Under the Shadow of Napoleon: French Influence on the American Way of Warfare from Independence to the Eve of World War II 9780814723173

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Under the Shadow of Napoleon

Wa rfa re a n d Cu lt u re Se ri es General Editor: Wayne E. Lee A Rabble in Arms: Massachusetts Towns and Militiamen during King Philip’s War Kyle F. Zelner Empires and Indigenes: Intercultural Alliance, Imperial Expansion, and Warfare in the Early Modern World Edited by Wayne E. Lee Warfare and Culture in World History Edited by Wayne E. Lee Rustic Warriors: Warfare and the Provincial Solider on the New England Frontier, 1689–1748 Steven C. Eames Forging Napoleon’s Grand Armée: Motivation, Military Culture, and Masculinity in the French Army, 1800-1808 Michael J. Hughes Under the Shadow of Napoleon: French Influence on the American Way of Warfare from the War of 1812 to the Outbreak of WWII Michael A. Bonura

Under the Shadow of Napoleon French Influence on the American Way of Warfare from the War of 1812 to the Outbreak of WWII

Michael A. Bonura

a NEW YORK UNIVERSIT Y PRESS New York and London

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London www.nyupress.org © 2012 by New York University All rights reserved References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bonura, Michael A., 1974Under the shadow of Napoleon : French influence on the American way of warfare from the War of 1812 to the outbreak of WWII / Michael A. Bonura. p. cm. —  (Warfare and culture series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8147-0942-9 (cl : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8147-2317-3 (ebook) ISBN 978-0-8147-0943-6 (ebook) 1.  Military art and science — United States — History — 19th century. 2. Military art and science — United States — History — 20th century. 3.  Military art and science — France — History — 18th century. 4.  United States — History, Military — 19th century. 5.  Untied States — History, Military — 20th century. 6. France — History — Revolution, 1789-1799 — Influence.  I. Title. UA23.B714 2012 355.4’77309034 — dc23 2011047738 New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books. Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Kyra, who played with her Napoleon puppets beside my desk in solidarity

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Contents

List of Figures

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

Introduction 1

1

A French Way of Warfare

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2 Bringing French Warfare to America, 1814–1848

41

3 American Adaptation of French Warfare, 1848–1865

93

4 German Professionalism and American Warfare, 1865–1899

133

5 American Warfare in the Progressive Era, 1899–1918

173

6 The End of French Influence on American Warfare, 1918–1941

213

Conclusion

257

Notes

263

Index

297

About the Author

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Figures

1.1

The Battle of Valmy

13

1.2

Regulations of 1791—From Line to Column

23

1.3

The Attack Column by Division

31

1.4

The Battle of Fleurus

32

2.1

The Battle of Chippawa

52

2.2

The Battle of Lundy’s Lane

54

2.3

The Battle of Molino Del Rey

86

2.4

The Battle of Chapultepec

88

3.1

Hardee’s Skirmisher Deployment

97

3.2–3.3

Battle of Bull Run

121

3.4

Battle of Cold Harbor

127

4.1

1873 Bayonet Drill

146

4.2

1891 Order of Battle

150

4.3

The Battle of San Juan and El Caney

167

5.1

1904 Order of Battle

195

5.2

1914 Bayonet Exercises

199

5.3

Battle of Meuse-Argonne Phase I

206

5.4

Battle of Meuse-Argonne Phase II

209

6.1

1932 Platoon Formations

218

6.2

1936 Infantry School Mailing List “Lines and Formations”

234

6.3

1939 CGSS Tactical Deployment from the RML

242

6.4

1940 Company Attack

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Acknowledgments

Many individuals and institutions helped in writing this book, and I am deeply indebted to all of them. I would like to thank Dr. Donald D. Horward for introducing me to the Napoleonic era and mentoring me as a Napoleonic historian. I would also like to thank Dr. Fritz Davis for becoming my major professor and seeing me through my Ph.D., guiding me through the history and philosophy of science, and introducing me to the works of Thomas Kuhn. Without them, I would not have been able to conceive of, much less finish, this book. I would also like to thank Colonel Kevin Farrell for his mentorship and friendship throughout this process; he has always ensured that I live up to my full potential. Dr. Jonathan Gumz provided incalculable help in outlining the scope of this work, and I have him to thank for making my argument as strong as it could be. Finally, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Dr. Robert Citino, who encouraged me to go forward with this manuscript and offered important suggestions that led to its publication. Additionally, the West Point Special Collections provided invaluable help in research, both while I was teaching at the Military Academy and from a distance. From the first word to the last revision, my family supported late nights and long days of research and writing and proofread several of the versions along the way. I could not have written this book without their support. I would also like to thank my wife, Kimberlee, who learned to appreciate the French influence on American warfare as much as I did, and without whom I would not be as successful as I am.

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Introduction

Since the 1960s, Americans’ attitudes toward France have involved a wide array of emotions, from suspicion to anger and even, at times, betrayal. France’s withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s integrated military command in 1966 and its refusal to allow American military aircraft to enter its airspace during the 1986 bombing of Libya deteriorated the congenial American attitudes toward the French, which had been prevalent prior to World War II. The current global war on terror has not changed this opinion, and at times there has been a great deal of hatred of all things French. The “Freedom Fries” movement of 2001–2 that refused to use the word “French” when ordering fast food and the always popular jokes concerning the effeminacy of French arms are reminders of the animosity of Americans to all things French. A recent book titled Our Oldest Enemy: A History of America’s Disastrous Relationship with France, which received favorable reviews from the Wall Street Journal, documented the history of evil French machinations against America.1 When France offered the United States advice about the dangers of appeasement in early 2010, Minnesota’s Governor Tim Pawlenty replied that it was like “AIG [a company generally held responsible in part for the financial collapse of 2007] lecturing us on financial responsibility.”2 However, this was not always the case. Across a broad spectrum of intellectual activity, America once considered France the model for a wide range of professions, including the profession of arms. Consider this scene from the United States Military Academy at West Point: there is a small classroom of sixteen cadets and a single commissioned officer professor, in this case a major. The cadets listen attentively to the officer as he describes the movements of Napoleon’s Grande Armée from its victory over the unfortunate Austrian General Karl Mack at Ulm, to its subsequent pursuit of the Austrians and their Russian allies. The officer provides a quick summary of Napoleon’s strategic situation, his capabilities and constraints, and his plan to draw the army of the Third Coalition into a decisive battle. The cadets then analyze the French plan and the Allied response, |

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identifying the importance of accurate intelligence for battlefield decisionmaking. The officer directs the cadets to the large-scale map of the battle of Austerlitz laid out on tables in the center of the classroom. The cadets each take an icon of either a French or Allied corps commander and describe the situation and actions of their respective icon, moving the pieces through the phases of the battle of Austerlitz. As the cadets brief their parts, the officer asks them to critique the performance of the French and Allied commanders and their decisions and to explain the causes of Napoleon’s greatest victory. The cadets respond with intelligent criticisms and offer their own unique solutions to the tactical problems presented by the battle of Austerlitz. This scene came from the course “The History of the Military Art from 450 through 1900,” which I taught while assigned to the West Point Department of History from 2006 to 2009. Every cadet in their last year at the academy is required to take this military history course, and every instructor teaching the course includes a lesson on the battle of Austerlitz. This lesson was part of the Napoleonic history block that consisted of almost 25 percent of the material in the course. This demonstrates the enduring legacy of Napoleon in the undergraduate officer education of the U.S. Army. The study of Napoleon prepared these cadets to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, just as well as it prepared their predecessors to fight in the Civil War or World War I. However, French influence in the American army was once more than just the use of historical vignettes to teach cadets the history of the art of war. French tactics and military thought reshaped American warfare in the early nineteenth century. Using the 1791 French system of tactics to break a series of defeats in the War of 1812, Winfield Scott introduced French ideas into the American military tradition in 1814. These ideas included a dedication to offensive operations that culminated in an assault, the creation of an infantry army composed of nonspecialized infantry units, a linear but noncontiguous understanding of the battlefield, a desire to combine the effects of all auxiliary arms into the main infantry battle, and the adoption of nondogmatic tactics executed through the initiative of the officer corps. From 1814 through 1940, the U.S. Army organized, trained, learned, and fought according to an understanding of war imported directly from the armies of the French Revolution. The fundamental elements of the American way of warfare remained French, unaffected by battlefield events or advances in technology, for over 100 years. Strong cultural movements and the dedication of the army’s senior leadership ensured the continued adherence to this French approach to warfare until its replacement following the fall of France in 1940, under the leadership of George C. Marshall. 2

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After the War of 1812, French influence dominated more than just the development of American army regulations, technology, and education. The way an army fights is more than just the sum of its equipment, social composition, weaponry, and leadership. When armies go to war, they do so balanced on the tip of an immense pyramid of ideas about the fundamental nature of warfare. Every nation conforms to certain ideas concerning the relationship between citizen, state, and war and acceptable types of soldiers, armies, practices, and traditions. Such conceptualization, which I refer to as a way of warfare, shapes the way a nation thinks about the acceptable uses of its military. This is different from a way of war that describes a nation’s strategic and military traditions. For example, it could be argued that the British way of war during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries utilized their island position and a strong navy to defend their country and achieve their political objectives. However, this is not a way of warfare, because it does not encompass the way the British thought about war, mobilized for war, fielded an army, or engaged in battle. This definition of a way of warfare privileges armies and land combat because armies encompass every facet of national life, whereas the limited numbers and technical skills required by a navy or air force prevent the same kind of involvement by the nation. The strategies, organization, execution, tactical regulations, training methods, and operations of armies on the battlefield do not create a nation’s way of warfare. These elements reflect the ideas represented by a nation’s way of warfare. These ideas influence the formation of an army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. This framework is the mechanism by which an army employs its nation’s way of warfare on a battlefield against its enemies. This framework, adopted in large part by the leadership of the army, carries with it various assumptions about the nature of war and the requirements for victory, all consistent with the national way of warfare. In a certain sense, the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield is the manifestation of that way of warfare. For example, the eighteenth-century European commander considered maneuver to be a perfectly acceptable way of defeating his opponent. He would only attack if he had an advantage, conducted operations that focused on either depots or fortresses, and led an army composed of well-drilled soldiers organized into specialized formations based on their primary purpose on the battlefield. These principles reflected a number of the sociopolitical realities of European nation-states in the eighteenth century: standing armies were extremely expensive, wars were limited in scope and political objective, and armies were composed of subjects and conscripts. Whatever the political Introduction

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goal of the commander’s nation, his army and operations conformed to the guiding principles of his intellectual framework of the battlefield. It is important to identify the central principles and ideas that animate an intellectual framework of the battlefield, as opposed to merely creating a list of all the things that a particular army does in war. Understanding these fundamental ideas has a certain explanatory power when analyzing an army’s strategy, doctrine, and battlefield decisions. Identifying the development of the American way of warfare, its impact on the military institutions of the United States, and how it changed in reaction to the political, strategic, and technological elements of modern warfare provides the basis for such an analysis. It also provides an important context to battlefield decisions, actions, and engagements and has the potential to provide more satisfying explanations to some of the more inexplicable moments in American military history. The benefits of identifying the fundamental elements of an army’s intellectual framework are a logical first step in any historical study. Understanding the method by which an intellectual framework is conceptualized, communicated, and adopted is vital to identifying the central principles and ideas of that framework. Currently, there are several different schools of thought concerning the generation of the military principles and tactics that characterize an intellectual framework of the battlefield. Some scholars argue that technology and adapting to technological change are the most influential factors in determining the way in which armies change their principles of war and tactics. Others emphasize battlefield experience as the most influential source of knowledge that guides the way armies fight and learn about fighting. Still others identify the military art as a primarily intellectual activity, influenced by social and cultural norms and ideas. A focus on technology dominates the field of studies on the development of war. There is a large number of works on the development of specific technologies, weapons, or vehicles. The development of such technology drives armies either to adapt their current way of warfare or to generate an entirely new one. Technological innovation becomes the principle force guiding corresponding changes in organization, doctrine, and tactics.3 While there are more forces at work than just technology, it is either the implicit or explicit force of change. These arguments are extremely persuasive, as they are grounded in the technologies that changed the modern battlefield, but they do not explain why some countries modernize and adapt better than others or why armies with the same technology utilize it in different ways. Technology is certainly an important part of modern warfare, but “in order to have the heavy bomber, one had first to conceive the idea of it.”4 4

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Almost as prevalent as technological determinism is the argument for the primacy of battlefield experiences in the way armies conduct war. As this argument goes, armies either learn or fail to learn from the bottom up, and all real innovation starts with the individual soldier.5 Some studies suggest that theory and doctrine are inconsequential on the battlefield, since few people read or understand it and decision-makers avoid being restricted by such dogmas.6 Although there are many examples of battlefield adaptation throughout military history, there are simply too many counterexamples to make it the driving force behind the creation of a conceptual framework. For every example of pragmatic experience-driven change, there are many more examples of armies which refuse to change their tactics in spite of battlefield experience and therefore suffer incredible casualties or catastrophic defeat. Like technology, battlefield experience does not provide an adequate explanation for either creating or changing an army’s way of warfare. Technology and experience play important roles in the creation of doctrine and the development of the military art. However, these factors are both used by the power of the human intellect on the battlefield. Clausewitz combined the importance of technology and experience in warfare by arguing that to effectively use force, armies utilized the “inventions of art and science.”7 But force is only one component in causing the submission of an enemy. The application of force is moderated by regulations and social norms. However, ultimately it is the mind of the commander that mediates the use of force, making the commander’s intellect the most important element in warfare. It is the intellect that is able to discern the truth concerning effective organization, training, operations, and battlefield emergencies.8 According to this view, war becomes primarily an intellectual activity, with ideas guiding military change. Ideas are able to combine the possibilities of technology and experience and create new conceptualizations of war, new tactics, and new armies. Ideas are also capable of integrating the social influences from the national way of warfare, especially the powerful influence of culture. With culture used for a wide variety of purposes across several different disciplines, it is important to establish definitions and perspectives for this study on what culture is and how it influences military activity and thought. For the purpose of this argument, “culture refers to the socially transmitted habits of mind, traditions and preferred methods of operations that are more or less specific to a particular geographically based security community” at a particular point in time.9 Culture is the synthesis of a nation’s habits and beliefs, which evolve as they interact with different cultural stimuli such as changes in demographics, technology, religion, war, politics, and other culIntroduction

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tures. Some historians understand military culture to be connected to but distinct from national culture. Thus, the military must moderate its understanding and execution of war “in ways that are culturally regular” to avoid clashes with the national culture.10 In this model, American warfare becomes a function of American culture, and when the military conducts war in methods outside of those that are culturally regular, the American people force compliance on their military.11 Although the military has a unique subculture, with norms and values that differ from American culture as a whole, it is imminently influenced by trends in the national culture. However, this influence is much more passive and subtle than a concept that creates culturally regular actions and decisions. Culture provides an important context to the decisions, actions, events, and institutions of a nation. It is also able to cross geographic boundaries and influence other nations. When the French way of warfare crossed the Atlantic Ocean to American military institutions, it became a transnational cultural influence. It was a cultural influence because these ideas were evaluated not on a rational or objective basis but purely on conceptions of reputation and validation because they were French. As such, these French ideas were a social construction in America as opposed to a philosophical influence or a conceptual genealogy. Thomas Kuhn created a methodology to understand the adoption, maintenance, and replacement of an intellectual framework that incorporates technology and experience through social influences such as culture. He created this methodology to understand the development of science in his groundbreaking work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn studied the great scientific revolutions and focused his historical research on contextualizing the scientific experience. He discovered that science was not a cumulative process but one dominated by a succession of scientific paradigms. Scientific disciplines have a preparadigmatic period characterized by a competition among different theories with different perspectives on the nature of that discipline.12 This competition continues until one paradigm provides satisfying answers to the most central problems of that discipline and achieves a consensus from the group of practitioners. A paradigm is a set of ideas “unprecedented enough to attract an enduring group of adherents away from competing modes of scientific activity.”13 This paradigm will then guide scientific research by determining what questions should be answered and what experiments will yield important results. It is important to note that consensus means the majority of the community becomes convinced by the paradigm, especially people in positions of 6

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Introduction

power who allocate resources or set broader research policy. There are usually adherents to other, older ideas who never become convinced and are moved outside of the scientific community.14 Once a community has accepted a paradigm, the educational institutions change their instruction and rewrite their textbooks to indoctrinate new practitioners into the paradigm through a “rigorous and rigid” process.15 After the paradigm becomes the guiding influence of scientific research, scientists then conduct “research as a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education.”16 However, as research progresses, certain anomalies begin to show up in the data that contradict the expected results based on the paradigm. When these anomalies begin to appear in the research, scientists will conceive of new ways to apply their paradigm to account for them. However, when these anomalies can no longer be ignored, the profession begins the process of scientific revolution that changes both paradigm and worldview, and reconceptualizes the research of the past to lead to a new paradigm.17 This new paradigm then produces more satisfying answers to the central questions of the profession than the old paradigm. But new research and observation alone cannot produce consensus, as “an apparently arbitrary element, compounded of personal and historical accident, is always a formative ingredient of the beliefs espoused by a given scientific community at a given time.”18 When the new set of ideas answers new questions better than the old paradigm does, the scientific community must believe in the new paradigm on the basis of a variety of outside social and cultural influences. Only when those influences exert enough pressure on the community will a new paradigm replace the old, and normal science can continue. The military profession has a different set of traditions, research, history, organization, and culture than do the physical sciences that Kuhn studied. It is therefore necessary to apply this theoretical methodology to the unique elements of warfare in order to understand its paradigms and their influences. As a set of fundamental ideas concerning warfare, an army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield functions as a military paradigm. This intellectual framework is accepted by the military community, predominantly the officer corps, and informs the organization, training, equipment, and operations of the army. Once accepted, the paradigm inspires a new curriculum of professional education that includes infantry drill and general regulations, initial officer schooling, and postgraduate military schooling all teaching the fundamental elements of the intellectual framework of the battlefield. It also provides the direction for the training and conduct of war, as the real laboratory of war is the battlefield. Military research encompasses integrating new Introduction

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tactics, technology, and organizations to more effectively realize the ideas of the intellectual framework. It is on the battlefield that anomalies, or ways in which the ideas of the paradigm no longer apply to the modern battlefield, manifest themselves. When enough of these anomalies are observed, and there are influential officers who support different and new ideas, the old paradigm is cast away, and a new paradigm is adopted in its place. The Kuhnian model’s focus on the mechanisms through which military communities adopt ideas and use these ideas to generate strategy, tactics, technology, and organizations and on the influence of culture and personality throughout the process, provides a method to identify and understand the fundamental elements of the U.S. Army’s intellectual framework from 1814 through 1940. Those elements originated with the ideas of the Enlightenment and French military thinkers in the decade preceding the French Revolution. These ideas combined to create a system of war using a rational and scientific approach that maximized the capabilities of the eighteenth-century soldier and technology. The French Revolution took this framework and imprinted on it a series of cultural beliefs about war. From these cultural beliefs, the French army created a series of ideas and principles that combined to form a uniquely powerful paradigm, or intellectual framework, of the battlefield. This intellectual framework, referred to subsequently as the French combat method, generated a system of tactics and general regulations that led to a series of French victories in the Wars of the French Revolution. The French combat method became a transnational cultural influence as armies across Europe adopted its fundamental elements in order to remain relevant on the battlefield. This transnational cultural influence also traveled across the Atlantic, and the United States War Department attempted to adopt the French system of tactics, albeit unsuccessfully, in the first decade of the nineteenth century. American warfare of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was a product of a number of religious, European, and especially British influences. Studies of the early American military tradition of the colonial and Revolutionary period have identified a “frontier way of war” that exerted a powerful influence on the armies of the United States through the War of 1812.19 However, when General Winfield Scott utilized the French system to produce the only land victories of the War of 1812, he gave legitimacy to a competing French intellectual framework of the battlefield. Subsequently, Scott created a consensus large enough to incorporate this French way of warfare into the American military tradition. The resulting American intellectual framework of the battlefield, based on the fundamental elements 8

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Introduction

of the French combat method, became institutionalized by a number of American officers educated in France who subsequently taught it to future generations of officers and soldiers. This intellectual framework dominated the American way of warfare through the Mexican-American War, the American Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and World War I. It was not until the rise of the German army in the 1930s and the fall of France in 1940 that General George C. Marshall replaced the army’s 126-year-old framework, influenced by the French combat method, with a new intellectual framework of the battlefield. This book does not attempt to present a complete military history of the U.S. Army from 1814 through 1940, nor does it present the writings or opinions of every single American officer who served throughout this period. Such an undertaking would reveal very little about the intellectual history of the army. Nor does it attempt to link the French influence to the history of strategic thought in America, either in the army or with the commander in chief. This is not a history of French influence in the development of American military technology or equipment, although there was a strong French influence on American ordinance throughout this period. Nor is it a comparative study of American and European military thought or doctrine. Rather, the succeeding chapters of this book follow Kuhn’s methodology in identifying and analyzing the American way of warfare from 1814 through 1940, creating an intellectual history of the U.S. Army. Beginning with the intellectual framework of the French combat method, the chapters follow its adoption by the armies of the United States, its indoctrination and use throughout four chronological periods, and the decision to end its use because of its inability to continue providing victory on the modern battlefield. Each of these chapters examines the professional education of the period through the study of regulations and educational institutions to establish the intellectual framework taught to new officers and soldiers. The chapters also include an analysis of the cultural influences on both the army and its intellectual framework of the battlefield. Each chapter is defined by the major wars of the period and ends with an analysis of a battle representative of that period, reflecting how dedicated to the intellectual framework the officers and soldiers were at the commencement of fighting and how the actual battlefield experiences affected the fundamental elements of their intellectual framework of war. These descriptions are not designed to advance the knowledge of these events or to provide new research or different perspectives on old analyses. Rather, the use of battlefield case studIntroduction

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ies demonstrates the remarkable consistency of thought and action of the American army across 126 years of war and peace. Along with the army’s educational system, system of tactics, and regulations, the battlefield examples demonstrate not only the powerful French influence on the American army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield but also the power of culture on that framework.

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| Introduction

1 A French Way of Warfare

Thus the day passed away: the French stood immovable, Kellermann having taken also a more advantageous position. Our people were withdrawn out of the fire, and it was exactly as if nothing had taken place. The greatest consternation was diffused among the army. That very morning, they had thought of nothing short of spitting the whole of the French and devouring them; nay I myself had been tempted to take part in this dangerous expedition from the unbounded confidence I felt in such an army and in the Duke of Brunswick; but now everyone went about alone, nobody looked at his neighbor, or if it did happen, it was to curse or to swear. Just as night was coming on, we had accidentally formed ourselves into a circle, in the middle of which the usual fire even could not be kindled: most of them were silent, some spoke, and in fact the power of reflection and judgment was awanting to all. At last I was called upon to say what I thought of it; for I had been in the habit of enlivening and amusing the troop with short sayings. This time I said: “From this place and from this day forth commences a new era in the world’s history, and you can all say that you were present at its birth.” —Goethe1

It was only right that Goethe, one of the most brilliant minds of the eighteenth century, declared the French Revolution a watershed moment in European history on the battlefield that saved the new republic from international intervention. The French Revolution unleashed new ideas that fundamentally altered French culture, while at the same time realizing Enlightenment military reforms deemed anathema by the armies of the ancien régime. The result was a way of warfare that matched the unique capabilities of the citizen-soldier with a new system of tactics. This new system disregarded the limitations of eighteenth-century warfare and proved superior to the system of Frederick the Great. This intellectual framework, called the French combat method, informed military affairs far |

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beyond the borders of France, becoming a transnational cultural influence. The French combat method transformed American warfare through the use of French regulations and the acceptance of French culture in American society. Therefore, an understanding of the American way of warfare is incomplete without an understanding of the fundamental elements of the French combat method.

The Conceptual Framework of Eighteenth-Century Warfare The Battle of Valmy: 20 September 1792 Goethe joined the 42,000-man Prussian army commanded by Charles William Ferdinand Duke of Brunswick in late July 1792. While Kaiser Frederick William of Prussia wanted to ride straight to Paris and restore the Bourbon monarchy in a single campaign, Brunswick envisioned a more methodical approach. He wanted to seize the French frontier fortresses, establish depots, defeat French relieving armies, and prepare for a more decisive campaign the following year. This was consistent with his reputation, as much of the ruling elite considered Brunswick the preeminent soldier of Europe, largely for his bloodless, methodical, and victorious 1787 Holland campaign.2 Brunswick quickly seized the fortress of Longwy on 23 August 1792 and established his base of operations for the invasion of France. Through a series of skirmishes, he pushed aside several French armies and advanced toward the fortress of Verdun.3 It was not until the fall Verdun, on 2 September, the last frontier fortification on the road to Paris, that Charles François Dumouriez took command of all of the French armies on the frontier.4 When the Prussian army left Verdun for Paris, Dumouriez concentrated his forces across Brunswick’s line of communications back to Prussia. This caused Brunswick to turn around and attack back to Verdun. While marching east, the Prussian army encountered the French at the village of Valmy. The Prussians marched toward a part of Dumouriez’s army under the command of François-Christophe Kellermann that consisted of a mix of volunteer battalions, old royal infantry battalions, and several batteries of artillery. Kellermann deployed his 36,000 men at Valmy on a series of small hills that formed a semicircle west of the town to cut the road to Verdun, while Dumouriez maintained an additional 25,000 men in reserve to the east.5 When Prussian scouts found the French at Valmy, Brunswick decided to attack, expecting them to disintegrate like those French armies on the frontier. While the Prussian infantry formed into its order of battle, the Prussian artillery fired on the French position, beginning the famous cannon12

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A French Way of Warfare

Figure 1.1. The Battle of Valmy (Reprinted from Charles Théodore Beauvais de Préau, ed., Victoires, conquêtes, désastres, revers et guerres civiles des français, de 1792 à 1815, vol. 1 [Paris: C. L. F. Panckoucke, 1818–21], facing p. 28)

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ade of Valmy. For hours the Prussian and French artillery fired thousands of rounds at each other, which caused few casualties and failed to break the French lines.6 Seeking to panic the French, the Prussians began their attack up the slopes of Mount Yron, but for the first time since the beginning of the campaign, the French did not run. Without the advantage of a panicked enemy, Brunswick stopped the attack after only 200 meters. Several minutes later, Prussian cannon balls struck several French powder caissons, causing a loud explosion and the panic of two French regiments. Brunswick ordered the resumption of the attack, but before his orders could be relayed to the infantry, the French line rapidly reformed, and the French artillery resumed its cannonade.7 The Prussians remained on the field for another two hours before calling off the attack and retiring in good order.8 With the road to Verdun under French control, the Prussian army began to disperse shortly after leaving Valmy. Discipline in the retreating army broke down rapidly, and Brunswick abandoned Verdun and Longwy because he did not have enough troops or supplies to garrison them.9 After an inauspicious beginning, French armies controlled the frontier and saved the Republic by the end of 1792. The battle of Valmy presents a perfect opportunity to understand the eighteenth-century European intellectual framework of the battlefield. There was no attempt to maneuver the French out of their position or to press the attack, two of the central themes of eighteenth-century warfare. Kellermann’s army had a number of volunteer formations of questionable value, and if any of these formations panicked before a deliberate Prussian attack, the French line might have collapsed. The French and Prussian armies at Valmy were almost numerically equal. The Prussians had a good chance of routing the majority of Kellermann’s army and then outnumbering Dumouriez’s reserve. Knowing the result of the campaign, the possibility of destroying at least a part of Dumouriez’s army was better than losing all of the Prussian territorial gains and Brunswick’s army. If there were so many logical reasons for Brunswick to continue his attack at Valmy, why did he decide to retreat, leaving the French army intact and the revolution secure? Why did Brunswick consider his generalship of the campaign, if not successful, then at least prudent?10 From his point of view, Brunswick made wise decisions to husband the strength of his army to fight another day on a battlefield that offered more advantages. The answer lies with Brunswick’s intellectual framework of the battlefield and, by extension, the eighteenth-century way of warfare.

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The Paradigm of Ancien Régime Linear Warfare The political and military environment of eighteenth-century Europe produced a unique way of warfare. The capabilities and constraints on armies and battles, both military and political, led to an intellectual framework of the battlefield for the age of “linear warfare.” While it is not within the purview of this work to make a detailed analysis of this framework, a brief description of its major ideas will help understand Brunswick’s decisions at Valmy. With the rise of ever powerful centralized states on the model of Louis XIV, European warfare became the purview of professional standing armies.11 These armies had specialized units of heavy line and light infantry whose maneuvers on the battlefield maximized the impact of their muskets and bayonets on the enemy.12 The increased dependence on gunpowder created logistical requirements that led nations to maintain large depots of military stores along their frontiers. These fortified depots made lines of communication vitally important to an army on campaign, as armies could not sustain themselves for long in enemy territory without logistical support.13 The creation of the depot system was a result of the experiences of the Thirty Years’ War and designed to avoid the political instability caused by extensive foraging. This meant that cutting an enemy army’s lines of communication was almost certain to force its retreat. Combined with the expense and investment represented by standing armies, this created a maneuver-centric way of warfare. These themes dominated the intellectual framework of the day through a combination of memoirs, theoretical pamphlets, and major works on the art of war. Authors encouraged commanders to fight battles only when they gained an advantage over the enemy through position, terrain, or maneuver.14 Some maneuvers were so powerful as to make the enemy retreat without firing a single shot. Marshal Maurice de Saxe identified this as the hallmark of a superior general when he wrote, “I do not favor pitched battles, especially at the beginning of a war, and I am convinced that a skillful general could make war all his life without being forced into one.”15 Victory through maneuver also had the added benefit of reducing the cost of battles by saving lives. This concern for the lives of soldiers, many of whom came from the lowest levels of society, was a desire to reduce the costs of war, as the expense of armies due to their equipment and years of training drained royal coffers.16 However, effective maneuver produced an advantage in the event of a battle, and there was no shortage of battle during the age of “limited” war.

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Frederick the Great was a great proponent of battles and taught his generals, If you wish to be loved by your soldiers, husband their blood and do not lead them to slaughter. They can be spared by shortening the battle by means that I shall indicate, by the skill with which you choose your points of attack in the weakest localities, in not breaking your head against impracticable things which are ridiculous to attempt, in not fatiguing the soldier uselessly, and in sparing him in sieges and in battles. When you seem to be most prodigal of the soldier’s blood, you spare it, however, by supporting your attacks well and by pushing them with the greatest of vigor to deprive time of the means of augmenting your losses.17

In this paragraph, Frederick refers to two different components of his intellectual framework of the battlefield. The first refers to the advantage gained through maneuver and the utilization of terrain. The second describes the organization and tactics required for victory on the battlefield. In order to press an attack with vigor, an army had to integrate its reserves into the main line of battle to ensure that all possible firepower affected the enemy’s formations.18 The commanding general dictated the entire order of battle prior to the combat, deployed his whole force into a single formation, and launched his infantry against the enemy.19 When the two formations collided, the better trained and drilled units produced a higher volume of fire by continuing to operate their muskets amid the carnage created by the short-range volley fire of smoothbore muskets.20 The harsh discipline required to create effective infantry on the linear battlefield became a requirement for victory and a limiting factor of eighteenth-century warfare. To maximize effectiveness, armies contained different types of infantry. Thus, the heavy line infantry trained only to fight as line infantry, and light infantry only as light infantry. Once the commander determined his order of battle and issued his orders, victory came down to a single blow by the entire army, even if this blow took hours to land.21 If it failed to drive the enemy from the field or shatter its formation where it stood, then victory remained unattainable. With this basic understanding of the intellectual framework of the battlefield for eighteenth-century European warfare, we can provide a much more complete analysis of Brunswick’s decisions on the battlefield of Valmy. Brunswick represented the epitome of the eighteenth-century commander and conducted his campaign in accordance with the fundamental elements of his intellectual framework. By concentrating the French armies across 16

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the Prussian lines of communication, Dumouriez constrained Brunswick’s options for maneuver. Any additional maneuver required Brunswick to march farther away from his depots. Severing his lines of communication represented a tremendous risk to both the Prussian army and its ability to remain an effective fighting force. This left an attack as Brunswick’s only reasonable option. However, attacking Kellermann’s position gave the French the advantage of terrain. As Brunswick’s paradigm supported attacks only from a position of advantage, a French panic represented his only hope of creating an opportunity for a victorious infantry attack. When the enemy remained in its formations after an advance of 200 meters, he had no choice but to withdraw from the battle and begin what became a disastrous retreat to the frontier. Brunswick had no choice because his intellectual framework prohibited a frontal attack against a disciplined enemy on defensible terrain, regardless of the chances for victory. Such a victory could cause irreparable damage to the Prussian army and, even if it were successful, would make that army incapable of further offensive operations. German military historian Hans Delbrück exonerated Brunswick for his decision at Valmy, stating that the decision was consistent with those made by Frederick the Great.22 Ironically, Kellermann also fought according to the eighteenth-century intellectual framework of the battlefield. He chose the position at Valmy both to cut Brunswick’s lines of communication and because the hills surrounding the village provided an advantage over attacks from three sides. It was the royal regiments that held his line together under the cannonade and reformed so rapidly after the caissons exploded. It was also the royal artillery batteries that responded to the Prussian guns during the cannonade. In fact, the only new element in Kellermann’s generalship that day was his resort to revolutionary patriotism when inspiring his troops to hold the line before the Prussian advance. However, this patriotism was only one of many forces already at work within the French armies that in short order fundamentally changed French warfare.

The New French Way of Warfare From 1791 through 1794, the armies of the French Republic developed a new way of warfare that combined the ideas of the prerevolutionary period with the new capabilities brought on by the French Revolution. The Prussian General Gerhard von Scharnhorst, who spent years fighting the armies of the French Revolution, believed that the French army, “compelled by the situation in which they found themselves and aided by their national genius, A French Way of Warfare

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had developed a practical system of tactics that permitted them to fight over open or broken ground, in open or close order, but this without their being aware of their system.”23 Scharnhorst witnessed new French tactics that were more flexible, responsive, and agile during the wars of the Revolution. This system of tactics was only one component of the new French way of warfare, but Scharnhorst failed to understand the set of powerful ideas that directed these tactics on the battlefield. Hans Delbrück referred to this fundamental revolution in warfare as the “French combat method.” He characterized it as a combination of the linear tactics of the old regime, a renewed emphasis on light infantry and skirmisher tactics, the use of small attack columns, and mass volunteer armies.24 Delbrück’s French combat method provides an excellent starting point in understanding this new intellectual framework of the battlefield. However, it captures bits and pieces of what became the most dominant military paradigm in Europe. Delbrück also attributed the power of this new way of warfare to the creation and the deployment of mass volunteer armies of the Republic. This is where his analysis fails to completely capture the revolutionary nature of this new French way of warfare. What made the French combat method more powerful than linear warfare was the cultural influence of the French Revolution. This cultural influence allowed the armies of the Revolution to execute maneuvers, change formations, and conduct attacks that were impossible for the armies of the ancien régime. The logical systems of tactics imagined in the minds of the last military philosophes of the Enlightenment came to life through the passion, duty, and discipline of the citizen-soldier of the French Revolution.

The French Debates from 1760 to 1788 No element of the military art of eighteenth-century Europe underwent more consideration, development, discussion, and reform than battlefield tactics. Because of France’s disastrous performance during the Seven Years’ War, it was particularly interested in the evolution of tactics. From the 1760s to the 1790s, French officers carried on a continual debate concerning the best form of tactics for the modern battlefield. Out of these debates there arose two distinct schools of thought, one supporting the ordre profond, or the attack in column, while the other continued to emphasize the importance of the ordre mince, or linear formations.25 The ordre profond had many proponents, and by the 1770s, it was the dominant school among senior French officers. However, underlying these tactical debates was a discussion about 18

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wider army reform. Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte Guibert, one of the most influential military philosophes of his day, supported a powerful evolution of the ordre mince which included a new role for a smaller attack column. In addition to creating a new system of tactics, the most controversial element of his Essai général de tactique was his call for the reform of the French army into an army of citizen-soldiers. Although Guibert continued to support the primacy of the line over the column, he proposed a simplified system of evolutions that enabled an army to move from line to column to take advantage of the firepower of the line and the mobility and offensive capability of the column.26 His main tactical improvements were the simplification of the commands and movements of his drill, making them easier to execute. Guibert linked his army reform to this argument for simpler combat evolutions. Throughout his Essai général de tactique, Guibert praised the capabilities of a citizen army to execute his new system of tactics, even though he downplayed their role in his Défense du système de guerre modern several years later.27 He described this new military as springing from “a free state, a people that could carry on war with little cost, because all citizens would arm themselves for the common defense, without crying out for pay.”28 The army made up of such citizens would be much more effective than the eighteenth-century army of conscripts, peasants, and criminals. Guibert’s theories and political opinions made him a pariah in the French army, and there was considerable resistance to his system. His rival in these theoretical debates was François-Jean de MesnilDurand, who believed in the efficacy of the ordre profond, or deep attack column. Continuing the work of Jean-Charles de Folard, he made intelligent arguments for the power and successful nature of attacks in column and called for only moderate changes to the existing recruitment of the French army. His work impressed Marshal Victor-François de Broglie, the foremost soldier in France before the Revolution. Marshal de Broglie held exercises at the Camp of Vaussieux in 1778 as a series of large maneuvers that became field trials for these two schools of thought.29 Although there was no official statement on which system was more effective, it seemed to the participants that Guibert’s evolutions were indeed easier for troops to execute. This led a large part of the officer corps to approve of Guibert’s drill, while not particularly caring for him as an officer.30 Although France did not adopt either of these systems following the exercises at Vaussieux, the renewed discussion in pamphlets and books fostered intellectual debate throughout the French army.31 These debates generated many of the ideas needed to dramatically improve French warfare. A French Way of Warfare

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It was the French Revolution that overcame conservative opposition to real army reform. As part of the reorganization of the army, the National Assembly formed the Comité Militaire under Colonel Vicomte de Noailles to reform the entire French military under legislative supervision, which included creating new drill regulations.32 As the Revolutionary government renounced war in 1790, the committee had a free reign to create whatever system of tactics it wanted. With Guibert as a member, the committee generated a synthesis of the debates, theorists, experiments, and ordres of the preceding thirty years. It did so with a clear understanding of the cultural effects of the Revolution on the composition and discipline of the new citizens of the Republic.33 The Comité Militaire spent several years constructing the regulations for a new system of tactics based on the new possibilities of the French Revolution.

The Regulations of 1791: A New System of Tactics With such a strong tactical reform movement present in the army prior to the Revolution, the Comité Militaire had a tradition of doctrinal debates with which to work out the details of a new system of tactics. These debates came together in the Règlement concernant l’exercice et les manoeuvres de l’infanterie du 1er août 1791, or the Regulations of 1791, which institutionalized the flexible tactics credited with the French successes on the battlefields of the Wars of the French Revolution.34 These new regulations distilled the theoretical debates of the preceding thirty years, taking the best parts from all the theoretical tactical systems, and offered commanders a multitude of options for deployment on the battlefield. The regulations retained the linear formations most common in the proceeding period and instructions for the proper use of the column for both movement and attack. However, the brilliance of the Regulations of 1791 lay in its simplicity. In the new regulations, the evolutions of the line reflected the simplified nature of the tactics Guibert espoused in his Essai général de tactique.35 The simplicity of the new regulations started with their organization. The Regulations of 1791 contained four major parts or “schools”: the school of the soldier, the platoon, the battalion, and the evolutions of the line.36 These schools contained a number of lessons organized sequentially into a training curriculum. Although the document was the primary reference manual for the new system of tactics, the lessons developed skills from the most simple soldier tasks such as carrying a musket to the more complex of loading and firing that musket. This allowed drill masters to rapidly indoctrinate 20

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and train new recruits in this system of tactics in a manner more suited for citizen-soldiers of the Republic. As opposed to the myth of French citizen-soldiers learning tactics through common sense and battlefield experience, they went into battle after spending a considerable amount of time in camps of instruction.37 These camps appeared throughout the armies of the Revolution. In 1791 and 1792, the Army of the North established three of them for the purpose of training volunteer battalions. These volunteers received between four and eight months of training before their first battle.38 Such training turned raw recruits into reliable soldiers at Valmy. General Adam Philippe Custine created camps of instruction for select officers and noncommissioned officers of his army so that they could go forth and train their units.39 These drillmasters rapidly increased the combat effectiveness of their armies. Even the Army of the Pyrénées Orientales established camps of instruction while watching the Spanish armies.40 These camps provided both fortifications and training necessary to take the offensive in 1793. Camps of instruction provided the means through which the Republic disseminated its new system of tactics. The Regulations of 1791 provided these armies with a simple way of training new recruits to deploy into the lines and columns that became the tactical manifestation of the French combat method. French armies continued to rely on line formations, and the new regulations included an entire school of evolutions of the line. This school outlined the wide variety of formations, firing positions, and directional variations of the line available to French commanders.41 The line fulfilled the same function for the French armies in 1793 as it did in 1763 and remained the formation that maximized the firepower of the musket.42 On the battlefield, musket fire delivered from line formations continued to cause the majority of casualties.43 French armies also used infantry in line to support skirmishers. As an example, General Houchard deployed his infantry in line behind Rexpoede in September 1793, to support skirmishers engaged with the enemy in front of the village.44 The musket fire from the line infantry made the skirmishers more effective. The armies of the Revolution also used lines in the defense, especially as a method of retreating or breaking contact with the enemy. For example, the 56th Infantry Regiment covered the French retreat at Wattignies on October 15, 1793, using disciplined volleys from the line formation.45 The tactical flexibility of the Regulations of 1791 gave commanders the ability to use the line when appropriate. There was no more revolutionary tactical innovation in the Regulations of 1791 than the development of the small attack column. The basic attack colA French Way of Warfare

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umn was not a deep attack column but rather a smaller column by divisions.46 This column consisted of divisions of two companies in line, separated by a small gap between companies. These companies deployed with platoons in column. This attack column was the primary means for the French infantry to rapidly close the distance to the enemy and deliver a bayonet charge.47 The Army of the North used the attack column during 47 of 108 engagements, or 43.5 percent.48 This demonstrated the extensive use of both the attack column and the line formation. Additional columns used on the battlefield by the Army of the North included movement columns, columns as preliminary formations, and columns by platoons.49 From the fall of 1792, the column became an integral part of the tactical options of the French armies and a mainstay of French offensive operations. The new methods of moving between formations were a change from the drill of the eighteenth century. Previously, it was very difficult for commanders to alter their formations once in contact with the enemy, in large part because the wheel was the principle method of changing formation.50 This required soldiers to maintain almost perfect alignment as they wheeled in a line from one direction to another, and increased the time required to form an army into its order of battle from marching formations.51 The Regulations of 1791 retained this system of wheeling into lines and columns but added other techniques that required less alignment and more leadership. The new regulations added movements by individual files guiding off of file leaders and sergeants.52 It also added new movements from line to column by sections, which followed the oblique paths of individual sections from the line into column or from one line to another.53 These new movements made French lines and columns more adaptable on the battlefield, as commanders could now change their formations rapidly to respond to changes in the enemy formations and through difficult terrain.54 These new, direct movements increased the flexibility of these tactics and made them faster on the battlefield. The Regulations of 1791 took advantage of the doctrinal debates of the preceding fifty years and created regulations that outlined a wide variety of different formations and movements. This was a marked departure from the dogmatic drill of the eighteenth century, in which commanders determined the order of battle and the formations of subordinate units prior to combat. That system left very little room for individual unit commanders to change their formations to adapt to battlefield conditions. The Regulations of 1791 created a nondogmatic system of tactics that required individual initiative on the part of junior officers and subordinate command22

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Figure 1.2. Regulations of 1791 from Line to Column. This plate from the Regulations of 1791 depicts one of the simplified techniques to go from a linear formation to a column. (Reprinted from France, Planches relatives au règlement concernant l’exercice et les manoeuvres de l’infanterie du 1er août 1791, planche XI; courtesy of the United States Military Academy Special Collections and Archives, West Point, New York)

ers. However, the French army of the ancien régime was as ill equipped to adopt this system as were their European counterparts. It required the creation of the citizen-soldier and the sweeping cultural changes brought on by the French Revolution for the army to realize the potential of the new French system of tactics. A French Way of Warfare

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The Cultural Impact of the French Revolution on Warfare The French Revolution created a new nation, new politics, and a new relationship between the people and the state. Aside from the creation of a society based on merit, the change with the most military consequences in 1789 was the transformation of France into a nation of citizens. The Constitution of 1791 guaranteed “that all citizens are admissible to offices and employments, without other distinction than virtues and talents.”55 As the Revolution banned war as a method of conflict resolution in its early years, these new citizens felt no responsibility for national defense. However, when the situation at the frontier went from bad to worse in the spring of 1793, the Committee of Public Safety mobilized the country for war by making it the duty of all citizens to defend the La Patrie through the Levée en Masse. Clausewitz described this phenomenon: “A force appeared that beggared the imagination. Suddenly war again became the business of the people— a people of 30 millions, all of whom considered themselves to be citizens. .  .  . The people became a participant in war.”56 It was the Levée en Masse that created the French nation in arms and, by extension, a French army of citizen-soldiers. Guibert conceived of the potential of an army of citizen-soldiers and wrote of its benefits at a time when such thought was harshly criticized. In fact, a large number of philosophes wrote about citizen-soldiers, including Rousseau, Mably, and Montesquieu, and there appeared articles concerning them in Diderot’s Encyclopedie.57 Jean-Jacques Rousseau praised the military virtue of citizens and harked back to the model of the Romans and Spartans.58 From the beginning, the revolutionaries praised the value of the citizen for military service, but it took more than declarations or pamphlets to turn unrealized potential into reliable soldiers. The Levée en Masse was the realization of this stronger, simpler, and more virile image of both the state and the military that became the cornerstone for a new way of warfare: Henceforth, until the enemies have been driven from the territory of the Republic, the French people are in permanent requisition for army service. The young men shall go to battle; the married men shall forge arms and transport provisions; the women shall make tents and clothes, and shall serve in the hospitals; the children shall turn old linen into lint; the old men shall repair to the public places, to stimulate the courage of the warriors and preach the unity of the Republic and hatred of kings.59 24

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With the Levée en Masse, the French Revolution changed the nature of warfare forever and provided the armies of France with an additional 300,000 men. Gone were the standing armies of earlier periods; now even paid soldiers responded to a different sort of motivation and provided new capabilities on the battlefield. But the cornerstone of this new warfare was the citizen-soldier, not the 300,000 men credited to the Levée en Masse. The new motivations of citizen-soldiers created a correspondingly new type of discipline required to make them effective in combat. In the ancien régime, discipline was harsh and uncompromising because the interests of mercenaries or conscripted peasants was financial and survival and often not aligned with the interest of the state. Officers believed that only harsh discipline ensured that soldiers remained in the ranks continuing to fire despite the high casualty rates produced by the practice of linear warfare.60 However, the citizen-soldier identified his self-interest with that of the state and required a different kind of discipline. Because of this difference in interest, the citizen-soldier willingly put himself under military discipline, not through coercion or material rewards but because the survival of the state depended on his service.61 Citizens responded to better treatment simply because they were citizens, equally vested in the defense of the state with rights under law. In 1792, the Convention drafted new regulations governing the disciplining of troops of the Republic titled Règlement primitivement arrêté par le roi. It was no longer legal to use floggings and other corporal punishments on citizens. The new regulations published in 1792 forbid officers to injure or distress those under their command by harsh and abusive language or by tyrannical conduct.62 Military justice began to reflect the belief that justice was not designated by class or birth but was the right of every citizen of France. By refashioning the citizen-solider as the defender of the Republic, the Revolution reinforced discipline in a new way, which eventually created effective soldiers resistant to the desertion rampant in armies of the eighteenth century. The fear of desertion shaped much of the system of tactics in use by eighteenth-century armies. While on campaign, desertion averaged 25 percent for most armies of the ancien régime.63 This restricted the way an army foraged, moved, marched, organized itself, and fought. It was only through harsh discipline that soldiers remained in the ranks both on the battlefield and moving to the battlefield.64 The high desertion rates associated with this kind of discipline restricted the ability of commanders to move rapidly, to use different routes and thus increase mobility, to move and attack at night, and to encourage initiative in junior officers.65 The Revolution presented A French Way of Warfare

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French commanders with very different desertion rates due in large part to the motivation and discipline of the citizen-soldier. French armies on campaign in 1793 suffered a desertion rate of only 8 percent.66 In 1794, following the intensive program of coercive measures and indoctrination of the Terror, desertion fell from 8 percent to 4 percent.67 This gave French commanders more available manpower in their armies and allowed them to execute maneuvers their opponents found prohibitive. Guibert predicted that such an army would “be light to move, manageable, capable of rapid forced marches and will always be on the offensive.”68 It was the influx of manpower provided by the Levée en Masse, and the integration provided by the Amalgame, that created an effective army. The success of those armies was a direct result of their new discipline. The French soldiers were not better soldiers than their ancien régime enemies, but their new discipline carried with it a series of advantages to the battlefield. It allowed commanders to trust their heavy infantry formations to disperse into skirmish order on the battlefield and their light infantry formations to form up in the main line of battle. It allowed the French to move along several different routes without fear of mass desertion. These new citizen-soldiers were not bound to depots or heavy baggage trains but could forage on the march. They believed only in the offensive and assumed defensive positions and entrenchments in order to continue the offensive at the first opportunity. As the Republic fashioned a new military for the Revolution, it adopted the spirit of the offensive as one of its fundamental principles of warfare. The success of the Levée en Masse was that it allowed the French armies to return rapidly to the offensive in the fall of 1793.69 At the same time, Revolutionary propaganda increased the ideological tenor of the wars, depicting them as a death struggle, as opposed to the limited wars of kings. This led to a cult of the offensive among the revolutionaries, epitomized by the bayonet. Collot d’Herbois declared from the floor of the Convention in September 1793, “Isn’t it the bayonet, cold steel, which makes the French superior to the slaves of Tyrants?”70 The use of cold steel, or arme blanche, became a symbol of the Revolution and its relationship to the corrupt monarchies of Europe. While in command of the Army of the Moselle, Lazare Hoche declared, “With bread and bayonets we shall conquer Europe,” and described his strategy as “no maneuvering, nothing elaborate, just cold steel, passion, and patriotism.”71 The Republic manufactured almost a million pikes during the first few years of the Republic, though they were never used on the battlefield, the idea being that citizens armed with pikes were more than a match for the 26

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mercenaries of the ancien régime. The bayonet charge, regardless of its effectiveness, became the anticipated climax of every successful French attack. The bayonet increased morale and esprit and embodied the Revolutionary belief in the power of the offensive. The bayonet became the military symbol of the Revolution, and the offensive the only truly Revolutionary way to wage war. These cultural influences of the Revolution, combined with Enlightenment military thought, produced a new intellectual framework of the battlefield fundamentally different from Frederick the Great’s. This new framework became a permanent part of the military institutions of the Revolution in 1792.

The Regulations of 1792: A New Framework of Battle The officers of the armies of the Republic had to rapidly assimilate both new tactics and a new French way of warfare. Far from learning this doctrine from battlefield experience, the same committee that produced the tactical Regulations of 1791 published the Règlement provisoire sur le service de l’infanterie en campagne in April 1792.72 These regulations contained detailed descriptions on how to move, equip, encamp, picket, and secure the new citizen-soldier volunteers. However, more important than the regulations pertaining to the administration, movement, or command of troops was the section titled Instruction pour les jours de combat or “Instruction for the Day of Combat.” This section created a concise statement of how the new tactics functioned together on the battlefield. These regulations were extremely important in the education of the officers who led the armies of the Republic, and later the Empire, to victory. The Regulations of 1792 institutionalized the overarching conceptual framework required to integrate the tactical Regulations of 1791 into the French combat method. These regulations contained very specific descriptions concerning the duties of officers and sergeants as they pertained to the regular life of the unit. There were sections devoted to the organization of the baggage train, the planning and creation of encampments, the equipage of soldiers, and the formation of a general staff for the distribution of discipline and justice.73 What these sections did not explain was how these formations, techniques, and methods of discipline functioned together during a battle to create the conditions for victory. However, the section entitled “Instruction for the Day of Combat” outlined the French combat method as it applied to a hypothetical battlefield. In three parts, it provided officers with a complete conceptualization of how the new tactics and the citizen-soldier armies of A French Way of Warfare

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the Revolution worked together to defeat the enemy. The first part focused on the citizen-soldiers: how to inspire them, command them, and lead them into combat. The second part concerned the issuing of orders. The last part consisted of a set of general principles and a description of the integration of all types of troops on the battlefield. Taken together, this section encapsulated the changes wrought by the Revolution on warfare and reflected the intellectual framework of the French combat method. In part 1, the instructions focused on the difficulties and problems of commanding citizen-soldiers and offered recommendations to overcome them. It cautioned officers away from attempting to lie or deceive citizen-soldiers in order to produce a stronger effort in combat. Instead officers should accurately explain the situation, relying on their troops’ patriotism, discipline, and natural courage to overcome adverse conditions. Such conduct created a sense of trust and loyalty between commanders and citizen-soldiers that did not require the coercive measures and deception of the ancien régime to achieve combat effectiveness.74 Continuing this discussion of leadership, the section described the role of the officer during combat. Revolutionary officers needed to lead from the front of their formations, instead of on the side or in the rear.75 Personal example was the most effective way to motivate these soldiers. This kind of leadership reflected the cultural changes of the French Revolution and their manifestation in the citizen-soldier. The instructions made a point to encourage officers never to fall back, always to press onward to victory. For additional emphasis, the instructions stated that “the most resolute and determined are always those who gain battle,” using italics to emphasize the advantages of the offensive.76 These passages in the regulations relayed an offensive sentiment that pervaded Revolutionary propaganda. In part 2, the instructions described the most effective way of issuing orders and exerting control to take advantage of the increased capabilities of the French armies. To encourage rapid and offensive operations and to avoid the limitations of the set-piece battles of linear warfare, generals should issue their plan of battle in a way that allowed subordinate commanders to understand their commander’s intent.77 This was a departure from the practices of eighteenth-century warfare, in which only the commander understood the wider implications of his order of battle. This allowed subordinate officers to make independent decisions that supported the plan of battle and reinforced their nondogmatic system of tactics.78 Individual initiative became a hallmark of the French combat method, as opposed to the more rigid linear warfare. In this way, French forces overpowered their enemies with a rapidity of movement and decision-making. 28

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Building on this framework of leadership and command, the instructions provided a set of guiding principles for combat. These general principles provided officers with a set of ideas that characterized Revolutionary warfare. Commanders should deploy their formation in a line of divisions, with the reserve in supporting distance of the main line and divisions able to support each other. Attacks should be executed simultaneously to deny the enemy time to concentrate against them, and they should be carried out with vigor and end in an assault. Additionally, the regulations cautioned commanders against relying on any single attack for victory, to be prepared to order several assaults before penetrating the enemy’s formation. The regulations warned commanders against reckless pursuit following a successful assault and of the need to deliberately organize their retreat if retreat became necessary.79 Taken as a whole, these principles reinforced a linear but noncontiguous understanding of the relationships between opposing forces on the battlefield and of the primacy of offensive operations against that enemy. They provided commanders with an interesting blend of conventional wisdom and new theory that allowed the French combat method to function more effectively on the battlefield. However, it was the corresponding conceptual framework for the integration of the different arms of an army that allowed commanders to comply with these general principles. Part 3 proceeded to explain how the new French combat method functioned on the battlefield. To do so, it described the sequence of a hypothetical battle, with all the types of troops available to French commanders playing their part. According to the instructions, the most effective order of battle was the infantry formed up in one or two lines, with the reserve positioned to the rear. The artillery formed up in batteries and focused their fire on enemy troop formations to disrupt advancing enemy formations or to prepare the way for a French attack. During the artillery barrage, infantry advanced from the lines as skirmishers, taking advantage of cover afforded by the terrain to fire on the enemy. This fire caused the enemy to react and covered the movements and maneuver of the French close order infantry formations. When the time came for the main battle, the skirmishers reformed into close order and joined the rest of the infantry in the attack. If the terrain or situation required an attack by fire, then the infantry deployed into firing lines and poured a disciplined fire into the enemy ranks. However, the preferred method of attack was for French troops to close with the enemy and launch an assault consisting of small attack columns by division in an effort to break through the enemy’s lines with the bayonet. After the enemy ranks broke, a vigorous pursuit from skirmishers and dragoons maintained pressure on the enemy.80 In this simple and clear A French Way of Warfare

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statement, the Regulations of 1792 described the intellectual framework of the battlefield that made this new system of warfare superior to its predecessor. This concise statement integrated all the elements of this new French combat method. The attack was the only way to achieve victory, and the infantry assaulted the enemy’s lines physically with the bayonet, shattering their formations and causing them to panic and retreat. The armies of the Republic were primarily infantry armies that received the same training, with no specialized units. Under the ancien régime, light infantry battalions were specialized units, not organized, equipped, or trained to fight as heavy line infantry. The new French combat method trained its infantry to fight as either light or heavy infantry. Orders of battle and operations retained a linear concept of the battlefield, using battle lines to position and orient reserves. However, these lines were not the contiguous lines of the eighteenth century but more of a relationship between units that very often contained gaps. Republican commanders were encouraged to combine the effects of the auxiliary arms to support the main infantry battle. In eighteenth-century warfare, skirmishers or light infantry remained on the flanks in broken terrain, while this new conceptualization placed skirmishers in the main battle.81 The artillery was now consolidated into batteries and focused on attacking the enemy formations with fire in support of the main infantry attack. Individual commanders had the responsibility to decide on their own tactical deployments within the larger battle plan. They adopted whatever formation best suited their mission, terrain, and the enemy using their nondogmatic system of tactics. Units deployed in broken terrain could disperse into a skirmish order until the time to attack and then form into an attack column without any coordination with the units on their left or right. This brief, yet clear, description of the French combat method provided officers and commanders with an intellectual framework of the battlefield that allowed them to maximize the effectiveness of these new regulations and citizen-soldiers. Instead of merely executing new drill movements with different types of troops separately, the framework allowed commanders to integrate them dynamically on the battlefield to overpower the line battalions of the ancien régime, ushering in a new era of European warfare.

The French Combat Method in Action The Battle of Fleurus, June 1794 All the fundamental elements of the French combat method were present during the battle of Fleurus. It demonstrated how these elements combined together to defeat France’s enemies and the superiority of French warfare. 30

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Figure 1.3. Attack Column by Division. This plate from the Regulations of 1791 shows the movement from line to a column by division and clearly illustrates the column formation. (Reprinted from France, Planches relatives au règlement concernant l’exercice et les manoeuvres de l’infanterie du 1er août 1791, planche XXVI; courtesy of the United States Military Academy Special Collections and Archives, West Point, New York)

A series of limited successes at the end of 1793 allowed the French to stabilize their borders but did not eliminate the threat of invasion from Austrian armies in the North. The Austrians remained committed to their territorial designs in the Low Countries with 130,000 men available for combat, determined to continue their methodical eighteenth-century strategy of seizA French Way of Warfare

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Figure 1.4. The Battle of Fleurus (Reprinted from Charles Théodore Beauvais de Préau, ed., Victoires, conquêtes, désastres, revers et guerres civiles des français, de 1792 à 1815, vol. 3 [Paris: C. L. F. Panckoucke, 1818–21], facing p. 48)

ing fortresses as the best way to threaten France. For the first time since the beginning of the French Revolution, the Committee of Public Safety empowered Lazare Carnot to create a coordinated French strategy for 1794.82 He ordered the concentration of almost 150,000 men in several armies to attack into the Low Countries and drive the Austrian armies away from the French frontier. Part of this strategy required the capture of the fortress of Charleroi to allow French forces to cross the Sambre River on the invasion route to Brussels. The Committee of Public Safety ordered the forces operating on the Sambre River to advance against Charleroi in the spring of 1794. French forces crossed the Sambre River five times throughout the month of May, each attempt resulting in defeat.83 To remedy this situation, the Committee of 32

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Public Safety ordered Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, the recent victor of the battle of Wattignies, to leave half of his Army of the Moselle in place to cover the frontier and to take the rest of his army to attack the Austrians at Charleroi. As Jourdan advanced, elements of the Armies of the North and Ardennes also concentrated near Charleroi. Once Jourdan arrived on the Sambre River, Carnot ordered him to take command of these elements as the new Army of the Sambre and Meuse on 3 June 1794.84 Arriving near Charleroi on 8 June, Jourdan had little time to reorganize this army brought together by chance, and welded together in name only, before advancing again across the Sambre River. Once again, the Austrians defeated the French as they crossed the river. They retained control of Charleroi and threw the French back on 16 June, with the loss of almost 3,000 French soldiers. Believing the area to be secure after the French defeat, the Austrian commander Prince Frederick Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (commonly referred to as Coburg) left only a covering force in the Charleroi area and moved his main force to counter the French advance occurring almost simultaneously on Ypres.85 It seemed as though the hodgepodge Army of the Sambre and Meuse was as ineffective as its predecessors. However, this was not the undisciplined French armies of 1792 or the overwhelmed armies of 1793. The French troops under Jourdan in 1794 represented the culmination of training and experience with the new French combat method. Following the defeat on 16 June, representative on mission Antoine Louis de Saint-Just inspired the citizen-soldiers to greater revolutionary fervor, while Jourdan’s division commanders demanded action. Thus, Jourdan collected siege guns from the surrounding French fortresses and crossed the river again on 18 June. He ordered Jacques-Maurice Hatry’s reinforced division of 11,000 men to reoccupy their former positions and continue the siege of Charleroi.86 While Hatry conducted the siege, Jourdan arranged his remaining divisions in a semicircular cordon around Charleroi, preventing the Austrians from interfering with the siege. Jean-Baptiste Kléber, a former Austrian drill master who brought discipline to the Republic’s armies in the Vendée, commanded the three divisions from the Army of the North. His divisions formed the French left wing following a line of the Pieton River west of Charleroi with 26,000 men. Jourdan personally commanded the three divisions from his Army of the Moselle in the center of the French cordon in a line from Gosselies through the town of Fleurus with 26,000 men. François-Severin Marceau, who earned a reputation for professional operations during the chaos of the Vendée, commanded the two divisions from the Army of the Ardennes and formed the French right wing from A French Way of Warfare

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the town of Lambusart to the Sambre River with 16,000 men.87 The French divisions constructed field fortifications and posted infantry skirmishers in front of the main defensive positions in order to secure Hatry’s siege. It was under the protection of this cordon that the siege of Charleroi progressed from 18 to 25 June. While the French continued to engineer their way through the first two parallels and trenches, the Austrians under William V, the Prince of Orange, approached the left wing of the French cordon on 21 June. The combination of Kléber’s infantry and Paul-Alexis Dubois’s 2,800man cavalry division drove the Austrians back, preventing them from relieving the fortress.88 The following day, Kléber attacked the Austrians for the second time across the Pieton River and dispersed them with the bayonet.89 These offensive actions allowed the siege to continue. The inexperience of the artillery slowed the progress of the siege, and Saint-Just motivated the Army of the Sambre and Meuse in Revolutionary fashion. First he demanded the arrest of both Hatry and the commander of the artillery, which Jourdan refused to do. Then he entered the trenches himself and executed a battery commander who was emplacing his battery much too slowly.90 This was an example of Revolutionary motivation applied to the more conservative siege techniques of the ancien régime. On 25 June, the French completed their third parallel and began to bombard the walls of the city. Despite the Revolutionary frenzy of Saint-Just’s calls for unconditional surrender, Jourdan offered the Austrian garrison full military honors and arms if they gave up the fortress.91 With the French pickets preventing word of Coburg’s approach from reaching the fortress, the garrison commander surrendered just hours before the Austrian relieving army began its attack on the French cordon on 26 June. When word reached Coburg of the siege, he rapidly concentrated 52,000 men near Charleroi. He was now in a position to attack the French at Charleroi, which presented the opportunity of inflicting a defeat on Jourdan and maintaining control of the important river fortification.92 Instead of concentrating his army into a single blow to penetrate the French cordon, Coburg divided his forces into five columns and launched a concentric attack. The Austrian plan called for three columns to strike almost simultaneously from the west, east, and north to fix French forces in place. The two remaining columns, under the command of Karl Lorenz of Austria (referred to as Archduke Charles), would attack through Fleurus toward Charleroi, raising the siege and throwing the French back across the Sambre River.93 Similar to the Prince of Orange’s successful attack on 16 June, the Austrians anticipated an easy victory. 34

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On the morning of 26 June, the Prince of Orange’s 17,000-man column attacked the French left wing along the Sambre River. Kléber deployed two of his divisions to the west of the Pieton River and kept his own division on the right bank in reserve.94 As the Austrians attacked, the French troops fought the Austrian column to a standstill utilizing both the terrain and entrenchments prepared prior to the attack. When the Austrians began to fatigue and their attack abated in the early afternoon, Kléber ordered a counterattack into the plain below. Colonel Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte led his brigade into the attack, storming Austrian cannons and turning back the Prince of Orange’s attack.95 Kléber also concentrated his artillery batteries to support his own troops during both defensive combat and the counterattack.96 After this counterattack, the Austrian columns to the west of Charleroi spent the rest of the battle engaging French skirmishers. On the French right flank, Marceau suffered tremendously under the attack of Jean Pierre Beaulieu’s column of 11,000 men. The French deployed in open order as skirmishers and snipers in the wooded terrain along the banks of the Sambre River, inflicting casualties on the advancing enemy columns while delaying the Austrian attack.97 However, the Austrians fought through those skirmishers and shattered Marceau’s command, and by midmorning, he was unable to support the right flank of the French position at Lambusart. Following the advice of Colonel Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu Soult, Marceau fell back to rally as much of his command as possible, leaving Lambusart uncovered.98 It was thus up to the indomitable François-Joseph Lefebvre, who made his reputation as a fighting general under Lazare Hoche, to save the French right flank from destruction. From the entrenchments of his position on the ridgeline above Lambusart, Lefebvre redeployed three battalions at right angles to his original line to cover his own flank, telling his men, “No retreat today!”99 He also deployed skirmishers and several artillery batteries to cover the flank that Marceau left undefended.100 Lefebvre used close coordination between the fire from his entrenchments, his artillery batteries, and his skirmishers to stop the advancing Austrians. Through aggressive leadership and unorthodox measures, including setting most of the village of Lambusart on fire and launching several bayonet attacks into the advancing Austrian formations, Lefebvre stabilized the French right flank. During this attack on Lambusart, the third Austrian column, commanded by Peter Quasdanovitch, met with very little success against the French center. French generals Antoine Morlot and Jean-Etienne Championnet deployed their divisions from the towns of Heppignies to Wagnée along the high ground that dominated the approaches from the north. In A French Way of Warfare

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addition to entrenchments, the French emplaced artillery batteries to support the infantry positions. Due to the restricted terrain in the attack, Quasdanovich’s 11,000 men made no headway against the French positions to the west of Fleurus.101 With no success in the center and the apparent collapse of the French right, Archduke Charles ordered the two remaining columns of over 15,000 men to attack through the skirmishers in Fleurus and into the left flank of Lefebvre’s position. The French skirmishers delayed the Austrian advance, but once Jourdan received word that Lefebvre’s division held the right flank against enemy attack, he issued a series of orders for a counterattack that turned the tide of battle.102 Jourdan, informed of the stability of both of his flanks, ordered his reserve division into the center. Following the surrender of Charleroi, Jourdan ordered Hatry’s division of 11,000 men to become his army reserve in the town of Ransart. By positioning the reserve in Ransart, Jourdan placed it in an excellent central position to support any of the enemy avenues of approach. Upon receiving word that Lefebvre was still holding off the Austrian attack on the heights overlooking Lambusart, Jourdan ordered Hatry to attack on Lefebvre’s left, stopping the Archduke’s advance. At the same time, Lefebvre took command of his own divisional reserve and led the 80th Regiment into the disorganized Austrian column to his front.103 Marceau then led his reorganized grenadiers into an attack of the Austrian flank along the Sambre River over the ground he lost earlier that day.104 These attacks forced the Archduke to stop and reorganize his attack. It was at this time that Coburg learned of the capitulation of Charleroi, making the continued attack against Fleurus unnecessary. He ordered the Austrian columns to withdraw, and the fatigued French divisions were unable to pursue; however, this victory led to a series of French advances into Belgium that eventually drove out the Austrians.

The French Combat Method The French combat method synthesized a simplified system of tactics with a new intellectual framework of the battlefield that began during the last decades of the ancien régime and led to a series of victories in the Wars of the French Revolution. This new framework contained several ideas that became its fundamental elements. These ideas included a dedication to offensive operations that resulted in an assault, the creation of an infantry army composed of nonspecialized infantry units, a linear but noncontiguous understanding of the battlefield, a desire to combine the effects of all auxiliary arms into the main infantry battle, and the adoption of nondogmatic tac36

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tics executed through the initiative of the officer corps. These ideas created the intellectual framework of the French combat method and influenced the strategy, operations, organization, and armies of the French Revolution. An offensive spirit defined the operations of the French armies, and the French combat method encouraged the offensive in every conceivable operation, at every level of war, in every decision on the battlefield. Even when the French armies assumed the defensive, they did so only until they could launch another attack. Nothing embodied this spirit, or was more revolutionary, than the bayonet attack. While being invaded on all fronts, the Committee of Public Safety designed offensive operations along the northern frontier. When Jourdan took over the Army of the Sambre and Meuse, he almost immediately attacked across the Sambre River. When repulsed on 16 June, he attacked again. Even Jourdan’s defensive cordon that covered the siege of Charleroi provided the opportunity to respond to enemy relief efforts with counterattacks. Once the Austrian attacks began to recede, Kléber counterattacked west across the Pieton River with attack columns that overwhelmed Austrian formations. Jourdan launched his reserve in an attack that stopped the Archduke’s attack. Lefebvre, even before knowing of Hatry’s or Marceau’s support, decided on a bayonet attack against the numerically superior Austrian force as the best way to defend his position, rather than retreating or remaining on the defensive. The emphasis on the offensive was more than just an operating principle. These attacks demonstrated a belief in the assault as the culmination of all battlefield operations, even when the French were strategically on the defensive. The offensive nature of the French combat method envisioned all operations resulting in an assault to defeat the enemy that continued to use a linear understanding of the battlefield. Revolutionary armies consisted predominantly of nonspecialized infantry units, which represented a change from the cavalry-heavy organizations of the eighteenth century. As opposed to the Austrian army at Fleurus, with its 100 cavalry squadrons of approximately 20,000 troopers attached to Coburg’s attack, Jourdan had 2,800 cavalrymen. An army of citizen-soldiers lent themselves to an infantry army, without a tradition of noble cavalrymen. The nation in arms created an infantry army, and the auxiliary arms used the same soldiers in limited numbers to support that infantry army. In the infantry itself, the differences between the light and heavy infantry, so cherished in the eighteenth century, were eliminated. All infantry needed the capability to fight as heavy infantry in the attack and the defense and the ability to deploy as skirmishers whenever the situation required. This ability that the combat method gave Marceau to deploy large parts of his force as skirmishA French Way of Warfare

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ers allowed him to delay the Austrian attack for hours through the broken terrain of the Sambre River. It also allowed Lefebvre to cover his own flank, which defeated the Austrian attack. Skirmishers provided early warning in front of all the infantry positions of Jourdan’s defensive cordon. An infantry composed of nonspecialized units, capable of both light and heavy operations, increased the combat effectiveness of the whole army and allowed Jourdan to achieve greater results with a smaller number of auxiliary forces. The French combat method retained a linear configuration of the battlefield like eighteenth-century warfare, but this linear configuration was noncontiguous in nature. Whereas an eighteenth-century order of battle used echelons of basically straight lines when deploying against an enemy, the French continued to use a linear structure without the requirement for continuous lines. Due to the changes in discipline and motivation of the citizensoldier, and the resulting new movement and maneuver techniques, French armies could remain more concentrated on the battlefield without fear of being unable to respond to rapid movements by the enemy. This allowed French commanders to station their reserves at a point on the battlefield that allowed for a rapid response to the enemy’s main effort and unexpected movements. Jourdan placed Hatry’s division, coming from the siege of Charleroi, in a position to reinforce any part of his cordon. Once he identified that the main enemy attack was beginning to stall, it was the commitment of reserves in an attack into the flank of the Austrians that prevented them from breaking the French formation. This deployment created a linear relationship between the semicircular defensive cordon and the reserves. However, the noncontiguous element of the French combat method permitted Jourdan to ignore the near collapse of the French right flank and to send his reserve against the enemy’s main effort. In this way, he sacrificed the integrity of his formation to defeat the enemy attack and achieve victory. While this relationship was still linear, it was a different kind of linear than that of the ancien régime, and it allowed commanders to concentrate their forces to support their infantry attack. French armies integrated the effects of the different types of units to support the main infantry battle. Instead of deploying their skirmishers on the flanks, French skirmishers preceded column attacks and deployed in front of linear formations to engage and disrupt the enemy. French armies integrated entrenchments into their positions whenever possible and launched attacks from those entrenchments. Cavalry and artillery, no longer placed on the wings or designated a specific part of the battlefield, directly augmented the infantry attacks. Lefebvre supported his skirmishers south of Lambusart 38

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with mobile artillery fire. The small number of cavalry under Dubois effectively supported the column attacks of both Hatry and Lefebvre as they disrupted the Austrian attack. Focusing the effects of these auxiliary arms to support the main infantry battle made those attacks more powerful, while maintaining only a small portion of the overall manpower in the army as auxiliary troops. Maximizing the effectiveness of the nonspecialized infantry required officers to use initiative when executing the new nondogmatic system of tactics of the French combat method. The system of tactics established by the Regulations of 1791 gave French officers a variety of simplified movements and formations to execute their offensive warfare, taking into account both the enemy and the terrain. Marceau took advantage of the broken terrain along the Sambre River to deploy large portions of his divisions as skirmishers. Later that day, he ordered the same troops into small attack columns by division for his grenadier attack. Lefebvre utilized linear formations to protect his flanks, entrenched some of those formations along the heights overlooking Lambusart, and led column attacks with the bayonet himself. Along the defensive cordon, commanders at all levels deployed their formations not in a uniform way across the army but in the manner best suited for their missions, the terrain, and enemy action. This flexible, nondogmatic system was an important part of the intellectual foundation of the French combat method.

