World War I: The Great War

John J. Pershing: The Iron General (3x4)

Data di messa in onda: Dic 31, 2009

He took a 128,000-man force and transformed it into a juggernaut of 4 million soldiers that won a war. His was a face made for monuments, and a life worthy of them. He was arguably more responsible for transforming America into an international power than anyone else. John J. Pershing started his career as an Indian fighter on the frontier. He ended it as the greatest war hero America had ever seen. In between was enough triumph and tragedy for several lives. This searching profile pieces together a portrait of an ambitious, driven man haunted by a searing tragedy--the loss of his wife and three daughters killed in a fire. Military historians detail how he transformed a tiny, 128,000-man force into an army of four million men, and then led it to victory in the greatest battle America had ever fought--the Meuse Argonne offensive in October 1918. That Pershing was no tactical genius is clear, but his crude force made up in numbers what they lacked in strategy. John Pershing, the senior U.S. Army General of World War I, was granted the rank of "General of the Armies" in 1919 in recognition of his performance as the commander of the American Expeditionary Force. "General of the Armies" of the United States is the highest possible land-based rank in the United States military hierarchy. From the fading frontier to the trenches of World War I, follow the career of one of the most important American generals of all time.