Battle of Saint-Mihiel
Battle of Saint-Mihiel, Allied victory and the first U.S.-led offensive in World War I, fought from September 12 to September16, 1918. The Allied attack against the Saint-Mihiel salient provided the Americans with an opportunity to use the American Expeditionary Forces on the Western Front en masse and, for the first time, under their own command rather that under that of French generals. Although lacking some of the tactical skills of the French and British, the U.S. First Army carried the day through sheer determination, overwhelming numbers (more than a million fresh U.S. troops had arrived on the front), and its multifaceted plan of attack. The battle was also noteworthy as the first major use in the war of the U.S. Army Air Service (precursor to the U.S. Air Force) led by William “Billy” Mitchell and the aggressive tank assaults by George Patton, who boldly led his charges from the front lines and not from the rear as many other officers did during the war.
The American commander-in-chief in France, General John Pershing, had, in the main, fought off attempts to use his divisions piecemeal in support of French and British operations, preferring to hold them back to form a separate U.S. army. The attack on the Saint-Mihiel salient, a bulge in the old Verdun line that extended outward toward the Allied lines and that was 25 miles long and 15 miles deep, gave him the opportunity to use the U.S. First Army in combat for the first time. In a plan developed by a rising young lieutenant colonel, George Catlett Marshall, the American part of the assault was to be conducted by two “super” corps, each with three divisions in attack and one in reserve, marking the largest assembly of U.S. soldiers since the American Civil War. Two smaller French corps would provide support on the western part of the salient.
General Erich von Ludendorff—now short of men and aware of the coming Allied offensive—had decided to withdraw from the salient to a shorter and more easily defended line to the rear. As the Germans were withdrawing, the Allies attacked. With much of their artillery not in place, the Germans were poorly prepared to maintain the front line, an advantage that the attacking Americans were quick to exploit. The American assault was aided by coordinated strafing and bombing runs; Mitchell had assembled the largest air armada of World War I, numbering more than 1,000 airplanes, and these set about relentlessly bombing German positions and reshaping the battlefront to limit avenues of escape. German fighter aces dueled in the sky with the likes of budding American aces Eddie Rickenbacker and Frank Luke. So successful was Mitchell’s air campaign that he was promoted to brigadier general after the battle.
The relative ease of the initial American attack came as a surprise to Pershing, and he sent orders to his commanders to speed up their advance. Prominent in the attack was the 42nd “Rainbow” Division, commanded by Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur. By September 13 lead units of the U.S. First Army had met up with Allied troops advancing from the west. Three days later, the offensive was halted, with the salient in Allied hands.
The Battle of Saint-Mihiel easily convinced the British and French military leadership that the Americans were capable of operating on their own on the battlefield, independence that later had a bearing on the Americans’ taking a role in negotiations for Germany’s surrender and the subsequent peace. Pershing now dispatched his forces westward to take part in the forthcoming Meuse-Argonne offensive.
Losses: U.S., 7,000 casualties; German, at least 17,500, including 10,000 captured.