March 2023 Lecture - Doughboys Under Diggers: American Divisions Under Australian Command in World War I
One of the contentious issues in Australian military history is the use of American troops in operations during World War I. Many Australian historians have taken their lead from a comment by Australia’s Official War Historian, Charles Bean, that Monash expected too much from two very fine divisions and they accuse Monash at least of misusing the Americans if not implying that he had no authority to have them at all. Author Les Carlyon, in his work The Great War , titles his chapter on the Hindenburg Line ‘An American Tragedy’ and writes of the handling of the American troops: Here was proof that Pershing ... had been right to insist that, wherever possible should fight as an independent army and only when they were properly trained. Through all this the myth has grown that somehow the situation of the Americans with the Australians was abnormal and these divisions were completely untrained. In fact, upwards of 20 American divisions served under foreign command, with three, th...