The reformers also had a second and more positive image of the military as the active allies of big business in the struggle against reform. Here the reformer took over the business antimilitary argument and gave it an antibusiness twist. The economic imperative behind large armies and navies was the need of the capitalist economy for an outlet for over-production. Reformers and businessmen were united in their worship of the economically productive and in their description of the military as unproductive. But they disagreed as to the forces behind militarism. The respectable utilitarianism of the businessman just saw the generals and antiquated aristocrats. The radical utilitarianism of the reformer saw these plus the businessman himself. A few isolated arms manufacturers, such as Hudson Maxim, always furnished just enough evidence to give the “blood and profits” theory some support in fact.5 Actually, it was highly ironic that what may well be, on the whole, the most pacific dominant social group in world history — American business — should be portrayed as plotting war in an unholy alliance with bloodthirsty and rank-hungry generals. In this case, the reformers were wrong on both counts: as groups, neither generals nor capitalists were eager for war. Nonetheless, the image of this alliance serving the ends of war and reaction was highly pervasive. The generals wanted war and the manufacturers would furnish the arms for that purpose; the manufacturers wished to crush labor, and the generals would furnish them troops for that end. In a distillation of Marxism, it was argued that armaments and military institutions were necessarily associated with the upper class, while the lower classes were inherently pacifist and antiwar. “Armament is fashionable,” proclaimed Simeon Strunsky, and Harold Stearns looked back on the prewar preparedness movement as strictly “upper class,” its impelling force coming from the social upper crust, who felt a racial and class affinity with their brethren in England. By the early 1930’s, this theme had become a significant element in the revisionist interpretation of the first war. At the same time that the professional officers were lamenting the baneful effects of business on military institutions, the dedicated reformers were speaking of the “inevitable alliance between militarism and industrialism,” and arguing that reform had to deal “not merely with the military mind, but also with the business mind which has taken it into double harness.”6 The entire reform theory of the business-military alliance, however, illustrated more about the relations between reform and the military than it did about the relations between business and the military.
While the reformers identified the professional military with their domestic class enemies, they did admit the possibility of military institutions which would not be so tainted and which would serve the needs of progress. Even Strunsky cited the possibility of a democratic militarism on the 1789 French model, and contrasted it with the caste militarism that was engulfing the United States. Many reformers were impressed with the democracy of universal military service — the great leveler — and contrasted this progressive military policy with that which relied upon “a hired or professional army which, next after monarchy and hereditary rank, is the most undemocratic thing that man has so far invented.” This view, and the appeal of the nation-in-arms concept, were Jeffersonianism in twentieth-century guise. They had a particular attractiveness to the more collectivist and egalitarian reformers, while those who put greater emphasis upon libertarian and humanitarian values were more generally hostile to all military institutions. Like the Neo-Hamiltonians, the reformers wanted to utilize the military services directly for educating and “uplifting” the servicemen, employing them for socially productive purposes, and teaching ideals and skills desirable for civilian life. Wilson’s Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, for instance, set about remedying what he thought to be the two greatest deficiencies of his service — lack of education and lack of democracy — by putting schools on every ship and by reducing the social “chasm” between officers and men.7
MILITARY INSTITUTIONS
EDUCATION AND PROMOTION. The basic professional institutions established prior to World War I continued afterward. There were, of course, some alterations and additions. New professional societies and journals were founded; new technical schools reflected the changing nature of war; some new professional organizations were created; and modifications were made in existing ones.* In general, however, there was little change and little need for change. The earlier generations had built well. On the other hand, the areas which they left incomplete remained incomplete, and the issues they left unresolved remained unresolved. Controversy and unrest during the interwar period centered in three fields: preliminary education, where the legacy of Jeffersonian technicism still crowded the service academies’ curriculum; promotion, where the fear of Jacksonian popularism and the separation of powers dictated continued reliance on seniority; and executive organization, where constitutional ambiguities obfuscated the lines of responsibility among civilian and military departmental leaders.
In their early years the service academies had a relatively clear mission: to produce technically competent engineers and seamen. The professionalization of officership substituted for this single technical goal the dual purposes of liberal education and basic military education. The four-year course, however, simply was not long enough to permit achievement of both these purposes, particularly when technical subjects still persisted in the curriculum. Even beyond curriculum difficulties, liberal and military education required different types of institutions: the one flourishing in a relaxed, skeptical atmosphere favorable to intellectual curiosity and discussion; the other requiring a disciplined, purposive, concentrated effort to absorb military values and military knowledge in the shortest possible time. In attempting to crowd these two discordant elements into a single curriculum, the service academies did not succeed in doing either job as well as could have been done if each had been performed separately. Theoretically the academies could have become postgraduate military schools requiring a liberal college education for admission. The general hostility of American society toward the military profession, however, made this unlikely of success in practice. If recruitment were postponed until after college, military opinion feared that the manifold opportunities of American society, the diverse interests stimulated by civilian college life, and the relative unattractiveness of the military career would make it impossible to get officers of sufficient quality and quantity. In the unsympathetic American environment it was necessary to begin the military indoctrination and training of the future officer before he completely absorbed the prevailing antimilitary values and motivations. The other alternative was to remove the military and technical courses from academy curricula, deferring them to postgraduate military schools, and to concentrate upon offering a liberal education at West Point and Annapolis. The armed services, however, were neither equipped nor inclined to compete with colleges and universities in the liberal arts area. It would indeed have been hard to justify the national government’s moving into liberal arts education even if all the graduates of the federal colleges entered government service.