Conclusion Like every other aspect of French society, the Revolution changed the French way of warfare in fundamental ways. It created a nation of citizens and then rapidly a nation of citizen-soldiers. This new relationship with the state changed the nature of discipline for those soldiers. Gone was the formalized discipline of the ancien régime, and in its place was a patriotism that made the interests of the citizen the interests of the state. These soldiers deserted less and remained obedient to their officers during situations their eighteenth-century peers were unable to execute. This meant that divisions became truly independent, that French armies could forage off the land without fear of mass desertions, and that forced marches and long movements became the standard and not unusual. This translated into new battlefield capabilities and breathed life into the French combat method. French warfare also became obsessed with the offensive. Strategically and tactically, Revolutionary armies attacked whenever and wherever possible. A French Way of Warfare

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Unlike the armies of Louis XIV or Frederick the Great, which relied heavily on maneuver, for the Revolutionary armies maneuver was only useful if it led to an attack. Similarly, the defense was only important if it led to an attack. This reliance on the attack decreased the effectiveness of fortresses and siege warfare over time, as armies that could live without logistical support could maneuver around fortresses. All of these attacks culminated with a physical penetration of the enemy line, usually with a bayonet charge. This return of the primacy of the arme blanche came to epitomize the French way of warfare. These new elements of French warfare led to the creation of the intellectual framework of the French combat method. This framework consisted primarily of offensive operations that resulted in an assault by an army composed primarily of nonspecialized infantry units, a linear but noncontiguous understanding of the battlefield, a desire to combine the effects of all auxiliary arms into the main infantry battle, and the adoption of nondogmatic tactics executed through the initiative of the officer corps. Although the French Revolution unleashed passions and patriotism throughout its manifestations, learning the French combat method required training and discipline. The Comité Militaire understood this and wrote the regulations not only to maintain high discipline but also to simplify the tactical mechanics to allow the citizen-soldiers to master them in a short period of time. Across the armies of the Republic, generals created camps of instruction for the indoctrination of the volunteer and conscripted citizens who came to defend the Revolution. By 1794, these efforts created armies and veterans that were well trained, well disciplined, and able to take full advantage of the battlefield potential of the French combat method. The armies of the Revolution began to defeat their ancien régime enemies on battlefield after battlefield. Even when they lost, their new way of warfare enabled them to regenerate their forces and continue the attack until they drove the enemies of France out of the Low Countries, northern Italy, and the east bank of the Rhine River. These successes were a direct result of the French way of warfare and corresponding intellectual framework of the French combat method.

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2 Bringing French Warfare to America, 1814–1848

The superiority of the French military tactics over those of all other nations has been so thoroughly ascertained, as to be very generally admitted. They are very well adapted to the nature of this country, which has undergone a most material alteration since the war that secured its independence. . . . Are there, however, individuals so uninformed as seriously to believe, that the almost uninterrupted successes of the French armies have been justly attributed to the superiority of their numbers. They should have been placed upon the fortresses of Tortona and Alexandria; upon the towers of Servia and the Bormida; at Marengo, Castello, Cariolo, and San Guilliamo. The complicated, yet systematic operations of such immense bodies, as were engaged in the several conflicts, would have excited their utmost curiosity, admiration, and astonishment. —Colonel Irenee Amelot D’Lacroix, Late Chef de Brigade in the French service1

The American Revolution left the military tradition of the fledgling republic with a variety of European influences. The colonial wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries made Americans intimately familiar with British warfare, including tactics, discipline, administration, and organization. Additionally, the frontier warfare of the colonial period provided Americans with a less conventional military tradition.2 However, George Washington spent the entirety of the War of Independence attempting to make his Continental Army an eighteenth-century European army, capable of the evolutions of Frederick the Great. He brought European tactics to the American armies through encampments such as Valley Forge and by importing European drill. By the turn of the nineteenth century, events on the Continent made the dominance of existing American drill regulations from the 1780s seem obsolete and antiquated. While it was impossible for Americans to visit |

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Europe in an official capacity to observe the military changes taking place on the Continent during the Napoleonic period, the American public and army officers remained interested in Continental warfare. Several translations of French regulations and commentaries by observers of the wars of the French Revolution began to filter back to the United States, which fueled a partisan debate between Anglophile Federalists and Francophile Republicans. This debate failed to produce a consensus in the military establishment, and America went to war in 1812 with no standard set of tactics or uniform way of conceptualizing the battlefield. Into this period of preparadigmatic warfare came the fundamental elements of the French combat method. From 1808 through 1814, the War Department unsuccessfully struggled to adopt a single system of tactics, and it was only after Winfield Scott, a Federalist officer with a reputation for victory at Chippawa, championed the French system that the Americans adopted the French combat method. Scott helped adopt the French system that served him so well during the MexicanAmerican War.

The U.S. Army Institutionalizes French Warfare Attempting to Replace Steuben: The Republican War Department, 1808–1812 Although George Washington appreciated the efforts of the militia units throughout the American Revolution, he asked the Continental Congress to give him the authority to enlist Americans into the Continental Army, to train them in the European model, and to discipline his soldiers accordingly. Every year, Washington sent the army into winter quarters with the hope that in the spring they would be capable of taking the field against the British regulars. It was with this purpose in mind that Washington allowed foreign officers to hold key positions of responsibility in the Continental Army. Perhaps one of the most important was his inspector-general Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who improved the training and drill of the young army and the development of discipline in American soldiers. Of all the foreign officers that served with the Continental Army, Steuben was uniquely suited to modify European standards and techniques of drill and discipline to the American citizen-soldier. During the famous winter encampment of Valley Forge in 1777, Steuben worked with the Continentals on the basics of discipline and drill.3 Although he wanted to adopt a purely Prussian system of tactics, Steuben adapted the British regulations of 1764 to the particular characteristics of the American soldier, because of the Ameri42

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can familiarity with the British system.4 Through trial and error he generated a system of tactics that suited the Continental Army and rapidly improved the performance of the American regular formations on the battlefield. By 1779, Steuben produced the first and only official American regulations of the eighteenth century, the Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States, better known as the Blue Book. These regulations dominated the training and deployment of American militia and regular units as they marched off for the War of 1812. The long influence of Steuben’s regulations was a testament to the appeal of his system of tactics to the American citizen-soldier. The Blue Book followed a form consistent with most of the regulations in the eighteenth century. It contained a brief section pertaining to military customs and courtesies followed by the soldier’s individual drill and the manual of arms. After the individual drill came instructions for company and battalion formations and movements, ending with a system for deploying in a line.5 Not surprisingly, the movement formations and techniques were representative of the linear warfare of Frederick the Great. The line was the primary formation of battle, one in which both firing and bayonet charges took place. Columns were a movement formation and considered too vulnerable for use in battle. Toward the back of the small manual were sections pertaining to encampments, baggage trains, military administration, and the control required to create and maintain an efficient army.6 However, the real power of the regulations was their simplicity and brevity while discussing all the important matters that an American unit needed in order to take the field against a similarly trained and equipped European foe. They were the perfect regulations for a nation of militia companies and volunteers. They also demonstrated the American predilection for simple systems of tactics. While copies of the French regulations appeared in the United States in the late 1790s, the first English translations of the French Regulations of 1791 appeared in 1803 by John Macdonald, although his first American edition was not published until 1810.7 He then translated and published the French Regulations of 1792, in 1807.8 These translations, along with their French predecessors, led to an exposure of the French combat method across a wide cross-section of educated America. They captured the interest of Republican Secretary of War William Eustice, who became dedicated to adopting the French system for the armies of the United States. He set out to enact overdue and important reforms that included changing the tactical regulations. Eustis served in the Revolutionary War as a surgeon and following the war became the vice president of the Society of the Cincinnati, from 1786 to 1810.9 The Society of the Bringing French Warfare to America

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Cincinnati was a fraternal organization of Revolutionary War officers committed to maintaining the ideals and military knowledge gained through the war. Eustis’s connection with the society kept him involved and interested in the advancement of military art and science in America and made him qualified to become James Madison’s secretary of war in March 1809. Eustis preferred the French system of tactics to the British and attempted to reform the army along French lines. He made his preference for French tactics known through communication with the Senate committee on military affairs in 1810 and began preparing for their adoption. He commissioned a translation and abridged form of the Regulations of 1791 for the purpose of adopting a simplified version of the French system of tactics. Eustis asked his acting inspector-general, Colonel Alexander Smyth, to translate and abridge the French regulations to produce the first American edition in 1810. However, it was two years before he received presidential permission to adopt this new system for the army.10 Completed just before the start of the War of 1812, his Regulations for the Field Exercise, Manoevres, and Conduct of the Infantry of the United States became the first attempt to supplant Steuben’s Blue Book. Smyth’s regulations were also the first exposure of most American officers to the French Regulations of 1791. Smyth’s Regulations for the Field Exercise condensed the French regulations, while retaining elements from Steuben’s Blue Book. This created a streamlined system of tactics that benefited from both intellectual frameworks in two parts. Part 1 was a French section that contained the same number of schools as the original regulations, from the instruction of the individual soldier through the company and battalion level, but was almost 50 percent shorter than the Regulations of 1791.11 The content of the drill included the simplified movements, the manual of arms, and the use of oblique marching instead of wheels to go between the column and the line of the original regulations.12 Even abridged, Smyth’s version of the regulations included all the essential elements of the drill that made it distinctly French. In addition to condensing the material, Smyth changed the formations and commands to conform to American sensibilities. Thus, the school of the soldier became the soldiers’ drill, and instead of evolutions of the line, Smyth created a brigade drill.13 Part 2 was a forty-five-page condensed version of Steuben’s Blue Book concerning the administration of an army in the field.14 This integrated the French battlefield tactics with Steuben’s familiar army administration, encampments, marching, and discipline. Smyth’s manual was the first American regulations influenced by the French system. It was a simple, well-made document that combined the 44

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best of the French combat method with Steuben’s regulations. After reviewing Smyth’s Regulations for the Field Exercise, Eustis ordered him to test his regulations in a camp of instruction just outside Washington, D.C. The trials themselves were so successful that Eustis asked the president to issue a presidential order decreeing the adoption of the new regulations for use by the regular units of the army on 30 March 1812.15 However, the president refused to endorse Smyth’s regulations because of the negative response from highranking army officers. Both Federalist and Republican officers disliked the way Smyth abridged the Regulations of 1791 and condensed the Blue Book. The Federalists thought it too French, and the Republicans considered it a bastardization of the French regulations. Eustis’s first attempt to bring the French system of tactics to America failed before the opening shot of the War of 1812, as part of a longer ongoing battle inside the officer corps that had as much to do with politics as it did with an attachment to a particular system of tactics. The politicization of the officer corps occurred after the American Revolution as American politics became polarized in the constitutional debates of the 1780s and 1790s. Following the end of the American Revolution, the Continental Army disbanded, leaving a very small number of officers and soldiers on active duty. However, when domestic unrest and the Quasi War with France in 1796 allowed Alexander Hamilton, under the auspices of President George Washington, to organize a “New Army,” he commissioned only Federalists as officers.16 Federalists dominated this army, and they went on to create an American military establishment for the federal government. This establishment followed a British model, just as their politics mirrored English sensibilities and trends.17 When Thomas Jefferson ushered in the age of the Republican Party in 1800, politically appointed Republican officers superseded their more qualified and capable Federalist peers.18 He did this by leaving the more professionally competent Federalist junior officers in place but promoting only Republicans as general officers. To ensure that the army remained politically loyal, Jefferson authorized the creation of a military academy for the military education of young officers from a wide variety of economic backgrounds, hoping that such officers would support a more egalitarian Republican administration.19 Jefferson wanted to create a Republican military establishment through a top-down approach, and the War Department’s attempt to adopt a new system of tactics that applied to both militia and regular units was part of this attempt to gain full control over the armies of the United States. The Federalist officers leading up to the War of 1812 did everything in their power to thwart the policies and reform Bringing French Warfare to America

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measures of the Republican War Department and considered the new tactics to be another Republican attempt to dominate the army.

Systems of Tactics during the War of 1812: A Period without Paradigm A series of disasters on the northern frontier in the opening months of the war, in addition to strong criticism from the officer corps, discredited Smyth’s work and led the War Department to adopt a different set of regulations. William Eustis, for all of his attempts to prepare the army for the War of 1812, took the lion’s share of the blame for the poor showing against the Canadians in the opening months of the war, and he resigned in January 1813.20 His replacement, John Armstrong, took the post the following month. Armstrong was a veteran of the Continental Army, having served in the Saratoga Campaign, and became a general officer by the end of the Revolutionary War.21 In 1813, he immediately set about trying to increase the capabilities and size of the armies of the United States.22 The armies on the frontier suffered from a lack of uniformity in training and tactics. One of Armstrong’s first actions became issuing new regulations that were easier to understand and more useful for the militia and regular army. Armstrong also favored the French system of war and was perhaps the best proponent for that system in America. While he never witnessed a Napoleonic battle, as the American ambassador to France in 1807, he was able to discuss the system with French officers and acquire current French military writings. These he sent back to the United States in 1808 to a group of engineer officers who formed the United States Military Philosophical Society.23 When he sought another American adaptation of the French regulations to replace the Blue Book, he chose Lieutenant Colonel William Duane’s A Hand Book for Infantry. Duane derived this abridged translation of the French regulations from his two-volume compilation of military documents, regulations, and memoirs entitled the American Military Library.24 There were many reasons for Armstrong’s choice: Duane’s handbook was already in print and in use by many of the militia units in the field, Duane was a powerful Republican political figure, and the handbook provided an accessible and uniform system of tactics. William Duane created one of the most innovative of the French-based regulations during the War of 1812. His handbook consisted of 112 pages and eight plates, a mere third of the size of the original French regulations. He began his work with an essay on military discipline and the importance of drill.25 This essay used the ideas of Guibert, Carnot, Saxe, and Frederick the 46

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Great to demonstrate the importance of discipline and marching to attaining victory. He then discussed the French system of tactics and pointed out the benefits of that system. This work was not just a condensed version of the French regulations, like Smyth’s, but an attempt to take that system and adapt it for a uniquely American audience. It removed unnecessary movements or commands and began with first principles to educate American officers and soldiers in the basics of modern military science.26 It was small, simple to understand, and easy to train. This was one reason it generated such controversy within both the militia and regular units of the armies fighting the War of 1812. Once again it was too French for the Federalist officers and not French enough for the Republican officers. Duane’s handbook added yet another system of tactics to an already extensive library of such manuals available to American citizen-soldiers. The lack of a uniform system of tactics, and the multitude of regulations available, contributed to the ineffectiveness of American arms against the British, Canadian, and Indian forces on the northern frontier. Whatever the merits of Duane’s French system, as the second official set of War Department regulations adopted in a little over a year in a season of defeat, its introduction by the Republican administration had a detrimental effect on the American armies on the northern frontier. Although Duane’s publicity campaign in his newspaper Aurora helped to get his handbook adopted in the spring of 1813, the reaction of the generals serving on the frontier was extremely negative when polled by the secretary of war. Most of the regular officers commanding on the frontier openly disobeyed the order to adopt the handbook, reporting serious objections to the system it encapsulated.27 However, the handbook was extremely popular with militia units sent to the front. Virginia and New York both adopted it officially for their militia, and a number of other militia units adopted it on their own. This was a testament to the simplicity of the manual and demonstrated its effectiveness in the training and disciplining of untrained militia. Unfortunately, the adoption of the new regulations by the armies of the United States seemed to be influenced less by whether they were good or bad and more by the fact that they were being changed so often. The army had time to issue Smyth’s regulations out to all the regular units prior to the outbreak of war, but there was no time to train the officers and men in this new system before the initial campaigns of 1812 and 1813, even if they had received it with open arms, which they did not. While the first approved system of tactics remained unheeded as one American army after another suffered defeat in late 1812 and early 1813, the War Department Bringing French Warfare to America

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issued Duane’s handbook to replace Smyth’s regulations. The rapidly changing regulations created an environment that encouraged commanders at the front to determine the system of tactics with which to train their troops and to disregard directives from the War Department.28 This led to a situation in which no single system of tactics dominated either regular or militia units that mobilized to fight the British in 1812. Additionally, Smyth’s regulations only applied to the regular army. Steuben’s Blue Book was still the official regulations governing the militia units. So on the northern frontier, militia and regular units were fighting together using different formations, commands, and maneuvers. The new French system of tactics was competing not just against Steuben’s outdated regulations but also against updated British tactics, which proved effective both on the Continent against Napoleon’s armies and on the Canadian frontier against the Americans. Of all the European armies of the Napoleonic period, only the British refused to adopt the French combat method and continued on with refinements of their own system. The British regulations on which Steuben fashioned his Blue Book were the Regulations of 1764. Following the American Revolution, these regulations underwent a serious revision in 1788 in the Principles of Military Movement by Colonel David Dundas. He used the Prussian army as the model for formations and movements in his revision and used the 1757 British campaign in Germany to provide examples for the use of this model on the battlefield.29 By 1792, an abridgement of Dundas’s work became the British standard entitled Rules and Regulations for the Formations, Field Exercises and Manoeuvres of His Majesty’s Forces.30 Dundas argued against placing too much faith into the open formations and light infantry tactics that became popular in the British army following their defeat during the American Revolution.31 Instead, his regulations emphasized the discipline of heavy line infantry and produced a clear standard that all branches of the army could use. As opposed to the French system of tactics, Dundas’s approach remained firmly in the eighteenth-century tradition of valuing relentless discipline while condemning open order and individual action and initiative as “visionary and hurtful.”32 While this seemed to contradict the British experience in the American Revolution, it reiterated Washington’s emphasis on linear warfare. This newer system entered the American military debate through the works of two Massachusetts militia officers, Epaphras Hoyt and Isaac Maltby, who published treatises in 1811. Of the two, Hoyt’s work was less influential because it was less of a regulations or drill book and more of a general treatise on war. While Hoyt described the purpose of the work as to familiar48

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ize militia officers with the most current European thought on tactics and strategy, it was predominantly British in perspective and philosophy.33 The primary focus of the treatise was engineering, along with the tactics of the defense and attack of fortifications. While this was useful for the successful officer in a wider sense, it failed to provide the amateur with guidance for the execution of operations while going on campaign. Far more useful to the officers on the frontier was Isaac Maltby’s Elements of War, which was a system of tactics from the individual soldier through the battalion that used the tactical mechanics of the Dundas system. There were lines and columns, squares and volley firing, all consistent with the British system.34 The British-inspired tactics appealed to Federalist officers and provided them with a more modern substitute for the Blue Book and an alternative to the series of French-inspired regulations issued by the War Department. These texts were as popular as any other system on the frontier, as officers routinely chose Steuben, Smyth, Duane, Dundas, Hoyt, or Maltby to drill their regular or militia units. Armstrong had an extremely difficult time forcing both the militia and regular units of the army to accept a uniform discipline of any sort. When Duane’s handbook replaced Smyth’s regulations, it reduced the legitimacy of uniform regulations and of the Republican War Department. This environment led to a total lack of discipline and standards in the American armies fighting in Canada by making all the systems appropriate and acceptable. From Plattsburg in May 1814, Major General George Izard wrote to Armstrong that different systems of instruction have been adopted by the officers of the division. As uniformity is indispensable in this particular, I am about to authorize the former practice agreeably to Baron Steuben’s regulations— without, however, giving to the latter the formality of a general order until the first of June, when unless I receive instructions to the contrary, I shall adopt them as regulations for the troops under my command.35

This demonstrated both the staying power of Steuben’s regulations and the ineffectiveness of the War Department not only to enforce its approved regulations but even to get copies of those regulations to the frontier.36 On the frontier, individual commanders chose how to train their units, and often commanders chose different systems. This made it difficult to integrate their operations on the battlefield. It was not until 1814 that an American army on the Niagara River exhibited a uniform system of tactics. Bringing French Warfare to America

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Winfield Scott and the Gray Line on the Niagara, 1814 Winfield Scott was part of a generation of officers who entered service in the war scare of 1808, and although he was a Federalist in an army dominated by Republicans, he made the army his career. Following the war scare, Scott educated himself through an intensive reading program of military classics available to Americans at the time.37 When the War of 1812 broke out, Scott made sure that he was part of the regular army and fought in several skirmishes, to include getting captured in the attack on Queenston Heights. Following his release, he was promoted to brigadier general and assigned to Major General Jacob Brown’s Army of the Niagara to support renewed offensive operations up the Niagara peninsula. In the beginning of April 1814, Scott arrived in Buffalo, took command of the two brigades of Brown’s division, and executed Brown’s order to put the division into a disciplined and trained condition in preparation for the summer campaigning season.38 Scott implemented the most thorough training program of any division in the armies of the United States in 1814. He took over command of Brown’s division of Military District Number Nine along the Niagara frontier. Given only vague orders for the training and preparation of the division, Scott set about creating a camp of instruction in the French style. His command grew from 1,600 men in April to over 3,500 men by June. He threw out Smyth’s regulations, Duane’s handbook, and Steuben’s Blue Book and went back to his own understanding of the French system of tactics, using the two or three English translations of the Regulations of 1791 available in the camp.39 For almost two months, the men drilled ten hours a day, seven days a week. Scott was a stickler for detail, and he rode the men in his command hard, instilling discipline, hygiene, and tactical competence. He embraced the French method of instilling discipline, not with harsh punishments but with pride and patriotism. He took great pains to improve the standard of living for his men.40 He even authorized a deviation of the regulation blue cloth uniforms for a cheaper gray cloth uniform usually reserved for the militia for his command, to avoid marching them almost naked into battle. Scott’s focus on discipline made one of his captains remark that “General Scott Drills and Damns, Drills and Damns, and Drills again.”41 In the short two months of drilling, the division became extremely competent in the lines, columns, and movements of the French system of tactics. Scott’s men welcomed the opportunity of combat as a respite from the rigors of drill, and when General Brown issued his plan to attack Fort Niagara, Scott moved the division out of the camp of instruction. 50

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When the 1814 Niagara Campaign began in June, Scott’s brigade led the way north against the British. Brown began the campaign marching the division to Fort Erie to secure his supply lines. After taking the fort, the Americans moved up the river to seize Fort Niagara. With Fort Erie falling easily to the Americans on 3 July, Scott marched his brigade north and began skirmishing with the British and Indians near the Chippawa Creek.42 British Major General Phineas Riall sent his advanced guard out to reinforce Fort Erie, but when he learned of the fort’s surrender, he ordered his troops to gather at Chippawa. Scott arrived at the river on 4 July and planned on spending the following day inspecting and drilling his brigade while waiting for the rest of the division.43 Meanwhile, the British moved three infantry regiments close to the Chippawa River and another full brigade into the woods on the American flank. When the militia deployed on a skirmish line near the river reported British troops in the woods, Scott ordered his brigade into action. Scott’s plan was a simple one, but it relied on the discipline and training of his brigade to achieve victory. He sent his militia into the woods to keep the British light infantry from interfering with the open field north of the American camp. Under enemy artillery fire, Scott marched his four regiments across the bridge over the Chippawa River in good order. Once across the bridge, Scott ordered his regiments in line, showing the British that although they looked like untrained militia in their gray uniforms, they maneuvered like disciplined regulars.44 Concerned that the British line would overlap the American line, Scott ordered the space between regiments increased so that the 25th Regiment moved to the west to envelop the British right flank. As the lines approached each other, the British wavered first under the disciplined fire from the American muskets. Seeing the British falter, Scott ordered the 25th Regiment to execute a bayonet charge, which for the first time in the war caused the British to break and disperse.45 The British retreated in good order due to an effective use of reserves to cover their retreat. Although Scott lost approximately 25 percent of his brigade, it was the disciplined ninety minutes of action, forged in his camp of instruction, which gave America its first victory over British arms. Scott’s victory over the British at Chippawa was the result of good training and excellent discipline using the French system of tactics, but it was not as obvious whether it was a victory of the French combat method over the linear warfare of the British. The fundamental elements of the French combat method consisted of a dedication to offensive operations that resulted in an assault by an army composed of nonspecialized infantry units, a linear Bringing French Warfare to America

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Figure 2.1. The Battle of Chippawa (Courtesy of the Department of History, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York)

but noncontiguous understanding of the battlefield, a desire to combine the effects of all auxiliary arms into the main infantry battle, and the adoption of nondogmatic tactics executed through the initiative of the officer corps. While Scott’s actions were certainly offensive and linear in nature, he failed to use a majority of the elements of the French combat method at Chippawa. He ordered his light infantry into the woods to handle the enemy’s light infantry instead of integrating them into the main infantry combat. He used his artillery against the enemy’s artillery instead of against the British infantry. And while he executed a bayonet charge, it was a charge in line and not from a French-style attack column by divisions. The only difference between his tactics and those of the British was the fact that the British lines were two 52

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ranks deep, while the American lines were three ranks deep.46 Looking at the victory this way, it was more a victory of discipline in the general sense than of the French combat method in the particular sense. A similar analysis of Scott’s next and last battle of the War of 1812 provides another example of how he and his brigade used, or failed to use, the French combat method. Following the British defeat at Chippawa, Riall’s army almost immediately began to receive reinforcements. After three weeks of maneuver with Brown’s division, the British had almost 4,000 men marching toward the Niagara region. Meanwhile, Brown’s force was shrinking as a result of weeks of hard campaigning.47 Learning of the British reinforcements converging on the Niagara, Brown wanted to take advantage of Riall’s small numbers at Lundy’s Lane before those reinforcements arrived. Leading Brown’s division, Scott moved his brigade north up the portage road to Queenston from the American camp at Chippawa on 25 July. His brigade in column, he identified the British position along a ridgeline that cut perpendicular to the road and provided the British with a strong position. Scott deployed his brigade in lines facing the British and sent the 25th Regiment around the enemy’s left flank in a movement similar to that at Chippawa. While the 25th Regiment attempted to maneuver behind the British, the rest of the brigade stayed in line 500 feet from the enemy, taking heavy casualties from canister and grape shot.48 The 25th Regiment did in fact get behind the enemy and caused a large number of enemy casualties including the British commanding officer, General Riall, but the fortunate arrival of Lieutenant General Gordon Drummond kept the British in line. By the evening, Scott’s losses were so high that he could no longer engage the enemy or continue to maneuver. Eleazer Ripley’s brigade relieved Scott’s and, after a sharp action during his deployment from march column to line, captured the enemy’s guns and repelled three separate enemy counterattacks as the night progressed.49 By this time, the British outnumbered the Americans 3,000 to 2,100. With Ripley’s attacks losing their momentum, Scott reformed his brigade into a French-style attack column. He intended to penetrate the British lines in an attempt to achieve a decisive victory. However, in the limited visibility of dusk, the column got off course and marched between the American and British lines of battle, never reaching the enemy line.50 The ensuing British and American cross fire added to Scott’s casualties and forced his brigade from the battlefield. The remnants of Scott’s brigade remained ineffective for the rest of the battle. An analysis of this battle resembles that of Chippawa in that the French combat method made little difference on the battlefield. Scott used his wellBringing French Warfare to America

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Queenstown (2.2 miles)

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Scott attempted a frontal attack by the 9th, 11th, and 22d Regts. and on envelopment by the 25th. The 25th succeeded in gaining the rear of the line but was later forced to withdraw. The frontal attack, pressed persistently against a strong position and heavy arty. fire, failed with severe losses. Simultaneously at dark the reinforcements of both sides arrived, and the battle seesawed across the ridge until midnight, when both sides withdrew. Neither side held out a reserve, so that at critical stages, when a fresh regiment might have decided the battle, none was available,

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Figure 2.2. The Battle of Lundy’s Lane (Courtesy of the Department of History, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York)

disciplined men to attack a British formation using the formations and maneuvers of the French system of tactics without employing the intellectual framework of the French combat method. Scott attacked with most of his brigade in line, with the envelopment by the 25th Regiment as the only supporting action to the main infantry assault. He did not integrate his artillery or light infantry to support his assault. When Scott attempted something directly out of the Regulations of 1791—the attack column by the remainder of his brigade at dusk—he never made it to the British lines at all. Thus, the victor of Chippawa and the hero of Lundy’s Lane defeated the enemy using the kind of tactics that Steuben attempted to instill in the Continental Army, not those of the French system. However, Scott’s actions made him extremely 54

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popular with the public and the officer corps. His reputation catapulted him into the good graces of the War Department, and he became Armstrong’s Federalist champion of the French combat method.

America Adopts the French System of Tactics: The Regulations Board of 1814 Following the victory at Chippawa, the issue of regulations and drill was once again center stage for the War Department and Congress. When questioned about the capabilities of the militia and regular formations on the frontier, Armstrong reported to Congress in September 1814 that since the beginning of the war, “no system of discipline has heretofore been practiced in training the armies of the United States either in line, by battalion, or by company.”51 He argued that the lack of a standard system of tactics across all American formations was responsible for the poor performance in the war from the beginning. In the same report, he suggested the formation of a board of officers to meet and discuss the adoption of a system of discipline. That board would report its findings to the War Department for distribution across the army, after receiving the approval of both the president and the Congress. Congress approved this suggestion, and in December 1814, the War Department called together a board of army officers to recommend a system of discipline for use throughout all the armies of the United States. This was an opportunity for the Republican War Department to institute a system of tactics based on the French combat method across the armies of the United States with congressional sanction. Armstrong assigned Winfield Scott, at the time convalescing in the Washington, D.C., area from injuries received during the battle of Lundy’s Lane, to preside over the board. Although Armstrong now had a powerful advocate of the French system, he continued to play a remarkably savvy political game to ensure its acceptance. Ostensibly establishing a general review board to create new tactical regulations, Armstrong ordered the board to “so modify the Rules and Regulations for the Field Service and Manoeuvres of the French Infantry as translated by MacDonald and to make them correspond with the organization of the army of the United States with such additions and retrenchments as the board may deem proper.”52 The review board was not commissioned to come up with the best system of tactics for the army but instead merely to comment on the French system. Thus, by phrasing the order to the board in this way, Armstrong ensured the adoption of the French system by presenting it to the president and Congress as a fait accompli. His making Scott the presiBringing French Warfare to America

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dent of the board provided additional support for his plan, as Scott used the MacDonald translation to train Brown’s division at Buffalo. Armstrong’s plan worked brilliantly, and within a few months the French regulations supplanted the competing systems as the approved system of tactics for the armies of the United States. The review board met on 4 January and took less than two months to recommend the adoption of the MacDonald translation without revision for both regular and militia units.53 Armstrong forwarded this recommendation to the president and both houses of Congress, and for the first time in American history, both the executive and legislative branches of government officially sanctioned the army’s tactical regulations.54 The resulting regulations became the Rules and Regulations for the Field Exercise and Manoeuvres of Infantry published in 1815. It was an exact copy of MacDonald’s translation, with the only changes occurring in typesetting, as the army’s version was printed as a single volume without any of MacDonald’s commentary or footnotes. The resolutions from Congress, the president, and the secretary of war bound the American military to implement the system of tactics by law. From this time onward, all organizations in the War Department followed the Regulations of 1815, and by extension they became familiar with some of the fundamental elements of the French combat method.

The General Army Regulations of 1821 and 1825 The War Department continued to build on the momentum gained by General Scott in 1814 in institutionalizing French influence on American warfare. The Regulations of 1815 provided a uniform system of tactics for the armies of the United States and introduced several of the fundamental elements of the French combat method to the American military tradition. These included simplified commands and movements, the attack column, and nondogmatic tactics requiring the initiative of subordinate commanders. However, learning the tactical regulations alone was not enough to learn the corresponding intellectual framework of the French combat method demonstrated by Scott’s battlefield experience in 1814. There remained a need for a method of explaining the rest of the French combat method. In 1821, six years and one long visit to Europe later, Winfield Scott led another regulations board formed to create general regulations for the army.55 Organized along the lines of the French Regulations of 1792, the General Regulations of 1821 covered both general military topics and theory, which together explicitly stated the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield based on 56

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the fundamental elements of the French combat method. These regulations played the same critical role in indoctrinating the armies of the United States with a new intellectual framework that the Regulations of 1792 played for the armies of the French Republic. The General Regulations of 1821 directly incorporated many of the elements of the French system into American warfare. It contained separate articles that covered topics such as army administration, baggage, discipline, and organization. There was a large section on esprit de corps and the leadership required to motivate American armies at war. There was also a detailed section concerning marches, march formations, speed, frequency of halts, and actions while moving through a variety of terrain.56 This style of marches mirrored the French techniques designed to increase the speed of armies. These separate articles introduced an administration and organization of armies that supported the French combat method. While most of the regulations contained variations on the corresponding French regulations, there was a small but extremely important section on battles which more than any other section truly embodied the French combat method. The small section entitled “Battles: General Dispositions” provided the army with a complete description of the intellectual framework of the French combat method at work on the battlefield. Similar to the “Instruction for the Day of Combat” in the French Regulations of 1792, “Battles” demonstrated how the movements, formations, and units functioned together to achieve victory. The section began with a discussion of infantry deployment that made commanders responsible for determining whether to attack in line or columns. It outlined the purpose of the reserve to reinforce the main attack and of artillery to concentrate its fire in front of the main infantry attack. Attacks should strike the decisive point on the battlefield suddenly using feints and hidden troops. It described the proper uses of skirmishers to occupy, harass, and disconcert enemy formations to fix the enemy in place.57 This supported the infantry formations executing the main attack, usually culminating with a bayonet assault. Commanders orchestrated this attack by issuing clear orders and trusting the initiative of subordinates. This description of the synchronization on the battlefield integrated all the fundamental elements of the French combat method for the armies of the United States. But the “Battles” section went further in institutionalizing the central role of the offensive in this framework of the battlefield. At the end of the section on battles, Scott included a quotation from Guibert to explicitly state the importance of the attack in battle.58 Combined with the earlier sections, the General Regulations of 1821 as a whole represented an effort to copy the French Bringing French Warfare to America

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Regulations of 1792, in both form and content. The general regulations began the process of institutionalization of the French combat method as the basis of the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. The General Regulations of 1821 and the Regulations of 1815 remained in use until another regulations board met to examine their usefulness in 1825.59 This regulations board, once again presided over by Winfield Scott, set the standard for the armies of the United States for the next decade at all levels of operations. The General Regulations of 1825 represented more of a change in formatting than in any real content. The new regulations used the same major subject headings; they used the same French words such as tirailleurs when discussing light infantry, and even retained the opening quotations by Frederick the Great, Carnot, Thiébault, and Guibert. The regulations contained new appendices and a section on the organization and governance of the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point. These new appendices addressed the more technical services, such as the engineers, and the artillery.60 For the engineers, several very technical tables and topographical charts were added to the back of the general regulations, undoubtedly to standardize vocabulary and formatting of these technical areas across the army. The artillery had an entire appendix devoted to the creation and implementation of the first technical school for the artillery.61 It was the first attempt by the army to centralize its education and to provide its specialists more advanced instruction. However, this school represented more of a trade school and not the kind of officer education program that was offered by the newly created military academy. The General Regulations of 1825 performed the same function as its predecessor, namely, to institutionalize the fundamental elements of the French combat system through administration, organization, and doctrine.

Scott’s Infantry Tactics of 1825 Scott’s regulations board also undertook the task of reviewing, updating, and revising the system of tactics set out in the Regulations of 1815 into the new Infantry Tactics of 1825. While the board focused on creating useful general regulations, its goals in updating the system of tactics were modest. The changes that Scott’s board implemented updated the language from the French translation of 1815 to a more American vernacular. The Infantry Tactics used the same format as the French Regulations of 1791, with the schools of the soldier, company, battalion, and the evolutions of the line. The movements and formations, organizations, manual of arms, and even the explana58

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tory plates were almost exactly the same. What changed throughout the entirety of the regulations was the language used to describe the motions. For example, in 1815, the first article in section V of the school of the battalion reads, “to march in line to the front.” In the 1825 edition, the same article in the school of the battalion begins, “to advance in line.”62 While the vocabulary of the articles was slightly different, the movement techniques described in that article remained identical. Although this undoubtedly made the regulations more understandable for an American audience, it offered no real change to the ideas that the original French Regulations of 1791 expressed for the tactical deployment of troops in battle. However, there was one area in which the Infantry Tactics of 1825 added something distinct to the system of tactics adopted for use by the armies of the United States, and that was regulations pertaining to light infantry and riflemen. Specifically, the “Exercises and Manoeuvres for Light Infantry and Riflemen” began with a series of general principles for the employment of light infantry on the battlefield. It clearly defined the object of the light infantry: to protect the advance or retreat of the main body and to cover and assist the maneuvers of large bodies of troops.63 This inclusion of skirmishers into the main attack represented the addition of an important element of the French combat method into the American system of tactics. This established as common practice a major element of the French system not included in the General Regulations of 1825 or the Regulations of 1815, the creation of a uniform, nonspecialized infantry-based army. The section went on to state that “battalions of the line may be required, when acting on broken and intersected grounds to execute the light infantry maneuvers both in closed and extended order. . . . For this purpose any battalion or company may in the absence of light troops act as such.”64 This institutionalized a nonspecialized infantry explicitly by stating that infantry should be able to function in both close and extended order and implicitly by providing a set of detailed regulations on the techniques and formations of light infantry drill. This was one of the several ways that the French idea of a standard infantry, capable of executing a variety of maneuvers to include both close and extended order operations, influenced American tactics. Infantry Tactics provided American commanders with much more of their army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield than did the Regulations of 1791. The French regulations only taught the rudiments of a linear conceptualization of the battlefield, the primacy of offensive operations through the creation of an attack column, and the importance of initiative when using a nondogmatic system of tactics. However, these new American tactical reguBringing French Warfare to America

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lations went much further in teaching the fundamental ideas of the French combat method. In addition to those ideas taught in the American Regulations of 1815, the new Infantry Tactics added the creation of a nonspecialized infantry and the inclusion of auxiliary arms into the main battle area.

The Infantry Tactics and General Regulations of 1835 The regulations of 1825 followed the small regular army of the United States out onto the frontier and south into Florida, fighting Indians in both directions. By 1832, the army took over Indian removal to reservations because of corruption in the civilian effort. Defeated in 1817–18, the Seminoles in central Florida refused to move onto the government reservations and in the early 1830s went back to war.65 It was under these conditions that the War Department conducted another comprehensive regulations review in 1835, creating two separate processes for updating these regulations, one board for the system of tactics and a different board for the general regulations. The Infantry Tactics of 1835 was the last set of regulations that Winfield Scott had a direct hand in crafting, and he changed very little. Similar to Armstrong’s technique of 1815, Scott did not allow the board to present changes or even to debate the merits of the Infantry Tactics. Instead, he presented the board with a revised edition for them to review and approve, which they did. In order to ensure that the army adopted these changes without reservation, Secretary of War Lewis Cass ordered Commanding General of the Army Alexander Macomb to preside over an additional board to review Scott’s revision.66 Although there was some disagreement with the changes represented in the Infantry Tactics of 1835, the endorsement by Macomb’s board was important. It was one of the many ways these regulations, and the system of tactics they represented, created a consensus across the army, which was necessary to maintain the French combat method as part of the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. Scott’s revision of Infantry Tactics focused on using more explicit language throughout the regulations and increasing the control of movements and formations on the battlefield. Much of the new manual was exactly the same as the 1825 version: the same general organization, the same sequence of movements in the manual of arms, the same system of loading and firing muskets, and the same formations and movement techniques. The revision changed the language of the regulations to make the commands more specific. For example, the 1825 version began article 1917 concerning advancing in line with “in line . . . ,” while the 1835 edition of the same article, numbered 1719, started with “in line of 60

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battle. . . .”67 This change is indicative of the semantic changes the regulations board brought to the 1935 edition. With the exception of the exercises for the light infantry, there were no fundamental changes to the American system of tactics in 1835. This section, while maintaining many of the ideas contained in the 1825 regulations, was fundamentally reorganized and refocused for the new version of Infantry Tactics. While keeping the skirmishing missions of the light infantry, the new regulations provided for the close and extended light infantry drills from the regular infantry drill. In 1835, Scott achieved what he set out to do in 1825 by trying to impose order and control on the inherently chaotic and dispersed skirmishing. The 1835 regulations created a system that provided regular line battalions with the movements and commands to perform light infantry tasks and provided light infantry battalions the techniques to execute regular infantry maneuvers. With this in mind, the new Infantry Tactics organized the light infantry drill along the lines of the regular drill by creating light infantry schools of the company and battalion. An abbreviated version of the regular infantry maneuvers detailed how light infantry troops formed the line of battle with regular battalions and companies.68 It also reiterated the important trend in the army’s intellectual framework that created a standardized infantry capable of a variety of infantry tasks, as opposed to a specialized infantry capable of only one mode of warfare. The new skirmisher drill also mirrored the linear formations of the regular infantry drill. The regulations stated that “a line of skirmishers ought, as far as possible, to be aligned.”69 While providing for the use of irregular terrain, this represented another attempt to maintain the linear but noncontiguous conceptualization of the battlefield. Even though this section of the regulations changed substantially, it was more of an evolution of the light infantry in the tradition of the French combat method established in 1825, as opposed to a fundamentally new way of using the light infantry. The regulations board of 1835 saved all their innovations for the general regulations. If the General Regulations of 1825 sought to standardize both the economy and operations of the entire army, the General Regulations of 1835 focused on the fiscal administration of the army in the field and in garrison. It spent far more pages describing the costs of army operations, the manning of outposts, conducting operations, and the battlefield, with a new focus on administration and accountability. The new general regulations still contained sections that outlined the specifics of marching, short halts, and diagramming encampments while on campaign.70 However, the internal economy of the regiment focused less on tactical instruction or training and more Bringing French Warfare to America

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on the administrative duties of officers. It gave detailed examples of company and regimental books, of how and when to conduct mustering inspections of in-processing militia in times of crisis, of recruiting and regimental funds.71 There was a much bigger section on the army’s administrative staff departments, and these sections moved into the front half of the regulations. The staff departments section of the General Regulations of 1835 included the Adjutant General, Quartermaster, Engineering, Topographical, Ordinance, Commissary, Pay, and Medical Departments. The administration of men and pay seemed to consume the new regulations and left little room to discuss the running of outposts or the conduct of operations. The deployment of so much of the regular army on the frontier made the inclusion of new sections on outposts and frontier organization in the new general regulations useful and relevant. The War Department divided up the frontier into military departments, and the administration of these departments took up a large part of the new general regulations. But again, these new articles discussed the responsibility of officers for the safeguarding of government property, not the combat operations associated with Indian and frontier duty.72 The regulations required outposts to be meticulously maintained and defended at all costs. They reminded commanders that outposts that were seized and destroyed would result in a court of inquiry. Additionally, commanders were forbidden to plant gardens or graze animals on the glacis of outposts and were required to keep them in good military order at all times.73 The specificity of these general regulations and their focus on administration demonstrated a change from the 1825 regulations. Whereas the 1825 regulations created a general understanding of army operations both on and off the battlefield, the 1835 regulations dealt almost solely with the everyday administration of the army. However, the epitome of this new emphasis was less clear in the new articles pertaining to administration than in the articles that the regulations board did not carry over from the 1825 edition. From 1821 through 1835, the general regulations of the United States Army provided an abbreviated but coherent version of the new intellectual framework of the battlefield. However, the review board of 1835 removed all articles pertaining to the conduct of war. The regulations that the board forwarded for adoption contained articles about baggage, marching, encampments, and dozens of the small but important elements that an army requires to function both on the battlefield and in a garrison environment. Missing were the numerous references in the 1821 and 1825 regulations pertaining to the general dispositions on the battlefield, the defense of places, sieges, advanced 62

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guard formations, the theory of the staff, or even the section on esprit de corps. Without these sections, the general regulations became no more than an administrative manual, a how-to guide to property accountability and the physical care of soldiers in the armies of the United States. The 1835 regulations cut out all the elements of the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield and of the military art as it was understood at the time. It was clear by the systematic removal of such material that the new general regulations pertained only to the administrative functioning of the army. The theoretical education of the army had to come from other sources. The absence of articles pertaining to the intellectual framework while at the same time clearly continuing to promote its legitimacy through the tactical regulations was a deliberate decision by the regulations board. The fourteen years from 1821 through 1835 were important years for the indoctrination of the armies of the United States in the intellectual framework based on the essential elements of the French combat method. The general regulations were then one of the only means for disseminating this framework to officers throughout the War Department, both militia and regular, who were either uneducated in the French system, resistant to the regulations, or simply lacked a military education entirely. The sections covering the battlefield in the old regulations created a clear and concise way for the army to understand how commanders made the new system of tactics produce victory on the battlefield. The review board considered these articles superfluous and unnecessary for the army in the mid-1830s and that more specific regulations on administration were more useful to officers on the frontier and in garrisons across the country. The Infantry Tactics of 1835 explicitly stated several of the fundamental elements of the French combat method. Through the tactical regulations, soldiers and officers became familiar with the tactics of an infantry-based army, with nonspecialized units capable of light and regular operations. Skirmishers were responsible for covering the movements and supporting the main infantry attack, demonstrating the integration of auxiliary arms on the battlefield. New commands and techniques increased commanders’ control over their formations, reinforcing the importance of initiative in a system of nondogmatic tactics. Additionally, the inclusion of linear formations for the light infantry drill and the encouragement to align skirmish lines encouraged a linear but noncontiguous conceptualization of the battlefield. Thus, the intellectual framework included in the 1825 general regulations was unnecessary in 1835, because much of this framework was explicitly communicated through the Infantry Tactics. The United States Military Academy at Bringing French Warfare to America

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West Point had begun to produce a uniformly educated officer by that time, in its third decade of existence by the 1830s. That education included Infantry Tactics as well as an engineering course that taught the science of war. This curriculum more than adequately instructed officers in the intellectual framework influenced by the fundamental elements of the French combat method, which made its inclusion in the general regulations redundant.

A French Awakening in America Looking to the French Way of Warfare With the adoption of a literal translation of the French regulations in 1815, the War Department completed the change from Steuben’s Blue Book to the French system of tactics. However, adopting the system of tactics did not necessarily mean the adoption of the intellectual framework of the French combat method. This required a significant change in the American conceptualization of war. The fundamental ideas that make up a nation’s way of warfare are predicated on its determination of the nature of war. For the French combat method, the French nation that emerged from the Revolution retained the belief that war was a contest between states and, more directly, between armies trained, equipped, and organized by those states for the realization of foreign-policy objectives. However, the French Revolution changed the nature of those armies and the relationship between the citizen, army, and the state. These new armies were more likely to engage in battle than their eighteenth-century predecessors, and armies on battlefields defined the nature of war that inspired the French combat method. This is not to say that the armies of the French Republic did not engage in operations other than large-scale battles. They fought a civil war in the Vendée, uprisings in northern Italy and the Austrian Tyrol, and the Mamelukes in Egypt, and they occupied large portions of western Europe. However, these operations were not considered war, and other than uniform accoutrement and ceremonial formations, they left almost no impact on the French combat method. This was similar to the legacy of the colonial period on the American way of warfare following the American Revolution. While the actions of the Continental Army provided examples and traditions for American officers and soldiers later in the nineteenth century, Congress systematically dismantled all but local militias following 1783. This was due to the American belief carried over from the colonial period that war was an inherently local affair whose objective was frontier survival and that more often than not resulted 64

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in the targeting of civilian populations.74 Thus, the European-style battles fought during the Revolution represented extraordinary circumstances in the American military tradition. From the militia companies in 1775 to the irregular forces in the southern theater in 1780–81, Americans remained committed to a more colonial way of warfare. The adoption of the French system of tactics was a similar reaction to meet the requirements of the War of 1812 against a European trained and equipped enemy. There was nothing in the prosecution of the war that required a different reaction by the War Department or the Congress from that of the 1780s. There was also no reason to believe that Americans would adopt the intellectual framework of the French combat method just because they adopted French tactics. Scott’s actions at the battles of Chippawa and Lundy’s Lane demonstrated that even an army trained in French tactics can fight according to the dictates of the linear warfare of Frederick the Great within a more colonial tradition. After suffering through the razing of Washington, D.C., Congress appeared more eager to maintain a conventional military capability, and over the course of the next decade there was a fundamental shift in the American conceptualization of war. Similar to the period before the war, the militia remained the central element in the defense of the United States. But in order to remain prepared against invasion by a European army, the government had to fundamentally change the relationship between the state militias and the federal standing army. President James Monroe stated in his inaugural address on 4 March 1817 that the army, navy, and coastal fortification should be “regulated upon just principles as to the force of each and be kept in perfect order.”75 Regulation meant more centralized control over the organization and training of the militias, which in turn meant the continued use of the French regulations. In 1819, the House of Representatives recognized the changes in warfare during the Napoleonic period and admitted that only professional discipline could defend against an invading army. This report also stated that, concerning the countries of Europe, “it cannot be believed that any real friendship can exist in the breasts of sovereigns of that continent for a government which has been founded upon principles so opposite to theirs, and which, by the happiness it diffuses, affords and an eternal satire and reproach upon their conduct.”76 The identification of a European threat, and more importantly the possibility of an invasion by a professional standing army, made it impossible to return to the laissez-faire military policies of the Revolutionary era. This change in the nature of warfare away from frontier skirmishes to decisive Napoleonic armies and battles set the conditions for the adoption of the intellectual framework of the French combat method. Bringing French Warfare to America

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With the adoption of French tactics, and a more European formulation of the nature of war, only the cultural resistance inherent in American politics at the turn of the century stood in the way of institutionalizing French influence in the army. Much of the resistance to French tactics in the War of 1812 was the direct result of the political competition between the Federalists and Republicans. While there were several key differences in the two parties, the Federalists were predominantly Anglophiles, while the Republicans were, if not Francophiles, then at least pro-French.77 Thus, the refusal of Federalist officers to accept the French system of tactics was as much a political decision as a pragmatic one. However, toward the end of the war, the anti-French Federalist Party became less vocal and less legitimate. Officially taking an antiwar stance in 1812, the Federalist Party adopted the radical Hartford Convention in December 1814, which demanded an end to hostilities and a return to more free-trade policies and even hinted at the possible secession of the New England states.78 With the end of the war, the Republican administration began to attack the Federalist Party base as unpatriotic. The last Federalist presidential candidate was in 1816, and by 1820 the party dissolved. With the disappearance of the Federalist Party, anti-French sentiment in American politics ceased to wield any considerable influence. In addition to the dissolution of the major anti-French party in America, events in Europe itself were changing attitudes in America. With Napoleon’s final defeat in 1815 and the return of a much weaker Bourbon monarchy, France seemed no longer to be a threat to the United States.79 With the removal of a perceived threat, resistance to French culture subsided, and Americans became interested in a broad range of French developments, from literature to art to fashion to science and philosophy.

The Primacy of French Culture Americans received most of their exposure to French culture and learning through journals, magazines, and newspapers at the turn of the nineteenth century. From the 1820s to the 1840s, there were nine French-language journals and magazines published in a variety of American cities. This reflected the American demand for French articles, writings, and current trends. The growth of literary magazines throughout the country provided a wide dissemination of French culture and ideas. These periodicals—among them the North American Review out of Boston, the American Quarterly Review out of Philadelphia, and the Southern Literary Messenger out of Richmond—had large readerships and provided readers with the most current literature and 66

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thought coming out of Europe. These journals demonstrated the uniform demand for French journals across the country. An article about the curriculum of the United States Military Academy in the North American Review stated, One reason for introducing French into the course of studies, independently of the consideration, that every well-educated young man ought to be acquainted with that language, is to enable the cadets to read French works with facility, many of their text-books being the productions of French authors. It is, we believe, the universal opinion of scientific men, that French writers have been much more successful and happy in their investigations and explanations of the sciences generally, and of that of war in particular, than those of any other nation. It is both an evidence and an effect of this opinion, that a large portion of the works on scientific and military subjects, contained in the library at West Point, are the productions of French authors; and the cadets derive great benefit from this collection.80

This kind of identification of French literature and science as superior in both civil and military sciences was common across journals and magazines of the period. Interest in French literature was indicative of the close link between French and American scientists.81 Reviews of French scientific articles over the period from 1820 through 1848 were numerous and appeared routinely. These literary magazines were also very interested in histories and memoirs of the French Revolution, as well as current French literature, plays, and philosophy.82 The reference to French ideas, many of them fundamental ideas of the French combat method, in the editorial debates reflected to some degree the intellectual influence of French culture on the American civilian and military public. However, the aforementioned magazines, journals, and newspapers also contained articles from other European countries, from other national traditions, and concerning other national armies. Instead of demonstrating French cultural dominance, American periodicals of the time made French ideas and culture available to the public, which was enough to make the ideas of the French combat method palatable to the American military community. As the demand for French culture grew, France became recognized in America as the standard for intellectual and scientific pursuits. Universities and colleges across America began teaching French to undergraduates.83 Among these were the large French programs at Harvard and the United Bringing French Warfare to America

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States Military Academy. The French curriculum directly supported the reading of French texts in a variety of subjects. This increase in the teaching, reading, and speaking of French provided the ever-growing educated elite with the means to enjoy French culture. The influx of Napoleonic refugees in America following 1815 reinforced this interest. A large number of Napoleonic celebrities settled in the United States following the Bourbon Restoration, including Joseph Bonaparte, Joachim Murat’s two sons, and Generals Riguad, Lefebvre-Desnouettes, Bertrand, Vandamme, Clausel, and Miot de Melito.84 Even the infamous Madame de Stael herself came to America in her exile from France.85 These notables were vocal about their culture and wrote voraciously to an interested American public.86 Napoleonic celebrities became champions of French culture across America and fed an increasing fascination with France and Napoleon.

Napoleon Comes to America The end of the Napoleonic period was really only the beginning of American interest in France and French culture. The American journals that featured French articles often reviewed or printed sections of memoirs and writings from the participants of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic period. The American reading public marked the publication of all the major memoirs of the time, including Lucien and Joseph Bonaparte, the numerous memoirs of Napoleon written by former officers who accompanied him to Saint Helena following his defeat at Waterloo in 1815, Tallyrand, Madame de Staele, Brissot, Ségur, Mirabeau, and the Duchess de Abrantes, to name a few.87 In addition to these memoirs, there were also a number of early histories of the period whose publication was noted in the American literary press. Among these were the writings of Norvins, Thiers, Michelet, and Alison, but none was as widely read or as anxiously awaited as the writings of Sir Walter Scott.88 Sir Walter Scott had a wide readership throughout the entirety of the United States in the nineteenth century. Ivanhoe and the Waverley novels had a wide readership in America and spoke to American sensibilities, as their cavalier stories were the struggle of Scotland against the oppressive English. Having read Scott in America at the time was referred to as a mark of respectability and education. Civil War General Dabney Maury in his memoirs described his famous scientist uncle as having read Shakespeare and Scott, as if to say these two authors were the epitome of culture and sophistication.89 Scott’s writings had such an impact on American culture, 68

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especially in the southern states, that Mark Twain blamed them for inspiring the secession movement, calling it the “Sir Walter disease.”90 Whatever role Scott played in fomenting secession in the South, his popularity led to a wide readership of his three-volume The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, Emperor of the French, published in 1827. More than any other author of the period, Walter Scott provided Americans with the complete saga of the Napoleonic period. Scott’s Life of Napoleon was an extremely detailed account of French history from 1789 through 1815 and a moving story of Napoleon’s rise and fall. Scott began with the details of the French Revolution. His narrative of the Revolution from the intellectual origins of Voltaire and Rousseau through the Terror and the Directory contained all the major elements of the Revolution leading up to the introduction of Napoleon.91 With the protagonist introduced and the context of the history set, Scott proceeded to describe the rise and fall of the Emperor. In doing so, he included all the major and minor battles of the Napoleonic period, from crossing the bridge at Lodi to the siege of Acre, to the battle of Friedland, through the retreat from Russia, and finally to the climactic battle of Waterloo. In the conclusion, Scott praised the Emperor for his innovations on the battlefield, his system of concentrating forces at will on the battlefield, and his aggressive use of the column over the line.92 While the military history, combined with the detailed descriptions of the French Revolution, made up a fully adequate history of France through the period, Napoleon’s personal use of power provided Scott’s narrative with a story of good and evil. In Scott’s final analysis, Napoleon destroyed liberty in France and subjected Europe to the horror of subjugation.93 This mixture of detail and emotion, military bravery and political corruption, was how the author of the Waverley novels brought Napoleon to America. While Scott’s image of Napoleon was as a tragic figure, the American audience interpreted the details of his career differently. Robert E. Lee’s older brother Henry Lee Jr. produced the most powerful example of a different interpretation in The Life of Napoleon.94 Using many of the same sources available to West Point cadets through their library and research conducted during his extended stays in France, Lee wrote a narrative of the early life and military career of Napoleon. However, while Scott vilified Napoleon or portrayed the French as degenerate, Lee took the opportunity to praise them. For example, when writing about the French army in Italy prior to Napoleon’s arrival, Lee described them as “not an ignorant mass of recruits but the elite of the nation.”95 Whether or not this was an accurate portrayal of Napoleon, it was representative of the American fascination with the Emperor. Lee Bringing French Warfare to America

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wrote 598 pages’ worth of pro-French, pro-Napoleon history and filled up an appendix full of explanatory notes that documented the fallacies present in Scott’s narrative. This hagiography was the American response to Napoleon and demonstrated the developing American cultural affinity for the French. While Scott’s Life of Napoleon was certainly the most powerful and accessible way for Americans to learn about the Napoleonic period, because of the reputation of the author, it was not the only work on the subject to surface prior to the Mexican-American War. There were early translations of French descriptions of the battles of Napoleon, such as Campaigns of the Armies of France in Prussia, Saxony, and Poland in 1808, by professor of French Samuel Mackay.96 Mackay used direct quotations from original documents, bulletins, memoirs, and proclamations to create a narrative of Napoleon’s campaigns. Works like this provided some access to the details of Napoleon’s battles prior to the 1820s for those who were particularly interested in military affairs and the art of war. In the 1830s and 1840s, a number of general histories of Napoleonic Europe came to America, the most popular of which was Archibald Allison’s History of Europe.97 Allison included details concerning the military operations of Napoleon, his subordinate commanders, and his enemies. However, like Scott, he considered Napoleon’s genius overshadowed by his ambition, his savagery, and the brutality of his way of war.98 These works served to whet the appetite of the American public for works devoted to Napoleonic history and reinforced the growing acceptance and admiration of French culture. The military also became interested in the Napoleonic period prior to the Mexican-American War. From 1835 through 1844, the weekly newspaper the Army and Navy Chronicle provided a venue for editorials about the military and contained articles of history and contemporary military science. Throughout this period, it published more articles on the current state of the French army and navy than on any other country and numerous articles on the history and figures of the Napoleonic era. In late 1836, over the course of several months, it ran a series of articles entitled Anecdotes of Napoleon, which included both military exploits and stories of personal interactions with the Emperor.99 The consistent presence of these articles demonstrated the American interest in French military policy and history. However, French military theory and ideas were also used during this period in the editorial debates concerning American military policies. A history of the French doctrinal debates in the 1780s and their impact on the American regulations following the War of 1812 appeared in 1836 as the first part of a series of articles defending the new 1835 regulations.100 Through a steady stream of articles, 70

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reviews, and Napoleonic examples, the Army and Navy Chronicle inspired in the officer corps the same fascination with the Emperor as in the rest of American society.

The United States Military Academy (USMA) Library, Cadet Readership, and Napoleon As the largest and most current military library in America, the USMA library provides an interesting look into the American fascination with Napoleon. It represents not only the access of French works in the United States but also the interests of West Point officers who became an ever-larger part of the officer corps as a whole toward the end of the nineteenth century. For the period from 1820 through the Civil War, cadets were allowed to check books out from Saturday to Monday morning and could only use the books in the library from Monday through Friday. USMA instructors could check out four books per week, and professors could keep eight out at a time, for no longer than three months at a time.101 These restrictions produced records that reflected current trends and interests because the cadets could not just check out books for perusal at a later date but had to pick only what they could conceivably read over the weekend. This makes both what the cadets read and the contents of the USMA library representative of the American fascination with Napoleon. When Sylvanus Thayer became superintendent of the military academy in 1817, he brought with him not only French educational reforms but a desire to greatly expand the library to support a new educational emphasis. Thayer made several book-buying trips to Europe, and by 1822 the library contained a collection that adequately supported cadet instruction in the classroom.102 It should not be surprising that the new emphasis placed on mathematics and engineering created a need for a larger selection of engineering and scientific texts in the library. Thayer’s 1822 collection reflected that need. Just over 50 percent of the collection contained volumes on engineering, mathematics, natural philosophy, geography, chemistry, and architecture. While the collection contained what Thayer considered the most essential texts from Europe, there were by far more texts in French than in any other language, including English. This was undoubtedly one of the reasons for the inclusion in the curriculum of several semesters of French-language training focused on reading and writing, as opposed to verbal skills.103 The circulation records also reflect the increased academic requirements of cadets, as the vast majority of books checked out by the USMA faculty and cadets throughout the 1820s were engineering-oriented books, including the works of Euler, Garnier, Laplace, Bringing French Warfare to America

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and Newton, as well as journals such as the North American Review and the American Quarterly Review.104 These works directly supported cadets’ studies and examinations, which took the form of oral recitations. That the engineering focus of the curriculum led cadets to read more engineering books did not mean that the science of war was any less important to Thayer. In providing for the library through 1822, Thayer purchased or acquired a tremendous collection of works on the science and art of war. If 50 percent of the collection was engineering focused, at least 40 percent were volumes dedicated to military topics. Some of these were on fortification and military engineering, whose utility to the engineering curriculum was obvious. However, the rest of the collection included theoretical works on warfare, military regulations, and memoirs of battles and campaigns. Such names as Carnot, Guibert, Vaubon, Bülow, Archduke Charles, Folard, Mesnil-Durand, and Jomini top the theoretical works, while Berthier, Thiébault, Dumas, Augereau, Bonaparte, Bourcet, Obdeleben, and Vandoncourt were just a few of the memoirs available to cadets.105 The library also acquired the complete twenty-eight-volume series entitled Victoires et conquêtes, which was the first official French military history of the period from 1789 through 1815, using the reports and interviews with French officers of the period. This created a collection capable of supporting detailed historical analysis of the Napoleonic period as well as the most important theoretical works on war published in Europe in the preceding fifty years. Despite an obviously difficult engineering curriculum, a few cadets with the time and French-language skills read military works, such as the writings of Guibert, Carnot, Bonaparte, Berthier, Montholon, Gourgaud, and multiple volumes of the Victoires et conquêtes.106 However, it was not until more works appeared in English, especially Scott’s Life of Napoleon, that Napoleon became interesting to the cadets at West Point. By 1830, the USMA Library added almost 3,000 new volumes, with the greatest expansion in the engineering and science sections. Whereas in 1822 the military engineering and art volumes totaled almost 50 percent of the catalogue, in 1830 military titles made up only 25 percent of the holdings. However, the collection of works on the military art remained current and prolific. The library purchased two different versions of Scott’s Life of Napoleon, Napoleon’s Maxims of War, memoirs of Napoleon written by Montholon and Gourgaud, and Norvin’s History of Napoleon, to name only a few.107 Despite the increase in scientific titles, cadet readership of Napoleonic works increased. Hardly a weekend passed the USMA Library without a cadet’s borrowing a title on Napoleon. Scott’s works were very popular: often all the 72

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volumes of his Life of Napoleon were checked out to different cadets. This was also true of the works of Jomini, Norvins, Montholon, Gourgaud, and Lockhart.108 This trend continued through the 1840s and the Mexican-American War. What this initial introduction to French military writers, thinkers, and histories of their exploits during the age of Napoleon produced was a reinforcement of the army’s adoption of the French system of tactics and the French combat method. Napoleon served to make the adoption of French concepts and tactics more palatable to the army through powerful cultural influence.

French Influence and the United States Military Academy A French School for the American Army In the age before a strong university system or the development of a professional military education system, the United States Military Academy played a critical role in creating an educated officer corps. It became the primary way that the officer corps internalized the army’s intellectual framework, through academic instruction, field exercises, drill, and fortification. These West Pointers brought that framework with them to the rest of the army on the frontier, in garrisons, or manning coastal fortifications. Despite George Washington’s attempts to create a military academy following the Revolutionary War, there was only an engineering school at West Point focused on the physical skills of engineering and artillery by the end of the eighteenth century. It was not until 1802 that the school at West Point became an institution for the general military education of army officers. In its first decade, the academy was the responsibility of the corps of engineers, and the curriculum, such as it was, focused on the practical aspects of military engineering and artillery. As the superintendent was also the commander of the corps of engineers, West Point remained underfunded and inefficient.109 Officers educated at West Point during this period served honorably during the War of 1812 and contributed to the engineering efforts on the Canadian frontier, but not as commanders, strategists, or generals. The appointment of Thayer as the superintendent transformed the academy from a small branch of the corps of engineers into an institution renowned for engineering and officer training. The key to Thayer’s success lay in his desire to import French educational techniques.110 Even though Thayer was an engineer officer, he changed the academic organization of cadets into sections by ability group, and the course material changed based on the ability of the section.111 This system adopted the teaching practices in Bringing French Warfare to America

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the French school system. By 1819, Thayer introduced semiannual examinations, both written and oral, and brought daily recitations into the West Point classroom.112 He based the new curriculum on a solid foundation of mathematics and French that cadets used to develop their knowledge of engineering, literature, law, history, and the science of war. This French style of education resonated with Winfield Scott, who made a tour of Europe in 1815 to collect the most up-to-date military texts and discuss military affairs with Europe’s leading soldiers.113 Scott approved of the new West Point curriculum and method of education so much that he included a detailed description of it in the General Regulations of 1821.114 Thayer’s sixteen years as the superintendent transformed the academy into an institution capable of providing cadets with an education in the military art in general and the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield in particular. Although Jefferson created the academy under the supervision of the chief of engineers and dedicated it to the various forms of engineering, the academy objective from the beginning was to create an officer corps educated in the military art. In order to maintain political oversight of officer education, Congress created the Board of Visitors (BOV), made up of leading citizens, both military and civilian, who reported on the academy each year. The BOV understood the purpose of the academy to educate officers for war, stating, The object of the government in establishing this academy was obviously to secure to the country the benefits of a special school, where instruction should be given, in every arm used in actual service. The academy here is, therefore, essentially a military academy; its organization and discipline are military; and its rules and arrangements form a part of the military institutes of the country. The instruction given under its provisions is in the art of war, in its widest and most liberal interpretation.115

While the makeup of the board changed from year to year, the army retained a presence that allowed prominent officers to see the education of cadets firsthand. Officers such as Macomb, Scott, David Twiggs, and Robert E. Lee served on the board and provided the army leadership with an understanding of the content and quality of a West Point education. Following Thayer’s reforms, West Point quickly earned a reputation as the best engineering school in the country. Thayer believed that in order to have well-educated officers, education had to be firmly grounded in engineering. However, these curricular reforms brought a wide array of subjects to cadet education, such as French, philosophy, law, and military science, in addition 74

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to engineering and mathematics. While engineering remained at the center of the curriculum, the cadet experience was designed to create a welleducated officer corps capable of organizing, training, and leading America’s armies in combat. Far from commissioning primarily engineering officers, the academy commissioned more infantry officers in the nineteenth century than it did any other branch, including the artillery. In the period from 1823 to 1846, West Point graduated 625 infantry and dragoon officers, compared to 83 engineers and 526 artillerymen.116 In fact, the number of officers that the academic board approved for service in the corps of engineers was always less than four and in some years was only one or two. Officers below the top-four graduates performed exceptionally well in the infantry, thanks to a deliberate curriculum that educated them not only in the engineering required to build bridges, fortifications, and obstacles but also in the intellectual framework of the battlefield based on the essential elements of the French combat method. West Point provided cadets with an excellent undergraduate education in the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. This education had a tactical and an academic component. Starting in 1820, cadets learned their close order drill in accordance with the infantry regulations of the army. By 1825, this meant that cadets drilled according to Winfield Scott’s Infantry Tactics all four years at West Point.117 Cadets spent most of their four years learning the school of the soldier and company. However, in their last two years, they received instruction in the schools of the battalion and the evolutions of the line, in classroom and in field maneuvers.118 Along with instruction in infantry tactics, cadets received academic and practical instruction in artillery.119 This tactical instruction in European-style warfare remained a part of cadet instruction between 1821 and 1846, even though the army spent the entirety of that time on the frontier chasing Indians or manning outposts. These officers knew the variation of the European style of drill from the French Regulations of 1791 that made up the American system of tactics. This instruction was an extremely important part of cadet education and served these officers as well during the Mexican-American War. In the cadets’ academic instruction, the course on engineering contained almost all of their instruction in military theory. The engineering course, which instructed cadets on civil engineering, field fortification, permanent fortification, and the science of war, went through several different forms until Thayer standardized the curriculum in 1817. By 1821, the course used the methods and techniques then in vogue in the French schools that Thayer visited prior to taking over as superintendent. To implement these changes, Bringing French Warfare to America

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Thayer made Claude Crozet the professor of engineering. Crozet, a graduate of the Polytechnic School in France during the Wars of the French Revolution, fought as an officer during the Napoleonic Wars and observed firsthand the French combat method.120 Crozet adopted an English translation of a French text by Simon François Gay de Vernon as the primary text for the engineering course. This played a major role in inculcating a generation of officers in the army’s intellectual framework.

The Gay de Vernon Text, 1817–1838 Crozet and Thayer designed the engineering course to follow the educational model of the French military school system. They chose Gay de Vernon’s A Treatise on the Science of War and Fortification for the engineering textbook for cadet instruction because it was the text in use by the French military schools.121 An experienced engineering officer, Gay de Vernon was the first professor of engineering and fortification at the École Polytechnique. Napoleon personally approved his text for use in officer education when Gay de Vernon published it in 1805.122 The Treatise trained thousands of French officers before it became a part of American officer education as the central text of the academy’s engineering curriculum. Although the translation by Captain John Michael O’Connor came under a certain amount of criticism, the text provided a generation of officers an education in the fundamental elements of the French combat method. The two volumes of the Treatise created an integrated course in engineering and fortification but more importantly in the fundamental elements of the French combat method. In the Treatise’s introduction, Gay de Vernon began with an important philosophical statement of the relationship of engineering to the art and science of war. He stated that the real purpose of the textbook in officer education was more than just engineering; it encompassed the whole of the military profession from the battlefield to the garrison. Line infantry and cavalry officers required “arithmetic, elementary and practical geometry, drawing, and field fortifications” as a minimum in order to be successful on the battlefield.123 Officers of artillery and engineers needed to have those qualities plus a more advanced knowledge of science, physics, and engineering, and well as a certain coup d’oeil. And finally, general officers needed to have all the attributes of the artillery and engineer officers but an even greater coup d’oeil.124 Coup d’oeil was one of the most important attributes of the successful general. It was the ability of an officer to understand the truth of a given situation and to rapidly make sound decisions on the battlefield.125 Gay de Vernon 76

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believed that great generals had to have the education of an artillery or engineer officer. This explains the Treatise’s general treatment of the science of war as the prologue to the more technical subjects of fortifications and ballistics. However, there was no real separation of the subjects even for the line officer. The study of science, mathematics, and engineering was necessary to develop the coup d’oeil of a general like Napoleon. The study of the science of war required an understanding not only of tactics, grand tactics, organization, engineering, and mathematics but also of the intellectual framework of the battlefield that constituted the French combat method. This explained Thayer’s engineering emphasis as the best way to teach the art and science of war. The French version of Treatise contained three parts, and the West Point edition added an appendix that included theoretical writings about war. All three parts served to educate future military officers in the army’s intellectual framework. The first part was a history of the science of war, covering formations, techniques, and the evolution of the military art from the ancients through the eighteenth century. This section provided an excellent military history of warfare and devoted a great deal of time on examples from the eighteenth century and the French Revolution.126 Gay de Vernon used examples from military history to create an evolution of the military art leading inexorably to the French Revolution. He used the history survey to describe some of the elements of the French combat method, such as the effectiveness of a nonspecialized infantry-based army with the nondogmatic system of tactics provided by the Regulations of 1791 and 1792. The second part of the Treatise focused on field and temporary fortifications. In addition to the techniques and science of building such fortifications, there was a great deal of discussion of how to use them on the battlefield. To support this discussion, there was a variety of historical examples, including Napoleon’s first Italian campaign, to demonstrate how important these engineering techniques were to modern warfare.127 These examples also served to highlight the important role these fortifications played in offensive operations. Both of these sections used historical examples and detailed engineering instruction to educate junior officers in some of the ideas that made up the intellectual framework of the French combat method. The third part focused on permanent fortification and contained a typical survey of eighteenth-century engineering. This included a historical and theoretical survey of the great engineers of the eighteenth century, such as Vaubon, Coehorn, and Carnot. Supported by detailed plates, this third part contained all the information necessary to construct outworks, obstacles, gates, Bringing French Warfare to America

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fortresses, and fortified towns. In addition to the construction of these fortifications, Gay de Vernon included a long section on the attack and defense of such fortifications. Like the previous parts, historical examples of sieges and battles that used fortifications supported the instruction. The battles of Malplaquet in 1709 and Fleurus in 1794 were used to illustrate most of the concepts as they were mentioned.128 Even in the part devoted to more traditional engineering topics, these examples provided the reader with an understanding the role of these fortifications, their attack, and their defense in their way of warfare. Instead of a dry book of formulas, diagrams, and vectors, Gay de Vernon’s work integrated the study of engineering onto the battlefield. The Treatise provided detailed explanations of the intellectual framework described in the general regulations. When discussing the organization of modern armies, Gay de Vernon used a primarily infantry army composed of infantrymen trained to fight in line, in attack columns, or as skirmishers, with those skirmishers as part of the order of battle, and all focused on the main assault using the bayonet.129 He also made the study of field and permanent fortifications an integral part of an offensive way of war. He spent twice as long describing how to attack fortifications as he did describing how to defend them.130 Gay de Vernon provided cadets with the explicit connection between their own intellectual framework and the French combat method. He used history and engineering to promote the primacy of the offensive, a nonspecialized infantry army, and the integration of auxiliary arms to support the main infantry attack. This French textbook, written to educate junior officers throughout the Napoleonic era, was a masterpiece of the theoretical and practical elements of the French combat method. It became an excellent way to bring that method to the army through West Point graduates. These graduates internalized the army’s intellectual framework through a course in which French warfare pervaded all their engineering courses, military and civil, and brought that framework to the rest of the army.

