalion which is like the story of officers who can't land now for shit yeah yeah well that's what i like it's funny they made a movie out of it and the whole beginning of the movie all they're doing was talking shit about i what's his name major whittlesey right yeah uh he's like well what do you know you're just some commissioned lawyer from new york and it turns out they were right he didn't know how to land exactly I mean he's

a tragic story in himself and I don't mean to tarnish his history but his legacy but yeah and that's the Lost Battalion story is it is one side of the world of the American experience

in World War I because it is essentially these are untrained men doing the best that they can with what they have thrown in way too quickly right and the idea of like people like lawyers and and people who worked in fashion uh getting commissioned isn't anything new exactly it's it's a an age-long tradition of just commissioning all the rich people who have power in whatever country is putting an army together. I mean, right. That's happened ever since they stopped giving people titles like Duke. Right, right.

Well, and, you know, the whole buying your commission. Right, right. The Brits cut straight to the chase. Like you got to get some extra pounds laying around. Cool. Welcome to the club, Lieutenant. Right. Like you got to get some extra pounds laying around.

Cool. Welcome to the club, Lieutenant. Right. But, uh, you see, it's also very fascinating to look at because there were some really good national army officers. Um, there were also some really, really good national guard officers. Um, but it's also really fascinating to see just like just a little bit of training does beforehand goes a long way in combat. Um, and so that's, so you, but again, like this, does beforehand goes a long way in combat. Oh, yeah.

And so that's so you. But again, like this is a new kind of war. So maps at the time, a map that Major Whittlesey would have had or any of his lieutenants would have been it would only show the enemy. Precisely for the reason you don't want a lieutenant wandering off with a map that shows all your friendly forces and then getting captured. I guess that makes sense. Yeah, so they're doing the essential elements of friendly information. Higher up you go, you'll start to see more of your friendly and enemy templated. Higher up you go, you'll start to see more of your friendly and enemy templated. But on these maps, it's not only showing you your terrain,

but it's also showing pretty much everything you need to do to call for artillery. It'd be divided into sectors. They're beginning to figure out that TRPs were a thing. So they're very, very critical. But map reading, as we all know, is a perishable skill. And you don't get that in just two weeks of training before you come overseas. So the veteran divisions were the ones who did well because they'd actually had a chance to be in France a little bit longer and just train um because the the stateside training wasn't really adequate

enough to get these guys into combat shape i mean there were replacements would come in to veteran divisions and be like sergeant how do i load my rifle and these guys are like are you fucking kidding me you know oh my god we're all gonna die um but to kind of you know counter that these kids with their college educated like they're these the class of harvard and yale they're all running out there eagerly uh leading them break the damn hindenburg line like if you're saying that you know a lot of people say oh well you know the German army uh in World War I was probably one of the best armies in the world and I would actually I would posit that the German army of World War I was far superior to the German army of World War II um not having Nazis around helps but um sure these these these kids they do they they bust open the

Hindenburg line and then start actually making space and like making room like pushing through and all of a sudden there's divisions advancing divisions getting swapped out veteran divisions going in and then they're punching in these big massive holes you know up measuring into the

miles and you know when you're measuring miles in World War One that's nuts that's months or years of fighting most of the time that's like you know, up measuring into the miles. And, you know, when you're measuring miles in world war one, that's nuts. That's months or years of fighting. Most of the time. That's like from here to the moon. Yeah. So,

and they're doing it where they're doing it with tanks. They're learning how to operate with tanks. Like, you know, why do I carry a cane as a, as a, as a infantry line officer? So I can slam on the side of this tank. And they're like, hey, shoot over there.

And they're doing combined arms operations. And there's a great moment during the Mersar gun where a German line is under fire from U.S. armor, machine gun fire, a 37-millimeter gun fire from the Renaults. And all of a sudden their trench gets strafed by aviation. And then before they know it, there's infantry coming around on their flanks and just rendering the position untenable.

And it's like, it's like the God of war, the God of combined arms operations leans out of the sky and says, see, I made this shit motherfuckers. And, and, and they learn. But it comes at a profoundly terrible cost.

