The building of an army

Front matter

Oass Book,

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT

THE NEW WORLD OF SCIENCE Edited by Robert M. Yerkes

Preface

As long as a Secretary of War sits in the President's cabinet and as long as an Army Appropriations Act is annually passed by Congress, the country will be confronted with concrete evidence that there is need for an army policy. The developed practices of nations with regard to foreign relations, protection of citizens and interests abroad, and the maintenance of domestic order, raise inevitably the question of whether the country shall maintain an army, and, if so, what shall be its size and how it shall be constituted. From decade to decade new settlements may be reached on one policy or another, but the problem itself is as continuing as national life. Our naval policy seems at present to have reached such a periodic stage of settlement in consequence of the recent international conference at Washington, but the question of land armaments has not yet been seriously touched. It is one of those open questions as to which there is a very practical need for full public information.

In the meanwhile during the past six or seven years a fund of experience has accrued, and discussions, debates and investigations have taken place, the results of which should be gathered up and preserved because of their important bearing on permanent issues as to policy. To do this is the task attempted in this book. It is written from the standpoint of no controversial proposals, and it advocates no simple solution of what is a most complicated problem. It is intended rather as a more or less careful study of recent experience made with a view of separating out the elements which are of permanent interest from what has been merely transient. The book is meant, in addition, as a study of opinion, for the reason that in

PREFACE

a democratic country opinion sets the limits of the feasible within all practicable policy must be confined. A large number of quotations have therefore been included from the utterances of members of Congress, administrative officials, military experts and other public persons who speak for important groups in the country. These quotations have been gathered not merely for the intrinsic importance of any ideas which they express, but for their representative character and in some instances because of the highly interesting light which they shed on the mental processes of an important public figure or a group. Not being written from the standpoint of advocacy, the book attempts to reproduce with fairness all important shades of opinion.

Indebtedness is acknowledged to a number of valuable governmental compilations of recent years from which much of the material presented in this book has been drawn. Chief among these are the "Second Report of the Provost Marshal General" which has been heavily drawn on in Chapters IV, V and VI.; the report of the Chief of Staff for 1918, printed in the War Department's "Annual Report" for that year, which has supplied the basic material for Chapter VIII ; and the "Hearings on Army Reorganization" held by the Senate and House Committees on Military Affairs during the autumn of 1920, from which most of Chapter IX has been taken.

I have attempted in the final chapter to express the conclusions as to the essentials of a feasible American army policy as they appear to me to follow from what is set forth in the preceding chapters.

John Dickin-son 51 East 58th Street, New York City,

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I The Background of Our Traditional Army Policy . . 3

II The Continental Army Plan and the National Defence Act 29

Chapter I The Background Of Our Traditional Army Policy

THE purpose of this book is to tell the story of the building of an army; to describe the process by which the United States, with a regular military force of but one hundred thousand men on April i, 19 17, succeeded by November 11, 1918, in placing more than three million men under arms. More accurately, it is to tell only a part of that story ; for in a broad sense an account of the building of an army under modern conditions of organized national warfare would call for an account of every side of the life of the nation at war. To describe how the army was provided with munitions and equipment would lead into a description of the war-time organization of the nation's whole industrial activity; to describe how it was fed would raise a discussion of the war-time dislocation of agriculture and commerce; an account of transportation and shipping arrangements would be essential; all sides of national effort would have to be touched on, because during the war all converged and focused on the combat-point of the army. None of these matters is within the scope of this book. The story which will be told is simpler. It is the story of the procuring and assembling of the human material out of which the army was built, and of its fashioning into an organized instrument of warfare. In a sense it will be also a story of organization, but not the whole story. Nothing, for instance, will be said about the arrangement and grouping of the men for purposes of a technical miHtary nature; nor about the machinery of organization developed for the services of supply. What we shall be concerned with will be only the broader matter of organization for purposes of general control and direction ; with such questions, for instance, as the relation of the army to one set of political authorities — the nation — rather than to another — the States — , and with the internal ojganization which had for its object the welding of the army as a whole into a more eflFective and cohesive unit. Within the limited field thus marked out, there lie a number of questions which, linked together, are fundamenta^l to our military policy in the future as in the past, and which consequently deserve attention as having an important bearing on national welfare.