Jomini and Cadet Education In addition to the more traditional engineering topics, the West Point version of Gay de Vernon’s Treatise included an appendix which O’Connor titled “A Summary of the Principles and Maxims of Grand Tactics and Operations.”131 O’Connor explicitly stated that his purpose for attaching this appendix was to provide a survey of the most current European military theory. He attributed most of the current European thought, in particular the fundamental principles of military operations and grand tactics, to 78

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Baron Antoine Henri Jomini. Jomini’s writings and theory had a tremendous effect on French and American military thinking of the nineteenth century. In his masterpiece, Précis de l’art de la guerre (Art of War), written in 1838, Jomini defined the principles of war and conceptualization of warfare for a number of armies across Europe. His prolific writings dominated military debates through the 1860s. Jomini’s influence in America was so pervasive that to many historians and scholars it seemed as though “the leading generals of the American Civil War carried a copy of Jomini’s Art of War in their pockets.”132 Whether or not the actual book was in their pockets, his writings became a central part of cadet education and of the army’s intellectual discourse. Beginning with Crozet’s engineering course, Jomini reinforced the internalization of the fundamental elements of the French combat method. The appendix to Gay de Vernon’s Treatise brought Jomini’s writings and principles to West Point. O’Connor was the principle author of the appendix, and in its preface he declared the appendix a work of synthesis that combined the most important current European military theory and thought. He identified Jomini as the most important European theorist and admitted that the appendix was primarily a summary of Jomini’s thought.133 This section provided the rudimentary elements of his system of war, which reduced all of strategy to the ability to “carry your mass against the enemy’s decisive point.”134 From that first principle, Jomini outlined a fundamentally offensive system. He stated that “when an army expects to be attacked by the enemy, it should never await the blow, but must ever advance and anticipate it, by attacking with impetuosity and without a moment’s delay.”135 The examples used to support the appendix were from the battles of Frederick the Great and Napoleon. Jomini used the exploits of these generals to articulate the proper use of skirmishers, cavalry, and artillery to support the infantry’s main attack. Jomini also described the infantry formations in the attack as a combination of lines and close columns by divisions to create the appropriate mass against the decisive point in the enemy’s formation.136 Using the writings of the most influential theorist of the early nineteenth century, O’Connor described almost all the fundamental elements of the French combat method. Jomini integrated the primacy of the offensive, the linear but noncontiguous understanding of the battlefield, the combined effects of all arms in the main attack, and the use of nondogmatic tactics, making the appendix vital to cadet education in the military art. In 1817, Jomini’s writings concerning his system of war were new and incomplete. He continued to think and write about military theory until the publication of his Art of War in 1838. It represented a more mature and polBringing French Warfare to America

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ished system than the one represented in O’Connor’s appendix. However, the basic elements of the system, and certainly the underlying principles, remained unchanged. One area on which Jomini was able to focus considerable energy in 1838 that did not appear in 1817 was his analysis of army organization and composition. Beginning with the citizen-soldier, Jomini described the benefits of a predominantly infantry army, with cavalry and artillery as auxiliary arms.137 It had a standard organization in which regular infantrymen could skirmish, and those skirmishers could fight as regular infantrymen.138 While his work contained more historical examples and descriptions of the use of lines of communication and operations, this final element of the French combat method made the study of Jomini important for the American officer corps. As the curriculum required cadets to be able to read French, the library acquired works in French and in particular Jomini’s works. Throughout the 1820s and 1830s, the USMA Library acquired several of his books, which were very popular with cadets.139 This included works such as Traité des grandes opérations militaires, Histoire critique et militaire des guerres de la Révolution, and of course his Précis de l’art de la guerre.140 These volumes allowed both cadets and officers assigned at West Point to learn Jomini’s principles and theory more thoroughly than through a study of O’Connor’s appendix. Reading these works, officers and cadets internalized the army’s intellectual framework as Jomini explained the fundamental elements of the French combat method.

The Americanization of French Warfare: Dennis Hart Mahan, 1830–1846 Although Thayer and Crozet brought the French combat method into the West Point curriculum, it was Dennis Hart Mahan who institutionalized the teaching of its ideas to generations of American officers. Throughout his cadet career, Mahan had an almost perfect record of academic performance, becoming an assistant professor of mathematics to make up for shortages in personnel in the faculty. Thayer began early in his tenure to increase the number of qualified West Point graduates on his faculty. With this in mind, he groomed Mahan to come back to the academy as soon as possible. When Mahan became ill due to infection and a poor constitution in 1826, he convinced the War Department to send him to Europe to study abroad for what turned into four years.141 During that time, he fell in love with Parisian culture, French engineering, and the course of military engineering at the French school at Metz, which he completed in 1829. By 1830, Mahan 80

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was ready to return to the academy to take over the engineering department and specifically the course in military engineering for first-class cadets (or seniors at civilian universities). As Mahan had recently finished his military education in France, he returned to West Point with a desire to change the existing engineering curriculum. Shortly after his appointment as professor of engineering in 1830, Mahan began to create textbooks he felt were more appropriate to both his instruction and his audience. He thought the Gay de Vernon text was too long for his survey course and too abstract in some parts, and the historical examples were obsolete by the 1830s. He felt that the supporting text should provide the cadets with more specific examples appropriate for an American audience and that the military examples should more directly support lecture material.142 During a complete revision of the curriculum in 1839, Mahan created a new syllabus that included separate civil and military engineering sections, with an emphasis on field and permanent fortifications, and ended with a new section on the science of war. This new course allocated 112 lessons per year to engineering; 51 of these lessons focused on drawing and civil engineering, while 61 dealt with military topics that included fortification and the science of war.143 The change in curriculum reflected Mahan’s engineering emphasis, which placed civil and military engineering on a more equal footing. It also represented a new pedagogic philosophy as Mahan separated the civil engineering from the military engineering, whereas Gay de Vernon integrated the two throughout his text. The new syllabus made Gay de Vernon’s work unsuited to the new course of study, although it remained a reference text for the course through the 1840s. To provide cadets with a theoretical education in the military art in this new course, Mahan had to develop his own textbooks. Mahan began a tradition in the Engineering Department of creating textbooks and pamphlets specifically designed to support cadet education. Mahan disliked O’Connor’s appendix and produced his first set of lithographic notes in pamphlet form for theoretical instruction in the military art. Entitled Composition of Armies and Strategy, these pamphlets provided cadets with the fundamental elements of the French combat method in an accessible format. Composition of Armies described an infantry-based army with cavalry and artillery as auxiliary arms and described the infantry as the critical arm to achieve victory.144 This organization made the infantry attack the most important and powerful on the battlefield. In the first few pages of Strategy, Mahan stated his fundamental principle of war: “The object of every war ought to be to gain an advantageous peace, and this object can Bringing French Warfare to America

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be attained alone by decisive strokes. .  .  . It therefore results that the fundamental principle of war consists in operating with superior forces a combined movement on a decisive point.”145 This principle of war demonstrated a Jominian way of understanding war and the battlefield. Strategy also included larger strategic concepts such as lines of operations, bases of operations that were heavily influenced by Jomini. It reinforced familiar topics from the 1821 and 1825 general regulations such as marches, convoys, and reconnaissance.146 These pamphlets created a brief but comprehensive survey of the most current military theory in the profession. However, similar to the general regulations, Mahan’s Strategy contained a “Battle” section that introduced cadets to the army’s intellectual framework. This battle section described the battlefield in almost the exact way as both the French Regulations of 1792 and the General Regulations of 1821. It encouraged the primacy of the offensive and described a linear order of battle containing two lines with a reserve that integrated artillery and light infantry into the main attack.147 Along with Composition of Armies, Strategy ensured that cadets learned the fundamental elements of the French combat method in a way that reinforced their tactical and general regulations. Although these pamphlets played an important role in providing cadets more focused material to support Mahan’s new course, monograph textbooks were the real engines of his curriculum change. He produced the first of these in 1836, entitled A Treatise on Field Fortification. While presenting the principles and techniques of the science of fortification, he emphasized the importance of fortifications to militia and irregular formations. Because of the prominent role that militias played in American defense, fortifications become an essential element of American warfare, as they allowed such troops to fight more disciplined regular soldiers on an equal footing.148 This led into a discussion of the importance of discipline and training of the militia so that they would in essence become regular soldiers. Officers and commanders required a mastery of the physical sciences and ballistics, while the infantry needed line and skirmisher training and target practice.149 To reinforce these lessons, Mahan included both rifle and artillery ballistic tables from French and German sources that demonstrated the increased range and killing capabilities of modern weapons. This introductory material provided a more scientific description of modern infantry and artillery than Strategy and set the stage for an equally scientific description of the attack, defense, and the construction of fortifications. Mahan discussed the attack and defense of fortifications throughout his section on the design and construction of fortifications. The attack began 82

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with an artillery barrage that cleared the parapet and covered the approach of an attack column supported by a reserve. Through the help of the artillery, the attack column cleared the enemy from the parapet using the bayonet, and the reserve either reinforced success or covered the retreat in case of failure. The defense used artillery and rifle fire to slow and damage enemy formations as they navigated obstacles and the parapet. Once the enemy attack showed itself on the parapet, sorties with the bayonet defeated the attack and broke the enemy formations.150 These descriptions matched similar passages in Strategy and the general regulations and remained consistent with the fundamental elements of the French combat method. However, Mahan made the attack and defense seem to have similar organizations and principles. Both culminated with a bayonet charge designed to defeat the enemy. It also made the offensive the most important and fundamental element of both the attack and the defense. He carried this emphasis throughout his principles of fortification. Mahan distilled the art of fortification into nine principles. The first several principles dealt with the mathematics of fortifications. Instructions such as every angle of defense should be ninety degrees and salient angles should not be less than sixty degrees dominated the principles regarding the construction of fortifications. The remaining principles dealt more with the defense of fortifications. These begin with principles such as “the bayonet should be chiefly relied upon to repel the enemy,” entrenchments should be built to facilitate sorties and be supported by a reserve, and they should be defended to the last man.151 These defensive principles sounded more like offensive principles, complete with an emphasis on the bayonet. Mahan discouraged the use of multiple lines to create a defense in depth because of the damage to morale of withdrawing troops under fire. Instead, he encouraged a vigorous defense of the main line of fortifications and the reliance on counterattacks by sorties of the reserve with the bayonet. These principles were all consistent with the fundamental elements of the French combat method, in a work focused on the art of fortification. These texts were Mahan’s first attempts to redesign the West Point curriculum to orient on American problems for American officers and warfare. They represented an internally consistent program for indoctrinating cadets in the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. When that framework of the battlefield dropped out of the general regulations in 1835, officers educated at West Point internalized it using Jominian language taught through Mahan’s new engineering course, and they brought it with them to the battlefields of the Mexican-American War. Bringing French Warfare to America

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U.S. Officers in Mexico, 1846–1848 The Mexican-American War was the first opportunity for West Point graduates to show the benefits of their education, and they did so to great effect. They also demonstrated that an education in the French combat method, no matter how long ago that education took place, still guided their organization, planning, and tactical maneuvers. American operations throughout the war were offensive in nature, from Zachary Taylor’s initial attack at Palo Alto through Scott’s Mexico City campaign. Approaching the enemy in column, they deployed into lines or attack columns, depending on the terrain and the enemy. Artillery and skirmishers supported their infantry attacks, which culminated with a bayonet charge.152 West Point graduates performed so well that in an 1860 congressional review, Scott offered his immortalized fixed opinion about them: I give it as my fixed opinion, that but for our graduated cadets, the war between Mexico and the United States could and probably would have taken some four or five years with in its first half, more defeats than victories falling to our share. However, in the course of two campaigns, we have conquered a great nation and a peace, without the loss of a single battle or skirmish.153

This demonstrated Scott’s explicit belief in the benefit of the West Point education and the implicit belief in the intellectual framework taught through its curriculum. It also demonstrated that the framework based on the French combat method, not the army’s experiences on the frontier, allowed Scott to win his great peace against a modern army. Prewar training according to current drill regulations prepared regular and volunteer soldiers alike for success on the Mexican battlefields. West Point officers fought their commands according to the fundamental elements of the French combat method, even though it was no longer in the general regulations. The experience of the Mexican-American War, and the efficacy it gave to the army’s intellectual framework, played a critical role in the development of the officers who were to shape the battles and operations of the American Civil War.

The Battle of Chapultepec No battle demonstrated the breadth and depth of the institutionalization of the French combat method in American warfare more than the culminat84

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ing battle of Scott’s Mexico City campaign, the battle of Chapultepec. Following the seizure of Vera Cruz in March 1847, Mexican forces under the command of General Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna were unable to stop Scott’s westward advance to the town of Puebla in May.154 After resting his army and receiving new volunteers in place of the seven regiments whose enlistments ran out throughout the summer, Scott led 10,738 men toward the Mexican capital on 5 August. Santa Anna consolidated his defeated divisions and reinforced them with volunteers and militia units until he had 30,000 troops deployed at the most restrictive places on the road to the capital, in an attempt to limit Scott’s ability to maneuver. Utilizing the seemingly impassible terrain of the Pedregal thanks in large part to engineer reconnaissance, Scott ordered simultaneous attacks enveloping the two main fortified Mexican positions defending the city, in the battles of Contreras and Churbusco on 19–20 August 1847.155 While this left Mexico City practically undefended, Scott’s army of less than 8,000 men required rest and reorganization before renewing the advance. Scott organized an armistice in the hope that the Mexican losses would encourage them to the negotiation table. However, Santa Anna rallied enough support from the war faction in the city to ensure that the armistice talks failed. To disrupt the Mexican defensive preparations, Scott ordered a raid on a suspected cannon foundry in Molino del Rey on the western approach to Mexico City. On 8 September, the frontal assault with Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant in the lead suffered from accurate artillery and musket fire of the defenders under the command of General Simeon Ramírez. This effective defense resulted in heavy American casualties, even though they pushed the defenders out of Molino del Rey.156 Following the expensive raid, Scott called a council of war both to hear the opinions of his senior commanders and to plan the way forward.157 Scott’s army reorganized in camps to the south of the capital. Due to the swampy terrain and steep hills, there were limited avenues of approach into the city. The walled complex of the Colegio Militar at Chapultepec, situated on a hill 200 feet above the level of the city, dominated the two aqueduct roads leading through the swamps from the west. To the south, Santa Anna was improving defensive positions, blocking the main entrance into the city with redoubts and batteries.158 The Mexican army thought that the Americans would attack the city from the south, and many of Scott’s officers felt the same way. Remembering the high cost of attacking Molino del Rey, which occupied the western end of the Chapultepec complex, several senior officers argued for the southern approach, including engineer Captain Robert E. Lee. Bringing French Warfare to America

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Figure 2.3. The Battle of Molino del Rey (Courtesy of the Department of History, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York)

However, Scott wanted a decisive action, in the hope that another crushing defeat at the gates of Mexico City would end Mexican resistance.159 Contrary to the majority opinion of his council of war, Scott ordered the attack on Chapultepec for 13 September 1847. Scott’s plan for the ensuing battle was a simple one. General Gideon Pillow’s division constituted the main attack against Chapultepec through the Molino del Rey from the west. Scott attached one of General William Worth’s brigades, led by a company under the command of Captain Silas Casey, to Pillow’s division as a reserve in the second line of his order of battle. Supporting this attack was General John Quitman’s division advancing up the road from Tacubaya, cutting Chapultepec off from Mexico City. Only General Bennet Riley’s brigade protected the right flank of the American attack from the rest of Santa Anna’s army waiting behind their fortifications to the south of Mexico City.160 Scott’s plan was not only another envelopment in a campaign noted for envelopment but also represented a decisive attack against a fortified position in full view of the Mexican elite, generals, and the army. The battle began with a two-hour artillery bombardment, which destroyed a number of Mexican guns due to effective American fire. Pillow’s troops advanced in columns and then deployed into a variety of formations to take advantage of the ruins of the Molino del Rey as they approached the military college. Mountain howitzers accompanied the advancing infantry regiments as they closed on the Mexican defenders. Approximately 1,000 Mexican soldiers under the command of General Nicolas Bravo defended Chapultepec.161 Bravo deployed his small garrison to take advantage of the walls and elevation of his position. Pillow’s advance was deliberate, led by skirmishers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Johnston. When they reached the foot of Chapultepec, accurate musket and artillery fire from the Mexican defenders stopped the American advance and caused Pillow to order Worth’s reserve brigade forward.162 However, reinforcements were closer at hand, as Quitman’s advance up the Tacubaya road met little resistance and went faster than expected. Quitman sent General James Shields’s brigade of New York, Pennsylvania, and North Carolinian volunteers to attack the hill from the south, thereby removing pressure from Pillow’s stalled attack.163 This brigade advanced up the hill under fire and stormed the college walls. While Mexican fire remained accurate and heavy, the Americans charged with fixed bayonets from multiple sides, seized the compound, and opened the way to Mexico City. Following the fall of Chapultepec, individual Mexican units continued to resist the American attack on the Belén and San Cosmé gates Bringing French Warfare to America

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Figure 2.4. The Battle of Chapultepec (Courtesy of the Department of History, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York)

of Mexico City, while Santa Anna’s officers called for him to withdraw the army to the east. Following a series of riots, the American army subjugated the capital by the afternoon of 14 September 1847. Once the capital fell, Santa Anna was unable to continue the war, making Scott’s campaign a decisive victory. One of the most common interpretations of the generalship of Winfield Scott was that he practiced an eighteenth-century style of maneuver and limited warfare, and not the more aggressive Napoleonic warfare.164 Nothing could be farther from the truth. Scott executed his Mexico City campaign in accordance with the fundamental elements of the French combat method, not eighteenth-century limited war. The campaign was offensive in 88

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every phase, designed to bring the enemy to battle, often culminating in a bayonet assault. Scott planned his envelopments not to avoid battle but to ensure a battle. Scott’s officers advised him to avoid the Chapultepec complex in favor of maneuver, but he remained fixed on destroying this garrison and decisively defeating Santa Anna. His plan was linear in the sense that he used an order of battle with several lines and then provided those lines with a reserve, but his divisions often operated outside of supporting distance of each other on that line, making it noncontiguous. The ability to change the direction of attack in response to a changing situation required an officer corps that could take initiative and employ a nondogmatic system of tactics. Half of Scott’s troops were volunteers and not regulars, and yet the ability of all American infantry to fight as skirmishers and line infantry was a product of their training and their tactical regulations. The conduct of the volunteers demonstrated the effectiveness of Scott’s Infantry Tactics in rapidly indoctrinating soldiers with the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. The Mexican-American War was a victory of that framework based on the fundamental elements of the French combat method.

Conclusion When taken as a whole, the intellectual changes in the American way of warfare from 1775 to 1848 were revolutionary. American warfare grew out of an Anglo military tradition and a history of colonial warfare, with all its assorted assumptions and ideas about war. Starting in 1808, the Republican War Department spent eight years attempting unsuccessfully to foist the French system of tactics onto the armies of the United States. There was no compelling reason for the officer corps to agree to adopt the French combat method, as the veterans of the American Revolution had experience only with the British military tradition, and no American officer was allowed to observe French operations during the wars of Napoleon. The more recent American experience with the British way of war during the first few years of the War of 1812 should have reinforced the effectiveness of that Anglo tradition. Additionally, most of the capable American officers were Federalists, and they perceived French influence as a tool of Republican domination, providing an incentive for continued resistance to the French system of tactics. The critical element in the adoption of the intellectual framework of the French combat method was the influence of Winfield Scott following his actions at the battles of Chippawa and Lundy’s Lane. The force of his perBringing French Warfare to America

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sonality and championship of the French system generated and institutionalized a consensus throughout the armies of the United States. This mirrored the experiences of scientific communities that replaced older paradigms with new and incompatible new ones.165 However, it required more than just Scott’s personality and the institutional power of the War Department to create a consensus that accepted the adoption of the French combat method into the American way of warfare. There was also an important cultural dimension to the process. Coinciding with the rise of Scott’s influence in the army was a growing American affinity for French culture. This affinity lowered cultural resistance to accepting a French system of tactics and its corresponding intellectual framework of the battlefield. It also increased the acceptability of French ideas and cultural concepts by making all things French important, valid, and correct. The growing exposure of Americans to the Napoleonic myth served to strengthen this feeling of French superiority concerning military affairs. Napoleon lent his exploits and reputation to increase the legitimacy of the French combat method adopted into American regulations. The decision to adopt the French system of tactics and its corresponding combat method by the Republican War Department was as much a cultural decision as it was a professional military decision. This new paradigm was disseminated and institutionalized in a remarkably consistent way throughout the army’s educational resources. These manifested themselves in two primary resources in the first half of the nineteenth century: regulations and the military academy. The intellectual framework of the battlefield taught through these two sources remained surprisingly consistent. The tactical regulations retained the organization and tactical system of the French Regulations of 1791 while updating the language for an American audience. These regulations taught the nondogmatic nature of their tactical doctrine and the importance of a standard infantry. The general regulations were instrumental in bringing the French combat method to America through their description of the intellectual framework on a hypothetical battlefield. This reinforced the fundamental elements taught through the tactical regulations and introduced the primacy of the offensive, the importance of combining the effects of the auxiliary arms to support the main attack, and a linear but noncontiguous understanding of the battlefield. The military and academic curriculum of West Point taught the same lessons to a generation of officers. Cadets drilled in the same regulations issued to the army, internalizing the French system of tactics. Academically, the engineer course served to teach these future officers how their system of tactics 90

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functioned on the battlefield. Using primarily Gay de Vernon’s text, cadets learned the intellectual framework of the battlefield through the deliberate study of historical examples and military theory. The fundamental elements of the French combat method pervaded the training, documents, and education of the army. The effectiveness of this indoctrination was evident across the battlefields of the Mexican-American War. Taylor’s and Scott’s armies used the fundamental elements of the French combat method to achieve victory after victory.

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3 American Adaptation of French Warfare, 1848–1865

Happening to be in Paris, near the end of 1851, a distinguished person did me the honor to ask my opinion as to whether recent improvements in fire-arms would cause any great modifications in the manner of making war. I replied that they would probably have an influence upon the details of tactics, but that, in the great strategic operations and the grand combinations of battles, victory would, now as ever, result from the application of the principles which had led to the success of great generals in all ages, of Alexander and Caesar as well as of Frederick and Napoleon. —Antoine Henri Jomini1

With a string of successes for the U.S. Army in Mexico, the fundamental elements of the French combat method remained at the center of the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. However, changes in technology led to a reevaluation of the American system of tactics and general regulations in the 1850s. The War Department updated its tactical regulations to include the rifled musket in Hardee’s Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics. It also authorized new general regulations that reintroduced sections concerning combat and battle. At West Point, Dennis Hart Mahan produced the first truly American work on the military art through the publication of his classic Out-Post, which marked the beginning of a tradition of American military thought. The stage seemed set for another intellectual revolution, with its corresponding new paradigm of war. Yet the American officer corps remained committed to the French combat method and used it to integrate the new technology and military thought into the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. From 1848 through 1865, the regulations, educational textbooks and curricula, and battlefield operations remained remarkably consistent in their application of that intellectual framework based on the fundamental elements of the French combat method. |

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The U.S. Army Regulations, 1848–1865 From Scott to Hardee: American Tactics and the Rifled Musket With the introduction of the rifled musket, the percussion cap, and the minié ball, the War Department began a review of tactical doctrine and weapons procurement in the 1850s. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis authorized a review committee in 1854 to update the army’s tactical regulations in response to these advances in technology. Davis chose Lieutenant Colonel William J. Hardee, because of his reputation as an expert on American and European tactics, to preside over the regulations board with the mandate to revise Infantry Tactics.2 Hardee fought with distinction in the Seminole and Mexican-American Wars and was teaching tactics at West Point for a year when Davis chose him to head the regulations committee. The War Department adopted Hardee’s revision and authorized Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics in two volumes on 29 March 1855.3 It represented the first attempt to adapt American regulations to changes in military technology.4 Scott disapproved of Hardee’s revision and declared it “abridged and emasculated down to utter uselessness” when compared to his 1835 Infantry Tactics.5 However, many military professionals agreed with General Ulysses S. Grant, who stated that Hardee’s Tactics were “common sense and the progress of the age applied to Scott’s system.”6 A detailed comparison of Scott’s and Hardee’s regulations shows more continuity than change in the American system of tactics. This was because Hardee integrated advances in military technology into American tactics in accordance with the fundamental elements of the French combat method. Hardee followed the American tradition of reorganizing, simplifying, and editing previous regulations. The majority of his changes focused on updating the language of the regulations for a new generation of American officers and soldiers. For example, both regulations contained sections describing the principles of alignment. Scott’s regulations stated that to align the rank, commanders “seeing nearly the whole rank aligned will command: front,” while the 1855 regulations stated that commanders “seeing the rank well aligned will command: front.”7 These commands produced the same effect on the infantry formations and reflected a change in language but not in content. In some instances, the 1855 regulation eliminated entire sections of Scott’s regulations. Hardee removed Scott’s section entitled “Remarks on the Principles of Alignment,” which explained the importance of alignment on formations on and off the battlefield.8 The other major revision of the Hardee work concerned the explanatory plates. Scott’s Tactics included plates at the back of 94

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every volume and referred to them throughout the work. The Hardee regulations inserted the plates when appropriate throughout the schools, which greatly improved the readability and usefulness of the regulations. These changes made Hardee’s regulations easier to instruct, explain, and implement, which in turn kept American tactics nondogmatic. While important, these changes remained consistent with the army’s intellectual framework. In addition to simplifying existing tactics, Hardee created doctrinal solutions that solved the problems of new technology. He adapted the manual of arms for the movements required by the rifled musket. This included new procedures for loading in nine times, which replaced the twelve times it took to load the smoothbore musket.9 He also developed techniques for additional loading and firing positions. Hardee provided commands and movements to control loading and firing from the kneeling and prone positions.10 Firing from these positions increased the effectiveness of the musket in both offensive and defensive combat. The greater accuracy and range of the rifled musket allowed defenders to hit attacking infantry formations at greater ranges than with the smoothbore musket. This exposed attacking formations to enemy fire for longer periods of time, causing more casualties and slowing down the attack. Hardee counteracted this problem by increasing the rate that infantry formations marched, thereby reducing their exposure time to enemy fire. Scott’s infantry marched and fought at a common time of 90 steps per minute and a quick time of 110 steps per minute, while the skirmishers used the double quick time of 140 steps per minute and the run, which could not be estimated.11 Hardee maintained Scott’s common and quick times and increased the double quick from 165 to 180 steps per minute for short periods of time, eliminating the need for the run.12 To achieve faster speeds, Hardee encouraged commanders to accustom their troops to the double quick time during training.13 Hardee believed that marching faster would expose attacking infantry to the same number of bullets as Scott’s infantry faced from the smoothbore musket. Faster movement, more rapid and accurate musket fire, and an increase in physical endurance enhanced the offensive capability of the infantry in light of technological advancements. These solutions also allowed Hardee to address new technology in ways that did not require a different intellectual framework that challenged the fundamental elements of the French combat method. In addition to increasing the offensive capability of the line infantry, Hardee increased the integration of the line and light infantry tactics. Skirmishers continued to “clear the way for and protect the advance of the main corps,” a standard infantry duty.14 The new regulations also retained a linear American Adaptation of French Warfare

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deployment for the line of skirmishers, with a reserve positioned in the center of the line in supporting distance.15 This mirrored the French concepts of using a linear but noncontiguous formation and integrating the skirmishers into the main battle area. He also introduced a new organization inside the platoon called the “comrades in battle” to provide more control over skirmishers. These comrades in battle consisted of four soldiers who habitually operated together on the skirmish line.16 They allowed commanders to exercise more control over their skirmishers and facilitated the movement into more traditional formations. Hardee also provided skirmishers with techniques to deploy into more regular formations such as the column or square.17 The regulations added these organizations and movements to increase commanders’ ability to direct fires and to collapse the skirmish line into the main infantry formation on the battlefield. These changes demonstrated a continued commitment to an infantry trained for all missions, whether line infantry or skirmishers. Hardee’s Tactics included the “school of the battalion” in a second volume that included no changes in the content and very little change in the format from previous regulations. The exceptions consisted of small changes in the language but not the spirit of the tactics, similar to changes made in the first volume. With only two volumes to guide its tactical deployments, the army had to rely on the third volume of Scott’s Infantry Tactics for the “school of the brigade” and “evolutions of the line.” With the use of Scott’s Infantry Tactics for the brigade drill, it continued to influence American tactics until the next major regulations review occurred under General Silas Casey in 1862. Due to the impossibility of using Hardee’s Tactics following his resignation and commissioning in the Confederate army, the War Department ordered a revision of all three volumes of Infantry Tactics to bring much needed uniformity to the tactical deployment of the Union armies. Casey did this with his Infantry Tactics of 1862.

Silas Casey and the 1862 Infantry Tactics Silas Casey graduated from the Military Academy in 1826 and fought with distinction in both the Seminole and Mexican-American Wars before serving on the frontier of the American Northwest in the 1850s. He exhibited an interest in tactics early and was a member of Hardee’s regulations board in 1854–55 before the war. He was in charge of the training and discipline of volunteer troops for most of 1861 before commanding an infantry division in the battle of Fair Oaks in 1862.18 Upon returning to Washington, D.C., he 96

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Figure 3.1. Hardee’s Skirmisher Deployment. This plate from Hardee’s Tactics shows the deployment from column into the skirmish order. This skirmish order is a series of noncontiguous formations deployed in depth. (Reprinted from William Hardee, Rifle and Infantry Tactics: For the Exercise and Manoeuvres of Troops When Acting as Light Infantry or Riflemen, vol. 1 [Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo, 1855], 212)

resumed his training duties, finished his three-volume revision of Infantry Tactics, and presided over the regulations board that led to its adoption on 11 August 1862. Casey used a preface to provide context to the new regulations. He acknowledged the debt that American tactical regulations owed to the French by linking the two major revisions in Infantry Tactics in 1835 and 1855 to corresponding editions of French regulations in 1831 and 1845.19 This explicitly established a relationship between French and American tactics. Just as French tactics influenced American tactics, Casey characterized his infantry tactics as a synthesis of Scott’s and Hardee’s works. Casey copied large portions of his regulations directly from the two preceding texts. As Hardee only addressed the schools of the soldier through the battalion, Casey made only superficial changes in language and format. Explanatory plates remained embedded within the text, with images of soldiers demonstrating the movements who wore the emblem of the Army of the Potomac instead of Hardee’s French-inspired demonstrators.20 Aside from these minor changes, Casey institutionalized Hardee’s revisions in the first two volumes of his work. However, Casey’s third volume contained his most important changes. American Adaptation of French Warfare

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Casey’s regulations created a new system for the deployment and maneuver of brigade-sized units or higher that synthesized Scott’s system with battlefield experiences and advances in technology. Casey began by redesigning the organization and purpose of the brigade. Scott used an eight-battalion brigade as his standard formation, even though the brigade could consist of any number of battalions. As the battalion was the army’s major tactical unit, the size of the brigade mattered little to effective command and control on the battlefield. Casey changed the standard organization of the brigade to a maximum of four battalions, with any number of brigades forming the division.21 This four-battalion brigade became the major tactical unit of the Civil War and was at the heart of Casey’s system. These smaller brigades were more flexible than larger eight-battalion brigades and maximized the effectiveness of the new rifled muskets. To demonstrate the importance of skirmishers to this new brigade, Casey designated two companies per battalion as skirmisher companies.22 These companies assisted the movement and maneuver of the battalion but also provided additional manpower in regular linear formations when necessary. Although the actual size of auxiliary arms attached to the brigade depended on battlefield circumstances, Casey included a standard cavalry and artillery contingent into the brigade organization. Casey attached one battery of eight guns and four squadrons of cavalry numbering 800 troopers to the brigade.23 Including artillery and cavalry into the brigade organization institutionalized the importance of integrating the effects of all three arms and skirmishers onto the main battlefield. Casey recommended formations and deployments for this new brigade that kept the French combat method at the center of American tactics. He increased the intervals between battalions in the brigades to 22 paces and the intervals between brigades to 150 paces.24 This significantly expanded the frontage of the Union division and institutionalized a more noncontiguous order of battle. Additionally, when brigades formed either a single or double line in the order of battle, the lead battalions remained deployed into linear formations, while the battalions in the second row deployed in standard attack columns.25 This technique was consistent with the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield but also reflected an intimate knowledge of Napoleonic tactics, as they favored flexibility and the offensive. Casey also defined the primary purpose of brigade artillery as weakening the enemy in front of the main assault and included several paragraphs describing the importance of developing a rapid coup d’oeil for commanders deploying their brigades on the battlefield.26 These last two concepts brought more of the fundamental elements of the French combat method into the tactical 98

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regulations, whereas before they appeared only in general regulations and the West Point curriculum.

The General Army Regulations, 1847–1865 The general regulations continued to standardize army administration in war and peace between the Mexican-American and Civil Wars. The War Department produced the General Regulations of 1847, which updated the prewar 1835 edition. Like its predecessor, it included none of the sections that described the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. The 1847 regulations had no table of contents but only a subject index to navigate the document.27 Much like the regulations of 1835, these general regulations were no longer meant to be read cover to cover but instead became only a reference guide for the administration of the army. In this edition, there appeared new sections pertaining to the organization of geographic military departments and the subordination of military officers to civilian control.28 These were perhaps responses to the civil-military relations problems that occurred as a result of the Mexican-American War, with its political generals and territorial expansion. As the regular army maintained a strong presence on the frontier both before and after the war, the regulations covered the administration of out-posts and interacting with Indian populations but nothing concerning irregular warfare or Indian fighting.29 However, the majority of the regulations was copied directly from previous editions. Like the tactical regulations, the War Department of the 1850s ordered a revision of these regulations. In 1857, the War Department adopted new general army regulations that harked back to the General Regulations of 1821. Many of the administrative sections of the 1857 regulations were directly influenced by the previous edition, such as the “Care of Fortifications,” “Parades,” “Guard Duty,” and “Marching” sections, with only minor modifications in language.30 However, the 1857 regulations had more of a battlefield focus. All the administrative paragraphs were moved to the front, all the paragraphs devoted to the organization and functioning of an army at war appeared in the middle, and the chapters pertaining to the various army departments such as quartermaster and subsistence were placed at the end. The 1857 regulations placed all the sections pertaining to the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield in a single section entitled “Troops in Campaign.” It retained the sections concerning encampments, garrison, and outpost duty from the previous regulations. Additionally, several important sections removed in 1835 returned to American Adaptation of French Warfare

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the general regulations. The decision to change the orientation of the general regulations seemed consistent with the decision to review Scott’s Tactics in 1855 in a War Department that wanted to refocus the army regulations on European-style warfare and decisive battle. There were several sections in the General Regulations of 1821 that clearly established a conceptualization of the army’s intellectual framework with elements taken directly from the French regulations and incorporated by Winfield Scott’s regulations board. These fundamental elements of the French combat method entered American doctrine through a series of sections entitled “Battles,” “Sieges,” and “Defense of Places.”31 The General Regulations of 1857 brought all these sections back into service. A comparison of the applicable sections in both regulations revealed a surprising number of similarities. Both regulations stated that the offensive was always preferable to the defensive, that armies should be formed for battle in lines with a reserve, and that all battlefield dispositions were the responsibility of the commander. The attack should also “be made with a superior force on the decisive point of the enemy’s position.”32 This last statement remained consistent not only with the 1821 document but also with the works of Jomini and Mahan. Overall, the 1857 regulations board took sections from its 1821 predecessor and modified them for use primarily by updating the language of the text. For example, the 1821 regulations stated that “those small detachments left behind in advancing, will rejoin the guard when other troops come up to them,” while in the 1857 regulations, “detachments left by the advanced guard to hold points in the rear rejoin it when other troops come up.”33 The advanced guard played the same role on the battlefield for both regulations. There were also new sections concerning troops on the battlefield, such as “Detachments,” “Reconnaissances,” and “Partisans and Flankers.”34 These paragraphs incorporated new capabilities from Hardee’s regulations and applied them more generally to the battlefield. They bore the mark of Mahan and mirrored some of the more basic ideas from his published works.35 By returning elements of the army’s intellectual framework, the regulations of 1857 reaffirmed the army’s commitment to the French combat method and provided a distillation of the principles taught at West Point. Even with more of a battlefield focus, the War Department revised the general regulations as war became more likely in the early 1860s. The first revision of the general regulations occurred in 1861. This revision copied most of its paragraphs directly from the 1857 regulations. The sections on warfare and the administration of the army at war were only slightly revised. For example, the section concerning guards and outposts was significantly 100

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longer and included much of the information found in Mahan’s Elementary Treatise. There was a new section detailing the journals that commanders were required to keep when in new territory on campaign.36 The “Battles” section was a direct copy from the previous regulations and ensured that the Union armies in the first years of the war had access to a thorough description of the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. The second wartime revision of the general regulations occurred in 1863 and was more important for the way in which the army viewed the battlefield. The 1863 regulations had the benefit of two years of war to update the army’s intellectual framework with lessons learned from hard-fought battlefield experience. This was the opportunity for the army as a whole to change the way in which it visualized the battlefield, marching, baggage trains, sieges, or the defense of places to take advantage of the lessons and experiences learned throughout the war. Instead, the General Regulations of 1863 was an exact reprint of the 1861 edition, updated only with an appendix of changes in the articles of war made in the first two years of the war.37 The sections concerning combat remained essentially unchanged since the 1857 edition. The general regulations taught the same battlefield framework that started the war. This continued dedication to the intellectual framework influenced by the French combat method in the Union regulations mirrored similar writings both in and out of the American military.

West Point: Teaching Cadets the Science and Art of War Cadet Instruction in the Science of War In the years before the Mexican-American War, cadets received as much indoctrination in the system of tactics used by the regular army as they did in the principles of military engineering. Following Gay de Vernon’s statements on the subject, the academy taught that the two subjects as if they were intimately related. With a large number of combat veterans coming back to the academy to instruct cadets in the classroom and on the drill field in the 1850s, the focus on preparing cadets for the rigors of nineteenth-century warfare continued unabated. Cadet instruction in tactics consisted of two periods of instruction: the academic year and the summer encampment. The one focused on the theoretical basis of the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield and the instruction of tactical drill, while the other allowed cadets to put their theory and drill to work in a field environment. The academic year began in September and continued through May, and during this period cadet tactical instruction consisted of theoretical American Adaptation of French Warfare

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classroom instruction and drill according to the army’s tactical regulations. Despite Hardee’s and Casey’s revisions, West Point used editions of Scott’s Tactics through 1870 for their infantry drill instruction.38 Through the cadet drill, generations of officers learned Scott’s Infantry Tactics and carried the experience with them onto the battlefields of the Civil War. Theoretical instruction provided by the Department of Tactics came from the army’s tactical and general regulations governing the infantry, artillery, and cavalry.39 This instruction required cadets to learn the commands and movements of the system in an academic setting. Just as in all their other courses, cadets had to pass recitations on tactics twice a year to demonstrate their mastery of the required material. Reinforcing this instruction was a weekly regimen of marching, drilling, and parading, which served to reinforce the lessons of the classroom.40 Beginning in their first year with instruction in the school of the soldier, cadets drilled their way through Infantry Tactics over the course of their four-year education. While parading provided physical reinforcement of the tactical movements and maneuvers, only a small number of cadets actually rose to ranks high enough to get the added benefit of issuing commands and marching battalions. However, whether they drilled the formation or drilled within the formation, parading conducted during the academic year played an important part in the military education of cadets. In addition to the drill field, the academy prepared cadets for modern warfare through instruction in a variety of individual military skills. Some of these skills were physical in nature, such as fencing and riding, while others such as ordinance and explosives were more intellectual. Cadets spent time each academic year in the fencing academy of the Department of Tactics learning to use a sword. Toward the late 1850s, the fencing academy also began to provide instruction in the bayonet.41 During the winter, fencing and bayonet exercises replaced outdoor drill, as did riding exercises. With large halls available, riding exercises became an important part of the upper-class cadet schedule.42 Fencing and riding stood cadets in good stead in the cavalry, infantry, and every other branch of service. Cadets also received artillery instruction, most of which consisted of the study of artillery regulations for the underclass cadets. It was not until the first-class year that cadets worked in the artillery laboratory during the winter and spring, making gunnery and ordinance instruction as much a part of the cadet curriculum as the science and art of war.43 However, artillery drills and infantry tactics were not the only lessons reinforced through practical application that cadets received prior to graduation. 102

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Even though cadets pitched tents on the plain across from their barracks, summer encampment was a time for learning about the regular army. In the mornings, cadets fired cannons and learned artillery tactics of the individual gun and battery. The more senior cadets drilled the new cadets in the emplacement and direction of artillery every morning. In the afternoons, the cadets formed into battalions for hours of infantry maneuvers before dinner and taps.44 These infantry maneuvers constituted the only real infantry training cadets received at West Point. During encampment, cadets put the parading and recitations in infantry tactics during the school year into a more practical environment and experienced how the pieces of the intellectual framework unfolded and worked together on the open fields of the academy plain. Cadets drilled in their nondogmatic tactics and deployed into the lines and skirmish order used in the regular army. The senior cadets drilling the battalion demonstrated the infinite variety of movements available to commanders using Scott’s Tactics. They learned the proper use of artillery and cavalry in support of infantry maneuvers, albeit at a small scale. Thus, West Point familiarized cadets with the fundamental elements of the French combat method in the army’s tactical and general regulations through drill and tactical exercises.

The Birth of American Military Theory: Mahon and Halleck While European military theorists had the benefit of the Napoleonic Wars to shape their thought and writings, it was not until after the MexicanAmerican War that America’s foremost military theorist of the nineteenth century, Dennis Hart Mahan, generated his own treatise on war and began an American tradition of military thought. However, European writers and the fundamental elements of the French combat method continued to influence this new tradition. Following the war, Mahan completed his revision of the military engineering curriculum and began to write a series of textbooks to support the new course material. Mahan continued to use Composition of Armies, Strategy, and A Treatise on Field Fortification, with their focus on the primacy of the offensive and the organization of the infantry-based army. These works familiarized cadets with the military thinking of Jomini adapted to the American landscape. More important, the French combat method continued to influence Mahan in and out of the classroom. In 1847, he published his most thorough work on war, entitled An Elementary Treatise on Advanced-Guard, Out-Post, and Detachment Service of Troops. Rapidly integrated into his engineering course, this work, and its second edition in American Adaptation of French Warfare

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1862, institutionalized the army’s intellectual framework and elements of the French combat method in officer education at the military academy through the Civil War. Mahan wrote his Elementary Treatise as a textbook for cadet instruction in the theoretical and practical elements of the military art. He combined the American system of tactics with the fundamental elements of the French combat method to produce a complete conceptualization of the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. Mahan began with an introduction to the military art that provided a historical context to the French combat method. His chapters included a general approach to war, combat, organization, and maneuvering and then transitioned to a more detailed description of minor tactics and smaller formations. His treatise supported the military education for generations of professional officers and served as a guide for the multitude of amateur officers and men that composed the Civil War armies. Mahon used his introduction to highlight the importance of the fundamental elements of the French combat method through the use of historical examples. He defined this endeavor as a history of the evolution of the military art from antiquity to the “epoch of the French Revolution, and its sequel.”45 Mahan began with the offensive capabilities of the Greeks and Romans. He moved rapidly over the Feudal period to the age of gunpowder and Gustavus Adolfus, focusing on the importance of discipline and drill. From this period, he praised the mobile organizations and offensive capability of Gustavus’s armies.46 The flintlock musket and bayonet characterized the wars of Louis XIV, and Mahan criticized Frederick the Great for not taking advantage of rapid marching or bayonet charges.47 Stagnation gave way to innovation as the French Revolution produced a new kind of warfare, with clouds of citizen-soldier skirmishers who covered attack columns that scattered the lines of the ancien régime with the bayonet. Once out of danger, French generals brought discipline back to the armies, causing the skirmishers and column attacks to become more deliberate and powerful. To these French armies came Napoleon, who used these skirmishers and columns to destroy and scatter his enemies in a single decisive blow.48 Mahan’s narrative described the creation of the French combat method and highlighted its fundamental elements. Rooted in antiquity and realized through the French Revolution, every aspect of the army’s intellectual framework had its beginnings in the past. Thomas Kuhn described this phenomenon as the natural reordering of history by the new paradigm, in this case the French combat method. Following this introductory chapter, the rest of Mahan’s Elementary Treatise demonstrated how the maneuvers and techniques taught through 104

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the tactical and general regulations worked together to achieve victory on the battlefield. Mahan devoted an entire chapter to the general characteristics of American tactics. He began by describing its major elements, such as the effective use of marching, attack columns, the continued use of lines of firing, and a nondogmatic approach. The order of battle for modern armies organized into brigades, divisions, and corps deployed into two or three main lines. This was a predominantly infantry army because only the infantry had the power to fight in all grounds against all the other combatant arms, and “upon it is based the strength of all others.”49 The infantry soldiers in this army all received the same training, because although it was easier to master a single branch of knowledge, it “might be often found inconvenient at the least, if infantry were not able to perform all of the functions required of it.”50 Mahan then described the organization and purposes of the cavalry and artillery in the modern army and how they supported the infantry. Throughout this chapter, Mahan directly recognized the French influence on American tactics. He also described French tactics as a corporate effort by the French officer corps.51 This corporate effort resembled the consensus required for the adoption of a new paradigm. Intellectually, this chapter provided the French foundation of the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. Mahan also covered offensive and defensive formations. He considered the principal tactical formation to consist of an advanced guard, a main body, and a reserve.52 The linear character of this general formation was familiar to military professionals and cadets through the army’s general regulations, while at the same time Mahan emphasized the flexibility of its noncontiguous nature. He stated that this basic linear formation was used in the defense and the attack. In the defense, the advanced guard disrupted the enemy as skirmishers and retreated into the main body until the enemy attack faltered when the entire order of battle counterattacked with a bayonet charge. In the attack, the advanced guard made contact with the enemy as skirmishers and covered the attack columns of the main body. The main body then attacked the enemy in either lines or attack columns, using either fire or the bayonet.53 Mahan began what was to become a traditional American principle, that the primary purpose of both offensive and defensive operations was the offensive destruction of the enemy. This conceptualization of the battlefield remained consistent with the “Battles” section of the general regulations and provided a more complete understanding of the army’s intellectual framework. Elementary Treatise also included a large section on the importance of terrain and fortification to the military art. He discussed the importance of coup American Adaptation of French Warfare

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d’oeil to the successful commander, using the example of Napoleon to define the concept. From coup d’oeil, Mahan expounded on the importance of terrain and position in the defense. But the defensive position was only useful if it facilitated a successful counterattack with the bayonet.54 The attack of defensive positions followed the same general form as previously described and also culminated with the bayonet. By making the objective of both the attack and defense the offensive defeat of the enemy, Mahan emphasized the importance of offensive operations and the bayonet to achieving victory. This section also remained consistent with the principles of A Treatise on Field Fortification. The remaining chapters on reconnaissance, detachments, convoys, and surprises and ambuscades applied the fundamental elements of the French combat method to the minor tactics of small-unit actions at the junior officer level.55 While the first part of the book inculcated the cadets with the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield, the second part prepared them to operate within that framework as junior officers. Both these parts filled a need in the education of officers who would command small units in scattered garrisons on the frontier as well as military operations on a grand scale in the future. Mahan’s Elementary Treatise remained unchanged through several different editions until demand created by the Civil War prompted him to produce a new expanded edition. In 1862, he published Advanced Guard, Out-Post, and Detachment Service of Troops, which contained the entirety of the original Elementary Treatise and three new chapters on strategy.56 Commonly referred to as Out-Post, the first new chapter, entitled “Principles of Strategy and Grand Tactics,” outlined the principles of modern strategy, using Napoleonic examples to demonstrate those principles. It began with a fiftypage essay covering those definitions and elements that made up the principles of modern strategy and then fifty pages of historical case studies to demonstrate the efficacy of those principles.57 Mahan presented his strategic principles with an American perspective, but the ideas themselves were not revolutionary and closely resembled the corresponding sections in Jomini’s Art of War.58 Mahan spent considerable time describing defensive and offensive campaigns. He considered defensive campaigns only effective when they disrupted the enemy’s attack and allowed for a rapid transition to the offensive. Offensive campaigns remained the only operations that led to decisive results.59 In all, these strategic principles remained consistent with the fundamental elements of the French combat method, even as they covered these topics in much greater detail than did any of Mahan’s previous works. The next two new chapters, entitled “Battles” and “Army Organization,” were 106

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abridged versions of the material found in Mahan’s lithographed pamphlets Composition of Armies and Strategy and contained no new information. However, their inclusion into Out-Post truly made this work Mahan’s complete treatise on the art of war and included all of this thought on the subject. The only other major American work of military theory prior to the Civil War came from one of Mahan’s protégés, Henry Halleck. Mahan identified Halleck early as having a strong intellect and allowed him to teach some of the engineering classes while still a cadet. Graduating in 1839, Halleck attracted the attention of Winfield Scott in 1843 with his impressive report to the Senate on seacoast defenses and their importance to national defense. This earned him a trip to Europe to study French military and fortifications. Upon his return, the Lowell Institute in Boston invited him to give a series of lectures on the military art. He turned those lectures into the Elements of Military Art and Science, which had a limited print run in 1846.60 In the preface, Halleck called his work a synthesis of the best principles and practices that encapsulated the current state of the military profession. He created an extremely general survey of strategic principles, fortification, and army organization, supported by the use of historical examples. Halleck spent the majority of the work discussing in general terms national military policy with regard to just war theory, frontier and seacoast fortification, and military organization.61 Additionally, he was meticulous in including the definitions of military terms, from strategy and tactics to castramentation and convoys. Due to the work’s general nature, it was more useful to the military amateur than to the military professional. However, its principles and definitions remained consistent with Mahan’s works and the fundamental elements of the French combat method. The offensive was still the preferred type of operation, the infantry received the same instruction and equipment regardless of line or light designation and remained the most important combatant arm, and the standard order of battle consisted of two or more lines and a reserve.62 Although Halleck’s work covered several subjects not present in Mahan’s writings, mainly sea defenses and just war theory, he remained committed to the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield and the fundamental elements of the French combat method. In 1859, he produced a new edition of the work and added an appendix of notes in which he commented on the Mexican-American and Crimean Wars.63 Throughout the commentary, he remained convinced of his earlier principles, and nothing he saw or read about these conflicts caused him to change his dedication to the army’s intellectual framework. This 1859 edition was reprinted every year of the Civil War and remained unchanged by current events. American Adaptation of French Warfare

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With Mahan’s Elementary Treatise influencing cadets and Halleck’s Elements presenting a synthesis of military theory to the public, the army’s intellectual framework had a body of supporting military theory. These writings provided a compilation of the latest thought on the principles of strategy and operations with an American vocabulary and perspective. In addition to these strategic principles demonstrated through the use of Napoleonic examples, Mahan explained in great detail the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield and provided in-depth arguments supporting its effectiveness and validity. This was important because it codified these elements into cadet instruction and created an accessible format for the thousands of militia and volunteer officers who made up the majority of the armies that fought in the Civil War with no formal military education. Mahan and Halleck remained popular with military and civilian readers throughout the war, and through those readers the fundamental elements of the French combat method shaped the battles of the Civil War.

Understanding Warfare through a French Paradigm With only a limited amount of Napoleonic writings, newspaper articles, memoirs, and histories available prior to the Mexican-American War, the Napoleonic myth of military genius was just beginning to become a powerful influence on American culture. Following the war, and perhaps because of the war, French culture in general and the Napoleonic legend in particular exerted influence in cultural ways both military and civilian. These influences kept the American way of warfare committed to the fundamental elements of the French combat method, despite numerous events and experience that encouraged changing to a different set of operating principles.

Napoleonic Influence on American Culture Although the Napoleonic legend became codified in the 1820s, it was not until the 1850s that Napoleon became a cultural icon in civilian and military circles across America. On both sides of the Civil War, Napoleon became synonymous with military excellence and glory. As interest in military issues increased approaching the 1860s, newspapers and magazines turned their French interests to the Napoleonic era. Presidents and presidential candidates showered themselves in Napoleonic imagery and references. Participants and observers of battles during the war used references to the Napoleonic era when describing events or in analyzing them. This Napoleonic 108

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language comes through even stronger in writings by war participants in magazines and memoirs, both military and civilian, following the war. The Civil War generation believed in the Napoleonic legend as the measuring tool for military genius and the best way to understand warfare. The American commitment to the Napoleonic legend remained strong throughout the war, unaffected by events on the battlefield. Newspapers and periodicals throughout the war carried a reverence for the Napoleonic legend to both military and civilian audiences. In 1863, a weekly military newspaper called the Army and Navy Journal began reporting on a variety of topics pertaining to the war. The paper was focused on the discipline and training of regular formations, but there was a clear French bias in its writing and analysis. In the first issue, only weeks after the battle of Gettysburg, there were several articles that referenced Napoleon’s use of cavalry and artillery, and he was included in an article describing great military commanders.64 Along with reviews of French military works from authors such as Marmont and Jomini, this newspaper explicitly linked Napoleon with military greatness and American warfare with the French. In January 1864, a new monthly literary magazine called the United States Service Magazine, focused on the military art, began educating the public on the advances in military thought and doctrine as it pertained to the war. More intellectual than the Army and Navy Journal, it explicitly connected French military thought and the Napoleonic example to the American system of war in its current state. One of the articles went so far as to criticize the Union generals because they were not Napoleonic enough in their campaigns and battles.65 By the end of the war, the United States Service Magazine provided its readers with a good education in the major literary works in the military art, predominantly from French sources, and the character, command, and battles of Napoleon. By making Napoleon synonymous with military genius and American warfare, these periodicals helped to create a large demand for military literature throughout the Civil War. The power of Napoleonic imagery was not lost on American presidents from 1848 through the 1870s. During Zachary Taylor’s presidential campaign, he commissioned scarves designed to commemorate his prowess on the battlefields of the Mexican-American War. The scarves featured pictures of Taylor’s battles surrounding his portrait in the center in a classic Napoleonic pose that included a bicorn hat and his right hand halfway inside his uniform jacket.66 This image deliberately projected the Napoleonic legend of military prowess and genius onto Taylor as he campaigned for the presidency. When visiting the United States Military Academy in 1862, President American Adaptation of French Warfare

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Abraham Lincoln was escorted through the Napoleon gallery, with painted maps of the Napoleonic campaigns on the walls. Impressed with the maps, Lincoln asked Superintendent Bowman to commission an artist to replicate the maps on canvas so that he could have access to them in the Oval Office.67 These maps, and the Napoleonic history that they depicted, became a part of the military education of Lincoln. Similarly, Confederate President Jefferson Davis appealed to the Napoleonic myth. When Sherman ravaged his way across Georgia, Davis used Napoleon’s failure in Russia at the hands of Cossack raiders to encourage his own partisans to fight the Union troops.68 Even Grant, who denied ever studying Jomini or the campaigns of Napoleon, was buried in a tomb that closely resembled Napoleon’s tomb in Paris. These presidents surrounded themselves with Napoleonic imagery and language to impress on the American people their own military prowess and ability. Officers and civilians used Napoleonic references in a similar way when describing the military operations of the Civil War in letters and reports. They used Napoleon’s operations in occupation, engineering, marching, and concentration of forces to describe their operations and to lend legitimacy to their decisions. There were several usages of Napoleon’s movement across the Alps in 1800 to encourage faster marches over difficult terrain.69 Several commanders used the concentrations at Austerlitz and Ulm to describe their plans to subordinates.70 General Montgomery Meigs used Napoleon’s marching ability at Jena to describe the importance of speed on the battlefield to his subordinates.71 In all these situations, the use of Napoleonic language clearly communicated intent and lent military legitimacy to the user. Officers also used Napoleonic references to communicate in nonbattle situations. Southern sympathizers used Napoleon’s treatment at the hands of the British to plead for better treatment of President Davis.72 When justifying Union activities to combat guerrilla warfare in Georgia, the French experience in Spain became an important example.73 In addition to the utility of Napoleonic references in describing operations to subordinates, they also became a popular way to praise or criticize the actions of officers and commanders. Reports and memoirs of battles are filled with comparisons between Napoleonic heroes and Civil War personages. When defending Meade at Gettysburg, Colonel James Biddle likened his moves to that of Wellington and Blücher at Waterloo, using their genius to respond to criticism. Thomas Jordan, General Beauregard’s adjutant general, defended the order he wrote for Shiloh against critics by stating that he used Napoleon’s guidance and Soult’s orders at Waterloo as the model for the orders that day.74 The pervasive use of Napoleonic language throughout the Civil War demonstrated its powerful cultural influence among military and civilian society. 110

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Napoleon at West Point Through the 1840s, cadets became familiar with Napoleon and his campaigns in a way that mirrored the growing fascination in American culture. After the Mexican-American War, Napoleon became a central part of the intellectual life at West Point, both in and out of the classroom. This served to reinforce the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield and the army regulations as they went through a revision process. The Napoleonic myth also validated the fundamental elements of the French combat method and reinforced the dominance of French influence on the American way of warfare. Published just before the war, Halleck’s Elements of Military Art and Science provided the first work of American military theory that used predominantly Napoleonic examples to demonstrate strategic principles. Although not a course text, this work featured prominently in the West Point library and was imminently available to cadets. Halleck repeatedly used the Marengo campaign as an example and even included a map of it in the plates that accompanied the book.75 When taken cumulatively, these examples created for the reader a complete description of the campaign. Following his chapter on strategy, Halleck included a professional reading list of thirty-two books, of which twenty-six were either written by generals of the Napoleonic era or about the Napoleonic Wars.76 This book list made the study of Napoleon synonymous with the current state of the military art. Through these works cadets became familiar with the Napoleonic legend and learned to link the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield with the campaigns of Napoleon. American military writing continued using Napoleonic examples to teach grand tactics and strategy throughout the Civil War. Although Mahan used Napoleonic examples in the classroom, it was not until the publication Out-Post in 1862 that Napoleonic history became integral to his engineering course. In his new chapter on strategy, Mahan included detailed narratives of Napoleon’s 1796 first Italian campaign, the 1805 Ulm-Austerlitz campaign, and the campaign of 1814.77 In all three campaigns, Napoleon fought numerically superior enemies using defensive operations to facilitate offensive maneuver. Mahan referred to this as the “defensive-offensive,” which allowed him to demonstrate the effectiveness of all his principles of war in a single example.78 At the same time, he produced a historical narrative of the French combat method in action. Despite more current experience from the battles of the first year of the Civil War, Mahan remained committed to the fundaAmerican Adaptation of French Warfare

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mental elements of the French combat method and could find no more powerful an example of those principles than the campaigns of Napoleon. While cadets studied Napoleon in the classroom, the faculty began to study his campaigns as a form of professional development. In the 1850s, many officers who served in the Mexican-American War received orders assigning them to the faculty at West Point. With the supervision and support of Mahan, officers and select cadets formed the “Napoleon Club” to continue their professional education in the army’s intellectual framework through the study of Napoleon.79 As the president of the club, Mahan assigned the members campaigns and battles to study. The topics for these paper presentations were comprehensive and included such battles and campaigns as Waterloo, the 1796 Italian campaign, the battle of Wagram, the invasion of Russia, the siege of Mantua, and Sir John Moore’s retreat to Corunna in 1809.80 The officers and cadets researched and prepared papers which they submitted to the club before leading a discussion about the researched campaign.81 These presented papers provided the opportunity for the officers and cadets not only to learn the details of Napoleon’s greatest campaigns but also to analyze the events with fellow professionals to gain a greater understanding of the military art. They offered historical examples of the French system; the offensive nature of Napoleonic warfare; the flexible tactics determined at the lowest possible level; the lack of specialized infantry; the integration of the auxiliary arms of artillery, cavalry, and skirmishers onto the main battle area; and the aggressive use of reserves. This voluntary club provided a rare opportunity for military postgraduate education. George Thomas, John Gibbon, Fitz John Porter, Dabney Maury, George Cullum, John Reynolds, and George McClellan were some of the officers who were members of the club.82 These officers went on to serve as general officers on both sides of the Civil War. The postgraduate study of Napoleon made its impact on the battlefields of the Civil War through the officers who studied under the tutelage of Mahan during their tour on the faculty at West Point. To support the studies of both cadets and officers stationed at West Point, the library grew significantly and expanded both its military art and Napoleonic holdings. The West Point collection numbered 15,500 volumes in 1853 and averaged 12,000 books checked out annually.83 Of these books, approximately 1,500 of them dealt with military topics from military engineering, art, biography, regulations, strategy, grand tactics, and history. This constituted only 10 percent of the collection, yet the circulation records showed a continued interest in Napoleon and the Napoleonic period. Cadets continued to read older works such as Walter Scott’s Life of Napoleon as well as more 112

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recent works such as Adolphe Thiers’s Histoire du Consulate et de l’Empire, published from 1845 through 1862. The library also acquired the French military journal Spectateur Militaire, which featured Napoleonic articles written by French officers, and popular English works from William Siborne to Sir William Napier.84 The library’s acquisition of such works demonstrated an institutional commitment to the importance of Napoleon to cadet education in the military art. The Napoleonic myth, perpetuated through the academic study of the Napoleonic era both in and out of the classroom and supported by one of the largest Napoleonic collections in the country, provided a powerful cultural legitimacy to the fundamental elements of the French combat method that influenced the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. However, this interest in the campaigns of Napoleon I did not preclude the officer corps’ interest in the current wars of Napoleon III.

Americans and the Crimean War: The Delafield Commission Interested in European military developments, and not one to pass up the chance to broaden the intellectual horizons of the army, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis sent a military commission to observe the Crimean War. He chose three officers for this commission: Richard Delafield, Alfred Mordecai, and George McClellan. All West Point graduates, these officers represented three distinct parts of the army. Delafield was a respected engineer, had spent seven years at the military academy as the superintendent, and was chosen to lead the commission. Mordecai began his career as an engineer but became an ordinance officer on account of his scientific prowess and technical genius. McClellan also began as an engineer and served with distinction on Scott’s Mexico City campaign but became a cavalry officer with the creation of two additional dragoon regiments in 1855.85 These three officers represented the line army, the engineers, and the ordinance and artillery branches, and together they created a balanced team of observers for the current state of military affairs and European armies on the battlefield. Davis gave the commission very specific topics for observation. He wanted the officers to observe and report on army organization, the effectiveness of rifled muskets, and the current state of artillery technology, fortifications, and siege operations.86 The commission began their journey in April 1855, but due to diplomatic requirements, instead of traveling directly to the Crimea, they had to tour the capitals of Europe in search of authorization to visit the war. This led the officers through London, Paris, Warsaw, Saint Petersburg, Berlin, Vienna, and Constantinople, before arriving at SevAmerican Adaptation of French Warfare

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astopol in October.87 Since the Allies captured Sevastopol on 9 September, by the time the commission arrived in the Crimea, both sides had gone into winter quarters, and they were left to observe the ruins of the siege. Traveling back through Europe toward the United States, the commission took another look at the armies and fortifications of Europe. When they returned, each of the commissioners wrote his own report and presented it individually to the War Department. These reports were rapidly reprinted and became available to the public and the officer corps at large. They were the most current evaluation of military operations prior to the onset of the Civil War. As Delafield was the representative from the Corps of Engineers, it was perhaps predictable that his report focused primarily on the engineering topics of ballistics, fortifications, and sieges. He began his report with a detailed description of the rifled muskets of European armies. While all the armies of Europe adopted a rifled musket, they all used different ball configurations, and there were several variations on the minié ball concept.88 He then went on to review the changes in fortifications across Europe and at the siege of Sevastopol. This discussion included a detailed analysis of new artillery techniques and practices.89 Throughout the report, Delafield pointed out all the places where France was no longer the leader in military science. He argued that the French Metz School of fortification, brought to America through Mahan and still largely subscribed to, was no longer practiced by the Continental powers.90 He carried this theme through the report and concluded it by calling for an end to the American “custom of looking to France alone for military information.”91 While his report brought very current technical details and information to the War Department, it did very little to inform the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield or even the art of war in a greater sense. As the more technical officer of the commission, Mordecai elaborated on the ballistics, small arms, ammunition, and cannons on display in Europe and the Crimean. He made a deliberate and exhaustive survey of the armies of Europe, including organization, combat branches, and administration. Most of these descriptions focused on numbers of men or a catalogue of cavalry weapons, but Mordecai focused briefly on the Prussian general staff and the French professional school system in ways that made them stand out from the rest of the armies of Europe.92 When discussing the advancements in field artillery, he stated that the artillery of the Crimean War was strangely lacking in novelty or experimentation. He went on to detail the arsenals and cannons of a variety of sizes for the armies of Europe.93 Like Delafield, Mordecai included a large section on small arms and especially the systems of 114

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rifled muskets and ammunition.94 This section was perhaps the most important for American ordinance, as it included reports on all the various systems including the minié system, which the American army adopted in 1855. Interestingly enough, Mordecai stated that the majority of the infantry involved in the war were armed with smoothbore muskets and not the rifled muskets. As such, the war was not a good test of the capabilities of a rifled musket infantry or of its impact on tactics.95 Additionally, Mordecai included a list of all the books procured by the commission for the American army. Of the over 300 books purchased because of their importance to the military art, the commission chose 140 French titles, far and away the largest number from any single European nation. Even though Delafield pleaded with his audience to look to other places than France for military excellence, his commission looked to France more than any other country for books worthy of taking back to the army. McClellan’s report of his observations in Europe and the Crimea was more focused on tactics than were the other two reports, but not overly so. He began his report with a general description of the war and especially of the operations around Sevastopol. He provided a tremendous amount of detail on the siege operations themselves, definitely from an engineering point of view.96 He also outlined the final Allied attack that stormed the Malakoff position and led the Russians to evacuate Sevastopol, including details concerning bayonet assaults and counterattacks. He concluded that none of the offensive operations was new or novel.97 He then outlined, in a similar way as Mordecai, the organization of the infantries across Europe. While these descriptions were general enough, he highlighted French gymnastics and the Prussian infantry charge as worthy of investigation.98 Then he focused over 100 pages on the Russian army and in particular the Russian infantry. He analyzed their tactics and found them similar to the American system of tactics. After describing the facing movements, formations, and commands of the infantry, he focused on their use of two main lines and a reserve in their order of battle, their use of a chain of skirmishers and a reserve, and the fact that while they designated skirmishers in their units, all infantry had to be trained to skirmish.99 The remainder of his report focused on cavalry operations, even including his draft regulations for the American cavalry. These three reports formed the most current military observations and opinions on European military thought prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. With the demand for European books and texts at the outset of the war, one would expect that these officers encouraged the idea that European military thought continued to be worthy of emulation. While the commission American Adaptation of French Warfare

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never produced a consolidated report, the individual reports explicitly and implicitly demonstrated that Europe, and in particular France, was no longer as impressive as it was in the past. The overall impression gained from these three works was that the Crimean War demonstrated nothing new in the military art, not in tactics or technology. The rifled musket was not present in sufficient numbers to provide an accurate picture of its capabilities of impact on modern war, and while the telegraph and railroads were used, they were not decisive. After this commission, the American officer corps remained comfortable in the knowledge that their intellectual framework of the battlefield was still effective and that technology had so far not changed their faith in the fundamental elements of the French combat method.

The Military Literature of the Union, 1861–1865 By the end of 1861, there was a large demand for European and American military works on both sides of the war. The initial demand for military publications reflected a taste for French authors, especially Napoleonic personages or titles. The catalogue for Philadelphia publisher J. B. Lippincott contained a number of American military titles and current army regulations, such as Henry Barnard’s Military Schools and Courses of Instruction, that gave detailed descriptions of the French and Prussian military education systems. However, Lippincott also published an edition of Jomini’s Art of War, one of Marshal Marmont’s The Spirit of Military Institutions, and a translation of The Military Maxims of Napoleon.100 Before the war, New York publisher D. Van Nostrand advertised “a large stock of American, English and French military books on hand.” It published McClellan’s Manual of Bayonet Exercises, a translation of Jomini’s Political and Military History of Waterloo, and a translation of Auguste Lendy’s French Maxims, Advice, and Instructions on the Art of War.101 While not dominant, French and Napoleonic titles were an important part of the initial rush of military publications as the nation went to war. American military classics such as Henry Halleck’s Elements of Strategy, Scott’s and Hardee’s Infantry Tactics, both versions of Mahan’s OutPost, and Mahan’s works on fortifications came out in new editions.102 The Union armies that went to war in 1861 armed themselves intellectually with whatever military classic they could get their hands on, and the majority of these classics used a variant of the French combat method. Even writings that came out of the initial experiences of the Union army continued to have a bias toward the French concepts of the offensive and infantry organization.

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The demand for military works quickly outpaced availability and led to the creation of several important new works on the military art. One of the most popular was Colonel Henry L. Scott’s Military Dictionary. This work of synthesis combined current and classic military thought and became popular with military amateurs and civilians. The definitions that made up the dictionary created a basic education in the military art.103 Through the almost 700 definitions, Scott defined modern armies as infantry-based armies, capable of fighting in line or skirmishing, and declared that the bayonet was more important on the modern battlefield than it was during the French Revolution.104 However, most of the definitions focused on the basics of tactics and military terminology and had very little to say about conceptualizations of the battlefield. His definitions were consistent with the army’s regulations and Mahan’s teachings at West Point. Scott did use a large number of French examples throughout the work, and this usage reinforced the dominance of French thought in the science of war. One of the truly original and highly influential works of the first half of the war was Brigadier General Dan Butterfield’s Camp and Outpost Duty for Infantry, published in 1862 following both the Peninsula and Antietam campaigns. Butterfield edited a collection of general orders published by the Army of the Potomac, combined with his own thoughts on war. He focused most of the work on the individual soldier and provided instructions concerning camp and military life.105 Butterfield also provided guidance on skirmishing and outpost duty, with an emphasis on the importance of close order formations and fixed bayonets.106 His instructions on fortifications simplified Mahan’s minor tactics from Out-Post, while his “maxims on war” emphasized offensive operations, culminating in the infantry assault with the bayonet.107 As Butterfield’s work was consistent with the fundamental elements of the French combat method, he received endorsements from both McClellan and Mahan prior to publishing.108 Mahan proofread the manuscript and offered Butterfield comments, which he included as part of his finished product. Butterfield’s work represented an updated synthesis of the American system of tactics and the French combat method. The civilian book trade in military works continued unabated throughout the rest of the war. While Civil War veterans continued to publish new military books, most of these were little more than abridged and edited versions of older classics. Most of the works popular at the beginning of the war remained popular throughout the war, despite events on the battlefield or the introduction of new technology. These included Butterfield’s Camp and Outpost Duty and the works of Halleck and Mahan, as well as reprints American Adaptation of French Warfare

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of American regulations, including those of Scott, Hardee, and Casey.109 Demand for these works remained high despite the events of the war. As the war progressed, publishers produced more translations of new foreign works in general and of French works in particular. In 1863, General George Cullum translated French General Édouard Dupacq’s Elements of Military Art and History, which outlined military operations using Napoleonic examples. Captain William Craighill translated French General Guillaume Henri Dufour’s Strategy and Tactics and Rouve’s Army Officers Pocket Companion, which was used by the French imperial staff. Dufour used a Jominian framework for his study of strategy and tactics, which included an emphasis on decisive battle.110 In 1864, a reprint of Halleck’s translation of Jomini’s Military and Political Life of the Emperor Napoleon received a popular reception. The review in the United States Service Magazine concluded that it was the “best textbook to teach the great lessons of war.”111 In addition to these foreign works, American authors continued to praise the French combat method. Emil Schalk’s The Campaigns of 1862 and 1863 analyzed these recent campaigns using Jomini’s principles of strategy and concluded that the ideas that made up the fundamental elements of the French combat method remained critical for victory on the battlefield.112 The dominance of French authors, many of whose works being translated were originally published decades before the Civil War, demonstrated the predisposition of the Americans at war, both professional and amateur, toward French military experience and thought. Additionally, even original American works of the war remained consistent with the French combat method.

The Military Literature of the Confederacy, 1861–1865 At the outbreak of the war, the trends in military writing and publications in the Confederacy mirrored those in the Union. Southern publishers printed the works of Mahan, Scott, Hardee, and Halleck, to name only a few. The Confederate War Department officially adopted Hardee’s Infantry Tactics, even though Scott’s regulations remained in circulation throughout the war. For their general regulations, the Confederates adapted the General Regulations for the Army of 1857 and continued to use these regulations to the end of the war.113 Through these regulations, the Confederate armies used the same system of tactics with the same intellectual framework as their Union enemies. When the Union adopted Casey’s revised Infantry Tactics, the Confederacy followed suit by publishing its own edition.114 By 1864, the Confederate government adopted the third volume of Casey’s Infantry Tac118

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tics that was missing from Hardee’s work and completed its institutionalization of the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. In addition to retaining the American system of tactics in the form of Scott’s and Hardee’s drill regulations, there was a large demand for Frenchinspired works focused on the individual soldier and the battlefield. Among these were the French regulations Exercices et manoeuvres de l’infanterie, a translation of French General François Philippe LeLouterel’s Manual of Military Reconnaissances, and the French-inspired Volunteers’ Camp and Field Book.115 These works all reinforced the trends present in the American system of tactics. Richard Millon Cay’s Skirmishers’ Drill and Bayonet Exercise, from the regulations issued to French infantry, reinforced these trends more than most. It encouraged offensive warfare and attributed the French victory in the Crimean War to skirmishing and the bayonet. From this experience, Cay stated that “the value of the bayonet exercise is not a matter of speculation. Its practicability is no longer an open question. It has been brought to its present actual efficiency through a succession of trials, all of them improved by practice first on the drill field and then on the battlefield.”116 This emphasis on skirmishing and the bayonet characterized Confederate operations throughout the war. With American military writings so heavily influenced by French thought and a significant number of French works being sold as the South prepared for war, Confederate commanders exhibited a particularly strong bias toward the French combat method. With an excellent reputation before the war and having commanded some of the most important operations of 1861, General P. G. T. Beauregard wrote one of the most original Confederate works on the military art. His Principles and Maxims of the Art of War was a compilation of axioms concerning combat and battle at a variety of levels that together provided an intellectual framework of the battlefield based on the fundamental elements of the French combat method. Beauregard began with a restatement of both Jomini’s and Mahan’s essential principle of war, that “the whole science of war rests in placing in the right position at the right time a mass of troops greater than your enemy.”117 Following this basic principle, the maxims and principles focused on the primacy of the attack and the ability of rapid and aggressive attack to overcome enemy fortifications, a restatement of the importance of both column and line in combat, and even a caution against fire by file for skirmishers due to the inability of commanders to accurately control such fires.118 Beauregard’s entire book supported the army’s intellectual framework explicitly and encouraged a belief in the effectiveness of the fundamental elements of the French combat method. American Adaptation of French Warfare

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Southern publishers made similar decisions as their northern peers and turned to reprints in the later days of the war, as opposed to encouraging the publication of new works. This led to the publication of more American titles such as the entire Mahan catalogue, including his A Treatise on Field Fortification and the Summary Course on Permanent Fortification from his curriculum at West Point. They also turned to more French works, as these remained popular through the end of the war. These included Marshal Marmont’s Spirit of Military Institutions and his Mémoires, a translated compilation of Napoleon’s maxims, and a translation of General Robert Bugeaud’s The Practice of War.119 These works validated southerners’ beliefs about war centered on elements of the French combat method and represented both French military classics and current military thought. This continued dedication to the offensive, the bayonet, standard infantry organization, the use of reserves, the combination of the auxiliary arms in the main battle area, and a nondogmatic system of tactics was unaffected by the events and actions on the battlefields of the Civil War.

