Chapter II:
Genesis of Permanent Divisions
Officers who have never seen a
corps, division, or brigade organized and on the march can not be
expected to perform perfectly the duties required of them when war
comes.
At the opening of the twentieth
century, following the hasty organization and deployment of the army
corps during the War with Spain, the Army's leadership realized that it
needed to create permanent combined arms units trained for war.
Accordingly, senior officers worked toward that goal until the nation
entered World War I. Their efforts reflected the principal mission of
the Army at the time: to defend the vast continental United States and
its modest insular empire in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. During
this period the infantry division replaced the army corps as the basic
combined arms unit. Growing in size and firepower, it acquired combat
support and service elements, along with an adequate staff, reflecting
visions of a more complex battlefield environment. The cavalry division,
designed to achieve mobility rather than to realize its combined arms
potential, underwent changes similar to those of the infantry division.
Army leaders also searched for ways to maintain permanent divisions that
could take the field on short notice. That effort accomplished little,
however, because of traditional American antipathy toward standing
armies.
The Army began closely examining
its organizations after the War with Spain. The War Department had been
severely criticized for its poor leadership during the 1898
mobilization. Under the guidance of Secretary of War Elihu Root, it
established a board to plan an Army war college that would "direct
the instruction and intellectual exercise of the Army."2
This
concept inspired creation of the General Staff in 1903, which led to
major reforms in Army organization and mobilization.3
Under the leadership of Maj.
Gen. Adna R. Chaffee, the Chief of Staff, the new organization had a
profound influence on the structure of the field army. In 1905 the War
Department published Field Service Regulations, United States Army, in
which Capt. Joseph T. Dickman, a General Staff member and future Third
Army commander, drew together contemporary thought on tactics and
[23]
logistics. Designed for the
first level of officer training within the Army's educational system,
the regulations covered such subjects as orders, combat, services of
information and security (intelligence), subsistence, transportation,
and organization. Under the guidance of Chaffee and other staff officers
Dickman's organizational section directed the formation of provisional
brigades and divisions during field exercises so that smaller permanent
units could train for war.4
With these new ordinances, the
Army departed from national and international practice, and the infantry
division replaced the army corps, which had been used in the Civil War
and the War with Spain, as the basic unit for combining arms. Since the
mid-nineteenth century a typical European army corps had consisted of
two or more divisions, a cavalry brigade, a field artillery regiment,
and supporting units-about 30,000 men. Divisions usually included only
infantry. Although they sometimes had artillery, cavalry, or engineer
troops, they rarely included service units.5
In march formation (infantry in
fours, cavalry in twos, guns and caissons in single file), a European
army corps covered approximately fifteen miles of road, a day's march.
To participate in a battle involving the vanguard, the corps' rear
elements might have a day's march before engaging the enemy. Any greater
distance meant that all corps elements could not work as a unit. In the
continental United States an army corps actually required about
thirty-five miles of road space because of the broken terrain and poor
roads. Within a moving army corps, however, a division occupied only
eleven miles.6
By replacing the army corps with
the division, Dickman's regulation sought an organizational framework
appropriate to the mission and the expected terrain. In 1905 the staff
did not identify specific adversaries, but the planners believed that if
war broke out a divisional organization was more appropriate for use in
North America. Their assumption was that the nation would not be
involved in a war overseas.7
For training, the regulations
outlined a division that included three infantry brigades (two or more
infantry regiments each), a cavalry regiment, an engineer battalion to
facilitate movement, a signal company for communications, and four field
hospitals. Nine field artillery batteries, organized as a provisional
regiment, served both the division and other commands such as corps
artillery. To attain a self-sufficient division, the planners added an
ammunition column, a supply column, and a pack train, all to be manned
by civilians. The regulations did not fix the strength of the
organization, but in march formation it was estimated to use fourteen
miles of road space. That distance represented a day's march,
paralleling the length of a contemporary European army corps.8
In the field, divisions were
both tactical and administrative units. Matters relating to courts
martial, supply, money, property accountability, and administration, all
normally vested in a territorial commander during peace, passed to the
division commander during war. To carry out these duties, the division
was to have a chief of staff, an adjutant general, an inspector general,
a provost marshal,
[24]
a judge advocate, a surgeon, and
a quartermaster, along with commissary, engineer, signal, ordnance, and
muster officers. The senior artillery officer served ex officio as the
chief of the division artillery.9
The cavalry division, also
described in the regulations, consisted of three cavalry brigades (two
or three cavalry regiments each), six horse artillery batteries, mounted