The changes at Annapolis and West Point in the 1920’s and 1930’s attempted to increase the liberal arts component in the curriculum without altering fundamentally the nature of service academy education. Annapolis improved its English and History courses in 1923; and in 1932 a drastic change in the curriculum increased the proportion of the midshipman’s academic time on cultural subjects from 21.6 per cent to 31.6 per cent. Technical subjects were cut from 33.6 per cent to 31.2 per cent, and professional courses from 44.8 per cent to 37.2 per cent. A department of economics and government was created. Officers still continued to complain, however, of their inferior cultural background compared to those of foreign contemporaries. They urged either the opening of junior academies which could furnish this background, or the relegation of technical and engineering subjects to the postgraduate school, or the extension of the course beyond four years. Virtually every other profession, it was pointed out, required five to eight years of initial tra
ining. Admiral Sims seized the bull by the horns in 1933, recommending, in a minority report from the Board of Visitors, that the Academy be changed into a two-year school in professional subjects for college graduates only. At West Point, instruction in English was doubled in 1920 and a chair in Economics, Government, and History was established in 1926. Under the leadership of Colonel Lucius Holt and then of Colonel Herman Beukema, the social sciences came to play an increasingly important role in cadet education. The Academy was still criticized, however, for the extent to which it emphasized mathematics and science as essential to the future officer.8
The Act of 1916 remained the fundamental legislation on naval officer promotion throughout the interwar period. It generally worked satisfactorily, although at times it produced hardships and dissatisfaction requiring minor changes in its operation. The Army promotion system was revised by the National Defense Act of 1920 which placed all officers except those in the Chaplain and Medical Corps on a single list, advancing them by seniority up to the rank of colonel as vacancies occurred. Officers judged unfit for promotion by boards created for this purpose were placed in a special category and weeded out, this aspect of the plan introducing a selection-out system resembling that of the Navy between 1899 and 1916. Promotions to general officer rank continued to be by selection. The basic issue confronting the Army was still the old controversy of seniority versus selection. In the early 1920’s the Secretary of War recommended supplementing seniority with the more rapid advancement of a small number of highly able officers. It was argued that this would not disturb the impartiality of the seniority system, nor discredit those officers not selected, but that it would furnish an incentive to the more energetic and ambitious officer to distinguish himself to his own advantage and that of the service. The plan was unsuccessful, and many thoughtful military men still felt that it was impossible in peacetime to predict which junior officers would make good higher commanders in wartime, that the Army had to rely upon the general competence of the entire officer corps rather than upon “a relatively small number of brilliant individuals,” and that selection always ran the risk of political interference. The division of opinion within the Army resulted in its retention of the seniority system down to World War II.9
ORGANIZATION. In theory and in practice the War and Navy Departments after 1915 had differing systems of civil-military relations. The vertical organization of the Army reflected the Neo-Hamiltonian ideas of Elihu Root and the dominance of constitutional and administrative imperatives. The balanced organization of the Navy embodied the naval traditionalist views of Luce and Mahan and the dominance of functional considerations. As a result, the Army system produced harmony and efficiency in peace, but was unequal to the tasks of war. The Navy system, on the other hand, elicited continuous discontent and friction among its constituent elements, but provided a viable basis for wartime operation. The heightening of civil-military tensions in war and the need for greater specialized responsibility at the upper levels of the War Department pushed the Army toward a balanced form of organization in war. The political and constitutional pressures favorable to coordinate or vertical organization, on the other hand, made it difficult for the Navy to maintain its balanced system in peace.
