Reddit reviews To Conquer Hell

Their tactics were better than decent. The Germans, Brits and French all developed effective tactics for seizing enemy trenches pretty quickly. That wasn't the problem. The problem is, how do you seize the first enemy line of trenches and hold it while you're under artillery fire and enemy infantry counter attack? You don't have effective radios and artillery is constantly cutting the phone lines you are able to lay. Signaling is difficult because of terrain, weather conditions, smoke created by fires and the fact that if you're visible enough to be seen by your support then you're also probably visible enough to be seen by the enemy. Even if the enemy doesn't counterattack immediately (which they would), how do you get to the second line of trenches under said conditions? How do you coordinate supporting fires and reinforcements when there is quite literally a wall of flying steel (barrage means wall/barricade in French, which is where the term comes from) between you and your start point?

The main issue was that the offensive technologies (communications, motorized vehicles, light supporting weapons, aerial weapons) hadn't caught up to the defense technologies (barbed wire, concrete pillboxes, heavy machine guns, massed artillery, rail-borne reinforcements). Even if you successfully seized line after line of trench, the enemy could always dig in behind their last line and pour in reinforcements via rail faster than you could break through. With all that said, strategically the allies were idiotic. Continuing to attack fortified German positions again and again and again with very little to show for it is just bad strategic judgement.

I've posted these links before, but if you'd like to educate yourself on WW1 infantry tactics/battle:

Stormtrooper Tactics

Infantry in Battle

To Conquer Hell

Infantry Attacks

Storm of Steel

PS. I know you can find the second one for free on the internet.

To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918 is by far the best secondary source on the Meuse Argonne Offensive around. Ed Lengel, who teaches now at UVA does a really good job of utilizing primary accounts to show just how grueling the battle was.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Conquer-Hell-Edward-G-Lengel/dp/0805089152

And while not exclusively about the Corps, Thunder and Flames deals with the AEF during WW1 leading up to the St Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Offensives. Lots of stuff in there about the 4th Brigade, which included the 5th and 6th Marines. The same author wrote To Conquer Hell on the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, which although has very little USMC history in it, it is the only book Ive ever read that gave me nightmares.

To Conquer Hell- Its about the Meuse-Argonne offensive and is pretty well written. It does a nice job of showing the individual accounts while detailing the overall movement.

http://www.amazon.com/To-Conquer-Hell-Meuse-Argonne-Battle/dp/0805089152