Military Review English Edition November December 2016 | Page 134

exceptional disdain for Brig. Gen. Benedict Arnold and
his mismanagement of Hessian forces during the Battle of
Portsmouth, Virginia.
Crytzer uses the journal of Baroness von Reidesel to
provide an interesting account of the role played by Gen.
Reidesel and his Hessian force in support of Britain’s effort to gain control of the Champlain and Hudson River
valleys. Like Ewald, Gen. Reidesel is critical of British
strategy and advocates for more aggressive tactics in
attacking patriot forces. Realizing the strength of patriot
forces is increasing, Gen. Reidesel recommends to Gen.
John Burgoyne an immediate withdrawal of British forces
back to Canada. Burgoyne’s procrastination results in the
surrendering of his army at Saratoga. Crytzer describes
the lavish lifestyle experienced by the Reidesel family for
the remainder of the war.
Finally, Crytzer uses Waldeck’s experiences to
illustrate the war that took place in the Caribbean, in
Florida, and along the Gulf coast. Waldeck’s observations of British indecisiveness, disdain, and mishandling of its relationship with local allies, and the lack
of a comprehensive strategy, resulted in British defeats
throughout the area.
Hessians provides an alternative view of the American
Revolution from the perspective of German soldiers
who participated in it. This book is a must read for
students and historians with an interest in the American
Revolution. It would make a great companion to Rodney
Alwood’s The Hessians.

Jesse McIntyre III, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

FORTY-SEVEN DAYS

How Pershing’s Warriors Came of Age to
Defeat the German Army in World War I

Mitchell Yockelson, New American Library Publishers,
New York, 2016, 400 pages

F

orty-Seven Days is a historical summary of Gen.
John J. Pershing and the U.S. First Army during
the final days of the First World War on the
Western Front. The book is well researched and written
by one of America’s preeminent World War I historians. I found the book to be entertaining and filled with
interesting side stories of the American Expeditionary
Force’s (AEF) more colorful characters. The author
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used direct sources to highlight the service of famous
names such as Douglas MacArthur, George Patton,
Eddie Rickenbacker, George C. Marshall, Alvin York,
Harry Truman, and many others. This not only made
the book more entertaining but also connected the
events and people of the AEF to later dramas of the
twentieth century.
Aside from the entertainment value of Forty-Seven
Days, the book clearly outlines the hard-fought battles of the U.S.
First Army and
later the Second
Army during the
Saint Mihiel and
Meuse–Argonne
offensives. Much
attention is given
to highlighting
the hardship,
chaos, and confusion the untested
American First
Army faced in
the summer and
fall of 1918. The
author uses firsthand accounts to
tell the reader graphic stories of World War I combat
and to describe tensions among the senior officers at
the division, corps, and First Army levels.
Forty-Seven Days does not cover the actions of
America’s first combat experiences in World War I such
as at Soissons, Belleau Wood, and Chateau Thierry.
In these battles, the American forces fought alongside
French forces to thwart a massive German offensive in
the summer of 1918. Instead, the book focuses entirely
on the birth and development of the exclusive American
Field Army (First Army) that fought as a separate and
independent Army under the command of Pershing.
Hence, the second part of the title: How Pershing’s
Warriors Came of Age.
My one critique of Forty-Seven Days centers on the
book’s slant toward pop history. In that, I mean that the
author takes several tangents to tell anecdotal stories on
some less than key players in the Meuse–Argonne offensive. For example, the author painfully jumps on the Gen.
Patton bandwagon, spending more than six pages telling
November-December 2016  MILITARY REVIEW