engineer and signal companies, and two field hospitals. Civilians were
to man ammunition and supply columns. Because mounted troops were likely
to be employed in small detachments, the cavalry division had no
prescribed staff. 10
Above the division level, the
regulations only sketched corps and armies. Two or three infantry
divisions made up an army corps, and several army corps, along with one
or more cavalry divisions, formed an army. Specific details regarding
higher command and control were omitted.11
When the Field Service
Regulations were published, General Chaffee harnessed them to training
and readiness. First, he directed the garrison schools to use them as
textbooks, taking precedence over any others then in use. Second, he
applied the regulations to both the Regular Army and the Organized
Militia when in the field. 12
Militia, or National Guard,
units had dual missions. Each served its state of origin but, when
called upon, also served in national emergencies. Under the Dick Act of
1903, National Guard units had five years to achieve the same
organizational standards as the Regular Army units. To accomplish that
goal, the federal government increased the funds for arms and equipment
and annual training and provided additional Regular Army officers to
assist with training. 13
Having an outline for field
organizations and units available to prepare for war, the Army turned
its attention to training. Combined arms training artillery, cavalry, and
infantry-had been a part of the school curriculum at Fort Leavenworth,
Kansas, since 1881, but Secretary Root gave such training added meaning
in 1899 when he noted that officers needed to see a corps, division, or
brigade organized and on the march to perform their duties in war. In
1902 some state and federal units held maneuvers at Camp Root, Kansas, 14
but the first large drill took place two years later near Manassas,
Virginia. At that time Guard units from eighteen states and selected
Regular Army units trained together a total of 26,000 men. Maneuvers on a
lesser scale were held in 1906 and 1908. These biennial maneuvers proved
beneficial to both professional and citizen soldiers. Regulars gained
command experience, and guardsmen refined their military skills. 15
Although periodic maneuvers had
their merits, the General Staff soon realized that they fell short of
preparing the Army for war. In 1906 the Regular Army was still dispersed
among posts that accommodated anywhere from two companies to a regiment.
To provide for more sustained training, the staff urged Secretary of War
William Howard Taft to concentrate the regulars at brigade-size posts.
Taft proved receptive, but most members of Congress opposed the reform,
particularly if closing a post might affect their constituents
adversely. 16
[25]
Public views the 1904 maneuvers, Manassas, Virginia; below, troops
pass in review, 1904 Manassas maneuvers
[26]
Maj. Gen. Henry C. Corbin and
Colonel Wagner
In 1909 Assistant Secretary of
War Robert Shaw Oliver, a veteran with experience as a volunteer,
Regular, and Guard officer, adopted another approach to readiness.
Following the European example of mixing regulars and reserves in the
same formation, he divided the nation into eight districts. Within each
district, Oliver planned to form brigades, divisions, and corps for
training Regular and Guard units. The district commander was to
supervise all assigned regulars, but to exercise only nominal control
over Guard units, which were to be federalized only during a national
emergency or war. Nevertheless, Oliver expected the district commander
to influence the citizen-soldier by manifesting an interest in the
reserve forces. The plan was voluntary for the National Guard, but by
early 1910 the governors of the New England states and New York had
agreed to have their units participate. 17
About the same time this
agreement was reached, the Army modified its field organizations,
retaining divisions but replacing the corps and army commands with a
field army. Since the mid-nineteenth century military theorists had
debated the need for the corps. Col. Arthur L. Wagner, a founding father
of the Army school system, believed that it was a necessary echelon
between division and army, but based on experience during the Civil War
Maj. Gen. Andrew A. Humphreys, former Chief of Staff of the Army of the
Potomac, disagreed. Humphreys wanted a strong division capable of
independent operations, noting that the terrain and poor roads in the
United States prevented the easy maneuver or movement of a large unit.
18
Agreeing with Humphreys, the
General Staff decided that a command made up of divisions, designated as
a field army, best fit the nation's needs. As described in the Field
Service Regulations of 1910, the field army comprised two or more
infantry divisions, plus support troops, which included pioneer infantry
(service troops for the forward area of the battlefield), heavy
artillery, engineers, signal and medical troops, and ammunition and
supply units, which could maneuver and fight independently. Cavalry
might be included in the division if appropriate.19
To fit within the new concept,
the General Staff, in conjunction with the Army School of the Line at
Fort Leavenworth, made the infantry division a
[27]
more powerful and
self-sufficient organization. A field artillery brigade of two regiments
with forty-eight guns replaced the provisional regiment. Infantry and
cavalry regiments benefited from additional firepower. Based on
experiments with machine guns in 1906, a provisional two-gun platoon had
been added to each infantry and cavalry regiment, and with the new
regulations the authorization was increased to six guns. Depending on
range, one machine gun equaled the firepower of between sixteen and
thirty-nine riflemen. Thus, divisional firepower grew substantially.