You know, you've got, there were 120,000 US dead from World War I, half from disease, half from battle. And the majority of those battle losses come during the MERS are gone, precisely because it is a month and a half slugfest from September 26 all the way to November 11. And those are, they're brutal. I mean, the Germans, in most sectors,

the Germans are using as much gas as possible. By the last month of the war, pretty much everybody's on the front line position is spending most of their time in a gas mask. Oh, God, that's terrible. And I mean, this is also around the same time of the Spanish flu outbreak through the lines, correct? Right. So you have the Spanish flu hitting um which is actually hitting the u.s harder than it is the frontline troops but the frontline remember this is yeah france is beautiful but this is also northern france like all the guys who went over like i expected sunny france what is this bullshit um the it's Uh, everyone's getting either Spanish influenza or diphtheria because, you know, these fun

diseases are still around. And, um, and it's just, it's just miserable. The mud is back. Um, trying to fight in mud in a gas mask and, and attack in that rather than just like, you know, go out and fight for a couple hours, then go back to your, like go on a patrol for a couple hours, then go back to your dugout and like try to get warm and eat a rat for dinner. Um, like that's,

that's superior than continuing to attack over and over and over, uh, into, uh, you know, intense gunfire. But by, you know, by November 11th, youth, as we all know, they pushed the Germans to the point where they would be willing to accept an armistice. Which, again, that's a negotiated peace. It's not even a

what do the Germans call it? Peace with honor and the Allies called it peace without victory. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. And again again one of those like one of the things that i'll get really mad about on twitter around the time of veterans on veterans day on armistice day oh boy is that what's that i said oh boy uh it's it's like the great day of internet wide historical revisionism right yeah so i'm gonna get on there and i'm gonna be cursing out pershing for ordering attacks on the morning of from 9 30 a.m to 11 a.m

when they knew that that the armistice had been signed resulting in the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of more americans that didn't need to happen because pershing believed that he needed to show the germans that even though the war was over we were still willing to fight um and of course beyond absurd and so he got called in front of congress for it because it was it was the states actually who got really upset about it, especially a lot of the national guard units tended to wield some political power because,

you know, you've got congressmen and senators working for you. Right. And, but they, so it so amazingly got to the point where Congress, um, they had him before Congress.

Um, and I say amazingly because like, you know, as an American, a victorious American general, you kind of, kind of do whatever the hell you want. Um, yeah, but, uh, and so he, yeah, he got called in there and asked about that, but he, you know, nothing ever came of it. Um, which is an interesting facet. Speaking of Congress involved in war. So within like the first year, I mean, in 1862 of the Civil War, there was a congressional inquiry into the oversight of the war.

And the Spanish-American War took like five minutes and Congress was like whoa what are you guys doing and in World War I it was within six months Congress being like why doesn't anyone have any god damn machine guns why does our army not have machine guns and we're like working on it

trying to get some contracts you know there was there was uh there's an interesting little footnote of history where uh we didn't have any light machine guns we're like fuck it we'll have the french give us the show show and port it over to 308 and there it and it was terrible uh i'm going to disagree violently. Well, I'm not saying the Shosho in general is a bad gun. I'm saying because it gets a bad rap in history in general. It does get a bad rap. Because the first version they got with the.308 for the American rather than the 8mm Lebel.

8mm Lebel, yeah. It just didn't work. No, it was the same time anytime we try to rechamber weapons it's like oh wait this doesn't really work that well yeah and this is before like designers and computers and they're like well let's just switch these parts out and see what happens precision machinery yeah uh so world war ii you get the Truman Commission on the conduct of the war by 1942-43. I say all this because there's a really long trend of Congress being involved heavily anytime that we have a war. I'll just go ahead and let my silence indicate how I feel about as a historian.

All I can do is go, uh, have you guys like, you guys want to weigh in on the past 17 years? granted the the all the investigations into the the world wars obviously didn't do a whole lot otherwise everybody like so well why did you kill these thousand people for no reason well they it definitely well one thing it did is it a lot of it cut down on graft um within government spending um it did like like, the first investigations into world war one did spur the ward department to be like, yeah, no, you're right. We, we should have been working on machine gun designs, um, rather than like the latest, um, you know, army uniform design that we just came up with just now. Do you like this big giant hat? Uh, and, um, so it, it, it, and it continued continued to to generally be positive the truman commission was incredibly effective because harry truman was boss um in in maintaining good civilian control

over over the military oh yeah he definitely he and he showed that when he got effectively challenged by yeah macarthur in korea and he's like you're fired right it's like son yeah i know you were at samuel too but i don't care you should have became a civilian you were posing on the side of a hill with patton and each of you were looking down at your crowd each other's crotch and wondering which one was bigger i was providing actual fire support uh and yeah i got a lot of hate for dedicating almost half of an entire episode trash talking patten and i don't care i hate patten and i say that as a tank crewman right right so i don't i'm so mixed on him like i, I mean, it's acceptable. He's just so overblown.