The American Civil War Preconceptions Meet the Battlefield: The First Battle of Bull Run, 21 June 1861 The first battle of Bull Run represented the Union and Confederate armies’ first attempt to achieve a decisive victory by using the U.S. Army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. West Point graduates and old army officers made up a proportionally higher number of the commanders in this first major battle than in later battles and campaigns, in which the increase in the size of armies led to a corresponding increase in the number of amateur officers. There was also no other battlefield experience to inform the decision-making at Bull Run. This left commanders to rely on the intellectual framework influenced by the fundamental elements of the French combat method from their education and training. First Bull Run was the first major offensive battle for both sides in the Civil War. Since the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861, fighting consisted of skirmishes as both sides struggled to recruit, train, and field armies. With the initial ninety-day enlistments expiring at the end of June, President Abraham Lincoln disregarded the advice from his chief military adviser Winfield Scott to blockade the South into submission. Lincoln requested an offensive plan from Brigadier General Irvin McDowell, who was commanding the army forming outside the capital. A West Point 120

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graduate of 1838, McDowell recommended an attack against the 20,000 Confederates constructing fortifications on the Bull Run River, within striking distance of Washington, D.C.120 With Union forces preventing a Confederate reinforcement from the Shenandoah Valley, McDowell’s 35,000 men had an opportunity to achieve a decisive victory which would open the way to Richmond. McDowell’s army represented the Union’s first attempt at creating a large army by combining regulars, militia, and volunteers. His subordinate commanders were predominantly regular army officers with only their frontier service and military education to prepare them for conventional Europeanstyle warfare. Of the 35,000 men heading south, there were only three regular army infantry battalions and a large number of regular artillery batteries.121 Volunteers made up the remainder of McDowell’s army, with only the benefit of a few months of drill to prepare them for war. This drill and training equipped them with the rudiments of American tactics but did not prepare them for the physical hardship of marching or campaigning. These new soldiers suffered horribly from the heat while on the march, often discarding equipment and breaking formation, which required McDowell to rest and reorganize his army prior to making his attack. To defeat the Confederate army, he originally envisioned a diversionary attack on the Confederate right, while his main effort crossed the Bull Run River and enveloped the enemy left. Taking advantage of the forced delay, patrols reconnoitered the enemy positions along the Bull River on 18–19 July.122 These patrols encountered strong resistance and reported the Confederate presence along the Bull Run River. Meanwhile, General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard commanded the Confederate army on the Bull Run River. His 20,000 men were much the same as McDowell’s, with West Point graduates commanding brigades and formations made up predominantly of men unaccustomed to drill or tactics. Although Beauregard sent a number of offensive plans to the Confederate War Department for approval, limited resources and McDowell’s numerical superiority relegated his army to entrenching the crossing points on the Bull Run River south of Centerville.123 It was General James Longstreet’s strongly entrenched brigade covering the crossing at Blackburn’s Ford that defeated Union reconnaissance patrols on 18–19 July. When it became clear that McDowell planned to attack, General Joseph E. Johnston used deception and the Confederate rail network to bring his 10,000 men to join with Beauregard in an attempt to decisively defeat McDowell. Johnston’s lead brigades began arriving at Manassas Junction on 20 June. Based on the failed 122

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reconnaissance of 18 June, Beauregard decided that McDowell was planning to cross Bull Run at Blackburn’s Ford. His plan was to station troops in his entrenched positions at the ford to disrupt the Union attack while enveloping the enemy’s left flank. Johnston’s brigades would take advantage of the difficult terrain on the Confederate left to provide security and would provide the army’s reserve with 5,000 men. When reconnaissance patrols reported a heavy Confederate presence at Blackburn’s Ford, McDowell refashioned his plan. He decided to send a small force to attack the enemy positions at Blackburn’s Ford, while his main body moved through difficult terrain to envelope the Confederate left. He designed this envelopment to catch the Confederates by surprise and force them to deploy out of their strong entrenchments, leading to a more open battle which favored the Union superiority of both numbers and artillery.124 His plan called for a diversionary attack by Colonel Israel Richardson’s brigade on Blackburn’s Ford, while General Daniel Tyler’s division attacked the left of the Confederate line at Stones Bridge. Under the cover of these two attacks, Colonel David Hunter’s division and Colonel Samuel Peter Heintzelman’s division would envelop the enemy’s flank by moving to the west of Stones Bridge and crossing the Bull Run River at Sudley Springs, with Colonel Dixon Miles’s division in reserve near Centerville.125 This plan required marching in the dark to be in position to surprise the enemy at daybreak and was extremely complicated for an inexperienced force. However, many elements of the plan remained consistent with the fundamental elements of the French combat method, such as the emphasis on the offensive, a linear but noncontiguous order of battle, and a nondogmatic approach to the operation and the tactics of the battle. On the morning of 21 June, both armies were in motion conducting offensive envelopments against their opponent’s left flank. It was only the relatively faster speed of the Union attack that gave the advantage to the Confederates. The faster Union movement allowed the Confederates to keep more of their forces uncommitted early in the battle, and those forces became part of the decisive counterattack in the afternoon. Tyler’s division began its attack on Stones Bridge with an artillery barrage at 6:30 a.m., while Hunter’s division moved west to threaten the Confederate rear. Upon receiving news of Hunter’s movement, Tyler pressed the attack at Stones Bridge and charged the Confederate entrenchments.126 When the Union artillery barrage began at Stones Bridge, Beauregard and Johnston ordered Longstreet to continue with the planned attack across Blackburn’s Ford. Longstreet crossed the river, and his skirmishers began to engage the skirmishers of Colonel Richardson’s American Adaptation of French Warfare

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Union brigade, who were executing McDowell’s diversionary attack.127 When Richardson’s brigade began to engage a larger Confederate skirmisher screen, he immediately ordered the brigade to fortify their position. At the same time, he ordered the 3rd Michigan Regiment to form into close columns by division to act as the brigade reserve.128 Richardson’s brigades remained engaged by Confederate skirmishers and small infantry attacks all day and unable to reinforce the battle developing at Sudley Springs. Uncoordinated with Tyler’s attack, Hunter’s movement across the Bull Run River at Sudley Springs went slower than expected, losing the element of surprise. Hunter’s slow movements allowed Confederate Colonel Nathan George Evans to reposition his brigade to meet this threat. Without orders from Beauregard or Johnston, Evans attacked Hunter’s skirmishers, which disrupted the Union movement across the river.129 This attack was so successful that Evans convinced Colonel Barnard Bee to advance his South Carolinians from the high ground of the Henry House protecting the Confederate left to support his attack. Although the attack of these two brigades resulted in their effective destruction, they significantly delayed the Union advance.130 Without hesitation, these commanders chose to attack into overwhelming Union forces rather than remain on the defensive at the Henry House. This aggressive action taken by these colonels gave the Confederates time to respond to the Union envelopment. It was almost noon before Beauregard and Johnston recognized McDowell’s intent and ordered troops from other parts of the line to the Confederate left flank. Colonel Thomas Jonathan Jackson decided on his own initiative to reestablish the Confederate defensive position on the high ground at the Henry House as he saw Evans’s attack at Sudley Springs begin to fail. Jackson integrated two adjacent artillery batteries not under his command into his battle position on the reverse slope of the hill. After overwhelming Evans’s and Bee’s brigades, McDowell was able move more of his forces across Bull Run. He immediately ordered an attack on the Henry House, as this position was all that stood between the Union army and the Confederate rear.131 Colonel William T. Sherman commanded the lead brigade in the attack on Henry House and used a variety of formations in his attack. He charged the hill with some regiments on line and the 69th New York in close columns by division. When his attack faltered, Confederate cavalry attempted to charge his brigade. He defeated these cavalry charges by forming his regiments into squares and withdrew using covering fire by successive companies in line.132 On the Confederate side of the battle, Jackson’s brigade maintained a steady fire in line against the attacking infantry, and when the Union lines 124

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began to waver, he ordered a bayonet charge at 2:30 p.m. By this time, Confederate units were able to move onto the flank of the Union divisions attacking Henry House. In conjunction with Jackson’s bayonet charge, Colonel Kirby Smith’s brigade launched an attack into the Union flank.133 After marching and fighting for over twelve strait hours, the combined attacks of Kirby and Jackson caused a general panic to run through the Union formations. The Union regiments first began to break, then to rout, and eventually disintegrated as they fled back toward Washington, D.C.134 As McDowell began to see his attack evaporate, he ordered his army to retreat, and the remaining brigades of his reserve prevented a serious Confederate pursuit. The field remained in Confederate hands, but both armies were incapable of offensive operations for several months. All the fundamental elements of the French combat method were present on the battlefield of first Bull Run. Both sides began their operations with a series of planned offensive operations, and whenever possible commanders chose to attack. Even when commanders decided to occupy defensive positions, they transitioned to the offensive as soon as possible. The tactics used by both sides of the battle reflected a nondogmatic approach that allowed great freedom to change formations as circumstances dictated. The battle saw attacks in line, in skirmish order, and in close columns; some formations began building field fortifications using abatis, and others responded to cavalry charge with regimental squares; some used volley fire by platoons, oblique fire, or individual fire to attack the enemy on both sides. The majority of the attacks culminated in bayonet charges. The skirmishers came directly out of lead formations, and the field fortifications that went up were built by regular infantrymen without the support of specialized formations or troops. All the combatant arms present were integrated on the main battle area, as the skirmishers and artillery supported the main infantry attack. Skirmishers advanced in front of formations and fell back into them to take up their positions in lines or columns. The Confederate cavalry attacked in conjunction with Jackson to stop the Union attack, and Jackson himself integrated artillery batteries into his defensive line. Both armies retained reserves as they went into battle and deployed them in a linear but noncontiguous order of battle. At every level, commanders retained reserve forces in the second line of their line of battle in order to be able to reinforce the main effort. Contrary to the belief that the West Point curriculum failed to prepare officers for the rigors of modern war, it prepared them so well that the first engagement of the Civil War was a contest to see who could implement their intellectual framework of the battlefield faster and more effectively. American Adaptation of French Warfare

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After Four Years of War: The Battle of Cold Harbor, 3 June 1864 It was reasonable to expect that the first battle of the Civil War would be heavily influenced by the prewar U.S. Army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield because there were no other influences to challenge its conceptualization of the battlefield. However, after four years of war, the commanders and formations on both sides were veterans and had recent battlefield experience to guide their decisions and conceptualization of war. The war saw a reliance on permanent fortifications at strategic points give way to a proliferation of field entrenchments, so much so that by the end of the war all armies entrenched their positions at the end of each day of battle. Unlike the Crimean War, the Civil War did field enough rifled muskets to feel the full weight of the changes to tactics. In addition to encouraging the use of field fortifications, the rifled musket also increased the use of skirmishers in place of lines or attack columns. The war also provided the opportunity for the extensive use of telegraphs, railroads, explosives, and military technology of all types. This has led some scholars to see the Civil War as the beginning of industrialized warfare that led inexorably to the battlefields of World War I.135 If this argument is accurate, the battle of Cold Harbor, the last offensive battle prior to Grant’s investment of the Confederate fortifications at Petersburg in 1864, will demonstrate new ideas on the battlefield reflective of changes in the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. After General Ulysses S. Grant was promoted to commander of the Union armies in April 1864, he planned and executed a campaign designed to end the war. Known as the Virginia or Overland Campaign, Grant utilized superior numbers to force General Robert E. Lee into a series of battles designed to decisively defeat the Army of Northern Virginia and to open the way to Richmond in an effort to end the war. In the campaign, Grant engaged Lee at the battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, and North Anna, attempting to envelop Lee’s flank and cut off his lines of communication back to Richmond. Each time, Lee managed to maintain his lines of communication and block Grant’s advance, causing heavy Union casualties. Following the fighting over the North Anna River on 27 May, Lee began fortifying positions north of Mechanicsville just thirty miles northeast of Richmond. There remained just one more opportunity to get between Lee and Richmond before becoming bogged down in the Chickahominy River valley.136 That last chance was at a crossroads called Cold Harbor.

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Figure 3.4. The Battle of Cold Harbor (Reprinted from Matthew F. Steele, American Campaigns, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: Byron Sadams, 1909), 267)

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When Grant decided to attempt a final envelopment of Lee’s army, he ordered General Phil Sheridan’s cavalry to seize Cold Harbor in advance of General Horatio Wright’s VI Corps. Lee ordered two cavalry brigades commanded by his cousin Fitzhugh Lee to defend the crossroads at all costs because he wanted to use the roads that ran through Cold Harbor to launch an attack on the VI Corps.137 He wanted an offensive victory to raise Confederate morale before defending Richmond. While Confederate and Union cavalry fought over the crossroads all day on 31 May, Lee ordered every available division to Cold Harbor. He pulled General Richard Anderson’s corps out of the center of the Confederate position at Mechanicsville to attack through Cold Harbor, disrupting the Union advance and regaining the initiative. However, due to inexperienced troops and Sheridan’s tough defense, Anderson’s attack on the morning of 1 June failed to penetrate the Union lines.138 By the time Anderson reorganized his corps, Wright’s three divisions moved up and began digging in at the crossroads. Lee’s grand counterattack failed before it got the chance to start, and the Confederates fortified their positions overlooking the Union lines at Cold Harbor. Failing to envelop Lee at Cold Harbor, Grant believed that a concentrated attack would decisively defeat the Confederate army ten miles from Richmond, leading to the occupation of the Confederate capital. He wanted to attack on the morning of 2 June to maintain pressure on Lee’s fatigued troops; however, General Winfield Hancock’s II Corps arrived at 6:30 a.m. tired, hungry, and disorganized from marching all night. Grant delayed the attack until 5:00 p.m., and throughout the morning Confederate General Jubal Early watched as Union General Ambrose Burnside’s IX Corps moved to better protect the Union flank.139 Hoping to take advantage of this movement, Early’s corps attacked the IX Corps, taking 700 prisoners before a Union counterattack restabilized the lines.140 Even ten miles from Richmond, Early ordered an attack on his own initiative in the face of superior Union numbers. Continued fighting throughout the day convinced Grant to delay his concentrated attack until the morning of 3 June. While it was Grant’s decision to execute a massive frontal attack at Cold Harbor, he left the details of the attack up to General George Meade as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Meade issued only vague orders to Hancock’s II Corps, Wright’s VI Corps, and Major General William “Baldy” Smith’s XVIII Corps to execute the attack at 4:30 a.m.141 He left the details of the attack up to the individual corps commanders. This created uncoordinated simultaneous attacks by three corps on line against an entrenched enemy. When Smith attempted to coordinate his attack with Wright’s, Wright 128

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replied that he was going to attack in his front, leaving Smith to plan his own attack independently.142 This kind of plan was reminiscent of Mahan’s principles of attacking fortifications, in that a resolute bayonet charge would carry the entrenchments more than fire. When 60,000 Union soldiers stepped forward following a rapid ten-minute bombardment at 4:30 a.m., the attack lasted for only eight minutes. Hancock’s corps attacked the Confederate right flank deployed in a line of battle with General Francis Barlow’s and General John Gibbon’s divisions in the first line and General David Birney’s division in the second line as a reserve.143 Barlow’s division took advantage of shallow entrenchments on boggy ground to drive the Confederate skirmishers back and charged the enemy’s main defensive line. Barlow’s men held their fire and used only the bayonet as they stormed the Confederate entrenchments.144 The attack’s success was short-lived, as Confederate troops from the back side of Turkey Hill counterattacked into the disorganized Union mass. The counterattack scattered the Union forces and caused Barlow’s division to retreat.145 Gibbon’s division began the attack in a more disciplined way. He deployed two brigades on line in front, with the remaining two brigades in close columns of regiments prepared to advance through the first line to create a lodgment in the enemy’s defenses. This formation closely resembled Mahan’s teachings on the subject.146 However, Gibbon’s attack failed to penetrate the entrenchments, and the division retreated in good order. The divisions in Smith’s attack on the Confederate left advanced forward in lines, only to be driven back by enemy artillery and rifle fire. Although the divisions reformed and attacked several times, they made no headway against the Confederate trenches.147 Wright’s divisions faced the same fate in the center of the attack. Confederate fire and heavy casualties caused all three corps to dig in along the middle of the battlefield, despite orders from Meade and Grant to continue the attack. Union troops maintained a fire on the enemy but never again mounted assaults on its lines.148 Although Burnside and Early traded attacks throughout the afternoon to no avail and individual Confederate brigade commanders attempted to attack the hasty Union fortifications stretched across the battlefield, the attacks faded as night descended over the battlefield.149 Cold Harbor failed to achieve Grant’s decisive results and ended the Overland campaign. Although the circumstances, armies, and objectives of first Bull Run and Cold Harbor were different, in both battles the commanders on both sides demonstrated the same dedication to the intellectual framework influenced by the French combat method. Grant continued to launch attack after attack, resulting in 60,000 casualties during the overland campaign. Yet at the same time, Lee American Adaptation of French Warfare

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looked for an opportunity to regain the initiative, and Cold Harbor began as a failed Confederate attack on 1 June. Additionally, Early’s corps launched attacks on the morning of 2 June in a similar attempt to regain the initiative. Hancock, Smith, and Wright executed simultaneous frontal attacks until the fire of the enemy stopped them. And even after they could physically go no farther, Meade and Grant continued to order them to resume the attack. But even during one of the greatest defensive victories in the war, the Confederates counterattacked three times during the course of the day into the Union center, and Early’s corps attacked into the Union right flank. Far from embracing defensive war, Cold Harbor demonstrated the consistent belief in the efficacy of the offensive and the bayonet, despite the increased defensive power of the rifled musket. Aside from a fanatical belief in the offensive, Cold Harbor contained other examples of the influence of the fundamental elements of the French combat method. Commanders retained the ability to change their formations and tactics to meet the situation, with some attacking in tightly formed lines and massive close formations, while others still retained more disciplined formations integrating lines and close columns for the frontal attack. In these attacks, the bayonet played as much a role as the aimed fire of the skirmisher lines. In 1864, the infantry retained the ability to fight as either light or line infantry and did so at various times throughout the Overland campaign in general and the battle of Cold Harbor in particular. The few sharpshooter battalions on both sides became auxiliary formations like cavalry and artillery, and commanders integrated those units to support the main attack. During both attacks and counterattacks, skirmishers came from the attacking formations themselves, and several artillery batteries advanced in support of the attack. Reserves continued to play a part in the attack at every level and occupied the second line supporting the main effort in the front line of the order of battle. If the number of regular army officers in command positions was less than at the first battle of Bull Run, then the officers responsible for the battle of Cold Harbor were no less committed to the same intellectual framework of the battlefield.

Conclusion An examination of the regulations, theory, military education, training, organization, and combat operations leading up to the Civil War reveals a remarkable consistency of intellectual framework from 1848 to 1865. The army used Winfield Scott’s translation of the French Regulations of 1791 from 1814 with minor changes until 1854. Hardee’s 1855 revision of Tactics 130

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integrated new technology into the existing American system of tactics, but instead of exploring the tactical implications of the rifled musket, he modified the regulations to remain consistent with the fundamental elements of the French combat method. Casey’s 1862 revision of Infantry Tactics institutionalized Hardee’s tactical changes and added only organizational changes to the brigade to the American system of tactics. With over a year of battlefield experience, the army decided to retain the influence of French tactics. Although there was a twenty-two-year gap in the general army regulations, which excluded any mention of the army’s intellectual framework, the 1857 regulations returned a focus on the battlefield by including sections directly from the General Regulations of 1821. The direct continuity between the “Battles” sections from 1821 and 1857 demonstrated the resiliency of the French combat method in American warfare and ensured that the armies on both sides entered the war the same intellectual framework of the battlefield. The West Point curriculum reinforced this conceptualization through instruction of the army’s regulations and the engineering course taught by Dennis Mahan. Cadets learned the military art through his heavily Frenchinfluenced textbooks and classroom lectures. Mahan taught cadets that the offensive was the most powerful way of war, with an infantry-based army composed of standard infantry formations, utilizing all the auxiliary arms in the main battle area and maintaining a reserve behind one or two lines of formations in the order of battle. The intellectual documents taught these same elements consistently across all the armies of the United States. The period from 1848 to 1865 saw the high-water mark for explicit recognition of the importance of the French influence on American warfare. Many of the army’s doctrinal sources considered French warfare as the epitome of modern warfare. They directly attributed the effectiveness of American tactics and operations to the influence of such a powerful way of warfare. Mahan and Halleck both taught modern warfare as an offshoot of French warfare. The preface to Casey’s Infantry Tactics informed hundreds of thousands of citizen-soldiers of the American intellectual debt to the French. The Army and Navy Journal consistently compared American actions against the legacy of French warfare. Even the military journal the United States Service Magazine ran a series of articles that unequivocally considered the French army, its institutions, and its tactics as the source of modern war. This recognition of French influence by the army coincided with the growing prestige of French culture and the Napoleonic legend in American society. It was not until after the Mexican-American War that the military legacy of Napoleon became an important part of American military culture. The works American Adaptation of French Warfare

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of Mahan and Halleck were the first systematic incorporation of Napoleonic examples into the army’s military education. Professional interest led to the study of Napoleon’s campaigns by officers on the faculty at West Point, and knowledge of his battles and maneuvers was so widespread that by the 1860s, use of Napoleonic vocabulary was synonymous with military genius. Demand for French military works, and particularly those with a Napoleonic focus, continued to rise over the course of the war. This powerful cultural figure served to reinforce the legitimacy of French military thought and the fundamental elements of the French combat method in American culture and way of warfare. But the battlefields of the 1860s were very different from those of Napoleon. Advances in technology provided opportunities for American military professionals to break away from European influence and transform modern war. Soldiers on all sides innovated with these new elements to achieve surprising solutions to the problems raised by a more industrial mode of war. However, this innovation was guided and informed by the fundamental elements of the French combat method. The war did not cause a transformation in the army’s intellectual framework but led veterans to become more committed to its principles. Comparison of the battles of Bull Run and Cold Harbor demonstrates similarities in tactics and conceptualization of the battlefield from the beginning to the end of the war. There are many arguments as to the lack of decisiveness of the Civil War. The argument that American officers failed to understand the new industrialized warfare due to their resistance to change led to indecisive action is compelling. However, a more satisfying answer to the lack of decisiveness can be found in an examination of officers’ intellectual frameworks of the battlefield. Both the Union and Confederate commanders were committed to the same fundamental elements of the French combat method found in their frameworks. Perhaps the lack of decisiveness was a function of this similarity in framework. Throughout military history, real decisive victory has been a result of the clash of different intellectual frameworks. The victories at Breitenfeld, Rossbach, and Austerlitz and the American victories during the Mexican-American War were all a function of opposing armies with different intellectual frameworks of the battlefield. In the Civil War, when attacks failed to create a decisive victory, commanders did not question the framework but its execution. If only the attack were pressed with more vigor, reinforced with more troops or artillery, were supported by a greater portion of the army, then they would succeed. This is a far better explanation for the continued adherence to the offensive tactics of Fredericksburg, Corinth, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, or Cold Harbor. 132

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4 German Professionalism and American Warfare, 1865–1899

The only change that breech-loading arms will probably make in the art and practice of war will be to increase the amount of ammunition to be expended, and necessarily to be carried along; to still further “thin out” the lines of attack, and to reduce battles to short, quick, decisive conflicts. It does not in the least affect the grand strategy, or the necessity for perfect organization, drill, and discipline. —William Tecumseh Sherman, Commanding General of the Army, 18911

If continuity characterized the period from 1814 to 1865, the rest of the nineteenth century was a period of change for American warfare and was inspired not by French culture but by German culture and institutions. German innovation in industry, science, and education made a great impression on American society, which adopted several German reforms and ideas. This impression combined with German military success of the 1860s and 1870s to create a powerful influence on the American army. Like the rest of American society of the period, the army followed a German model of professionalization as it sought to reform and modernize its institutions. The army created a system of professional education by adding postgraduate schools for more senior officers in addition to their education at West Point. The army also encouraged the growth of professional journals and the programs of professional development at the regimental level as a means of further professionalizing the officer corps. From tactics to historical examples used in the instruction of the military art, German examples guided the development of the army during this period. These German-inspired changes prepared the army for the battlefields of the Spanish-American War. However, Sherman’s quotation in the epigraph demonstrates something powerful about the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield through|

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out this period. He readily identified the impact of technology on American tactics but did not believe that it changed the nature of warfare. Nothing in his experiences during the Civil War led him to believe that battles would become short or decisive, and yet this was the conceptualization of war that he espoused in 1891. However, the French combat method also espoused such a conceptualization of the battlefield, with its emphasis on the offensive, a nonspecialized infantry-based army that used nondogmatic tactics, a linear but noncontiguous order of battle, and the combination of all auxiliary arms in support of the main infantry attack. The army integrated all the changes in this period into its intellectual framework of the battlefield through the filter of the French combat method. This intellectual framework guided decisions and actions during the Santiago campaign of the Spanish-American War.

America Looks to German Culture Although American journals and newspapers made German history and culture available in America before the Civil War, the German culture that began to influence American society was a result of the effects of the Second Industrial Revolution on German society. With America’s increasingly technical workforce and new modes of cultural organization, it naturally gravitated toward German culture and influence as it transformed in response to industrialization following the Civil War. This was because Germany embraced industrialization and led the Second Industrial Revolution in the latter half of the nineteenth century. More than anything, German professionalization appealed to many different parts of American society. This professional culture manifested itself primarily through philosophy, educational organization, and a scientific approach to industrialization. The U.S. Army mirrored American society in its interest in German institutions and the German army. The military victories of the German army and military system provided a powerful rationale for the adoption of German methods and military theory. This period through the turn of the twentieth century institutionalized German influence in American culture and throughout society.

A German Culture of Professionalism in America While Germans immigrated to America before the Civil War, the increase in immigration from the Germanic countries of central Europe after the war created active Germanic communities across the Midwest and Northeast. In the 1900 census, Germans, or Americans of Germanic descent, constituted 134

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27 percent of the white male population, totaling 18.4 million men.2 These immigrants brought their language, their religion, and the cultural norms of an industrializing nation to postwar America. Lutheran became the fourthlargest denomination in the United States in 1900, and German Lutherans dominated religious debates and changed the hymnology of American Protestantism.3 These Lutherans brought with them the values of German Pietism, such as the importance of education, a culture of discipline, and the belief in putting the congressional community first and the individual second.4 The emphasis on education and community helped prepare the way for societal transformation due to industrial centralization in America. The changes in American society from industrialization were increasingly influenced by German philosophy. In particular, the philosophies of Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel played an important role in the transformation of industrialized American culture. In some ways, these philosophers encouraged the continued individualistic strains of American frontier society. Ralph Waldo Emerson and the transcendental movement were heavily influenced by Kant’s internal focus as a source of knowledge and truth.5 However, Kant’s comments concerning the separation of religion and science as two distinct forms of knowledge led the way for a wider acceptance of science as a reasonable endeavor. His writings on the importance of the mind in the classification and discovery of knowledge led directly to new thoughts on the pedagogy of teaching.6 These ideas shaped an existing movement to reform American education. As Kant’s influence was greatest in the Northeast, Hegel became influential throughout the Midwest as German immigration made a powerful impact in that region. The St. Louis intellectual movement explored Hegel’s writings on history and the world spirit, as well as his reconciliation of the freedom of the individual with the needs of society.7 The writings and philosophical work of the St. Louis movement caused a corresponding change in the Concord School of Philosophy, in the heart of Emersonian America.8 Across the country, German philosophy supported existing reform movements and gave those movements a German flavor. The influence of German philosophy also prepared the way for the transformation of American society by the new relationships between the individual and the state created by industrialization. As industrialization required a more technical workforce, the German educational model became as compelling as German philosophy and caused a reassessment of the American educational system. Through the 1860s, the American educational system was a blend of the French and English systems. There was no differentiation between underGerman Professionalism and American Warfare

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graduate and graduate work, and most curriculums focused on instilling intellectual discipline rather than intellectual curiosity in their students. In this way, West Point was the epitome of a French school, with a single curriculum heavily weighted to the sciences and a focus on discipline. Most of the learning occurred through self-study and recitation in small classes organized into sections according to an assessment-based order-of-merit system. The faculty’s primary purpose was to guide the students through a cycle of recitation, assessment, and examination.9 This system provided graduates with a broad-based education suited to the demands of preindustrial society. The advances in education and pedagogy in Alexander von Humbolt’s German university system responded to the new requirements of industrialization in many ways. Thousands of American students went abroad to Germany to study in its universities, and they came back praising both Germany’s culture and its educational system.10 The German model operated on four basic premises: that there was a difference between the prep school and the university learning environment, that the university’s primary mission was the advancement of knowledge, that both professors and students had the freedom required to pursue new knowledge, and that seminars and graduate study with senior faculty replaced the recitation room in an electivebased curriculum.11 Advances in math by Gauss and Leibniz, in chemistry by Gmelin and Giessen, and in physics by Müller and Helmholtz made the German research universities of Berlin, Bonn, Jena, Würzburg, and Munich powerhouses of science.12 These scientists led to German dominance in a number of industries, and they were emulated around the world. With the growth of graduate seminars and the creation of the Ph.D. to signify expertise in the sciences, engineering, and humanities, each of these disciplines began to form professional identities. Through the university setting, these groups formed corporate communities, created career opportunities, and remained connected to specialized education through professional organizations and journals.13 The development of professions in Germany was a critical element in the creation of the new industrialized German economy and became a model for Europe and America. America followed the German example and began to develop a professional culture with professional institutions and communities. By the 1870s, there were numerous examples of a trend toward professionalization.14 Although the University of Michigan adopted the German model in the mid-1850s, it was not until the Morril Bill of 1862 that America adopted the German model across the country. By the 1880s, the University of Chicago, 136

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John Hopkins University, and Cornell University used a modified German organization to become leading educational institutions, causing Harvard to change its curriculum and organization.15 There was a corresponding increase in professional schools, beginning with 35 in 1825 and growing to 283 by the turn of the century.16 These changes at the university level had a corresponding change at the secondary education level, as states adopted the German model for elementary, preparatory, and technical schooling.17 The German methods at the secondary school level supported not only the new university system but also the technical and scientific demands of industrialization. These educational changes paved the way for the development of professions in America. With the rise of universities, professional communities in America became important in the process of industrialization. American mathematics flourished at Johns Hopkins University, and the community founded the American Journal of Mathematics in 1878. This mirrored the rise of learned societies in America, which numbered over 200 by the 1890s.18 Germans featured prominently as electrical and chemical engineers, with Pfizer being a prominent example. In the iron, steel, and bridge-building industries, Germans led the way, designing public works and building important structures such as the Brooklyn Bridge.19 Even the American historical profession followed German example by holding Leopold von Ranke as its inspiration and idolizing the German research university model. American historians formed the American Historical Association in 1884 as a professional association complete with its own journal. Members committed themselves to objectivity in their research using the scientific method as their guide.20 As America industrialized in the decades following the Civil War, the rise of professions and professional communities affected every part of the economy and society. It also affected military culture as the army began to professionalize its institutions. However, the influence of German professional culture was matched by the prowess of German arms during the Wars of German Unification.

The Army and German Military Influence If the American teaching, engineering, and scientific professions followed the German model, the U.S. Army was extremely interested in the Prussian army in the 1860s and 1870s. The Prussian army waged several successful wars beginning with the Danish-German War of 1864 and the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Although Prussian armies had a technological advantage German Professionalism and American Warfare

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over the Danes and Austrians in their rifles and artillery, these victories using railroads and rapid mobilization were testaments to the development of professional military institutions. The Austrian defeat at Königgrätz paved the way for Prussian dominance in Germany. When tensions with France led to the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, the Prussian army took the field with a slight technological advantage in artillery but a disadvantage in rifle technology against the superior French Chassepot rifle.21 Nevertheless, the rapid destruction of the French armies made the German army the dominant European military power. American officers understood the Prussian victories as a validation of German professionalization.22 They studied these wars through American observer reports and narratives of the major battles that appeared in books and articles in the post–Civil War period. The impending war between Germany and France caused President Grant to send an officer to observe modern European warfare. Grant chose Major General Phil Sheridan to observe European armies at war, in large part because of his excellent reputation from the Civil War. When offered the opportunity to observe either the Germans or the French, Sheridan chose to observe the German army. He believed that it offered the opportunity to observe the most modern developments in the art of war.23 Even with no real exposure to the European armies of the 1860s, Sheridan considered the German army superior to the French army, solely on the basis of reputation. The Germans gave him complete access to their headquarters, and he accompanied Count Otto von Bismarck and General Helmuth von Moltke from the battle of Gravelotte through the siege of Paris. He witnessed German infantry and cavalry attacks, examined the battlefield for artillery effects, and saw firsthand the German staff system at war. He praised the German infantry’s discipline on and off the battlefield but criticized its use of cavalry and artillery. He was especially impressed by the German mobilization system by region, citing this as the country’s greatest military strength.24 Sheridan’s personal experience legitimized the American fascination with the German army. As the German army became the model of modern warfare, American officers compiled narratives and reports of its battles and campaigns for the study of the military art. Some officers produced narratives of battles or a series of battles. First Lieutenant John Bigelow Jr. produced a study of the battles of Mars-la-Tour and Gravelotte for the Military Service Institute of the United States in 1884, and Lieutenant Colonel Arthur L. Wagner published his study of the campaign of Königgrätz in 1889.25 These two studies became popular reading for the professional development of officers on the frontier, 138

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and they disseminated American interpretations of the German experience throughout the army. As professional journals became a permanent part of the American army, the Wars of German Unification featured prominently. This included a history of the Franco-German War by von Moltke and several articles on the lessons of the war.26 From battle descriptions to discussions of elements of the German military system, publications such as the Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States and the Army and Navy Journal printed translations of German generals and theorists. Studies of the German army at war were rapidly incorporated into the U.S. Army’s educational system. West Point began to study these wars in earnest in 1888 with the adoption of James Mercur’s Elements of the Art of War. In this book, produced specifically for the instruction of cadets, Mercur gave the battle of Gravelotte sixty pages, complete with descriptions of the battle, translated German orders and parts of Germany’s official history, and maps.27 The largest case study in the book, Gravelotte became the model of modern war for cadets through the turn of the twentieth century. When Emory Upton joined the faculty at the Artillery School as the head of the Department of Military Art in 1878, he set about to improve the curriculum. He increased the focus on military history, which included seven weeks of instruction on the Austro-Prussian War.28 As the officer course at the Artillery School was only a year long, seven weeks of instruction constituted a significant investment of time to studying the Prussian army. Fort Leavenworth used the German wars as part of its instruction through the adoption of Hamley’s Operations of War, which contained references to German operations as exemplifying modern war.29 This much research, study, and discussion demonstrated the army’s interest in the German army. However, American officers reached very interesting conclusions about modern war from the German example. Americans observing or studying the Germans at war tended to see in their experience a reflection of the U.S. Army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield and of the changes in American tactics since the Civil War. Sheridan stated in his memoirs that “following the operations of the German armies from the battle of Gravelotte to the siege of Paris, I may in conclusion, say that I saw no new military principles developed, whether of strategy or grand tactics.”30 At Gravelotte, he saw the German army attack with a heavy skirmisher line in open order, supported by two lines of infantry. Advancing under an artillery barrage, the German infantry reinforced the skirmish line until the Germans overwhelmed the French and forced them from their positions with bayonet charges.31 What Sheridan recognized on the fields of German Professionalism and American Warfare

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Europe was a German army using a conceptualization of the battlefield similar to the U.S. Army’s intellectual framework. Wagner approached his study of the Germans in a similar manner, as “A Study of the Austro-Prussian Conflict in the Light of the American Civil War.” After analyzing the elements of Prussian victory and Austrian defeat, he concluded that American armies in 1865 achieved a much higher proficiency in the military art than did European armies in 1866 or in 1870.32 American officers saw in the German experience the validation of their own doctrines, and in praising the Germans, they were in fact praising themselves. American officers recognized elements of their intellectual framework because the Germans themselves shared a similar conceptualization of the battlefield. From the Prussians’ defeat at Jena in 1806, and their subsequent defeat of Napoleon in 1813–14, the Prussian reform movement changed German warfare in response to Napoleonic stimuli.33 These stimuli came from the same source, namely, the warfare of the French Revolution through the wars of Napoleon.34 The Germans developed their own intellectual framework based on the fundamental elements of the French combat method, and even though that framework sprang from a different way of warfare, it was still recognizable to American observers. This German framework incorporated a nonspecialized army, offensive operations, independent operations, operational movements, and citizen-soldiers.35 Thus, during this period, German examples and military theory provided American officers with useful material for the education and development of their own intellectual framework of the battlefield. The military writings of this period reflected this trend. In 1891, the editorial staff of the Army and Navy Journal produced a short history of American tactics. In it, they attributed the French tactics of the Revolution, which formed the basis of American tactics, to the system of Frederick the Great. Thus, Scott’s adapted French regulations in 1815 represented an evolution of Prussian tactics that dominated the American system of tactics through the 1870s.36 To the American military of the 1890s, the French combat method became a German conceptualization of war, and both were consistent with the American way of warfare. This explains the treatment of German examples in relation to the use of Napoleonic history throughout the schools and theoretical works of the army. While the battles of Sedan, Mars-la-Tour, and Gravelotte made instruction as current as possible, the authors placed these examples alongside the more familiar operations of Napoleon and the French Revolution. Hamley used more Napoleonic examples than German examples throughout his work. Wagner used Jomini and Waterloo as a way of analyzing and com140

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paring the campaign of Königgrätz because both utilized the same intellectual framework of the battlefield. Even Mercur used Napoleonic examples to teach the art of war alongside one of the longest and most detailed descriptions of Gravelotte in American military literature. These American theorists used Napoleonic and German examples to educate officers and cadets in the fundamental elements of the French combat method. This education was an important part of the indoctrination of junior officers in the army’s intellectual framework. German institutions, doctrines, and actions served only to validate that framework. In this way, the Wars of German Unification caused no change in the way American officers conceptually understood the battlefield, only in the choice of a model for military excellence. With limited resources and small posts, army officers looked to the Germans for techniques to remain tactically proficient. The German technique of war gaming called Kriegspiel became a popular way to continue to develop tactical skills without large field operations. It also allowed officers to intellectually familiarize themselves with the use of tactics on the battlefield. German Kriegspiel was a war game played on maps with a rigid set of rules designed to simulate battlefield conditions, in order to learn and master the military art.37 The American version strategos, which was modified by American officers in the early 1880s, simplified the rules so that any level of officer could play the game to great effect, practicing the art of war prior to conducting field exercises.38 This game was popular among officers and was used in response to Commanding General of the Army John Schofield’s general order creating the lyceum system to develop junior officers. It also became a part of the Fort Leavenworth school’s curriculum in the study of the military art.39 Fort Leavenworth instructor Captain Eben Swift was the main proponent of Kriegspiel in the education of officers, designing map and tactical problems specifically for the use of officer students to engage in war games. German influence was so strong in the 1870s that Emory Upton used German doctrine as a way to defend his system of tactics. To support the continued use of his system in 1873, Upton presented a paper at West Point describing in detail the Prussian company column.40 He noted its effectiveness on the battlefield and its close resemblance to the updated version of his tactics presented to the War Department. As part of his European tour in 1875, Upton examined not only army organization and education but also tactics and maneuvers. Although prohibited from observing the German field maneuvers, Upton focused his section on European infantry on German tactics.41 These tactics used a heavy line of skirmishers in open order preceding one to two lines of infantry formed as a reserve.42 If German tacGerman Professionalism and American Warfare

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tics represented a highly developed system, Upton considered French formations complicated and difficult.43 When he described German tactics in his observation report, he attributed German victories over the French to tactical maneuvers and drill that were almost identical to his own tactical system. Thus, by praising the German system, American officers legitimized their own tactics.

U.S. Army Regulations, 1865–1899 A New System of Tactics, 1865–1891 The War Department continued to use Casey’s Infantry Tactics without major revision through the end of the Civil War. It was not until after the war that one of the best tacticians of the Union army, Emory Upton, developed a new system of tactics. An 1861 West Point graduate, Upton made his reputation with the Army of the Potomac during the battle of Spotsylvania, in which he planned and executed the only successful penetration of Confederate lines in the Overland campaign of 1864.44 Following the war, Upton created a new system of tactics based on his battlefield experiences. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton assembled a board consisting of distinguished officers such as Generals Grant and Meade at West Point to determine whether they would adopt this new system of tactics.45 The board submitted its approval of the new system, based on its use of the single rank in addition to the more traditional double rank and the simple nature of the movements between formations. The secretary of war officially adopted Upton’s A New System of Infantry Tactics, Double and Single Rank on 1 August 1867, and his system with revisions governed American tactics until the 1890s. Although Upton’s system was fundamentally different from its predecessors, it represented a combination of continuity and change with respect to the American tactical tradition. Upton maintained the emphasis, like every other previous tactical regulations, on simplifying the language, commands, and movements of the tactics. Upton used Hardee’s 1855 Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics as the base document from which he created his new system. Upton utilized many paragraphs directly from Hardee for the sections and paragraphs that remained unchanged, copying some of the wording verbatim. For example, to order a rank to turn their eyes to the front, both regulations stated that “at this command the recruits will cast their eyes to the front and remain firm.”46 Upton’s decision to invalidate the battlefield adaptations encapsulated in Casey’s regulations was extraordinary. It represented a denial of the tactics Upton executed during the war and demonstrated his desire to forge a new system. However, it also infused his system with many 142

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of the fundamental elements of the French combat method from Hardee’s regulations. Like his predecessors, Upton also sought through his simplified tactics to provide commanders more control over their formations. The new system of tactics developed out of an American tradition that went back to the beginning of the century and even to the French Regulations of 1791. Upton’s simplified tactical system designed for the American citizen-soldier dispensed with “maneuvering by the rear rank, by inversion, and the countermarch, and substitutes therefore rapid and simple conversions of front, and changes from column into line.”47 This addressed problems on the battlefield when the countermarch by inversion disrupted Union formations, making them vulnerable to Confederate attack. Simplicity made Upton’s system extremely popular throughout the army. He designed its simplified movements and commands with the intention of creating a universal system, applicable to infantry, cavalry, and artillery.48 This universal application brought uniformity to the different elements of the army in much the same way that the French combat method envisioned an infantry trained to perform all infantry tasks. Upton based the mechanics of his universal system on movements by fours and a single rank drill. Although both Hardee and Casey included a four-man “comrades in battle,” it was more of an administrative and motivational formation than a tactical one. In Upton’s “school of the company,” all marching formations used the four-man unit to go from line to column, change front, and wheel about.49 Upton then adjusted the regulations of the battalion and brigade to fit the new formations by fours.50 The system of fours, expanded through the brigade level, provided a much more tactically flexible formation than the brigades that fought in the Civil War. The new regulations also increased the amount of control officers had over their formations. This emphasis on control impacted the deployment as skirmishers, which now required several commands, whereas before the soldiers broke into open order with only one command.51 However, skirmishers continued to cover the main body and aggressively engage the enemy, and every company could deploy in skirmish order in accordance with the army’s intellectual framework. Upton also created commands that allowed the companies and battalions to change formation from line to column to skirmish order from a single rank as well as a double rank.52 The creation of a single rank drill provided commanders with more options for the exercise of command through simple and flexible formations, encouraging officers to remain nondogmatic in their tactics by creating an effective system that required them to adapt their formations to meet conditions of the battlefield. German Professionalism and American Warfare

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Upton eliminated both the platoon and bayonet drill in his system. In Scott’s tactics, the “school of the company” used platoon movements and firing commands to provide more options from company formations and movements. This provided flexibility to the tactics and encouraged initiative of junior officers. Upton’s system used the company as the basic formation from which all other formations, movements, and maneuvers began largely through his four-man unit. In his simplified company drill, Upton considered the company flexible enough to respond to any situation, thus making the platoon drill redundant. He also removed the bayonet drill from the regulations. Following the war, there was a great deal of professional discourse that considered the bayonet obsolete on the modern battlefield. Several highranking veterans including General McClellan, who published a book of bayonet exercises before the war, became ardent opponents of its continued use.53 Upton included nothing in his regulations about the bayonet except the commands to fix them. While Upton’s company drill maintained an emphasis on nondogmatic tactics and supported initiative on the part of the commander, the removal of the bayonet signaled a refutation of one of the fundamental elements of the French combat method. The bayonet represented the epitome of the offensive, and its removal was clearly outside the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. While many of the fundamental elements of the French combat method remained an integral part of American tactics, Upton’s Infantry Tactics, Double and Single Rank represented the first significant deviation from those elements since their adoption in 1815. In 1873, after seven years of implementation of Upton’s Infantry Tactics, the War Department ordered another board of officers to review and revise them. By chairing the review board, Upton took the opportunity not only to update his own system but also to realize his vision of creating a universal system of tactics for infantry, cavalry, and artillery.54 It took the board less than a year to recommend a new edition of Upton’s Infantry Tactics, which became the American standard until 1891. The majority of the schools of instruction of the 1873 Infantry Tactics remained exactly the same, using the same explanatory plates and the same drill commands as its predecessor. Upton’s biggest change was reintroducing the platoon and bayonet drill to his system. When applicable at the company and battalion level, he inserted platoon movements into the drill by fours to provide commanders more control and tactical options by utilizing the existing platoon organization.55 This increased the flexibility and control of commanders over their formation on the battlefield. Upton also returned the bayonet drill to his system, with an expanded series of bayonet exercises. Despite the arguments of Civil War veterans, the 144

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1873 edition outlined six different kinds of defensive parries, using four different ranges of motion, and provided nine different thrusts to be executed both in the advance and retreat, with detailed diagrams of the movements.56 These movements gave American soldiers far more capabilities with the bayonet than the Scott, Hardee, or Casey drill. This made bayonet combat implicitly more important than before the Civil War. It also brought the tactical regulations back in line with the French combat method. Immediately following the bayonet exercise was a new section focused on target practice, to enable soldiers to perfect the fire aspect of the infantry rifle. This new section contained elements of the science of marksmanship, techniques of accurate fire, and advice concerning target practice.57 These sections equipped American soldiers to use the infantry rifle, which provided more accurate long-range fire, and included bayonet exercises that provided the infantry with a more flexible shock weapon. The 1873 edition represented a conservative doctrine that returned some of the more traditional elements of American tactics to the regulations. With the reintroduction of the bayonet, the regulations returned to a more traditional understanding of the fundamental elements of the French combat method. Upton emphasized offensive action, nondogmatic tactics, the training of a standard infantry army, the use of a linear but noncontiguous framework for the new double and single rank drill, and the reinforcement of the importance of an infantry-based army, by creating a system in which the infantry tactics became the tactics for all the combatant arms. The Upton reprints in 1881 and 1888 were exact copies of the 1873 edition, with no changes at all. It was not until the early 1890s that the fervor over obsolete tactics caused the War Department to review and revise the American system of tactics.

Fort Leavenworth Influences Tactics: The 1891 Infantry Drill Regulations Responding to widespread dissatisfaction with Upton’s system in the mid1880s, Secretary of War William C. Endicott authorized a board of officers to review and update the tactical regulations in 1888. Composed of junior officers from the combatant arms, this board met in the Washington, D.C., area, near the offices of the War Department. Under the leadership of Civil War veteran Lieutenant Colonel John C. Bates, the board spent the majority of its time evaluating proposals, ideas, and suggestions that flooded in from sources within and outside the army. The board spent over a year working German Professionalism and American Warfare

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Figure 4.1. 1873 Bayonet Drill. These images, embedded in Upton’s detailed descriptions for the use of the bayonet, demonstrate the advanced nature of the new instruction, with a butt stroke and a shortened thrust. This was a far more detailed treatment of the subject than was in Scott’s regulations, which included a single thrust and a single parry. (Reprinted from Emory Upton, A New System of Infantry Tactics, Double and Single Rank [New York: D. Appleton, 1875], 63) 146

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on the revision before moving to Fort Leavenworth in 1889 to be closer to the School of Application for Infantry and Cavalry.58 This represented the first time that the army’s postgraduate education system influenced tactics instead of just teaching them, and it demonstrated the kind of thought and experimentation that characterized Fort Leavenworth. After almost three years of work, the resulting 1891 regulations, called the Infantry Drill Regulations (IDR) instead of Infantry Tactics, continued an American tradition of simplification and modernization while remaining committed to the fundamental elements of the French combat method. The 1891 IDR was an evolution and revision of Upton’s regulations, and simplicity was once again one of the primary objectives of the reviewers. In pursuit of simplicity, the board eliminated the single rank drill that made Upton’s system so unique and relied solely on the double rank drill.59 Removing the movements by single rank facilitated the reduction in the drill required by the regulations. The infantry drill was then separated into two parts: close order and extended order. For each order of drill, the regulations addressed movements and maneuvers from the individual soldier to the division and corps. Wherever applicable, Upton’s system was used or revised, including the platoon drill, the manual of arms, facings, and alignments, to name only a few. For the close order, there was an increase in the step and speed of infantry movement. The quick step increased from 110 to 120 steps per minute, and the stride from 28 to 30 inches, while the double time increased from 165 to 180 steps per minute, and the stride increased from 30 to 33 inches.60 Similar to measures taken in Hardee’s Infantry Tactics, this increase in speed allowed for a more rapid advance on the enemy. To achieve these new speeds, physical fitness became more important and received more attention in the regulations. As opposed to Upton’s four “setting up exercises,” the IDR provided soldiers and instructors with seventeen different exercises for both the upper and lower body.61 The inclusion of calisthenics reflected the influence not of Fort Leavenworth but of West Point, where such exercises originated and spread to the rest of the army through these regulations. While the close order drill section encapsulated most of the traditional infantry drill, the IDR made its most significant changes to the extended order. The IDR created an extended order drill section focused entirely on skirmishing. It described the movements and formations on the skirmish line for each unit from the squad through the brigade. While the close order drill remained useful for marching and maneuvering to the battlefield, the extended order drill became the sole drill of the battlefield. The regulations encouraged officers to train their commands with this drill in environments German Professionalism and American Warfare

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that resembled battlefield conditions.62 Different from Upton’s system, the IDR placed a new emphasis on the squad. The squad became the primary unit of the extended order; it controlled individual and volley fire and the intervals between solders on the skirmish line, and maintained the alignment of the line.63 Thus, the squad became the primary unit of combat. The rest of the drill integrated these squad movements into the platoon, company, and battalion drill. The creation of a squad drill made the skirmish order both more controlled and more flexible. With squad leaders focused on controlling the mechanics of skirmishing, the platoon and company officers were free to focus more attention on the maneuver and management of their units. It also reduced the complexity of the deploying, marching, and changing intervals from Upton’s system, as the squads controlled and guided movements. While the extended order drill was an evolution of Upton’s system, the new importance of the squad was important in the development of American tactics because it institutionalized the belief that skirmishers and the extended order dominated the modern battlefield. As opposed to tactics of previous regulations, the extended order section provided detailed descriptions of battlefield applications. Beginning with the platoon, the IDR created a battlefield scenario of various skirmish lines for offensive and defensive operations. The basic offensive formation consisted of a line of dispersed skirmishers preceding a firing line and followed by a supporting line.64 As skirmishers encountered the enemy, they fell back into an extended order firing line, which continued to advance by rushes, using cover and concealment to gain fire superiority and to close with the enemy. The supporting line reinforced the firing line as it advanced to approximately 500 meters from the enemy before merging with it. When the support line joined the firing line, it usually signaled a rush forward using a “rapid fire” from the infantry to achieve a higher volume of fire just prior to launching a final bayonet charge.65 The defensive formation mirrored the offensive formation, with three lines consisting of scouts, a firing line, and a support line. After defeating the enemy’s attack, the defense launched a counterattack that culminated in a bayonet charge.66 These basic strategies applied to units from the platoon through the brigade and were a distillation of the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield and remained consistent with the army’s education in the military art. They demonstrated how an infantrybased army capable of deploying all its solders as skirmishers used a linear but noncontiguous order of battle to mass the effects of its firepower in an attack that culminated in the bayonet charge. However, by placing the tactical formations and movements into a template for their use during battle, 148

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the regulations created a more dogmatic way to use these tactics than previous regulations. This violated one of the fundamental elements of the French combat method and represented a change from the delineation of subject material between the tactical and general regulations.

Stagnation: General Regulations, 1865–1899 Unlike the tactical regulations that underwent revision only a few years after the war, the general regulations remained unchanged for several decades. These general regulations became the focus of an unusual amount of debate over the constitutionality of congressional authority in the legal governance of the army. From 1863 through 1881, there were several unsuccessful attempts to update and revise the regulations that failed to pass either house of Congress.67 These political debates over army administration and policies prevented any modernization or revision of the army’s policies and practices. During this time, the 1863 general regulations remained in effect, modified by a system of general orders issued from the adjutant general’s office. Thus, a generation of army officers learned the army’s intellectual framework in exactly the same way from exactly the same general regulations as those who fought in the Civil War. It was not until 1889 that a new set of general regulations, called the Army Regulations of 1889, produced an updated system for the governance of the army. These new army regulations followed almost the exact same organization as the 1863 regulations and included sections on army administration and all the major departments of the general staff.68 However, they did not contain any of the battlefield sections that made previous general regulations an important part of institutionalizing the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. The War Department compiled all relevant battlefield sections from the 1863 regulations into a separate document. Published in 1892, the resulting Troops in Campaign was a fifty-five-page pamphlet that was almost an exact copy of the “Troops in Campaign” section of the 1863 regulations. Beginning with a small section on army organization, it regulated baggage trains, entrenched posts, post gardens, camps, and the processing of prisoners of war.69 Although slightly different in language and updated to reflect the army of the 1890s, the subject matter closely resembled the 1863 version. The rest of the work focused on marches, convoys, advanced guards, outposts, sieges, and battles.70 The new Troops in Campaign incorporated material that remained consistent with West Point and new postgraduate school curricula. However, it treated these general topics on the art of war in much less detail than had previous general regulations. The “Battle” section, which provided a complete German Professionalism and American Warfare

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Figure 4.2. 1891 Order of Battle. This plate from the 1891 Infantry Drill Regulations depicts the new tactical formation, with a dispersed skirmisher or scout line, a more robust firing line in depth, and a reserve line. This deployment maintains the linear but noncontiguous nature of American tactics. (Reprinted from USA, Infantry Drill Regulations [New York: Army and Navy Journal, 1891], 216)

conceptualization of the battlefield in the 1863 regulations, was only a single paragraph that encouraged initiative on the part of commanders in their tactical decisions and stated a preference for the offensive.71 Produced at the same time as the IDR, Troops in Campaign was a general document on the army at war that left the detailed description of the army’s intellectual framework to the tactical regulations. This abridged document provided the only American general doctrine of war as it prepared to fight the Spanish-American War.

Professionalizing the United States Army Although the army contained several elements of a profession prior to the war, these elements failed to produce a professional army. The most influential generals of the postwar era, such as Grant, Sherman, Schofield, and Upton, blamed the carnage and excessive casualties in the battlefields on the poor quality and training of the officer corps. They dedicated themselves to professionalizing army institutions. This professionalization followed similar patterns in law, medicine, and science and in many ways used the German 150

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model. The army understood the German victories of the 1860s and ’70s not as the result of new tactics or technology but as the result of a professional officer corps developed through professional institutions. In the decades leading up to the Spanish-American War, several key professional institutions began the transition of the American army into a professional army. Military professionalization generally followed the development of civilian professions in America following the Civil War. The standard criteria for a civilian profession included an association, a journal, standardized training and education, a certification process, controlled access to practice, selfpolicing of members, and a certain amount of autonomy for the community.72 The military profession included many of these elements in different forms than their civilian counterparts. Samuel Huntington, who produced the first academic attempt at identifying the unique elements of military professionalism, said that as the army’s primary purpose was the management of violence in the service of the state, it was the officer corps that formed a professional community.73 It acquired a sense of corporateness and unity through a shared professional identity, different from the parochial and regional officer corps of the prewar era. Military professionals held themselves apart from civilian society, with their own standards of conduct, educational institutions, and ethics. Morris Janowitz expanded and revised Huntington’s model of military professionalism. He agreed that expertise set the military officer apart due to the increasingly technical nature of warfare, that the profession required both unique educational and administrative institutions, and that there existed a sense of group identity that set military officers apart.74 These two models of military professionalism provide a way to analyze the process of army professionalization. From the 1860s to the 1890s, the army created an integrated educational system, several professional journals, more standardized training for its officers, and better tactical training. Officers were encouraged to go back and forth between positions in the army’s schools and line regiments. The journals and tactical training improved professional development across the army. These new professional institutions created increased opportunities for the dissemination of the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield and the fundamental elements of the French combat method.

Undergraduate Education: The U.S. Military Academy Following the Civil War, cadet education continued in much the same direction as during the war. Cadets split their time between academic and military studies, with the academic year going from August through the German Professionalism and American Warfare

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middle of May and a two-and-a-half-month summer encampment. During the academic year, classroom studies dominated the cadet’s time, although cadets did some form of military training every day. They still worked their way through the system of tactics current in the army. The U.S. Military Academy adopted Upton’s Tactics in 1868, ensuring that cadets once again studied the most current tactical regulations. Cadets demonstrated proficiency with them on the drill field and in the classroom during examinations twice a year. In addition to tactical drill, cadets learned sword and bayonet drills, calisthenics and gymnastics, and even began to play football with the first Army-Navy football game played in 1890, with Navy winning 24–0.75 In addition to these individual skills, cadets practiced artillery gunnery, the manufacture of ammunition, battalion and skirmisher drills, and cavalry exercises.76 This military training familiarized cadets with the ever-increasing technical nature of warfare. In addition to these purely military topics, the academic treatment of the military art remained central to cadet instruction through the required engineering course. The West Point curriculum in the military art and science continued to develop an American adaptation of the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield based on the fundamental elements of the French combat method. Mahan taught engineering and influenced cadets into the 1870s, with his courses almost unchanged since the war. He retained the use of his textbooks written for cadet instruction, which included the 1862 edition of Out-Post.77 Mahan’s work continued to provide cadets with more detailed explanations of their tactical and general regulations, along with sections on strategy that used historical examples. Through Mahan’s texts, cadets learned the importance of a predominantly infantry army with troops trained to perform all the infantry tasks without specialized formations, the combination on the main battlefield of the effects of all the combat arms, a linear but noncontiguous order of battle that included a reserve, and the primacy of offensive operations in modern warfare, epitomized by the bayonet assault. When Mahan was retired in 1871, the academy replaced him with Colonel Junius B. Wheeler. Wheeler graduated in 1855 and served as a topographical engineer in the Oregon territory before coming back to the academy as an assistant professor of mathematics from 1859 to 1863.78 He spent the rest of the war as the chief engineer to the Army of the Arkansas and then served on the frontier before being recalled to West Point to take over the Department of Civil and Military Engineering. Wheeler’s first change to Mahan’s curriculum came in 1873 when he replaced Mahan’s Out-Post with Captain William P. Craighill’s translation of General Guillaume-Henri Dufour’s Strat152

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egy and Tactics.79 Popular with Union officers during the war, the latest 1862 edition of this French text included material concerning both the Swiss and American armies. Wheeler chose Craighill’s translation for the study of the military art from 1873 through 1879, and it provided cadets with a primer for the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. While covering similar topics as Jomini and Mahan, Dufour used a large number of historical examples to explain the concepts and principles of the military art. For example, he used Hannibal’s and Napoleon’s movements across the Alps to demonstrate strategic principles while describing the tactics of the different periods as dependent on advances in military technology.80 In this way, he differentiated the sections of his work on the principles of war from the study of tactics. The majority of the rest of the work contained nothing that significantly challenged the theories of either Mahan or Jomini. When describing the modern battlefield, he began with an infantry army in an order of battle of two lines with a flexible reserve.81 Skirmishers preceded these lines and covered the offensive movements of attack columns operating under the guns of the artillery until either the enemy’s flank or center broke under a bayonet charge.82 He used a number of Napoleonic examples when describing and explaining the operations of such an army.83 This conceptualization of the battlefield, and of the way the various combat arms worked together to achieve victory, used many of the fundamental elements of the French combat method. In addition to replacing Out-Post, Wheeler set about updating Mahan’s other engineering texts, thereby modernizing the engineering curriculum. In 1874, Wheeler produced an updated version of Mahan’s Elementary Course of Permanent Fortifications, and by 1878, he had replaced Mahan’s civil engineering text with one of his own.84 In 1879, Wheeler replaced Strategy and Tactics with his own textbook entitled A Course of Instruction in the Elements of the Art and Science of War. He used this text for the next decade for the instruction of cadets in military theory and the art of war. Like Mahan, Wheeler dedicated his text to cadet education and stated explicitly his belief that “history is the basis upon which the principles of the ‘science of war’ are founded.”85 Wheeler’s text incorporated history in a systematic way to demonstrate principles of war that he believed were consistent with the writings of Frederick the Great, Napoleon, Archduke Charles, Jomini, and Hamley. He also incorporated elements of the General Regulations of 1863.86 This created a synthetic work that integrated military theory and army regulations to provide a concise statement of the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield for cadet instruction. German Professionalism and American Warfare

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Wheeler’s work utilized an organization similar to both Mahan and Jomini, while retaining Dufour’s purpose of educating both amateurs and professionals. He began by defining war as a struggle between nations, carried on by force, with both military and political elements. This was the first time in American military thought that war was both a military and political phenomenon, although this meant that a military strategy could be offensive, while the political strategy was defensive.87 He also defined war as both a science and an art, based on theories and principles derived from the study of history.88 These principles included a historically based assessment of the effectiveness of infantry-based armies.89 These armies achieved decisive victories only when conducting offensive operations, even when adopting a defensive strategy. Modern infantry armies used an order of battle with skirmishers preceding two lines with a reserve. Artillery supported the skirmishers in preparation for the infantry attack, which culminated with a bayonet assault usually in the center of the enemy position.90 However, he also stated that the open order had replaced the close order linear formation as the primary way to deliver firepower to the front, that massed attacks were a thing of the past, although bayonets and charges still had a role to play, and that modern technology made cavalry charges obsolete.91 His conceptualization of the battlefield reinforced the army’s intellectual framework while at the same time updating it with modern experience. At the end of his work, Wheeler concluded that technology had not significantly altered the principles of the science of war.92 Wheeler conveyed the same ideas that made up the army’s intellectual framework and modernized cadet instruction in the military art. After Wheeler’s retirement in 1884, West Point chose James Mercur to replace him as the professor of civil and military engineering. An 1866 graduate, Mercur was an instructor in the Department of Mathematics as a cadet and an assistant professor of natural and experimental philosophy from 1868 to 1872, in between assignments with the Corps of Engineers. Mercur continued using Wheeler’s engineering curriculum for the first several years of his tenure, before writing his own textbooks. He revised Wheeler’s Permanent Fortification text in 1888 and produced a new text on the science and art of war entitled Elements of the Art of War in 1889.93 Mercur designed his treatise, like Wheeler’s, for the instruction of cadets at West Point, and as such it represented another important link in the intellectual development of the junior officers of the U.S. Army. If Wheeler’s text created an easily accessible synthesis on the art of war, Mercur produced an even more concise treatise for cadet instruction. 154

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Although he included brief sections on army organization and strategy, the text focused on war at the battalion level and below. Using the definitions of units from the squad through the corps, Mercur introduced cadets to army organization and how their units fit into a larger structure. In addition to the functions of a line infantry officer, he outlined the duties and capabilities of the staffs and in particular the general staff.94 This mirrored the administrative sections in the army regulations and early attempts at army reform. Similar to the belief that infantry should be trained in all infantry tasks, Mercur pointed out that both staff and line officers required the same rigorous education and training to be successful. Mercur provided two general principles of war: the first to determine the place of battle to maximize victory and minimize defeat, and the second to concentrate a stronger force at this battlefield.95 With principles reminiscent of Jomini, he then emphasized the importance of marches and logistics as ingredients of battlefield success. From these principles, only offensive operations and battles achieved decisive results.96 The principal arm remained the infantry, and the most effective infantry drill was the skirmish or extended order. The extended order enabled infantry to rapidly engage the enemy on the “offensive to give the fullest effect to the rifle fire.”97 To support this extended order, the best order of battle was to have two lines in supporting distance of the skirmish line, with a mobile reserve. As the open order infantry approached the enemy, formations from the supporting lines brought a sufficient number of rifles together within a short distance of the enemy, and then the entire line rushed forward with the bayonet to break the enemy line.98 This battlefield framework constituted essentially the same conceptualization as Wheeler, Dufour, and Mahan and remained committed to the elements of the French combat method. The remaining chapters of Elements of the Art of War conformed to much of the military theory from Mahan to Wheeler, with a focus on minor tactics, outposts, marches, and logistics. In the last chapter, on strategy, Mercur addressed the importance of new technologies by discussing partisans, logistics, rail transportation, mobilization, deployment by timetable, and the importance of producing and disseminating orders on the battlefield.99 Cadets continued to receive a very modern and relevant education in the art of war near the turn of the twentieth century. Although Mercur did not integrate history into the body his work as previous textbooks did, he provided cadets with a complete and detailed historical case study to demonstrate his principles of war. At the end of his chapter on grand tactics, he included a translation of the official German account of the battle of Gravelotte from German Professionalism and American Warfare

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16–18 August 1870.100 In sixty-five pages, Mercur provided a tactical narrative of the battle that included detailed maps and excerpts of German and French orders and that validated the principles stated in the preceding text. This provided cadets the opportunity to apply their theoretical instruction in the army’s intellectual framework to the problems of a real battlefield. This work was the central text of cadet education until after the Spanish-American War and demonstrated both the powerful influence of German warfare in the army’s undergraduate education and also the army’s intellectual framework based on the French combat method.

Postgraduate Education: Fort Leavenworth and the Service Schools Although there were decentralized attempts at creating postgraduate educational opportunities by individual commanders or combatant branches, the army lacked a system of professional schools following the Civil War. In the 1820s and 1830s, there were schools of practice for the infantry and artillery; but they remained technical schools, and support for them waned after two decades. In the 1840s, individual posts formed their own schools, the most famous of which was the 3rd and 4th U.S. Infantry Regiment’s School for Brigade Drill at Jefferson Barracks.101 Understanding the importance of such institutions, Grant reopened the Artillery School at Fort Monroe, Virginia, in 1867.102 The most advanced professional school of its time, it focused on the technical education of artillery officers. By the early 1870s, there was widespread support for educational reform throughout the regular army. In 1875, Secretary of War William Belknap decided to send an officer to tour the major powers of Europe and Asia, with the express purpose of improving army education, administration, and tactics. He chose Emory Upton to leave his position teaching tactics at West Point to conduct this European tour. Upton examined a variety of multitiered educational systems with undergraduate schools, postgraduate schools, schools of application, and a seniorlevel war college to educate generals.103 Upon his return, Upton took over the Department of Military Art and Science at the Artillery School to put his observations into practice. Upton chose the German postgraduate model to reform the Artillery School curriculum in the military art. The Kriegsakademie in Berlin offered a three-year course of study for officers that included lectures and small group discussion in mathematics, history, military administration, and French. The examinations consisted of analytical compositions on all subjects, including tactics and strategy, in which students had to solve battle156

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field problems by describing their orders, dispositions, and movements.104 Upton modified this curriculum and focused on the study of military history and theory in small discussion groups, in addition to more detailed classroom work in the deployment of artillery. He introduced the study of Marlborough, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, the Civil War, and von Moltke in the Austro-Prussian War as a forum for graduate-level learning in the military art.105 In order to understand and analyze these operations, Upton spent almost sixty lessons reading and discussing European military theory.106 Using military history and theory to understand the military art provided more opportunity for intellectual growth than did the undergraduate recitations at West Point. The theoretical portion of the course began with reading and discussion of Jomini’s Art of War. This represented a continuation of the West Point engineering education. However, at the Artillery School, officers spent more time working through the more current material in Edward Hamley’s Operations of War. Hamley’s book was the most modern and relevant work of theory that influenced officers at the Artillery School during this period. Rising to become the commandant of the British Staff School, Hamley wrote The Operations of War Explained and Illustrated for the education of British officers in the military art. Although the first edition appeared in 1866, Upton assigned the 1878 edition, which extended Hamley’s analysis to include the most recent military campaigns of the American Civil War and the Wars of German Unification.107 His treatise contained thematic chapters pertaining to the study of strategy, grand tactics, and minor tactics, much like Jomini and Mahan, and used military history to illustrate his concepts and principles of war. The offensive remained the only way to decisive victory, even though such victories were difficult to achieve on the modern battlefield.108 The most effective army was a predominantly infantry army, whose troops could fight as skirmishers or line troops.109 “The line of battle should be a disposition, on a great scale, of the three arms for their effective individual action and mutual support,” usually composed of several lines.110 Due to changes in technology and organization, the skirmish line collapsed on the main firing line after making contact with the enemy, but the main firing line remained an open order formation from which the infantry delivered attacks by rifle fire and the bayonet.111 While Hamley focused more on strategy than on the grand tactics of the battlefield, and thus not explicitly on the elements of an intellectual framework of the battlefield, his examples and principles were consistent with the French combat method. German Professionalism and American Warfare

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Hamley’s conceptualization of modern warfare was easily integrated into the army’s educational system. West Point cadets became familiar with Hamley’s reputation through citations in the works of Wheeler and Mercur.112 He also reinforced the ideas expressed through Upton’s Infantry Tactics and the General Regulations of 1863 sections concerning battle. Hamley demonstrated the power of German military influence by reiterating the idea that the tactical system of Napoleon and the French Revolution was a modification of the Prussian system of Frederick the Great.113 This identification of the French combat method with the Prussian system became popular within the U.S. Army as German influence increased through the turn of the century. The use of Hamley’s text encouraged postgraduate level learning as well as reinforced the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. While improving the theoretical education of artillery officers at Fort Monroe, Upton urged Commanding General of the Army William Tecumseh Sherman to establish a similar school for the theoretical and practical postgraduate education of officers of the other branches. Supporting the education of officers as much as Grant did, Sherman ordered a school of application for infantry and cavalry officers organized at Fort Leavenworth in May 1881.114 The school of application adopted the Artillery School’s curriculum in history and the military art, which included the adoption of Hamley’s Operations of War as its primary theoretical text.115 With this as a starting point, the Fort Leavenworth Infantry and Cavalry School grew to become the army’s central postgraduate school. By the early 1890s, the school had a growing intellectual capability through excellent small group instruction, discussionbased learning in the military art, and the largest professional library outside of West Point.116 It also benefited from the availability of cavalry and infantry troops stationed at Fort Leavenworth, which provided an important aid for the practical application of the principles learned in the classroom in a battlefield environment. In its first fifteen years of operation, the Fort Leavenworth Infantry and Cavalry School advanced junior officer education in the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. After the school had established a reputation for excellence in tactics and company administration, it began to focus on higher-level postgraduate education through the efforts of Arthur Wagner and Eben Swift. The War Department decided to send another officer to Europe to examine foreign armies, and they chose Wagner. A West Point graduate of 1875, Wagner served on the frontier before earning a reputation as a military intellectual by writing intelligent and thought-provoking articles in the Journal of the Military Service Institute of the United States. Following his tour of Europe in 158

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1884-1885, which included German military schools and battlefields of both the Napoleonic era and the Wars of German Unification, the War Department assigned Wagner to Fort Leavenworth in 1886.117 He changed the focus of the Department of Military Art to a combination of theoretical and practical postgraduate study for junior officers in the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. Wagner changed the curriculum to include new exercises and techniques that made the theoretical instruction in the art of war more useful. Wagner’s European tour allowed him to study German tactics in depth, and he became an expert on the tactical developments of European armies. He instituted the use of map problems, tactical scenarios, and the German war-gaming system called Kriegspiel, which allowed students to apply their theoretical knowledge on a map against other officers.118 These exercises allowed officers to apply their intellectual framework to battlefield problems in a classroom environment. One of Wagner’s best instructors, Captain Eben Swift, combined all these individual exercises together into an “applicatory method” that created a way for officers to effectively study war in an academic environment. Inspired by German techniques, Swift described this method as consisting of “working out tactical schemes which are based on probable or real military situations,” so that “having studied the theory we can apply it to various concrete cases and develop our ideas just as we would in practice.”119 This emphasis on actively applying theoretical knowledge led to the use of German-style “terrain rides” to gain a better appreciation for the effect of terrain on the battlefield.120 These rides reinforced the use of map problems and allowed for a better appreciation of the application of tactics on actual terrain. Throughout the map exercises, tactical scenarios, and rides, Wagner emphasized the study of military history in a more analytical way to support the professional study of the military art. Wagner used the study of past campaigns to analyze battlefield decisions and actions to understand the reasons for victory and defeat.121 Military history was also used as the context for some of the map exercises and tactical scenarios. Wagner stressed an analytical application of the principles of war, and the intellectual framework taught through the curriculum, to a variety of different situations, terrains, and enemies. This was different from the discussion-focused Leavenworth curriculum of the 1880s and required officers to master the knowledge of their profession through postgraduate study. Fort Leavenworth provided postgraduate education until the requirements of the Spanish-American War closed the schools. The instructors and students rejoined their regiments and went off to war to put their hard-earned education to work. German Professionalism and American Warfare

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Professionalizing the Army Aside from the educational system, army reformers addressed the lack of intellectual standards and professional development throughout the army. Although Grant and Sherman focused on educational reforms, Commanding General of the Army John Schofield made several changes that attempted to address both of these problems. From 1888 to 1895, he encouraged the line regiments and frontier posts to create professional development opportunities for junior officers. At the same time, there was a growth of professional journals that sought not only to keep the army informed of current military events but also to advance professional knowledge. Schofield believed in the importance of continued military education and professional development for officers throughout their career.122 He ordered the creation of a forum for the education of officers at the regimental level. These forums, called either post schools or lyceums, varied from post to post, but their purpose was to provide junior officers with theoretical and practical military education in addition to their undergraduate experience. Through the general order for the establishment of the lyceums, groups of officers gathered to read Jomini, to study Napoleon, to conduct war games using the German Kriegspiel method, and to study army regulations.123 By 1891, forty-one of fifty-nine posts with line regiments had some kind of a school, and twenty-five of those lyceums followed a curriculum that included the study of theoretical texts, lectures, terrain rides, and tactical problems. In Fort McPherson, the artillery regiment officers used the tactical problems of the attack and defense of Savannah, Charleston, Pensacola, and New Orleans as some of their professional development subjects.124 While this initial effort increased the intellectual capabilities of the officers in regiments that took the order seriously, the lyceum project as a whole lacked a standard curriculum. Therefore the effects were dependent on the capabilities and leadership of regimental and post commanders. During this period, a number of professional journals supplied the intellectual needs of the army by publishing articles, papers, and works of theory for the widest distribution possible. The first of these journals was the Army and Navy Journal, founded by William Conant Church in 1863. During the Civil War, this journal provided news from the front line about troop movements and actions on the battlefield, as well as strategic commentary by generals and retired officers. In addition to this coverage, the journal published information and advertisements directed both at the soldiers and officers in the army and navy, to keep up with events of interest to the military man, 160

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and also at the general public, to get a better idea of army and navy life.125 Following the war, readership of the journal remained strong, and for fourteen years it had no competition. It provided a forum for discussion about issues concerning the military and professional topics such as changing the American system of tactics. Upton became the journal’s tactical correspondent following the adoption of his system of tactics, and he remained on the editorial board through the 1870s. He encouraged the publication of interpretations of the current system of tactics as a way to disseminate the regulations’ intent throughout the army.126 More of a military newspaper than a professional journal, the Army and Navy Journal created a unique forum for professional discussion and debate that was unparalleled until the creation of the Military Service Institute of the United States. The first American professional military journal, the Journal of the Military Service Institute of the United States (JMSIUS) grew out of the professionalization movement of the 1870s. The purpose of the Military Service Institute was the “professional unity and improvement by correspondence, discussion, and the reading and publication of papers . . . and generally the promotion of the military interests of the United States.”127 The JMSIUS was the primary implement of the institute’s purpose, and it used a format that included long papers, articles, editorials, book reviews, and a section on foreign armies and the military art. The JMSIUS held essay contests on topics of military policy and organization and established a satellite groups at West Point, Vancouver Barracks, Denver, and Fort Leavenworth to encourage membership and debate throughout the army. It supported the Infantry and Cavalry School by publishing the winning graduation essays.128 The journal also followed several intellectual trends in the army, such as an interest in German writings and theory and Napoleonic military history. The proliferation of German thought, writings, and history was widespread throughout the JMSIUS, so much so that one of its authors stated, “We are overwhelmed with translations of the literary labors of German generals.”129 There also remained a steady number of military history articles in the journal, and articles on the Napoleonic period were as numerous as on any other historical period. Articles on Napoleonic strategy and the battles of Waterloo and Jena were only a few of the Napoleonic articles that appeared in the journal.130 These articles used German and Napoleonic subjects as a way to teach the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. History was not the only way that the journal disseminated the army’s intellectual framework to a geographically separated officer corps. Tactics and sequential descriptions of the infantry battle were popular topics of German Professionalism and American Warfare

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discussion for army officers of this period, and they appeared regularly in the JMSIUS. While these articles focused on different aspects of the battle and tactics, they all used a variation of the army’s intellectual framework. Offensive operations remained the only means for achieving victory, which still required the physical infantry assault even against entrenchments.131 The recommended order of battle was three lines of infantry, with the skirmishers of the first line coming from the same unit as the other lines.132 Once the skirmish line advances close enough to the enemy, the supporting lines close in, and in a great rush the entire formation charges through the enemy position.133 This conceptualization of the battlefield was consistent with the fundamental elements of the French combat method taught through the army’s regulations and educational system. If the Fort Leavenworth schools became the center of military thought in the professional army, the JMISUS was the forum for discussion and debate that kept frontier posts and deployed officers connected to the most current military thought both at home and abroad.

