The American Foreign Legion: Black Soldiers of the 93d in World War I by Frank E. Roberts. Naval Institute Press (http://www.usni.org/ press/press.html), USNI Operations Center, 2062 Generals Highway, Annapolis, Maryland 21401-6780, 2004, 288 pages, $29.95 (hardcover).
More than three decades ago, historians began to weave the little-known exploits of African-Americans into the fabric of American history. Frank E. Roberts’s The American Foreign Legion continues that trend by contributing another chapter to American military historiography.
By 2004 the public had grown accustomed to reading about black soldiers in nearly every area of American military history. Roberts cogently reminds us that was not always the case. By taking the reader back to the second decade of the twentieth century, he places on center stage the story of the 93d Division, thus showing a time and place when all servicemen were not treated equally.
The story line begins when the US Army refuses to use black soldiers, assigning them instead to the French army. What no doubt was designed to demean and disgrace had the unintended effect of giving these black Americans the opportunity to excel on the battlefield. More pointedly, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker “issued specific orders to Gen. John J. Pershing . . . that all American units would serve under the direct command” of Allied Expeditionary Forces Headquarters (p. 1). Pershing relied on an obscure clause in the policy statement to release to the French army the four regiments of American infantry (the 369th, 370th, 371st, and 372d) that neither he nor his commanders wanted. Roberts’s story tells how units of the 93d fought to repel potent German offensives on the one hand and to combat the rigidity of American military segregation on the other.
Once placed under French command, blacks proved their worth as fighters and true defenders of justice and equality. Using 11 maps and detailed accounts of infantry action in such operations as the Battles of Champagne-Marne and the Meuse-Argonne, as well as the Oise-Aisne Offensive, Roberts relives Allied assaults in vivid detail, recounting movements on almost an hourly basis.
A paradox of this study is that by 1917–18, American military commanders should have been familiar with the success of blacks in uniform. They should have known of blacks who had served in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Civil War in particular. Even if they had not heard of Crispus Attucks or Martin R. Delaney, they should have known of Eugene Bullard (the “Black Swallow of Death”) or some of the black units that had fought with the French in Senegal or with the British in the Dardanelles campaign or in Cameroon. Indeed, when Sergeant Cox boasted that “this here flag ain’t never agoin’ to touch the ground” (p. 100) as the 369th moved towards Remicourt in 1918, images of William H. Carney of the 54th Massachusetts at Fort Wagner should have surfaced in the minds of every military commander.
Roberts shows that blacks excelled under French command in World War I, yet when the time came to celebrate, he writes that the bravery of blacks was overlooked despite their having earned 42 Distinguished Service Crosses and 325 individual conferrals of the Croix de Guerre, among other awards as listed in appendix B. Indeed, America brought no black participants to the celebration on Bastille Day in 1919, as other nations did. Even worse, the official record of the US Army failed to show that the 93d had served at all.
Therefore, not only should we applaud Roberts for his well-written work on the 93d, we should applaud him even more for using 20 photos to add names and faces to “rescue from oblivion” another seldom-told chapter in American military history. Absent this book, the exploits of Cpl Freddie Stowers, the sole African-American to receive the Medal of Honor (although posthumously), may have remained untold, or James Reese Europe, the son of a Reconstruction federal-patronage recipient in Alabama, may have remained known only in America for his jazz. This well-documented study belongs on the shelf of every serious student of military history.
Dr. Richard Bailey
Montgomery, Alabama
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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