“Remember the Man at the Front”
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MILITARY SERVICE, COMBAT, AND AMERICAN IDENTITY IN THE PROGRESSIVE ERA by Sebastian Hubert Lukasik Department of History Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Alex Roland, Supervisor ___________________________ Claudia Koonz ___________________________ Peter Wood ___________________________ Richard H. Kohn Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History in the Graduate School of Duke University 2008 ABSTRACT MILITARY SERVICE, COMBAT, AND AMERICAN IDENTITY IN THE PROGRESSIVE ERA by Sebastian Hubert Lukasik Department of History Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Alex Roland, Supervisor ___________________________ Claudia Koonz ___________________________ Peter Wood ___________________________ Richard H. Kohn An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History in the Graduate School of Duke University 2008 Copyright by Sebastian Hubert Lukasik 2008 Abstract During the First World War, approximately two million troops served with the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), the army that functioned as the material and symbolic focal point of America’s commitment to the defeat of the Central Powers. This dissertation examines the impact of training, active service and combat on the social identity of the draftees and volunteers who comprised the AEF. Reigning historiography has generally minimized the importance of those experiences as factors in the formation of distinct socio- cultural allegiances among American participants of the Great War. Instead, it has stressed the historical context of Progressive-Era reforms as the key to understanding the development of corporate identity among American soldiers in the years 1917 – 1919. This body of scholarship maintains that soldiers interpreted the meaning of their war service, and evaluated their relationship with each other and with the mainstream of American civil society, through the prism of the Progressive rhetoric of social engineering, national rejuvenation, and moral “uplift” to which they had been exposed from the moment of their induction. Exposure to the optimistic slogans of Progressive reform, coupled with the brevity of America’s active involvement in the conflict, assured that American soldiers would emerge from the war with a heightened appreciation of American socio-political institutions, culture, and moral norms. This dissertation offers an alternative interpretation of the impact of the Great War on the collective and individual identities of its American participants. Using letters, diaries, and memoirs penned by enlisted soldiers and junior officers, it asserts the primacy of the war experience in shaping the socio-cultural allegiances of ordinary “Doughboys.” Immersion in the organizational milieu of the military, followed by overseas deployment, active service in iv France, and combat on the Western Front, represented a radical break with civilian forms of identity soldiers professed prior to the war. It was the sum of these life-changing experiences, rather than the Progressive indoctrination they received in the training camps, that shaped soldiers’ views of their relationship with each other and to the nation back home. Under the influence of these experiences, soldiers became members of an alternative social order whose values and worldviews frequently clashed with the attitudes and norms they associated with the American home front. Convinced they belonged to a closed community whose unique experiences had set them apart from the American mainstream, Doughboys emerged from the war with a collective mentality that dwelled on the fundamental differences, rather than the similarities, between those who had fought “over there” from those who remained “over here.” v To my parents and sister vi Contents Abstract iv Contents vii Abbreviations x Acknowledgements xii Introduction 1 PART 1 “That Old Neighborhood Spirit”: Parochialism, Community, and Socio-Cultural Identity in America on the Eve of the Great War I. Introduction 26 II. “City Roughnecks” and “Pumpkin Dusters”: The Urban/Rural Dichotomy in the Military 27 III. “We Came from the West Where a Man Has Room to Grow”: Regional Allegiances 41 IV. “Most of the Men Resented Being Called Yankees”: Sectional Allegiances 54 V. “It’s Best to Go with Those You Know”: Local and Community Allegiances 74 VI. “I Wanted to be as Brave as My Grandfather”: Family Allegiances 107 VII. Conclusion 116 PART 2 “A Complete New Life for All of Us”: The Training Camp Experience and Identity Formation I. Introduction 118 II. “America’s New Soldier Cities”: Camps, Cantonments, and the Progressive Social Vision 124 vii III. “All