A Partially Professional Army at War: The Spanish-American War For over thirty years, the army served on frontier and coastal defense duty. There were no large-scale exercises, and the only conventional activity in the army took place in the classroom and the JMSIUS. It was not until the late 1890s that America found itself on the brink of war. Following the Napoleonic Wars, Spain attempted to re-exert control over its overseas territories including the island of Cuba. By the 1890s, this effort became increasingly violent as Cuban rebels continued to resist Spanish control. Cuban exiles in America cried out against this injustice, progressives in government thought the nation had a moral obligation to liberate the oppressed Cubans, and American business interests totaling $50 million clamored for intervention.134 After the destruction of the Maine in Havana on 15 February 1898, public sentiment swept the reluctant McKinley administration into war. Following the determination that the Maine was destroyed by a naval mine, Congress adopted a joint resolution to go to war with Spain on 20 April 1898. The army’s professionalization effort produced a reasonably well-trained and well-educated 28,000-man army by 1898. The regular army saw itself as the repository of military knowledge for the nation and maintained a large number of hollow formations so that in time of war volunteers and conscripts would bring them up to full strength under the command of experi162

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enced officers. This way, the newly educated and trained line and staff officers would rapidly transform volunteers into well-trained solders.135 As tension increased and conflict seemed likely, the War Department’s staff bureaus anticipated requirements, planned operations, mobilization, and logistical support for a war with Spain.136 These plans required Congress to provide the necessary resources, money, and men to expand into a wartime army. Congressmen receptive to the army’s desires introduced a bill that authorized the expansion of the army to 104,000 under professional command. Afraid of an expanded regular army and unwilling to forgo opportunities for political aggrandizement, the National Guard lobby and populist movement prevented the bill from reaching the floor of either house of Congress. In April, Congress passed a law that authorized an increase of the regular army to 67,000 men, but it also authorized the raising of a volunteer augmentation from the state militias under their own officers and on a different pay and compensation system.137 The regular army could not compete with the volunteer units in terms of bonuses, pay, and advancement, and as a result, the regular regiments remained understrength throughout the war. The regular formations trained and led according to the army’s system of tactics and intellectual framework of the battlefield made up less than half the army that went to war in 1898.

The Santiago Campaign The campaign and battle of Santiago was the first conventional operation of the war, with the largest number of regular troops and the largest number of overall troops under a single commander. The actions, deployments, and decisions undertaken in this campaign and battle reflect the officers’ and soldiers’ prewar training and education without the influence of battlefield experience. With primarily regular officers and soldiers, the battle of Santiago demonstrated the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield in action. Due to the proximity of Spanish holdings in the Caribbean, the first military objective of the war was achieving naval control of the area. Upon the U.S. declaration of war, the Spanish dispatched a squadron to the Caribbean under the command of Admiral Pasqual Cervera. Secretary of War Russell Alger directed the navy to destroy this squadron. The navy dispatched several squadrons in an attempt to intercept Cervera. As Cervera was ordered to stay in the Caribbean by the Spanish government and unable to challenge the American fleet, circumstances forced him to seek the protection of a harGerman Professionalism and American Warfare

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bor. He chose to anchor under the protection of Santiago and arrived there on 19 May.138 Due to the difficulty of entering the Santiago harbor by sea, the American navy could only blockade the Spanish fleet. Alger directed the army to capture Santiago to force the Spanish squadron out of the harbor, so that the navy could destroy the Spanish squadron and control the Caribbean. Following the declaration of war, Commanding General of the Army Nelson Appleton Miles issued orders to the geographic departments mobilizing units and ordering the training of volunteers across the nation. The War Department decided to assemble and launch the expedition to Cuba from the port of Tampa,which became the center of the logistical and mobilization effort for the war.139 Early in the mobilization, the War Department created the V Corps and began to form divisional and corps staffs from individual officers without regimental affiliations and regardless of experience or education.140 Miles put Major General William R. Shafter, who had won the Medal of Honor in the Civil War and fought in the Indian Wars, in command of the V Corps. Shafter immediately began organizing the camps around Tampa and drilling the units of his corps as they arrived, to put them in a state of military readiness. The V Corps consisted of two infantry divisions, one under the command of General Jacob F. Kent and the other under General Henry Ware Lawton, and a cavalry division under Civil War veteran General Joseph Wheeler. Of the almost 17,000 men of Shafter’s corps, there were only two volunteer infantry regiments and one volunteer cavalry regiment.141 It represented the largest regular army formation of any theater of the war. Shafter’s mission was to land the V Corps in eastern Cuba and advance on Santiago, thus threatening Cervera into ordering his squadron out into the Caribbean. To do this, Shafter chose to disembark his corps eighteen miles east of the city at the towns of Daquiri and Siboney.142 The corps’ flotilla reached Cuba on 22 June and began landing troops after an ineffective naval bombardment of the towns and coast. Lawton’s division disembarked first, followed by most of the cavalry division, and immediately advanced on the village of Siboney to expand the American beachhead. Owing to the difficulties of disembarkation and the lack of communication between Shafter’s V Corps headquarters and Lawton’s staff, the division moved out too slowly to catch the small Spanish battalion that observed the landing.143 The Spanish defense faced significant difficulties in the province of Santiago. General Arsenio Linares commanded 12,000 Spanish troops consisting of soldiers, sailors, volunteers, and Cuban conscripts against both Cuban rebels and American invaders.144 With far more strategic terrain than troops to defend it, Linares sent several thousand men to engage the American force 164

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in the coastal region while fortifying positions around the city.145 To defend Santiago against the Americans, Linares had to fortify San Juan Hill and the surrounding heights, which dominated the city from the east. General Vara del Ray fortified the town of El Caney with 520 men to protect the left flank of Linares’s position. Linares took command of the defense of Fort San Juan located on the dominant terrain of San Juan Hill and deployed his infantry in two lines. The first line consisted of 300 men and two rapid-fire cannons and was supported by a second line consisting of an additional 300 men.146 Both of these positions were well situated on high ground and consisted of a series of trench lines connected by barbed wire to a number of blockhouses supported by two modern artillery pieces. The rest of Linares’s garrison manned the walls covering the city, patrolled the area against rebel attack, or maintained a watch on the blockading American fleet outside the harbor. On 23 June, Lawton’s division and the cavalry division completed disembarking and advanced their pickets to reconnoiter the route to Santiago. Late-afternoon patrols and reports from Cuban rebels revealed 1,500 Spanish troops occupying a fortified position in the defile called Las Guasimas that controlled the road from Siboney and Santiago. With no orders from Shafter or the V Corps staff, Wheeler attacked the Spanish position with 950 men of his division, including the 1st U.S. Volunteers, known as the Rough Riders, on the morning of 24 June. With the Rough Riders advancing on the western ridge of valley and the 1st and 10th U.S. Cavalry on the eastern ridge, difficult jungle terrain masked the enemy positions.147 The Spanish entrenchments allowed the defenders to keep up a heavy volume of fire, but the American skirmishers and firing line continued to advance.148 Supported by only a single Hotchkiss battery, the firing line rushed and crawled its way toward the enemy until the final charge carried the Spanish position.149 The Americans suffered sixteen men killed and fifty men wounded, while the Spanish were able to retreat before the American charge and lost only nine men killed and twenty-four men wounded.150 This attack, while neither planned nor coordinated through Shafter’s headquarters, opened the road to within four miles of Santiago. Reinforced by Lawton’s division, the cavalry division remained forward to provide security for the debarkation of the rest of the V Corps. By 27 June, Kent’s division was ashore, and the V Corps was ready to continue the advance. Cuban rebels formed a cordon around Santiago that prevented Spanish reinforcements from entering the city, and they provided the Americans with intelligence. Shafter spent two days reconnoitering the enemy position and formulating his plan of attack. He ordered Lawton’s division to attack the Spanish position at El Caney to prevent the enemy there German Professionalism and American Warfare

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from reinforcing Fort San Juan. Anticipating a rapid seizure of El Caney, Lawton would then continue his attack into the flank of the San Juan position to assist the rest of the corps.151 Shafter ordered Kent’s division and the cavalry division to attack the enemy position along the San Juan Heights on line, after waiting approximately two hours for Lawton to decisively engage the enemy at El Caney. The cavalry division was responsible for capturing the enemy position on Kettle Hill in front of the main position on San Juan Hill to prevent the enemy from firing into the flank of Kent’s division. Kent’s division was responsible for capturing the enemy’s main position at Fort San Juan.152 Shafter gave the division commanders their orders personally, and they moved into staging areas on the night of 30 June.

The Battles of El Caney and San Juan Hill Lawton deployed his three brigades on line and began the attack on El Caney with an artillery barrage at 6:30 a.m. on the morning of 1 July 1898. Each brigade deployed with two regiments in their first line and one regiment in reserve. The regiments pushed out a skirmish line in open order in front of their firing and supporting lines.153 Due to the dense vegetation and the commanding position of El Caney, the Spanish defenders kept up a dangerous fire all day, turning a rapid American advance into an eight-hour ordeal. After advancing the lead regiments on hands and knees for hours, at noon the regiments of the supporting lines came forward to support the firing lines. The 25th Infantry Regiment was in the supporting line of Colonel Evan Miles’s brigade and advanced through the firing line. Deployed with two companies on the firing line and two companies in support, the 25th rushed forward, only to recoil under enemy fire, before rushing forward again.154 While preparing for the final assault of El Caney, Shafter ordered Lawton to stop his attack, to retreat from El Caney, and to support the battle for Fort San Juan.155 Refusing to demoralize his command or relieve the pressure on the enemy, Lawton disregarded the order and directed General Adna Chaffee to lead his brigade in the final assault. Chafee led what was to become the final charge by regiments from three different brigades that carried the Americans through the enemy positions.156 As Chaffee’s regiments began to charge, the officers of the 25th took council and decided that “there is but one thing for United States Regulars to do—Advance! Advance until they find the enemy.”157 The uncoordinated charge carried the enemy position and drove the remaining Spanish out of the town. After clearing the blockhouses, Lawton occupied the position by 4:00 p.m. and began to fortify El Caney against a possible Spanish counterattack. 166

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17 Garcia (Cubans) (3,000)

7

Varo de Ray (520)

N

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3 Choffee

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Approximate bivouac areas night of 30 June–1 July

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Figure 4.3 The Battle of San Juan and El Caney (Courtesy of the Department of History, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York)

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The main attack on the San Juan Heights waited for several hours, as it appeared that instead of the expected rapid advance, Lawton was facing serious opposition at El Caney. Kent’s division deployed to the left of the El Pozo-Santiago road, and the cavalry division under General Samuel S. Sumner (Wheeler was too sick to command in the morning, although he joined his command in the afternoon) deployed on the right side of the road, so that both divisions formed a single line of brigades.158 The artillery barrage of the San Juan Heights ended at 8:45 a.m., which signaled the advance of both divisions.159 Due to the restricted jungle terrain and the limited number of roads, the deployment of brigades and regiments into firing and supporting lines became a tangled mess. During the disorganized advance, the Americans suffered under the long range of Spanish Mauser smokeless rifles and artillery. In the supporting line, the Rough Riders received the order to reinforce the firing line as it charged, only to find the 1st and 10th Cavalry waiting for orders. Colonel Teddy Roosevelt attempted to convince the other regimental commanders to charge, telling them “that in my judgment we could not take these hills by firing at them, and that we must rush them.”160 The Rough Riders then advanced alone and mingled with troopers from other brigades. Almost spontaneously a general charge erupted all along the line.161 The charge stormed the Spanish trenches and blockhouses on Kettle Hill and protected Kent’s flank as his division attacked the main position on San Juan Hill. The main attack on Fort San Juan suffered from the same problems of communication and jungle terrain as the attack on Kettle Hill. Kent deployed his division with General Hamilton S. Hawkins’s brigade on the firing line and the remaining two brigades in support. After advancing under fire for several hours, Kent went forward with Hawkins until they reached a position to reconnoiter the enemy position.162 Without orders from Shafter, Hawkins wanted to press the attack, while Kent argued against an attack through the jungle. During this debate, one of Shafter’s aides, Lieutenant Colonel John D. Miley, arrived and used Shafter’s authority to order the attack to continue.163 As Hawkins’s brigade pushed forward through Spanish rifle fire, there was no oral or written order or any indication of a plan. The attack became a jumbled forward movement of mingled companies and regiments all focused solely on continuing to advance.164 With Hawkins’s brigade moving closer to the ridge, General Edward P. Pearson’s brigade began to come on line with three regiments to the left, extending the American line around the flank of the Spanish position. As the firing line closed to within 150 yards of the enemy, the fire became even more dangerous. Lieutenant Jules Garesche Ord 168

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decided on his own that they must either charge of die, so he led a company forward, and his advance rapidly became a charge all along the American line.165 Without reconnaissance or artillery preparation, this general charge carried the infantry up and over the ridge, broke apart the enemy’s position, and drove the Spanish to retreat. The battles of El Caney and San Juan cost the V Corps 225 killed and 1,400 wounded men, while the Spanish suffered 500 killed and wounded.166 Throughout the night, the Americans dug in and began to invest Santiago. The city surrendered on 15 July, without another major battle.167 At the tactical level, the Santiago campaign demonstrated the powerful influence of the new IDR and improved peacetime training. In the observations of Lieutenant Colonel Wagner, the soldiers at El Caney, San Juan Hill, and Kettle Hill uniformly followed the tactics outlined in the drill regulations and approved textbooks.168 Routinely, units from companies through divisions formed firing and supporting lines, with skirmishers out front. Regardless of the restricted jungle terrain, officers spent most of the battle attempting to form and reform firing lines throughout the divisions of the V Corps. With the cavalry division organized and deployed as dismounted infantry, the V Corps fought as an infantry army. There were no specialized infantry, as regiments used the same soldiers to skirmish, to man the firing line, and to charge the enemy. The effects of skirmishers and limited artillery were both combined on the battlefield to directly support the infantry attacks. The divisions maintained a linear alignment across the attack at San Juan to the attack at El Caney, even though large distances separated them. While regiments attempted to exploit the flanks of the Spanish position, all of the attacks maintained a linear but noncontiguous orientation with regard to friendly and enemy formations. The entire campaign, from the first battle at Las Guasimas through every part of the actions of San Juan Heights and El Caney, was offensive. The planned attacks were all focused on fortified Spanish positions on dominant terrain. Even when taking heavy casualties up steep hills, junior officers and soldiers chose to assault the enemy positions rather than to retreat, to entrench their forward position, or to wait for the artillery to reduce the enemy blockhouses. The victory on the San Juan Heights enabled Shafter to establish siege lines around the city and to end the campaign two weeks later.

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Conclusion The army changed in several very important ways in the decades between the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. The most important changes were a result of the professionalization of the army and the officer corps. Before the Civil War, there were several senior officers that identified the need for a better system of army education and higher standards for the officer corps. However, the efforts to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the army were disparate and uncoordinated. It took a wider professionalization movement in American society to garner enough support from Congress and the army at large for reform. This professionalization movement was a cultural phenomenon, one that looked to the examples of German culture and society. The development of German universities and professional communities had a powerful impact in America. Due to the rising reputation of the Prussian and then German armies, the American army was as interested in German culture, philosophy, and military reforms as was any other emerging professional community in America. The cultural influence was so strong that across the textbooks used to teach the military art and through military periodicals, what the army once attributed to French influence in its system of tactics became at its core Prussian. The history of the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield was rewritten to align itself more closely with the growing acknowledgment of German military excellence. The army looked to German organization, educational institutions, and military exercises for inspiration. However, the German elements used to reform the army remained consistent with the fundamental elements of the French combat method. The army still believed in the primacy of the offensive and the effectiveness of the predominantly infantry army with a nonspecialized infantry, which fought using a linear but noncontiguous order of battle that integrated the effects of the auxiliary arms to support the main infantry battle and utilized a nondogmatic system of tactics through the initiative of commanders at all levels. The German examples and models served to modernize the framework, but they did not change that framework. Professionalization allowed the army to increase its ability to indoctrinate new members of the officer corps with its intellectual framework of the battlefield. Professionalization also created an increased consistency in the curricula across the army’s educational institutions. The military academy and the new postgraduate schools taught the same framework often using the same textbooks. They all taught the same system of tactics from 170

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the same army regulations. Those regulations outlined the same intellectual framework and integrated the fundamental elements of the French combat method into the American system of tactics. These professional institutions reinforced each other, and they all espoused the same intellectual framework of the battlefield. The effectiveness of this indoctrination was apparent throughout the campaign and battle of Santiago. New officers and Civil War veterans, experienced soldiers and new recruits, all executed the same tactics and used the fundamental elements of the French combat method to guide their decisions when new situations and enemy action required them to deviate from their plans and orders. Even though the battle of Santiago was costly in terms of casualties, the army considered the victory a vindication of its intellectual framework. The army emerged from the Spanish-American War interested in German ideas and techniques but more committed to the fundamental elements of the French combat method than ever.

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5 American Warfare in the Progressive Era, 1899–1918

Close adherence is urged to the central idea that the essential principles of war have not changed, that the rifle and the bayonet remain the supreme weapons of the infantry soldier and that the ultimate success of the army depends upon their proper use in open warfare. To this end it is recommended that intensive training in all the phases of open warfare be accepted as the principle mission of divisions before embarkation, trench warfare and the use of special arms being taught in connection with the assumption of the offensive from an entrenched position. —General John J. Pershing, Commander in Chief, American Expeditionary Force, 19 October 1917 1

If German cultural and military influence transformed the army and its institutions leading up to the Spanish-American War, the Progressive Era completed the transition to a professional army. Progressives believed in the importance of education, and this encouraged the continued improvement of West Point and the Fort Leavenworth postgraduate schools. It also led to the creation of the Army War College to encourage a more deliberate study of current strategic issues facing the nation. Progressives looked to professional communities of technical experts to lead the bureaucracies of the twentieth century. These professionals provided better administration and efficiency than did the existing American system of political influence, special interests, and amateur appointments. This progressive idea overcame the remaining obstacles in the way of creating an American general staff. This new staff allowed for a more professional process of revising the tactical and general regulations and established self-administration and self-policing for the officer corps. By influencing both regulations and the educational system, the general staff reinforced the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. The American Expedition|

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ary Force (AEF) brought this framework with it to Europe and put it to the test of war on the battlefields of 1918 in the last stage of WWI.

The Progressive Movement Professionalizes the Army The Progressive movement reconciled industrialization with the American experience and made America a leader of the modern world. Industrialization caused people to move into cities, which led to an increase in the percentage of the population living in urban areas from 30 percent in 1890 to over 50 percent in 1920.2 With this migration to cities and industrial centers, issues of social justice, poverty, women’s rights, and racial discrimination defined public discourse and political debate. Although there was no central progressive organization or well-defined political agenda, progressives identified with several ideas that addressed these social issues. The Progressive movement emerged first in northeastern cities and then across the rural communities of the Midwest and parts of the South.3 Not surprisingly, these were also the centers of German intellectual influence in America in the nineteenth century. The Progressive movement built on existing German cultural influence and social values. German Pietism and the philosophies of Kant and Hegel emphasized the importance of education in society. At the turn of the century, John Dewey symbolized the Progressive argument for the power of education and its ability to transformation people into better citizens. Progressive historians and economists looked to German examples, and the vocabulary of Karl Marx, to identify social injustice in America.4 Germany appeared to be the model of a paternalistic state that looked after all its citizens and provided for the public welfare.5 In this way, the German state became central to German culture and represented the force behind the “regeneration of humanity.”6 Although progressives were not dominated by German culture, they sought to reform American society according to similar values and in similar ways to what they observed occurring in Germany. Progressive reforms advanced many of the same causes and led to the redefinition of the role of government in America. Progressives believed that an expanded government was the best method for realizing social, political, and economic change in America. They looked to the government to challenge the influence of special interests, big business, and corrupt politicians. Just as the German government provided the impetus for social change in Germany, progressives wanted to expand the role of government in America to reshape society. Progressives fought for the “extension of the functions of government—city, state, and national—to relieve, as far as 174

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possible, the distresses caused by social and economic conditions.”7 To do this, the government could no longer be the province of amateur politicians but required administrators with specialized skills and education. This requirement for specialized knowledge led to the creation of an American professional class.8 Progressives looked to these enlightened elites to professionalize the government bureaucracy.9 Professionals exerted influence through governmental bureaus and agencies and the increased federal regulatory authority granted to those organizations. They served as the protector of the public interest through the creation of commissions and regulatory boards.10 In this way, professional communities shaped American society and culture with their expertise and their paradigms concerning the nature of economics, business, science, technology, and the military. This recognition of the importance of professional communities gave the officer corps more influence over military policy, organization, and education. It took the Progressive movement to complete the process of transforming army administration and to empower officers to reform the army from within.

The Progressive Era and the American General Staff The War Department and army administrative system remained essentially unchanged throughout the nineteenth century. This system consisted of two main elements. The secretary of war and his departmental staff, consisting of semiautonomous bureaus that oversaw pay, logistics, recruiting, and topography, was one element of army administration. The other element consisted of officers commanding geographical military districts, with direct control over the regular army regiments and posts.11 This created problems, as War Department orders often conflicted and countermanded the orders of the district commanders and the commanding general of the army. The system performed poorly during the Spanish-American War in 1898, leaving troops to suffer without the proper equipment, supplies, or medical support.12 As progressive pressure changed and expanded the role of government in regulating and controlling business, the economy, and everyday life, President William McKinley became interested in army reform. McKinley asked New York lawyer Elihu Root to become the secretary of war in 1899, primarily to reform the War Department. In many ways, Root was the quintessential progressive lawyer and politician. He favored regulation and considered it the role of the government to protect its citizens from the corrupt machinations of special interests. This included both corporate and political special interests, as he fought the established Republican Party American Warfare in the Progressive Era

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apparatus with as much fervor as he did the corporations. After serving as a New York district attorney from 1883 to 1885, Root built a reputation as a corporation lawyer who advised his clients to follow the Sherman AntiTrust Act of 1890 and newer progressive government regulation.13 Prominent in local New York politics, Root publicly supported Teddy Roosevelt’s early political career and campaigns, as well as McKinley’s decision to go to war in 1898. When the president offered him the War Department, Root replied that he knew nothing of military matters. McKinley told Root that he needed a lawyer in the War Department to deal with both legislative military reform and the management of the newly acquired colonies.14 Root accepted the position with a mandate to change the War Department. All the changes that Root made at the War Department were a function of advice and suggestions made to him by officers and military pundits. He read the results of the Dodge Commission, which investigated War Department inefficiencies during the Spanish-American War, and listened to Adjutant General Henry Corbin and other more junior officers with ideas on army reform.15 Drawing on his experiences in managing a law firm, Root made sweeping changes to increase efficiency. He lobbied Congress to maintain a peacetime army of 60,000–100,000 men. This larger organization allowed the army to recruit better officers and to promote those officers on the basis of a merit and examination system, replacing the older seniority system. Root also reinstituted the army’s postgraduate schools, which had been closed down by the war, and increased the funding for them to ensure quality instruction.16 Root identified the organizational inefficiencies of the bureau system and immediately began to campaign for a general staff. He believed that a stronger general staff would reduce corruption, increase efficiency, and provide more professional advice to the president. In the progressive tradition, this resulted in professional military specialists informing a more responsive and responsible government. Root worked to create a general staff that would take policy decisions out of the hands of individual personalities and into the hands of specialized military professionals. The epitome of such a military organization at the turn of the century was the German general staff. With its roots in the Napoleonic Wars, the German general staff exerted a tremendous amount of influence on the organization, training, and operations of the Germany army.17 By the 1870s, the general staff was an organization parallel to the War Ministry, with direct access to the kaiser.18 As such, it represented the ascendency of the military professional over amateurs and politicians. To ensure admission of the most educated and capable officers, the general staff took 176

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over the Kriegsakademie and made graduation from it a prerequisite for prospective general staff officers.19 The overall purpose of the general staff was war planning. To accomplish this, the staff consisted of divisions tasked with collecting intelligence on foreign armies, railway management, military history, geographical statistics, and cartographic divisions.20 These divisions provided the raw data that allowed the general staff to coordinate mobilization, transportation, and campaign planning. The widespread belief among military professionals of the time was that the victories of the German army were a direct reflection of the capabilities of the German general staff. It was not surprising that Root chose the German general staff as the model for the new American general staff. He republished Upton’s 1878 The Armies of Europe and Asia, which expressed admiration of the German system, and The Military Policy of the United States, which identified problems in the War Department and suggested solutions based on the German model.21 Root also read Spencer Wilkinson’s influential The Brain of an Army, which recommended that the British army adopt the most effective elements of the German general staff.22 Root cited the success and effectiveness of the German general staff in the 1870s to convince Congress to authorize an American general staff in 1902.23 While refusing to become slavishly devoted to the German model, he incorporated many of the central elements of that staff system. The General Staff Act of 1903, which abolished the position of commanding general of the army, created a general staff corps under the supervision of a chief of staff, who became the president’s senior military adviser under the authority of the secretary of war.24 Originally, the general staff consisted of three divisions focusing on administration, military information, and planning.25 Root’s general staff was different from the German version, and the compromise solution that he was able to push through Congress had too much of the older departmental system. In 1911, the organization of the general staff grew to four divisions: a war college division that took over war planning; the coast artillery division; the mobile army division, which focused on the administration and development of the individual combatant arms; and the military affairs division.26 This made the general staff into a coordinating organization, but it remained consistent with the German general staff model.

The American Response to Modern Warfare As a result of the professionalization of the officer corps and the expansion of the army’s postgraduate educational system, interest in foreign wars and military actions around the world continued unabated in the years American Warfare in the Progressive Era

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leading up to WWI. Through periodicals such as the JMSIUS, army officers remained informed of the events and advances of warfare. There was a large number of articles concerning American operations in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. These reinforced the experience of veterans of those actions and campaigns. There was also a number of newspaper accounts, narrative histories, and observer reports on the fighting in the Boer War, the international expedition to suppress the Boxer Rebellion, and the Russo-Japanese War. For the Boer War, British sources identified a military revolution in the battlefields of South Africa. Many of the articles predicted the death of the attack and the creation of a new kind of defensive warfare.27 A similar trend continued through the coverage of the Russo-Japanese War. Authors identified the failure of frontal attacks, the advantage that modern weapons gave to the defense, and the central role of fortifications and entrenchments in modern warfare.28 These analyses represented a departure from several of the fundamental elements of the French combat method, which stressed the decisive nature of the attack. Their publication in widely read professional journals presented these views to a large part of the American officer community. At the same time as these analyses predicted a change in warfare because of the impact of new military technology, there appeared several more conservative analyses of the Boer and Russo-Japanese Wars. There were American officers who wrote articles affirming the validity of their intellectual framework. One such author wrote that the American experience in Cuba demonstrated that the frontal attack was still possible against modern weapons and that if well planned and executed, attacks could still reach and take defensive fortifications.29 In 1909, another American officer characterized the Russo-Japanese War as a modern war of vast dimensions that validated the bayonet and the use of frontal assaults.30 However, the most vocal defenders of the fundamental elements of the French combat method were German military critics. In 1903, the JMSIUS published an analysis of the Boer War by a German officer who disagreed with the British interpretation of the war and reaffirmed that the only way to achieve victory on the battlefield was through the attack.31 The German general staff produced a yearly analysis of the state of military science throughout the world, which appeared in the JMSIUS. This German report first blamed the British losses on poor leadership and then stated that soldiers trained in German infantry tactics would have defeated the Boers.32 German officers saw nothing revolutionary or different in the combats and operations of the Boer War. For the German general staff, the Russo-Japanese War provided an important look at the impli178

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cations of modern weapons on the battlefield. In 1907, the famous German theorist William Balck attributed the Japanese success to their adoption of the German system in both tactics and their general staff and to their firm belief in the effectiveness of the infantry attack.33 After deliberate study of the war, the Germans took advantage of the opportunity to declare that their way of warfare remained effective in light of the wars of the early twentieth century. Although American officers were interested in the smaller wars of the turn of the century, it was the larger conventional Russo-Japanese War that the army considered important enough to send observers. What they saw was a modern war with large mobilized armies, modern artillery, machine guns, barbed wire, and trenches. As a whole, the observers concluded that there was nothing new to learn from the Russian or Japanese armies and that the American system was superior to both the Russian and Japanese ways of warfare. The Japanese assigned Captain John F. Morrison of the 20th Infantry to observe the operations of the 2nd Japanese Army. Morrison concluded that the Japanese defeated the Russians through their disciplined training and military system. He noted that their organization and tactics were German, that they followed the dictates of the German system exactly, and that they left little to the initiative of junior officers. His observations led him to believe that frontal attacks could overwhelm entrenched positions defended by modern weapons.34 Overall, Morrison credited the Japanese success to the professionalism of their officer corps through training and education. His comments validated the American army’s reforms of the preceding several decades, but Morrison was quick to note that the Japanese precision in execution was successful but conservative. The Japanese assigned Lieutenant Colonel Edward J. McClernand of the 1st Cavalry to observe the actions of the 1st Japanese Army. Along with the military attaché to Japan, Captain John J. Pershing, McClernand was able to observe and comment on more of the Japanese organization than Morrison. He praised the effectiveness of the Japanese general staff, their educated and professional officers, their system of promotion, and their work ethic.35 McClernand analyzed as much of the Japanese way of war as he was able to observe. Both sides mobilized reserves and incorporated them into existing and new infantry formations. These formations retained the same organization as their regular counterparts, with no creation of new or specialized units. Although the Russian artillery was more modern than the Japanese was, both sides used their artillery to prepare the way for their infantry attacks, as well as firing against enemy attacks and artillery. However, American Warfare in the Progressive Era

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McClernand reached the conclusion that artillery on its own could not stop or even significantly delay an infantry attack.36 The infantry attacks on both sides used three lines, with the first in extended order, the second in closer formations, and the third in company columns acting as a reserve out of the range of artillery fire. Once the entrenched infantry stopped the skirmishers, the supporting line closed up and conducted their final assault. The final assaults on both sides relied heavily on rapid infantry fire and the bayonet. In the German-based operations of the Japanese army, the observers saw the army’s intellectual framework succeed on a modern battlefield with modern rifles and artillery. Captain Peyton C. Marsh represented the general staff among the American observers. He noted that “the progress and development in killing capacity of the modern rapid fire gun and rifle have forced the attack, if it deserves to live at all, to return to the old methods of a century ago when the individual man and his bayonet was the winning factor in the hand to hand combat of those days.”37 Marsh’s observation mirrored the comments of the other officers sent to the war who reached similar conclusions as their German peers concerning the war’s impact on the art and science of war. As with the Crimean War, the War Department sent a balanced team of observers from the line army, from the engineers, and this time from the general staff. However, regardless of their background, they all recognized the fundamental elements of the French combat method in the successful Japanese operations and noticed their lack in the Russian operations. The Russo-Japanese War validated the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield for the generation of officers that trained and led American forces into WWI.

Completing the Professionalization of the Army’s Education System Fort Leavenworth Becomes the General Service Staff College The reopening of the Fort Leavenworth schools in 1902 after a four-year hiatus during the Spanish-American War brought about another series of changes in the army’s postgraduate education system. The schools continued to develop a more challenging curriculum for midlevel officers, as well as providing the intellectual foundation for the general staff through the War College. Under the leadership of Brigadier General J. Franklin Bell, an 1878 graduate of West Point who earned the Medal of Honor in the Philippines and commanded several districts of Luzon, the schools focused primarily on the instruction of tactics.38 The Spanish-American War demonstrated the 180

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benefit of the Leavenworth education, and Bell wanted to make that education more rigorous and effective. The newly renamed General Service and Staff College focused the curriculum on tactics through recitations, lectures, tactical problems on the map, terrain rides, and exercises with troops.39 Once an examination process for admission produced more prepared students, the level of instruction exceeded its prewar level. Wagner returned to the school as the senior military art instructor in 1903 and continued to use his prewar curriculum. This included adopting his The Service of Security and Information and Organization and Tactics as the primary textbooks for the military art.40 These books, adopted prior to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, provided officers with approved textbooks for their profession. They became the authorized textbooks for the officer promotion examinations of the 1890s and played an integral role in providing the intellectual framework of the battlefield to officers at the turn of the century. Wagner wrote his two textbooks not only to synthesize current military thought but also to “furnish a standard, in the main correct, from which an officer in action can vary according to the conditions presented and they do not leave him altogether without a guide.”41 In some ways, his works mirrored Mahan’s Out-Post in the subjects and material he covered. In The Service of Security and Information, Wagner created a primer for all the minor tactics that Mahan considered important. These included reconnaissance, outposts, advanced and rear guards, and the cavalry screen.42 By breaking out the minor tactics from the larger study of the military art, Wagner increased the usefulness and functionality of the works. The Service of Security and Information was more relevant to the junior officer on his first or second assignment, whereas Organization and Tactics introduced and discussed many of the ideas that outlined the army’s intellectual framework. It focused on subjects such as strategy, grand tactics, maneuver, organization, and the integration of the three combatant arms in the attack and defense. In the preface of both works, Wagner stated clearly that they were composed in accordance with the most current doctrines across Europe and represented a synthesis of military theory. Some of the more mentionable titles on his list of sources included Upton’s Armies of Asia and Europe, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Marmont’s Esprit des institutions militaires, Jomini’s Art of War, Thiers’s History of the Consulate and Empire, Hamley’s Operations of War, von Moltke’s History of the Franco-German War, the Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States, the memoirs of Grant and Sherman, Troops in Campaign, and perhaps most interestingly Clausewitz’s On War.43 Schools across the army’s educational system used many of these American Warfare in the Progressive Era

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books, which provided continuity between the Fort Leavenworth and West Point curriculums. Because of the subject matter of Organization and Tactics, it was more important in teaching and reinforcing the army’s intellectual framework. Wagner began this work by explaining the importance of academic study in a professional officer’s education. He noted that although the best school of war was the battlefield, officers should deliberately study military history in preparation for battle and the battlefield.44 To support this study, he created a system of principles of war from strategy to grand tactics and finally to minor tactics in the tradition of Jomini and Mahan. Wagner used historical examples to demonstrate the efficacy of his principles. The organization of the text focused primarily on the three combatant arms and how they functioned individually and collectively on the battlefield. Wagner used his introduction to define strategy and tactics, which did not significantly differ from Wheeler, Mercur, or Jomini.45 He stated that all strategy should lead to a battle and that maneuver itself was no longer an effective way to achieve victory. This reflected a conceptualization of war that was battle centered in the same way as the French combat method. When describing army organizations, he explained that the infantry remained the most important arm and that the weapons of the infantry were the rifle for firepower and the bayonet for shock.46 This predominantly infantry army was the organization that Wagner’s offensive strategy required to achieve victory. When outlining the infantry attack, Wagner started with a skirmish line in front of the firing line, supported by a third line and a reserve. Casualties in the skirmish line were immediately replaced from the firing line until the skirmish line got close enough for the final assault. The remaining elements of the skirmish line, supported for the effort by the rest of the firing line, charged using shock power to break the enemy formation. The third line then advanced through the first two and established a strong defensive position on the captured terrain.47 In the chapters concerning cavalry and artillery, Wagner demonstrated the integration of those arms to support the infantry attack. Although he identified the importance of hasty field entrenchments due to new technology, he was cautious in encouraging their use on the battlefield.48 Wagner believed that field fortifications had a negative effect on the offensive spirit of troops and thus gave up whatever advantage they gained.49 This description of the battlefield conformed remarkably well to the current of American thought through the turn of the twentieth century. Organization and Tactics reinforced the army’s intellectual framework based on the elements of the French combat method as part of officer professional development. 182

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Due to the unique position of Leavenworth as the premier postgraduate institution, it became the intellectual center of the army after the SpanishAmerican War. To disseminate its teachings and writings throughout the army, the service schools built a printing press and bindery that reproduced textbooks and important military works. They even created a mailing list of officers and posts throughout the army and periodically mailed out the latest publications concerning new developments in the military art.50 This allowed the Fort Leavenworth schools and their instructors to influence the intellectual framework of the entire army by publishing works in the military art. When Root decided to hold European-style annual maneuvers, he turned to Wagner to develop the format and regulations. Wagner was familiar with the German method for conducting large-scale field exercises from his study of the German army and their field service regulations.51 He developed a system of tactical scenarios with umpires to regulate and review the actions of the participants. He was able to develop both units and officers through the reviews as the chief umpire, often taking advantage of the situation to teach or correct tactics to the benefit of all involved at Camp Root, Fort Riley, Kansas.52 Wagner brought this function to Leavenworth the following year and led a team of umpires from the schools to Kansas. This system remained in place until Wagner died in 1905, and Bell made changes in the organization of the school in the following year. Bell considered the first three years of the General Service and Staff School as ineffective and searched for a better organization for the postgraduate system at Leavenworth. In 1904, he created a two-tier system that incorporated a school of the line and a staff college. Both of these schools had departments of military art, engineering, and law. The School of the Line focused on the instruction of tactics, new weapons, military history, equitation, topography, and law.53 Officers stayed at the school for one year, and upon graduation, the best officers remained at Leavenworth to attend the new Staff College. This provided for a more educated officer corps without keeping as many officers away from their units for an extra year. The Staff College curriculum matched that of the School of the Line. However, for every topic, the Staff College conducted more tactical and map exercises and problems, focusing more on the duties of the staff officer and how the staff functioned on the battlefield alongside the line units. The Staff College also conducted more tactical and historical rides and studied military history in a more in-depth fashion than in the other school.54 In the following year, these two schools, along with schools for signal officers and field engineers, became part of a single schoolhouse, under a single commandant, called the Army Service American Warfare in the Progressive Era

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Schools. Bell’s reorganization allowed for a more analytical approach to the instruction of tactics and military art by providing more time in the curriculum for the theoretical and practical instruction. However, this new analytical focus required the best and brightest instructors from the regular army, the most important of whom was Major John F. Morrison, who dominated Leavenworth for the next six years. Returning from observing the Russo-Japanese War, Morrison served as a military art instructor from 1906 to 1912. He made a powerful impression on the officers who went through his courses at Leavenworth. It is said that he taught a whole generation of those officers tactics and, more importantly, taught them to separate tactics from technique.55 These officers called themselves “Morrison men” and brought his tactical teachings to the units and staffs that served in WWI.56 Morrison redesigned the military art curriculum and continued using an adaptation of the applicatory method, in which officers worked through tactical problems using regulations and general principles on a variety of maps and organizations.57 Morrison designed a five-part program for the instruction of the military art. The first part was a study of the Field Service Regulations, which replaced the general army regulations at the turn of the century. Through study sessions, lectures, and recitations, a series of map problems, troop exercises, and terrain rides ensured each student became familiar with the army’s intellectual framework through the regulations. Morrison used his own Studies in Minor Tactics for the second part of the course, which focused on operations from the squad through the regimental level. The third part focused on troop leading and utilized Otto F. Griepenkerl’s Letters on Applied Tactics, translated from the German. The fourth part of the program was a review of the first three using map problems and terrain exercises, while the fifth part of the program focused on divisional operations and used Albert Buddecke’s Tactical Decisions and Orders, also translated from the German.58 Morrison’s five-part course constituted a significant increase in the intellectual rigor of the army’s postgraduate education system. For smaller-unit operations at the regimental level and below, Morrison led the department of the military art to produce Studies in Minor Tactics in 1908. The demand for this work required three editions and sold over 10,000 copies by 1909. This extremely popular work influenced regular and volunteer officers throughout the army prior to WWI.59 Morrison created seventeen chapters, each of which focused on a different aspect of minor tactics, similar to both Mahan’s and Wagner’s works. These aspects included infantry and cavalry outposts, advanced guard, patrolling, and convoy operations. 184

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Each chapter consisted of a situation or problem and then a general Leavenworth solution. Through these solutions, Morrison created a series of general principles of the military art. The only example of an infantry attack was of a frontal attack that consisted of the deployment of a firing line of platoons. These platoons advanced by alternate rushes and achieved superiority of fire over the enemy. When they had advanced close enough at the run, the commander deployed the reserve to overwhelm the enemy with a charge.60 In the single example of defensive operations, the work recommended that a defensive posture be assumed only with the idea of changing to the offensive, that the defensive position required a clear field of fire, and that the defense necessitated a strong reserve.61 Studies in Minor Tactics referenced the Field Service Regulations (FSR) of 1905 at every opportunity, thus linking the postgraduate study of tactics to the applicable army regulations. Morrison may have changed the tactical vocabulary of the officer corps, but he remained consistent with the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. Morrison chose German General Otto Griepenkerl’s Letters on Applied Tactics as the textbook to guide students through more complicated tactical problems and as their first exposure to field orders. Griepenkerl published the first edition of his work in 1890 to provide German officers an aid to their personal development in tactics and orders and to help them prepare for their promotion examinations.62 The sixth edition, published in 1906, was translated into French, English, Japanese, and Greek. Bell commissioned a translation specifically for the American army for the purpose of integrating it into the Leavenworth curriculum. The work consisted of twenty-five letters, each containing a tactical problem and a discussion of the principles to take into consideration when constructing the solution. The solution then became the starting point for the next letter, so that the lessons were not only individual but also cumulative as the student progressed through the text. The letters taught the form of the orders and provided a primer for the general principles of the military art. These principles reinforced the validity of the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. The intellectual framework that Griepenkerl propounded was very similar to the one already taught in American military schools. Many of the letters dealt with minor tactics. Starting at the beginning, the readers solved problems dealing with marching to the front and flank, advanced guard, rear guard, and outpost operations.63 The solutions that accompanied these letters made no change from the works of Mahan or Wagner and easily fit into a course of instruction based on American works on the subject. There were only two letters that dealt with the important subjects of the attack and the American Warfare in the Progressive Era

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occupation of a defensive position. However, these letters also varied very little from the 1905 FSR and other American writings. Griepenkerl counseled his readers that they should concentrate for attacks even in the open order, that the attacker had an advantage in initiative over the defender, and that fire superiority was integral for success.64 In addition to these suggestions, he recommended that commanders lead from the front, that flank attacks required secondary frontal attacks to succeed, and that attacks still required depth and the effective use of reserves to overcome the enemy. Above all, commanders should be wary in “applying cast iron rules and forms to all sorts of tactical situations.”65 Griepenkerl recommended an active defense that encouraged the enemy to attack, and then after the enemy had been weakened by fire, the counterattack would decisively defeat the enemy attack.66 Although these suggestions and principles came from a German source with a focus on European warfare, they reinforced many of the fundamental elements of the French combat method familiar to American officers. The emphasis on the offensive, the belief in the effectiveness of the infantry assault, and the caution against a dogmatic application of tactics were all important parts of the army’s intellectual framework. The fifth part of Morrison’s program focused on divisional operations, and for this purpose he chose Albert Buddecke’s Tactical Decisions and Orders. A German general staff officer, Buddecke was perfectly placed to understand the intricate workings of the orders process at the divisional level and the application of tactical principles on a larger scale. In a slightly different format than Griepenkerl, Buddecke created a fictional operations log of a division over eight continuous days of combat. Through this journal, Buddecke provided situation and reconnaissance reports, orders from higher headquarters, and prompts to issue orders to subordinate units. This format allowed him to integrate the minor tactics outlined by Griepenkerl of advanced guard, outpost, reconnaissance, and resupply operations with general principles of both the attack and the defense.67 Buddecke reminded readers that the utilization of the infantry gave the battle its flavor, that they should deploy as close to the enemy as possible, and that holding attacks in front support flank attacks.68 In the defense, he stated that commanders should only adopt the defense with the intention of resuming the offensive at the earliest opportunity. This was because “the offensive alone is the key to victory.”69 The power of the defense lay in the occupation of a good position and the effective utilization of reserves. This work extended the scope and arguments made by Griepenkerl and Morrison. Through the five parts of Morrison’s curriculum, with three different textbooks, student officers 186

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worked through a wide range of operations from minor to grand tactics. It was a deliberate system that created a legion of “Morrison men” throughout the army. In addition to tactical instruction, the department of military art was responsible for the study of military history, and Morrison changed this aspect of the curriculum as well. While the applicatory method was still important in the study of tactics and the conduct of tactical and map problems, its use in the study of history was outdated by the turn of the century. American historians followed the teachings of Leopold von Ranke, who stressed the scientific analysis of history in an objective way to understand the truth of the historical event.70 The German general staff used these objective methods to analyze the military campaigns of the past and created an intellectual laboratory in order to educate officers in the cause-and-effect relationship on the battlefield.71 These techniques required the use of documents, orders, maps, and reports from the time to re-create the battle and to examine the causes for both success and defeat. Morrison wanted the study of military history to have the same analytical focus as the study of tactics. He assigned Captain Arthur Conger to redesign the study of history in 1907.72 Conger brought the study of history at Leavenworth into the twentieth century through the use of the scientific techniques of the American historical profession, called the source method. He studied history at Harvard University before his first assignment at the Staff College, and then from 1910 to 1913, he studied at the universities of Heidelberg and Berlin. While there, he took classes from the famous German military historian Hans Delbrück.73 He brought the scientific techniques of the source method into the classroom at Leavenworth and created exercises that forced the officer students to reconstruct historical events from primary sources and then to use the documents to analyze the conduct of operations during the events. Conger focused on the study of the battles of the Civil War because of the availability of primary source documents. Through this use of professional historical techniques adapted from the Germans, the Army Service Schools advanced the study of military history throughout the officer corps and continued the professionalization of the army.

The Army War College Root’s first priority in reforming the army administration and organization was the creation of a general staff. However, this required legislative action and took time to overcome resistance within the War Department. American Warfare in the Progressive Era

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Root concluded that although he could not create a general staff on his own, he could create an army war college through executive order. He formed a board of officers in 1900 to study the issue and by 1901 had appropriated money to collect the right faculty, equipment, and facilities for a war college that would either perform many of the general staff duties or support a general staff through directed study.74 The War College was formally established on 27 November 1902 and became a part of the general staff in 1903. The first president of the college, General Tasker Bliss, outlined the duties of the college as the study of larger problems of war and contingency war planning directed by the general staff.75 Bliss wanted to leave the classroom instruction to the Leavenworth schools, thereby focusing the War College on the study of contemporary problems and current events.76 However, the limited number of Leavenworth graduates available for the general staff required an increase in theoretical instruction at the college. Bliss worked hard to ensure that theoretical instruction did not impair the War College’s ability to fulfill its role as an advisory body to both the secretary of war and the president by 1904. With the deployment of Bliss to the Philippines, Major Eben Swift was responsible for redesigning the War College curriculum to increase the amount of theoretical instruction while at the same time solving military problems, contingency planning, and offering professional advice to the president, Congress, and the War Department. Coming from Fort Leavenworth, Swift instituted the study of the military art and copied many of the innovations of the Leavenworth schools, including map exercises, the applicatory method, and battlefield staff rides. Swift also adopted Griepenkerl’s Letters on Applied Tactics as the principal text on the military art.77 War College students worked on historical inquiries from the other divisions of the general staff and contingency plans using maps and mobilization timetables, and they wrote opinion papers on topics of military policy. Following the success of the army maneuvers under the auspices of Fort Leavenworth, the War College became the proponent for providing umpires for training maneuvers.78 Although the demands of WWI emptied the War College of students, in the fourteen years of its existence, 256 officer graduates commanded, administered, and staffed the army as it prepared for the rigors of the European battlefield and modern warfare.

Professionalizing the West Point Education The Spanish-American War and the centennial of the United States Military Academy in 1902 marked a period of intense interest and reform of 188

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the army’s undergraduate institution. Continued operations in the Philippines and the army’s involvement in America’s newly won possessions gave added impetus for reform.79 The achievements of the army’s postgraduate educational system also demonstrated the need to make academic changes in undergraduate officer education. The West Point curriculum integrated these experiences and academic changes into cadet education. The result was an increase in the relevance and effectiveness of the West Point experience, which led to the graduation of better-prepared junior officers. The cadet year continued to have two parts: a nine-and-a-half-month academic year and a two-and-a-half-month summer encampment allowing for a period of focused military instruction. Although undergraduate education dominated the academic year, cadets still received military instruction almost every day. During this part of the year, cadets spent time perfecting close and open order drill, doing sword and bayonet drills, and practicing riding.80 One of the changes in cadet education of this period was the increased importance placed on physical training and athletics. West Point developed a system of calisthenics, swimming, and athletics in order to produce physically fit graduates. The academy also began to experiment with intercollegiate athletics, although there was a significant fear that such competition would take the focus away from the preparation of cadets as junior officers.81 West Point built new target ranges for small arms and artillery, to familiarize cadets with a wide variety of small arms and artillery pieces of American and foreign manufacture.82 Cadets also conducted field exercises in the attack and defense of places, outpost duty, and reconnaissance, as well as in company administration. All these exercises followed the guidelines established in army regulations. Cadets began their military career by experiencing a part of the duties and training that regular soldiers received in the army. Just as cadet tactical instruction became more relevant by incorporating more regular army regulations and training, the cadets’ theoretical instruction in the art of war also began to incorporate many of the changes coming out of Fort Leavenworth. Mercur retired in 1896, and the academy replaced him with Lieutenant Colonel Gustav Joseph Fiebeger. An 1879 West Point graduate, Fiebeger spent four years in the Corps of Engineers before coming back to the academy as an engineering instructor from 1883 to 1888. He then took charge of the river and harbor improvements of Virginia and North Carolina until 1896.83 Like his predecessors, Fiebeger made few changes to the curriculum in his first years as a full professor and none during the Spanish-American War. In 1899, Fiebeger replaced Mercur’s Elements of the Art American Warfare in the Progressive Era

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of War with Wagner’s Organization and Tactics.84 Although critical for the cadets in terms of their performance on the officer promotion examinations, Wagner’s text supported academic instruction through its survey of the current state of military thought and history. In 1906, Fiebeger included the Field Service Regulations as one of the main texts in the course on military engineering and the art of war. The adoption of these books into the curriculum as textbooks ensured that cadet education remained nested with both the postgraduate curriculum at Leavenworth and current trends in officer professional development. Fiebeger also changed the way in which his course in the art of war incorporated military history into cadet instruction. Fiebeger continued the tradition of breaking out the course in civil engineering from the course in military engineering and the art of war. The latter focused on permanent and field fortifications, logistics, strategy, and the employment on the battlefield of the three combatant arms.85 To support these subjects, Fiebeger compiled a volume of battle narratives entitled Campaigns and Battles. It presented very brief descriptions of the opposing armies, the terrain, and the main events of major battles throughout military history. Although Civil War battles dominated the book, Fiebeger provided cadets with seven Napoleonic and four Franco-Prussian War battles.86 He designed the texts as a narrative description of the battles, based on primary documents, to enable cadets to study the campaigns critically and intellectually. This helped to introduce cadets to the source method. As the capstone battle of the entire course, Fiebeger compiled The Campaign and Battle of Gettysburg primarily from the recently finished Official Records of the War of Rebellion. He included selections from orders and correspondence and four map sheets that depicted the major actions of the battle.87 This not only facilitated historical analysis of the battle but also prepared cadets for what became an annual trip to the battlefield of Gettysburg itself. Fiebeger took his classes there from 1902 until 1918 to supplement theoretical study with a practical examination of the battlefield terrain.88 Visiting battlefields to experience both historical education and professional development mirrored a similar trend in the army’s postgraduate education. In 1908, Fiebeger completed his major work on the art of war, entitled Elements of Strategy. It was fundamentally different from Wagner’s Organization and Tactics, which focused on how the three combatant arms functioned both individually and together on the battlefield, with very little emphasis on operations at the strategic level. Fiebeger’s treatise focused entirely on strategy and strategic operations and did not discuss the tactical aspects of the 190

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battlefield at all. It was primarily a synthetic work, in which he incorporated quotations from both Jomini and Clausewitz on strategy and the components of strategic operations, such as lines of operation, bases of operations, objectives of operations, and plans of campaigns.89 Fiebeger also included several statements from von Moltke, written between 1866 and 1870, concerning simplicity of operations, the decisive nature of destroying the enemy’s army, and the importance of prewar preparation to victory.90 This made the work both grounded in military theory and updated with the most influential German military literature. While the detailed definition of strategy, with its constituent elements of policy and military operations, was different from its predecessors, its function on the battlefield was already familiar to the army’s intellectual framework. With the integration of the postgraduate techniques of using tactical rides and primary-source-driven historical analysis, Elements of Strategy, combined with both Wagner’s works and the Field Service Regulations (FSR), ensured that West Point instruction set the foundation for the same intellectual framework taught by the Leavenworth schools and by the army regulations.

Napoleon and the American Army, 1897–1918 As military history became more important to the army’s educational system as an independent form of inquiry at the turn of the century, it continued to look to Napoleonic history to support the study of the military art. Army officers and institutions published monographs that detailed Napoleonic campaigns and battles, while military periodicals published articles on various Napoleonic battles and aspects of war during the Napoleonic era. With more access to Napoleonic history than ever, the American officer corps integrated Napoleon into their study of the military art as they went prepared for WWI. At West Point, Fiebeger produced an early abridged volume of battle synopses, called Campaigns and Battles, in 1900. As a survey of military history, the book focused only on the salient details of the famous battles of the past. Fiebeger provided the details of seven Napoleonic battles including Austerlitz and Friedland. At Austerlitz, Napoleon deployed his predominantly infantry army using skirmishers to cover the attack columns, which allowed Soult’s frontal attack to penetrate the enemy center and defeat the Allied army.91 While the formations differed from the America of 1891 IDR, the mode of attack was similar to current doctrine. In 1906, Fiebeger wrote a hisAmerican Warfare in the Progressive Era

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tory of Napoleon’s first Italian campaign, which allowed him to focus more on the French system of war. In addition to detailed descriptions of the campaigns and the individual battles, he included general sections on tactics, formations, the French general staff, and an analysis of the characteristics that made Napoleon great. He pointed out Napoleon’s early efforts at eliminating the differences in the training and employment of line and light infantry. Additionally, Napoleon’s brigades usually executed their attacks in two lines, and these attacks used both musket fire and the bayonet.92 Fiebeger presented Napoleon’s successes as a function of the French system and his own genius, both of which conformed to the American intellectual framework. Wagner and Swift produced their own volume of short battle studies for use by the students of the Leavenworth schools, entitled Strategical Operations Illustrated by Great Campaigns in Europe and America. Although they included battles from the Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, over half the battles were from the Napoleonic period.93 Each of these battles formed an example of a strategic principle. These included the dividing of an enemy army, the use of a base of operations to force an enemy to expose a flank, and methods for using a smaller force to delay a larger force.94 For the majority of these strategic principles, Wagner and Swift used Napoleonic examples to illustrate them for an audience of primarily army officers. Additionally, the military history courses at Leavenworth used a variety of Napoleonic campaigns for officer instruction.95 Although the campaigns themselves changed over time, and some years students focused only on American campaigns, Leavenworth graduates became familiar with the campaigns of Waterloo, Austerlitz, Ulm, and the first Italian campaign. Serving on the faculty of both the Leavenworth schools and the War College, Captain Matthew Steele wrote the first expansive textbook of American military history, entitled American Campaigns, in 1909. He presented a narrative history of every major war and military campaign in American history, with a focus on analyzing the actions through the principles of the military art. Although the volume included no Napoleonic history, Steele used various Napoleonic maxims as part of his military analysis. He criticized Albert Sidney Johnston’s failure to reunite his army rapidly after the loss of Forts Henry and Donelson as violating Napoleon’s twenty-seventh maxim.96 Similarly, Steele likened Hood’s position at Atlanta similar to Napoleon’s at Leipzig, and criticized the Confederate deployment as a violation of Napoleon’s twenty-fifth maxim.97 Although the use of Napoleonic maxims as a form of analysis was not one of Steele’s major themes throughout the book, it demonstrated the applicability of Napoleonic thought and example when 192

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understanding the American way of warfare. This produced a military history that officers found extremely useful in the instruction of junior officers, as it presented Napoleonic warfare as a legitimate way of understanding American warfare. Periodicals continued to play an important role in disseminating military ideas and current events. The JMSIUS was the central military periodical for the army in this period. Although it paid close attention to current changes in military technology and provided its readers with current military events around the world, history remained an integral part of the journal. For the period from 1900 to 1918, over half the volumes of the journal contained articles of Napoleonic history, examples, and theory or reviews of Napoleonic books. The most impressive of the Napoleonic articles came from Frederic Louis Huidekoper, a National Guard officer. Huidekoper studied under the famous Napoleonic historian John Codman Ropes at Harvard. While doing research at the military archives in Paris, he collected a considerable amount of material on Napoleon’s campaigns. He turned this research into articles on Napoleonic strategy, the Wagram campaign, the siege of Toulon, and the campaign and battle of Austerlitz.98 These articles focused on various elements of the military art for the purposes of professional development. The JMSIUS also reviewed several important Napoleonic books in this period, such as Henry Houssaye’s 1815: Waterloo and Napoleon by Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Ayrault Dodge, U.S. Army. The publication of these articles and book reviews kept Napoleonic history available to the officer corps and the army at large. Additionally, from 1916 to 1918, Arthur Conger edited the Military Historian and Economist, which also made a prominent place for Napoleonic history. The first three volumes all contained Napoleonic articles and references and a section entitled “Napoleonic Notes.” Conger himself wrote a piece on the battle of Marengo in the first volume.99 These periodicals, along with the larger monographs published by army officers, provided a place for Napoleon in the study of the military art through WWI.

U.S. Army Regulations from 1899 to 1918 A Change in Tactics: The 1904 Infantry Drill Regulations In 1904, Secretary of War William Taft approved a revision to the infantry tactical regulations prepared by the general staff. It was the first time the general staff took responsibility for revising drill regulations.100 While the 1904 Infantry Drill Regulations (IDR) added very little new material to the drill, it represented a significant reorganization of the 1891 system. The 1904 American Warfare in the Progressive Era

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regulations made a concerted effort to streamline the system of tactics by eliminating redundancy, providing for as many multipurpose movements and commands as possible, and organizing all the material by school. The first major change was the recombination of the close and extended order drill into their respective schools. This harked back to the organization of the Scott and Hardee Infantry Tactics. For example, the “school of the company” now included a section of all the close order drill movements found in 1891, as well as the company-level extended order formations and drill.101 This recombination occurred throughout all the schools of the regulations, which facilitated the removal of redundancy. The first new element in the IDR was the “school of the squad.” This school incorporated all the squad-specific movements and formations and consolidated them into a separate school. It instructed soldiers in the squad techniques for movement, deployment as skirmishers, and execution of the rapid fire.102 This school became the basis of the drill movements of the entire regulations. The “school of the company” utilized the squad drill to control the movement of the company. In the close order, the company relied on the squad movements to align, wheel, turn, and control movement.103 Still retaining the platoon drill, the company now became the primary means of controlling the skirmish line in the extended order. In the attack, the company deployed in a line of squads and controlled the movement forward either on line or through alternating movements by platoon. The attack culminated when the commander ordered the charge. It was only when acting alone that the company formed a firing line, supporting line and reserve. The firing line fought as skirmishers, until they advanced close enough to execute the rapid fire and charge the enemy in conjunction with the supporting line.104 At the smallest unit possible, the IDR instructed the company to execute the attack in accordance with the army’s intellectual framework. The battalion movements in close order resembled those found in the 1891 regulations. For the normal four-company battalion, to form three echelons required the first two companies to form the firing line, one company to form the supporting line, and the last company the reserve. The battalion attacked as described in the preceding paragraph for the company, with the firing line advancing on the enemy position being reinforced by the supporting line. When the whole was 200 yards from the enemy position, the reserve joined the firing line and used the rapid fire to gain fire superiority during the charge.105 There was also a section entitled “Troops in Battle” which encouraged frontal attacks when executed in conjunction with flank 194

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Figure 5.1. 1904 Order of Battle. These plates from the 1904 Infantry Drill Regulations depict the three-line formation as it adapts itself to various enemy configurations. In all the variations, the firing and reserve lines are composed of linear formations, while the scouts remain noncontiguous. (Reprinted from USA, Infantry Drill Regulations 1904 [New York: D Appleton, 1904], 119)

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attacks. When describing the defense, the IDR stated that defensive formations and actions were almost identical to those of the attack.106 The remaining schools were merely a reflection of the battalion close and extended drill. The IDR included a section on the minor tactics of advanced guards, outposts, camping, and marching. These sections were entirely consistent with Wagner’s textbooks. While the company and battalion attacks referenced the importance of the charge, there was no bayonet drill in the entire IDR. With the level of controversy surrounding the bayonet from the Boer and RussoJapanese Wars, the removal of the bayonet drill was a deliberate choice for American tactics. For the second time, the bayonet, which was such a vital part of the French combat method, went out of American tactics. Both the description of the attack and the sections on minor tactics reflect the current teaching across a number of army textbooks and levels of education. With the exception of the loss of the bayonet, this IDR was consistent with the way the undergraduate and postgraduate schools taught the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield.

Fort Leavenworth Influences Tactics, 1911–1918 While the general staff assumed responsibility for coordinating training and doctrine across the army, it assigned the next revision of the IDR to the Fort Leavenworth schools in 1910. Morrison, already making a name for himself at the School of the Line, became the obvious choice to head a new regulations board to construct a more modern system of tactics. Morrison was the driving force behind the new set of regulations that would, with few modifications, carry the AEF onto the battlefields of Europe in 1917. Approved in 1911, these new regulations changed the tone and scope of the American system of tactics from the regulations of the preceding half century. With the opening lines of the document, Morrison placed combat and the battlefield at the center of the IDR: “The drill regulations are furnished as a guide. They provide the principles for training and for increasing the probability of success in battle.”107 The 1911 IDR continued the trend in American tactics by simplifying drill, with an emphasis on the dynamic requirements of the battlefield, and created an entirely new section focused on combat principles. Although Morrison removed the more dogmatic sections from the earlier regulations, he provided detailed advice on the most effective ways to deploy infantry in the attack and defense. While the format of the IDR changed to provide close order, extended order, and combat principles for each school, the tactical mechanics 196

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remained the same. The squad remained the basis of all drill throughout the regulations. Explained without diagrams, this new system of drill functioned on a system of guides based on the new command “follow me.”108 Without the requirement of precision drill, guiding squads off the corporal, sections off the sergeants, and the platoons by controlling the sections and squads embodied tactical simplicity. Although the company and battalion still executed the same movements as they did before, the forms were less specific and required the initiative and ability of the commanders to determine the correct formations for battlefield circumstances. The purpose of infantry tactics was to gain and maintain fire superiority over the enemy through the use of accurate and effective rifle fire. The firing line advanced and gained fire superiority to ensure the success of the bayonet charge to break the enemy line. This attack sequence returned the bayonet as the primary weapon of the infantry charge.109 Without including a bayonet drill, the IDR returned the bayonet to the American system of tactics in accordance with the French combat method. The defense used the same formation and sequence as the attack, including a reliance on the bayonet to stop the enemy attack. The first part of the IDR culminated with the organization of the attack and represented continuity with the army’s intellectual framework. Standard infantry soldiers trained and organized the same formations, and both the attack and the defense relied on offensive operations that culminated in a bayonet charge for success and used a linear but noncontiguous conceptualization of the battlefield. Morrison used the second part of the IDR, entitled “Combat,” to present his general theories on infantry in battle, and he explicitly stated many of the fundamental elements of the French combat method. “Combat” included sections on general combat principles, leadership, orders, reconnaissance, and fire superiority. It began by stating that “all infantry must be fit to cope with all conditions that may arise” and that the infantry must be able to take the offensive to gain decisive results.110 This belief in the efficacy of both a standard infantry and the offensive was a central part of the army’s intellectual framework. There was a prohibition on fixed forms or prescribed techniques in the attack, leaving commanders responsible for applying the appropriate tactical methods to the situation. Fire superiority was the critical ingredient for success on the modern battlefield, and if it was properly gained and maintained, all attacks could succeed.111 The prohibition on fixed forms mirrored the nondogmatic application of tactics of the French combat method. In either the attack or the defense, when the frontage was too great to support the recommended troop density of one man per yard, the American Warfare in the Progressive Era

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regulations recommended the deployment of companies and platoons with gaps between the units, as opposed to decreasing the density of the line. Entrenching was recommended only as necessary, as it was difficult to get entrenched troops to continue the attack, and confidence in the bayonet was a prerequisite for success in either the offense or the defense.112 Encouraging commanders to maintain optimal troop density even though it created gaps in their linear formations epitomized the noncontiguous nature of the French combat method. The IDR outlined this framework in the same way that Morrison taught in the postgraduate schools at Leavenworth. From 1911, the War Department updated the IDR several times leading up to the American involvement in WWI. Beginning in 1914, the updates took the form of appendices to the 1911 IDR. While the 1911 IDR was designed for use with the Springfield Model 1903 rifle, it became apparent that the army was still using the older Model 1898 rifle, and in 1914, Appendix A included the manual of arms for that rifle. The 1914 revision also included a bayonet manual that contained bayonet exercises that stressed footwork, parries, and thrusts to “teach soldiers how to make effective use of the rifle and bayonet in personal combat.”113 Similar to Upton’s 1873 bayonet exercises, this new appendix was clearly intended for soldiers to achieve a high level of effectiveness with the bayonet. The IDR printed especially for the AEF for its training and deployment to Europe was the IDR 1911 corrected to 15 April 1917.114 It included nineteen changes made to the regulations over the intervening six years but retained the same organization, tactical mechanics, and appendices. To assist the units and soldiers preparing for combat in the AEF, and to supply the huge numbers of newly formed units with regulations, the War Department produced the IDR 1911 corrected to 16 May 1918.115 This edition included the entire original 1911 regulations, all the 1914 appendices, and one additional appendix, which introduced the manual of arms for the 1917 Enfield rifle.116 Morrison’s 1911 tactical regulations remained valid for the American army to use through the entirety of WWI.

The General Staff and the Field Service Regulations of 1905 Following the revision of the IDR in 1904, the general staff undertook a revision of the general regulations that pertained to combat and the battlefield. In 1905, the general staff prepared the army’s first FSR.117 The FSR was a more deliberate theoretical document designed to replace the Troops in Campaign, and it presented the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield in a more deliberate fashion. It also loosely followed the format of the German FSR. The German FSR included sections on army organization, 198

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Figure 5.2. 1914 Bayonet Exercises. Published at the start of World War I, these images accompanied the bayonet drill represent the commitment of American regulations to the role of the bayonet on the modern battlefield. (Reprinted from USA, Infantry Drill Regulations, 1911, Corrected to November, 1913 [Washington, DC: GPO, 1914], 223; courtesy of the United States Military Academy Special Collections and Archives, West Point, New York)

reconnaissance, marches, and the communication between staffs and troops, and it described the way to execute and umpire field exercises.118 The 1905 FSR contained similar sections on army organization that outlined the tables of organization for the standard army units, reconnaissance, outpost duty, advanced guard and rear guard actions, marches, and patrols.119 These sections remained consistent with the minor tactics taught at West Point and Leavenworth and demonstrated another example of the integration of regulations, training, and education across the army. The FSR also included a new American Warfare in the Progressive Era

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section concerning the roles and responsibilities of the staff. It recommended that staffs, and especially the chief of staff, be given a certain level of independence to translate the will of the commander into orders, and it provided a format for these new, more mission-oriented orders.120 These orders followed the five-paragraph format designed by Eben Swift while serving as an instructor at Fort Leavenworth.121 The sections on administration, organization, and minor tactics reflected the most current army doctrine and reinforced the curriculum of the army’s education system. In the tradition of both the general regulations and the Troops in Campaign, the FSR included a comprehensive section on combat. This combat section began with the statement, “Decisive results can usually be obtained only by the offensive. The defensive should as a rule only be adopted temporarily or locally, with a view to eventual assumption of the offensive.”122 This was the same central principle that characterized the army’s intellectual framework. The FSR made it clear that superiority of fire was the way to apply force effectively on the battlefield, without specifying the tactics used to achieve it; that frontal assaults were not impossible; and that attacks should culminate with rapid fire and the bayonet.123 In both the attack and the defense, the cooperation of the three arms to create a superiority of fire was a vital element of success on the battlefield. While the section provided detailed guidance on the preparation of the defense, the general deployment of the infantry mirrored that of the attack, with a firing line, a supporting line, and reserves.124 The remainder of the FSR outlined the logistical support, transportation service, camps, and legal administration of the army in the field. This evolution of the “Battles” section from the nineteenth-century general regulations institutionalized the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield based on the fundamental elements of the French combat method in a modern and theoretical manner.

Fort Leavenworth Influences Army Doctrine: The FSR, 1910–1918 Chief of Staff of the Army J. Franklin Bell felt that the FSR required updating in 1910 in light of the experience of the Russo-Japanese War and advances in military technology. Bell understood the important theoretical and tactical work done by the Leavenworth faculty. While the general staff had oversight of the project, the 1910 FSR was the work of the Army Service Schools. Like the 1911 IDR, it bore the mark of the Morrison school of tactical thought.125 The majority of the changes made in the 1910 FSR were organizational. Using almost exactly the same words as the 1905 FSR, the 1910 FSR 200

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discussed convoys, marches, sanitary service, supply, organization, outposts, the service of security, and orders. With the exception of semantic changes of language, these sections remained the same through 1910. Morrison changed the regulations primarily by refining the combat section. The new combat section represented an evolution of the 1905 FSR but did not fundamentally change the American tactics of the attack or the defense. Decisive results remained possible only through offensive action, and modern weapons made frontal and flank attacks possible through fire superiority gained by infantry rifles and artillery.126 The new FSR emphasized the principal role that infantry played in the attack, supported by artillery fire. This infantry attack used the same three-line formation as before and culminated in the infantry assault conducted using the rapid fire and fixed bayonets.127 It reinforced the belief that fire alone was not enough to carry an enemy defensive position. Victory still required the physical assault of bayonets through the enemy’s position. The description of the defense changed slightly in the new FSR. Although the defense continued to utilize the same formation and phases as the offensive, Morrison pointed out that defensive works rarely created a continuous line but instead formed a series of strong points on a general defensive line. Once the defense repulsed the enemy attack, the FSR encouraged commanders either to launch local counterattacks or to assume a general offensive to attain decisive results.128 The 1910 FSR, even more than its predecessor, explicitly stated many of the fundamental elements of the French combat method. Morrison emphasized the central role of the infantry in combat, the primacy of offensive operations that culminated in a physical charge of the enemy, the importance of combining the effects of the other combatant arms to support the main attack, the linear but noncontiguous order of battle, and the repeated prohibition of fixed forms or dogmatic tactics. This FSR remained committed to the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield as the army prepared for WWI. Although the general staff reissued the FSR repeatedly through 1918, modifications to the 1910 FSR related to advances in technology or changes in format. The 1913 FSR used a majority of the paragraphs from 1910, with the addition of paragraphs devoted to aeronautical reconnaissance that included balloons, planes, and radios.129 These technological changes added to the regulations but made no change in the combat section or the way in which it presented the army’s intellectual framework. The general staff also added several technical appendices to the FSR which provided a wealth of reference material such as time tables for marches and mobilization, abbreviations and map symbols, the standard army field message format, and several American Warfare in the Progressive Era

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diagrams concerning the best way to build trenches.130 The additions to the 1913 FSR updated the regulations, especially for staff officers, but changed none of the major sections from 1910. Just one year later, the FSR underwent another revision, focused almost solely on organization. The 1914 FSR received a complete reorganization into three parts; organization, operations, and administration. Due to the rapid organizational changes of the army and projected changes to meet the requirements of WWI, the organization section was smaller and more general in 1914.131 The combat sections now fell under “Operations” but consisted of the same paragraphs as the 1910 FSR. Although the previous two FSRs explicitly connected the formations and sequence of offensive and defensive operations, the 1914 FSR combined them into a set of general principles.132 These principles were consistent with the army’s intellectual framework and reinforced the similarity between offensive and defensive operations in American tactics. Even through this reorganization of the combat section, the 1914 FSR did not change the way the army conceptualized the attack or the defense. The 1914 FSR was corrected in both 1917 and 1918, but these corrections changed only the reference material in the appendices and very specific data in the organization and orders chapters. The combat chapter remained the same and provided commanders in the AEF with the army’s intellectual framework. Morrison’s vision of the French combat method carried the AEF to the battlefields of Europe.

