Was the U.S. Army Really the "Decisive" Force in World War I?

In his 2001 book The Myth of the Great War: A New Military History of World War I, the American Professor John Mosier, who teaches English at Loyola University in New Orleans, makes the claim that the American Expeditionary Forces [AEF] were fully responsible for the Allied victory in 1918. He begins by saying: “I had always assumed that our participation in the war was roughly equivalent to Canada’s, which is to say, honorable and significant, but not determining. Over the four years of the war, 624,964 Canadians enlisted, 422,405 were in the field, and there were 56,625 war dead—this last close to the battlefield deaths suffered by the AEF. Canada’s record in the Great War was one of distinction, but, given the fact that Great Britain alone put nearly five and a half million men into the field, it could hardly be said that Canada’s role was decisive. But America’s role in the war was absolutely decisive. The string of German battlefield successes stopped abruptly on the entry into the line of the newly formed American divisions, the course of the war changed drastically, and members of the Oberste Heeresleitung, the General Staff of the German Army (the OHL), recommended that Germany seek terms. When [President] Wilson hinted to the Allies that he would seek his own peace unless his famous Fourteen Points were adopted, they caved in. The Great War was won on the ground by American soldiers deployed as an American force…” (pp. 6-7)

It goes almost without saying that the Germans had the greatest respect for the Canadian Corps. Dancocks reports that “A German officer who was later captured ‘declared that when his men knew that the Canadians were in front of them they would not fight, and he shot five of them pour encourager les autres.” (p. 95). Another captured German officer described Canadian soldiers as “magnificent” in battle. (p. 137) However, as I am not a chauvinist, I would also like to offer the eminent British historian Sir John Keegan’s assessment that the New Zealanders were the best troops: “Out of a male population of half a million, New Zealand could provide 50,000 trained soldiers aged under twenty-five. Australia furnished proportionate numbers. Fewer of the Australians were countrymen than the New Zealanders, whose settler independence and skills with rifle and spade would win them a reputation as the best soldiers in the world during the twentieth century, but Australian dash and individualism, combined with an intense spirit of comradeship, were to create units of formidable offensive power, as the Germans would later acknowledge and the Turks were soon to discover.” (p. 261)

So, the New Zealanders had better soldiers, at least in Keegan’s well-informed view, and the much smaller Canadian Corps and Australian Corps did far better in combat than the AEF during the final months of the war. This just proves that quality does matter, and there’s more to winning a war than just having the biggest army. I am talking about rigorous selection and training standards, unit cohesion, discipline, courage, and loyalty, and contrary to what the militarists say, the United States did not have a monopoly in these important areas during World War I, or World War II for that matter. The only reason I mention this is because many Americans have a regrettable tendency to undervalue the work of the Allies, like New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. This is in no small way related to the concept of American Exceptionalism, and the resulting false belief that the US is a “superhero” in war. Let’s hope that this tendency will eventually fall into decline and be replaced by a more enlightened and humble perspective on America’s actual military standing in the world.

Roger Thompson is a Fellow of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces & Society, a Research Fellow at Dalhousie University’s Centre for the Study of Security and Development, the author of "Lessons Not Learned: The U.S. Navy’s Status Quo Culture," and a former researcher at Canada’s National Defence Headquarters.

John Mosier. The Myth of the Great War: A New Military History of World War I. HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Daniel G. Dancocks. Spearhead to Victory: Canada and the Great War. Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers, 1987.

John Keegan. The First World War. Random House. Kindle Edition.