The American Army in Germany, 1918–1923
The American Army in Germany, 1918–1923

Author: Dean A. Nowowiejski

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2021-11-15

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 0700632743

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The American Army in Germany, 1918–1923: Success against the Odds by Dean A. Nowowiejski fills a gap in American military and political history through thorough research and a compelling narrative of the Rhineland occupation. After the armistice ended the fighting on the Western Front in World War I, the US Third Army marched into the American occupation zone around the city of Koblenz, Germany, in December 1918. American forces remained there as part of an “inter-Allied” coalition until early 1923. Nowowiejski reintroduces us to a successful military diplomat, Major General Henry T. Allen, who faced two major challenges: build an efficient army and handle the complexity of working with the Allied powers of France, Britain, and Belgium in the Inter-Allied Rhineland High Commission (IARHC). Allen’s ability to balance the interests of the French with those of the occupied Germans made him an indispensable participant in the High Commission. As the French sought revenge and added security against Germany, Allen moderated their actions with diplomatic skill. When the French sent forces into Germany in 1920 and 1921, Allen ensured that the US zone around Koblenz remained free of French interference. These achievements were without the support of the administration, and Congress had no desire to take part in European affairs. Allen also had to create a competent American army in the Rhineland so that the Allied powers and the Germans would respect American views and interests. He successfully took a large number of new recruits, who replaced World War I combat veterans, and molded them into a professional fighting force. As a result, the American Forces in Germany became an exemplar for the entire US Army and a symbol to the Allies and Germans of American power and resolve. This force competently accomplished the difficult task of postwar occupation according to the highest international standards. The US administration made the decision in 1922 to radically cut back the size of Allen’s army, and in 1923 to remove all US troops from Germany. The author analyzes this withdrawal as a “missed opportunity” for US leverage on diplomatic developments in Europe.

In a Strange Land
In a Strange Land

Author: Alexander Barnes

Publisher: Schiffer Pub Limited

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 9780764337611

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America's involvement in WWI marked its first major entry into European politics. The final cost of that involvement required the U.S. to supply a force to occupy part of the German Rhineland after the war. The force provided was first known as Third Army and then later as the American Forces in Germany (AFG). It consisted of the best divisions in the American Army. With a starting strength of a quarter million doughboys, the Americans marched to the Rhine and began their occupation period in December 1918. When the American phase of the occupation ended in 1923, the force consisted of one thousand soldiers. Many future WWII leaders of the Army and Marine Corps served in this force; including five who would become Marine Commandant, four Army Chiefs of Staff, ten four-star Generals, and, surprisingly, a National Football League Head coach.

The American Occupation of the Rhineland, 1918-1923
The American Occupation of the Rhineland, 1918-1923

Author: Marc Holzheimer

Publisher:

Published: 2019-03-30

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 9781092160933

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Have you ever heard of the American occupation of the Rhineland after World War I? When the war in Europe was over on November 11th, 1918, an American Army of Occupation comprising 250,000 men started moving from France towards the east. Their destination: The Rhine. In the armistice, Germany had granted the victorious powers the right to occupy the Rhineland. And so it happened that thousands and thousands of young Americans came to a land full of castles, vineyards and centuries-old traditions. In their headquarters in Koblenz, the American Army of Occupation controlled large areas along the rivers Rhine and Mosel. Not only did they get to know the local customs, they also brought their own culture with them. Donuts, baseball or American football became a common thing in the Rhineland. And last but not least, there were the German Fräuleins that attracted the young Americans. Only in 1923, the last occupation troops left the Rhineland. Today, this part of German-American history is almost completely forgotten. The German historian Marc Holzheimer intends to change this. In his book, he retells the story of the American Occupation of the Rhineland. It covers the events along Rhine and Mosel as well as the political context in international affairs. Furthermore, the book contains plenty of contemporary photographs, which allow the reader to get a real impression of the occupation time. The American Occupation of the Rhineland, 1918-1923 - worth reading for anyone who is interested in history!