Civilian Associations Were to be Severed”: The Demise of Localism 146 IV. Constructing Soldierly Identities: The Army’s Institutional Perspective 163 V. Constructing Soldierly Identities: Doughboys’ Response 197 VI. “We Were Proud of Looking Like Soldiers”: The Emergence of a Soldierly Subculture 228 VII. The Birth of the Home Front/Fighting Front Dichotomy 239 VIII. Conclusion 247 PART 3 “You Are Sacrificing Much, We Are Sacrificing More”: Home Front, Fighting Front and the Moral Economy of Wartime Service I. Introduction 250 II. “The People at Home Back Us Up”: The Benevolent Home Front 253 III. The Limits of Home Front/Fighting Front Solidarity 263 IV. The Demonology of the Home Front 278 V. “Pseudo-Americans” Unmasked: Doughboys, the Young Men’s Christian Association, and the Moral Economy of Sacrifice 298 VI. Conclusion 332 PART 4 “Love of Thy Neighbor is Forgotten”: Combat and Identity in the American Expeditionary Forces I. Introduction 335 II. “Hell Can Hold No Terrors for Me After This”: Tactical and Operational Contexts of Combat on the Western Front, Spring – Autumn 1918 341 III. “This War is Not Like Those You Have Read of”: Representations of Combat and the Home Front/Fighting Front Dichotomy 355 viii IV. Turning Inward: Combat, Unit Allegiance, and the Dynamics of Front Line Solidarity 394 V. Conclusion 421 Conclusion 425 Bibliography 432 Biography 491 ix Abbreviations Archives and Manuscript Depositories AFC Veterans’ Oral History Project, American Folk Life Center, The Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. HST Harry S Truman Presidential Library, Independence, Missouri. LMM Liberty Memorial Museum and Archives, Kansas City, Missouri. LVA The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia. NARA United States National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland. RG Record Group (NARA and LVA). SHC Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. USAMHI United States Army Military History Institute, Army Heritage and Education Center, U. S. Army War College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. USMA Special Collections and Archives Division, United States Military Academy Library, West Point, New York. Published Documentary Collections, Journals, and Reference Works AABE American Battle Monuments Commission. American Armies and Battlefields in Europe. Washington, D. C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1938. JMH Journal of Military History Mott Papers Addresses and Papers of John R. Mott, Volume Four: The Young Men’s Christian Association. New York: Association Press, 1947. x USAWW Historical Branch, United States Department of the Army, United States Army in the World War, 1917 – 1919. 16 vols. Washington, D. C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1948. WiH War in History Organizational and Institutional Acronyms AEF American Expeditionary Forces BEF British Expeditionary Force CTCA Committee for Training Camp Activities GHQ General Headquarters NA National Army NG National Guard SOS Services of Supply USA United States Army (Regular Army) USMC United States Marine Corps YMCA Young Men’s Christian Association The first citation for each of the sources listed above is rendered in full; all subsequent references are abbreviated. Materials in the USAMHI World War I Veterans’ Survey Collection are organized by individual division or branch of service, followed by component units and individual soldiers’ files. Thus, the serviceman’s identifying unit, as cited in the reference, also indicates the location of the source in the USAMHI collections. The military rank indicated in the citation refers to the highest rank the serviceman attained during the war, rather to the rank he held at the time he wrote the source cited. Whenever possible, I have also indicated the rank and unit of the authors of the published war narratives and memoirs used in this study. Quotations from primary sources retain their original spelling and punctuation, except in cases where possible confusion over meaning could be averted only through correction or the provision of “sic.” xi Acknowledgements There is one myth about writers that I have always felt was particularly pernicious and untruthful – the myth of the “lonely writer,” the myth that writing is a lonely occupation, involving much suffering because, supposedly, the writer exists in a state sensitivity which cuts him off, or raises him above, or casts him below the community around him. This is a common cliché, a hangover probably from the romantic period and the idea of the artist as Sufferer and Rebel. – Flannery O’Connor1 Though directed primarily at writers of fiction, Flannery O’Connor’s words have enduring relevance for historians.