To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918

by Edward G. Lengel

Book Overview

The authoritative, dramatic, and previously untold story of the bloodiest battle in American history: the epic fight for the Meuse-Argonne in World War I On September 26, 1918, more than one million American soldiers prepared to assault the German-held Meuse-Argonne region of France. Their commander, General John J. Pershing, believed in the superiority of American "guts" over barbed wire, machine guns, massed artillery, and poison gas. In thirty-six...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805079319
• ISBN13: 9780805079319
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
• Length: 491 Pages
• Weight: 1.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 7.0" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Excellent first hand synthesis of American involvement in WWI

This is a well written and extensively researched account of American involvement in WWI from the perspective of the soldiers that fought in the conflict. First hand accounts of soldiers from enlisted men to officers are well integrated which allows the reader to experience the conflict from the perspective of the soldiers that participated in the conflict. Throughout the book, one gets the sense of what the war was really like. The book contains detailed descriptions of the different battles Americans participated in, how the battles were fought, how American troops interacted with their allies and also contains a section on how soldiers coped after the war. This account is highly recommended.

History Worth Reading and Criticisms Worth Listening To

While stories around the Meuse Argonne are very well covered, like the Lost Battalion or Sgt. York, the battle itself just hasn't been covered in detail before. Edward Lengel has written the history of the battle that places the stories that are more well known within the larger context in which they took place. Prof. Lengel wrote a very fascinating book that gives you the information you need to understand what took place in the battle. At the same time, he covers in detail many of the people and their stories which gives you and understanding of what men had to do to survive and even thrive in one of America's worst battles. I really enjoyed the way he wove the characters into the larger picture so that you could have personal contact at the same time as he described the strategy (what there was of it) and tactics (when they were applied) of the battle itself. He spares no words of praise for the men, and some women, involved in America's greatest effort in the Great War. He also spares few words of condemnation for the lack of skill and imagination in the general officer corps. It all comes together for an enjoyable and informative read.

The Great War for all Americans

I bought this book as a gift for a friend. His grandfather was an infantryman in the AEF and as we were going through the proverbial old shoebox we came across a World War I Victory Medal with a battle clasp that read Meuse-Argonne. Though something of an amateur military historian I know the battles of World War I only as a list of names. Just as I was trying to find out about the Meuse-Argonne this book was published, so I decided to get one for myself too. It is extremely readable and the opening chapters establish a context for the battle to follow. Short personal biographies familiarize us with the people involved. Some, like Patton, are familiar to us from a later war. Some, like Hunter Liggett, unfortunately forgotten. But this is really a story about the Doughboys and in that respect is equal to Stephen Ambrose's "Citizen Soldiers" and Rick Atkinson's "An Army at Dawn". Though the battle descriptions tend to be similar, this is more due to units being thrown over and over into frontal assaults against entrenched German defenses than any literary failure on the author's part. Hindsight is 20-20 and it is easy for us to be horrified by the carnage, but Lengel reminds us that not only did inexperienced American Doughboys confront a veteran enemy, but due to a failed supply system, they often did it hungry, sick and without sleep. Too often the military history of America has been a tale of a terrible price in blood paid until the lessons of survival and triumph could be learned. In this the boys of 1918 stand on equal terms with their brothers of 1775 and 1861, and as in those other eras, they learned and they triumphed. As I read of Pershing's Phase 3 Offensive I was reminded of Joseph Balkoski's "Omaha Beach" and "Utah Beach". As the Doughboys of the 1st Division's 16th Infantry, the 29th Division's 116th and the 82nd Infantry Division assaulted the hills and ridges of the Meuse-Argonne I thought how 26 years later these same units (with the 82nd now morphed in the 82nd Airborne Division), filled with the G.I. sons of these very Doughboys, assaulted the beaches and hedgerows of Normandy. The fathers were certainly no less courageous than the sons and now, finally, their story is well-told.

Generally quite good

I haven't read much about World War I over the years. For one thing, maneuver was in short supply in the war, and as a result nothing much happened in many of the battles, beyond a large number of deaths. For another, the American Army didn't participate until the last year of the conflict. I'm not opposed to reading stuff about other armies (notably Napoleon and the Eastern Front in World War II) but for some reason that has reduced my interest. And finally, trench warfare was incredibly depressing, and I have found it wearing to read books about it. This current entry is a very good book about the battle of the Meuse-Argonne, the one truly American battle during the war. General Pershing argued with everyone who would listen on both sides of the Atlantic that Americans should lead America's armies, and that they should fight as one army rather than being parceled out among our allies. The result was a horrific battle where the Americans learned all of the lessons that their Allies learned three and a half years earlier, like not attacking German machineguns frontally, how to work around the flanks of enemy positions. Casualties abounded while American generals ignored what was going on, avoiding the front and fighting the war from dugouts far from the fighting. The book recounts the course of the battle intelligently, following the action in considerable detail. The fighting is covered at a divisional, brigade, regimental, and even occasionally battalion level. Individual actions, such as Sgt. York's winning of the Medal of Honor, are covered at some length. Many of the individuals involved, from people everyone knows, like Douglas Macarthur and George Patton, all the way around to Hunter Liggett and Bullard, are covered, and each gets a capsule biography that places them in their proper context. This is a really well-written book, intelligent and an interesting account of the only real American battle of the First World War. I would recommend this book to almost anyone interested in the War.

Very Critical of Pershing

Lengel seems to be very critical of Pershing and of what Brian Linn describes in his recent book of the "warrior," type of ideology in the American army, while Lengel praises Liggett who seems to be a "manager," according to Linn. Pershing ignored the advice of his European allies, who argued for a set piece attack or bit and hold strategy that favored a combined arms approach with infantry and artillery working together, instead the AEF relied upon the infantry and its "warrior" type spirit to overcome the German defenses. Because of this flawed doctrine the American infantry lost massive amounts of men in the closing months of 1918, but American commanders still led their men into useless offensives hoping that somehow the Germans would collaspse. This soon changed during the last two weeks of the war when Liggett took over and implemented European tactics in the AEF, and as a result the German defenses crumbled. The only weakness of this book is that Lengel ignores recent work by Mark Grotelueshen and Peter Owen which suggests that commanders at the lower level ignored Pershings doctrine of open warfare and practiced European type tactics. Nevertheless Lengel reminds us that the "warrior," spirit that Ralph Peters and Robert Kaplan praise is out of date in the era of modern warfare.