In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby tells the novel’s narrator about his World War I military service and a particularly heroic engagement in the Argonne Forest. He ends his story by explaining: “I was promoted to be a major, and every Allied government gave me a decoration – even Montenegro, little Montenegro down on the Adriatic Sea.” The decoration he displays is the Order of Prince Danilo I. Fitzgerald’s description of the award might not be the most accurate, but it is a real order and members of the AEF did receive it. To discuss the order and it's AEF recipients, the World War I Podcast talked with Dr. Frank Blazich, Military History Curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Dr. Blazich is an expert on the AEF recipients of the Order of Prince Danilo I and is also a contemporary recipient of the award.
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