Kindergarten soccer in the Meuse-Argonne

A footnote on the map at the Meuse Argonne cemetery makes it sound innocuous – that the First Division “assisted” the 42nd – but the reality is that the incident could have been disastrous, and it stemmed from the most egregious case of “Kindergarten soccer” that I’ve ever come across.
By “Kindergarten soccer,” I mean the situation that happens in high-pressure organizations that lack clear roles and responsibilities. Subordinates, eager to please their boss, abandon their “on-paper” job descriptions and focus on the boss’s priorities without regard for the rest of the team.

If you’ve ever heard a boss say “I don’t care who does it! I just want it done!” then you know what I’m talking about. *That’s* an organization that’s – metaphorically -- playing Kindergarten soccer. Everyone’s just trying to kick the ball without regard for what anyone else is doing.

The problem started during the final week of World War I with an unclear order from General Pershing’s headquarters. Capturing the prestigious city of Sedan was a high priority for him (though maybe not as high as for the French), so the staff included a sentence in the order that read “division lines are not binding.”

While the intent was probably that divisions coordinate amongst themselves to assist each other, the interpretation was … quite different. First Division took an immediate hard left turn toward Sedan and plowed directly into the 77th Division’s lane. As 1st Division’s units came into contact with those of the 77th, fights broke out between officers over who had right-of-way on the roads.

Not content to mess up just one neighboring division, the 1st continued into the 42nd Division’s area of responsibility, which put them in then-Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur’s territory. Then, as ever, MacArthur’s custom modifications to the uniform made him appear distinct, though at this point it set him apart in the wrong way. First Division soldiers, thinking he was a German general, decided to capture him. Thus, the only time MacArthur was ever captured was in WWI, when he was caught by fellow American troops.

The incident was a massive embarrassment, and the chaos marked "the only occasion in the war when I lost my temper completely," for LTG Hunter-Liggett, the normally unflappable corps commander. Plus, by tripping up the 77th and the 42nd, 1st Div prevented any of them taking Sedan, and the French quickly overtook them in the race to seize the city. It was a colossal mess, but it could have been much worse. In MacArthur’s words, it "narrowly missed being one of the great tragedies of American history." [Source]

While the map at the American cemetery is deliberately vague, the 1937 map found on the Truman Library website illustrates the debacle more clearly, making the best reference to accompany books like “To Conquer Hell.” In the upper left, you can see distinctly the areas that the 1st Div “assisted” the 42nd in capturing. [Source]
Kindergarten soccer isn’t just an Army phenomenon, but the details – hidden in the footnotes of history – certainly are among the most entertaining.