These two volumes focus on a American Expeditionary Forces soldier's experiences in France during World War I.

Charles Gates Dawes: A Life is the first comprehensive biography of an American in whose fascinating story contemporary readers can follow the struggles and triumphs of early twentieth-century America and Europe. Dawes is most known today as vice president of the United States under Calvin Coolidge, but he also distinguished himself and his hometown of Evanston, Illinois, on the world stage with the 1925 Nobel Peace Prize. This engrossing biography traces how, when the punitive armistice that ended the First World War resulted in a disabled, restive Germany, Dawes’s diplomatic legerdemain averted war through a renegotiation of Germany’s debt repayments. Dawes’s diplomatic and political achievements, however, were only the illustrious capstones to a multifaceted career that included military service, law, finance, and business on the local, state, national, and global stages. In every arena of his life, he combined the social graces of the Gilded Age with the spirit of service of the Progressive Era. Despite his life of disciplined service, Dawes was an ebullient and irrepressible figure. Dawes’s salty language was often colorful fodder for tabloid and magazine writers of his era. In this captivating biography, Annette B. Dunlap recounts the story of an original American who enlightened and enlivened his world. This book was published in cooperation with the Evanston History Center and with generous support from the Tawani Foundation.

A century ago, horses were ubiquitous in America. They plowed the fields, transported people and goods within and between cities and herded livestock. About a million of them were shipped overseas to serve in World War I. Equine related industries employed vast numbers of stable workers, farriers, wainwrights, harness makers and teamsters. Cities were ringed with fodder-producing farmland, and five-story stables occupied prime real estate in Manhattan. Then, in just a few decades, the horses vanished in a wave of emerging technologies. Those technologies fostered unprecedented economic growth, and with it a culture of recreation and leisure that opened a new place for the horse as an athletic teammate and social companion.

General of the Armies John J. Pershing (1860–1948) had a long and distinguished military career, but he is most famous for leading the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I. He published a memoir, My Experiences in the World War, and has been the subject of numerous biographies, but the literature regarding this towering figure and his enormous role in the First World War deserves to be expanded to include a collection of his wartime correspondence. Meticulously edited by John T. Greenwood, volume 1 of John J. Pershing and the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I, 1917–1919 covers the period of April 7 through September 30, 1917. The letters speak to such topics as Pershing's appointment to command the US expeditionary force, his initial preparations, and early meetings with Allied civilian and military leaders, including Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig and General Henri Philippe Pétain. Drawing heavily on Pershing's extensive personal papers, this collection includes his letters and cablegrams exchanged with Secretary of War Newton D. Baker and Chiefs of Staff Hugh L. Scott and Tasker H. Bliss. Extracts from the large volume of rarely referenced cablegrams represent an important contribution to Pershing's wartime story. Two appendices provide the reader with details of Pershing's relations with the Allied governments and armies (as he reported them in an unpublished part of his Final Report of Gen. John J. Pershing in 1920) and his personal appraisal of Marshal Ferdinand Foch as he knew him during the war. These volumes of wartime correspondence provide new insight into the work of a legendary soldier and the historic events in which he participated, and offer a valuable resource for any serious Pershing or World War I scholar.

A critical edition of Charles Gates Dawes' A Journal of The Great War with two new essays that explore the broader story of Dawes' war experience.First published in 1921, A Journal of the Great War provides a fascinating glimpse into the challenges faced by the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) during the United States' 18-month involvement in World War I. Dawes' journal, written while he was stationed in France from 1917 to 1919, offers a behind-the-scenes look at the power struggles and political maneuvering that took place among American and European political and military leaders as they sought to fight the war as an allied force. Part document of life in wartime France, part war diary, and part mentation on the means of exercising power, Dawes' journal is a unique contribution to the literature of World War I. In July 1917, at the age of 51, Dawes sailed for France as an officer with the U.S. 17th Engineers. At the time, Dawes' enlistment made headlines. He was hailed as a "soldier banker" -- one of the wealthiest men in the country to join Uncle Sam's army. Dawes was indeed a wealthy man; he was president of the Central Trust Company of Illinois, a bank he founded in 1902, and, along with his brothers, he also ran numerous investments and companies. When he sailed for France, he left all that behind.Once in France, Dawes was appointed as the General Purchasing Agent in Europe for the AEF by his friend, General John Pershing. Stationed in Paris for the duration, Dawes served as Pershing's confidant throughout the war, consulting with the American general as Pershing deployed more than two million American soldiers into battle. Meanwhile, Dawes oversaw a massive operation to acquire and distribute supplies for the war effort. Working closely with Pershing, Dawes would soon develop the Military Board of Allied Supply, a means to coordinate supply among the Allies. Dawes' stunning achievement to bring about and manage this alliance -- and the political drama that unfolded behind it -- is documented in A Journal of the Great War.

From Kites to Cold War tells the story of the evolution of manned airborne reconnaissance. Long a desire of military commanders, the ability to see the terrain ahead and gain foreknowledge of enemy intent was realized when Chinese airmen mounted kites to surveil their surroundings. Kite technology was slow to spread, and by the late nineteenth century European nations had developed the balloon and airship to conduct this mission. By 1918, it was obvious that the airplane had become the reconnaissance platform of the future. Used successfully by many nations during the Great War, aircraft technology and capability experienced its most rapid evolutionary period during World War II. Entering the war with just basic airborne imagery capabilities, by V-E and V-J days, air power pioneers greatly improved imagery collection and developed sophisticated airborne signals intelligence collection capabilities. The United States and other nations put these capabilities to use as the Cold War immediately followed. Flying near the periphery of and sometimes directly over the Soviet Union, airborne reconnaissance provided the intelligence necessary to stay one step ahead of the Soviets throughout the Cold War.

Recent scholarship has challenged the assumption that military commanders during the First World War were inflexible, backward-looking and unwilling to exploit new technologies. Instead a very different picture is now emerging of armies desperately looking to a wide range of often untested and immature scientific and technological innovations to help break the deadlock of the Western Front. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the development of tank warfare, which both the British and the French hoped would give them a decisive edge in their offensives of 1917 and 1918. Whilst the British efforts to develop armoured warfare have been well chronicled, there has been no academic study in English on the French tank force - the Artillerie Spéciale - during the Great War. As such, this book provides a welcome new perspective on an important but much misunderstood area of the war. Such was the scale of the French tanks’ failure in their first engagement in 1917, it was rumoured that the Artillerie Spéciale was in danger of being disbanded, yet, by the end of the war it was the world’s largest and most technologically advanced tank force. This work examines this important facet of the French army’s performance in the First World War, arguing that the AS fought the war in as intelligent and sensible a manner as was possible, given the immature state of the technology available. No amount of sound tank doctrine could compensate for the fragility of the material, for the paucity of battlefield communication equipment and for the lack of tank-infantry training opportunities. Only by 1918 was the French army equipped with enough reliable tanks, as well as aircraft and heavy-artillery, to begin to exercise a mastery of the new form of combined-arms warfare. The successful French armoured effort outlined in this study (including a listing of all the combat engagements of the French tank service in the Great War) highlights a level of military effectiveness within