There has always been controversy as to how far a nation should maintain a standing army and how far it should depend upon levies raised for each special emergency ; whether or not special levies of the latter sort should be raised by conscription or on a volunteer basis ; and to what extent troops drawn from a particular locality should remain subject to the control of the local authorities. I mention these three questions because they have been especially troublesome in our own history. Each of our wars has raised them, ;ind it can hardly be said that a definite public opinion has yel crystallized with regard to them. Substantially the same questions present themselves in broader forms. What sort of military organization goes best with democratic government and most conforms to democratic ideals of individual conduct and national policy? What is the connection between the obligation to military service and civic obligation in general? What is the relation between the military organization of a nation and its industrial, commercial, and political organization?

It is questions of this kind which arise in the field of facts to be covered in this book. The facts which will be dealt with raise such questions and tend to shed some light on them. The story which this book tells will not solve them; the point is only that, in the material we shall deal with, there is a certain unity which it will be well to realize at the outset in order to understand why some matters, rather than others, are selected for inclusion and why so much else that is interesting and important is omitted. Our attention will be directed to what may be called the political aspects, as distinguished from the technical military aspects, of army building.

It is probably not generally realized how far back the movement really goes which finally culminated in the war-time Draft Act, It dates at least from March, 191 1. In that month disturbances on the Mexican border for the first time became critical enough to require the mobilization of American troops for patrol purposes. An attempt was made to organize a number of brigades of infantry, cavalry, and artillery into a manoeuver division, with results which caused the then chief of stafif, Major-General Leonard Wood, to write in his annual report that " the mobilization in Texas has brought out very forcibly the necessity for proper military organization and preparedness for war." ^ From that time forward the matter was never allowed to drop entirely from public attention. In the following year a scheme for a complete reorganization of the army was worked out by the War College and distributed as a public document.^^ This report called atention to the fact that political conditions affecting our country had changed very materially in the last twenty years, " and it can hardly be said that the development of our land forces has kept pace with these changing conditions. Gradually our external problems have been assuming larger and larger proportions. While we were expanding, other nations have been doing the like, and within the past few years it is found that practically the whole earth is now divided up among the principal nations. . . . Due to this world-wide expansion the contact between great nations

1 War Department, "Annual Report," 1911; Vol. i, p. 157. i^Also printed in War Department, "Annual Report," 1912; Vol. i, pp. 69 flf.

and races tends to become constantly closer, due to the increase of population and national needs, and due especially to the vastly increased facilities for intercommunication. With this close contact thus so recently established comes a competition, commercial, national, and racial, whose ultimate seriousness current events enable us to gage. Since our conflict with Spain in 1898, practically all of the principal nations of the earth have either been actively engaged in war or else brought to the verge of actual war. The evidence is clear that the nations and races capable of maintaining and protecting themselves are the only ones who can flourish in the world competition." - The report went on to recommend that the United States, if it desired to maintain its position as a first-rate power, ought to put itself in a position to mobilize an army of at least 500,cx)0 men immediately on the outbreak of a war.

In 1912 troops had once more to be sent to the Mexican border, where they remained throughout the year 19 13. At the same time the Balkan Wars were going on in Europe, and mihtary matters were in the foreground of popular interest. The newspapers gave considerable attention to plans for army reorganization and to discussions of preparedness and unpreparedness, and there was even talk in the air of compulsory service. In the summer of 1913 two camps were held by the War Department, at Gettysburg in Pennsylvania and at Monterey in California, for the military instruction of college undergraduates. The number of attendants at these camps was small, only 159 at Gettysburg and eighty-five at Monterey, but General Wood in his annual report declared himself satisfied with the result for the reason that the young men who had participated and had acquired some insight into our military needs " would undoubtedly become nuclei of information in the student bodies of the various universities represented." ^

Meanwhile our relations with Mexico continued to grow more troubled. Those were the days of the Huerta regime,

2 War Department, "Annual Report," 1912; Vol. i, p. 126. •War Department, "Annual Report," 1913; Vol. i, p. 191.

and of the special missions of John Lind and William Bayard Hale, when it seemed at times that the decision between peace and war hung by a thread. In November, 1913, a battle-ship squadron was sent to Vera Cruz, additional troops were moved to the border, and there were rumors that the National Guard would be called out. In the same month applications for enlistment in the Regular Army jumped to the unprecedented figure of 5000, 2000 more than ever before in time of peace, showing the interest that was alive among the people. Secretary Garrison had made a two months' inspection tour of the army during the summer, and his proposals for reform and reorganization were followed with interest. Meanwhile the Infantry Association gave out an interview with Senator George D. Chamberlain, in which the chairman of the Senate Committee on MiHtary Affairs expressed himself as follows :

