Rushed to the Front: The Utterly Inadequate Training of the AEF

New Recruits at Chow Time

The Doughboys who went to France in 1917 and 1918 were enthusiastic, but most had training little better than their grandfathers during the American Civil War. The urgency of deploying American soldiers to Europe to bolster the Allied cause necessarily truncated the training process in the U.S. but required the Army to develop a second training program for units [that was also inadequate]  once they reached France. . .

World War I marked the Army’s first attempt at systematic individual soldier training, but the requirement to organize divisions while building training bases impeded the units’ ability to train. When the U.S. declared war on Germany in April 1917, the U.S. Army consisted of 127,588 troops scattered in small garrisons across the country.

In order to raise a mass army to fight a war on a European scale, the Army created its first system of centralized individual basic combat training. There was, however, no centralized training headquarters or organization. The system based all training at the regimental level, with the division commander responsible for all combat training preparation. The training program for divisions preparing to go to France in 1918 was more mobilization than training. Drafted men went directly to regiments, which provided rudimentary training to familiarize Soldiers with military discipline and operations. The Army provided overall training guidance for the divisions, with training topics and prescribed hours for each.

Drill

The initial mobilization plan called for a three-brigade division totaling some 25,000 troops, but the urgency of getting troops overseas quickly forced the Army to change the plan and activate only two brigades (two regiments each) per division. Regiments consisted of three battalions (three companies each) of 1,000 soldiers each. With headquarters, supply, medical, ordnance, and weapons companies, the regiment totaled 3,832 soldiers. In order to create new units quickly, existing regiments were split for new “cadre” regiments. All of this reorganization, including absorption of existing National Guard units as well as new recruits and inductees, occurred while the regiments were attempting to train their soldiers.

The 16-week basic training plan directed a total of 624 hours divided into four four-week phases. The first three phases focused on individual soldier skills and weapons training, while the final phase focused on collective combined arms and  maneuver training. This established a pattern that has remained in place in slightly altered form to the present.

The lessons the Army learned from creating a large mass army from scratch were reflected in the training plan finalized in August 1918 [by the time nearly two million Doughboys were in Europe or en route]. This [plan lays out] the basic soldier skills taught, grouped into four categories: Garrison Training, Individual Soldier Training, Lethality Training, and Collective Training. With units already deploying, the War Department developed an infantry training program based on the skills it needed soldiers to have before deployment. Garrison tasks consumed 32 percent of the time allotted for training, the largest portion of which was dedicated to drill and ceremonies at platoon, company, and battalion level. This did not indicate an overemphasis on spit and polish but rather reflects the need to inculcate a culture of discipline and working together in a large mass of individual draftees with no background in either military or team activities. 

To amplify this, nearly 40 percent of the training was spent in combined training, maneuver, and open and trench warfare. The emphasis at the time was clearly more on collective training than individual training. Small prewar budgets and lack of equipment also affected training, as target practice and musketry (Basic Rifle Marksmanship) received only 13 percent of the time allotted.

Musketry Practice

The training program required a much more structured program than many of the divisions were able to execute. For instance, the 4th Division was activated on 3 December 1917, at Camp Greene, North Carolina, outside Charlotte. No part of the division was then at Camp Greene. MG George H. Cameron arrived from California a week later. The four infantry battalions came from camps in  Gettysburg and Syracuse to form the division. While artillery and engineer units were generally at full strength with volunteers, the infantry units were greatly under strength, with no rifle company having more than 40 men. In January 1918, the War Department directed that all new volunteers be sent to the 4th Division until it was filled.

Arriving at Camp Greene during the worst winter in memory, the 4th Division was confronted with rain, cold, snow, and impassable mud. The men were able to train outside for only 16 days total during December, January, and February. The division used the time for indoor lectures and training given by British and French officers, all of whom had extensive combat experience. These officers taught the American officers and NCOs, who then taught the soldiers.

British Machine Gun Instructors

Instilling the killer instinct also proved difficult. The division Chief of Staff, COL Christian A. Bach, summed up the problem:

Many of the men drafted had never struck a blow in anger in their lives. The bayonet instilled a fighting spirit and gave them individual aggressiveness, but it was never really popular. The rifle was the national arm of the American people, and they do not take kindly to the use of cutting or thrusting weapons. But, although the men of the 4th Division had few occasions to use their bayonets in hand-to-hand fighting, the training received was of real value and had a distinct psychological effect.

Improving weather conditions in mid-March enabled the division to conduct intensive training for some five weeks, but the unit began moving by train to Camp Mills, New York, for embarkation on 21 April 1918. The rush to get to Europe, however, forced some units to deploy even before they had done any weapons training. The 39th Infantry Regiment, and one battalion of the 58th Infantry Regiment, for instance, were not able to conduct any target practice before deployment.

The American Expeditionary Force (AEF) relied on additional combat training from the more experienced British and French armies before troops were committed to combat. The AEF General Headquarters (GHQ) established a collaborative training plan with British and French commands for newly arrived American divisions. The three-phase, 90-day process was designed to reinforce basic soldier skills, acclimate units to combat conditions, and prepare American divisions for replacing worn out Allied units at the front. The first phase included training on new weapons systems (37mm gun, mortars, machine guns, etc.) and additional time for individual marksmanship.

The 4th Division’s 7th Brigade (consisting of the 39th and 47th Infantry Regiments) was attached to the 4th French Division on 14 June 1918, to complete training, including the long-delayed rifle marksmanship training for the 39th Infantry Regiment. Bach remembered, “These men had heard the thunder of the guns at the front but had never fired a rifle.” The men also handled live grenades for the first time. The 4th Division moved into the line on 14 July.

Graduation Day Review
Next Stop: The Western Front

After this additional specialized training, American units then went into the line with British and French units to acclimate them to combat conditions. New regiments and companies, under veteran Anglo-French supervision, rotated in and out of active  frontline positions on ten-day tours during the second month. American troops defended against and conducted trench raids, familiarizing the men with combat conditions. By August 1918, the AEF was almost completely reliant on the Allies for this training. Many units did not have the opportunity to train for the full 90 days, because calls for immediate reinforcements from Allied commanders sent inexperienced and unprepared units into frontline positions against an experienced and determined enemy.

The result was more than 300,000 casualties in 11 months of fighting.

Source: "Learning the Lessons of Lethality: The Army's Cycle of Basic Combat Training, 1918-2019," U.S. Army War College