America Goes to War: The AEF in WWI With the decision to become involved in Europe against the Central Powers, the small professional regular army suddenly found itself responsible for absorbing hundreds of thousands of men to create an expeditionary army. The combination of regulars, reservists, National Guardsmen, volunteers, and draftees went to Europe as the AEF, under the command of General John J. Pershing. The AEF grew from existing divisions and new formations into a modern army, and regular army officers attempted to re-create their professional army on a bigger scale, including their educational system. When the AEF entered the front lines in 1918, they did so using the tactics and framework of the 1910 FSR and the 1911 IDR. The battle of the Meuse-Argonne was a demonstration of that intellectual framework on the battlefields of WWI. After a brief amount of time training and organizing formations, the War Department sent divisions over to Europe as soon as it could. Pershing created the American 1st Army from the stream of formations sent over from America for training and incorporation into the AEF. These divisions had one of 202

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three designations—regular, National Guard, or national army—based on the source of the officers and men assigned to them. However, from the start Leavenworth men on the general staff envisioned an amalgamation of the three sources to create a single homogeneous army. Therefore regular officers commanded companies, battalions, and divisions of all three types, while reserve officers and National Guardsmen manned commands and staffs across the AEF.133 These amalgamated formations arrived in France with the expectation that they would take advantage of Allied expertise, instructors, and equipment to complete their training. The AEF constructed training camps across France with the support of thousands of Allied officers and enlisted instructors.134 Although the original training course was set at three months, few divisions spent that much time training prior to occupying positions on the front lines. The AEF re-created the army’s education system in France to prepare new officers for both line and staff duty. In previous wars, the army’s schools were the first institutions to close to meet the demands of the battlefield. In WWI, Pershing created schools before creating anything else. The AEF established the curriculum for the corps and division schools for officers, noncommissioned officers, machine gunners, automatic riflemen, and bayonet specialists.135 To provide educated and trained junior officers, the AEF created an officer candidate school to evaluate and educate the best and most capable men sent into the AEF with little or no prior military training. Using recent West Point graduates as instructors, along with regular field grade officers, these schools graduated 10,000 officers over the course of the war.136 The AEF also created a School of the Line that resembled the Leavenworth school. Through a curriculum of map and field problems, lectures, and orders production, the course instructed officers in the “proper coordination of the different auxiliary weapons attached to the infantry and the proper use of accompanying artillery and tanks.”137 Almost 500 officers graduated from the School of the Line during the war. To man the increased number of staffs at the divisional, corps, and army levels, the AEF established the Army General Staff College on 27 November 1917. This college offered a three-month staff course that used the Leavenworth system of map problems, lectures, and orders. It graduated over 500 officers for service on staffs before the end of the war.138 The allocation of resources to the creation of such schools during the war reflected the importance of officer education to the army as it entered WWI. It also ensured that the officers of the AEF were familiar with the army’s intellectual framework as well as the tactical formations and techniques of the IDR. In addition to officer education, the AEF also established camps of instruction to complete the training of the divisions prior to their deployment on American Warfare in the Progressive Era

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the front lines. The Allies agreed to operate these camps and provided experienced instructors to aid in the rapid preparation of the American troops. However, Pershing and the AEF general staff became wary of these French and British instructors and the doctrines that they taught the American soldiers. The general staff training section attributed a decrease in initiative, aggressiveness, and self-reliance to the French instruction and recommended that the AEF secure its “emancipation from Allied supervision.”139 Pershing thought the European style of warfare too timid for American soldiers and disseminated a system of open warfare for the AEF.140 The General Headquarters (GHQ) issued training guidance that was consistent with the FSR and prewar doctrine and began to call this “open warfare,” even though there was no official definition of open warfare.141 The warfare that Pershing supported closely resembled the 1914 FSR, with skirmishers preceding a firing line and fire superiority created by a combination of riflemen and auxiliary arms. The AEF fought in accordance with the familiar intellectual framework of the French combat method in its first engagements prior to the benefit of combat experience. In May 1918, the 1st Infantry Division attacked the Germans at Cantigny using long waves of men in almost perfect alignment and supported by machine-gun barrages and a limited number of tanks. When the infantry in the first line could no longer advance, commanders moved the rear lines forward to support and eliminated several German pillboxes using hand-to-hand combat with rifle and bayonet.142 The 5th Marine Regiment followed the same pattern during their famous battle of Belleau Woods in June. They advanced with well-dressed lines and overcame enemy machine-gun fire in their final assault of Hill 142.143 They relied on their own rifle fire and bayonets with no machine-gun or artillery support. During the attack at Soissons in July, the 9th Infantry Regiment deployed in a regimental column with one battalion in front as the assault battalion, one following in support, and one in the rear designated as the reserve. When faced with artillery and machine-gun fire, the third battalion charged the machine guns, captured them, and routed the German crews.144 In these initial battles, U.S. troops fought in the manner prescribed by their FSR and taught in their service schools. They maintained standard infantry formations, uniformly organized and trained. They focused on aggressive attacks that culminated in the assault and used other branches as auxiliary firepower such as machine guns and artillery. They attacked with at least a firing and supporting line, and every organization from the battalion on up created a reserve. The tactical deployments of the firing line remained the responsibility of the commanders of companies and battalions, who still had to adjust their formations for the enemy and the terrain. 204

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The Battle of the Meuse-Argonne In the Allied counteroffensive that followed the limited gains made during the summer of 1918, Pershing volunteered the AEF to advance in a sector from the Meuse River to the Argonne Forest. The resulting battle was the largest in American military history, with 1.25 million men and resulting in over 120,000 casualties. Although the most experienced American divisions were either still engaged at St. Mihiel or recuperating from fighting there, the American 1st Army was as ready as training or education could make them for modern war. The overall objective of the initial American attack was the penetration of the enemy’s third line of defense on the heights of Romagne. The V Corps was the main effort, and after enveloping the enemy position on Montfaucon, was ordered to advance and capture Romagne. The III Corps on the right and I Corps on the left supported this drive by protecting V Corps’ flanks. Pershing maintained six divisions in strategic reserve, along with most of the 189 tanks and 821 planes available to the AEF.145 The objectives for the first day required a fifteen-mile advance through the Hindenburg Line on a front from Brieulles to Montfaucon to Grandpre.146 With a tremendous artillery preparation using 4,000 guns and machine-gun battalions, the American attack began with high expectations in the early morning of 26 September 1918. What ensued became known as the first phase of the battle of the MeuseArgonne, which began with initial success on 26 September and ended with the exhaustion of the front-line divisions by 30 September. The artillery preparation in the early morning of 26 September was both well planned and well timed. In the first hours of the attack, the assault divisions reported overwhelming success; firing lines assaulted machine-gun positions and seized the front line of German defenses, with the infantry closely following their creeping barrages.147 As the divisions advanced, the artillery and machine guns attempted to keep up with the lead elements of the attack to continue to provide supporting fires, but they rapidly fell behind.148 The V Corps under the command of General George Cameron attacked with the 79th, 37th, and 91st Divisions on line and the 32nd Division in reserve. The inexperienced and poorly trained 79th Division’s objective was the enemy strongpoint at Montfaucon, the key terrain in the entire sector. General Joseph Kuhn attempted to conduct the attack as would any professional division, with firing, supporting, and reserve lines, and their drill ground precision impressed observers. The first enemy resistance that the American infantry encountered consisted of concrete machine-gun positions. Because American Warfare in the Progressive Era

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Figure 5.3. Battle of the Meuse-Argonne, Phase I (Reprinted from The United States Army in the World War, 1917–1919: Military Operations of the American Expeditionary Forces [Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1991], vol. 9, 128)

of the interlocking fire of the enemy position, the regiments resorted to frontal attack after frontal attack to clear the bunkers.149 While successful, the costly wave attacks prevented the 79th from clearing Montfaucon until 27 September. On the left side of the V Corps attack, the 91st Division advanced with three regiments on line and one in reserve. Without artillery support, this firing line charged through the enemy trenches with fixed bayonets, disregarding the enemy cross fire and artillery.150 Formations attacked in waves, supported by machine-gun and artillery batteries, advanced rapidly over the thinly held German first-line trenches, but bogged down when encountering larger strongpoints. The I Corps attack into the wooded Argonne Forest slowed down almost at once, as the integrated enemy defense proved difficult. Major General Robert Alexander, commander of the 77th Division, ordered a frontal attack of the whole line after failing to identify any piece of key terrain on which to center his attack. As the artillery preparations failed to have decisive effects in the forest, Alexander ordered local attacks along the line to continue.151 As units in the front line became disorganized, attrited, or exhausted, units in the supporting line and the reserve “leap-frogged” into the front to carry on the attack.152 When the 35th Division advanced with one brigade in the firing 206

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line, one in the supporting line, and one in the reserve, German machine guns caught the 137th Regiment in the firing line in a cross fire and prevented them from continuing the advance. After capturing the infamous Vauquois Hill, the 139th Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Carl Ristine, found the 137th disintegrating under enemy machine-gun fire. Ristine decided to advance the 139th through the 137th to charge the German positions, without artillery or machine-gun support. Although costly, this frontal attack prevented the 137th from breaking and drove the enemy from its second defensive line.153 However, this caused the regiments of the 35th Division to become entangled and ineffective. By the night of 26 September, the divisions of the I Corps committed their reserves and fought to a stalemate across the line.154 After six days of fighting, I Corps occupied only slightly more than their first-day objectives. The III Corps under General Robert Bullard had the most success of any corps in the first phase of the battle. The corps advanced with the veteran 4th Division on the left flank under the enemy guns on Montfaucon, the 80th Division in the center, and the veteran 33rd Division on the right flank up against the west bank of the Meuse River. On the right, the 131st Regiment in the firing line of the 33rd Division advanced in three lines following their artillery barrage. They kept formation until the terrain and the enemy forced them to put all three of their battalions in the firing line for a charge that carried the German trenches of the Hagen Stellung. This charge of the German trenches succeeded without any direct artillery or machine-gun support.155 In the same line, the 132nd Regiment advanced with two battalions in the firing line and one in the supporting line. Each battalion deployed two companies in a firing line and two companies in a supporting line; thus, at every echelon, there were firing and supporting lines. This formation advanced until five lines of integrated German machine-gun outposts caused the 132nd to break up their lines into smaller groups in order to attack the German outposts.156 This linear, noncontiguous approach was very successful against the enemy machine-gun nests. The regular army 4th Infantry Division advanced across the swampy brook in the no-man’s-land separating the American line from the German line. With the first German trenches shattered by the artillery barrage, the 4th worked its way methodically through the machine-gun nests of the second line for hours. Once the skirmishers made contact with the intermediate German positions on the ridge south of the town of Cuisy, the supporting line joined the firing line in rushing the entire American formation over the ridge and through the German trenches. They stopped pursuing the retreatAmerican Warfare in the Progressive Era

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ing enemy troops after five miles.157 With the delay of the 79th Division in taking Montfaucon, the 4th Division commander, General John Hines, asked Bullard for permission to withdraw from his exposed position to the more defensible terrain of the woods in his rear. Bullard replied, “No, we’ve got to stay there; we give up nothing.”158 This aggressive posture cost the 4th Division casualties from German cross fire, but it also supported the capture of Montfaucon. This ended the first phase of the battle, with the advance ground to a halt in the face of the German elastic defense. Pershing decided to reorganize his formations and continue the attack by deploying six fresh divisions into the front line. If the initial attack consisted of mostly green divisions, the attack that began the second phase of the battle saw the return of veteran formations to the front line. The attack divisions of the III, I, and V Corps supported the four most veteran divisions in the army. The 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 32nd Divisions spearheaded the second attack, which took place on 4 October 1918. The plan was almost identical with that launched on 26 September. Pershing ordered the three corps to attack side by side, with the main effort in the middle. The 1st Division, whose replacements “absorbed the professional spirit of the division,” took over the main attack in the center.159 The 3rd, 4th, and 32nd Divisions each spearheaded new attacks in their corps sector, with the 3rd and 32nd Divisions taking over the V Corps sector entirely. The 1st Division attacked with tanks supporting the leading waves of infantry, artillery that fired mobile targeting patterns and bounded forward behind the front line to keep indirect fire support available to the leading infantry attacks. The division’s leading waves broke up into individual squad groups and attacked behind the artillery barrages. Even though the regiments were ordered not to advance without a supporting barrage, the attacking waves of infantry continued to rely on their bayonets and rifles to eliminate enemy positions.160 The commander of the 1st Division, Major General Charles Summerall, reorganized his division and ordered three set-piece attacks for 9 October designed to penetrate the enemy’s main defensive line. The attack began with a coordinated artillery barrage that fired preparatory fires on the German positions and also included a rolling barrage designed to protect the infantry advance.161 The front line advanced behind this artillery and dug in on a line opposite the Hindenburg Line. The division suffered 8,000 casualties in the attacks from 4 to 10 October. Cameron ordered the 3rd Division to clear the Cunel and Ogons Woods, whose defenders repelled the 79th Division’s attacks on 29 September. The men of the 3rd Division, unable to utilize their artillery to soften up or iden208

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Figure 5.4. Battle of the Meuse-Argonne, Phase II (Reprinted from The United States Army in the World War, 1917–1919: Military Operations of the American Expeditionary Forces [Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1991], vol. 9, 211)

tify the defensive positions, advanced in waves against the Cunel Woods on 4 October. On 5 October, the division forced its way through the woods. In these attacks, the infantry advanced forward in their lines and repaired them whenever artillery fire or machine guns tore gaps in them. In approaching the high ground in the division’s sector, the infantry advanced forward in smaller groups to infiltrate close to the enemy trenches for the assault, under the cover of artillery support.162 Following the fighting on 5 October, the 3rd Division dug its forward lines in to reorganize and prepare for another deliberate attack. On 9 October, the divisional reserves spent three days penetrating the German trench line at Mamelle. The stout enemy defense and the disorganization created by the successful attacks of phase II required the AEF to reorganize again and to prepare to continue the attack. The first two phases of the battle of the Meuse-Argonne saw inexperienced and veteran divisions attack into the German defense in-depth. However, all the American divisions went into combat in the summer of 1918 prepared to fight using the tactics of the IDR and the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. The AEF, in its initial actions, used artillery to prepare attacks by lines of infantrymen against entrenched German positions and machine-gun American Warfare in the Progressive Era

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fire. They advanced in skirmish lines until they were close enough to drive their attack home with an infantry assault. Through the first phase of the Meuse-Argonne, inexperienced American divisions conducted their operations in accordance with the FSR and IDR prepared for the AEF. However, when the more veteran divisions entered the battle during phase II, they brought several adaptations of the American system to modern warfare. The 1st Infantry Division led the way with extremely controlled artillery fire, integrated machine-gun sections with the leading lines of infantrymen, and more thorough use of enveloping attacks to force the enemy out of its positions. These phase II attacks were more successful than were the inexperienced attempts of the phase I divisions; however, they all shared the same framework of the battlefield. The veteran 3rd Division conducted its attacks in much the same way as the attack divisions on 26 September. Even the 1st Infantry Division continued to use lines and artillery to control movement, and to use the machine guns as supporting fires in the same way it used its artillery. It maintained reserves and used those reserves to conduct assaults, and continued to assault enemy positions whenever possible. The high casualties of the second-phase attacks were testaments to both the bravery of the troops and also their commitment to an intellectual framework informed more by the French combat method than experiences on the battlefields of Europe.

Conclusion Like the decades before the Spanish-American War, the professionalization of the army characterized the period leading up to WWI. In many ways, the trends of the late nineteenth century continued on into the twentieth century. The army’s postgraduate institutions increased the intellectual rigor of their curriculum and began to dominate both the undergraduate curriculum at West Point and the creation of general and tactical regulations. German military institutions and culture influenced these developments as the U.S. Army looked to the Germans for inspiration. What the army lacked was the ability to police its own professional ranks and the autonomy of self-administration without the overweening influence of politicians and civilians. The formation of a general staff and the office of the chief of staff of the army provided the last remaining elements for the army to become a truly professional organization. The general staff militarized the army administration away from the corrupt bureau system, placing professional officers in positions of authority. 210

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The general staff also provided professional advice to the president, secretary of war, and Congress and in the process had a greater influence on military policy. However, reforming the War Department and creating the general staff required the political and popular support of the Progressive movement. While the army remained a socially conservative institution, it benefited from the progressive belief in professional communities and bureaucracies. Progressives were able to overcome the corruption and resistance in Congress, and a series of progressive presidents supported army reform essentially from within. This was the support that allowed Root to reform the War Department, to create a war college, and to establish the general staff. When the army went to war in 1898, Congress and politics forced on it a dual system of regular and volunteer formations, with different levels of military education, pay scales, training, and officers. When America entered WWI, progressive support allowed the army to dictate the mobilization, organization, and personnel decisions. This created a single amalgamated AEF. Professional military officers wielded more influence in the conduct of WWI than ever before in American history. As the AEF commander, Pershing had a tremendous amount of power, from determining when and where American troops would fight to what organization and training they received. Given complete autonomy, Pershing re-created its school system in Europe because he believed in the efficacy of military education even during war. Through military education, he was able to imbue the AEF with a desire to emulate the professional standard of training, execution, and discipline. The volunteer and National Guard formations actively strove to be more professional, which was a first in American warfare. Pershing expressed this professionalization by stating that “the standards for the American Army will be those of West Point. The rigid attention, upright bearing, attention to detail, uncomplaining obedience to instructions required of the cadet will be required of every officer and soldier of our armies in France.”163 This professionalized army went to war in Europe in 1918. When the Americans entered WWI, they fought according to their intellectual framework of the battlefield based on the fundamental elements of the French combat method. In their first experiences, they often fought without adequate artillery or machine-gun support, in waves consisting of firing and supporting lines, they believed that the rifle was their primary weapon and that all attacks required a bayonet assault in order to drive the enemy out of its positions and bunkers. As the AEF gained experience, it began to adapt to the realities of European warfare, as other armies had done. The French army entered 1914 dedicated to the cult of the offensive, with strategic plans American Warfare in the Progressive Era

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that called for an immediate offensive in response to any German advance. By 1918, the French army developed what it called the “methodical battle” doctrine. This doctrine prized fire power over all else and rested mainly on the power of the elastic defense to destroy enough of the enemy that it would succumb to a methodical advance.164 While the Germans entered 1914 with similar doctrines and equipment as the French, by 1918 they developed very different ideas about war. The Germans developed offensive infiltration tactics to reinvigorate the attack and to end the stalemate on the Western Front. These infiltration tactics required close infantry-artillery coordination but relied on small infantry units built around the light and submachine gun; these units were designed to bypass enemy resistance. Following behind the “storm troopers” were more standard infantry formations designed to eliminate the strongpoints and to support the forward movement of the artillery. For these tactics, special storm battalions and divisions received different training and equipment from that of the regular infantry formations.165 This differed fundamentally from the standard American infantry formations. While the American experience in WWI was not nearly as long or as comprehensive as that of either the French or the Germans, it provided the same kind of environments that fostered both methodical battle and infiltration tactics. American officers had ample experience to change their intellectual framework, and they did adapt their tactics in response to battlefield conditions. American divisions increased the number of automatic weapons in their formations and dramatically improved infantry-artillery coordination, which led to increased fire support for American infantry attacks.166 However, all these improvements were consistent with the French combat method. The artillery coordination served to increase the effectiveness of the infantry attack, not replace it. Automatic weapons remained concentrated in batteries and served similar purposes as the artillery did, while automatic riflemen in the infantry formations added firepower to the infantry’s rapid fire in order to achieve fire superiority. Contrary to critics who questioned why the army “learned” very little from the war, officers came away from the experience feeling once again that though adaptation was necessary, the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield was vindicated.

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6 The End of French Influence on American Warfare, 1918–1941

Today, the United States faces probably the most critical period in its history. . . . Commonly accepted military technique and methods in the art of war have been consigned to the ash heap. . . . Our people must realize that the flagwaving days of warfare are gone. The successful Army of today is composed of specialists, thoroughly trained in every detail of military science, and above all, organized into a perfect team. —George Catlett Marshall, Chief of Staff of the Army, speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, 19 June 19401

Although the officer corps as a whole considered the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield based on the fundamental elements of the French combat method validated in WWI, the experiences of the war led to a period of experimentation. WWI was in effect an anomaly, and while the French combat method provided a solution to the problems of modern combat, other solutions began to seem more effective. During the 1920s and 1930s, several different theories of war competed with the French combat method in the army through professional debates, journals, tests, and the drafting of new regulations. In conjunction with theoretical and battlefield developments in Europe, these debates reached a fever pitch in the years leading up to WWII. With the German victories of the 1930s, this period of anomaly preceded the creation of a new paradigm. During that time, the army’s officer corps experienced an intellectual revolution that resulted in a change in their intellectual framework of the battlefield.

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American Tactical Developments, 1918–1941 Incorporating Tactical Lessons: The Provisional IDR 1919 The AEF spent considerable resources incorporating the Allied and American lessons of WWI into tactical regulations and combat instructions. American experiences in the battles of St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne highlighted the need for more comprehensive tactical regulations.2 The need was so great that Lieutenant General Hunter Liggett published his own pamphlets detailing combat operations for the 1st Army on the battlefield.3 In response, the AEF general staff Training Section assigned Lieutenant Colonel George A. Lynch to combine these lessons into a new IDR. A 1903 West Point graduate, Lynch served in the Philippines prior to the war and received the Army Distinguished Service Medal for his work on the IDR revision.4 The War Department adopted Lynch’s IDR in 1919.5 These regulations combined the best elements of their predecessors: the combat sections of the 1914 FSR and AEF publications. In the great American tradition of simplifying drill regulations, the 1919 IDR was a triumph of both standardization and simplicity. In a brief ninetytwo pages, it laid out the close and extended order drill for every infantry unit of the division. Close order drill became the drill for ceremonies, while extended order drill was only for the battlefield. The mechanics of the new drill used the platoon as the basis for all the movements and formations from the squad to the regiment.6 The new system made the squad drill identical to the platoon drill, and the company drill directed platoon and squad movements as opposed to executing unique company movements.7 The extended order remained unchanged, with the squad as the principal unit of skirmishing, individual soldiers trained in the use of the rifle and cover to advance, and the deployment from column to line.8 This simplified drill was even easier for new soldiers to master, including the citizen-soldiers of the AEF. It also retained the linear but noncontiguous system of movements, alignments, and formations. The 1919 IDR also included topics traditionally reserved for the FSR. It described all the new infantry weapons organic to the infantry squad, including automatic rifles, machine guns, grenades, and mortars. However, the regulations declared that “the rifle is by far the most formidable weapon of the infantry soldier.”9 Categorizing all the other weapons as auxiliary, the riflemen with bayonet remained the main element of American fighting power. The IDR also included a brief chapter of general principles entitled “Combat,” which was the same heading of a similar chapter in the 1914 FSR. 214

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Commanders remained responsible for coordinating the separate arms into a single team and were prohibited from creating fixed forms for tactics or movements. The infantry remained trained to accomplish missions without specialization. High morale was still integral to creating fire superiority and to executing the final assault with the bayonet.10 These principles remained consistent with the French combat method and remained unchanged from the start of WWI. This new IDR devoted the longest chapter of the work, “Offensive Combat,” to the application of these general principles in combat. Although there was not much new material in “Offensive Combat,” it projected into the tactical regulations many of the principles that made up the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. There was no chapter or even section on defensive combat. As a rationale, the regulations stated, “An infantry that knows how to attack will know how to defend, because it is easier to defend than to attack.”11 The 1919 IDR described the standard attack, consisting of a firing line, reinforced when needed by the support element and reserve. Advancing on the enemy with rushes, the attack culminated in either an assault or the construction of hasty field entrenchments to allow follow-on forces to continue the attack.12 This formulation for the attack, with its culmination in a final assault and the use of lines for control, incorporated the fundamental elements of the French combat method on the modern battlefield. The IDR also included sections on positional or trench warfare. For trench warfare, the regulations adapted the framework of open warfare to the realities of the German defense in-depth supported by artillery and machine-gun fire. To overcome this defense, American forces deployed in a series of lines or waves consisting of deployed squads and platoons supported by integrated artillery fire and tanks. When this order of battle advanced close enough to the enemy trenches, the waves rushed forward in the final assault.13 Even in positional warfare, the linear but noncontiguous formation advanced with the supporting fires of the auxiliary arms until close enough to launch the final assault. With these sections, the army adopted tactical regulations following WWI that remained committed to the French combat method and the army’s existing intellectual framework.

Tactical Continuity and Change, 1920–1939 When the AEF headquarters redeployed from France, Pershing received authorization to maintain a separate headquarters in Washington, D.C., to control demobilization. Prior to leaving France, Pershing formed a series of The End of French Influence on American Warfare

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boards to assess the AEF’s performance during the war, with the intention of using these reports to reform the postwar army. He tasked one of these boards, called the Superior Board, to review and make recommendations on the divisional organization. The organization of the division was critical in the postwar development of the army and its intellectual framework, as much of that framework is embedded in the division structure. This board recommended a 29,000-man “square division” of four infantry regiments. It assigned a howitzer company to the regiment and machine-gun companies to the battalion while retaining tanks at the army level. This square division allowed formations to utilize the attack formations discussed in the 1919 IDR, even while placing more auxiliary weapons at the regimental and battalion level. Pershing disagreed with this structure and wanted a smaller, more flexible formation of 17,000 men, with only three infantry regiments. The conflict caused Secretary of War Newton Baker to write into the National Defense Act of 1920, which reorganized the military establishment, that the War Department was responsible for determining the best divisional structure.14 The general staff ’s War Plans Division formed a committee of senior officers from around the army, Fort Leavenworth, and the AEF Headquarters to review the division organization. With George C. Marshall representing Pershing’s opinions, the committee recommended a smaller version of the Superior Board’s square division.15 This division was consistent with the army’s intellectual framework and signified no changes in the immediate postwar era. The smaller division made the regiments more flexible and easier to move around the battlefield. Additionally, these suggestions came from the American experiences in WWI and not directly from foreign sources or experimentation. However, these changes in organization were soon overcome by the postwar economy. Although Congress authorized almost 300,000 men for the peacetime army, funding issues almost immediately reduced that number significantly. Regular army regiments and divisions began to reorganize according to the 1920 divisional structure, but they lacked the personnel and equipment to produce complete formations. The result was a skeleton army with all formations understrength. During this period, the 1919 IDR remained in effect, but it was adjusted by the War Department to meet the demands of the new infantry division. The chief of infantry began to issue updates and changes to the IDR through the use of War Department Training Regulations. The 420 series of Training Regulations dealt with everything from the drill for the new headquarters company to the new service and 216

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supply organizations.16 The War Department published these short training regulations in loose-leaf-binder format because of the rapid nature of the changes occurring during this period.17 However, the Training Regulations changed only the specific mechanics related to the new division organization. The fundamental elements of the French combat method remained at the center of the American system of tactics. Despite decreasing resources in both money and manpower, the army continued to experiment with mechanization in the 1920s. In 1928, Chief of Staff Charles Summerall authorized the creation of a force for the purpose of conducting experiments in mechanized organization, equipment, and maneuver. Called the Mechanized Force Board, the unit consisted of two tank battalions, an infantry battalion, an artillery battalion, and a variety of experimental vehicles.18 Within months, this board created an armored combined-arms organization and tentative tactics for such a unit.19 Some of these ideas were merely extensions of the French combat method, but some of them took the army in radically different directions. They reflected a growing sense of theoretical experimentation in the officer corps. However, with limited resources and ever increasingly parochial branch chiefs, new Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur decided that mechanization and modernization had to be an armywide effort. MacArthur disbanded the Mechanized Force Board and encouraged all the combatant arms to integrate mechanization into their branches. This ensured that the more conservative combat arms branches would modernize in accordance with the army’s intellectual framework. At the same time, MacArthur began the effort to update the tactical regulations. He began this effort by authorizing tentative regulations for field testing in 1932. The Tentative IDR of 1932 introduced new formations and weapons into the infantry organization.20 For the rifle formations, squad through company, there was no change in the close order drill. The only substantive change in the extended order was that the infantry squad now had a triangular formation. The platoon and the company could also deploy using a triangular formation of one unit up and two units back forming a triangle, in addition to columns and lines.21 These triangular formations did not exactly support the linear but noncontiguous attack formations in the 1919 IDR. In addition to the new infantry formations, the 1932 IDR integrated a number of other supporting units, such as the machine-gun company and the howitzer company, with the infantry formations. The limited training and testing resources of the 1930s used this IDR and evaluated its effectiveness as part of ongoing experimental efforts. The End of French Influence on American Warfare

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Figure 6.1. 1932 Platoon Formations. These platoon formations, consisting of various squad configurations, represent a transitional form that begins to change the fundamental relationships of American tactics. With the adoption of a wedge formation, the previous tactics of scouts, firing line, and reserve give way to more flexible formations within the platoon, company, and battalion. However, even the wedge retains a linear but noncontiguous relationship, with the lead squad at the tip of the triangle as one line and the two squads on line in support forming another. (Reprinted from USA, Tentative Infantry Drill Regulations, 1932 (For Service Test Only) [Washington, DC: GPO, 1932], 69)

After a decade of testing, maneuvers, technological advances, and experimentation, the general staff produced a new IDR. When Marshall was the assistant commandant of the Infantry School in 1930, he had his staff examine the current American and European doctrines to make better tactical regulations.22 The result languished unused until Marshall became the deputy chief of staff of the army in 1938 and resurrected the effort as the basis for another examination of current doctrines for a new IDR.23 The result became the Basic Field Manual, FM 22-5: Infantry Drill Regulations in July 1939. It provided only the close order drill for the units, formations, and new equipment of the army. This close order drill became the infantry drill of the army. Its three purposes were to move a command in an orderly manner from one place to another, to increase morale through ceremony and public military spectacle, and to give junior officers and noncommissioned officers practice in the art of command.24 There was now a drill for foot troops, for units with animal transportation, and for units with motorized and wagon units.25 It included a manual of arms for all the personal weapons of the infantry, including the automatic rifle and the pistol. However, this was a drill not intended for the battlefield. For the purpose of familiarization, FM 22-5 included extended order formations. This was the same as the extended order in the 1932 Tentative Regulations, and the infantry squad retained the wedge formation in addition to the line and the column. Platoons had more options from the triangular formation and could deploy into column of threes, column of twos, platoon column, line of squads, one squad forward and two squads back, or two squads forward and one squad back.26 Although the new IDR contained the extended order, these regulations were not designed as battlefield regulations but only to familiarize soldiers with combat formations. This was a departure from previous American regulations and left the army in 1939 without truly tactical regulations for the first time since 1814.

Differing Doctrines of War: The 1923 FSR and the Manual for Commanders of Large Units Although the AEF produced a number of documents pertaining to war and warfare, the 1914 FSR guided American operations throughout WWI. With experience and lessons from the war, the 1914 FSR was obsolete by 1919. On 7 December 1920, the general staff tasked the General Staff School (GSS) at Fort Leavenworth to produce a draft of the new FSR. The sections and instructors of the GSS wrote drafts for various subjects and submitted their The End of French Influence on American Warfare

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FSR to the general staff on 17 June 1922.27 The general staff then combined the recommendations from other officers and army institutions with the Leavenworth FSR. The Military Intelligence Division of the general staff assigned George Lynch to edit and rewrite the final version.28 Lynch was an obvious choice with his experience compiling and editing the 1919 IDR. Acting Chief of Staff John Hines approved the new FSR in 1923. The 1923 FSR was the natural extension of the ideas contained in the 1914 FSR, updated by the American experiences of WWI. It retained the format of the 1914 FSR, with the addition of a chapter on the combatant arms. The army’s intellectual framework remained focused on the attack, which succeeded through the initiative and independent action of both officers and soldiers. These leaders had to “combine and coordinate the combat tactics of all of the arms as to develop in the combined forces the teamwork essential to success.”29 The combination happened as the infantry integrated the auxiliary arms into its operations. The FSR updated army doctrine on command, staff, organization, and the roles of the different branches. It retained sections focused on the minor tactics of reconnaissance, security, marches, and shelter. While the principles of the army’s intellectual framework remained unchanged, the FSR added a new language of combined arms operations to American warfare. The FSR defined the roles of the infantry, artillery, and cavalry on the modern battlefield using a new language to describe an old relationship. The first chapter began by stating that “no one arm wins battles. The combined employment of all arms is essential for success.” However, the regulations clarified this by stating that the mission of the infantry was the general mission of the army and that the missions of the auxiliary arms were derived from their assistance in the accomplishment of the infantry’s mission.30 Thus, the new combined arms warfare described a team of all the arms but one still dominated by the infantry. The infantry remained the arm of close combat, whose principal weapons were the rifle and bayonet and whose tactics were based on developing the capabilities of the individual fighting soldier. These statements reflected prewar beliefs, but some of the new directives were clearly a result of experiences of the war. Fire constituted the infantry’s principal means of destroying the enemy, and the infantry attack advanced from terrain feature to terrain feature in succession as it advanced toward and through the enemy’s position. The tank was part of the infantry, even considered at one point an “armored infantry element.” The infantry regiment constituted the complete tactical unit, capable of assignment to all missions requiring infantry action.31 The emphasis on fire was new to American warfare, although this emphasis 220

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remained embedded in an attack that still required the physical assault of the objective. While consistent with the fundamental elements of the French combat method, this FSR introduced ideas and vocabulary that were not precisely aligned with the army’s intellectual framework. The sections on offensive and defensive combat remained similar in the new FSR. It maintained that the offensive was the only way to achieve decisive results, that the defensive was only a temporary state while preparing to resume the offensive, and that concentration at the decisive time and place remained essential for victory.32 Some of the differences concerned newer technologies. For example, in the 1914 FSR, the assault was supported by artillery fire through the objective, even though it endangered friendly infantry.33 By 1923, the artillery shifted off the objective just before the assaulting infantry arrived on the objective, while fire superiority was maintained through the use of tanks and aviation.34 Throughout the 1923 FSR, the sections in the combat chapter were much more detailed than in the previous FSR, outlining very specific stages of the attack, the different artillery missions, the timing and coordination required between those missions, and the actions of the infantry through all its phases, including the assault and pursuit. Throughout, the 1923 FSR remained consistent with the army’s intellectual framework and the fundamental elements of the French combat method, updated for warfare in the twentieth century. After almost a decade of piecemeal modernization and experimentation, the general staff contemplated a revision of the 1923 regulations as part of the field manual project. In 1930, the general staff ’s assistant chief of staff for operations and plans (G-3), General Frank Parker, drafted another manual to supplement the 1923 FSR, one focused on large-unit operations. When the commandants of the Command and General Staff School (CGSS) and the Army War College received the draft manual, they opposed an additional manual on large units. As a student at the War College in 1930, George Lynch wrote a memorandum that outlined the draft manual’s faults. These included its overreliance on current French doctrine and serious discrepancies between it and the 1923 FSR.35 However, Summerall believed that the army needed the additional regulations and authorized the publication of the Manual for Commanders of Large Units (Provisional), or MCLU, in 1930. The MCLU focused on the command, staff, and combat functions of an army, corps, and division, with additional sections on cavalry and special operations. There was a single chapter devoted to the general principles of offensive and defensive warfare.36 The manual stated that the majority of the decisive battles in history were the result of successful counterattacks followThe End of French Influence on American Warfare

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ing defensive battles. In addition, the defensive characterized modern combat, with offensive operations being the exception rather than the rule. These statements challenged the army’s intellectual framework, which assigned decisive results only to the offensive. When discussing the offensive, the MCLU encouraged commanders to conduct their attacks in a deliberate way, moving from one dominant terrain feature to another supported by overwhelming artillery, which ensured that their units did not get out of control.37 The remainder of the manual applied these principles to the operations of large units, and it ended with the approved tables of organization for the army, corps, and division. Updated in 1936 when the army published a new edition, the only substantive additions concerned the functioning of the mechanized cavalry brigade on the battlefield.38 The doctrine represented in the MCLU remained in effect in conjunction with the 1923 FSR until the end of the decade. There were a number of reasons that the commandants of the army’s postgraduate schools, and Lynch, found the MCLU unacceptable. It violated most of the fundamental elements of the French combat method, such as the primacy of the offensive and the infantry attack that culminated with a bayonet charge. Lynch also believed that the MCLU was a barely disguised copy of the French Provisoire sur l’emploi tactique des grandes unités.39 This French doctrine linked the attack to the speed and effectiveness of the artillery, thus surrendering all real initiative on the battlefield. In a sense, the resistance to the MCLU was an American criticism of a French doctrine that did not follow the principles of the French combat method. As part of the development of both an IDR and an FSR, Lynch understood the importance of synchronizing tactical doctrine across the spectrum of regulations and schools. The MCLU created a second and conflicting conceptualization of the battlefield in army regulations, a divergence in the army’s intellectual framework. It was not surprising that Summerall approved this dangerous divergence, as the new French doctrine of methodical battle contained in the MCLU reflected the methodical artillery-driven operations of the 1st Division during the battle of the Meuse-Argonne.40 While the army as a whole came out of WWI vindicated in its intellectual framework, there were officers that subscribed to very different ideas of war and battle.

Tactical Experimentation and German Influence, 1935–1939 With MacArthur’s decision to leave mechanization and modernization development to the individual branches in the early 1930s, the issue of tactical reorganization remained dormant until the end of 1935. The general staff 222

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recommended to Chief of Staff Malin Craig that because of the development of new technology and equipment, another revision of the army divisional structure was necessary. The infantry division remained organized according to the square 1920 structure, with two infantry brigades of two regiments apiece, a howitzer company attached to the regiment, and a machine-gun company in each infantry battalion. In January 1936, Craig created the Modernization Board and directed it to look across the army, the postgraduate schools, and foreign armies to determine the divisional framework for the modern army. The board finished its report in July and recommended a triangular division, with no brigades and three infantry regiments.41 For the first time, the infantry regiments were paired with one of the light artillery batteries in a “combat team.” Craig ordered the 2nd Division reorganized according to the new organization, and in 1937 that division conducted a series of tests to validate the Modernization Board’s efforts.42 These tests represented another movement by the army’s senior leadership to privilege ideas and principles that were outside the army’s intellectual framework. While these new principles and ideas contradicted some of the fundamental elements of the French combat method, they were directly in line with German theoretical developments in the interwar period. The year 1935 was understandably a good one for the general staff to become interested in revisiting the infantry division organization, as it was the year that Hitler began the public rearmament of the German army. It also coincided with the release of a number of reports and documents that demonstrated a marked difference in German doctrinal development. Through periodicals such as the Quarterly Review of Military Literature, the Infantry Journal, the Cavalry Journal, and the Field Artillery Journal, American officers stayed abreast of developments on the Continent. Up until 1935, these articles, especially abstracts from the German military periodical Militär-Wochenblatt, focused on the lessons from WWI and the new importance of mechanization, tanks, and airpower. In 1936, the army became aware of several new elements in German doctrine. Published in secret in 1933, the German army published an unclassified edition of its new field service regulations, or Truppenführung, in 1936. A large portion of this new doctrine sounded familiar to American officers. It declared that decisive victories could only be achieved through the offensive, that the modern battlefield required independent thinking and acting leaders, that the objective of the combined arms attack was to bring the infantry through the enemy position with firepower and shock, and that the infantry must be capable of fighting not only with fire but also at close quarters with The End of French Influence on American Warfare

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the bayonet.43 All of these principles corresponded to elements of the French combat method. However, there were several very new elements to this German doctrine. For the Germans, the troop commander led a unit of all arms in a formation called a battle group. This battle group, or Kampfgruppe, usually consisted of an infantry regiment and an artillery battalion but could consist of any assortment of different units and weapon systems depending on the tactical situation.44 The regulations stressed cooperation and teamwork and encouraged the development of habitual relationships between these groups. The Germans also developed a wide variety of specialized troops, which included bicycle, motorcycle, machine-gun, and tank-defense units. All these specialized units had different equipment and required specialized training. The new regulations also institutionalized the infiltration tactics made so famous in WWI, which encouraged the breakthrough by reinforcing penetrations with speed and firepower on a narrow front.45 This led logically to the development of armored forces capable of independent action both to force the penetration and to carry out the pursuit unconnected to the main battle area. Truppenführung established principles of the combat team, specialized units, and armored forces capable of nonlinear, noncontiguous operations. This doctrine provided an alternative conceptualization of the battlefield to either the French combat method or the French methodical battle. In addition to the publication of Truppenführung, the American army received several reports from officers stationed in Germany. Major Truman Smith served as the military attaché in Berlin from 1935 to 1939 and in that capacity provided a steady stream of reports to the general staff on the German army. These included German military manuals and documents and his observation reports on maneuvers. In 1936, he compiled a detailed report on the changes in German organization, including the tables of organization for the new armored divisions, antitank companies, and infantry-accompanying batteries. He also included in his report the abolition of cavalry and the adoption of the Kampfgruppe as the “essential battle tactical unit.”46 His report validated the organizational and tactical changes stated in the Truppenführung. In addition to the German regulations and observation reports from Major Smith, the army had other direct sources of information on the current state of military thought and doctrine in the German army. As part of an officer exchange program, Captain Albert Wedemeyer was a student at the German General Staff School in Berlin from 1936 to 1938. As a student, he sent back reports on the German school system and army. During his course, the majority of the tactical problems given to his class were types of attack, 224

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and none involved stabilized or trench warfare. He reported on the development of “combat teams” and the increased firepower of the German infantry through the attachment of howitzers, mortars, and machine guns.47 Wedemeyer’s report was consistent with the German regulations and with other reports coming from Germany. The Army War College collated all these reports into a series of studies of the German army. Considering Germany to be a major power in 1933, the American Army War College conducted biannual studies that tracked German military development and reported on this development to senior army leaders.48 While the American general staff viewed German innovation cautiously, it studied the German army with at least as much attention as it did the other armies of Europe. In the military periodicals of this period, there was an interest in the German generals and actions of WWI, such as Schlieffen, Hindenburg, and the battle of Tannenberg, to name only a few. In addition to a historical interest in the German army, there was also a large number of German military theorists who wrote articles expounding new German ideas on war. For example, in 1937, the Infantry Journal printed a two-part article from General Heinz Guderian on armored warfare. In the article, Guderian stated that armored forces were offensive in nature, to be used to gain decisive results, and that the role of the infantry in armored warfare was the exploitation of the tank attack.49 These theoretical opinions provided the American reader more of a picture of what the organization depicted in the German regulations was capable of on the battlefield. While American officers were aware of the doctrinal development of armies around the world, they were also exposed to a number of important sources with detailed information in the development and state of German military doctrine.

The Conservative American Response to German Influence Although there was a powerful group of senior army leaders that were supportive of the experimental testing and doctrinal changes occurring in the 1920s and 1930s, there was also strong opposition to the adoption of the new division, for a number of reasons. The most public conservative response came from the office of the chief of infantry. With an intellectual framework based on an infantry army, it was perhaps not unlikely that the proponent for American infantry would be the most influential defender of the fundamental elements of the French combat method. George Lynch became the chief of infantry in May 1937, after commanding the 15th Infantry Brigade in the Philippines. Lynch strongly disagreed with several of the new elements, The End of French Influence on American Warfare

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including the placement of the machine-gun battalion and the relationship between the infantry and artillery. With personal experience revising an IDR and an FSR within the existing intellectual framework, there was perhaps no other officer in the army who was more capable of defending the French combat method in the American military tradition than Lynch. In order to defend the army’s intellectual framework in the face of mechanization, Lynch began responding to the division organization debate throughout 1938. As the chief of infantry, he had a perfect medium to express his opinions about the infantry combat of the future: through the Infantry Journal. The journal set aside space every week for the chief of infantry and published several of Lynch’s longer articles. He used this very public forum to defend the French combat method. The articles reiterated that the role of infantry remained unchanged through the development of new weapons and vehicles and that the infantry was still the arm of close combat. Every member of the rifle platoon was armed with a weapon used in close combat, thus prohibiting the deployment of mortars or light machine guns, which required a tripod and a crew organic to the platoon.50 In this way, the infantry was nonspecialized, with each infantryman able to perform any infantry mission. Lynch was not opposed to the development of military technology. He strongly pushed for the addition of the new 60  mm mortar as an infantry weapon. This mortar fit best as a heavy weapon of the infantry company, providing the company commander with high-angle fires to support the rifle platoons during the attack. Lynch also integrated these supporting weapons into the infantry formation as separate systems, ensuring that they supported infantry maneuver and not the other way around.51 He remained current on the tank and aircraft developments throughout the 1930s and believed that they were going to play an important role on the battlefield. However, that role was to support the infantry mission as an auxiliary, not as an independent arm. Tanks and planes were auxiliary weapons, whose effects the commander combined on the battlefield. He even used examples from the Spanish Civil War to prove this point. He stated that tanks and aircraft were successful when they supported the infantry and were unsuccessful when they attempted independent operations.52 This view of mechanization as an auxiliary to infantry operations was entirely consistent with the army’s intellectual framework. Lynch also provided detailed arguments opposing the creation of combat teams in the new division organization. He considered the combat teams a function of two conflicting conceptualizations of the role and purpose of the infantry. The combat team built units around weapons and material, 226

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requiring a group of assorted specialists to function on the battlefield. These specialists would come from distinct rifle, machine-gun, tank, and antitank corps units to build up the combat groupings. These combat teams sought to increase the infantry-artillery coordination by joining two branches together. In contrast, Lynch advocated for units of definite composition organized around tactical missions, with a common tactical training that limited specialization. These complete units contained all the manpower and weapons to carry out the tactical missions of the infantry. Additionally, common training and permanent organization increased the combat cohesion that ensured success on the battlefield. The combat team prohibited this kind of cohesion from forming across different specialization and training, it reduced the division’s ability to concentrate fires, and it tied the infantry operations to the limitations of the cannons, both in their ability to keep up with the advance and their ability to shift fires during the attack.53 The combat team created a team of specialized units, whereas the pure infantry regiment was a team of individuals. Lynch’s attack against the specialization of the infantry formations demonstrated his commitment to an infantry that was trained the same, was organized the same, and fought the same. His arguments provided a modern explanation of the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield, through the support of a standard infantry, the primacy of the offensive, the continued relevance of the assault, and the combined effects of the auxiliary arms in support of the infantry. By stating his opinions so publicly, Lynch attempted to influence the debates surrounding the new organization and regulations in development. However, it appeared as though there were a small number of extremely influential generals who supported the new division and a change in the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. Following the 1937 testing by the 2nd Division, Craig wanted to set up a new board to create another division structure.54 He asked Generals Fox Conner, Marshall, and Leslie McNair to be on the board. Conner and Marshall were both members of the 1920 division review committee, and McNair was instrumental in executing the developmental testing of the 1936 organization. All three were known supporters of the smaller triangular division. Even before Conner’s death prevented the formation of a review board, Marshall believed that this “stacked deck” approach was too controversial to work.55 Craig continued the testing process, and the 2nd Division functioned as the testing organization for the army.56 In contrast to Craig’s developmental effort, Lynch used his position as the chief of infantry to modernize the infantry organizations according to the fundamental elements of the French combat method. The End of French Influence on American Warfare

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Lynch decided to use the organization of the infantry regiment as a way to force his views into the debate. The new regiment included three battalions, a regimental antitank platoon of six guns, an intelligence platoon, and a communications platoon, all manned by infantry soldiers. This provided the regiment with several additional capabilities, including the attachment of artillery for direct support, without requiring the addition of specialized troops. The battalions consisted of three rifle companies and a heavy-weapons company consisting of an 81 mm mortar platoon, two .30-caliber machine-gun platoons, and a .50-caliber antitank machine-gun platoon. This provided the infantry with both high-angle and flat-trajectory fire to support battalion maneuver. The rifle company consisted of three rifle platoons and a weapons platoon, armed with four light machine guns and a 60 mm mortar section. The rifle platoons themselves were all armed with the semiautomatic M-1 Garand rifle and consisted of three twelve-man rifle squads.57 The semiautomatic rifle increased the volume of fire of the rifleman, especially in the rapid fire of the assault. This new regimental organization put new technology and added auxiliary weapons to infantry formations. By establishing an infantry regimental organization that was homogeneous and kept specialization to a minimum, Lynch renewed the debate on the tactics of this regiment. Because the chief of infantry was the proponent for the infantry regiment, Craig approved of the new organization in the fall of 1938. During the remainder of the division testing, the infantry regiments of the 2nd Division adopted Lynch’s new regimental organization. This injected his ideas into the developmental division during field testing. In addition to adopting a new regimental organization, Lynch explicitly stated the corresponding tactical principles guiding its use in combat. The new regiment produced a unit that had enough organic firepower to continue the advance when outside artillery range or without tank support. The addition of antitank guns, heavy machine guns, and the 81 mm mortar greatly increased the infantry’s organic supporting weapons. These weapons worked together to support the maneuver of the riflemen by establishing a base of fire.58 This allowed the homogeneous rifle platoons to focus on increasing their speed, unencumbered by heavier weapons. The development of the semiautomatic M-1 rifle eliminated the need for the two automatic-rifle teams in the squad, because of the increase in firepower of the riflemen. It allowed all members of the squad to be armed with the same weapon and was a fundamental change from the organization of European rifle platoons. It also allowed the rifle squad and platoon to focus on close combat.59 The homogeneous squad and rifle platoon represented the desire for a standard infantry, armed and trained for 228

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close combat and the assault. The rifle company and battalion combined the firepower of auxiliary heavy-weapons fire in direct support of the infantry attack. The inclusion of these weapons allowed for a greater number of rifles available for close combat and increased cohesion because of the homogeneity of the organization. Lynch’s tactics represented an extremely strong defense of the French combat method against the encroachment of other ideas connected to mechanization. He developed a homogeneous regimental organization that maintained the dominance of a nonspecialized infantry army. This organization increased the number of riflemen in relation to machine gunners or mortar men, which provided more bayonets for the assault. He also integrated more auxiliary weapons into the regiment to support the infantry attack. Lynch’s efforts defended the army’s intellectual framework against the French influence of the MCLU and the German influences at work in the division reorganization.

A Divergent Synthesis: The Tentative 1939 FSR In conjunction with the developmental efforts surrounding the new infantry division organization, the army needed to update its doctrine through a new FSR. The 1923 FSR was outdated, and the MCLU was contradictory, so Craig directed the G-3 Training Branch to review the 1923 FSR. He wanted to produce a tentative replacement as part of the field manual project that would eliminate the MCLU. Beginning in 1937, Colonel Edmund Gruber, chief of the Training Branch, began to review the current state of weapons development and tactical thought and to survey foreign doctrines.60 While most of the work was done by the general staff, he sent the draft to CGSS commandant Leslie McNair for comments. Gruber bypassed the branch schools and did not send the draft around to the branch chiefs for their comments, perhaps because of the negative response to the MCLU. This was one of the reasons that Lynch used the Infantry Journal to influence the new regulations.61 One of the first official acts of Chief of Staff George C. Marshall was the authorization of FM 100-5: Tentative Field Service Regulations, Operations on 1 October 1939, officially replacing both the 1923 FSR and the MCLU. The 1939 FSR, like most of its predecessors, borrowed heavily from previous regulations and followed a very familiar organization. It consisted of chapters on organization, the different combatant arms, command, troop leading, minor tactics, and combat operations. For the most part, these chapters reflected the army’s intellectual framework, but overall it was an uncharThe End of French Influence on American Warfare

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acteristically confusing mix of doctrines that provided conflicting guidance on several controversial elements in American tactics. The 1939 FSR stated that the different combatant arms were organized into suitable groupings in combat in order to maximize the effectiveness of their weapons and equipment. These tactical groupings were temporary for the length of a given operation, which seemed to approve of the combat team concept. However, the regulations then described the battalion and regiment as tactical units, composed of similar organizations with organic special weapons that were essential for the accomplishment of combatant-branch-specific missions.62 This provided legitimacy for either the combat team or the homogeneous regiment. The 1939 FSR retained many of the same statements as the 1923 FSR concerning the missions of the combatant arms on the battlefield. It used the same paragraph describing the combined nature of warfare as the 1923 FSR, that no single arm wins battles and that it was only through the coordination and cooperation of the arms that the army achieved success. It also assigned the principal mission in combat to the infantry and designated the infantry as the arm of close combat, which attacked the enemy through fire and shock. The primary weapons of the infantry grew to include the rifle, the bayonet, and the light machine gun.63 However, the mission of the infantry was no longer the mission of the army. Unlike in 1923, the other combatant arms no longer derived their missions from their ability to support the infantry. This implicitly supported the premise that other arms and specialized units have missions that are unconnected to the infantry yet are decisive on the battlefield. Throughout the majority of the rest of the regulations, the 1939 FSR used a significant number of the paragraphs from the 1923 edition in all its section. However, what was left out of the 1939 FSR indicated the inclusion of ideas into the general regulations that were outside the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. It used the same language as the previous FSR stating that the offensive was the only way for commanders to impose their will on the enemy, but there was no mention of the offensive as the only way of gaining decisive results.64 According to the new FSR, some objectives could be attained through maneuver alone, and the commander had the option of choosing either an attack or an initial defense followed by an attack. The combat team concept became a part of offensive operations, and the habitual association of an artillery battalion and the infantry regiment was highly encouraged as a way to increase cohesion. The defensive also saw an increase in the options provided to commanders. Now, the defense could stop the 230

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enemy advance either with only firepower or with a successful counterattack, whereas previously the counterattack was an essential part of a successful defense.65 These concepts allowed for a wide interpretation on the part of the battlefield commanders as to which conceptualization of the battlefield they employed. Even though these new elements in the FSR diverged from the 1923 FSR, there was still a large number of the fundamental elements of the French combat method in the new regulations. The attack still utilized three separate, linear but noncontiguous elements. Instead of a firing line, a supporting line, and a reserve, the new attack contained a leading echelon, an attacking echelon, and a reserve. When the attack advanced to within assaulting distance of the enemy, the leading and attacking echelons joined together to overrun enemy resistance on the objective. If the attack could not envelop the enemy position, it still had the ability to penetrate through the enemy’s center. Additionally, the sections of the regulations concerning tanks remained almost unchanged, as they normally did not attack out of supporting range of the other arms, and their primary purpose was infantry support in the assault.66 This reflected a reliance on the assault, linear but noncontiguous formations, and the combination of the effects of auxiliary arms in direct support of the infantry attack. The expectation of the 1939 FSR was a reduction in the confusion in American doctrine, and instead there was a strange institutionalization of the diverging conceptualizations of the battlefield of the 1923 FSR and the MCLU. Vague language in the regulations, combined with the seemingly contradictory passages, gave room for a multitude of interpretations of the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. There was certainly enough of the French combat method in the document to make it recognizable to most American officers. The FSR retained the assault and valued the offensive, but it did not have the primacy of previous doctrines. The infantry still had the primary mission of combat, but all the missions of the combatant arms became equally important for victory. The battlefield combination of supporting weapons and units was clearly important to the 1939 FSR, but it was unclear as to whether it was in support of the infantry or of mechanized forces. While it did not encourage increased specialization of the infantry and the army, the support of the combat team concept, with its tactical groupings for discrete missions, left room for interpretation. If the previous general regulations and FSRs provided the army with a clear statement of the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield based on the fundamental elements of the French combat method, the 1939 FSR returned the army to a The End of French Influence on American Warfare

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period in which a multiplicity of conceptualizations were acceptable for the conduct of war in the armies of the United States.

Army Education in the Interwar Period The Infantry School Following WWI, the Infantry School moved to Fort Benning, and the chief of infantry became the infantry branch’s proponent to the general staff.67 The purpose of the Infantry School was to teach infantry tactics and techniques to officers and enlisted soldiers and to become the chief of infantry’s primary agency for the development of infantry tactics.68 With this mission, the Infantry School played a critical role in the postgraduate education of officers and in the dissemination of the army’s intellectual framework. The curriculum mirrored that of the Leavenworth schools, with lectures and with map and terrain exercises assessing the officer’s ability to translate tactical principles into solutions and orders.69 The school also used the almost 3,500 infantry soldiers stationed at the post to assist in the education of the officers by facilitating training exercises with troops. This allowed the school to make important contributions to the army from the beginning, but the most influential period of development of the school prior to WWII was during the tenure of George C. Marshall. As assistant commandant of the Infantry School, Marshall was the head of the academic department. He had complete control of course and curriculum development across the different sections of the school. During that time, he began what came to be known as the “Benning Revolution.” This revolution began with Marshall’s dislike of the current Leavenworth education, which focused on the production of intricate orders and complex solutions to tactical situations. He favored simple tactics and sought to create a school that encouraged ingenuity, novelty, and original thought on the battlefield, instead of a strict adherence to the school solution.70 He focused on open or maneuver warfare through more terrain exercises and more service with the troops stationed at Benning, decreasing classroom instruction by 60 percent. The advanced course also eliminated the twenty hours devoted to combat orders, which Marshall believed was encouraging formulaic thinking. These savings translated into a dramatic increase in the number of hours devoted to tactical exercises by both the advanced course and the company officer course.71 Marshall’s approach was not theoretical but primarily pragmatic, focused on what worked on the battlefield. He effected this transition slowly over time, taking apart the rigid curriculum and replacing it with 232

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more practical, results-focused courses. There was considerable resistance to this movement away from theoretical instruction, and members of the faculty resisted Marshall’s reforms. He replaced those officers who refused to fully adopt the new system with more “flexible men.”72 Over his five years as assistant commandant, Marshall created a cadre of instructors and a legacy of student officers who reshaped the WWII army. Over 200 of his faculty and students became general officers, while hundreds of the younger students became field-grade officers throughout the army. However, Marshall spread his pragmatic revolution across the interwar army through other means than just his protégés. When the Infantry School moved to Fort Benning, it produced a publication for distribution throughout the army, called the Infantry School Mailing List, which presented new trends in infantry tactics, training, organization and the latest techniques taught at the school. The Infantry School designed it to publish instructional material used by the school to keep the infantry community abreast of the latest developments.73 Marshall believed that the Mailing List was not taken seriously in the army and that it was far less influential than it needed to be in order to lead infantry development. Under his direction, the Mailing List became an important professional periodical. Although it published the pragmatic teachings of the school from 1927 through 1932, once Marshall left Benning, it fell back into a more traditional habit of conservative thought more in line with the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. Through 1935, the periodical kept track of the many infantry organizational and equipment tests directed by the chief of infantry, as well as presenting articles that detailed the deployment of infantry formations. In 1936, the Mailing List ran a series of detailed articles about the new infantry regimental organization. This organization returned to a more pure rifle organization, removing many of the integrated supporting weapons to the regimental and divisional level, and kept the rifle battalions purely rifle formations. As a rationale, the Infantry School cited the chief of staff report of 1935, which stated that “the rifle battalion must abandon the attempt to include within themselves every type of tactical power of which they may occasionally need.”74 This was a call for a return to one of the fundamental elements of the French combat method. The Infantry School and the Mailing List supported the conservative arguments of the chiefs of infantry, including George Lynch, at the end of the 1930s. Until the publication of the 1941 FSR, the Mailing List continued to publish the most relevant military thought in the infantry branch, from small-unit The End of French Influence on American Warfare

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Figure 6.2. The Infantry School Mailing List “Lines and Formations.” Used by the Infantry School as a way to disseminate its tactical ideas across the army, this article from the Mailing List clearly states the definition of lines for American formations as a noncontiguous formation of dispersed riflemen, squads, or any other tactical formation. These lines are supported by similarly noncontiguous formations behind them in depth. (Reprinted from Infantry School Study, “Lines and Formations,” Infantry School Mailing List 11 [1936]: 164–65; courtesy of the United States Military Academy Special Collections and Archives, West Point, New York)

tactics to the operations of larger forces and the integration of new weapons into the existing intellectual framework. In the same year as the new regimental organization, there was a revealing article that defined and defended the use of lines in both conception and combat operations as merely loose lines of extended formations.75 This article attempted to reconcile a linear approach to the battlefield with the emphasis on squad fire and maneuver currently en vogue. The following volumes of the Mailing List, through the year 1941, contained articles that applied the army’s intellectual framework to the level of the small infantry unit.76 The Mailing List defended these basic principles even after the German victories in 1940. Marshall also left another legacy behind that demonstrated his pragmatic approach to tactics. He directed his faculty to produce a book that provided student officers with problems of minor tactics grounded in the reality of war. The result was the 1934 Infantry in Battle, composed primarily of historical 234

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vignettes designed to demonstrate unique and novel solutions to tactical situations.77 Infantry in Battle exemplified pragmatic tactics and reinforced the inherent value of the simple over the complex and the unique over the schematic solution. It stated that each situation was unique and required its own unique solution, which could not be developed by using rules of thumb or tactical formulas.78 It encouraged leaders to learn how to act, as “academic knowledge and a stored up accumulation of facts are not sufficient on the battlefield.”79 Using this principle as the basis for the book, the vignettes focused on various tactical situations. In order for attacks to succeed, they still required the concentration of all supporting fires and reserves for a decisive result.80 In the attack, more infantrymen was not nearly as important as the right amount of fire support from artillery and machine guns. When longrange fires lifted, tanks and rifle fire maintained fire superiority to support the infantry assault. Commanders must know how to integrate these supporting fires into the infantry attack.81 When discussing integration, Infantry in Battle defended the concept of the combat team. It argued that the habitual association of infantry and artillery increased the effectiveness of fire support on the battlefield.82 While still containing elements of the French combat method, Marshall’s pragmatic tactics allowed for the development of ideas that contradicted some of those elements. This was representative of the multiplicity of doctrines and theories at work throughout the officer corps. The publication of a second edition of Infantry in Battle in 1939 demonstrated the prevalent direction of doctrinal thought in the army as it approached WWII. It retained the same number of chapters, focused on the same subjects, and continued to provide historical examples and discussions on many of the minor tactics of the battlefield. When discussing maneuver, the 1939 edition encouraged commanders to plan for the organic incorporation of artillery, machine guns, and tanks, whereas the 1934 edition referenced that support as auxiliary to the infantry maneuver.83 Unlike its predecessor, which considered more riflemen in the attack as not effective, the new Infantry in Battle declared that more riflemen functionally reduced infantry firepower.84 To increase firepower in the assault, the infantry must furnish its own firepower through an increase in the number of crew-served weapons. The new edition discussed how commanders should integrate machine guns as an integral part of their attack formation.85 Not surprisingly, Infantry in Battle retained the exact same infantry-artillery team chapter that encouraged the creation of habitual relationships of the combat team. While neither edition of Infantry in Battle dealt with all the fundamental elements of the French combat method, both encouraged ideas that contraThe End of French Influence on American Warfare

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dicted some of those elements. Over the course of four years, the infantry began to talk in terms of incorporating the auxiliary arms within its formations, supported the formation of the combat team, and began considering the advantages of including inside the infantry formation the requisite weapons for fire and maneuver. This was not surprising, as although Marshall was no longer a part of the Infantry School, the 1939 revision of Infantry in Battle was undertaken by “Marshall Men.”86 Between Marshall’s curricular changes and his influence over the Mailing List and Infantry in Battle, he created a core of officers who sought tactical solutions outside the army’s intellectual framework.

West Point Curriculum, 1918–1928 The end of WWI brought very little change to undergraduate officer education at West Point. Cadet tactical instruction continued with the study of current army tactics and weapons. It responded to changes in the tactical regulations and stayed abreast of developments across the army. Gustav Fiebeger continued to teach the course on military engineering and the military art, and it remained essentially unchanged. Fiebeger continued to use his own volumes for cadet instruction, including his Elements of Strategy and Army Organization.87 Fiebeger’s course remained heavily focused on the study of the military art through the use of military history. To facilitate this, he published The World War in 1921 to bring the availability of campaign studies for cadet instruction up to the present.88 This work was extremely broad in its coverage of the war and included a narrative of the events on both fronts. Fiebeger included only a single section that spoke to tactical developments in the war, and for this section he used quotations from General Erich Ludendorff. Thus, Fiebeger described the German army in 1918 as returning for its last attacks to the offensive principles of 1914, shaped by the experiences of the war. The Germans adopted a fighting line continually reinforced by a supporting line but deployed in a line of infantry groups and not of massive waves.89 These infantry groups consisted primarily of riflemen and light machine guns, supported by auxiliary arms such as mortars, heavy machine guns, and artillery. It was surprising that the best description of the U.S. Army’s intellectual framework came from a German general when discussing the failed German offensives of 1918. Until Fiebeger’s retirement in 1922, he maintained his focus on the use of military history in the study of the military art. His replacement, Lieutenant Colonel William Augustus Mitchell, continued his predecessor’s program and began the process of 236

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updating the course textbooks and materials.90 However, major changes in the academy’s organization made Mitchell’s program unnecessary. In 1923, for the first time in the academy’s history, instruction on the military art passed from the Department of Civil and Military Engineering to the Department of Tactics, which became responsible for all cadet tactical instruction, including instruction in the military art.91 This relegated the engineering course to topics of a purely engineering nature, while the Department of Tactics developed a new course for the military art. This new course broke abruptly with the focus on military history and instead utilized the new General Staff Schools (GSS) publication Command, Staff, and Tactics for cadet instruction. Once again, the instruction of cadets mirrored the instruction of the army’s postgraduate schools. GSS produced Command, Staff, and Tactics to support its extension courses in 1923. It produced this volume as a way to make professional education available for the officers of the National Guard and the reserves.92 It followed the same general organization as the 1923 FSR, using most of the same chapter headings. These included chapters on all the combatant arms, marches, shelter, security, and reconnaissance, as well as offensive and defensive combat. It taught that the infantry was the primary combat branch, that all other branches supported the infantry, that offensive warfare was decisive, and that infantry attacks consisted of two waves in supporting distance with a reserve.93 This text presented the same material as the 1923 FSR in an even more direct and succinct way. Cadets learned how to think about the battlefield and conceptualized war in the same way as the rest of the officer corps. The Department of Tactics taught military theory to cadets for five years before the academy returned the subject to the professor of civil and military engineering. In the intervening years, Mitchell maintained the department’s historical focus by assigning historical engineering case studies as senior projects.94 Topics for these projects included the Russo-Japanese War, the battle of Verdun, and the campaigns of the Civil War. When the academy reassigned the mission of instruction in the military art back to the Department of Civil and Military Engineering in 1928, Mitchell increased the number of lessons devoted to the military art through military history. He reorganized the military art curriculum so that cadets now began their historical studies on “certain of Napoleon’s best known campaigns, then pass[ed] to the American Civil War, and the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. The remainder of the time [was] spent on the campaigns of the World War.”95 This course of study modernized West Point military history and provided cadets with more relevant historical examples for their first foray into studying the miliThe End of French Influence on American Warfare

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tary art. He continued to build up the rigor of cadet instruction in the military art through the use of military history until he retired in 1938. Mitchell’s replacement, Colonel Thomas D. Stamps, brought more theoretical rigor back to the study of the military art. Stamps directed the increased study of military history along the same lines as Mitchell. Cadets took eightysix lessons in military history, each of which was eighty minutes long. This expanded military history course included lessons on the great generals of antiquity, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, and the generals of the American Civil War and WWI and several lessons on recent conflicts such as the SinoJapanese War.96 The required reading was intense, and cadets read some of the best military history available. Added to the purely historical lessons were several devoted to military theorists such as Jomini, Clausewitz, and Schlieffen.97 Cadets read and discussed these theorists’ lives and writings and how they thought about war. They used both historical example and military theory when learning about their own intellectual framework of the battlefield. Stamps ensured that cadets received a foundation in the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield in two ways. He returned the study of the FSR to the course as a way to prepare cadets to become officers.98 His instructors guided cadets through the entire document at the beginning of the course as a way to familiarize them with the army’s intellectual framework. However, in order to understand the application of those fundamental principles, the department created its own pamphlet entitled “Notes on Combat Maneuvers.” In this twentythree-page document, cadets learned the basics of marches and advances, types of offensive operations, envelopments, pursuits, and defense action.99 This pamphlet focused on definitions of basic principles that allowed instructors to embed those principles throughout the course. Although the creation of a coherent framework of war threaded throughout the eighty-six lessons of history was incredible enough, it was impressive that Stamps remained committed to the army’s intellectual framework for cadet instruction. The “Notes on Combat Maneuvers” took its definitions right out of the 1923 FSR. This ensured that cadets learned the vocabulary of the army, and it prepared them to utilize their intellectual framework as soon as they received their commissions. Through classroom instruction, West Point provided cadets with a complete education in the fundamental elements of the French combat method prior to 1940.

The Fort Leavenworth Schools Coming out of WWI with an excellent reputation earned by graduates throughout Europe, the GSS remained the army’s premier graduate educa238

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tional program. Following the war, the Army War College became tied more directly to the general staff and devoted its time to strategic war planning. At the same time, the branch schools, such as the Artillery School at Fort Sill and the Infantry School at Fort Benning, focused on junior officer education and branch parochial issues. This left GSS responsible for the postgraduate education. In this capacity, it not only provided academic programs but also became the printing press of the officer corps, providing graduate-level texts to field units and to National Guard and reserve officers. As the heart of army education, GSS played an important role in the indoctrination of the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield throughout the interwar years. Beginning in 1919, GSS returned from the war and reopened its doors to officer students. The curriculum remained dedicated to the applicatory method and used many of the same techniques as before the war. Officers attended lectures, conferences, and smaller committee sessions to discuss tactical situations and principles. They also executed problem-solving exercises and were graded on their map problems and solutions.100 As the central text for the tactical problems that came to characterize the Leavenworth experience, GSS produced Tactical Principles and Decisions. Consisting of four volumes of text and a whole volume devoted to maps, it provided the GSS students with a basic course of instruction in American warfare. They covered all conceivable topics from minor tactics to offensive and defensive operations to combat orders, logistics, and the coordination of the different branches and weapons. Students learned of the decisive nature of offensive operations and the necessity of both the assault and fire superiority. In diagraming the standard attacks in both open and stabilized warfare, GSS used a very linear conceptualization of the battlefield, at one point even stating that all attacks were a function of either a column of firing lines or as much firepower as possible deployed into the main firing line.101 This linear approach to the battlefield remained consistent with the FSR. Throughout the texts, GSS expanded out into four volumes what the 1923 FSR did in only 185 pages, so that students received a thorough understanding of the concepts embedded in the new FSR. Although Tactical Problems and Decisions provided students with a course of study in both the theoretical and practical elements of the military art, the course was predominantly application based. From the turn of the century, Fort Leavenworth perfected the American version of the applicatory method in hypothetical tactical problems to develop critical thinking skills for the battlefield.102 In the postwar period, GSS continued this tradition and integrated textbooks, coursework, and lectures into a variety of exercises The End of French Influence on American Warfare

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designed to educate officers in American warfare. In order to supply students with a full complement of map exercises and tactical problems, GSS developed a compendium of these exercises entitled Problems. This massive single volume and the very large box of maps that accompanied each of the problems formed the main instruction and exercises of the students over their time at Fort Leavenworth.103 Problems changed as the military art changed throughout the interwar period. In the 1920s, it reflected the doctrines and organization of the AEF, with several lines of platoons and scouts out in front of the company attack, as well as the integration of the reserves and supporting weapons.104 By 1930, Problems included tactical situations with attached tank platoons to regimental attacks as they progressed forward in lines with a reserve and artillery.105 By the middle of the decade, the tactical problems discussed the use of mechanized cavalry and reserve tank battalions and improved infantry-artillery coordination in the attack.106 This progression used the army’s intellectual framework to integrate new technology and organizations into the American system of tactics. The study of tactics and tactical problems remained at the heart of the Leavenworth education. As GSS became the Command and General Staff School in 1928, students applied the principles learned in the tactics course in a variety of ways, from map exercises to map problems, both individually and in small groups. They also utilized these principles in problems involving larger commands of the divisions and corps in the form of map and command post exercises.107 To ensure the inculcation of the intellectual framework behind the principles learned in the tactics course, CGSS maintained a military history course focused on recent modern combats such as the Russo-Japanese War and WWI and used the most current version of the FSR throughout the curriculum.108 As one of the ways in which CGSS educated the rest of the army, Leavenworth sent instructors annually to support the army’s camps of instruction for regulars and National Guardsmen.109 In this way. Leavenworth’s study of tactics and the intellectual framework of the battlefield shaped the field training of the regular army as these instructors served as coaches, mentors, observers, umpires, and instructors. This was only one way that Leavenworth educated the rest of the army. Perhaps the most influential way that CGSS reached the rest of the army was through the publication throughout the interwar period of a quarterly journal designed to provide a resource for American officers. Beginning as The Instructor’s Summary of Military Articles and then simply titled the Review of Military Literature, or RML, this journal had a widespread influence on the dissemination of professional ideas and information through240

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out the army at large. The journal’s purpose was to present military professionals with a list of current articles and monographs published throughout the world, as a way to keep current on the developments in military art and science.110 It accomplished this goal by including abstracts of foreign articles written by CGSS staff and faculty.111 Foreign publications reviewed in the RML included journals from the French École Supérieure de Guerre and several different journals of the British army, the Belgium army, and the Russian army. There was also a large number of articles from the German army, especially from the German military journal Militär-Wochenblatt. The book review section included monographs on a variety of military topics from all over Europe. The selection of articles and books provided a broad survey of military thought throughout the Western world. The RML also provided the opportunity for CGSS to continue the tactical education of the officer corps through the publication of original articles on the military art and the inclusion of CGSS course material. These studies were generally of two types, either historical or theoretical analysis.112 Of the two, historical analysis made up the bulk of these studies throughout the interwar years. Focused primarily on the history of WWI, the original historical studies also covered a wide range of other topics and time periods.113 There were also theoretical articles that covered topics from the science of war to future FSRs.114 Both the historical and the theoretical studies investigated the implications of the army’s intellectual framework of war as seen through WWI or the battlefields of the future. None of them challenged the fundamental elements of the French combat method. The RML began to include a section of training and academic memoranda issued during the Fort Leavenworth courses. This section called “Academic Notes” was written in the same style as the Tactical Principles and Decisions. These academic notes dealt with topics from minor tactics to operations such as the organization and employment of mechanized cavalry and the forms of the attack—all of which reflected the major topics of the 1923 FSR and the MCLU.115 These academic notes provided the army with the most current CGSS instruction available but again provided no fundamentally new ideas or theoretical material for American officers. If anything, these articles remained too focused on the detailed staff work, orders, and mechanics of making very complicated tactical maneuvers or movements work on the battlefield. The RML in particular and CGSS in general remained focused on tactical instruction and not on the ideas challenging the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. The End of French Influence on American Warfare

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Figure 6.3. 1939 CGSS Tactical Deployment from the RML. Even though this image of a battalion in the attack includes nonlinear platoon deployments, it still conforms to linear bands, with the scout line, the assault company line, and the supporting line clearly delineated. (Reprinted from CGSS, “Academic Notes,” RML 19, no. 75 [1939]: 67)

Napoleon in the Interwar Period If the experiences of WWI and the creation of new military technology caused military thinkers and officers to challenge the fundamental elements of the French combat method, it did not cause them to turn away from the study of Napoleon and the Napoleonic era. While the methods of integrating Napoleonic history into the army’s education system changed, it continued to be relevant to the study of war. The study of Napoleon remained a part of the curriculums at West Point and CGSS and a popular subject in profes242

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sional journals, as the subject for both new articles and book reviews of new Napoleonic history. USMA remained committed to the study of Napoleon as integral to the teaching of the military art. Throughout the 1930s, military history began to dominate the instruction in the military art, and Napoleon regained his prominent place in the academy’s engineering course. Out of almost a hundred lessons of military history, cadets received twenty-six lessons that focused strictly on the campaigns of Napoleon, from his first battles in Italy in 1796 through Marengo, Austerlitz, Ulm, Jena, Leipzig, and Waterloo. While the department produced shortened battle study references for cadet instruction, it assigned some of the best Napoleonic histories available. These included the works of Dodge, Ropes, and even Jomini’s Life of Napoleon.116 Cadets were expected to know the details of these campaigns and had to sketch them out from memory during written recitations.117 Although the instructors taught the history of Napoleon using the principles of war encapsulated in the FSR, cadets received a tremendous amount of the historical details, allowing them to understand the events with more context. This provided cadets with a good education not only in the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield but also in the military history of the Napoleonic period. With the end of WWI, the army’s postgraduate schools continued to use military history to further the study of war and the principles of war. The GSS lessons on strategy used a tremendous number of Napoleonic examples in the instruction of the principles of strategy.118 In the strategy course textbook Principles of Strategy with Historical Illustrations, the bibliography included Jomini’s Art of War and The Life of Napoleon, Count Yorck von Wartenburg’s Napoleon as a General, and the Maxims of Napoleon.119 GSS continued to use the applicatory method whereby historical examples combined with contemporary reports and memoirs were used by officers to exercise their problemsolving skills and their ability to generate combat orders. Throughout the 1920s, GSS used a variety of Napoleonic campaigns as part of students’ study of military history, including the Jena, Waterloo, and Marengo campaigns.120 To support this primary-source-driven study of Napoleon, the Department of Military Art published two translated volumes of documents pertaining to the campaigns of Jena and Marengo.121 This source-method approach remained consistent with the army’s use of military history and reinforced the essential elements of its intellectual framework of the battlefield. In addition to the use of Napoleonic history at GSS, the RML maintained a consistent interest in Napoleon throughout the interwar years. As imporThe End of French Influence on American Warfare

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tant works in Napoleonic history became available, the RML listed them in its “Current Books” section or published book reviews of them from the faculty of the GSS and officers throughout the army. This included both English and French titles such as J.  M. Thompson’s compilation of primary Napoleon documents titled Napoleon Self-Revealed and General Hubert Camon’s Quand et comment Napoléon a conçu son système de bataille.122 This trend remained consistent, with Napoleonic titles appearing in at least two of the quarterly journals for each year of the 1930s. The RML also published the War Department’s approved professional reading list, broken up into four periods of an officer’s career from commissioning to retirement. Dodge’s Napoleon and Edward Creasy’s Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World from Marathon to Waterloo were included in the first period. The second period included the Maxims of Napoleon and Fournier’s two-volume biography of Napoleon. Although the third period contained no Napoleonic studies, the fourth period, which covered the last and most senior period of an officer’s career, included Jomini’s Life of Napoleon and Count Yorck von Wartenburg’s Napoleon as a General.123 The inclusion of these books in the book review sections of the RML and in the War Department’s approved professional reading list demonstrated the importance placed on the study of Napoleon in the modern era. There was also a consistent publication of original analytical articles of the Napoleonic campaigns. Authors throughout the period continued to use Napoleon as tool to analyze the performance of modern generals. As an example, the RML published an abstract translated from the Militär-Wochenblatt entitled “Joffre Was No Napoleon,” which applied Napoleonic maxims and examples to criticize French performance in 1914.124 Beginning in the January–February issue of the Infantry Journal, Fletcher Pratt published a series of articles on Napoleon’s campaign in Italy in 1796. Over the course of three separate issues that ran through June 1939, Pratt presented this campaign in three parts, as a campaign of speed, surprise, and persistence.125 Although it was not designed to presage the German attacks in the fall of 1939, the way in which Pratt analyzed Napoleon’s campaigns was extremely similar to the reports of the German blitzkrieg. The officers of the interwar period used the study of Napoleon as a way to interpret the modern battlefield. The Army War College followed the example of the staff college at Leavenworth and made very few changes to its military history curriculum. With WWI improving the reputation of its graduates and the importance of a general staff, the War College maintained a focus on planning, strategy, and supporting the general staff with information papers. The historical studies 244

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course underwent a change in 1929 and became the analytical studies course, which conducted both historical research and narrative history.126 The historical studies mirrored CGSS and focused primarily on the campaigns of the twentieth century. However, the course used Civil War and Napoleonic primary source documents as part of its studies and source method.127 With the focus on modern technology and the battlefield problems of WWI, the study of Napoleon became either an exercise in historical research or an opportunity to apply the principles from the FSR to a historical example.