As long as we maintain the Monroe Doctrine, retain the Philippines, control the Panama Canal, and dominate the Pacific, which is our manifest destiny, we must have an army adequate to care for these conditions and emergencies. There has been a great deal of general discussion as to the necessity of better preparation for sudden war emergencies, and there seems to be a quite unanimous opinion that at present our army is wholly inadequate. I am heartily in favor of such changes and improvements in the army as will meet existing conditions. We ought not to leave ourselves in an attitude where we fear the possibility of invasion by Japan on the Pacific coast, or by any other foreign country on our Atlantic coast, nor in apprehension as to what might happen to our troops in case of intervention in Mexico because the army is inadequate for emergencies. Little attention has been given to National defense until the acute situation in Mexico has brought home to us the unprepared state of the nation to face a sudden war. If there should not be a peaceful termination of the Mexican trouble, temporary war measures and makeshifts would have to be adopted, as has been the case at the beginning of every other war in this country, all of which have been disastrous and expensive on account of their experimental character.'*

The upshot of this public interest was increased attention to military affairs on the part of Congress. A bill was passed

*"New York Times," September 16, 1913; P- 16, column 2.

8 T?TE BUILDING OF AN ARMY

in the House which made radical alterations in the provisions for raising volunteers in the event of an emergency. Another bill was prepared by the War Department providing for important changes in the relation of the organized militia of the States to the Federal Government and the Regular Army. While Congress was still considering these measures there occurred the " Tampico incident." On April 20, 19 14, President Wilson went before Congress and requested authority to employ the armed forces of the United States against Mexico. Under this influence, the Senate on the same day passed the Volunteer Army Bill, referred to above as having passed the House some months before. The entire Atlantic fleet was sent with a force of marines to Vera Cruz, and several days later the Fifth Infantry Brigade, under General Funston, followed to reinforce them. The country was put on the alert. The State governments made plans for mobilizing the National Guard in case its services should be needed. It required strong effort by the President to convince public opinion that actual war was not at hand. Throughout the summer the troops remained at Vera Cruz and the situation continued tense. Then at the beginning of August came the outbreak of the war in Europe. The resistless march of the German army through Belgium commanded the attention of every breakfast table, and people who had never before given the slightest attention to military matters traced on maps and charts the movements of the French army which ultimately ended in the providential victory of the Marne. In such a state of the public mind, the question of our own preparedness for war could not fail to come dominantly home to the minds of men everywhere. On December 2 the National Security League was formed, and an organized campaign for preparedness was on.

It is desirable to begin this book by reviewing our military situation as it stood at the end of 1914 and stating the reasons why it was generally felt that that situation left so much to be desired.

The traditional policy of our Government had developed three sources of man-power on which to rely in time of war :

1. The Regular Army.

2. The National Guard, or organized militia of the several States.

3. A volunteer army created dc novo to meet each particular emergency when it arose.

To this system, thus constituted, there were two different classes of objections: (i) objections to defects in the existing elements of the system which impeded its proper or adequate functioning, even admitting that as a system it was basically sound; (2) objections to the system as a whole, based on the theory that it was fundamentally unsound and required radical reformation. Each of these classes of objections will be glanced at briefly in turn.

By act of February 2, 1901,^ the maximum authorized strength of the Regular Army was fixed at 100,619 men. Within this limit the figure was slightly varied by executive action from year to year," and after making deductions for the Philippine scouts and the quartermaster and the hospital corps it stood at 89,573 on June 30, 1913.^ Duing the decade before the latter date, the actual strength of the army was always considerably below this authorized maximum. The following table shows actual strength for the year indicated : ^

^Authority was left in the executive to vary the size of the army within limits below the maximum ; ibid.

8 Elxclusive of the hospital corps, and the Philippine scouts, and the enlisted privates of the quartermaster corps. This table is made up from figures presented in the annual reports of the adjutant-general.

Officers

Men

I90S

56,064

50,190

41 16

68,512

"1909

77,412

I9I0

67,459

I9II

70,250

I9I2

75,321

19 14

88,444

I9I5

87,877

It thus appears that in 191 5 there was approximately one regular soldier in the United States army for every 11 50 inhabitants ; at the same time it was pointed out that the figures for Great Britain were one for every 205 ; Germany, one for every 70; France, one for every 50; Russia, one for every 190; Japan, one for every 230. It must also be remembered that of the American troops actually under arms a large number were on duty in the Philippines, in Alaska, and in our other outlying possessions, and that consequently the number available for the defense of the continental United States proper or for service abroad was materially diminished.