Other changes improved communications by replacing the signal company
with a two-company battalion and expanded the medical service by adding
four ambulance companies. For the first time, a directive fixed the
strength of a division at 19,850 men-740 officers, 18,533 enlisted, and
577 civilians, the last serving mostly in the ammunition and supply
units. Transport for a division included 769 wagons and carts, 48
ambulances, and 8,265 animals.20
While making the division more
powerful, the regulations realigned the division staff. The new staff
consisted of a chief of staff, an adjutant general, an inspector
general, a judge advocate, a quartermaster, a commissary officer, a
surgeon, the commander's three aides, and six civilian clerks. Engineer
and signal battalion commanders joined it at the discretion of the
division commander. The provost marshal was eliminated, as were the
ordnance, muster, and senior artillery officers, with most of these
positions moving to the field army headquarters.21
A new nomenclature for divisions
indicated their self-sufficiency. Instead of being numbered as the 1st,
2d, and 3d Divisions, I Army Corps, as during the Civil War and the War
with Spain, units were to be numbered consecutively in the order of
their formation. No reference to any field army appeared in divisional designations. As before, brigades were identified only as the 1st, 2d,
and 3d brigades of a division.22
The new ordinances also included
a 13,836-man cavalry division in the field army, and, as in the infantry
division, internal changes affected firepower, logistics, and staff. A
field artillery regiment replaced the six batteries, and each cavalry
regiment fielded a provisional machine gun troop. The engineer and
signal companies were expanded to battalions, and two ambulance
companies were added. A pack train completed the division. For the first
time, the cavalry division was given a staff similar to that in the
infantry division. Designations of cavalry divisions were also to be
numerical and consecutive in the order of their organization.23
Maj. Gen. James Franklin Bell,
the Chief of Staff of the Army, established the First Field Army on 28
February 1910. Although merely a paper organization before mobilization,
it consisted of three infantry divisions, each with three infantry
brigades. Each infantry brigade comprised three infantry regiments, and
the other divisional units included a cavalry regiment, an engineer
battalion, and medical and signal units. In place of the field artillery
brigade, each division had only one field artillery regiment. Because
the artillery and cavalry regiments
[28]
General Bell
were made up of both Regular
Army and National Guard elements, Bell designated them as
"National" regiments. The supply and ammunition trains, manned
by civilians, were to be formed after mobilization.24
Within a few months the new
Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood, reported to Secretary of War
Jacob M. Dickinson that the First Field Army existed in name only.
Noting that the Army lacked the required units and equipment to field
the organization, he nevertheless believed that the War Department had
taken the first step in organizing the Regular Army and the National
Guard for modern war.25
Not everyone in the War
Department agreed with the concept of the First Field Army. The Chief of
the Division of Militia Affairs, Brig. Gen. Robert K. Evans, recommended
that General Wood revoke the orders establishing the organization for
two reasons. First, the field army did not fit any plan for the national
defense, and, second, he believed that Regular and Guard units did not
belong in the same formation. He further contended that the orders
implied the existence of a field army. Events along the Mexican border
soon caused the Army to abandon the organization, and eventually the
secretary of war rescinded the orders.26
In March 1911, during disorders
resulting from the Mexican Revolution, the War Department deployed many
Regular Army units of the First Field Army to the southern border. Units
assembled at San Antonio, Texas, constituted the Maneuver Division and
the Independent Cavalry Brigade, while others, concentrated at
Galveston, Texas, and San Diego, California, made up separate infantry
brigades. The division, following the Field Service Regulations outline,
consisted of three infantry brigades, a field artillery brigade, an
engineer battalion, and medical and signal units, but no trains.
Thirty-six companies from the Coast Artillery Corps, organized as three
provisional infantry regiments, comprised the brigade at Galveston. The
brigade at San Diego had two infantry regiments and
small medical, signal, and
cavalry units, along with a provisional quartermaster (bakers and cooks)
unit. The Galveston and San Diego brigades were intended to defend
against possible attack by the Mexican Navy, while the Maneuver Division
readied for offensive operations against Mexico.27
The Army experienced great
difficulty with this assembly of troops. Scores of movement orders had
to be issued, and inadequate arrangements for transportation caused
innumerable delays. Upon arriving at their new stations, the units found
themselves considerably under strength. The division initially had about
8,000 officers and enlisted men but, with the addition of recruits, its
strength climbed to 12,809. That total represented only about two-thirds
of the authorized strength outlined in the regulations for the division.
