A.E.F. SNAFU AT SEDAN

DONALD SMYTHE

General Malin Craig called it "the most upsetting and perhaps the bitterest episode of my whole career." General George C. Marshall said the matter was so distasteful he did not wish to be quoted about it in any way. General Fox Conner called it "wild," an inexcusably gross action. General Hunter Liggett termed it a "tactical atrocity," the worst he had ever known. General S. L. A. Marshall summed it all up in the words "folly," "blunder," "unworthy of American arms." The remarks refer to the American Expeditionary Forces snafu at Sedan, November 6-7, 1918.

In its dimensions Sedan was not a great battle. It was no Balaklava; casualties were slight. But it was more than an extraordinary mixup, and became one of the great controversies of the A.E.F. That it was not a disaster was due only to chance and circumstance and was better than those responsible for it deserved. Sedan is important for what it revealed about American command relationships, both then and later, and as a study of vanity and selfish glory seeking in the conduct of battle. About the best that can be said for it is

1973 by Donald Smythe

Research for this article was conducted with the assistance of a grant from the Penrose Fund of the American Philosophical Society.

1 Craig to James G. Harbord, Aug. 3 and 8, 1935, Marshall to Harbord, July 31, 1935, Conner to Harbord, July 3 and Aug. 3, 1935, James G. Harbord Papers, New-York Historical Society, New York City: Joseph T. Dickman, The Great Crusade: A Narrative of the World War (New York, 1927), p. 193; S. L. A. Marshall, The American Heritage History of World War I (New York, 1964), p. 344.

that it could have been worse. Fortunately for the soldiers who marched into this snafu, it was not.

It began a few days before the armistice, when the Germans were falling back along the line from the North Sea to Switzerland, and the French Fourth Army was pushing toward Sedan. Because of historical association, the city had special meaning for the French. During the Franco-Prussian War almost fifty years earlier, a French army had been defeated at Sedan and the French emperor, Napoleon III, captured. The debacle that followed saw the German kaiser crowned in the French palace of Versailles and the French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine lost to Germany. The city also had special meaning for the French IX Corps, now located on the far right of the French Fourth Army. In 1914 IX Corps had been driven out of Sedan during the first German push. Naturally it desired to avenge its own defeat, as well as the humiliation of 1870, by retaking the city. For this reason the boundaries between the French Fourth Army and the American First Army, also in the vicinity of Sedan, were changed to place the city clearly within the French area of operations.2

In early November 1918, however, complications developed. The French Fourth Army, with the French IX Corps on its far

2 R. R. Palmer, A History of the Modern World (New York, 1950), pp. 536-537; Hunter Liggett, Commanding an American Army: Recollections of the World War (Boston, 1925), p. 116; Dickman, Great Crusade, p. 179n.

right in front of Sedan, fell behind the rest at the Allied drive. Conversely, the American First Army, with the American I Corps on its far left, began to draw ahead. What if the Americans arrived near Sedan first? Sedan was clearly a target that should be taken by somebody; the Sedan-Mézières railroad, which the Allies had long sought to interdict, passed through the city.3

On November 3 General John J. Pershing, commanding the American Army Group (First and Second Armies) conferred with his counterpart, General Paul Maistre, commander of the French Group of Armies of the Center. Sedan, virtually at the dividing line of the two armies, interested both commanders. Pershing wanted to take it for the glory of American arms and present it to the French in a handsacross-the-sea gesture-an incredibly naive idea in view of French sensibilities about the city. As Major General James G. Harbord later remarked, to avenge Sedan had been the dream of two generations of Frenchmen; one million had died to make that dream a reality. To suggest that someone else take Sedan must have seemed to Maistre very much as if Rochambeau had tried to shoulder George Washington aside at Yorktown in order to accept Cornwallis's surrender.4

Nonetheless, at the conference on November 3 Maistre agreed that if the American First Army continued to outrun the French Fourth and arrived at Sedan first, they might disregard the army boundaries and seize it. According to Pershing's account of the meeting, Maistre offered no objection "but on the contrary warmly approved." 5 Maistre's approval was a good deal less warm than Pershing thought. The Frenchman said yes because in war military and not sentimental considerations should gov

3 James G. Harbord, The American Army in France, 1917-1919 (Boston, 1936), p. 455.

4 Ibid. In World War II the Allies diplomatically let the French recapture Paris.

5 Pershing, My Experiences in the World War (New York, 1931), 2:381.

ern. But one wonders if he really thought the Americans would get to Sedan first. Then too, Pershing entered the meeting that day with a chip on his shoulder, and Maistre may have been at pains to be more than ordinarily conciliatory. Pershing was piqued because Maistre in his capacity as coordinator of the boundary between the French Fourth and American First armies had issued an order that the latter should continue its attack. Ever sensitive to French attempts to exercise control over American troops, Pershing felt Maistre had overstepped his authority and, as he put it in his diary, had a "very plain talk with him.” Maistre apologized, said it had been done by his staff, and that it would not happen again."