Yeah. And it's acceptable to think somebody is a decent commander, but also just like the worst human being imaginable. And also just don't give him an army command. Like the guy was good with a division, but you give him an army and you're like, uh, dude,

what happened to all your supplies? That was, that was for a certain period of time you can't just blow them all at once like it's like crazy party with hookers and cocaine yeah and also what's this thing about you hitting your soldiers right your soldiers and oh look all these lovely anti-semitic comments you've made do you realize who we're fighting yeah right have you sent a letter to your cousin wife yet oh man yeah and i find macarthur more repugnant somehow because he he has the image of being sweet at least patten is like you know vulgar and dirty and macarthur's like

i'm this beautiful boy hero with my damn blue eyes. And you're like, motherfucker, you left those guys in the Philippines and then had the audacity to cold shoulder the GOs who actually had the courage to make some decisions about what to do with the garrison after the war, after you were sitting in Australia telling them to attack. And they're like, with what? We've just taken rats and stretched them out and like using their poop as machine guns and then like kind of trying to commit a soft coup during korea and bringing out like a full-on nuclear war right uh yeah so no truman truman, Truman's boss, like I said.

So back to World War One. Well, it the Mursar gone offensive was is understudied because there's a lot of small unit actions in there. George C. Marshall, who, you know, he's my replacement in the sort of, uh, pantheon of American generals for MacArthur and Patton. Um, and I don't say that just because my internet persona is a staff officer and he was a perpetual staff officer. Uh, I think, I just think he's the smartest guy who's ever worn the uniform, but he wrote, he oversaw, um, after world war one, when he was running the infantry school or he put together or oversaw the putting together of infantry in battle, which if you've never read it is a really great compilation of small unit tactics. Not just from the in World War I, not just from the U.S. perspective, but German, British and French. And it goes down to like the company and platoon level. German, British and French.

And it goes down to like the company and platoon level. And so you really get a good, solid background of, you know, really some of the some of the best armies in the world. Some of the best leaders and, you know, some of the not so best. And because, as we all know, you often learn more from the guys who don't do it well than the guys who do it really well. So is there anything else you have on the close of the American chapter of the Great War? Oh, man. If people are more interested, definitely read more on the topic. I would encourage everyone to because not only does it shape the modern U.S. military, it also shapes who we are as a country.

We really came of age during that war. And we came of age and then we had a Great Depression where no one wanted to think about coming of age. You don't want to think about your 16th birthday party when you're hungover at 22. And then we hit World War II. And that completely overshadowed everything, uh, in the past because it was just so monumental for the nation. Um, but we wouldn't have had the army of world war two without the experience of world war one. We would still

probably be stuck back somewhere, uh, in the Spanish American war War mode. We really created the true modernization of the Army. And also, it's just these cast of really amazing characters. So, if you want to read more on the topic, I'll go ahead and put the shameless plug out there for angrystaffofficer.com. Just plug away, man.

Plug your pluggables. It's one of the, uh, one of the like last 10 articles I wrote, I think was, a world war one reading list, um,

to kind of get people familiar with the U S and the war and dig a little bit deeper. Um, some great stuff from firsthand accounts to, uh, to have some nice dry history for those of us who, who enjoy such things. It's like a dry wine.

It just comes with age. I like that. I never heard it like that before. That's because the gin just introduced it to our lexicon. I'll accept that. Yeah. And then, yeah,

definitely, you know, more shameless plug. Check out the war stories podcast. If you want to hear more about Patton and MacArthur is standing on a hillside moment, uh, where they,

Oh God, there's such prima donnas. Uh, we get a season on armor, uh, and a season on marksman and then a whole, whole collection of a series we call loose rounds, which kind of,

uh, hits on like literally everything in between. We've done crazy, like we've delved into some weird stuff, like ships built out of ice and wood shavings. Oh, yeah. That was the Canadian one, right? Yeah, Piccrete, which the British were like, well, let's build an aircraft carrier out of it

because the British are all about any, literally any idea to win the war by World War II when they're the only ones hanging on. Like, yeah, whatever. We don't care how crazy it is. Let's try it. It's going to be better than what we've, anything we've done so far. Um, and then if, if people are at a U S uh, the AUSA conference this coming week, uh, we'll be doing, uh, Aiden Dobkin and I will be doing a live show of, uh, of war stories at a 1400 on Monday, October 8th. Uh, so come and check us out. And, uh, I can't promise that I will be as, um, ginned up as I normally am during episodes. So I'll, I'll, I'll be there. Where is the AUSA conference at?