Although the division impressed some American citizens, General Wood's
comment was "How little.."28
During the concentration of
troops along the border, which lasted for almost five months, the Army
learned many lessons about readiness. The foremost one concerned the
effects of the lack of a mobilization plan, which caused delays in
notifying and transporting units. Sixteen days were required to assemble
the small force. By comparison, the following year the Bulgarians needed
only eighteen days to mobilize 270,000 men against the Turks. After the
troops arrived at the mobilization sites, the division's inspector
general found many problems. No two units had the same tentage,
transportation equipment, or quartermaster supplies. The large numbers
of recruits overwhelmed the units and caused general confusion. Medical
units performed poorly since they had been haphazardly organized.29
To correct these faults, the
inspector general recommended that standard field equipment be issued to
all units, that their peacetime strength be increased, and that
permanent field hospitals and ambulance companies be maintained.
Logistical problems stemmed from the lack of regulatory civilians in the
ammunition and supply trains. But rather than urging the organization of
those units, the inspector suggested that the Army experiment with
"autotrucks."30
In the communications arena, the
Signal Corps tested the telegraph, wireless telegraph (radio), and the
airplane during tactical exercises. Cavalry employed the wireless
telegraph, while infantry used telegraph wire, and both reported great
success. In addition to training officers to fly, the airplane was used
for reconnaissance in the division, which spurred further aeronautical
development.31
When the Maneuver Division and
the brigades were mobilized, General Wood expected that they could
remain on the border for three months without asking Congress for
additional money. He succeeded. The brigades at Galveston and San Diego
were discontinued in June 1911, and divisional elements began returning
to their home stations at the end of July. On 7 August the division
headquarters passed into history.32
The mobilization served many
purposes, not the least of which was to give impetus to General Wood's
preparedness campaign. The performance of the division and the brigades
illustrated the nation's unpreparedness for war.
[30]
After the breakup of the
division and brigades, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson requested the
General Staff to review national defense policies and to develop a
mobilization plan for the Army. Maj. William Lassiter, Capt. John
McAuley Palmer, and Capt. George Van Horn Moseley prepared the
recommendations submitted to Stimson in 1912 as the Report on the
Organization of Land Forces of the United States.33
Known as the Stimson
Plan, it set out the need for "A regular army organized in
divisions and cavalry brigades ready for immediate use as an
expeditionary force or for other purposes . . . ." Behind it was to
be "an army of national citizen soldiers organized in peace in
complete divisions and prepared to reenforce the Regular Army in time of
war." Finally, the plan called for "an army of volunteers to
be organized under prearranged plans when greater forces are required
than can be furnished by the Regular Army and the organized citizen
soldiery." 34
Although the Stimson Plan
received support throughout the Army and the nation, changing the
military establishment proved difficult. Congress balked at altering the
laws governing the Army. The General Staff therefore opted to improve
readiness by implementing as many of the recommendations as possible on
the basis of existing legislation. After conferences with general
officers, the National Guard, and concerned congressional members,
sixteen divisions emerged as a mobilization force. The Regular Army was
to furnish one cavalry and three infantry divisions, and the National
Guard twelve infantry divisions. With these goals established, the staff
developed plans to reorganize the two components. 35
On 15 February 1913, Stimson
announced his new arrangement for the Regular Army. To administer it, he
divided the nation into Eastern, Central, Western, and Southern
Departments and created northern and southern Atlantic coast artillery
districts, along with a third for the Pacific coast. These departments
and districts provided the framework for continued command and control
regardless of the units assigned to them. Second, he arranged to
mobilize field units into divisions and brigades. The 1st, 2d, and 3d
Divisions were allotted to the Eastern, Central, and Western
Departments, respectively, and the Cavalry Division (1st and 2d Cavalry
Brigades) to the Southern Department. The 3d Cavalry Brigade, a
nondivisional unit, was assigned to the Central Department. When
necessary, two regiments in the Eastern Department were to combine to
form the 4th Cavalry Brigade. The plan addressed primarily the defense
of the continental United States, but also included the territory of
Hawaii. The three infantry regiments stationed in the islands were to
form the 1st Hawaiian Brigade. 36
These arrangements fell short of
perfection. Divisional components remained scattered until mobilization,
thereby precluding continuous training. For example, the 1st Division's
elements occupied fourteen posts. All divisions lacked units prescribed
in the Field Service Regulations. Stimson, however, hoped that Congress
would eventually authorize completion of the units.37
[31]
To organize the National Guard
divisions, Stimson had to gain the cooperation of state governors who
controlled the Guard units until federalized. Captain Moseley devised a
system to divide the nation into twelve geographic districts, each with
an infantry division. Thirty-two states accepted the scheme, two states
remained noncommittal, and fifteen refused comment. Although the staff
failed to gain unanimous support of its proposal, in 1914 it adopted the
twelve-division force for the Guard (Table 1), to which was added three
multidistrict cavalry divisions. 38
Implementation of the plan moved
slowly in the states. Governors hesitated to form certain units needed
in the divisions, particularly expensive field artillery and medical
organizations that did not support the Guard's state missions. The staff
likewise moved slowly in developing procedures to instruct, supply, and
mobilize the units. One bright area, the District of New York, which had
maintained a division of its own design since 1908, quickly completed
its part of the plan, perhaps because the state had been a pillar of
support for the preparedness movement. Pennsylvania, the other state
constituting a divisional district, which had supported a nonregulation
division since 1879, gradually began to adjust its organization.