So that the first main objection taken to the existing military system as an instrument of preparedness was the small size of the Regular Army ; for it was to be expected that upon the regulars would fall the brunt of the fighting at the beginning of any war until the long process of organizing and equipping and training the volunteers had fitted the latter for eflfective service. Military opinion tended to the belief that it was mainly owing to the large proportion of regulars employed in our war with Spain that the war had terminated as successfully as it did; and for a sudden war, unexpectedly begun and carried to a rapid conclusion as modern wars are apt to be, it was argued that a greatly increased Regular Army was indispensable.

As to the proper size for such an army, opinions diflFered widely, ranging all the way from the army of 500,000 recom-

TRADITIONAL POLICY ii

mended in the plan of the War College published in 1912 and mentioned earlier in this chapter,® down to the 115,000 advocated by the " Infantry Journal " in November, 1913.^° Mr. Huidekoper's estimate of 250,000 represents an intermediate view.^^ The last-mentioned estimate was for the actual peace-time strength of the regular establishment to be kept at all times under arms and in readiness for an emergency. This suggests at once the second principal defect which was felt to exist in connection with the Regular Army — the absence of any adequate provision for the creation and maintenance of a reserve.

This point came dominantly to the front at the time of the mobilization of 191 1 on the Texas border, which has already been referred to as supplying the initial impetus for subsequent interest in preparedness. It has been the practice in the American army to maintain the various units of the Regular Army in times of peace at considerably less than half of their full war-time strength. The result as it stood out from the experience of the Texas mobilization is thus described in the report of the chief of staff:

As the regiments were at peace strength when first assembled, the division was only a little over half the strength of a war division. To have brought this division up to war strength would have required the addition to the regiments of an excessive number of recruits, and imless a considerable period had been available to instruct and discipline this new personnel, the result would have been disastrous to the efficiency of the regular organizations. The mobilization has emphasized the fact that our regiments in peace should be kept at greater

^ "In the light of present-day conditions it is estimated that at the outbreak of war with a first-class power we should be capable of mobilizing at once in the United States an effective force of 460,000 mobile troops and 42,000 coast artillery; that this is the minimum of first-line troops necessary; and that to augment this force and replace its losses we should have plans made for raising immediately an additional force of 300,000 men." War Department, " Annual Report," 1912; Vol. I, p. 126.

10 "New York Times," November 3, 1913 ; p. 6, column 5.

" *' Military Unpreparedness of the United States," ; p. 536.

strength and it has also brought out very forcibly the necessity for a reserve with which to bring the regiments from mere peace strength to full war strength.^2

This lack of a proper supply of reserves had been present in the minds of army ofificers and students of military affairs ever since our experience in the Spanish War, and the events of 191 1 convinced the War Department that the time had come to provide a remedy. An effort in this direction was accordingly made in the Army Appropriation Act for 1912.^^ Following the example of foreign countries,^* it was felt that the most promising way of solving this problem was to alter the terms of the enlistment contract in such a way as to provide that a portion of every soldier's enlistment period should be spent with the reserves in addition to the period spent with the colors. Accordingly, the act in question changed the term of enlistment from the former term of three years, all of which was spent with the colors, to an enlistment term of seven years, four of which were to be spent with the colors and three in the reserve. In addition there was a provision permitting a soldier to apply voluntarily for transfer to the reserve at any time after three years with the colors. Commenting on this legislation. Secretary Stimson wrote in his next annual report :

It has been our historical policy in the past to keep the regiments of the Regular Army in time of peace at only about half the strength in enlisted men required for its complement of officers. At the same time there is no provision made by law for filling the ranks of these regiments in case of war. When the Spanish War broke out, the efficiency of many regiments was greatly injured by throwing into them a large number of perfectly raw recruits, and in order to fill the ranks of other regiments it was necessary to consolidate two regiments into one. Such a system postulates the development of a reserve force

^2 Report of chief of staff, War Department, "Annual Report," 1911; Vol, J. pp. 156-157.

13 37 Statutes at Large ; p. 569, Section 2, p. 590.