Why do you have to ask me questions that I have to Google? I mean, like general vicinity in case I don't know where my fans are located, but I like to think I've at least one in every state. Washington, D.C. ish. OK, it's at the. Weirdly named like Washington you know what I can't even remember the name of it

when we find out I'll put it in the show notes but thank you so much for coming on because I remember probably a year ago if not more than that I was following you on Twitter because you're super entertaining and you're you make you make history super accessible and understanding for people. And that was before I was, you know, started my my road to becoming a sad, depressed grad student like I am now. Hey, we've all been there. It's OK.

And there's a support club. Yeah, it all it all comes with liquor uh so it's you know it i'm i'm glad i could get you on the show that's amazing um and if you i'm i'm the honor is mine this has been a lot of fun um and uh likewise, I very much enjoy following you on social media and, uh, I'm vastly impressed with your literary talents and abilities to be able to get, like, I, I first saw your book mentioned, I can't remember where, and I started reading it. I'm like, this is actually good. And I say, actually, because a lot of the stuff that comes out about you know with the stuff about Afghanistan

and Iraq has been a little bit not great it all kind of goes into two categories that is like scholarly or chest beating bullshit and yeah exactly it's like I'm gonna die on a pile of brass and you're like why couldn't you find any place better to die yeah i would like to say mine's the third option for the

normal mostly normal functioning reading public who doesn't like to read about epic bacon veterans right right and that's like that's also how i characterize my my blog because when i started out i was like all right you've got like you've got the scholarly people like you've got war on the rocks and strategy bridge and small war's journal and they're like putting immense serious thought into stuff and it's like you know it's heavy and then you've got like the other side and you look over and there be dragons it's just like everybody's like it's like my ar-15 is better than your ar-15 because i put 10 attachments on it versus eight yes like dude uh calm down did

you just come out with yet another military themed coffee awesome um and then i was like you know what there's gotta be a space in between that can talk about serious things, but not take itself seriously. And that was kind of where I opted to go into. And I think that's why we're kind of on the same wavelength. Yeah. And there needs to be someone who obviously I don't think I'm that person, but there needs to be some group of people who wants to bridge the civilian military divide and 100 percent and kind of teach people how what there's not two worlds.

There's simply one and one is made from the other. And all of our history affects each other. Yeah, we're just a microcosm of society. Like, that's all we are we have the same weirdos the same good people bad people just you know just wear a uniform and sometimes their actions can have a little bit more difference which is kind of terrifying sometimes but um yeah man it's like we are like anytime i get to go do a talk at a school or a college or like guest lecture. I'm like, we are you don't, don't be like,

Oh, you're, you're part of this elite. I'm like, no, I am you. I will. I have from you.

I came in unto you. I shall return. Like that's kind of the way it goes. It's really strange being venerated because I grew up as ghetto Detroit trash. And like, I still almost the same person. So, well, and I, and it's, it's a, it's a sign of, uh, the, uh, you know, the loyalty that the, the military can, can bring is that I can respect you being from Michigan, having been born

in the great state of Ohio. So, uh, you know, it, it, it crosses all cultures and boundaries, but we're still looking at each other with suspicion over Toledo. Oh yeah, no, I will totally never let that go to my dying day. So, uh, you know, again, thanks for coming on. You're always welcome back. If you ever can escape your real duties every day, being a officer in the army, you can follow me on all the Twitter stuff at Jcast99 or the show at Lions underscore by. So thank you, everybody. Thank you, staffer, for dropping in. And I'll let you go back to your dinner and gin.

Thanks, man. It's been a pleasure. I really appreciate it. Yeah. Anytime. Hi, this is Nate Bethea and I'm the producer of the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. This show is brought to you by Audible. And as it just so happens, Audible is offering our listeners a free audio book with a 30 day trial membership. Just go to audibletrial.com forward slash donkeys and browse the selection of audio programs. Download a title for free and start listening. Once again, that's www.audibletrial.com forward slash donkeys to get started.