Synopsis
Relates the contributions of the Marine Corps in France during World War I, covering their recruitment and training and their epic battles
Reviews
Clark, a former Marine and a historian of the Corps, does an excellent job of showing how the identity of the U.S. Marine Corps was forged in the experiences of the American Expeditionary Force in 1917- 1918. Combining published records with private sources, Clark tells the full story of the Corps in the Great War, from the training camps to the front lines, occupation and demobilization. Clark demonstrates that the Marines were no better prepared than their Army counterparts for the trenches of France. Most enlisted men were green wartime recruits, and few officers had experience commanding formations as large as those used in the Great War. The consequences were predictable: time after time, Marine units lost contact with one another and with their supporting artillery, and colonels and majors were remote from the battles their men were fighting. Clark is a stern critic of these command failures. His judgments indeed may be excessively harsh: no WWI army solved the problems of liaison and control. But at the company and platoon levels, Clark tells of how the Marines redeemed their superiors' shortcomings, overcoming uncut wire and damaged machine guns with raw courage buttressed only toward the end of the war by tactical sophistication. The front-line Marines' lot was not unique. What was unique was the way these experiences have become central to the Corps identity. Clark's text establishes beyond question the WWI origins of the synergistic emphasis on small-unit leadership, sharp-end initiative and esprit de corps that, for good and ill, characterizes and defines the U.S. Marine Corps.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
An interesting but unexceptional look at the Marine Corps actions of WWI, authored by a military historian who is also the owner of a antiquarian bookstore specializing in military history. At the onset of American involvement in the war, the Marines were an orphan force (though officially under the aegis of the navy) and unwelcome by the army, which saw no need for a second ground force. Clark covers the background maneuvering that finally allowed the Marines to be shifted over to a furious General Pershing and thus to live up to their motto of ``First to Fight.'' Once they were overseas and in the field, the battles waged by the Marines remain among the best remembered of the American stage of the war: Verdun, Belleau Wood, Soissons, Marbache Sector, the Meuse, and several others. Clarks at his best when describing skirmishes on the ground and quoting generously from archival telegrams, reports, and letters to create a telling picture of the field of battle. Also useful is his discussion of hurdles to be overcome in nearly any operation (but usually, and regretrtably, unlikely to find their way into the accounts of historians). Though pages here frequently become jumbled with unit numbers and acronyms, the overall narrative is readable, adding to the available information on America in WWI. (44 b&w photos, 21 maps, not seen) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Writing in a chatty, sometimes anecdotal style, Clark gives us the most detailed popular history available of the U.S. Marines in World War I. With a maximum strength of 75,000, the corps sent only two brigades to France. Only the Fourth Marine Brigade saw combat, and in France the "Devil Dogs," as the Germans nicknamed them, were a long way from their parent organization, the navy, and close to the army, which did not like marines. Clark includes a thorough account of the marines' most famous action, in the battle of Belleau Wood, as well as of the other six major battles in which they fought, including the bloody and botched, not to mention largely unknown, assault on Blanc Mont. Although rather free with his opinions, Clark has mined every available source and discovered new ones to back himself up. The final product is a collective portrait of men who, though initially unfamiliar with the Western Front and often poorly led by senior officers, prevailed with sheer courage and determination. Roland Green
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