The Military History Society of NSW

  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, the 27

  SUBMISSION GUIDELINES Reconnaissance Magazine Thank you for your interest in submitting an article or review for publication in Reconnaissance , the quarterly magazine of The Military History Society of New South Wales. We accept submissions by email to the Editor, John Muscat, at jmmuscat@netspace.net.au   1.    We publish items which are related in some way to New South Wales, Australian and world military history and heritage. 2.    We reserve the right to decide whether to publish your item but our bias is in favour of publishing every item received since our charter is to promote the knowledge and research of military history amongst as wide a population as possible. 3.    We publish four Issues each year, Autumn (nominal publication date 1 March), Winter (1 June), Spring (1 September) and Summer (1 December). Your item should be submitted at least 18 days before the nominal publication date to qualify for inclusion in the next scheduled Issue. We will endeavour to