The end of the war came on November 11 — far sooner than either March or Pershing anticipated — and it was won with slightly fewer than two million men in the AEF. While Pershing dealt with the problems of maintaining an occupation zone in Germany and keeping up the morale of men restive to go home, March supervised the demobilization and return of the AEF. By August 1, 1919, only 133,000 American soldiers were in Europe and fewer than 575,000 were in the entire army. In September Baker and March greeted Pershing when his transport arrived in New York. Over the next year, Pershing toured the nation and reviewed victory parades. Baker had recommended permanent four-star rank for both March and Pershing, but while Congress created and bestowed the rank of general of the armies for the latter, it refused to continue March in his temporary rank of full general. Thus came congressional revenge for March’s refusal to consider requests for favors. Nor were returning regular army officers pleased with March, or indeed any of the War Department officers. Many had worn stars as brigade or division commanders or in key staff positions, yet they had reverted to their permanent ranks when their units and the AEF ceased to exist. Those men were embittered when they learned that War Department officers continued to hold their wartime ranks because the department was still in operation. On June 30, 1920, as wartime rank legislation came to an end, March along with the others lost their temporary ranks. Ten years later, Congress restored the highest wartime rank to those on the retired list.

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March continued as chief of staff until his retirement at the end of June 1921. Pershing replaced him and brought in Harbord as his assistant chief of staff. They reorganized the General Staff in the form of their GHQ General Staff and attempted to keep up an army beset by severe budget restrictions. Three years later, Pershing retired and began work on his memoirs.

In 1931 My Experiences in the World War appeared to critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize for history. Rather than a personal memoir — although Pershing did quote diary entries, letters, and cables as well as some reminiscences — this two-volume work is essentially a history of the AEF. Not surprisingly, March was displeased with the criticism of the War Department. He immediately set to work on his own account of the war, which emphasized his and the War Department’s accomplishments and at times harshly criticized Pershing. When The Nation at War came out in 1932, it did not have as grand a reception as Pershing’s book, but the general of the armies was badly stung by the criticism. Pershing wanted redress, and he and Harbord debated the best medium for this. Ultimately they decided that Harbord would write a book detailing the achievements of the AEF while rebutting March’s book. After consultation with the two most distinguished former secretaries of war, Elihu Root and Newton Baker, their solution was to sum up their views on March in a lengthy footnote that, incidentally, Baker wrote. Baker, like March, had been hurt by Pershing’s book, but March’s fanning the flames of the controversy irritated him even more. The American Army in France: 1917-1919 came out in 1936, which wound up the battle of the generals. Both lived to see World War II, with Pershing dying in 1948 and March, who commented on the Korean War, living until 1955.

Two of the greatest American generals of World War II, Douglas MacArthur and George C. Marshall, held somewhat different views of their predecessors. MacArthur had known March before the war and, as chief of staff, provided office space for him to write his book. Although a brigade and division commander in the AEF, MacArthur was not one of Pershing’s favorites, and he knew it. In 1960 he evaluated both of these officers: As a soldier, my opinion of March is of the highest. He was, in my estimation, perhaps the greatest chief of staff of all time….When you left March’s office, you knew exactly what he wanted. He said Pershing’s greatest point was his strength and firmness of character. MacArthur attributed the disputes that arose during the war to the fact that March and Pershing were unable to meet and confer, and MacArthur blamed Pershing’s staff for poisoning the AEF commander’s attitude toward March.

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