Progress in the multistate districts, not unexpectedly, fell behind
Pennsylvania.39
As it developed plans for the
tactical reorganization of the Army, the General Staff pioneered the
creation of tables of organization for all types of units. Forerunners
of those used today, the tables brought together for easy comparison a
mass of information about unit personnel and equipment previously buried
in
National Guard Infantry Divisions, 1914
| Division |
District |
| 5th |
Maine, New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, Vermont,
Rhode Island, and Connecticut |
| 6th |
New York |
| 7th |
Pennsylvania |
| 8th |
Delaware, New Jersey,
Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, and West Virginia |
| 9th |
North Carolina, South
Carolina, Florida, and Georgia |
| 10th |
Alabama, Mississippi,
Tennessee, and Kentucky |
| 11th |
Michigan and Ohio |
| 12th |
Illinois and Indiana |
| 13th |
Wisconsin, Minnesota, North
Dakota, South Dakota, and Iowa |
| 14th |
Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska,
Colorado, and Wyoming |
| 15th |
Arkansas, Arizona, New
Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana |
| 16th |
California, Oregon,
Montana, Utah, Idaho, Nevada, and Washington |
[32]
various War Department
publications, greatly easing the task of determining requirements for
mobilizations. Although the new tables did not alter the basic combat
triad structure of the infantry division, their formulation was
accompanied by internal changes in the infantry regiments and the
divisional support echelon. Revisions eliminated the pack train,
authorized a small engineer train, and manned the engineer, supply, and
ammunition trains with military personnel instead of civilians.40
In 1912 Congress created a
service corps within the Quartermaster Corps to replace civilian
employees and soldiers detailed from combat units for duty as
wagonmasters, teamsters, blacksmiths, and other such laborers and
artificers. Only nineteen civilians-veterinarians and clerks-remained in
the division. For the first time, sources for military police and train
guards were specified. Traditionally, commanders gave regiments or
battalions that had suffered severely in battle the honor of serving as
provost guards, especially those that had conducted themselves with
distinction.41
In the infantry regiment,
besides the provisional machine gun company provided for in 1910,
provisional headquarters and supply companies were to provide mounted
orderlies and regimental wagon drivers. The arrangement eliminated the
need to detail men from rifle companies, a practice that had plagued
unit commanders since the Revolutionary War. These and other changes
raised the division's strength to 22,646 officers and enlisted men and
19 civilians.42
The place of possible employment
continued to influence the division's basic structure. Before the tables
of organization were prepared, the staff debated whether a division
should have two or three infantry brigades, noting that European armies
continued to use a two-division corps organization. Maj. Nathaniel E
McClure, appointed as an instructor in military art at the Army Service
Schools, Fort Leavenworth, in 1913, attributed the European organization
to economy in the use of personnel and to the proper use of
sophisticated road networks. He concluded, however, that what the
Europeans really wanted was a corps built upon multiples of
three-regiments, brigades, and divisions. When preparing the Stimson
Plan, the officers determined that a division with two infantry brigades
limited the commander's ability to subdivide his forces for frontal and
flank attacks while at the same time attempting to maintain a reserve.
