Crucibles of Virtue and Vice: the Acculturation of Transatlantic Army Officers, 1815-1945
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CRUCIBLES OF VIRTUE AND VICE: THE ACCULTURATION OF TRANSATLANTIC ARMY OFFICERS, 1815-1945 John F. Morris Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the Executive Committee of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2020 © 2020 John F. Morris All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT Crucibles of Virtue and Vice: The Acculturation of Transatlantic Army Officers, 1815-1945 John F. Morris Throughout the long nineteenth century, the European Great Powers and, after 1865, the United States competed for global dominance, and they regularly used their armies to do so. While many historians have commented on the culture of these armies’ officer corps, few have looked to the acculturation process itself that occurred at secondary schools and academies for future officers, and even fewer have compared different formative systems. In this study, I home in on three distinct models of officer acculturation—the British public schools, the monarchical cadet schools in Imperial Germany, Austria, and Russia, and the US Military Academy—which instilled the shared and recursive sets of values and behaviors that constituted European and American officer cultures. Specifically, I examine not the curricula, policies, and structures of the schools but the subterranean practices, rituals, and codes therein. What were they, how and why did they develop and change over time, which values did they transmit and which behaviors did they perpetuate, how do these relate to nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century social and cultural phenomena, and what sort of ethos did they produce among transatlantic army officers? