Joseph E. Persico

“Wilhelm was bombastic, overbearing, and contemptuous of what he perceived as softness in others. He described Czar Nicholas as “fit only to…

— Joseph E. Persico

“the human nature whose strong quality it brings out and reveals. To attribute any nobility to war itself is as much a…

— Joseph E. Persico

“General Pershing now had what he wanted: proof that the AEF was the equal of its allies and the enemy. British generals,…

— Joseph E. Persico

“But harder heads saw another advantage in taking sides in a distant struggle: Britain and France owed massive debts to American companies.…

— Joseph E. Persico

“The pandemic may have originated in the American military post at Fort Riley, Kansas, where a dust storm whipping about tons of…

— Joseph E. Persico

“The railroad car stood in the midst of French villages that the war had effaced from the earth. The Germans were confronting…

— Joseph E. Persico

“Our government seemed to expect the same of them as of white men. Poor Negroes! They are hopelessly inferior. . . .…

— Joseph E. Persico

“The ground over which the bulk of the battles raged was only about eighty-five miles wide, a relatively modest battleground but a…

— Joseph E. Persico

“The New York Herald reported that a German soldier had been seen carrying a bagful of ears. Another newspaper accused Germany of…

— Joseph E. Persico

“The American casualties continued to be staggering, in no small part because among the AEF’s junior officers enthusiasm generally outran their experience.”

— Joseph E. Persico

“The key was to exploit contradictory British and French objectives. The BEF’s priority was to hold on to the French ports through…

— Joseph E. Persico

“For the entire AEF, the campaigns at Cantigny, Belleau Wood, Château-Thierry, and the Ourcq started to approach the bloodletting of past western…

— Joseph E. Persico

“Passchendaele ended in breathtaking losses. More than 310,000 British, 85,000 Frenchmen, and 260,000 Germans, a total of 655,000, had fallen in a…

— Joseph E. Persico

“Pétain’s mission was to quell the rebellion and continue prosecution of the war.”

— Joseph E. Persico

“Thus the total Armistice Day casualties were nearly 10 percent higher than those on D-Day.”

— Joseph E. Persico

“France is fighting for ‘La Patrie’; England is fighting for commerce; Italy is fighting to get a slice of Austria, and America…

— Joseph E. Persico

“Country boys turned out to be the fittest, producing 4.8 percent more able-bodied draftees per 100,000 than city boys. Whites were 1.2…

— Joseph E. Persico

“On weekends his idea of rest was to read military history aloud to his daughters.”

— Joseph E. Persico

“No one’s exploits in the division had glowed more incandescently than those of Douglas MacArthur. He was that rarity, a courageous exhibitionist,…

— Joseph E. Persico

“the western front on armistice morning, the commanders of seven judged the war essentially over upon receiving word of the signing and…

— Joseph E. Persico

“The concussive force of grenades rattled men’s brains to the point of madness.”

— Joseph E. Persico

“The most convincing proof of the Americans’ successful rite of passage came from across the lines. The Germans had previously regarded the…

— Joseph E. Persico

“This knowledge, however, served the purposes of peace rather than war. The German general staff grasped that the tide of Americans, now…

— Joseph E. Persico

“The Germans had more men killed and wounded at Verdun, 325,000, than all the 230,000 men deployed in the field at Stalingrad…

— Joseph E. Persico

“The last day of the war provided chilling closure. The ending, in its ferocity, bloodiness, and uselessness, contained the entire war in…

— Joseph E. Persico