Along with ease of command, deployment on a road influenced the
decision. Because a division containing two infantry brigades would make
less economical use of road space than one of three brigades, the
three-brigade division remained the Army's basis for combining arms. In
march formation, it measured about fifteen miles.43
The revision of the cavalry
division in many ways paralleled that of the infantry division. Military
personnel manned ammunition and supply trains, and troopers from the
cavalry regiments served as military police and train guards. Each
cavalry regiment was authorized provisional headquarters and machine gun
troops similar to those in the infantry regiment. The most significant
change was in the division's three cavalry brigades, with each being
reduced from three to
[33]
two regiments since three
cavalry regiments in a brigade required too much road space. The
division's strength stood at 10,161, approximately 4,000 fewer men than
the 1910 unit.44
To complement the 1914 tables of
organization, Maj. James A. Logan revised the 1910 Field Service
Regulations. The new edition emphasized the division as the basic
organization for conducting offensive operations in a mobile army. Logan
defined the division as "A self-contained unit made up of all
necessary arms and services, and complete in itself with every
requirement for independent action incident to its operations."45
His definition became the customary description of a division.
The Mexican border remained a
troubled area. Following the mobilization of 1911, the Army patrolled
the frontier with small units, but when insurrectionists overthrew the
Mexican government in 1913, President Taft decided on a show of force
similar to the earlier concentration of troops. On 21 February he
ordered Maj. Gen. William H. Carter, commander of the Central
Department, to assemble the most fully manned of the Army's divisions,
the 2d, on the Gulf coast of Texas. Unlike its mobilization of the
Maneuver Division in 1911, the War Department used a mere five-line
telegram to deploy the unit. Carter, who arrived with his staff in Texas
within three days, established the division headquarters and its 4th and
6th Brigades at Texas City and the 5th Brigade at Galveston. The
division lacked, however, some field artillery, medical, signal, and
engineer elements and all its trains.46
Tension remained high between
the United States and Mexico in 1914, and in response President Woodrow
Wilson adjusted the deployment of military units to protect American
interests. United States naval forces occupied Vera Cruz, Mexico, and
soldiers soon relieved the sailors ashore. On 30 April the 5th Brigade,
2d Division, augmented with cavalry, field artillery, engineer, signal,
bakery, and aviation units, and almost the entire divisional staff took
up positions in the city. To placate uneasy United States citizens along
the border, the 2d and 8th Brigades, elements of the 1st and 3d
Divisions, and some smaller units moved to the southern frontier. In
November the crisis at Vera Cruz ended and the 5th Brigade returned to
Galveston, but activity resumed the following month when the 6th
Brigade, 2d Division, deployed to Naco, Arizona. For the next few months
no major changes took place in the disposition of forces. Then, in
August 1915, a hurricane hit Texas City and Galveston, killing thirteen
enlisted men and causing considerable damage to the 2d Division's
property. Officials in Washington decided that the division was no
longer needed there and ordered its units moved to other posts in the
Southern Department. The divisional headquarters was demobilized on 18
October 1915.47
Before the Vera Cruz expedition,
General Carter had evaluated the 2d
[34]
27th Infantry, 2d Division, encampment, Texas City, Texas
Division. Although he found no
glaring deficiencies in the unit, he recommended the maintenance of
permanent headquarters detachments for divisions and brigades in
peacetime to ease mobilization and to prevent the breakup of regimental
organizations for division details. Carter also recommended that all
communications equipment be centralized in the signal unit because the
training of men assigned to combat arms units to operate signal gear
seemed wasteful.48
On 9 March 1916, trouble flared
again on the southern border when Mexican bandits raided Columbus, New
Mexico, killing and wounding several soldiers and civilians. The
following day the Southern Department commander, Maj. Gen. Frederick
Funston, ordered Brig. Gen. John J. Pershing, commander of the 8th
Brigade, to apprehend the perpetrators. For his mission Pershing
organized a provisional division and designated it as the Punitive
Expedition, United States Army.49
This division differed
considerably from the organizations outlined in the Field Service
Regulations. It consisted of two provisional cavalry brigades (two
cavalry regiments and a field artillery battery each) and one infantry
brigade (two regiments and two engineer companies), with medical,
signal, transportation, and air units as divisional troops. The design
of the division followed the organizational axiom that it adapt to the
terrain and roads where the enemy was located. In hostile and barren
northern Mexico, Pershing planned to pursue the bandits with cavalry and
to protect his communication lines with infantry.50
[35]
4th South Dakota Infantry on the Mexican border, 1916
Violence intensified along the
border during the spring of 1916, causing a general mobilization. After
a raid in May at Glen Springs, Texas, President Wilson called the
National Guard of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas into federal service.
