John J. Pershing

Born in 1860, John Joseph Pershing rose through the army to lead the AEF from 1917 to 1920, holding the line against British and French pressure to scatter his divisions as replacement units. His soldiers hit serious combat at Cantigny and Belleau Wood in June 1918, then broke the German salient at St. Mihiel in September before grinding through 47 days in the Argonne forests alongside the French. Pershing wanted the war to continue until Germany was occupied and its militarism crushed; when the armistice came on 11 November 1918, he did not halt new attacks in the final hours, resulting in nearly 11,000 casualties that day alone. His frontal-assault tactics drew fire from peers and later historians for driving American losses higher than necessary, but he mentored the generation - Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, MacArthur - that would lead the next war. He died in 1948.