1* See e. g., the "Life of H. O. Arnold-Foster," by his wife, pp. 238- 239, for English attempts to deal with problem of creating a reserve.

of trained soldiers which, on the outbreak of war, can be called back from their civil occupations to bring our army up to its full strength and keep its ranks full during the inevitable losses of the first engagements. A reserve system is in effect in the armies of practically all nations of the civilized world except our own.

Mr. Stimson then outlined the provisions of the act of 1912 and went on to say:

While the reserve created by this bill is far from perfect, it is in my opinion a long step in the right direction. The most serious defect in my opinion is that it creates too long a period of service with the colors. I believe that our experience, and the experience of nations in Europe, has shown that the soldier can be adequately trained for his duties in considerably less than three years. Thereafter economy demands that he should be transferred to the reserve as promptly as possible. I think our experience will gradually lead to a shortening of the period of training with the colors, and that by so doing we will greatly improve the character of the young men who will come into the army, while in no way diminishing the effectiveness of their military training.15

Secretary Stimson's doubts as to the effectiveness of the provisions of the new legislation were more than borne out by the results. The adjutant-general reported that "approximately 21,000 men enlisted in the army betwen November i, 1912, and August 31, 1913, and of this number sixty-one made application to be furloughed to the reserve at the expiration of three years of service, while on the date last named the reserve consisted of eight men." ^^ One year later the situation remained substantially the same. In his report for 1914 Secretary Garrison wrote : " We have a reserve — that is, men who have been trained in the army, and under the terms of their enlistment contract are subject to be called back to the colors in time of war — consisting of sixteen men." ^^

IS War Department, "Annual Report," 1912; Vol. i, pp. 16-17. For a more elaborate criticism, see report of the chief of staff, War Department, "Annual Report," 1913; Vol. i, pp. 150 ff.

^° Secretary Garrison in War Department, "Annual Report," 1913; Vol. I, p. 22.

The question of the most effective method of building up a really adequate reserve force occupied much of Mr. Garrison's attention during his tour of inspection of the army posts in 1913, and the results of his observations were published in an interview in the " New York Times."^^ Mr. Garrison had been led to conclude that the best interests of the army would be served by having an enlistment term of three years, with an arrangement by which if a young man desired to return to civil life he could do so by passing an examination on military work and study. It was the secretary's idea to allow enlisted men to come up for these examinations for discharge at the end of twelve, eighteen, twenty-four, and thirty months of service. This would add, he thought, a large number of competent young men to the reserve military strength of the country in a few years. He thought it would also draw into the army the sons of people of the better classes with more than ordinary education, give them a year or so of military training, and send them back to civil life in plenty of time to continue their education and enter their professions, taking with them a good physical training and a capacity for executive work. These suggestions were never embodied in legislation, and Congress permitted the entire matter to rest in abeyance throughout the years 19 14 and 19 15.

In addition to the problem of building up a reserve force of troops, there remained the equally vital matter of providing a reserve supply of officers. As General Leonard Wood put it at the time : " I invite attention to the necessity for building up with as little delay as practicable a reserve of officers qualified to sei^ve as company officers of reserves or volunteers. If we were called upon to mobilize to meet a first-class power, we should require immediately several thousand officers ; where should we get them? This is a matter of vital importance, and one which should be attended to at once and not left to

18 "New York Times," September 16, 1913; p. 6, colimin 4. On June I, 1915, the reserve amounted to seventeen inen: Huidekoper, op. cxt.; p. 515- the rush, hurry, and confusion preceding a war."^^ It was with the idea of filling this need that the summer training camps at Gettysburg and Monterey were established, which have been referred to. (See above, p. 6)

The second source of military strength contemplated by our traditional policy was the organized militia of the States. The subject of the militia of the States was deemed of sufficient importance by the founders of our government to have two clauses of the Federal Constitution devoted to it. These clauses are as follows : " The Congress shall have power to provide fcr calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions ; to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States; reserving to the States respectively the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress." ^^

In order to understand these provisions it must be observed that in its original conception the militia was primarily a local State force for State purposes, but a State force which, when need arose, could be called into the service of the Federal Government, and over which, for that reason, the Federal Government was given certain limited powers of direction and control. These limitations imposed by the Constitution have been criticized as operating throughout our history against the effectiveness of the militia as an element in the military strength of the nation as a whole. Thus while Congress may provide for organizing and arming the militia, and may prescribe the discipline for training them, their actual training according to the discipline so prescribed is not vested in the National Government, but is reserved to the State authorities. Furthermore, the latter are given the power to appoint the militia