The End of the French Combat Method The Impact of German Military Successes, 1939–1940 Prior to September 1939, the focus of American officers and institutions was on European tactical developments in a general sense, providing information on armies across the Continent. The Infantry Journal ran short pieces in its international military section on the organization and tactics of various European rifle sections. The French used a twelve-man section with a five-man light-machine-gun squad supported by a rifle squad, designed to deliver the maximum fire against the enemy to break its resistance. The Germans used a thirteen-man rifle squad supported by a smaller light-machinegun squad, designed to provide fire support for the infantry assault, similar to American doctrine.128 These articles allowed American officers to compare these organizations and their corresponding doctrines. The RML produced an abstract of several German articles that outlined their tactical method. This included incorporating flat-trajectory and high-angle fire in infantry units, the creation of separate tactical groupings that functioned independently using infiltration tactics, and the formation of combat teams through the combination of specialists at every level.129 This information added to the growing American discourse on the nature of modern warfare, army organization, tactics, and combat. The frequency and detail of these articles focused on foreign military developments informed the officer corps more specifically of changes in military theory and allowed them to compare these changes to the fundamental elements of the French combat method. After the German victory over Poland in 1939, interest in German tactical doctrine and organization was more widespread and specific. Reports from the Polish campaign attributed the German victory to superiority of mechanized weapons and to artillery at the division level.130 Other articles contrasted the American doctrine of maintaining pure infantry units with the German practice of creating combat teams. They cited German superiority The End of French Influence on American Warfare

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in airpower, infantry marching speeds, the combat team, and the exploitation of armored divisions.131 These presented German doctrine as a new and superior way of war. Similar articles appeared from German, American, and French sources in the periodicals, until the Germans invaded France in May 1940. Analysis of the French defeat prompted even stronger statements supporting the German tactical system. Military pundits attributed the defeat to the inferior nature of French military theory and the superiority of the German army. Blitzkrieg became synonymous with the successful employment of airpower, tanks, and the vindicated infantry-artillery combat team.132 By early 1941, the general feeling throughout these journals was that German warfare, which employed specialists in combat teams designed to operate either independently or in conjunction with other formations, was superior to all other contemporary systems. The strength of this new system lay in training, equipment, and organization, which the Germans were well on their way to perfecting.133 The idolization of German tactical doctrine highlighted elements that contradicted the American army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield and encouraged American officers and theorists to contemplate changes to the American way of warfare.

George Catlett Marshall and the End of the French Combat Method The debates, experiments, field testing, and growing interest in German doctrine all came together at the War Department general staff just at the time that Marshall returned to Washington. Marshall became the deputy chief of staff in 1938 and was thus poised to become the chief of staff in August 1939. Marshall was eminently qualified for the difficult and political post of chief of staff. He had an excellent reputation throughout the regular army for his work on Pershing’s staff, the general staff, and the Infantry School throughout the 1920s and ’30s. He made a very positive impression on the National Guard, reserve officers, and the Reserve Officers Training Course (ROTC) program throughout the 1930s, in his role as the senior trainer for the Illinois National Guard Division and his work with the Civilian Conservation Corps.134 Following his appointment as the chief of staff in September 1939, he began to systematically change the entire War Department and the way the army fought. After the 1939 spring maneuvers, Marshall ordered the general staff to reexamine every facet of army doctrine and organization. He supported the development of a smaller triangular division, similar to the organization recommended by Pershing in 1920. He assigned 246

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responsibility for the continued development of the new division and tactics to the CGSS commandant, Leslie McNair.135 Marshall believed that both the 1938 divisional organization and the 1939 Tentative FSR represented a partially modernized doctrine.136 Even in 1939, he intended to modify them prior to deploying American troops in combat. Marshall also designed the winter army maneuvers for 1939–40 as another test bed of ideas and tactics at every level of organization, from the squad to the corps. He anticipated that these maneuvers would “wash more theory, cumbersome practice, and excessive mimeographs out of the army.”137 Marshall’s pragmatic approach to the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield made him open to a wide variety of new ideas about war. However, even during this period from September 1939 through May of 1940, he thought that the German actions in Poland represented not a change in the fundamental principles of war but more of an acceleration of time-honored approaches, methods, and theories of warfare.138 It seemed that while Marshall was open to new ideas and conceptualizations of the battlefield, through May 1940 he remained committed to the general principles of the army’s intellectual framework. The German invasion of France on 10 May 1940 and Pétain’s surrender of the nation six weeks later marked the end of the old order of Europe. While there was a small increase in the size of the U.S. Army in 1939, it was not until May 1940 that the president allocated an additional $1 billion for the War Department.139 This increase in funding allowed the army to begin producing many of the weapons systems that Marshall’s ideas about warfare required. At the same time as the army increased its size and budget, the general staff made careful studies of both the military operations abroad and the large-unit maneuvers at home. The general staff concluded that warfare would no longer be fought according to the rules of 1939. While previous German victories seemed an extension of proven methods of operations, Marshall saw changes on the battlefield in 1940 as revolutionary.140 With the additional funds, equipment, and manpower authorized in 1940, the army needed a new FSR to take into consideration the events and lessons of the war in France. In a short period of time, Marshall began to advocate for a new conceptualization of the battlefield and a correspondingly new intellectual framework. Following the opening days of the invasion of France, Marshall ordered the general staff to produce bulletins that examined the developments of the war in Europe. It produced the first of these Technical Lessons Bulletins on 22 May 1940, and the subject of this first bulletin was the GerThe End of French Influence on American Warfare

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man army, organization, equipment, and tactics.141 With the success of German tactical methods, there was a sense of urgency in getting more detailed information on all aspects of the German army. In the same way, Marshall ordered the development of new divisional organizations to include the creation of armored, light, and motorized divisions and a new square division, in addition to the newly created triangular division organization.142 After twenty years of debating new divisional organizations, Marshall created them overnight. He openly acknowledged the need for specialized training and task organization and that the warfare of the future would depend on the perfect teamwork and integration of the various combat arms toward the same objective. While the infantry remained the center of this new combat team, it was hardly the preeminent arm as in the French combat method.143 Marshall believed that the recent German success in France was due to the teamwork among the air force, armored troops, and infantry.144 Marshall’s new vision of modern warfare animated the War Department and the general staff, as staff officers worked hard to create the organizations, the training programs, the educational facilities, and the weapons systems that these changes required. Marshall also sought to prepare the officer corps for war in the modern era. He began by establishing a process by which older officers were retired and younger officers promoted to fill vacancies in the line formations. From his experiences in WWI and his observations since, Marshall believed that modern war required great physical stamina. This led to his creation of the “plucking board,” under the former chief of staff retired General Craig, whose purpose was to retire officers incapable of enduring the rigors of modern combat. In its first six months, the plucking board removed 195 officers and over the course of the war removed over 500 colonels.145 Additionally, Marshall used the new system to advance officers he knew, officers who served with him or under him at the Infantry School, or officers who came highly recommended. Conversely, he held back officers whom be believed to be whiners or careerists or if the officer had some mark in Marshall’s famous “black book.”146 This created a cadre of senior leaders who shared Marshall’s conceptualization of warfare. He also removed older or incompetent officers of the National Guard and reserves in a similar process. The result of this process was to eliminate all of the most indoctrinated officers in the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. Also, by advancing officers whom he considered intellectually flexible and who adhered to his pragmatic conceptualization of war, Marshall made the acceptance of new ideas and organization easier across the army. 248

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Marshall also managed the commissioning and education of new officers for the war effort. Instead of privileging college graduates according to the pre-WWI American and British systems, he wanted a more egalitarian approach that looked for capable candidates from the army ranks and all walks of life. He arranged to have short officer-candidate courses and camps set up in addition to basic training.147 This allowed the army to standardize initial officer education, more so than increasing the size of the ROTC program or the classes at West Point. Always critical of the AEF system of education, Marshall put the majority of his resources into training programs and maneuvers. CGSS continued to function throughout the war; however, it reduced its curriculum to ten weeks and dramatically increased its class sizes. Over the six years of the war effort, CGSS educated over 18,000 officers, almost three times the number graduated before the war.148 By centralizing the commissioning and education process and increasing the size of the effort, Marshall created a community of officers who understood war in the same way with the same intellectual framework of the battlefield.

The Chief of Infantry’s Last Defense of the French Combat Method Following the decisive German victory in Poland, George Lynch used his influence as the chief of infantry to defend the existing army’s intellectual framework against the ideas gaining traction throughout the army. He continued to use the Infantry Journal to express his ideas and incorporated new technologies into his argument, but his central ideas remained the fundamental elements of the French combat method. He defended the nonspecialized infantry-based army, the primacy of the offensive culminating in an assault, combining the effects of the auxiliary arms to support the infantry battle, and the use of a linear but noncontiguous order of battle. Even though the chief of staff supported the development of new organizations and doctrine, Lynch continued to develop the infantry branch according the fundamental elements of the French combat method. He challenged the standard interpretation of German blitzkrieg as a function of mechanization and instead argued that it was a victory of the speed of information and decision-making by leaders.149 He argued that these elements should be used by every regular infantry formations to achieve victory. In describing the rifle battalion in the attack, Lynch championed the homogeneous rifle organization, the deployment into the attacking echelon and the reserve, and the use of supporting artillery and tanks during the infantry assault.150 He even pushed to equip soldiers manning crew-served weapons with a new light The End of French Influence on American Warfare

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semiautomatic rifle so that they could participate in the close-combat assault mission of the infantry.151 This counteracted the loss of riflemen due to an increase in supporting weapons in the infantry regiment. Lynch attempted to keep the army’s intellectual framework present in the new divisional organization, even though elements in the army sought to change that framework. In early 1941, Lynch made his last public defense of his position in the Infantry Journal. In an article concerning the motorized infantry division, he reiterated many of his former arguments. He stated that the mission of motorized infantry was the support of armored formations, that it was primarily a defensive organization, and that it could only hold ground for a limited time until more powerful foot-infantry divisions came to relieve it on the battlefield. In this way, he considered motorized infantry as auxiliary armored formations. However, at the end of the article, he stated that the army should not go with partially motorized formations. Either it should become a highly specialized organization designed specifically for a small number of combat missions, or its organization should remain general and able to accomplish all infantry missions.152 Lynch suggested that the army should either wholeheartedly change its intellectual framework or leave the French combat method in place. However, this last article was interesting in how it ended. Lynch did not make the definitive concluding statements that characterized earlier articles. Instead, he cautioned against blindly imitating foreign armies and organizations, implicitly warning against copying the German model. This last article foreshadowed the end of his time as the chief of infantry, and one gets the feeling that by the time of this last article Lynch knew his time was up and his fight was lost. He was retired on 1 May 1941, a mere three weeks before the publication of the 1941 FSR, with its fundamentally new intellectual framework. Both the old framework and its defender were swiftly discarded in light of the adoption of a new American way of warfare.

A Different Intellectual Framework of the Battlefield Infantry Field Manual 7-5: A New System of Tactics In 1940, the army created fundamentally different tactical regulations for the infantry. Unlike the 1919 IDR and the 1939 FM 22-5, the new manual did not attempt to combine the purposes of drill regulations and FSR into a single product. In fact, the FM 22-5 produced in 1941 was essentially the same manual as its 1939 predecessor as far as the details and commands of close and extended order drill.153 As part of the field manual project, the army 250

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went away from the IDR concept of containing all infantry drill regulations from the soldier to the division in a single document. Instead, the army created separate field manuals for infantry organizations, while at the same time creating individual manuals for a whole host of specialized units such as the air forces and tanks. The result was FM 7-5: The Organization and Training of Infantry—The Rifle Battalion in October 1940. This manual represented a transitory form between the fundamental elements of the French combat method and the principles of a different intellectual framework of the battlefield. The new FM 7-5 changed the primacy of the offensive in the American way of warfare. Since 1814, offensive operations, epitomized by the bayonet assault, represented the only way to achieve decisive results on the battlefield. The new infantry FM stated that all infantry training should prepare soldiers for eventual offensive operations, that offensive operations were usually decisive, and that most combat is a mixture of both offensive and defensive actions.154 While still predicated on offensive operations, this was a more balanced conceptualization than the primacy of the French combat method. FM 7-5 retained the bayonet as part of the assault, but it was only a single element among other elements. Far more important than the bayonet was fire support through the objective and the inclusion of machine guns throughout every part of the assault.155 This more fire-based assault fit together with a more fire-based offensive that relied more on integrating supporting fires onto the battlefield than on the offensive power of the standard infantry formation. One reason for this change was the movement away from an infantrybased army, armed and trained to perform all infantry missions. Instead, these regulations encouraged the use of tactical groupings made up of elements of the combatant arms. Although there was a prohibition on excessive specialization, FM 7-5 provided special squads for the machine guns, mortars, and automatic rifles in the rifle platoon, company, and battalion.156 These different squads all required different training and different armament and performed different missions. This specialization changed the way Americans conceived of combined arms operations. While the infantry retained the principal mission of the army, FM 7-5 encouraged the formation of habitual combat groupings. These groupings organized and trained for combat and included more than just infantry soldiers. To support this new integration of the combatant arms, all training exercises were encouraged to include aviation and tanks. Officers and noncommissioned officers required training in the tactics of combat groupings.157 There were also chapters that The End of French Influence on American Warfare

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focused on the coordination and liaison with the other combatant arms such as artillery, aviation, cavalry, engineers, and chemical troops. In the attack, the infantry only had a limited offensive capability without the supporting fires of artillery, aviation, and tanks. At the same time, only the integration of combined arms led to a successful defensive.158 Gone was the homogeneous infantry army that combined the effects of the auxiliary arms on the battlefield, as in the French combat method. The auxiliary arms of the past gave way to the combined arms of the modern battlefield, and these regulations realized the potential of the combined arms warfare introduced in previous FSRs. These new specialized groupings used a different conceptualization of the battlefield and tactics than did the previously accepted intellectual framework. While the offense and defense continued to use lines, usually along terrain features, to designate forward line of advance or defense, there was no longer a linear conceptualization of the battlefield. Beginning with the adoption of the wedge formation in the extended order in FM 22-5, FM 7-5 encouraged the avoidance of strict alignment even while maintaining contact with adjacent units. This led to more emphasis on infiltration tactics and encirclements and an increase in the decisive power of the flank attack.159 This also led to the development at the platoon level of a more triangular orientation that allowed for more flexible deployments than the skirmish line, firing line, and supporting lines of old. Due to increased firepower, the attacking and supporting echelons retained their unit integrity and were able to operate with larger gaps between formations. This changed the previous linear but noncontiguous conceptualization of the battlefield, for a nonlinear, noncontiguous one. In describing the mechanics of this conceptualization of the battlefield, FM 7-5 created a more dogmatic system of tactics. The regulations prohibited rehearsed tactical exercises in favor of depending on the initiative of junior leaders. However, under the “Simplicity” section, modern warfare required the assignment of specific functions in “relatively definite tactical procedures” for a variety of expected battlefield situations.160 This introduced a series of definite tactical formations for a variety of situations at the platoon and company level, from the approach march to the attack.161 These descriptions went far beyond Morrison’s detailed battle descriptions and recommended formations and techniques for the various situations of offensive and defensive combat. They even included diagrams to demonstrate some of these standard tactical procedures. While the new infantry regulations retained much of the language of the French combat method, they changed the interpretation of every one of the fundamental elements. 252

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Figure 6.4. 1940 Company Attack. This depiction of the company attack is both nonlinear and noncontiguous. Within the company, there is only a general limit of advance for the scouts, which creates no real line. The two lead platoons are not within supporting distance of each other, and the supporting platoon seems to be in a central position, to be able to move to support either lead platoon. This company formation is clearly designed to operate either separated from other companies or in a broader dispersed attack. (Reprinted from USA, Infantry Field Manual, FM 7-5: Organization and Tactics of Infantry—The Rifle Battalion [Washington, DC: GPO, 1940], 212)

A New Intellectual Framework of the Battlefield: The 1941 FSR Beginning with the fall of France in May 1940, the army’s intellectual framework underwent a fundamental change that can only be considered a revolution. The publication of FM 7-5 began to redefine the elements that made up that framework away from the French combat method and toward a new conceptualization of the modern battlefield. Marshall ensured that the 1940 maneuvers improved the new division organizations and validated new tactical ideas. Those ideas were consolidated in the new FM 100-5: FSR Operations, published in May 1941. This capstone document clarified the army’s new intellectual framework and advanced many of the ideas found in FM 7-5, without the contradictory statements of doctrine of the 1939 FSR. The new FSR integrated this intellectual framework throughout the doctrines The End of French Influence on American Warfare

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of offensive and defensive operations, as well as the minor tactics of war, including security, marches, outposts, and retrograde operations. While offensive operations played a key role in the new intellectual framework, they no longer had the primacy assigned to them by the French combat method. The new FSR retained the 1939 statements concerning the ability to achieve objectives through maneuver alone. It also established the primary role of fire in combat, that the purpose of movement was to make fire more effective, and that shock completed the destruction of an enemy already assured by fire. The new framework made defensive operations as important as offensive operations and made rifles, bayonets, automatic rifles, and machine guns the primary weapons of the infantry, and even the entrenching tool became a primary piece of equipment.162 Decisive results were no longer a product of the offensive alone but of a combination of operations. This led to the primacy of the offensive-defensive and the option of commanders to begin offensive operations by conducting a defense followed by a counterattack. The assault continued to have a role in both the attack and counterattack, but the bayonet was no longer the principal weapon of the assault. Instead, new techniques brought artillery fire and machine guns to play during the assault; thus, fire dominated this aspect of the offensive just as it did all the other aspects. These new combined arms doctrines used fire to conserve combat power in the offensive by supporting the attacking elements up to and through the objective.163 The primacy of the offensive was no longer a driving force in American tactics. This new combined emphasis of the offensive and defensive reflected the new combined American army. No longer was the army a primarily infantry-based force with auxiliary arms. The infantry was now an arm of close combat, with very limited offensive capability, dependent on the combined arms for success on the battlefield. The habitual combat teams of artillery battalions with infantry regiments were institutionalized in the new FSR. There were now several types of infantry divisions, as well as light, motorized, cavalry, and armored divisions. These new organizations operated not with brigades but with combat teams of all the combined arms. While the infantry division had limited independent offensive capability, the armored division was “capable of considerable independent action” and combined protected firepower and shock.164 In the new army, the infantry was only an equal member of the combined arms team, one that as often served the other arms as received their assistance on the battlefield. The FSR contained detailed descriptions of the conduct of offensive and defensive operations. These included recommended tactical organizations, utilization of flanking 254

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fires, and the coordination required for successful combined arms operations. While Marshall discouraged the use of rules or set procedures in his preference, the FSR encouraged the simplification of orders by creating standard operating procedures for all actions that lent themselves to standardization.165 These created the general principles that reinforced the much more specific and dogmatic tactics outlined in FM 7-5. Ending almost a full year of experimentation and changing doctrine, the 1941 FSR institutionalized a fundamentally different intellectual framework than that derived from the French combat method.

Conclusion For the interwar period, no single experience weighed more heavily on military development than WWI. Although the war produced the 1919 IDR, which institutionalized the lessons of WWI through the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield, it also inspired ideas that challenged some of the fundamental elements of the French combat method. Pershing himself, in his proposed triangular division, demonstrated the possibilities of a conceptualization different from the French combat method. Summerall led an element in the officer corps that took the same lessons away from the war as the French, that a fire-driven methodical battle was the way of the future. New German doctrine and examples provided a very different conceptualization of specialized units, combat teams, infiltration, and mechanized warfare. Throughout, the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield continued to adapt to new technology and equipment to provide an American answer to the problems of modern warfare. For the 1920s and 1930s, the army experienced a preparadigmatic period similar to the period prior to the War of 1812, in which all theories and systems of war were valid answers to the problems of the battlefield. The Napoleonic era continued to provide examples that proponents of all these theories used to validate themselves. Part of this multiplicity of military theories and the loss of prestige of the French combat method among American officers was a result of the experiences of WWI and the prolific writing and thinking about the war by theorists on both sides of the Atlantic. But the economic crisis of the 1930s had an equally liberating influence on the army, as resources dried up and units were maintained as skeletons. In such an environment, where the restraints of reality were no longer present, commanders and reformers could experiment with any organization and armament they imagined. As their formations did not even have the manning or resources of the approved divisional organizaThe End of French Influence on American Warfare

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tions, they had to replicate men and equipment to conduct the limited training that took place during this period. This created a perfect environment to rethink the experiences of WWI, without the physical constraints of the technology of that decade, while at the same time the potentials of emerging equipment made anything possible. Onto this scene came George Marshall with his pragmatic sense of tactics and his willingness to throw theory out the window for battlefield results. Marshall exerted more influence on the American army than did any other officer during this period. He was a part of the early attempts to reorganize the division, he changed the Infantry School curriculum and created a cadre of like-minded officers, and he was involved in the development of the 1939 FSR and IDR. His “Marshall Men” formed a corps of hardworking, pragmatic thinkers poised to lead the army in another direction. Opposite to Marshall was George Lynch as the chief of infantry, who staunchly defended the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield. Lynch was deeply involved in the 1919 IDR, the 1923 FSR, and the opposition to the MCLU. He used his position to defend the French combat method, both publicly through the Infantry Journal and politically by reorganizing the infantry regiment as a homogeneous unit without specialization. However, once the German Blitzkrieg defeated France in a mere six weeks, Lynch was fighting for a lost cause. As the chief of staff, Marshall was in a stronger position to change the consensus among the officer corps by force. Almost immediately, he retired older officers who had the most indoctrination in the French combat method. He also promoted into influential positions officers who believed in the same pragmatic way of warfare as he did, such as making Leslie McNair the commanding general of Army Ground Forces, tasked with training and organizing the army for WWII. He instituted maneuvers designed to validate some practices and to eliminate unsuccessful or obsolete techniques. He then used these maneuvers, theoretical writings, reports from German battlefield victories, and experimental testing to publish new tactical and general regulations. These new regulations represented a revolution in the American way of warfare and, in particular, a revolution in the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield.

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Conclusion

The intellectual development of the American army from the War of 1812 through the beginning of WWII followed the general outline of Kuhn’s scientific revolution. In the period from the American Revolution through the War of 1812, no clear consensus existed among the armies of the United States concerning tactics and doctrine. The state of American military art resembled preparadigmatic science in that officers subscribed to a number of popular theories of war and systems of tactics. This resulted in years of American losses at the hands of a much smaller British army, which was indoctrinated into a single intellectual framework. Without a guiding paradigm for the conduct of war, American regular and militia formations trained in a variety of systems (if they trained in any system at all), which were difficult to integrate on the battlefield. Winfield Scott, a young general promoted for his demonstrated competency in the first years of the War of 1812, sought to create a disciplined army out of this multitude of tactical systems. Without having seen the French combat method in action, he trained his brigade using French regulations and led them to the first American victory of the war at the battle of Chippawa in 1814. He became a hero of the war, and the proFrench War Department used his reputation and his advocacy to lead the effort to adopt the French Regulations of 1791 as the American system of tactics in 1815. It was the power of a new conceptualization, that of the French combat method, that led Scott to use the French system and the Madison administration to adopt it for the armies of the United States. Once adopted, the French combat method formed the heart of the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield from 1815 through WWI. It created a powerful paradigm of warfare that American officers learned in their educational institutions. Throughout this period, West Point and the army’s postgraduate institutions remained committed to the same intellectual framework, often using the same textbooks. Officers also learned the same intellectual framework through their tactical and general regulations. All these institutions and publications used the same language to describe the same conceptualiza|

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tion of the battlefield. Throughout the wars and operations of this period, the American army demonstrated a disciplined adherence to the French combat method. The misconception that the strength of the American army comes from lessons learned through battlefield experience or a disregard for its own doctrine is patently false when an understanding of the French system is applied to American operations. On the contrary, American forces applied French principles with a vigor and resilience that overcame significant battlefield obstacles to achieve victory, often at a high price in terms of casualties. Those battlefield obstacles and difficult tactical situations lent themselves to a number of solutions. In fact, beginning at the end of the Civil War, tactical situations and the realities of combat began to make adherence to the fundamental elements of the French combat method increasingly costly; yet the army remained committed to its intellectual framework. The myth of American tactical ingenuity is just that: a myth, born of American exceptionalism and not grounded in a deliberate examination of American military history. This does not mean that the American army was an unthinking organization for 126 years. On the contrary, while tactical ingenuity may have been absent, the army exhibited an extraordinary amount of problem-solving skills on the battlefield. This problem-solving ability was present through the various editions of tactical regulations from 1814 to 1940. At every stage, American officers crafted increasingly refined regulations with which to execute their intellectual framework. They devised less complicated movements, maneuvers, and commands for every new edition. They maximized the effectiveness of new weapons, integrated them into their tactics, and even created new technologies to make their existing tactics more effective. However, they did all this through the prism of their intellectual framework of the battlefield. Instead of disregarding their doctrine for pragmatic tactical solutions, American soldiers solved tactical problems within the context of the fundamental elements of the French combat method. American tactical solutions remained committed to the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield and demonstrated a dedication to offensive operations that resulted in an assault, a linear but noncontiguous understanding of the battlefield, a desire to combine the effects of all auxiliary arms into the main infantry battle, the creation of an infantry army composed of nonspecialized infantry units, and the adoption of nondogmatic tactics executed through the initiative of the officer corps. This framework structured the tactical innovation that is so highly regarded by American military historians. There were strong cultural supports that encouraged the retention of the French combat method from the War of 1812 through WWI. French cul258

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ture, science, and military excellence were powerful influences on American society well beyond the Civil War. In this respect, Napoleonic history and the Napoleonic legend served to keep Americans faithful to French military thought. Most notably in the army, Napoleon came to embody military effectiveness, and the study of the Napoleonic era reinforced the principles of the French combat method. However, while the study of Napoleon supported the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield, the main influence for that framework was the warfare of the French Revolution. When Napoleon came to power, he changed many of the elements of French warfare, including his use of cavalry, the creation of the Imperial Guard, and the creation of a single Grande Armée consisting of independent corps; these changes led to the strategic victories of the empire. The American army never adopted these elements, even while using the battles and history of Napoleon to validate its intellectual framework of the battlefield. The French combat method guided American operations through WWI and remained present in the postwar regulations. However, the armies that fought in WWI experienced a series of anomalies on the battlefield that led to an intellectual crisis for military professionals. This was largely because the basic problems of modern warfare that caused the stalemate on the Western Front in 1914 were still unresolved by 1919. The technological developments of the 1920s and 1930s created new possibilities for the battlefield and led to a preparadigmatic period. The army wrestled with its intellectual framework based on the French combat method, the current French doctrine of “Methodical Battle,” and German Blitzkrieg. The army conducted tests and published often conflicting manuals in an attempt to accommodate all these new theories. While various groups within the officer corps defended each of these theories, George C. Marshall led a pragmatic group of innovative officers in developing a new intellectual framework of the battlefield based on principles derived from German doctrine. While there were decades of thinking along these new lines, it took the crisis of the defeat of France in 1940 to completely break away from the army’s intellectual framework. Beginning with this crisis, Marshall began the work of creating a new consensus among the officer corps. He retired a large portion of the officer corps who were dedicated to the French combat method and unwilling to embrace a new conceptualization. At the same time, Marshall promoted into positions of power and authority officers who he knew would support his new paradigm. These officers indoctrinated the masses of new officers into the new paradigm through officer candidate schools. In this way, Marshall forged the consensus required to turn his ideas into the army’s new intelConclusion

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lectual framework of the battlefield. This transformation was complete by the publication of the 1941 FSR in May, twelve months after the triumph of German blitzkrieg. While the general process for adopting, utilizing, and replacing an intellectual framework of the battlefield fits Kuhn’s model of scientific revolution, there are three components of that process that are unique to the military intellectual revolution. These include the need for cultural acceptance of the new ideas, a military crisis on the battlefield, and a strong military leader to champion the new conceptualization. The adoption of the French combat method in 1815 and the adoption of a new framework in 1940–41 were remarkably similar in requiring these three components. The first component not emphasized in Kuhn’s argument is the importance of cultural acceptance of the new ideas. When Kuhn discusses the social and cultural aspects of paradigm creation, he focuses on the consensus created among the professional community. However, when the U.S. Army changed its intellectual framework of the battlefield in 1815 and 1940–41, it required a much larger cultural acceptance by American society at large. For most of the decade prior to 1815, the War Department went through several different formats of French tactical regulations, attempting to get the armies of the United States to accept the French system of tactics. These attempts were unsuccessful until the influence of the anglophile Federalist Party declined and the Francophile Republican Party became dominant, making French ideas acceptable for an American institution. The Republican administrations looked to the French in many ways, one of which was the propaganda used during the War of 1812. Republicans portrayed the war in much more passionate terms than were used in previous wars, linking patriotism directly to support for the war. It was these passions that caused the public denunciation of the Federalist Hartford Convention. The offensive nature of the war effort, the encouragement of the citizen-soldier in a more national sense than the local nature of the militias, and the identification of European enemies as likely threats to the United States made Americans more accepting of French warfare. These common elements made possible the adoption of the French combat method as the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield in 1815, whereas it was impossible in 1808. This cultural affinity was an integral part of the adoption of an intellectual framework of the battlefield. Likewise, cultural affinity was an integral part of the change in paradigms during the period between WWI and WWII. When Marshall began supporting the adoption of German-inspired ideas, American society was pre260

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pared to accept the legitimacy of German ideas from a cultural perspective. German philosophy and culture became popular in America following the Civil War. German ideas guided American religious and educational institutions and intellectually supported the Progressive movement at the turn of the century. Additionally, the study of Napoleon seemed to support the new German principles as well. In fact, the German general staff produced a history of Napoleon to educate its officers in a new way of war. When the American army changed its intellectual framework to one based on Germaninspired principles, West Point adopted that German history by Yorck von Wartenburg entitled Napoleon as a General and continued using Napoleonic history to teach cadets the military art.1 In one way, the American army has never left the shadow of Napoleon. As the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield has changed over the years, the study of Napoleon remained an important component of teaching that framework to new generations of officers. However, in another way, the army was never under the shadow of Napoleon. It was the warfare of the French Revolution and not that of the Napoleonic era that influenced the army’s intellectual framework of the battlefield in 1815, until a non-Napoleonic German influence replaced it in 1940. The second component of the intellectual military revolution was military crisis. In both instances, there were military crises on the battlefield that demonstrated the failure of current theories of warfare. In the War of 1812, two years of American defeats made the army receptive to a successful new paradigm. In WWII, the fall of France proved the superiority of the new German ideas and led to the development and adoption of similar elements in a new intellectual framework. There were moments throughout the intervening years that battlefield experiences demonstrated the need for new ideas during the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and WWI. However, American performance in these conflicts did not represent a military crisis. In fact, the army came away from those conflicts more committed to the fundamental elements of the French combat method. The crisis required had to represent the complete failure of one intellectual framework of the battlefield in the face of a very different intellectual framework. The last, and perhaps most interesting, of the uniquely military component of intellectual revolutions is the need for a strong leader. Although there were advocates for the French combat method in the army and the War Department at the turn of the nineteenth century, it was not until Winfield Scott became a French advocate that the army achieved a consensus and adopted the paradigm. Winfield Scott, the hero of the War of 1812, used his fame to ensure that the army adopted the French system. Similarly, it Conclusion

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took George C. Marshall to champion new ideas for the army to replace the French combat method with a new intellectual framework. Even the strong defense of George Lynch could not compete with Marshall, his position as the chief of staff, and his cadre of loyal officers throughout the army. It takes the advocacy of a powerful figure, such as Marshall, to create the kind of consensus required from the officer corps to institutionally adopt a new paradigm consisting of a new intellectual framework of the battlefield. Understanding the army’s adoption of, and commitment to, an intellectual framework influenced by French warfare from the War of 1812 through WWII provides an important context that is missing from most of the American military history of this period. Understanding the framework as a context, an intellectual backdrop for all the decisions, policies, actions, and combats, presents a whole new series of important historical questions and new analyses. The most important use for this context is in the analysis of command decisions, combat reactions, or intelligence estimates. Decisions such as Grant’s attack at Cold Harbor, when taken out of context, seem unreasonable and inexplicable for one of the greatest generals of the war. However, the decision to attack complies with several of the essential elements of the French combat method. Using this analysis to understand other decisions and battles of the period produces better explanations for seemingly inexplicable decisions than do battle fatigue, personal animosity between commanders, illness, hemorrhoids, or any number of flippant answers to complex problems. This is not to say that these factors do not play a role but rather that the intellectual context reveals deeper connections and patterns of behavior. The study of the French influence on the American way of warfare demonstrates without a doubt that the importance of ideas in the military art and to military professionals is paramount, regardless of whether those professionals consider themselves intellectuals. Reexamining the American military history of this period through understanding this context has the potential to produce new insights and illuminate new patterns in the U.S. Army’s history.

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Notes

Abbrev iations Am. St. P. CGSS GPO GSS JMSIUS TUSAWW USA USMA USMASCA USWD

American State Papers Command and General Staff School Government Printing Office General Staff Schools Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States The United States Army in the World War, 1917–1919: Military Operations of the American Expeditionary Forces United States Army United States Military Academy USMA Special Collections and Archives United States War Department

Notes to the Introduction 1. John J. Miller and Mark Molesky, Our Oldest Enemy: A History of America’s Disastrous Relationship with France (New York: Broadway, 2003). 2. “Is Barack Obama Tough Enough?,” Lexington (blog), The Economist 394, no. 8671 (2010): 40. 3. Williamson R. Murray and Allan R. Millett, eds., Military Innovation in the Interwar Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Leslie C. Eliason and Emily O. Goldman, eds., The Diffusion of Military Technology and Ideas (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003). 4. Azar Gat, A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 570. 5. Robert Goldthwaite Carter, The Art and Science of War versus the Art of Fighting (Washington, DC: National, 1922); Isabel V. Hull, Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005); Mark Ethan Grotelueschen, The AEF Way of War: The American Army and Combat in World War I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 6. Paddy Griffith, Military Thought in the French Army, 1815–1851 (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1989); Jay Luvaas, The Military Legacy of the Civil War: The European Inheritance (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988). 7. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. and ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 75.

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8. Ibid., 101. 9. Charles H. Coates and Roland J. Pellegrin, Military Sociology: A Study of American Military Institutions and Military Life (Baltimore: Social Sciences Press, 1965), 26–27. 10. Peter H. Wilson, “Defining Military Culture,” Journal of Military History 72 (2008): 41; Adrian R. Lewis, The American Culture of War: The History of U.S. Military Force from World War II to Operation Iraqi Freedom (New York: Routledge, 2007), 8. 11. Ibid., 11. 12. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 4. 13. Ibid., 10. 14. Ibid., 19, 150–51. 15. Ibid., 5, 80, 138. 16. Ibid., 5, 24. 17. Ibid., 6, 78, 82, 122. 18. Ibid., 4, 94. 19. John Grenier, The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier, 1607–1814 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 221–25.

Notes to Chapter 1 1. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Campaign in France in the Year 1792, trans. Robert Farie (London: Chapman and Hill, 1849), 80–81. 2. J. F. C. Fuller, A Military History of the Western World: From the Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 1588, to the Battle of Waterloo, 1815, vol. 2 (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1955), 348–49. 3. Ramsay Weston Phipps, The Armies of the First French Republic and the Rise of the Marshals of Napoleon I, 5 vols., ed. Charles Foskett Phipps and Elizabeth Sandars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1926), vol. 2, 11. 4. T. C. W. Blanning, The French Revolutionary Wars, 1787–1802 (New York: Arnold, 1996), 74–75. 5. Gunther E. Rothenberg, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), 247. 6. Goethe, The Campaign in France, 72–80. 7. Charles Théodore Beauvais de Préau, ed., Victoires, conquêtes, désastres, revers et guerres civiles des Français, de 1792 à 1815, 28 vols. (Paris: C. L. F. Panckoucke, 1818–21), vol. 1, 35–37. 8. Arthur Chuquet, Valmy (Paris: Librairie Leopold Cerf, 1887), 221. 9. Arthur Chuquet, La retraite de Brunswick (Paris: Librairie Leopold Cerf, 1887), 223–24. 10. David A. Bell, The First Total War: Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007), 135–36. 11. John A Lynn, The Wars of Louis XIV: 1667–1714 (New York: Longman, 1999), 47–83. 12. Hans Delbrück, The History of the Art of War, vol. 4, The Dawn of Modern Warfare, trans. Walter J. Renfroe (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), 280–81. 13. Martin Van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 17–24. 14. Delbrück, The Dawn of Modern War, 309–12. 264

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15. Maurice de Saxe, “My Reveries upon the Art of War,” in Roots of Strategy, vol. 2, ed. and trans. Thomas R. Phillips (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1985), 298. 16. Hew Strachan, European Armies and the Conduct of War (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1983), 12–14. 17. Frederick the Great, “The Instructions of Frederick the Great for His Generals,” in Phillips, Roots of Strategy, vol. 2, 351. 18. George Nafziger, Imperial Bayonets: Tactics of the Napoleonic Battery, Battalion, and Brigade as Found in Contemporary Regulations (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1996), 96. 19. Brent Nosworthy, Battle Tactics of Napoleon and His Enemies (London: Constable, 1995), 96. 20. John Childs, Armies and Warfare in Europe, 1648–1789 (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1982); Christopher Duffy, The Military Experience in the Age of Reason (New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987). 21. Eduard von Höpfner, Der Krieg von 1806 und 1807 (Berlin: En Romission bei Simon Sdyropp, 1850), 480–81. 22. Delbrück, The Dawn of Modern Warfare, 393–94. 23. Peter Paret, Yorck and the Era of Prussian Reform, 1807–1815 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), 258. 24. Delbrück, The Dawn of Modern Warfare, 400. 25. Rothenberg, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon, 22. 26. Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte Guibert, A General Essay on Tactics: With an Introductory Discourse, Upon the Present State of Politics, and the Military Science in Europe, vol. 2, trans. James Douglas (London: J. Millan, 1781), 120–23. 27. Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte Guibert, Défense du système de guerre moderne (Neuchatel: Pollard, 1779). 28. Guibert, A General Essay on Tactics, 128. 29. John A. Lynn, Tools of War: Instruments, Ideas, and Institutions of Warfare, 1445–1871 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 161. 30. Jean-Lambert-Alphonse Colin, L’Infanterie au XVIIIe siècle: La tactique (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1907), 279. 31. Strachan, European Armies and the Conduct of War, 27. 32. Ibid., 305. 33. Dubois de Crancé, Observations sur la constitution militaire (Paris: De L’imprimere Nationale, 1790), reprinted in The French Revolution Research Collection, vol. 11, ed. Colin Lucas (Oxford, UK: Pergamon, 1990), 11. 34. France, Règlement concernant l’exercice et les manoeuvres de l’infanterie du 1er août 1791 (Paris: De Impremiere Royale, 1791). 35. Azar Gat, A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 54. 36. France, Règlement . . . du 1er août 1791, iii–xii. 37. Robert S. Quimby, The Background of Napoleonic Warfare (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957). 38. Phipps, The Armies of the First French Republic, vol. 1, 84–96. 39. Jean-Louis-Camille Gay de Vernon, Mémoire sur les opérations militaires des généraux en chef Custine et Houchard pendant les années 1792 et 1793 (Paris: Fermin-Didot, 1844), 177–81, 193–200.

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40. Phipps, The Armies of the First French Republic, vol. 3, 145. 41. France, Règlement . . . du 1er août 1791, 271–396. 42. Colin, L’Infanterie au XVIIIe siècle, 273. 43. Although this has been challenged most recently by Brent Nosworthy, who claims that French troops were unable to use the line on the battlefield due to their untrained state, Colin demonstrates a much more thorough understanding of this tactic through the use of more primary source research. Nosworthy, Battle Tactics of Napoleon, 104–7; Jean-Lambert-Alphonse Colin, La tactique et la discipline dans les armées de la Révolution: Correspondance du Général Schauenbourg du 4 avril au 2 août 1793 (Paris: R. Chapelot, 1902), xvii. 44. John A. Lynn, The Bayonets of the Republic: Motivation and Tactics in the Army of Revolutionary France, 1791–94 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984), 250. 45. Ibid., 248. 46. France, Règlement . . . du 1er août 1791, 302. 47. Nafziger, Imperial Bayonets, 41–46. 48. Lynn, The Bayonets of the Republic, 287–300. 49. Ibid., 291. 50. Henry Lloyd, The History of the Late War in Germany, between the King of Prussia and the Empress of Germany and Her Allies, vol. 1 (London: S. Hooper, 1781), 138. 51. Duffy, The Military Experience in the Age of Reason, 113. 52. France, Règlement . . . du 1er août 1791, 91–93. 53. Ibid., 93–108. 54. Jean Paul Bertaud, The Army of the French Revolution: From Citizen Soldiers to Instrument of Power, trans. Robert Roswell Palmer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 235. 55. “The Constitution of 1791,” in A Documentary Survey of the French Revolution, ed. John Hall Stewart (New York: Macmillan, 1951), 231. 56. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. and ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 591–92. 57. John A. Lynn, “The Treatment of Military Subjects in Diderot’s Encyclopedie,” Journal of Military History 65, no. 1 (2001): 145. 58. Bell, The First Total War, 79. 59. “Decree Establishing the Levée en Masse,” 23 August 1793, in Stewart, A Documentary Survey of the French Revolution, 472–74. 60. Rothenberg, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon, 13. 61. Lynn, The Bayonets of the Republic, 21. 62. France, Règlement primitivement arrêté te par le roi le premier janvier 1792 (Paris: De Impremiere Royale, 1792), 1–3. 63. Strachan, European Armies and the Conduct of War, 9. 64. Rothenberg, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon, 13. 65. Frederick the Great, “The Instructions of Frederick the Great for His Generals,” 311–12. 66. Bertaud, The Army of the French Revolution, 259. 67. Ibid., 260. 68. Guibert, A General Essay on Tactics, 147.

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69. Daniel Moran and Arthur Waldron, The People in Arms: Military Myth and National Mobilization since the French Revolution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 3. 70. Bertaud, The Army of the French Revolution , 155. 71. Blanning, The French Revolutionary Wars, 123. 72. France, Règlement provisoire sur le service de l’infanterie en campagne (Paris: De Impremiere Royale, 1792). 73. Ibid., 1–108. 74. Ibid., 110. 75. Ibid., 111. 76. Ibid. 77. Ibid. 78. Ibid., 111–12. 79. Ibid., 112. 80. Ibid., 112–16. 81. Lloyd, The History of the Late War in Germany, 139. 82. Blanning, The French Revolutionary Wars, 112–13. 83. Phipps, The Armies of the First French Republic, vol. 2, 147. 84. Carnot to Jourdan, 3 June 1794, in Lazare Carnot, Correspondance générale de Carnot, publée avec des notes historiques et biographiques, vol. 4, ed. Étienne Charavay (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1907), 402–4. 85. Phipps, The Armies of the First French Republic, vol. 2, 153. 86. Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu Soult, Mémoires du Maréchal-Général Soult, vol. 1 (Paris: Librairie D’Amyot, 1854), 153. 87. Antoine Henri Jomini, Histoire critique et militaire des guerres de la Révolution: Rédigée sur de nouveaux documens, et augm. dúngrand nombre de cartess et de plans, vol. 5 (Paris: Anselin et Pochard, 1820–24), 133. 88. Beauvais de Préau, Victoires, vol. 3, 46. 89. Victor C. Dubois, Les opérations militaires sur la Sambre en 1794: Bataille de Fleurus (Paris: Librairie Militaire R. Chapelot, 1907), 313. 90. Phipps, The Armies of the First French Republic, vol. 2, 156. 91. Beauvais de Préau, Victoires, vol. 3, 47–48. 92. Jomini, Histoire critique et militaire, 133–34. 93. Dubois, Les opérations militaires sur la Sambre, 327–29. 94. Blanning, The French Revolutionary Wars, 114. 95. Lynn, The Bayonets of the Republic, 289. 96. Jomini, Histoire critique et militaire, 142–43. 97. Blanning, The French Revolutionary Wars, 114. 98. Soult, Mémoires du Maréchal-Général Soult, 161–63. 99. Phipps, The Armies of the First French Republic, vol. 2, 162. 100. Beauvais de Préau, Victoires, vol. 3, 60. 101. Dubois, Les opérations militaires sur la Sambre, 344–46. 102. Jomini, Histoire critique et militaire, 146. 103. Phipps, The Armies of the First French Republic, vol. 2, 163. 104. Beauvais de Préau, Victoires, vol. 3, 60.

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Notes to Chapter 2 1. France, Rules and Regulations for the Field Exercise and Manoeuvres of the French Infantry, Issued August 1, 1791, vol. 1, trans. Irenée Amelot de Lacroix, ed. John Macdonald (Boston: T. B. Wait, 1810), i–iii. 2. John Grenier, The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Kyle F. Zelner, A Rabble in Arms: Massachusetts Towns and Militiamen during King Philip’s War (New York: NYU Press, 2009). 3. Paul Lockhart, The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 95–116. 4. Donald E. Graves, “‘Dry Books of Tactics’: U.S. Infantry Manuals of the War of 1812 and After,” Military Collector and Historian 38 (1986): 51. 5. Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States (Albany, NY: Danial and Samuel Whiting, 1803), 33–34. 6. Ibid., 46–86. 7. France, Rules and Regulations for the Field Exercise. 8. France, Instructions for the Conduct of Infantry on Actual Service, trans. John MacDonald (London: T. Egerton, 1807). 9. William Gardner Bell, Secretaries of War and Secretaries of Defense: Portraits and Biographical Sketches (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1992), 30. 10. Eustice to Senate, 13 December 1810, Am. St. P.: Military Affairs 1:295. 11. Graves, “Dry Books of Tactics,” 56. 12. Alexander Smyth, Regulations for the Field Exercise, Manoevres, and Conduct of the Infantry of the United States (Philadelphia: T. and G. Palmer, 1812). 13. Ibid., v–viii. 14. Ibid., 165–209. 15. Graves, “Dry Books of Tactics,” 54. 16. Alan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski, For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America (New York: Free Press, 1994), 100–104. 17. Richard H. Kohn, Eagle and Sword: The Federalists and the Creation of the Military Establishment in America, 1783–1802 (New York: Free Press, 1975), 299–303. 18. Theodore J. Crackel, Mr. Jefferson’s Army: Political and Social Reform of the Military Establishment, 1801–1809 (New York: NYU Press, 1987), 13; William B. Skelton, An American Profession of Arms: The Army Officer Corps, 1784–1861 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992), 72–73. 19. Samuel J. Watson, “Developing ‘Republican Machines’: West Point and the Struggle to Render the Officer Corps Safe for America, 1802–33,” in Thomas Jefferson’s Military Academy: Founding West Point, ed. Robert M. S. McDonald (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004), 155–57. 20. Henry Adams, The War of 1812, ed. H. A. DeWeerd (New York: Cooper Square, 1999), 50. 21. Bell, Secretaries of War, 32. 22. Graves, “Dry Books of Tactics,” 56–58. 23. “Extracts from the Minutes of the United States Military Philosophical Society, 30 January 1808,” in Early American Imprints, second series, no. 16607.

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24. William Duane, The American Military Library; or, Compendium of the Modern Tactics (Philadelphia: William Duane, 1809). 25. William Duane, A Hand Book for Infantry: Containing the First Principles of Military Discipline, Founded on Rational Method, Intended to Explain in a Familiar and Practical Manner, for the Use of the Military Force of the United States (Philadelphia: printed for the author, 1812), 1–5. 26. Ibid., 17–25. 27. Graves, “Dry Books of Tactics,” 58. 28. Virgil Ney, Evolution of the United States Army Field Manual: Valley Forge to Vietnam (Fort Belvoir, VA: Combat Operations Research Group, 1966), 8. 29. David Dundas, Principles of Military Movements Chiefly Applied to Infantry (London: T. Cadell, 1788). 30. Great Britain, Rules and Regulations for the Formations, Field Exercises and Manoeuvres of His Majesty’s Forces (London: War Office, 1792). 31. J. A. Houlding, Fit for Service: The Training of the British Army, 1715–1795 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 238–39. 32. Great Britain, Rules and Regulations, 2. 33. Epaphras Hoyt, Practical Instruction for Military Officers: Comprehending a Concise System of Military Geometry, Field Fortification, and Tactics of Riflemen and Light Infantry (Boston: Greenfield, 1811), v. 34. Isaac Maltby, Elements of War (Boston: Thomas B. Wait, 1811), 100–109. 35. Izard to Armstrong, 7 May 1814, in George Izard, Official Correspondence with the Department of War Relative to the Military Operations of the American Army under the Command of MG Izard of the Northern Frontier of the United States (Philadelphia: Thomas Dobson, 1816), 3. 36. Winfield Scott, Memoirs of Lieutenant-General Scott, LL.D., 2 vols. (New York: Sheldon, 1864), vol. 1, 119. 37. Allan Peskin, Winfield Scott and the Profession of Arms (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2003), 11. 38. Timothy D. Johnson, Winfield Scott: The Quest for Military Glory (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 42–43. 39. Scott, Memoirs, vol. 1, 118–20. 40. Richard V. Barbuto, Niagara, 1814: America Invades Canada (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000), 122–24. 41. Donald E. Graves, The Battle of Lundy’s Lane: On the Niagara in 1814 (Baltimore: Nautical and Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1993), 31–32. 42. While the majority of military historians of the twentieth century spelled the battle and creek Chippewa, the correct spelling of both the battle and the creek is Chippawa. 43. Adams, The War of 1812, 175–76. 44. Jeffrey Kimball, “The Battle of Chippawa: Infantry Tactics in the War of 1812,” Military Affairs 31, no. 4 (1967): 182. 45. Barbuto, Niagara, 1814, 177–78. 46. Kimball, “The Battle of Chippawa,” 182. 47. Adams, The War of 1812, 179. 48. Barbuto, Niagara, 1814, 215–18.

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49. Donald R. Hickey, The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 187–88. 50. Scott, Memoirs, vol. 1, 143. 51. Armstrong to James Monroe, 23 September 1814, Am. St. P.: Military Affairs 1:523. 52. By the General Order issued at the beginning of the regulations. USA, Rules and Regulations for the Field Exercise and Manoeuvres of Infantry (New York: T. and W. Mercein, 1815). 53. The General Order from the Secretary of War convened the board on 4 January 1815 in Baltimore, and the board’s official recommendation was dated 25 February. Ibid., pages printed prior to the regulations themselves. 54. Graves, “Dry Books of Tactics,” 173. 55. Scott, Memoirs, vol. 1, 157. 56. USA, General Regulations for the Army, or Military Institutes (Philadelphia: M. Carey and Sons, 1821), 90–130. 57. Ibid., 124–28. 58. Ibid., 126. 59. Calhoun to Monroe, 16 February 1824, Am. St. P.: Military Affairs 1:623. 60. USA, General Regulations for the Army, or Military Institutes (Washington, DC: Davis and Force, 1825), 167–275. 61. Ibid., 398. 62. USA, Rules and Regulations for the Field Exercise and Manoeuvres of Infantry, 182; Winfield Scott, Infantry Tactics; or, Rules for the Exercise and Manoeuvres of the Infantry of the U.S. Army, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: Davis and Force, 1825), 139. 63. Scott, Infantry Tactics (1825), 170. 64. Ibid., 171, 190. 65. Millett and Maslowski, For the Common Defense, 142–44. 66. Army and Navy Chronicle 1, no. 15 (1835): 116. 67. Scott, Infantry Tactics, vol. 1 (1825); Winfield Scott, Infantry Tactics; or, Rules for the Exercise and Manoeuvres of the United States’ Infantry, vol. 1 (New York: George Dearborn, 1835). 68. Scott, Infantry Tactics, vol. 2 (1835), 185–95. 69. Ibid., 193. 70. USA, General Army Regulations (Washington, DC: GPO, 1835), 52–91. 71. Ibid., 125–76. 72. Ibid., 48–52. 73. Ibid., 51. 74. Grenier, The First Way of War, 6–7. 75. Inaugural Address of James Monroe, 4 March 1817, in American Military Thought, ed. Walter Millis (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966), 89–90. 76. “Report of the House Committee upon the Improvement on the Organization and Discipline of the Militia,” 22 January 1819, Am. St. P.: Military Affairs 1:824. 77. Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of CivilMilitary Relations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957), 197. 78. Adams, The War of 1812, 277–88. 79. Howard Mumford Jones, America and French Culture 1750–1848 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1927), 204. 270

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80. “Military Academy,” North American Review 34, no. 74 (1832): 250. 81. Henry Blumenthal, America and French Culture, 1800–1900 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1975), 362–64. 82. “Notes and Anecdotes,” Southern Literary Messenger 3, no. 2 (1837): 121; review of The Life of Napoleon by Walter Scott, American Quarterly Review 1, no. 2 (1827): 578. 83. Blumenthal, America and French Culture, 570. 84. Clarence Edward Macartney and Gordon Dorrance, The Bonapartes in America (Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1939). 85. Ibid, 153. 86. Emilio Ocampo, The Emperor’s Last Campaign: A Napoleonic Empire in America (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2009), 66–69. 87. These memoirs were reviewed and noted in the Southern Literary Messenger, the North American Literary Review, and the American Quarterly Review from 1820 through 1850. 88. Peter Geyl, Napoleon: For and Against (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964). 89. Dabney H. Maury, Recollections of a Virginian in the Mexican, Indian, and Civil War (New York: Scribner, 1894), 17. 90. James C. Cobb, Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 45. 91. Walter Scott, The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, Emperor of the French: With a Preliminary View of the French Revolution, 3 vols. (New York: J. and J. Harper, 1827), vol. 1, 33, 47, 273. 92. Ibid., vol. 3, 359–60. 93. Ibid., vol. 3, 363–65. 94. Henry Lee, The Life of Napoleon: Down to the Peace of Tolentino and the Close of His First Campaign in Italy (London: Thomas and William Boone, 1837), v. 95. Ibid., 531. 96. Samuel Mackay, comp. and trans., Campaigns of the Armies of France in Prussia, Saxony, and Poland (Boston: Farrand, Mallory, 1808). 97. Archibald Allison, History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution in 1789 to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815, 4 vols. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1843). 98. Ibid., vol. 1, 400–405. 99. “Anecdotes of Napoleon,” Army and Navy Chronicle 3, no. 36 (1836): 180. 100. Hindman, “The New Infantry Tactics,” Army and Navy Chronicle 2, no. 1 (1836): 9–12. 101. Henry Coppée, Catalogue of the Library of the U.S. Military Academy (New York: John F. Trow, 1852), iv. 102. USMA, Catalogue of Books in the Library of the Military Academy (Newburgh, NY: Ward M. Gazlay, 1822), foreword. 103. John Norvell, “Report of the Board of Visitors to the General Examinations of the Cadets of the U.S. Military Academy,” June 1833, 27, USMASCA. 104. USMA, Library Circulation Records, 1824–1828, USMASCA. 105. USMA, Catalogue of Books (1822), 5–14. 106. USMA, Library Circulation Records, 1824–1828, USMASCA. 107. USMA, Catalogue of the Library of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (New York: J. Desnoues, 1830), 15–25.

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108. USMA, Library Circulation Records, 1831–1849, USMASCA. 109. Theodore J. Crackel, West Point: A Bicentennial History (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002), 53–80. 110. Huntington, The Soldier and the State, 197. 111. USMA, Regulations of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (New York: J. and J. Harper, 1832), 17. 112. USMA, The Annual Report of the Board of Visitors for the Year 1819 (West Point, NY: U.S. Military Academy Press and Bindery, 1894), 6–9. 113. Edward Deering Mansfield, The Life of General Winfield Scott, Commander of the United States Army (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1852), 63. 114. USA, General Regulations for the Army (1821), 325–48. 115. USMA, “Report of the Board of Visitors on the United States Military Academy,” 24 June 1826, USMASCA, 1. 116. USMA, The Centennial of the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY, 1802–1902, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1904), 505–8. 117. USMA, “Proceedings of the Academic Board, 1817–1832,” USMASCA, 99. 118. USMA, Regulations of the U.S. Military Academy, 15. 119. USMA, “Proceedings of the Academic Board, 1832–1848,” USMASCA, 100–102. 120. Eben Swift, “The Military Education of Robert E. Lee,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 35, no. 2 (1927): 103. 121. Simon François Gay de Vernon, A Treatise on the Science of War and Fortification, trans. John Michael O’Connor, 2 vols. (New York: J. Seymour, 1817). 122. Ibid., vol. 1, v. 123. Ibid., vol. 1, 9. 124. Ibid., vol. 1, 10. 125. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. and ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 102. 126. Gay de Vernon, A Treatise on the Science of War, vol. 1, 24–54. 127. Ibid., vol. 1, 380–401. 128. Ibid., vol. 1, 353. 129. Ibid., vol. 1, 94. 130. Ibid., vol. 2, 73–160. 131. Ibid., vol. 2, 385–490. 132. Antoine Henri Jomini, The Art of War, trans. G. H. Hendell and W. P. Craighill (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1862), jacket flap. 133. Gay de Vernon, A Treatise on the Science of War, vol. 2, 386. 134. Ibid., vol. 2, 387. 135. Ibid., vol. 2, 459. 136. Ibid., vol. 2, 445–46. 137. Jomini, The Art of War, 265. 138. Ibid., 325. 139. USMA, Catalogue of the U.S. Military Academy (1830), 19. 140. Antoine Henri Jomini, Traité des grandes opérations militaires: Contenant l’histoire critique des campagnes de Frédéric II, comparées à celles de l’Empereur Napoléon; Avec un recueil des principes généraux de l’art de la guerre, 3 vols. (Paris: Chez Magimel, 1811–16);

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Antoine Henri Jomini, Histoire critique et militaire des guerres de la Révolution, 15 vols. (Paris: Anselin et Pochard, 1820–24). 141. Azar Gat, A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 287–88. 142. Thomas E. Griess, “Dennis Hart Mahan: West Point Professor and Advocate of Military Professionalism, 1830–1871” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1968), 219. 143. Ibid., 223. 144. Dennis Hart Mahan, Composition of Armies (West Point, NY: USMA Press, 1838), 1. 145. Dennis Hart Mahan, Strategy (West Point, NY: USMA Press, 1838), 5. 146. Ibid., 2–9. 147. Ibid., 10–14. 148. Dennis Hart Mahan, A Treatise on Field Fortification (New York: Wiley, 1862), vi. 149. Ibid., vii–xvii. 150. Ibid., 5–6, 95–101. 151. Ibid., 8–10. 152. Grady McWhiney and Perry D. Jamieson, Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage (Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1982), 27. 153. USMA, The Official Register of the Officers and Cadets of the United States Military Academy (West Point, NY: USMA Press, 1881), i. 154. Timothy D. Johnson, A Gallant Little Army: The Mexico City Campaign (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007). 155. John S. D. Eisenhower, So Far from God: The U.S. War with Mexico, 1846–1848 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), 312–27. 156. Ulysses Simpson Grant, Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (1885; repr., New York: Modern Library, 1999), 72–75. 157. K. Jack Bauer, The Mexican War: 1846–1848 (New York: Macmillan, 1974), 308. 158. Justin H. Smith, The War with Mexico, vol. 2 (New York: Macmillan, 1919), 149. 159. Scott, Memoirs, vol. 2, 509–10. 160. Smith, The War with Mexico, 153. 161. William A. DePalo, The Mexican National Army, 1822–1852 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1997), 135–38. 162. Bauer, The Mexican War, 316. 163. Roswell Sabine Ripley, War with Mexico, vol. 2 (New York: Harper and Bros., 1899), 425. 164. Russell Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973), 76–77. 165. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 92.

Notes to Chapter 3 1. Antoine Henri Jomini, The Art of War, trans. G. H. Hendell and W. P. Craighill (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1862), 314. 2. William B. Skelton, An American Profession of Arms: The Army Officer Corps, 1784–1861 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992), 255.

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3. General Order from the Secretary of War in the frontispiece of the regulations. William Hardee, Rifle and Infantry Tactics: For the Exercise and Manoeuvres of Troops When Acting as Light Infantry or Riflemen, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo, 1855). 4. Grady McWhiney and Perry D. Jamieson, Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage (Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1982), 47–55. 5. Winfield Scott, Memoirs of Lieutenant-General Scott, LL.D., 2 vols. (New York: Sheldon, 1864), vol. 1, 258. 6. Ulysses Simpson Grant, Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (1885; repr., New York: Modern Library, 1999), 253. 7. Winfield Scott, Infantry Tactics; or, Rules for the Exercise and Manoeuvres of the United States’ Infantry, vol. 1 (New York: George Dearborn, 1835), 75, Hardee, Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics, 68. 8. Scott, Infantry Tactics, 76–78. 9. Hardee, Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics, 36–39. 10. Ibid., 62–65. 11. Scott, Infantry Tactics, 22. 12. Hardee, Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics, 17, 26–28. 13. Ibid., 24–25. 14. Ibid., 171. 15. Ibid., 172. 16. Ibid., 174. 17. Ibid., 201–4. 18. George W. Cullum, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy, vol. 1 (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1868), 305–6. 19. Silas Casey, Infantry Tactics: For the Instruction, Exercise, and Manoeuvres of the Soldier, a Company, Line of Skirmishers, Battalion, Brigade, or Corps d’Armée, 3 vols. (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1862), vol. 1, 5. 20. Ibid., vol. 1, 42. 21. Ibid., vol. 1, 9. 22. Ibid., vol. 1, 6. 23. Ibid., vol. 3, 5–8. 24. Ibid., vol. 1, 10. 25. Ibid., vol.1, 10; vol. 3, 49–51. 26. Ibid., vol. 3, 13, 95. 27. USA, General Regulations for the Army (Washington, DC: USWD, 1847). 28. Ibid., 2. 29. Ibid., 16–17. 30. USA, Regulations for the Army of the United States (New York: Harper Brothers, 1857), 7, 41–55. 31. USA, General Regulations for the Army (Philadelphia: M. Carey and Sons, 1821), 124–29, 143–48. 32. USA, Regulations for the Army (1857), 90–91. 33. USA, General Army Regulations (1821), 125; USA, Regulations for the Army (1857), 90. 34. USA, Regulations for the Army (1857), 84–87. 274

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35. Dennis Hart Mahan, An Elementary Treatise on Advanced-Guard, Out-Post, and Detachment Service of Troops: And the Manner of Posting and Handling Them in the Presence of an Enemy (New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1847), 105. 36. USA, Revised Regulations for the Army of the United State (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1861), 99–104. 37. USA, Revised United States Army Regulations of 1861: With an Appendix Containing the Changes and Laws Affecting Army Regulations and Articles of War to June 25, 1863 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1863). 38. USMA, The Centennial of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York: 1802–1902, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1904), 458. 39. James L. Morrison, “The Best School”: West Point, 1833–1866 (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1986), 98–101. 40. Special Order #98, 10 August 1854, General Order Book #5, USMASCA. 41. Special Order #157, 5 September 1859, General Order Book #6, USMASCA. 42. Dabney H. Maury, Recollections of a Virginian in the Mexican, Indian, and Civil War (New York: Scribner, 1894), 22. 43. USMA, Official Register of the Officers and Cadets of the United States Military Academy (West Point, NY: USMA, 1855), 20. 44. Special Order #99, 5 July 1857, USMA General Orders Book #5, USMASCA. 45. Mahan, An Elementary Treatise, 29. 46. Ibid., 22. 47. Ibid., 25. 48. Ibid., 28–31. 49. Ibid., 38. 50. Ibid., 41. 51. Ibid., 33. 52. Ibid., 48. 53. Ibid., 49–56. 54. Ibid., 68–69. 55. Ibid., 83–168. 56. Dennis Hart Mahan, Advanced-Guard, Out-Post, and Detached Service of Troops: With the Essential Principles of Strategy and Grand Tactics for the Use of Officers of the Militia and Volunteers (New York: Wiley, 1862). 57. Ibid., 169–266. 58. Ibid., 176–83. 59. Ibid., 189–97. 60. Kenneth P. Williams, Lincoln Finds a General: A Military Study of the Civil War, 5 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1952), vol. 3, 104–5. 61. Henry Halleck, Elements of Military Art and Science (New York: D. Appleton, 1862), 3–4. 62. Ibid., 39–40, 117, 122, 258–59. 63. Ibid., 409–46. 64. Army and Navy Journal 1, no. 1 (1863): 10–11. 65. United States Service Magazine 1, no. 1 (1864): 56–63, 76–77. 66. Part of the Grant and Lee exhibit of the New York Historical Society Museum, April 2009.

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67. Bowman to Lincoln, 6 May 1863, Superintendent’s Letter Book, 1861–65, USMASCA. 68. James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 807. 69. USWD, The War of the Rebellion: The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 70 vols., in 128 parts (Washington, DC: GPO, 1880–1901), series 1, vol. 23, part 1, 210 (hereafter cited as O.R.); O.R., series 1, vol. 28, part 1, 230. 70. O.R., series 1, vol. 1, part 1, 467; O.R., series 1, vol. 24, part 1, 63; O.R., series 1, vol. 31, part 1, 536. 71. O.R., series 1, vol. 21, part 1, 917. 72. O.R., series 3, vol., 2, part 1. 73. O.R., series 3, vol., 2, part 1, 301–4. 74. Annals of the War: Written by Leading Participants, North and South, Originally Published in the Philadelphia Weekly Times (1879; repr., Edison, NJ: Blue and Grey, 1996), 209; Robert Johnson and Clarence C. Buel, eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, 4 vols. (Secaucus, NJ: Castle, 1956), vol. 1, 595. 75. Halleck, Elements, figure 6. 76. Ibid., 59–60. 77. Mahan, Out-Post, 218–66. 78. Ibid., 251. 79. Azar Gat, A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 288. 80. Maury, Recollections, 50; Charles A. Dempsey and George Cullum Papers, USMASCA. 81. Eben Swift, “The Military Education of Robert E. Lee,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 35, no. 2 (1927): 108. 82. Thomas E. Griess, “Dennis Hart Mahan: West Point Professor and Advocate of Military Professionalism, 1830–1871” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1968), 237. 83. USMA, Catalogue of the U.S. Military Academy Library Catalogue: With a Supplement Exhibiting Its Condition at the End of September 1859 (New York: John F. Trow, 1859), iii–v. 84. USMA, Library Circulation Records, 1849–1861, USMASCA. 85. Matthew Moten, The Delafield Commission and the American Military Profession (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2000), 89–105. 86. Richard Delafield, Report of Colonel R. Delafield on the Art of War in Europe in 1854, 1855, 1856 (Washington, DC: George W. Bowman, 1861), xiii–xiv. 87. Ibid., xv–xx. 88. Ibid., 5. 89. Ibid., 18. 90. Ibid., 19. 91. Ibid., 277. 92. Alfred Mordecai, Military Commission to Europe in 1855 and 1856: Report of Major Alfred Mordecai (Washington, DC: George W. Bowman, 1860), 30, 49. 93. Ibid., 61–129. 94. Ibid., 170–76, 208–10. 95. Ibid., 176. 96. George B. McClellan, The Armies of Europe (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1861), 20–25. 276

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97. Ibid., 32–35. 98. Ibid., 59, 75. 99. Ibid., 222–37. 100. Henry Barnard, Military Schools and Courses of Instruction in the Science and Art of War, Part 1: France and Prussia (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1862); Virgil Ney, The Evolution of the United States Army Field Manual: Valley Forge to Vietnam (Fort Belvoir, VA: Combat Operations Research Group, 1966), 121. 101. American Publishers’ Circular and Gazette 56, no. 22 (1861); Auguste Lendy, Maxims, Advice, and Instructions on the Art of War (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1862). 102. Casey, Infantry Tactics, 281–87, Army and Navy Journal 1, no. 1 (1863): 20. 103. Henry L. Scott, Military Dictionary: Comprising Technical Definitions (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1861), 5–7. 104. Ibid., 86, 349, 606. 105. Daniel Butterfield, Camp and Outpost Duty for Infantry: With Standing Orders, Extracts from the Revised Regulations for the Army, Rules for Health, Maxims for Soldiers, and Duties of Officers (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1862), 42–109. 106. Ibid., 14, 15, 20. 107. Ibid., 110–11. 108. Ibid., viii, ix. 109. Francis Alfred Lord, They Fought for the Union (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1960), 44–50. 110. Édouard Dupacq, Elements of Military Art and History, trans. and ed. George Cullum (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1863); Guillaume Henri Dufour, Strategy and Tactics, trans. William Craighill (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1864). 111. Antoine Henri Jomini, Military and Political Life of the Emperor Napoleon, trans. Henry Halleck (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1864); U.S. Service Magazine 2, no. 2 (1864): 137. 112. Emil Schalk, The Campaigns of 1862 and 1863: Illustrating the Principles of Strategy (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1863), 9–11. 113. Charles N. Baxter and James M. Dearborn, eds., Confederate Literature: A List of Books and Newspapers (Boston: Boston Athenaeum, 1917). 114. Silas Casey, Infantry Tactics, vol. 3 (Columbia, SC: Evans and Cogswell, 1864). 115. Exercices et manoeuvres de l’infanterie (New Orleans: L. Marchand, 1861); François Philippe LeLouterel, Manual of Military Reconnaissances, Temporary Fortification and Partisan Warfare (Atlanta: J. McPherson, 1862); John P. Curry, Volunteers’ Camp and Field Book (Richmond, VA: West and Johnston, 1862). 116. R. Millon Cay, Skirmishers’ Drill and Bayonet Exercise (Richmond, VA: West and Johnston, 1861), 1–4. 117. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, Principles and Maxims of the Art of War, Outpost Service, General Instructions for Battle, Reviews (Charleston, SC: Evans and Cogswell, 1863), 3. 118. Ibid., 10, 27, 31. 119. Auguste Marmont, The Spirit of Military Institutions, trans. Henry Coppée (Columbia, SC: Evans and Cogswell, 1864); Auguste Marmont, Mémoires du Duc de Raguse de 1792 à 1832: Imprimés sur le manuscrit original de l’auteur, trans. Frank Schaller (Charleston, SC: Evans and Cogswell, 1859); Napoleon, The Officer’s Manual and Maxims of War, trans. George Charles D’Aguilar (Richmond, VA: West and Johnston, 1862); Thomas Robert Bugeaud, The Practice of War, trans. C. F. Pardigon (Richmond, VA: West and Johnston, 1863).

