| Existing comment:
This is a 1919 replica of the map that Gen John J Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I, used during the finale of the war. His map, as a short article in Smithsonian Magazine points out, for the first time ever, provided a systematic way of gathering and translating intelligence into one central battlefield picture. Pershing, another West Point graduate, used red pins to indicate the front line. Rows of pins fan out to indicate boundaries between corps of the Allied and German armies. Thumbtacks are color-coded to show each division's condition--white for tired, blue for fresh. A colored piece of paper shows the division's number. |