My Chiefs and Flames are looking good. The Chiefs had a rough loss to the Bills but overcame the Panthers last Sunday. Liberty won a good victory against Western Kentucky and could make it to the Conference USA championship game. Liberty basketball is doing well after a good win against Kansas State University. I was disappointed to see Indiana and the Army lose this past weekend, but Indiana will still make it into the college football playoffs. I recently finished the chapter on Vicksburg and am moving on to the Chattanooga Campaign in my book More Than Grit. Writing about this campaign excites me for my trip to Chattanooga in March.
World War I is remembered mainly for trench warfare on the Western Front. The Allies and Germans dug in after attempts to outmaneuver one another on open ground, leading to high casualties due to new weapons. The French and British struggled to gain ground against the Germans without casualties. Upon reading about the stalemate, John J. Pershing, Commander of the American Expeditionary Force, decided to utilize "Open Warfare." This new doctrine was the result of stagnant fighting and little results.
Pershing was not an inept general. He served ably in the Spanish-American War and the war against the Moro peoples of the Philippines. As Europe continued fighting its bloody war of attrition in 1915, Pershing was put in charge of the Pancho Villa Expedition after Villa's border crossing into the United States. Unable to catch the wily irregular, Pershing chased him back into Mexico. Pershing was also a keen observer of the Russo-Japanese War, learning about new modes of warfare. Outside of his experience in battle, he served as a professor at Nebraska University at Lincoln. He taught military science and tactics courses. In his early years, he attended West Point and never forgot his experience listening to the famed Ulysses Grant speak to his class. He claimed in his memoirs that there was never a better American general or future one than U.S. Grant.
When Pershing was in command of the future American Expeditionary Force during World War I, he developed an "Open Warfare" doctrine. Pershing looked at the trenches with disgust. He thought it led to unnecessarily high casualties without the ability to gain ground. Therefore, he thought the riflemen were the best answer to this problem. Like Grant, he wanted the enemy to be forced out of his entrenchments and forced to fight on open ground. Grant attempted to do the same during the first part of the Virginia Campaign, as Grant could force Lee out of each of his turning movements and inflicted severe casualties on Lee's army. However, Grant could never get around Lee's flank to place himself between the Army of Northern Virginia and Richmond.
A significant difference between Pershing's and Grant's positions is that Grant had flanks to work against while Pershing dealt with a continuous line of German trenches. Furthermore, Grant did not view entrenchments with complete disdain as Pershing. He used entrenchments often as a jumping-off point to attack the Confederates. He would utilize them well in defense of his position. If Grant had done so, he would have been entrenched, forcing Lee to attack his defense. Pershing never viewed entrenchments in the same way as Grant. Pershing stuck to his "open warfare" doctrine throughout the war. It led to high casualties by the war's end, but to his credit, it penetrated enemy lines further than what was achieved before the American arrival.
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