Master planner and commander

The Australian ^ | July 07, 2007 | Mark Day

[Dundee]

JOHN Monash pulled off a remarkable triple play of war, politics and diplomacy to cement his reputation as a military maestro and as Australia's greatest soldier. Monash, commander of the Australian forces on the Western Front in 1918, devised a new strategy... Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery... "I would name Monash as the best general on the Western Front."...

...the battle of Le Hamel became the first time Americans had fought under foreign command...

..."The true role of the infantry is not to expend itself upon heroic physical effort, not to wither away under merciless machinegun fire, not to impale itself upon hostile bayonets, but on the contrary, to advance under the maximum possible protection from the maximum possible array of mechanical resources, in the form of guns, machineguns, tanks, mortars and aeroplanes, to advance with as little impediment as possible; to be relieved as far as possible from the obligation to fight their way forward."

...a strategy he called "peaceful penetration"... entailed... sniper attacks, limited incursions, disruption, and harassment... ...to play with the enemy's minds...

...Leaders of infantry, artillery, machinegun, aircraft and tank forces met for 4 1/2 hours on June 30 to finalise details. This meeting was three times longer than the attack plan...

The Americans trained behind the lines with the Australians and were eager for action. ...[Monash] included eight [US] companies in his plan. ...the day before the attack, US commander John Pershing... ordered that they be withdrawn... the US did not want its men fighting under non-American command...

In the end 1000 men were withdrawn and 1000 went into action.

The attack on Le Hamel began minutes after 3am on American Independence Day, July 4...

...the battle went perfectly to plan. It was scheduled to last 90 minutes, but it went for 93...

[Dundee]

The Battle of Le Hamel was notable for a number of reasons. It was the first battle that US and Australian forces had fought side by side, the first time American forces had fought under foreign command, the first combined arms attack (infantry, armour, artillery, and aircraft all working together), and it was studied extensively by the Germans after the war which lead the the Blitzkrieg tactics of WWII.

Monash was certainly a General ahead of his times.

[lentulusgracchus]

It's good the Americans were with an experienced and dedicated general, but there are good and legal reasons why U.S. troops are not to be commanded by foreign generals.

There are paths to coordination that don't violate U.S. law and custom, but these hadn't been worked out in America's second cooperative foreign campaign (the Boxer Rebellion, iirc, was the first).