Following another raid on 16 June, he federalized all Guard units
assigned to tactical divisions designated in the Stimson Plan.51
This final call exposed flaws in
the nation's war plans. In some states mobilization locations were
inaccessible, quartermaster supplies were insufficient, and even
required forms were in short supply. Guard units were under strength and
poorly trained. Some men failed to honor their enlistments, while others
who were physically unfit entered the service. Besides these and other
deficiencies, the need to have troops on the border meant that only two
divisions, the 6th from New York and the 7th from Pennsylvania,
mobilized in accordance with the Stimson Plan. On 4 August the War
Department directed General Funston to organize ten divisions and six
brigades provisionally from the remaining Guard units. But not all of
these organizations could be formed because of the rapid shifting of
units to and from the border. Although the mobilization pointed out many
weaknesses in the nation's preparation for war, it provided an
invaluable training opportunity for the Guard.52
The Punitive Expedition stayed
in Mexico until February 1917. When hostile acts had abated along the
border during the fall of 1916, the War Department had begun to
demobilize the Guard. By the end of March most units had returned to
state control. Pershing, the new Southern Department commander following
[36]
Funston's sudden death from a
heart attack in February 1917, realigned the Regular Army forces. He
organized provisionally a cavalry brigade and three infantry divisions,
but they existed for less than three months. With the nation's entry
into World War I and the need for troops in Europe, Pershing's divisions
were disbanded. Smaller units, however, continued border surveillance.53
While the Army concentrated most
of its regulars in the United States on the Mexican border in 1915, the
ongoing war in Europe prompted Secretary of War Lindley M. Garrison to
reexamine national defense policies. Among other matters, he asked the
General Staff to investigate the organizations and strength figures
needed by the Regular Army and National Guard, the reserve forces
required, and the relationship of the regulars and guardsmen to a
volunteer force. Garrison held the opinion that the federal government's
lack of control over the National Guard was a fundamental defect.54
Members of the General Staff
worked for six months to answer Garrison, and the War Department
published their findings as the Statement of Proper Military Policy in
1915. It outlined a 281,000-man Regular Army and a 500,000-man federal
reserve. An additional 500,000 reserve force was to buttress the
reserves. Under the new policy the National Guard was downgraded to a
volunteer contingent force that would be used only during war.55
Proposed legislation based on
the policy statement, which was dubbed the "Continental Army"
plan, quickly ran into congressional opponents who were unwilling to
abandon the National Guard. But the debate led eventually to the
National Defense Act of 1916. The new act provided that the "Army
of the United States" would consist of the Regular Army, the
Volunteer Army, the Officers' Reserve Corps, the Enlisted Reserve Corps,
the National Guard in the service of the United States, and such other
land forces as were or might be authorized by Congress. The president
was to determine both the number and type of National Guard units that
each state would maintain. Both the Regular Army and the National Guard
were to be organized, insofar as practicable, into permanent brigades
and divisions. Command echelons above divisions reverted to army corps
and armies, the traditional command system; no mention was made of
independent field armies directly controlling divisions. Undoubtedly the
war in Europe, which involved large armies, caused the staff to revert
to that system. To resolve the long-standing question of whether Guard
units could be used outside the United States, the law empowered the
president to draft units into federal service under certain conditions.
Men in drafted units would be discharged from state service and become
federal troops subject to employment wherever needed. Congress continued
to dictate regimental organizations. 56
The War Department published new
tables of organization for infantry and cavalry divisions in May 1917.
The structure of the infantry division remained
[37]
similar to that mandated in
1914. Internal changes dealt with firepower, another consequence of
observing the pattern of the European war. Infantry regiments gained
additional riflemen, and the provisional headquarters, supply, and
machine gun companies were made permanent. The field artillery brigade
also gained considerable firepower, with one regiment of 3.8-inch
howitzers and two regiments of 3-inch guns replacing the two regiments
authorized in 1914. A two-battalion engineer regiment replaced the
battalion, the signal battalion grew in size, and an aero squadron
equipped with twelve aircraft joined the division for reconnaissance and
observation. Enlarged ammunition, supply, engineer, and sanitary trains
supported the arms, and the tables provided for the trains to be either
motorized or horse-drawn. The tables also called for a headquarters
troop for the division and headquarters detachments for infantry and
artillery brigades. These units were to furnish mess, transport, and
administrative support for the division to operate on a more complex
battlefield. The redesigned division for war numbered 28,256 officers
and enlisted men when the trains were authorized wagons or 28,334 when
they were authorized motorized equipment (Chart 1).57
The staff, in rationalizing the
division, divided the road space it would use between combat and support
elements. Combat elements used fourteen miles, while the support
elements, depending on whether the trains were motorized or horse-drawn,
used five to six miles. Although it required about twenty miles in march
formation, a 25 percent increase in road space over the 1914
organization, the division was still thought to be able to move to
battle on a single road.58
The new tables dramatically
changed the structure of the cavalry division for war. Cavalry brigades
reverted to three regiments each, and the nine cavalry regiments
acquired permanent headquarters, supply, and machine gun troops. As in
the infantry division, the cavalry division fielded an aero squadron.
