Black Jack’s Men

Pershing’s Lieutenants: American Military Leadership in World War I, edited by David T. Zabecki and Douglas V. Mastriano, Osprey Publishing, New York, 2020, $35

The Army with which the United States entered World War I was not the U.S. Army of today, nor even the Army with which the country went to war in 1941. In May 1917 the Army commanded by Gen. John J. Pershing had only 210,000 troops and ranked 17th in the world, behind that of Portugal. Yet by war’s end in November 1918 the Army had grown to more than 3.7 million men, some 2 million of whom Pershing had led to Allied victory in a war more than 3,000 miles from home—an unprecedented historic feat.

Needless to say, the general could not have done it without some extraordinarily talented help. recounts the achievements and occasional failures of key officers who helped create also profiles a number of his senior staff officers, as well as commanders of individual armies, corps and divisions, with a chapter devoted to each.