Hitler's Heralds
Hitler's Heralds

Author: Nigel Jones

Publisher:

Published: 2021-02-11

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13:

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A dramatic history of a group that would give birth to Nazism... The birth pangs of Nazism grew out of the death agony of the Kaiser's Germany. Defeat in World War I and a narrow escape from Communist revolution brought not peace but five chaotic years (1918-1923) of civil war, assassination, plots, putsches and murderous mayhem to Germany. The savage world of the trenches came home with the men who refused to admit defeat. It was an atmosphere in which civilised values withered, and violent extremism flourished. In this chronicle of the paramilitary Freikorps - the freebooting army that crushed the Red revolution and then themselves attempted to take over by armed force - historian and biographer Nigel Jones draws on little-known archives in Germany and Britain to paint a portrait of a state torn between revolution and counter revolution. Raised in the chaotic aftermath of war, the Freikorps were composed mostly of veteran soldiers, embittered and out of place in civilian life, and young, right-wing students determined to crush those forces who had "betrayed" their homeland. The ideology of the Freikorps was adopted, almost unmodified, by the Nazis, who, fittingly, marked their arrival in 1934 with the massacre of many former Freikorps members. Nigel Jones, assistant editor of BBC History Magazine, is author of several histories and biographies, including The War Walk: A Journey along the Western Front, Rupert Brooke: Life, Death and Myth and Sir Oswald Mosley.

The Outlaws
The Outlaws

Author: Ernst Von Salomon

Publisher: Arktos

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 1907166491

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It is November 1918. Germany has just surrendered after four years of the most savage warfare in history. It is teetering on the brink of total social and economic collapse, and the German people now lie at the mercy of new, liberal politicians who despise everything Germany once stood for. The Communists are rioting in the streets, threatening to topple the new government in Weimar and bring about their own revolution. The frontline soldiers are returning from the hell of the war to find an unrecognizable land, the principles and traditions they had sacrificed so much to defend now the stuff of mockery. The narrator of The Outlaws, a 16-year-old military cadet, is too young to have served in the trenches, but feels the sting of this betrayal no less than they. Since Germany's armies have been all but disbanded, he joins the paramilitary Freikorps - groups of veterans who refuse to lay down their arms, and who have pledged to stop the Communists - and begins fighting, first in the streets of Germany's cities, and then in the Baltic states, defending Germany's eastern frontiers from Communist subversion while ignoring the calls to disengage by the meek politicians at home. After months of intense fighting abroad, the Freikorps soldiers return to settle scores with their enemies in Germany, dreaming of a nationalist counter-revolution, and, their trigger fingers still itchy, fix their sights on bringing down the hated new government once and for all... The Outlaws is a chronicle of the experiences of the men who fought in the Freikorps, but it is also an adventure and a war story about an entire generation of soldiers who loved their homeland more than peace and comfort, and who refused to accept defeat at any price. "What we wanted we did not know; but what we knew we did not want. To force a way through the prisoning wall of the world, to march over burning fields, to stamp over ruins and scattered ashes, to dash recklessly through wild forests, over blasted heaths, to push, conquer, eat our way through towards the East, to the white, hot, dark, cold land that stretched between ourselves and Asia - was that what we wanted? I do not know whether that was our desire, but that was what we did. And the search for reasons why was lost in the tumult of continuous fighting." - p. 65 Ernst von Salomon (1902-1972) was one of the writers of the German Conservative Revolution of the 1920s. Like the narrator of The Outlaws, he was a military cadet at the end of the First World War, and joined the Freikorps, participating in many of the events described in the book, including the assassination of Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau, for which he was imprisoned. He went on to write many books and film scripts.

After the Trenches
After the Trenches

Author: William O. Odom

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780890968383

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At the end of the Great War, the U.S. Army faced the challenge of integrating what it had learned in the failures and ultimate success of its war effort. During the interwar years the army sought to balance readiness and modernization in a period of limited resources and technological advances with profound implications for the conduct of warfare. In After the Trenches, William O. Odom traces the development of combat doctrine between the world wars through an examination of the army's primary doctrine manuals, the Field Service Regulations. The Field Service Regulations of 1923 successfully assimilated the experiences of the First World War and translated them into viable tactical practice, Odom argues in this unique study. Rapidly developing technologies generated more efficient tools of war and greatly expanded the scale, tempo, and complexity of warfare. Personnel and materiel shortages led to a decline in the quality of army doctrine evidenced in the 1939 regulations. Examining the development of doctrine and the roles of key personalities such as John Pershing, Hugh Drum, George Lynch, Frank Parker, and Lesley McNair, Odom concludes that the successive revisions of the manual left the army scurrying to modernize its woefully outdated doctrine on the eve of the new war. This impressively researched study of the doctrine of the interwar army fills a significant gap in our understanding of the development of the U.S. Army during the first half of the twentieth century. It will serve scholars and others interested in military history as the standard reference on the subject. Moreover, many of the challenges and conditions that existed seventy years ago resemble those faced by today's army. This study of the army's historical responses to a declining military budget and an ever-changing technology will broaden the perspectives of those who must deal with these important contemporary issues.