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American Expeditionary Forces on the Western Front (World War I) order of battle

A photograph of troop ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean with troops.
Troop ships of the first American convoy in 1917. The ships are the Henderson, Antilles, Momus and Lenape.

This is the American Expeditionary Forces on the Western Front order of battle. The American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) consisted of the United States Armed Forces (mostly the United States Army) that were sent to Europe in World War I to support the Allied cause against the Central Powers. During the United States campaigns in World War I the AEF fought in France alongside French and British allied forces in the last year of the war, against Imperial German forces. Some of the troops fought alongside Italian forces in that same year, against Austro-Hungarian forces. Late in the war American units also fought in Siberia and North Russia.[1]

President Woodrow Wilson created the AEF in May 1917, originally appointing Major General John J. Pershing, who was later promoted to general, as commander. Barely any American troops were sent to Europe in 1917, since Pershing ordered all AEF forces to be well-trained before going overseas.[2]

The troop ships used to transport the AEF were, at first, any ships that were available. Cruisers, German ships seized by the Navy, ships borrowed from the Allies, and many other ships were used to ship troops to Europe from ports in New York, New Jersey, and Virginia.[2] By June 1917, only 14,000 soldiers had made it to the front lines, but by May 1918 over two million American troops had reached Europe, with around half of them on the front lines.[3]

The AEF helped the French Army on the Western Front during the Aisne Offensive (at Château-Thierry and Belleau Wood) in June 1918, and fought its major actions in the Saint-Mihiel and Meuse–Argonne Offensives in late 1918.[4] Organized into two field armies (a third was forming as the war ended), it had a total strength of about two million men in Europe by the time of the Armistice.[5] Planned to eventually consist of nine corps,[6] a total of five AEF corps and two unassigned divisions were in the field by September 1918.[7][N 1] It was subsequently involved in the Occupation of the Rhineland.[10]

  1. ^ Votaw (2013), p. 62.
  2. ^ a b Coffman (1998).
  3. ^ Pershing (1931).
  4. ^ Votaw (2013), p. 6.
  5. ^ Grotelueschen (2007), pp. 13 & 343.
  6. ^ Army War College Historical Section (1988a), p. v.
  7. ^ Gibbons (2014), p. 388.
  8. ^ a b Grotelueschen (2007), p. 27.
  9. ^ Gibbons (2014), p. 391.
  10. ^ Pawley (2008) pp. 32–33


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