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120. James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 333–35. 121. O.R., series 1, vol. 2, 314–15. 122. James B. Fry, “McDowell’s Advance to Bull Run,” in Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders, vol. 1, 180. 123. Douglas Southall Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants: A Study in Command, 3 vols. (New York: Scribner, 1945), vol. 1, 42–49. 124. Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative, 3 vols. (New York: Vintage Books, 1958), vol. 1, 74–75. 125. Fry, “McDowell’s Advance,” 183–85. 126. O.R., series 1, vol. 2, 348–52. 127. Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants, vol. 1, 54–55. 128. O.R., series 1, vol. 2, 375. 129. P. G. T. Beauregard, “The First Battle of Bull Run,” in Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders, vol. 1, 206–7. 130. Fry, “McDowell’s Advance,” 185. 131. O.R., series 1, vol. 2, 320. 132. Ibid., 370–73. 133. Ibid, 482. 134. Beauregard, “The First Battle of Bull Run,” 213–19. 135. This argument regarding the birth of modern warfare in the Civil War has a large historiography. Some of its greatest adherents are Archer Jones, Civil War Command and Strategy: The Process of Victory and Defeat (New York: Free Press, 1992), 37–40; Edward Hagerman, The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare: Ideas, Organization, and Field Command (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988), 293–98; Jay Luvaas, The Military Legacy of the Civil War: The European Inheritance (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988). 136. Foote, The Civil War, vol. 3, 280–81. 137. Mark Grimsley, And Keep Moving On: The Virginia Campaign, May–June 1864 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002), 197. 138. Freeman’s Lee’s Lieutenants, vol. 3, 506. 139. Grimsley, And Keep Moving On, 207. 140. Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants, vol. 3, 502. 141. Foote, The Civil War, vol. 3, 289. 142. William M. F. Smith, “The Eighteenth Corps at Cold Harbor,” in Johnson and Buel, Battles and Leaders, vol. 4, 225. 143. O.R., series 1, vol. 36, 366. 144. Ibid., 410. 145. Foote, The Civil War, vol. 3, 291. 146. O.R., series 1, vol. 36, 433. 147. Smith, “The Eighteenth Corps at Cold Harbor,” 226. 148. James M. McPherson, Ordeal by Fire, vol. 2, The Civil War (New York: McGrawHill, 1993), 422–23. 149. Gordon C. Rhea, Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26–June 3, 1864 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002), 369–70, 383–84; O.R., series 1, vol. 36, 1059. 278

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Notes to Chapter 4 1. William Tecumseh Sherman, Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Written by Himself, vol. 2 (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1891), 395. 2. Albert Bernhardt Faust, The German Element in the United States, vol. 2 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1909), 24–28. 3. Henry A. Pochmann, German Culture in America: Philosophical and Literary Influences, 1600–1900 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1957), 37–40. 4. Richard L. Gawthrop, Pietism and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Prussia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 151, 215. 5. Pochmann, German Culture in America, 78–79. 6. Roland N. Stromberg, ed., European Intellectual History since 1789, 6th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994), 25–26. 7. Marvin Perry, An Intellectual History of Modern Europe (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992), 190–96. 8. Pochmann, German Culture in America, 258–76. 9. The Centennial of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York: 1802–1902, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1904), 229–35. 10. Frederick C. Luebke, Germans in the New World (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 111–12. 11. James Turner and Paul Bernard, “The German Model and the Graduate School,” in The American College in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Roger Geiger (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2000), 222. 12. René Taton, ed., The History of Science: Science in the Nineteenth Century, trans. A. J. Pomerans (New York: Basic Books, 1965), 5–6, 549–54. 13. Bruce A. Kimbal, The “True Professional Ideal” in America: A History (Cambridge, UK: Blackwell, 1992), 271. 14. Burton J. Bledstein, The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America (New York: Norton , 1976), 80. 15. Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 22–23. 16. Bledstein, The Culture of Professionalism, 84. 17. Faust, The German Element in the United States, 225–30. 18. Bledstein, The Culture of Professionalism, 86. 19. Faust, The German Element in the United States, 78–121. 20. Novick, That Noble Dream, 21–26. 21. Williamson A. Murray, “The Industrialization of War,” in The Cambridge History of Warfare, ed. Geoffrey Parker, 239–48 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 22. Peter D. Skirbunt, “Prologue to Reform: The ‘Germanization’ of the United States Army, 1865–1989” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1983), 173–80. 23. Phil Sheridan, The Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan, vol. 2 (London: Chako and Windus Piccadilly, 1888), 358–59. 24. Ibid., 447–51. 25. John Bigelow Jr., Mars-la-Tour and Gravelotte (Washington, DC: Ordinance Department, 1884); Arthur L. Wagner, The Campaign of Königgrätz: A Study of the Austro-Prussian Conflict in the Light of the American Civil War (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1972).

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26. JMSIUS, vols. 13–16 and 19. 27. James Mercur, Elements of the Art of War: Prepared for the Use of the Cadets of the United States Military Academy (New York: Wiley, 1889), 173–239. 28. USWD, Report of the Secretary of War for 1879, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1879), 181. 29. Edward Bruce Hamley, The Operations of War Explained and Illustrated, 4th ed. (London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1878). 30. Sheridan, Memoirs, 451–52. 31. Ibid., 371–72. 32. Wagner, The Campaign of Königgrätz, 118–19. 33. Alfred von Schlieffen, Cannae, trans. Stuart Heintzelman (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Command and General Staff School Press, 1931), 57–60. 34. Gunther E. Rothenberg, The Art of War in the Age of Napoleon (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), 190–96. 35. Robert M. Citino, The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years’ War to the Third Reich (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005), 119–31. 36. USA, Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army: Adopted Oct. 3, 1891 (New York: Army and Navy Journal, 1898), 324. 37. Carol Reardon, Soldiers and Scholars: The U.S. Army and the Uses of Military History, 1865–1920 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1990), 42–45. 38. Charles A. L. Totten, “Strategos: An American Game of War,” JMSIUS 1 (1880): 185–202. 39. J. Franklin Bell, Annual Report of the Commandant, General Service and Staff College for the School Year Ending August 31, 1904 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Staff College Press, 1904), 25–26. 40. Emory Upton, The Prussian Company Column (New York: International Review, 1875), 14–15. 41. Emory Upton, The Armies of Europe and Asia: Embracing Official Reports on the Armies of Japan, China, India, Persia, Italy, Russia, Austria, Germany, France, and England (London: Griffen, 1878), viii. 42. Ibid., 270–71. 43. Ibid., 303. 44. Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative, 3 vols. (New York: Vintage Books, 1958), vol. 3, 207–10. 45. Special Order 300, 11 June 1867, in Emory Upton, A New System of Infantry Tactics, Double and Single Rank: Adapted to American Topography and Improved Fire-Arms (New York: D. Appleton, 1867). 46. William Hardee, Rifle and Infantry Tactics: For the Exercise and Manoeuvres of Troops When Acting as Light Infantry or Riflemen, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo, 1855), 68; Upton, A New System of Infantry Tactics, 48. 47. Upton, A New System of Infantry Tactics, iii. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid., 59. 50. Ibid., 143, 235. 51. Ibid., 118–122. 52. Ibid., 211. 280

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53. Perry D. Jamieson, Crossing the Deadly Ground: United States Army Tactics, 1865–1899 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1994), 11–12. 54. Emory Upton, Infantry Tactics, Double and Single Rank (New York: D. Appleton, 1875), vii. 55. Ibid., 105–16. 56. Ibid., 54–67. 57. Ibid., 68–72. 58. Jamieson, Crossing the Deadly Ground, 99. 59. USA, Infantry Drill Regulations (New York: Army and Navy Journal, 1891), 3–9. 60. Ibid., 20–21. 61. Ibid., 14–19. 62. Ibid., 186–87. 63. Ibid., 187–94. 64. Ibid., 207. 65. Ibid., 208–10. 66. Ibid., 212–13. 67. Guido Norman Lieber, Remarks on the Army Regulations and Executive Regulations in General (Washington, DC: GPO, 1898), 67–77. 68. USA, Regulations for the Army of the United States (Washington, DC: GPO, 1889), vii–viii. 69. USA, Troops in Campaign: Regulations for the Army of the United States (Washington, DC: GPO, 1892), 3–18. 70. Ibid., 25–54. 71. Ibid., 53–54. 72. Novick, That Noble Dream, 48. 73. Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of CivilMilitary Relations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957), 7–17. 74. Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (New York: Free Press, 1960), 5–13. 75. USMA, Report of the Board of Visitors to the United States Military Academy for the Year 1898 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1898), 10–11. 76. USMA, Annual Report of the Board of Visitors of the United States Military Academy Made to the Secretary of War for the Year 1871 (Washington, DC: GPO,1871), 10. 77. USMA, Official Register of the Officers and Cadets of the U.S. Military Academy (West Point, NY: USMA, 1870), 26. 78. George W. Cullum, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy, vol. 2, (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1868), 610–11. 79. USMA, Official Register of the Officers and Cadets of the United States Military Academy (West Point, NY: USMA, 1873), 28. 80. Guillaume Henri Dufour, Strategy and Tactics, trans. William Craighill (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1864), 7–11. 81. Ibid., 173–78. 82. Ibid., 184–204. 83. Ibid., 14, 30, 43, 48, 52, 59, 72, 84. The Centennial of the United States Military Academy, 456–62. 85. Junius Brutus Wheeler, A Course of Instruction in the Elements of the Art and Science of War (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1878), v.

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86. Ibid., vi. 87. Ibid., 5–6, 325. 88. Ibid., 7–8. 89. Ibid., 44–53. 90. Ibid., 124–28. 91. Ibid., 62–63. 92. Ibid., 317–25. 93. USMA, The Official Register of the Officers and Cadets of the United States Military Academy (West Point, NY: USMA, 1889), 31. 94. James Mercur, Elements of the Art of War: Prepared for the Use of the Cadets of the United States Military Academy (New York: Wiley, 1889), 4–6, 9–12. 95. Ibid., 16. 96. Ibid., 140–42. 97. Ibid., 20. 98. Ibid., 20–28. 99. Ibid., 270. 100. Ibid., 172–238. 101. William B. Skelton, An American Profession of Arms: The Army Officer Corps, 1784–1861 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992), 250–53. 102. Harry P. Ball, Of Responsible Command (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Alumni Association of the United States Army War College, 1994), 21. 103. Emory Upton, The Armies of Europe and Asia: Embracing Official Reports on the Armies of Japan, China, India, Persia, Italy, Russia, Austria, Germany, France, and England (London: Griffen, 1878). 104. Ibid., 213–17. 105. USWD, Report of the Secretary of War for 1879, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1879), 177–82. 106. USWD, Report of the Secretary of War for 1886, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1886), 196–97. 107. Hamley, The Operations of War, v. 108. Ibid., 44. 109. Ibid., 353. 110. Ibid., 372. 111. Ibid., 357–59, 425. 112. Mercur, Elements of the Art of War, ii; Wheeler, Elements of the Art and Science of War, 36. 113. Hamley, The Operations of War, 356–57. 114. Timothy K. Nenninger, The Leavenworth Schools and the Old Army: Education, Professionalism, and the Officer Corps of the United States Army, 1881–1918 (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1978), 22. 115. Arthur L. Wagner, “An American War College,” JMSIUS 10, no. 39 (1889): 290. 116. USWD, Report of the Secretary of War for 1891, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1892), 72–74. 117. Ball, Of Responsible Command 31; Reardon, Soldiers and Scholars, 51–53. 118. Reardon, Soldiers and Scholars, 42–45. 119. Eben Swift, “The Lyceum at Fort Agawam,” JMSIUS 20, no. 86 (1897): 239. 282

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120. Arthur Wagner, “Report of the Instructor, Department of Military Art,” in The Annual Report of the U.S. Infantry and Cavalry School (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Infantry and Cavalry School, 1894), 18–26. 121. Nenninger, The Leavenworth Schools, 46. 122. John M. Schofield, Forty-Six Years in the Army (New York: Century, 1897), 181–83. 123. Edward M Coffman, The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 1784–1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 276. 124. USWD, Report of the Secretary of War for 1891, 46. 125. Donald Nevius Bigelow, William Conant Church and the Army and Navy Journal (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952), 121. 126. John T. French, Interpretations of Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army (New York: W. P. Church, 1893). 127. James B. Fry, “The Origins and Progress of the Military Service Institution of the United States,” JMSIUS 1 (1880): 20–22. 128. William Wallace, “The Army and the Civil Power,” JMSIUS 17, no. 76 (1895): 235. 129. T. Miller Maque, “Our Art of War as ‘Made in Germany,’” JMSIUS 19, no. 82 (1896): 151. 130. J. J. O’Connell, “Battle of Waterloo (From a German Standpoint),” JMSIUS 8, no. 30 (1887): 197–209; Herbert H. Sargent, “A Strategical Study,” JMSIUS 21, no. 88 (1897): 27–61; Frederick Louis Huidekoper, “Jena–Mars La Tour–Vionville,” JMSIUS 24, no. 94 (1899): 341–74. 131. L. V. Kennon, “Considerations Regarding the ‘Battle Tactics’ of Infantry,” JMSIUS 7, no. 25 (1886): 2–4. 132. Henry M. Lazelle, “Improvements in the Art of War during the Past 20 Years and Their Probable Effect on Future Military Operations,” JMSIUS 2, no. 8 (1882): 361–67. 133. Charles W. Hobbs, “Suggestions on the Subject of Infantry Organization and Tactics,” JMSIUS 6, no. 13 (1885): 254–57. 134. Graham A. Cosmas, An Army for Empire: The United States Army in the SpanishAmerican War (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1971), 76–79. 135. Ibid., 67. 136. Daniel R. Beaver, Modernizing the American War Department: Change and Continuity in a Turbulent Era, 1885–1920 (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2006), 26–30. 137. Allen R. Millet and Peter Maslowski, For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America (New York: Free Press, 1994), 288–90. 138. Victor M. Concas Palau, “The Squadron of Admiral Cervera,” in U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence, Notes on the Spanish-American War (Washington, DC: GPO, 1900), 50. 139. Arthur l. Wagner, The Report of the Santiago Campaign (Kansas City: Franklin Hudson, 1908), 21–35. 140. Herbert H. Sargent, The Campaign of Santiago de Cuba, 2 vols. (Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1907), vol. 1, 122–25. 141. Wagner, The Report of the Santiago Campaign, 29–30. 142. John D. Miley, In Cuba with Shafter (New York: Scribner, 1899), 27. 143. Wagner, The Report of the Santiago Campaign, 45. 144. Miley, In Cuba with Shafter, 56. 145. José Müller y Tejeiro, “Battles and Capitulation of Santiago de Cuba,” in U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence, Notes on the Spanish-American War, 69–73.

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146. Ibid., 85. 147. Joseph Wheeler, The Santiago Campaign, 1898 (Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1970), 18–19. 148. Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders (New York: Scribner, 1907), 87–98. 149. A. B. Feuer, The Santiago Campaign of 1898: A Soldier’s View of the Spanish-American War (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993), 27–30. 150. Wagner, The Report of the Santiago Campaign, 56. 151. Miley, In Cuba with Shafter, 102–3. 152. Wagner, The Report of the Santiago Campaign, 69. 153. Sargent, The Campaign of Santiago de Cuba, vol. 2, 103. 154. James A. Moss, Memoirs of the Campaign of Santiago (San Francisco: Mysell-Rollins, 1899), 33–35. 155. Miley, In Cuba with Shafter, 111–12. 156. George Kennan, Campaigning in Cuba (New York: Century, 1899), 119–20. 157. Moss, Memoirs of the Campaign of Santiago, 37. 158. Sargent, The Campaign of Santiago de Cuba, vol. 2, 110–11. 159. Miley, In Cuba with Shafter, 107. 160. Roosevelt, The Rough Riders, 129–30. 161. Wagner, The Report of the Santiago Campaign, 84–85. 162. Kent to Assistant Adjutant Fifth Army Corps, 7 July 1898, Report of the Secretary of War, Miscellaneous Reports, 53rd Cong., 3rd sess., 1898, H. Doc. 2, 76–77. 163. Charles Johnson Post, The Little War of Private Post: The Spanish-American War Seen Up Close (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), 168. 164. John Bigelow Jr., Reminiscences of the Santiago Campaign (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1899), 102–6. 165. Post, The Little War of Private Post, 183–85. 166. Wagner, The Report of the Santiago Campaign, 77, 83–88. 167. William Shafter, The Report of Major-General Shafter, Commanding the Troops in Cuba, 53rd Cong., 3rd sess., 1898, H. Doc. 2, 65. 168. Wagner, The Report of the Santiago Campaign, 125; Bigelow, Reminiscences of the Santiago Campaign.

Notes to Chapter 5 1. C-in-C Report, File: Fldr, 246: Report, Divisional Training, in TUSAWW, vol. 14 (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1991), 316. 2. Elizabeth V. Burt, The Progressive Era: Primary Documents on Events from 1890 to 1914 (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2004), 3. 3. Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967), 166. 4. David W. Noble, The Progressive Mind, 1890–1917 (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1970), 42–65. 5. Benjamin Parke de Witt, The Progressive Movement: A Non-partisan, Comprehensive Discussion of Current Tendencies in American Politics (New York: Macmillan, 1915), 7. 6. Thorstein Veblen, Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution (New York: Macmillan, 1915), 232. 7. De Witt, The Progressive Movement, 24. 284

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8. Carol Reardon, Soldiers and Scholars: The U.S. Army and the Uses of Military History, 1865–1920 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1990), 10. 9. Lewis L. Gould, America in the Progressive Era, 1890–1914 (Essex, UK: Pearson, 2001), 41. 10. Richard O. Curry, John G. Sproat, and Kenyon C. Cramer, The Shaping of American Civilization since 1865 (Minneapolis: Western, 1972), 183–200. 11. James E. Hewes Jr., From Root to McNamara: Army Organization and Administrations (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1975), 3. 12. Grenville M. Dodge, Report of the Commission Appointed by the President to Investigate the Conduct of the War Department in the War with Spain (Washington, DC: GPO, 1899). 13. Philip C. Jessup, Elihu Root, vol. 1 (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1938), 183–87. 14. Ibid., 215–20. 15. Ibid., 241–45. 16. Richard W. Leopold, Elihu Root and the Conservative Tradition (Boston: Little, Brown, 1954), 38–39. 17. Trevor N, Dupuy, A Genius for War (London: Macdonald and James, 1977), 24–26. 18. Walter Goerlitz, History of the German General Staff, 1657–1945, trans. Brian Battershaw (New York: Praeger, 1953), 58–68. 19. Emory Upton, The Armies of Europe and Asia: Embracing Official Reports on the Armies of Japan, China, India, Persia, Italy, Russia, Austria, Germany, France, and England (London: Griffen, 1878), 219–21. 20. Theodore Schwan, Report on the Organization of the German Army (Washington, DC: GPO, 1894), 49, 63–65. 21. Emory Upton, The Military Policy of the United States (Washington, DC: GPO, 1904), iii–v. 22. Spenser Wilkinson, The Brain of an Army: A Popular Account of the German General Staff (Westminster, UK: Archibald Constable, 1895), 39–40. 23. Elihu Root, Establishment of a General Staff Corps in the Army (Washington, DC: GPO, 1902), 3–5. 24. Elihu Root, “Report of the Secretary of War, “ in Annual Reports of the War Department for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1903, vol. 3 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1903), 3. 25. Otto L. Nelson, National Security and the General Staff (Washington, DC: Infantry Journal Press, 1946), 66–68. 26. Ibid., 134–35. 27. Frederik L. Knudsen, trans., “The War of the Future,” JMSIUS 26, no. 105 (1900): 385. 28. William R. Livermore, “Field and Siege Operations in the Far East,” JMSIUS 38, no. 139 (1906): 109–17. 29. James Regan, “Introductory Remarks upon the New Tactics,” JMSIUS 35, no. 131 (1904): 193–97. 30. John M. Adams, “The Importance of the Bayonet,” JMSIUS 44, no. 157 (1909): 257–59. 31. Von Lindendenau, “What Lessons Can We Draw from the Boer War for Our Infantry Attack,” trans. Carl Reichmann, JMSIUS 32, no. 122 (1903): 431. 32. “Von Löbell’s Annual Reports on the Changes in Military Matters in 1903,” JMSIUS 36, no. 133 (1905): 149.

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33. William Balck, “Von Löbell’s Annual Reports on the Changes in Military Matters in 1907,” JMSIUS 44, no. 157 (1909): 472. 34. USWD, Office of the Chief of Staff, Reports of Military Observers Attached to the Armies in Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese War, 5 vols. (Washington, DC: GPO, 1906), vol. 1., 95–99. 35. Ibid., vol. 5, 53–56. 36. Ibid., vol. 5, 102–4, 124–43. 37. Ibid., vol. 1, 43, 53, 91; vol. 5, 98. 38. Timothy K. Nenninger, The Leavenworth Schools and the Old Army: Education, Professionalism, and the Officer Corps of the United States Army, 1881–1918 (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1978), 63. 39. J. Franklin Bell, Annual Report of the Commandant, General Service and Staff College, for the School Year Ending August 31, 1904 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Staff College Press, 1904), 3–6, 21–37. 40. Eben Swift, “An American Pioneer in the Cause of Military Education,” JMSIUS 44, no. 157 (1909): 70–72. 41. Arthur L. Wagner, Organization and Tactics (Kansas City, MO: Hudson-Kimberly, 1894), ix–xii. 42. Arthur L. Wagner, The Service of Security and Information (Kansas City, MO: Hudson-Kimberly, 1893), 10–12. 43. Ibid., 7–9; Wagner, Organization and Tactics, ix–xii. 44. Wagner, Organization and Tactics, viii. 45. Ibid., 1–2. 46. Ibid., 50. 47. Ibid., 114–41. 48. Ibid., 54. 49. Ibid., 177. 50. The Army Service Schools (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Press of the Army Service Schools, 1916), 4. 51. German Army, The Field Service Regulations, 1900, trans. H. S. Brownrigg (London: Harrison and Sons, 1900), 158–200. 52. Arthur L. Wagner, Report of Colonel Arthur L Wagner, Chief Umpire, Maneuver Division, Camp Root, Fort Riley, Kansas (Kansas City, MO: Hudson-Kimberly, 1902), 76. 53. The Army Service Schools, 9–10. 54. Bell, Annual Report of the Commandant, 1904, 24–28. 55. George Catlett Marshall to Bernard Lentz, 2 October 1935, in George C. Marshall, The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vol. 1, ed. Larry I. Bland (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), 45–46. 56. Oliver L. Spaulding, The United States Army in War and Peace (New York: Putnam, 1937), 397–98. 57. Charles B. Hall, Annual Report of the Commandant, U.S. Infantry and Cavalry School, U.S. Signal School, and Army Staff College, for the Year 1907 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Staff College Press, 1907), 35–42. 58. Frederick Funston, Annual Report, 1910: The Army Service Schools (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Staff College Press, 1910), 19–20.

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59. John Morrison, Studies in Minor Tactics (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Army Service Schools Press, 1909), iii–v. 60. Ibid., 132–38. 61. Ibid., 148–53. 62. Otto F. Griepenkerl, Letters on Applied Tactics: Problems Dealing with the Operations of Detachments of the Three Arms, trans. C. H. Barth (Kansas City, MO: Hudson, 1906), ix. 63. Ibid., xi–xiv. 64. Ibid., 179–82. 65. Ibid., 182–85, 235. 66. Ibid., 227. 67. Albert Buddecke, Tactical Decisions and Orders: A Study in Troop-Leading (Based on the Operations of an Independent Division) for Individual Instruction, trans. Arthur Conger (Kansas City, MO: Hudson, 1908), 11. 68. Ibid., 134–46. 69. Ibid., 170 70. Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 22–26. 71. Schwan, Report on the Organization of the German Army, 64–65. 72. Frederick Funston, Annual Report of the Commandant of the Army Service Schools for the School Year Ending August 31, 1909 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Army Service Schools Press, 1909), 55–60. 73. Reardon, Soldiers and Scholars, 69–72. 74. Nelson, National Security, 46–47. 75. Tasker H. Bliss, “Report of Brigadier General Tasker H. Bliss, U.S. Army, President of the Army War College,” in Annual Reports of the War Department for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1903, vol. 4 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1903), 95–98. 76. Harry P. Ball, Of Responsible Command (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Alumni Association of the United States Army War College, 1994), 91–96. 77. Ibid., 100. 78. Ibid., 113, 137. 79. USMA, Annual Report of the Board of Visitors to the United States Military Academy for the Year 1899 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1899), 7. 80. Charles G. Treat, “Report of the Commandant of Cadets,” in Annual Reports of the War Department for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1903, vol. 4 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1903), 49–52. 81. Clarence Page Townsley, Annual Report of the Superintendent, United States Military Academy, 1914 (West Point, NY: USMA, 1914), 16–21. 82. USMA, Annual Report of the Board of Visitors to the United States Military Academy for the Year 1899 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1903), 19–21. 83. George W. Cullum, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy, 3rd ed., vol. 3 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1891), 310. 84. USMA, Official Register of the Officers and Cadets of the United States Military Academy (West Point, NY: USMA Press, 1899), 32. 85. USMA, Official Register of the Officers and Cadets of the United States Military Academy (West Point, NY: USMA Press, 1906), 60–61.

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86. Gustav Joseph Fiebeger, Campaigns and Battles (West Point, NY: USMA Press, 1900). 87. Gustav Joseph Fiebeger, The Campaign and Battle of Gettysburg (West Point, NY: USMA Press, 1900). 88. A. L. Mills, “Report of Col. A. L. Mills, U.S. Army, Superintendent, USMA,” in Annual Reports of the War Department for the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 1903, vol. 4 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1903), 37. 89. Gustav Joseph Fiebeger, Elements of Strategy (West Point, NY: USMA Press, 1900), 1–6. 90. Ibid., 102–5. 91. Fiebeger, Campaigns and Battles, 71–75. 92. Gustav Fiebeger, The Campaigns of Napoleon Bonaparte of 1796–97 (West Point, NY: USMA Press, 1906), 72–80. 93. Arthur L. Wagner, Eben Swift, J. T. Dickman, and A. L. Mills, Strategical Operations Illustrated by Great Campaigns in Europe and America (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Infantry and Cavalry School Press, 1897), i. 94. Ibid., 31, 66, 74. 95. Bell, Annual Report of the Commandant, 1904, 27; Funston, Annual Report of the Commandant, 1909, 56. 96. Matthew F. Steele, American Campaigns, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: Byron Sadams, 1909), 183. 97. Ibid., 550. 98. Huidekoper collected these articles into a single volume: Frederick Louis Huidekoper, Military Studies (Kansas City, MO: Hudson-Kimberly, 1904). 99. Arthur L. Conger, “Lessons of Marengo,” Military Historian and Economist 1, no. 2 (1916): 222–23. 100. USA, Infantry Drill Regulations, 1904 (New York: D Appleton, 1904), 3. 101. Ibid., 61, 84. 102. Ibid., 21–25. 103. Ibid., 67–72. 104. Ibid., 88–90. 105. Ibid., 117–19. 106. Ibid., 120–25. 107. USA, Infantry Drill Regulations, 1911 (New York: Ridabock, 1911), 9. 108. Ibid., 26–37. 109. Ibid., 79–81. 110. Ibid., 91. 111. Ibid., 100–101. 112. Ibid., 111–18. 113. USA, Infantry Drill Regulations, 1911, Corrected to November, 1913 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1914), 219. 114. USA, Infantry Drill Regulations, 1911, Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1917). 115. USA, Infantry Drill Regulations, 1911, Corrected to May 16, 1918 (New York: Sherwood, 1918). 116. Ibid., 235. 288

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117. USWD, Field Service Regulations, 1905 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1905), 3. 118. German Army, The Field Service Regulations, 1900, 158–200. 119. USWD, Field Service Regulations, 1905, 12–13, 39–70. 120. Ibid., 15, 27–36. 121. Eben Swift, Field Orders, Messages and Reports (Washington, DC: GPO, 1906), 15–17. 122. USWD, Field Service Regulations, 1905, 101. 123. Ibid., 102–5. 124. Ibid., 110–14. 125. Jason Patrick Clark, “The Many Faces of Reform: Military Progressivism in the U.S. Army, 1866–1916” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 2009), 298–350. 126. USWD, Field Service Regulations, 1910 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1910), 157–58. 127. Ibid., 162–65. 128. Ibid., 174–77. 129. USWD, Field Service Regulations, 1913 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1913), 54–55. 130. Ibid., 203–34. 131. USWD, Field Service Regulations, 1914 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1914), 10–11. 132. Ibid., 67–68. 133. Frederick Palmer, Our Greatest Battle (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1919), 42. 134. Ibid., 81–82. 135. Robert Lee Bullard, Personalities and Reminiscences of the War (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1925), 59–72. 136. C-in-C Report, File: Fldr, 220: Report, Army Candidates School, 15 February 1919, in TUSAWW, vol. 14, 339–42. 137. C-in-C Report, File: Fldr, 219: Report, Army School of the Line, 17 November 1918, in TUSAWW, vol. 14, 335–39. 138. C-in-C Report, File: Fldr, 218: Report, Army General Staff School, 12 June 1919, in TUSAWW, vol. 14, 333–35. 139. C-in-C Report, File: Fldr, 215: Final Report of the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-5, 30 June 1919, in TUSAWW, vol. 14, 303–4. 140. John J. Pershing, My Experiences in the World War, 2 vols.(New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1931), vol. 2, 152–53. 141. General Headquarters, AEF, Combat Instructions (A. G. Printing Department, 1918), 3–4. 142. Mark Ethan Grotelueschen, The AEF Way of War: The American Army and Combat in World War I (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 81–84. 143. Ibid., 211. 144. Douglas V. Johnson II and Rolfe L. Hillman Jr., Soissons 1918 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999), 68–70. 145. Pershing, My Experiences, vol. 2291–94. 146. C-in-C Report, File: Fldr, 88: Final Report of the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-5, 30 June 1919, in TUSAWW, vol. 14, 41. 147. Paul F. Braim, The Test of Battle: The American Expeditionary Forces in the MeuseArgonne Campaign (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1987), 105–7. 148. Palmer, Our Greatest Battle, 90–92. 149. Charles M. DePuy, A Machine Gunner’s Notes: France 1918 (Pittsburgh: Reed and Witting, 1920), 80–82.

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150. Edward G. Lengel, To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918 (New York: Holt, 2008), 105. 151. Grotelueschen, The AEF Way of War, 312–14. 152. Palmer, Our Greatest Battle, 115. 153. Robert H. Farrell, Collapse at Meuse-Argonne: The Failure of the Missouri-Kansas Division (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2004), 42–43. 154. Final Report of the G-3, July 2, 1919, TUSAWW, vol. 14, 43–44. 155. Theodore Calvin Pease, ed., Illinois in the World War: An Illustrated History of the Thirty-Third Division, vol. 1 (Chicago: States Publications Society, 1921), 240–42. 156. Ibid., 324–25. 157. Lengel, To Conquer Hell, 95–96. 158. Bullard, Personalities, 274. 159. Palmer, Our Greatest Battle, 268. 160. Society of the First Division, The History of the First Division during the World War, 1917–1919 (Philadelphia: John C. Winston, 1922), 187–90. 161. Grotelueschen, The AEF Way of War, 136–40. 162. Palmer, Our Greatest Battle, 328–36. 163. AWC Lib: Report, Final Report of General John J. Pershing, 1 September 1919, in TUSAWW, vol. 12, 22. 164. Robert A. Doughty, The Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France, 1940 (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1990), 27–30. 165. Timothy T. Lupfer, The Dynamics of Doctrine: The Changes in German Tactical Doctrine during the First World War (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 1981), 41–46. 166. Grotelueschen, The AEF Way of War, 347.

Notes to Chapter 6 1. George Catlett Marshall, speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, 19 June 1940, in George C. Marshall, The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, 5 vols., ed. Larry I. Bland (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), vol. 2, 247–49. 2. Mark Ethan Grotelueschen, The AEF Way of War: The American Army and Combat in World War I (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 53–55. 3. Kenneth Finlayson, An Uncertain Trumpet: The Evolution of U.S. Army Infantry Doctrine, 1919–1941 (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2001), 41. 4. USWD, General Order No. 55, 1920. 5. USA, Infantry Drill Regulations (Provisional) 1919 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1919), 3. 6. Ibid., 11. 7. Ibid., 66. 8. Ibid., 45–47. 9. Ibid., 86. 10. Ibid., 93. 11. Ibid., 96. 12. Ibid., 98–108. 13. Ibid., 110–14, 158. 14. John B. Wilson, Maneuver and Firepower: The Evolution of Divisions and Separate Brigades (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1998), 84–90. 290

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15. George Marshall to James McAndrew, 9 July 1920, in Marshall, The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vol. 1, 195–97. 16. USA, Infantry Drill, the Headquarters Companies, Infantry Battalion, Regiment, and Brigade, Training Regulation no. 420-65 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1925). 17. Virgil Ney, The Evolution of the United States Army Field Manual: Valley Forge to Vietnam (Fort Belvoir, VA: Combat Operations Research Group, 1986), 72–74. 18. Charles Pelot Summerall, The Way of Duty, Honor, Country: The Memoir of General Charles Pelot Summerall, ed. Timothy K. Nenninger (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2010), 206. 19. Wilson, Maneuver and Firepower, 122–24. 20. USA, Tentative Infantry Drill Regulations, 1932 (For Service Test Only) (Washington, DC: GPO, 1932), ii. 21. Ibid., 60–61. 22. Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Education of a General, 1880–1939 (New York: Viking, 1963), 268. 23. Finlayson, An Uncertain Trumpet, 125. 24. USA, Basic Field Manual, FM 22-5: Infantry Drill Regulations (Washington, DC: GPO, 1939), 2. 25. Ibid., iii. 26. Ibid., 163. 27. H. E. Ely, Annual Report of the Commandant of the General Staff Schools (Fort Leavenworth, KS: GSS Press, 1922), 7–8. 28. William Odom, After the Trenches: The Transformation of U.S. Army Doctrine, 1918–1939 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999), 28–35. 29. USA, Field Service Regulations, 1923 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1923), v–vii. 30. Ibid., 11. 31. Ibid., 11–14. 32. Ibid., 77–80. 33. USWD, Field Service Regulations, 1914 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1914), 86. 34. USA, Field Service Regulations, 1923, 84. 35. Odom, After the Trenches, 118–22. 36. USA, Manual for Commanders of Large Units (Provisional) (Washington, DC: GPO, 1930), iv. 37. Ibid., 10. 38. Ibid., 16. 39. GSS produced a translation of this manual in 1924. GSS, Provisional Instructions for the Tactical Employment of Large Units (Leavenworth, KS: GSS Press, 1924). 40. Summerall, The Way of Duty, Honor, Country, 205–6. 41. Wilson, Maneuver and Firepower, 126–28. 42. Kent Roberts Greenfield, Robert R. Palmer, and Bell I. Wiley, The Organization of Ground Combat Troops (Washington, DC: Historical Division, USA, 1947), 271–74. 43. Heer Oberkommando, Germany, Truppenführung, trans. CGSS (Fort Leavenworth, KS: CGSS, 1936), 5–6, 57–62. 44. Ibid., 3, 61–66. 45. Ibid., 62–68. 46. Marshall, The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vol. 1, 482–84.

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47. Albert Wedemeyer, G-2 Report 6740: The German General Staff School, Military Intelligence Division, Office of the Chief of Staff, USA, 1938, 140–43. 48. Odom, After the Trenches, 181–86. 49. Heinz Guderian, “Armored Forces, Part 1,” Infantry Journal 44, no. 5 (1937): 418–19; Heinz Guderian, “Armored Forces, Part 2,” Infantry Journal 44, no. 6 (1937): 524. 50. George Lynch, “Some Reflections on Infantry Material and Tactics,” Infantry Journal 45, no. 4 (1938): 291–94. 51. George Lynch, “Current Infantry Developments,” Infantry Journal 45, no. 1 (1938): 5. 52. Ibid., 6–7. 53. Lynch, “Some Reflections on Infantry Material and Tactics,” 296–99. 54. Wilson, Maneuver and Firepower, 131–32. 55. George Marshall to Walton Walker, 21 December 1937, in Marshall, The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vol. 1, 572–73. 56. Harry C. Ingles, “The New Division,” Infantry Journal 46, no. 6 (1939): 521–25. 57. From the Chief ’s Office, “The New Infantry Regiment,” Infantry Journal 45, no. 6 (1938): 558–59. 58. George A. Lynch, “The Tactics of the New Infantry Regiment,” Infantry Journal 46, no. 2 (1939): 101–2. 59. Ibid., 103–4. 60. Odom, After the Trenches, 125–27. 61. Finlayson, An Uncertain Trumpet, 125–30. 62. USA, FM 100-5: Tentative Field Service Regulations, Operations (Washington, DC: GPO, 1939), 3–4. 63. Ibid., 5–6. 64. Ibid., 28. 65. Ibid., 128–37, 170. 66. Ibid., 141–59. 67. Infantry School Study, “The History of the Infantry School,” Infantry School Mailing List 21 (1941): 277. 68. Larry Bland, editor’s note in Marshall, The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vol. 1, 319–20. 69. Leroy W. Yarborough and Truman Smith, A History of the Infantry School, Fort Benning, Georgia (Columbus, GA: Infantry School, 1931), 185. 70. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Education of a General, 248–51. 71. Yarborough and Smith, A History of the Infantry School, 258–61. 72. Ed Cray, General of the Army George C. Marshall: Soldier and Statesman (New York: Norton, 1990), 106. 73. Title page of the Infantry School Mailing List 11 (1936): i. 74. Infantry School Study, “The New Infantry Regiment,” Infantry School Mailing List 11 (1936): 1. 75. Infantry School Study, “Lines and Formations,” Infantry School Mailing List 11 (1936): 171. 76. Infantry School Study, “Small Infantry Problems,” Infantry School Mailing List 18 (1939): 277; Infantry School Study, “The Infantry Battalion in the Attack,” Infantry School Mailing List 22 (1941): 81. 77. Edwin Harding, Infantry in Battle (Washington, DC: Infantry Journal, 1934), v–x. 78. Ibid., 34. 292

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79. Ibid., 93. 80. Ibid., 278. 81. Ibid., 290–306. 82. Ibid., 356–58. 83. Charles T. Lanham, Infantry in Battle (Washington, DC: Infantry Journal, 1939), 55. 84. Ibid., 223–38. 85. Ibid., 239. 86. John F. Landis to George Marshall, 18 May 1937, in Marshall, The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vol. 1, 537. 87. USMA, The Official Register of the Officers and Cadets of the United States Military Academy, 1918–1922, USMASCA. 88. Gustav Joseph Fiebeger, The World War: A Short Account of the Principal Land Operations on the Belgian, French, Russian, Italian, Greek, and Turkish Fronts (West Point, NY: USMA Press, 1921). 89. Ibid., 198–99. 90. Proceedings of the Academic Board, 1922, USMASCA, 169. 91. Proceedings of the Academic Board, 1925, USMASCA, 49. 92. GSS, Command, Staff, and Tactics (Fort Leavenworth, KS: GSS Press, 1923). 93. Ibid., 31–35. 94. Unsigned memorandum on the Course in Civil and Military Engineering for the academic year 1927–28, National Archives, Group 404, Series 70, 5A, Box 1. 95. William D. Connor, Annual Report of the Superintendent, United States Military Academy, 1933 (West Point, NY: USMA, 1933), 3. 96. Professor of Military Art and Engineering to the Superintendent, 24 January 1940, National Archives, Group 404, Series 70, 5A, Box 3. 97. Documents 146, 158, 162, National Archives, Group 404, Series 70, 5A, Box 1. 98. Stamps to Military History Instructors, 11 December 1940, National Archives, Group 404, Series 70, 5A, Box 3. 99. Instructors notes for Lesson 2 entitled “Notes on Combat Maneuvers,” National Archives, Group 404, Series 70, 5A, Box 2. 100. Peter J. Schifferle, America’s School for War: Fort Leavenworth, Officer Education, and Victory in World War II (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2010), 104–10. 101. GSS, Tactical Problems and Decisions (Fort Leavenworth, KS: GSS Press, 1920), 4–8. 102. CGSS, Problems: The First Year Course (Fort Leavenworth, KS: CGSS Press, 1931), MH 35. 103. GSS, Problems (Fort Leavenworth, KS: GSS Press, 1926). 104. Ibid., TT 24, TE 3-1. 105. CGSS, Problems: The First Year Course, TT 25. 106. CGSS, Problems: The CGSS 2nd Year Course (Fort Leavenworth, KS: CGSS Press, 1934), TT-238. 107. Charles M. Bundel, Command and General Staff School Annual Report, 1937–38 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: CGSS, 1938), 9. 108. Ibid., 17. 109. Ibid., 14. 110. Memorandum from Lieutenant Colonel R. Townsend Heard to the editor of Military Review (previously the RML) inside the front cover, 3 February 1940, Military Review 20, no. 76 (1940).

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111. CGSS, “Digest of Selected Articles,” Instructor’s Summary of Military Articles 2, no. 9 (1923): i. 112. CGSS, “Original Military Studies: Contributions by Graduates of CGSS,” RML 13, no. 51 (1933): 78. 113. Major E. S. Johnston, “The Evolution of Infantry Tactics, 1914–1918,” RML 14, no. 55 (1934): 5; Major M. S. Eddy, “A Critical Analysis of the Operations of the German Forces Opposed to the American 1st Division from 1–11 October 1918,” RML 15, no. 58 (1935): 5; Captain J. T. Watson, “A Critical Analysis of Night Attacks by British Troops in the World War,” RML 14, no. 54 (1934): 5. 114. Major E. S. Johnston, “A Science of War,” RML 13, no. 53 (1934): 89; Major E. S. Johnston, ”Field Service Regulations of the Future,” RML 15, no. 58 (1936): 5. 115. CGSS, “The Mechanized Cavalry Brigade,” RML 14, no. 54 (1934): 139; CGSS, “The Tactical Forms of the Attack,” RML 14, no. 55 (1934): 161. 116. USMA, Information Relative to the Appointment and Admission of Cadets to the United States Military Academy (Washington, DC: GPO, 1939), 18. 117. Military Art Course files, 1928–38, National Archives, Group 404, Series 70, 5A, Box 1. 118. William K. Naylor, Principles of Strategy with Historical Illustrations (Fort Leavenworth, KS: GSS Press, 1921). 119. Ibid., iii–iv, 76–77. 120. Hanson Edward Ely, The Annual Report of Brigadier General H. E. Ely Commandant, the General Staff Schools, 1921 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: GSS Press, 1922), 23–25. 121. Conrad Lanza, ed., The Jena Campaign Source Book (Fort Leavenworth, KS: GSS Press, 1922); Conrad Lanza, ed., The Marengo Campaign Source Book (Fort Leavenworth, KS: GSS Press, 1922). 122. Charles Lanham, “Review of J. M. Thompson’s Napoleon Self-Revealed,” RML 15, no. 56 (1935): 172–73; “Library Bulletin,” RML 15, no. 59 (1935): 241. 123. “Reading Course for Officers,” RML 18, no. 69 (1938): 127; “Reading Course for Officers,” RML 18, no. 70 (1938): 55; “Reading Course for Officers,” RML 19, no. 72 (1939): 84. 124. Moszdorf, “Joffre Was No Napoleon,” RML 17, no. 66 (1937): 76–82. 125. Fletcher Pratt, “Bonaparte in Italy,” Infantry Journal 46, no. 1 (1939): 3. 126. Harry P. Ball, Of Responsible Command (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Alumni Association of the United States Army War College, 1994), 214–18. 127. War College Curriculum Files, Box 1-82A, Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA. 128. “International Military Survey,” Infantry Journal 46, no. 1 (1939): 82–83. 129. H. N. Hartness, “Infantry in the Breakthrough,” RML 19, no. 72 (1939): 62–67. 130. Joseph Dasher, “The Military Causes of Polish Defeat,” RML 19, no 75 (1939): 56–57. 131. “International Military Survey,” Infantry Journal 47, no. 2 (1940): 200–201. 132. M. R. Kammerer, “The European War,” RML 20, no. 78 (1940): 37. 133. Fletcher Pratt, “New War, New Soldier,” Infantry Journal 48, no. 1 (1941): 3–10. 134. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Education of a General, 328. 135. Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, 1939–1942 (New York: Viking, 1965), 82–90. 136. George Marshall to Leslie McNair, 29 September 1939, in Marshall, The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vol. 2, 68–69.

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137. George Marshall to Duncan Major, 8 January 1940, in ibid., 138. 138. George Marshall, speech to the Army Ordinance Association, 11 October 1939, in ibid., 83. 139. George Catlett Marshall, Biennial Report of the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, July 1, 1939, to June 30, 1941, to the Secretary of War, ed. Center of Military History (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1941), 6. 140. Ibid., 21. 141. Bland, editor’s note in Marshall, The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vol. 2, 213. 142. Marshall, Biennial Report, 7. 143. George Marshall, speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, 19 June 1940, in Marshall, The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vol. 2, 249. 144. George Marshall, CBS radio address on Selective Service, 16 September 1940, in ibid., 310. 145. Cray, General of the Army, 175. 146. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, 91–97. 147. George Marshall to Campbell King, 5 September 1940, in Marshall, The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vol. 2, 298–99. 148. Schifferle, America’s School for War, 150–60. 149. From the Chief ’s Office, “Blitzkrieg for the Foot Soldier,” Infantry Journal 47, no. 4 (1940): 391. 150. From the Chief ’s Office, “The Rifle Battalion,” Infantry Journal 47, no. 5 (1940): 511–14. 151. From the Chief ’s Office, “The Light Semiautomatic Rifle,” Infantry Journal 47, no. 6 (1940): 625. 152. George A. Lynch, “Motorized Divisions,” Infantry Journal 48, no. 1 (1941): 2–5. 153. USA, Basic Field Manual, FM 22-5: Infantry Drill Regulations; Prepared under Direction of the Chief of Infantry (New York: Military Book Company, 1939). 154. USA, Infantry Field Manual, FM 7-8: Organization and Tactics of Infantry—The Rifle Battalion (Washington, DC: GPO, 1940), 9, 20. 155. Ibid., 50–51, 166. 156. Ibid., 7, 12–18, 150. 157. Ibid., 2, 8, 19. 158. Ibid., 103–49. 159. Ibid., 28–33. 160. Ibid., 10, 30. 161. Ibid., 180–86. 162. USA, FM 100-5: FSR Operations (Washington, DC: GPO, 1941), 5–6, 97. 163. Ibid., 102–3, 125. 164. Ibid., 3–5, 109–10, 253–63. 165. Ibid., ii, 33, 139–44, 164–70.

Notes to the Conclusion 1. Yorck von Wartenburg, Napoleon as a General, vol. 1, trans. Walter H. James (West Point, NY: USMA Press, 1942), vii–x.

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Index

1812, War of, 50–54, 73 1814 Campaign (Napoleon), 111 1st Infantry Division, 204, 208, 222 1st U.S. Volunteers (Rough Riders), 165, 168 3rd Division, 208–209 4th Infantry Division, 207–208 5th Marine Regiment, 204 25th Infantry Regiment, 166 33rd Division, 207 35th Division, 206–207 77th Division, 206 79th Division, 205 91st Division, 206 Adolfus, Gustavus, 104 Advanced Guard, Out-Post, and Detachment Service of Troops (Mahan), 106, 111, 116, 152–153 compared to Wagner’s works, 181 Alexander, Robert, 206 Alger, Russell, 163 American Campaigns (Steele), 192–193 American Expeditionary Force, 173, 202–210, 215, 219 established a School of the Line and an Army General Staff College, 203 the general staff training section of, 214 recreated army’s education system in France, 202 American General Staff, 176–177, 180, 187–188, 200, 210, 219, 222–223, 239, 246 and the 1923 FSR, 220 and the divisional structure debates, 216

undertook writing of the 1904 IDR, 193 undertook writing of the 1905 FSR, 198 American Military Library, The (Duane), 46 American professionalization, 175, 211 American Quarterly Review, 66, 72 American way of warfare, 4, 12, 90, 256, 262 the colonial heritage of, 64–65 committed to the French Combat Method, 108 fundamental elements of, 2 looks to Napoleonic warfare, 65 Anderson, Richard, 128 applicatory method, 184, 239 definition of, 159 arme blanche (cutting weapon), 26, 40 Armies of Europe and Asia, The (Upton), 176 Armstrong, John, 49, 56, 60 favored French system of tactics, 46 worked to adopt French Tactics, 55 Army and Navy Chronicle articles referencing Napoleon in, 70 Army and Navy Journal, 109, 139–140, 160–161 Army Organization (Fiebeger), 236 Army professionalization, 150–151, 160, 170, 173, 175–176, 210 Army War College, 187–188, 211, 221, 239 collected reports on German Army, 225 study of Napoleon of, 245 use of military history of, 244 Army-Navy football game, 152

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297

Artillery School at Fort Monroe, 141, 156–157 influenced the curriculum of Fort Leavenworth, 158 Austerlitz, battle of, 2, 110–111, 132, 191–193, 243 Austro-Prussian War (1866), 137–140, 157 Baker, Newton, 216 Balck, William, 179 Barlow, Francis, 129 Bates, John C., 145 Beaulieu, Jean Pierre, 35 Beauregard, Pierre Gustave Toutant, 110, 119, 122, 124 Bee, Barnard, 124 Belknap, William, 156 Bell, J. Franklin, 180, 183–185 as Chief of Staff ordered a revision of the FSR in 1910, 200 Belleau Woods, battle of, 204 Bernadotte, Jean-Baptiste, 35 Bigelow, John Jr., 138 Birney, David, 129 Bismarck, Count Otto von, 138 Bliss, Tasker, 188 Blitzkrieg, 246, 259–260 Lynch’s opinion of, 249 Blücher, Gebhard Leberecht von, 110 Blue Book. See Regulations, tactical, Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States Boer War, 178 Boxer Rebellion, 178 Brain of an Army, The (Wilkinson), 177 Bravo, Nicolas, 87 Broglie, Victor-François de, 19 Brown, Jacob, 50, 53 Brunswick, Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of, 12, 14–16 Buddecke, Albert, 185, 186 Bugeaud, Robert, 12 Bull Run, first battle of, 120–125 Bullard, Robert, 207–208 Burnside, Ambrose, 128–129 Butterfield, Dan, 117 298

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Cameron, George, 205, 208 Camp and Outpost Duty for Infantry (Butterfield), 117 Campaigns and Battles (Fiebeger), 190 use of Napoleonic examples, 191 camps of instruction, 40 AEF use of, 203–204 French Revolution use of, 21 impact on battle of Chippawa of, 50–51 US Army interwar period use of, 240 Cantigny, battle of, 204 Carnot, Lazare Nicolas Marguerite, 32, 46, 58, 72, 77 Casey, Silas, 97–98, 131–132, 142–143 Mexican-American War service of, 87 in charge of training Union troops in 1861, 96 Cass, Lewis, 60 Cay, Richard Millon, 119 Cervera, Pasqual, 163 Chaffee, Adna, 166 Championnet, Jean-Etienne, 35 Chapultepec, battle of, 84–88 Charles, Archduke (Karl Lorenz of Austria), 34, 36–37, 153 Chippawa, battle of, 50–51, 65, 89 analysis of, 52–53 Churbusco, battle of, 85 Church, William Conant, 160 Churchill, John. See Marlborough, Duke of Cincinnati, Society of, 43–44 citizen-soldier, 11, 23–24, 27, 37–38, 40 impact on the battle of Fleurus of, 33 referenced in the French Regulations of 1792, 28 tactical implication of, 25–26 Civil War, 111, 120–132, 143, 237–238, 258, 261 Army War College Study of, 245 Artillery School study of, 157 Fort Leavenworth study of, 192 Clausewitz, Carl von, 5, 24, 191, 238

Wagner’s use of, 181 Cold Harbor, battle of, 126–130, 132, 262 Command, Staff, and Tactics (General Staff School), 237 Composition of Armies (Mahan), 81, 103, 107 Conger, Arthur, 187, 193 Contreras, battle of, 85 Coup d’oeil, 76–77, 98, 105–106 Course of Instruction in the Elements of the Art and Science of War, A (Wheeler), 153–154 Craig, Malin, 223, 227–229, 248 Crimean War, 107, 113–116, 119, 126, Crozet, Claude, 76, 79–80 culture, 8–10, 18, 27, 73, 89–90, 108, 134, 258–260 definition of, 5 effect on military of, 6 resistance to the adoption of French warfare as a function of, 66 Danish-German War (1864), 137–138, 157 Davis, Jefferson, 94, 113 and the Napoleonic myth, 110 Défense du système de guerre modern (Guibert), 19 Delafield, Richard, 113–115 Delafield Commission, 113–116 Delbrück, Hans, 17–18, 187 Dewey, John, 174 Divisional structure debates, 216, 223, 227–228, 247 Dodge Commission, 176 Drummond, Gordon, 53 Duane, William, 46–47 Dubois, Paul-Alexis, 34, 39 Dufour, Guillaume Henri, 118, 152–153 Dumouriez, Charles François, 12, 14, 17 Dundas, David, 48–49 Dupacq, Édouard, 118 Early, Jubal, 128–130 El Caney, battle of, 165–169 Elementary Course of Permanent Fortifications (Wheeler), 153

Elementary Treatise on Advanced-Guard, Out-Post, and Detachment Service of Troops, An (Mahan), 103–106, 108, 116 Elements of Military Art and History (Dupacq), 118 Elements of Military Art and Science (Halleck), 107–108, 116 Elements of Strategy (Fiebeger), 190–191, 236 Elements of the Art of War (Mercur), 154–156 Elements of War (Maltby), 49 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 135 Essai général de tactique (Guibert), 19–20 Eustice, William, 43–44, 46 Evans, Nathan George, 124 Federalist Party, 42, 45, 47, 260 and the Hartford Convention, 66 Fiebeger, Gustav Joseph, 189–192 use of the German Army as an example in instruction, 236 First Italian Campaign (Napoleon), 69, 77, 111, 192, 243–244 Fleurus, battle of, 30–38, 78 Folard, Jean-Charles de, 19 Fort Leavenworth, 141, 147, 156–159, 180–188, 192, 200–203, 237–244 Army Service Schools of, 183–184, 200 produced the 1910 FSR, 200 responsible for the 1911 IDR review, 196 Command and General Staff School of, 221, 240–242 General Service and Staff College, 180–181 General Staff School, 238–240 review of another FSR in 1920 by, 219–220 study of Napoleon of, 243 MSIUS satellite organization, 161 reduced curriculum in 1940 of, 249 School of Application for Infantry and Cavalry, 147, 158–159 Franco-Prussian War (1870), 138–139, 155, 190, 192, 237

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299

Frederick the Great, 11,16–17, 27, 40–43, 46, 58, 79, 104, 140, 153, 157–158, 238 French Army, 211, 222 French combat method, 8–9, 11, 60, 64, 73, 75, 79, 120, 170–171, 182, 210, 254, 258, 260–261 in the 1911 IDR. 197–198 and the 1919 IDR, 215 absent from the General Regulations of 1835, 62–63 analysis of FM 7–5 with, 251–252 and the Civil War, 123–125, 130–134 definition of, 36–42 Delbruck’s concept of, 18 in the French Regulations of 1792, 27–30 FSR 1941 espouses different ideas than, 253 interpreted as an evolution of Prussian linear warfare, 140 and the Mexican-American War, 89–90 not adopted by the British, 48 present in Lynch’s regimental organization, 229 reflected in the General Regulations of 1821, 56–58 reflected in Upton’s regulations, 145 taught throughout the army before WWI, 162 and the War of 1812, 52–54 and WWI, 204, 211–212 French culture, 11–12, 73, 108, 258–259 primacy of, 66–68, 90 taught at West Point, 74–75, 80 French Revolution, 2, 8, 11, 17–26, 36–42, 64, 67, 69, 76, 104, 261 bayonet the military symbol of, 27 French way of warfare, 6, 27, 39, 250, 259 tactical debates from 1760 to 1788 of, 18–19 Friedland, battle of, 69, 191 Gay de Vernon, Simon François, 75–81, 101 General Staff Act of 1903, 177

300

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German Army, 134, 142, 151, 161, 170, 176–180, 184–187, 210, 255–256, 259, 261 American interest in German rearmament, 223–224 and the fall of France 1940, 246–248 German FSR influenced 1905 FSR, 198–199 German successes 1939, 244–245 influenced by the French combat method, 140 and the Russo-Japanese War, 179 and the triumph of German military professionalism, 137–139 German culture, 133–135, 170, 210, 261 and education, 136 as the example for American Progressives, 174 in JMSIUS, 161 and the rise of professions, 136–137 German General Staff, 176–178, 187, 198, 210, 261 German Pietism, 135, 174 German professionalization, 137–138, 151 Gettysburg, battle of, 109–110 study of at West Point, 190 Gibbon, John, 112, 129 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 11–12 Grant, Ulysses S., 142, 150, 158, 160 his analysis of Hardee’s Infantry Tactics 94 at the battle of Molino del Rey, 85 and the Overland Campaign 126–130 reopened the Artillery School 1867, 156 sent observers to the FrancoPrussian War, 138 his tomb compared to Napoleon’s, 110 Gravelotte, battle of, 138–139, 141, 155 Griepenkerl, Otto F., 184–186, 188 Gruber, Edmund, 229 Guderian, Heinz, 225

Guibert, Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte, 19–20, 24, 26, 46, 72, 57–58 Halleck, Henry, 107–108, 111, 116, 132 Hamley, Edward, 139–140, 153, 157–158 Hancock, Winfield, 128–130 Hardee, William J., 94–96, 118, 131, 142–143 Hatry, Jacques-Maurice, 33–34, 36–39 Hawkins, Hamilton S., 168 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 174 influenced St. Lewis intellectual movement, 135 Heintzelman, Samuel Peter, 123 Hindenberg, Paul von, 225 Hines, John, 208 History of Europe (Archibald Allison), 70 Hoche, Lazare, 26, 35 Hoyt, Epaphras, 48–49 Huidekoper, Frederic Louis, 193 Humbolt, Alexander von, 136 Hunter, David, 123, 124 Huntington, Samuel, 151 Infantry in Battle (The Infantry School), 234 published ideas outside the French combat method, 235–236 Infantry Journal, 223, 226, 249–250 articles on the French and German squad organizations, 245 articles on the German Army, 225 articles using Napoleonic examples, 244 Infantry School, The, 219, 239, 256 “Benning Revolution,” 232–233 Infantry School Mailing List, 233–234 infiltration tactics, 212, 259 Instructor’s Summary of Military Articles, The, 240–241 intellectual framework of the battlefield, 5, 9, 258 creation of, 4 definition of, 3 and the warfare of the French Revolution, 8 Izard, George, 49

Jackson, Thomas Jonathan, 124–125 Janowitz, Morris, 151 Jefferson, Thomas, 74 and the polarization of the officer corps, 45 Jena, battle of, 110, 140, 161, 243 Johnston, Albert Sidney, 192 Johnston, Joseph Eggleston, 87, 122–124 Jomini, Antoine-Henri, 72, 80–83, 93, 99, 103, 109–110, 116, 118–119, 140, 153–154, 182, 191, 238 in appendix to Gay de Vernon text, 78–79 Josias, Prince Frederick, of Saxe-CoburgSaalfeld, 33–34, 36–37 Jourdan, Jean-Baptiste, 33–38 Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States, 139, 158, 161, 178 Napoleonic articles and book reviews in, 193 Kampfgruppe, 224 Kant, Immanuel, 174 influenced Emerson, 135 Kellermann, François-Christophe, 12, 14, 17 Kent, Jacob F., 164–169 Kettle Hill, battle of, 168–169 Kléber, Jean-Baptiste, 33–37 Königgrätz Campaign, 141 Kriegsakademie, 156, 177 Kriegspiel, 141, 159–160 Kuhn, Joseph, 205 Kuhn, Thomas, 9, 104, 257, 259–260 and his theory of scientific revolution, 6–7 theory applied to military profession, 7–8 Las Guasimas, battle of, 165, 169 Lawton, Henry Ware, 164–168 Lee, Fitzhugh, 128 Lee, Henry Jr., 70 Lee, Robert E., 130 and the battle of Chapultepec, 85 member of the USMA BOV, 74 and the Overland Campaign, 126

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301

Lefebvre, François-Joseph, 35–39 Leipzig, battle of, 243 Letters on Applied Tactics (Griepenkerl), 185–186, 188 Levée en Masse, 24–26 Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, Emperor of the French, The (Walter Scott), 68–69 Liggett, Hunter, 214 Linares, Arsenio, 164–165 Lincoln, Abraham, 110, 120 Longstreet, James, 122, 124 Ludendorff, Erich, 236 Lundy’s Lane, battle of, 53–54, 65, 89 Lyceum, 141, 160 Lynch, George A., 225–228, 233, 256, 262 assigned to draft a new IDR in 1919, 214 edited and revised 1923 FSR, 220 last defense of the French combat method, 249–250 opposed MCLU, 221–222 MacArthur, Douglas, 217, 222 Mack, Karl, 1 Mackay, Samuel, 70 Macomb, Alexander, 60, 74 Madison, James, 44, Mahan, Dennis Hart, 99–108, 116–117, 119–120, 129–132, 153–155, 182 redesigned USMA engineering curriculum, 80–83 and his use of Napoleonic history, 111–112 Malplaquet, battle of (1709), 78 Maltby, Isaac, 48–49 Mantua, siege of, 112 Manual of Bayonet Exercises (McClellan), 116 Marceau, François-Severin, 33, 35, 37, 39 Marengo, battle of, 111, 193, 243 Marlborough, Duke of (John Churchill), 157 Marsh, Peyton C., 180 Marshall, George C., 213, 216, 219, 227, 246, 253, 255–256, 259–262 302

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Index

authorized the 1939 FSR, 229 effect of the German invasion of Poland 1939 on, 247 influence on the Infantry School, 232–236 new vision of modern warfare of, 247–249 Mars-la-Tour, battle of, 138, 140 Marx, Karl, 174 Maury, Dabney, 68, 112 McClellan, George, 112–113, 115, 117 argued against the bayonet after the Civil War, 144 McClernand, Edward J., 179–180 McDowell, Irvin, 120–125 McKinley, William, 162, 175 McNair, Leslie, 227, 229, 247, 256 Meade, George, 110, 128–129, 142 Mechanized Force Board, 217 Mercur, James, 139–141, 154–158, 182, 189 Mesnil-Durand, François-Jean de, 19, 72 methodical battle doctrine, 212, 222, 259 Meuse-Argonne, battle of the, 205–210, 214, 222 first phase of, 205–208, 210 second phase of, 208–210 Mexican-American War, 84–88, 99, 107, 132 Miles, Dixon, 123 Miles, Evan, 166 Miles, Nelson Appleton, 164 Miley, John D., 168 Militär-Wochenblatt, 223, 241, 244 Military and Political Life of the Emperor Napoleon (Jomini), 118, 243–244 Military Dictionary (Henry Scott), 116–117 Military Policy of the United States, The (Upton), 176 Mitchell, William Augustus, 236–237 Modernization Board, 223 Molino del Rey, battle of, 85–86 Moltke, Helmuth von, 138–139, 157 and the curriculum at USMA, 191 Monroe, James, 65 Mordecai, Alfred, 113–115 Morlot, Antoine, 35 Morril Bill of 1862, 136

Morrison, John F., 184–187 influenced the 1910 FSR, 200–202 led the 1911 IDR review board, 196–198 as an observer during the Russo-Japanese War, 179 Napoleon as a General (Count Yorck von Wartenburg), 243–244, 261 Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, 42, 65–66, 68–70, 88–90, 108, 116–118, 157–158, 161, 242–245, 255, 259, 262 2006–2009 USMA instruction in, 1–2 examples used in instruction at USMA, 76–79, 104–107, 190–193, 237–238 history and the USMA Library, 71–73 Napoleonic legend in America, 108–113, 132 Napoleon Club, 112 North American Review, 66–67, 72 O’Connor, Michael, 76–81 Operations of War Explained and Illustrated, The (Hamley), 157–158 Ord, Jules Garesche, 168–169 Organization and Tactics (Wagner), 181–182 adopted at USMA, 190 paradigm, 6–8, 90, 104–105, 260–261 paradigm of eighteenth-century linear warfare, 3, 14–16, 28, 30, 37–38, 41  Pearson, Edward P., 168 Penninsula War (1809), 112 Permanent Fortification (Mercur), 154–155 Pershing, John J., 173, 208, 211, 255 commander of the AEF, 202–203 demobilizing the AEF, 215–216 military attaché to Japan during the Russo-Japanese War, 179 Pillow, Gideon, 87 Practice of War, The (Bugeaud), 120 Précis de l’art de la guerre (Jomini’s Art of War), 79, 106, 116, 157, 243

Principles and Maxims of the Art of War (Beauregard), 119 Principles of Military Movement (Dundas), 48 Principles of Strategy with Historical Illustrations (General Staff School), 243 Problems (General Staff School), 239–240 Progressive Era, 173–176, 205 Quasdanovitch, Peter, 35–36 Quitman, John, 87 Ramírez, Simeon, 85 Ranke, Leopold von, 137, 187 Ray, Vara del, 165 Regulations, general 1905 Field Service Regulations (US Army), 184–185, 198–200 adopted at USMA, 190 1910 Field Service Regulations (US Army), 201–202, influence of Morrison on, 200 1913 Field Service Regulations (US Army), 201–202 1914 Field Service Regulations (US Army), 202,219–221 1923 Field Service Regulations (US Army), 219–221, 238–241, 256 compared to the 1939 FSR, 229–231 1939 Field Service Regulations (US Army), 229–232, 253–254 Army Regulations of 1889 (US Army), 149 FM 100–5: FSR Operations 1941 (US Army), 253–255, 260 General Regulations 1821 (Scott), 56–58, 74, 82, 99–100 General Regulations 1825 (Scott), 58–61, 63, 82 General Regulations 1835 (Scott), 61–63, 99 General Regulations 1847 (US Army), 99 General Regulations 1857 (US Army), 99–101, 118

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303

Regulations, general (Continued) General Regulations 1861 (US Army), 100–101 General Regulations 1863 (US Army), 101, 149, 153, 158 Manual for Commanders of Large Units (Provisional) (US Army), 221–222, 229, 241, 256 Provisoire sur l’emploi tactique des grandes unités (French Army), 222 Règlement primitivement arrêté par le roi (French Army), 25 Règlement provisoire sur le service de l’infanterie en campagne août 1792 (French Regulations of 1792), 27–30, 43, 77, 82 reflected in the General Regulations of 1821, 56–58 Tentative 1932 Infantry Drill Regulations (US Army), 217–219 Troops in Campaign 1892 (US Army), 149–150 Truppenführung (German Army), 223–224 Regulations, tactical 1891 Infantry Drill Regulations (US Army), 145–148 influence on SpanishAmerican War, 169 comparison with 1904 IDR, 194 1904 Infantry Drill Regulations (US Army), 194–196 1911 Infantry Drill Regulations (US Army), 196–198, 202 1911 Infantry Drill Regulations corrected to 16 May 1918 (US Army), 198 1911 Infantry Drill Regulations corrected to 1914 (US Army), 198 1911 Infantry Drill Regulations corrected to 1917 (US Army), 198 Basic Field Manual, FM 22–5: Infantry Drill Regulations (US Army), 219, 250, 252

304

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Exercices et manoeuvres de l’infanterie (French Army), 119 FM 7–5: The Organization and Training of Infantry—The Rifle Battalion (US Army), 250–253, 255 Hand Book for Infantry, A (Duane), 46 response to, 47 Infantry Tactics (Casey, 1862), 96–98, 118 Infantry Tactics (Scott, 1825), 58–61, 75 Infantry Tactics (Scott, 1835), 60–61, 63, 89, 94–98, 102–103, 116 Infantry Tactics (Upton, 1873), 144–148 Infantry Tactics Double and Single Rank (Upton, 1867), 142–144, 152, 158 Provisional 1919 Infantry Drill Regulations (US Army), 214–215, 217, 255–256 Règlement concernant l’exercice et les manoeuvres de l’infanterie du 1er août 1791 (French Regulations of 1791), 20–23, 39, 50, 54, 58–59, 75, 77, 90, 143, 257 in the United States, 43– 45 Regulations for the Field Exercise, Manoevres, and Conduct of the Infantry of the United States (Smyth), 44–45 Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States (Blue Book) (Steuben), 43–44, 48–49 Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics (Hardee, 1855), 94–100, 116, 142, 147 Rules and Regulations for the Field Exercise and Manoeuvres of Infantry (US Army, 1815), 56– 59

Rules and Regulations for the Formations, Field Exercises and Manoeuvres of His Majesty’s Forces (Dundas), 48 Republican Party, 42, 45–47, 66 Review of Military Literature, 241–245 Riall, Phineas, 51–53 Richardson, Israel, 123–124 Ripley, Eleazer, 53 Ristine, Carl, 207 Roosevelt, Theodore, 168, 176 Root, Elihu, 175–177 and the creation of the Army War College, 187– 188 Russian Campaign, 69, 110, 112 Russo-Japanese War, 178–180, 237, 240 Saint-Just, Antoine Louis de, 33–34 San Juan Hill, battle of, 165–169 Santa Anna, Antonio de Padua María Severino López de, 85–89 Santiago Campaign, 163–171 Saxe, Maurice de, 15, 46 Scharnhorst, Gerhard von, 17–18 Schlieffen, Alfred Graf von, 225, 238 Schofield, John, 141, 150, 160   Scott, Henry L., 117 Scott, Sir Walter, 68–72, 112 Scott, Winfield, 28, 42, 65, 73, 75, 94, 96 102, 120, 131, 10, 257, 261 and the Mexican-American War, 84–89 presided over regulations boards that bring French tactics to America, 55–62 and the War of 1812, 50–53 Sedan, battle of, 140 Service of Security and Information, The (Wagner), 181 Sevastopol, battle of, 114–115 Shafter, William R., 164–169 Sheridan, Phil, 128 observer during the FrancoPrussian War, 138–139

Sherman, William Tecumseh, 110, 124, 133, 150, 160 ordered the establishment of a school for infantry and cavalry at Fort Leavenworth, 158 Shields, James, 87 Sino-Japanese War, 238 Skirmishers’ Drill and Bayonet Exercise (Cay), 119 Smith, Kirby, 125 Smith, Truman, 224 Smith, William “Baldy,” 128–130 Smyth, Alexander, 44–45 Soissons, battle of, 204 Soult, Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu, 35, 110, 191 Southern Literary Messenger, 66 Spanish-American War, 162–168, 175–178, 181, 261 Spanish Civil War, 227 Stamps, Thomas D., 238 Steele, Matthew, 192–193 Steuben, Friedrich Wilhelm von, 42–44, 48–49, 54 Strategical Operations Illustrated by the Great Campaigns in Europe and America (Wagner and Swift), 192 Strategos, 141 Strategy (Mahan), 81–82, 103, 107 Strategy and Tactics (Dufour), 118 used at West Point from 1873– 1879, 152–154 Structure of Scientific Revolution, The (Kuhn), 6–7, 257, 260 “Study of the Austro-Prussian Conflict in the Light of the American Civil War, A” (Wagner in JMSIUS), 140 Summerall, Charles, 208, 217 approved the MCLU, 221–222 Sumner, Samuel S., 168 Swift, Eben, 141, 158–159, 188, 192 1905 FSR contained five paragraph order format of, 200 Tactical Decisions and Orders (Buddecke), 186

Index

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305

Tactical Principles and Decisions (General Staff School), 239, 241 Taft, William, 193 Tannenberg, battle of, 225 Taylor, Zachary, 84, 109 Thayer, Sylvanus, 75, 80 brought French style instruction to USMA, 73–74 expands the USMA library, 71– 72 Toulon, siege of, 193 Treatise on Field Fortification, A (Mahan), 82–83, 103, 116, 120 Treatise on the Science of War and Fortification, A (Gay de Vernon), 75–80 Twain, Mark, 69 Tyler, Daniel, 123–124 Ulm, battle of, 1, 110–111, 192, 243 United States Military Academy, West Point, 58, 63–64, 71–74, 84, 109, 120, 139, 142, 161 cadet instruction in the military art, 75–83, 103–107, 152–156, 189–190, 236–238 cadet tactical instruction, 75, 101–103, 151–152, 188–189, 236 French influence on, 67–68, 136 physical instruction influences the 1891 IDR, 147 and the study of Napoleon, 1–2, 111–113, 242–243

306

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United States Military Philosophical Society, 46 United States Service Magazine, 109, 118 Upton, Emory, 139, 142–145, 150, 161 and the Artillery School, 156–158 V  Corps, 164–169 Valmy, battle of, 12–17 Verdun, battle of, 238 Wagner, Arthur L., 138–141, 158, 168, 181–183, 192 brought the study of German tactics to Fort Leavenworth, 159 Wagram Campaign, 112, 193 Washington, George, 41–42, 45, 73 Waterloo, battle of, 68–69, 110, 112, 140, 161, 193, 243 way of warfare, 3 Wedemeyer, Albert, 224–225 Wellesley, Arthur (Duke of Wellington), 110 West Point Board of Visitors, 74 Wheeler, Joseph, 164–168 Wheeler, Junius B., 152–155, 158, 182 Wilkinson, Spencer, 177 William V, Prince of Orange, 34–35 World War I, 126, 202–211, 220, 225, 237–238, 240–241, 225–256, 261 World War I (Fiebeger), 236 Worth, William, 87 Wright, Horatio, 128–130

About the Author

Mi c ha e l A . B onu r a is a major in the U.S. Army stationed at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, as part of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Test Division. A 1997 graduate of the United States Military Academy, he served in armor and armored cavalry units in Germany, Macedonia, and Korea. He was an assistant professor at the United States Military Academy from 2006 to 2009 and received his Ph.D. in history from Florida State University in 2008.