Doughboys On The Great War

How does a democratic government conscript citizens, turn them into soldiers who can fight effectively against a highly trained enemy, and then somehow reward these troops for their service? In Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America, Jennifer D. Keene argues that the doughboy experience in 1917–18 forged the U.S. Army of the twentieth century and ultimately led to the most sweeping piece of social-welfare legislation in the nation's history—the G.I. Bill. Keene shows how citizen-soldiers established standards of discipline that the army in a sense had to adopt. Even after these troops had returned to civilian life, lessons learned by the army during its first experience with a mass conscripted force continued to influence the military as an institution. The experience of going into uniform and fighting abroad politicized citizen-soldiers, Keene finally argues, in ways she asks us to ponder. She finds that the country and the conscripts—in their view—entered into a certain social compact, one that assured veterans that the federal government owed conscripted soldiers of the twentieth century debts far in excess of the pensions the Grand Army of the Republic had claimed in the late nineteenth century.

“It is impossible to reproduce the state of mind of the men who waged war in 1917 and 1918,” Edward Coffman wrote in The War to End All Wars. In Doughboys on the Great War the voices of thousands of servicemen say otherwise. The majority of soldiers from the American Expeditionary Forces returned from Europe in 1919. Where many were simply asked for basic data, veterans from four states—Utah, Minnesota, Connecticut, and Virginia—were given questionnaires soliciting additional information and “remarks.” Drawing on these questionnaires, completed while memories were still fresh, this book presents a chorus of soldiers’ voices speaking directly of the expectations, motivations, and experiences as infantrymen on the Western Front in World War I. What was it like to kill or maim German soldiers? To see friends killed or maimed by the enemy? To return home after experiencing such violence? Again and again, soldiers wrestle with questions like these, putting into words what only they can tell. They also reflect on why they volunteered, why they fought, what their training was, and how ill-prepared they were for what they found overseas. They describe how they interacted with the civilian populations in England and France, how they saw the rewards and frustrations of occupation duty when they desperately wanted to go home, and—perhaps most significantly—what it all added up to in the end. Together their responses create a vivid and nuanced group portrait of the soldiers who fought with the American Expeditionary Forces on the battlefields of Aisne-Marne, Argonne Forest, Belleau Wood, Chateau-Thierry, the Marne, Metz, Meuse-Argonne, St. Mihiel, Sedan, and Verdun during the First World War. The picture that emerges is often at odds with the popular notion of the disillusioned doughboy. Though hardened and harrowed by combat, the veteran heard here is for the most part proud of his service, service undertaken for duty, honor, and country. In short, a hundred years later, the doughboy once more speaks in his own true voice.

“Before the Greatest Generation, there was the Forgotten Generation of World War I . . . wonderfully engaging” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). “Richard Rubin has done something that will never be possible for anyone to do again. His interviews with the last American World War I veterans—who have all since died—bring to vivid life a cataclysm that changed our world forever but that remains curiously forgotten here.” —Adam Hochschild, author of To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914–1918 In 2003, eighty-five years after the end of World War I, Richard Rubin set out to see if he could still find and talk to someone who had actually served in the American Expeditionary Forces during that colossal conflict. Ultimately he found dozens, aged 101 to 113, from Cape Cod to Carson City, who shared with him at the last possible moment their stories of America’s Great War. Nineteenth-century men and women living in the twenty-first century, they were self-reliant, humble, and stoic, never complaining, but still marveling at the immensity of the war they helped win, and the complexity of the world they helped create. Though America has largely forgotten their war, you will never forget them, or their stories. A decade in the making, The Last of the Doughboys is the most sweeping look at America’s First World War in a generation, a glorious reminder of the tremendously important role America played in the “war to end all wars,” as well as a moving meditation on character, grace, aging, and memory. “An outstanding and fascinating book. By tracking down the last surviving veterans of the First World War and interviewing them with sympathy and skill, Richard Rubin has produced a first-rate work of reporting.” —Ian Frazier, author of Travels in Siberia “I cannot remember a book about that huge and terrible war that I have enjoyed reading more in many years.” —Michael Korda, The Daily Beast

This multilayered history of World War I's doughboys captures the experiences of American soldiers as they trained for war, voyaged to France, and faced the harsh reality of combat on the Western Front in 1917-18. Hallas uses the words of the troops themselves to describe the first days in the muddy trenches, the bloody battles for Belleau Wood, the violent clash on the Marne, the seemingly unending morass of the Argonne, and more, revealing what the doughboys saw, what they did, how they felt, and how the Great War affected them.

An engaging and informative narrative drawn from the first-hand accounts of American soldiers who served in France during World War I.

More than three million American men, many of them volunteers, joined the A.E.F. in the first 20 months of US involvement in the First World War. Of these, over 50,000 were killed on European soil. These were the Doughboys, the young men recruited from the cities and farms of the United Sates, who travelled across the Atlantic to aid the allies in the trenches and on the battlefields. Without their courage and determination, the outcome of the war would have been very different.

Covering the daily lives of American soldiers from their training through their arrival in France and participation in the final battles of the war, this book offers a breadth of perspectives on the experiences of doughboys in the First World War via primary documents of the time. Due to the mechanical typewriter and the Linotype machine, printed materials during the World War I era were produced quickly and widely distributed. In a time without media other than those on paper, printed materials like newspapers, magazines, books, letters, and army orders were critical for communication. This book examines the range of documents written during World War I or within a few years of the end of the conflict to reveal the experiences of the doughboys who participated in "the war to end all wars." Through documents such as military communications, newspaper accounts, personal letters, divisional histories written soon after the end of hostilities, and other sources, readers get detailed glimpses into the doughboy experience during World War I. The book covers subject matter throughout their time as soldiers, including training in the United States and in France, early participation in conflicts, daily life in the American Expeditionary Force, the major battles for American troops, and what returning home was like for those lucky ones. The assembled narrative of the war experience from many different voices and individuals creates a resource that enables a better understanding the attitudes and perspectives from 1918 through the very early 1920s. Readers will also gain an appreciation of the many changes in American culture that were to follow immediately after the war's conclusion and contribute to the decade of the Roaring Twenties.

From Ammo to Zig-Zag, many of the words we use today were invented in World War 1. They provide a unique insight into the experience of the war, and the inventiveness and humour of ordinary soldiers.