Army Civil-Military Relations. The General Staff Act of 1903 fostered an identity of interest between the Secretary of War and the Chief of Staff. The old alignment of the Secretary and the bureau chiefs versus the Commanding General was replaced by a new alignment of the Secretary and Chief of Staff versus the bureaus. While some Secretaries at times tried to take a few steps toward a balanced system, their efforts ran counter to the spirit of the existing organization and came to naught. It was easier to rely on the Chief of Staff as the secretarial instrument. Harmony and mutual confidence replaced nineteenth-century acrimony between the military and political leaders of the Department: Chiefs of Staff lavishly praised their Secretaries; the Secretaries were equally generous in their response.10 During the two decades following Root’s law, the Secretaries consistently supported the Chief of Staff in extending his authority over all the components of the Army. In the “muster roll” controversy of 1912 between Chief of Staff Leonard Wood and Adjutant General Fred Ainsworth over their respective powers and duties, Secretary Stimson backed Wood. Despite congressional support behind Ainsworth, the adjutant general was fired for insubordination. This victory of the Chief of Staff, in Stimson’s words, “expanded his power far beyond that of the commanding generals of former days.” When Congress in the National Defense Act of 1916 attempted to weaken the General Staff, Secretary Baker interpreted the law so as to uphold the authority of its Chief. As General Harbord described it, the effects of Baker’s decision “were very far-reaching — it settled for all time the ancient struggle between the line and supply staff.” General March, appointed Chief of Staff in 1918, also vigorously opposed direct dealings between the bureau chiefs and the Secretary, and Secretary Baker upheld the supremacy of his Chief against the efforts of General Pershing to act independently and to deal directly not only with the Secretary but also with the President.11 In expanding the power of the Chief of Staff over the Army, however, the Secretaries undermined their own effective authority. Theoretically the Secretary exercised military command and the Chief of Staff was merely his adviser; in actual fact, as even the supporters of the system recognized, the Chief of Staff commanded the military forces.12 Having little contact with his department except through the Chief of Staff, the Secretary tended to become a figurehead and the Chief of Staff to become the mayor of the palace. In franker moments, the Secretaries admitted their dependence on the Chiefs.13 At the same time, the broad responsibilities of the Chiefs forced them to adopt a catholic outlook transcending a purely professional military viewpoint and approaching the natural predisposition of the Secretaries.
While the vertical system made effective civilian control difficult in peace, it also made effective military operation extremely difficult in war. In a major conflict it was impossible to maintain General Staff control over all the expanded military, administrative, supply, and procurement functions. In World War I, the centralized General Staff system simply broke down, as General Bullard had predicted that it would.14 Drastic reorganization in the first part of 1918 created a special Division of Purchase, Storage, and Traffic to handle procurement and supply. Theoretically a part of the General Staff, this division actually functioned primarily under the direction of the Assistant Secretary of War who also had the title of Director of Munitions. While the vertical system was adhered to in theory, in practice the operation of the Department much more closely approximated the balanced system which the pressure of events demanded.* After the war, the Assistant Secretary, Benedict Crowell, vigorously urged Congress to establish a balanced organization for the Department, arguing his case in the language of Luce and Mahan. The National Defense Act of 1920 followed his recommendations in part, continuing some of the responsibilities of the General Staff for supply matters, but at the same time giving the Assistant Secretary supervision over procurement and industrial mobilization. This scheme was a compromise between the vertical and balanced systems. In the years of peace which followed, however, the functional pressures favorable to the balanced plan weakened, and the institutional interests supporting the vertical system resumed dominance. While the Assistant Secretary continued to play a significant role in procurement planning, the Chief of Staff and the General Staff reasserted their authority over all elements of the military establishment.15 The much greater demands of World War II, however, again made it impossible for the Chief of Staff and the General Staff to carry the entire load. Again, Army organizers such as General McNarney began to emphasize the twofold nature of War Department responsibilities: “mobilization and preparation of the forces for war” and “operations in the field.” In March 1942, for the United States the most critical point in the war, the War Department organization had to be thoroughly overhauled. All procurement and supply functions we
re given to the Army Service Forces under the command of General Brehon Somervell and the supervision of Under Secretary of War Robert Patterson. Again, as in World War I, Somervell’s command was theoretically under the control of the Chief of Staff. In actuality, however, the General Staff played a minor role in supply matters, and the Patterson-Somervell team operated with almost complete autonomy. The Operations Division of the General Staff, on the other hand, was made into a true military general staff for the Chief of Staff, free from all responsibilities “except strategic direction and control of operations, determination of over-all military requirements, and determination of basic policies affecting the zone of interior.” Despite this second example of what one War Department board termed the “devitalization of the General Staff during wartime,” the Army in 1945 moved back toward the reintroduction of the vertical system.16
Navy Civil-Military Relations. In contrast to the Army, the Navy’s balanced organization provided for effective civilian control in peace and effective military operation in war. It obtained these values, however, only at the cost of constant bickering and friction among the Secretary, the Chief of Naval Operations, and the bureau chiefs. Once the naval traditionalist view had been written into law in 1915, the balanced system lost almost all support among the line officers of the Navy. The organizational theory of Luce and Mahan was forgotten by postwar generations of naval officers. The weight of naval opinion favored a vertical system to be achieved by extending the powers of the CNO over the bureaus. The history of naval organization between 1915 and 1945 is the history of continuous struggle between the chief military officer of the Navy, on the one hand, and the Secretaries and bureau chiefs on the other. Every CNO, except one, believed that he should have directive power over the bureaus.* In 1921 the CNO and the line officers argued their case before the Senate committee investigating the naval prosecution of the war. In 1921 they told a departmental board on organization that the CNO theoretically had legal authority over the bureaus; all that he required were the administration mechanisms to implement this power. In 1924 the CNO won a partial success when he was given coordinating authority over certain activities of the bureaus. Eight years later this grant of power was vitiated by the President who declared that it did not include the authority to give orders to the bureaus. The CNO’s, however, continued to plead their case before Congress, and, during World War II, Admiral King made several efforts to reorganize the Department along vertical lines which were only stopped by the determined opposition of the President and Under Secretary Forrestal.17
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