Pershing also complained that Maistre changed the axis of advance of the American First Army, obliquing it to the right to put Sedan in the zone of the French Fourth Army. Maistre explained that the change gave the French better road communications. When Pershing said he wanted his troops to take Sedan, Maistre again spoke of the French need for communications, whereupon Pershing proposed that if the Americans arrived first in front of Sedan they would oblique to the left and take it. According to Pershing's diary, Maistre said this would be all right. "Je ne demande pas m[i]eux," were the Frenchman's words.7

During the following days, feeling ran high at Pershing's headquarters. "I wish you could be with us tonight and share our intense excitement over the events that are taking place," wrote Pershing's aide, Carl Boyd, to a friend. "After pounding away at the Boche here for more than a month we have at last pryed him loose and got him. moving toward Sedan at a rate which fulfills our wildest hopes." Pershing himself shared the excitement. "The French seem to be

6 Harbord, American Army, p. 459n; Pershing diary, Nov. 3, 1918, Box 4, John J. Pershing Papers, Library of Congress.

7 Pershing diary, Nov. 3, 1918.

afraid we will beat them to Sedan and are constantly making efforts to get us to go more to the East," he wrote in his diary. "According to agreement with General Maestre [sic], if we arrive first we can take Sedan. I think we will do it." 8

On November 5 Pershing visited Major General Joseph T. Dickman who was commanding the I Corps. Dickman's was the closest American corps to Sedan, and Pershing said he hoped it would have the honor of taking the city. Dickman promised to do all he could.9

That same day about 5:30 P.M. Brigadier General Fox Conner, A.E.F. operations chief and one of Pershing's right-hand men, went to First Army headquarters at Souilly. Neither the commanding general, Hunter Liggett, nor his chief of staff, Brigadier General Hugh Drum, was present, but the First Army operations chief, Colonel George C. Marshall, Jr., was. Conner looked over the latest reports from the front and told Marshall of Pershing's desire that the First Army capture Sedan. Conner asked Marshall to call in a stenographer and dictated a message from Pershing to the commanding generals of the I and V Corps: "General Pershing desires that the honor of entering Sedan should fall to the First American Army. He has every confidence that the troops of the First Corps, assisted on their right by the Fifth Corps, will enable him to realize this desire." Marshall then added "In transmitting the foregoing message, your attention is invited to the favorable opportunity now existing for pressing our advance throughout the night."

Conner wanted the memorandum dispatched at once, but Marshall demurred, since neither Liggett nor Drum had seen it. When Conner insisted, Marshall proposed a compromise whereby if neither Liggett nor Drum had returned by 6:00 P.M. he would send it out over their name. Conner

8 Boyd to Robert W. Bliss, Nov. 6, 1918, Box 26, Pershing Papers; Pershing diary, Nov. 6, 1918. 9 Pershing diary, Nov. 5, 1918.

accepted this and left, taking with him a copy of the memo. A few minutes before 6:00, Drum returned and approved the text Marshall showed him, but he also added at the end a sentence that was to be the source of serious trouble: "Boundaries will not be considered binding." Drum then ordered the memorandum dispatched in written form by ordinary courier service and telephoned direct to the I and V Corps.10

Tragic consequences were to flow from this November 5 memorandum, and quite naturally the memorandum itself has been singled out as a cause of the confusion. "The test of an order is not can it be understood," Major General James G. Harbord, Pershing's former chief of staff wrote, "but can it be misunderstood? By this test the Memorandum Order of November 5th is bound to be condemned." 11 In fact, the memorandum was clear enough. The blame should be placed not on the document itself but on an aberrant interpretation motivated by vanity and selfishness. Pershing, Conner, Marshall, Dickman, Liggett, and Drum all interpreted the memorandum correctly. Any professional soldier should have.

Drum explained later:

At the time General Pershing's instructions were received at Army Headquarters relative to Sedan, Sedan was not within the First Army zone of action. Consequently, some authority had to be given for the Army to go outside of its

10 Marshall to Harbord, July 31, 1935, and Conner to Harbord, July 11 and Aug. 3, 1935, Harbord Papers; Harbord, American Army, pp. 455-456; James L. Collins diary, Jan. 24, 1924, in possession of Brig. Gen. James L. Collins, Washington, D.C.; Marshall memo for the record, Nov. 8, 1918, and Drum to Assistant Chief of Staff, First Army, Nov. 7, 1918, File 120.05, G-3, First Army Reports, GHQ/ AEF, Records of the American Expeditionary Forces (World War I), 1917-23, Record Group 120, National Archives Building (hereafter cited as File 120.05). See also W. E. R. Covell to Forrest C. Pogue, Oct. 30, 1960, George C. Marshall Papers, Marshall Research Library, Lexington, Va.

11 Harbord, American Army, p. 459.