The tables also introduced a divisional engineer train and enlarged the
ammunition, supply, and sanitary trains. The division headquarters and
headquarters troop and brigade headquarters and headquarters detachments
rounded out the unit. Given these changes, the size of the division rose
from 10,161 to 18,164 when the trains were equipped with wagons and
18,176 when they were equipped with motorized vehicles (Chart 2), and it
occupied approximately
nineteen miles of road space on the
march.59
To achieve the mobilization
force that the Statement of Proper Military Policy proposed-six cavalry
brigades, two cavalry divisions, and twenty infantry divisions-the Army
needed more troops. In 1916 Congress increased the number of Regular
Army regiments to 118 (7 engineer, 21 field artillery, 25 cavalry, and
65 infantry) and increased the size of the National Guard, 800 men for
each senator and representative, to be raised over the next five years.
Several developments, however, interfered with implementation of the
Regular Army portion of the act, especially activities along the Mexican
border, a reduction in the General Staff that prevented appropriate
planning, and the nation's plunge into the European war.60
[38]
Infantry Division, 1917
1 Division trains equipped with wagons
2 Division trains equipped with motorized vehicles
3 Chart 2, Cavalry Division, 1917, depicts the structure of the
Cavalry Regiment
4 Contains two 3" gun regiments and one 3.8" howitzer
regiment
[39]
National Guard Infantry
Divisions, 1917
| Division |
District |
| 5th |
Maine, New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, and Rhode Island |
| 6th |
New York |
| 7th |
Pennsylvania |
| 8th |
New Jersey, Delaware,
District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia |
| 9th |
North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Tennessee |
| 10th |
Alabama, Georgia, and
Florida |
| 11th |
Michigan and Wisconsin |
| 12th |
Illinois |
| 13th |
Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska,
North Dakota, and South Dakota |
| 14th |
Kansas and Missouri |
| 15th |
Oklahoma and Texas |
| 16th |
Ohio and West Virginia |
| 17th |
Indiana and Kentucky |
| 18th |
Arkansas, Louisiana, and
Mississippi |
| 19th |
Arizona, California,
Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah |
| 20th |
Idaho, Montana, Oregon,
Washington, and Wyoming |
Meanwhile the Militia Bureau,
formerly the Division of Militia Affairs, began work on new plans to
organize Guard divisions. It scrapped the voluntary Stimson Plan and
directed the organization of sixteen infantry and two cavalry divisions.
Brig. Gen. William A. Mann, Chief of the Militia Bureau, sent the states
advance copies of the new tables in January 1917 to acquaint them with
the types of units they needed to maintain. Then on 5 May he forwarded
the plan for organizing the divisions (Table 2), which gave the infantry
divisions priority over the cavalry divisions. Because the Regular Army
could more expeditiously organize new units for the existing emergency,
Mann did not ask the states to raise any units at that time.61
Between the War with Spain and
the United States' intervention in World War I, the Army's principal
mission was to defend the national territory and its insular
possessions. During this period the Army tested and adopted the infantry
division as its basic combined arms unit. The underlying planning
assumption was that the infantry division would fight in the United
States. This meant, in turn, that one of the principal determinants of a
division's size was road-marching speed. The cav-
[40]
Cavalry Division,1917
1 Division trains equipped with wagons
2 Division trains equipped with motorized vehicles
[41]
alry division, although not
neglected, remained more or less a theoretical unit. As the Army
mobilized for the Mexican border crisis and took note of trends in
foreign armies during the initial campaigns of World War I, its leaders
became increasingly convinced of the need to create permanent tactical
divisions. Congress approved them in 1916, but the nation entered World
War I before these plans had been perfected.
Events during the next two
years, however, profoundly affected divisional organizations, the
infantry division in particular. For the first time in the nation's
experience, the United States Army mobilized a huge expeditionary force
to fight overseas in Western Europe, a mission for which it was
thoroughly unprepared. The day of the old constabulary army was over.
Faced with threats to national security of hitherto unimagined scope
emanating from the Old World, the nation had to revolutionize its army
to wage war against a formidable continental opponent. The necessity for
an effective combined arms organization would force extraordinary
changes in its entire structure.
[42[
Endnotes
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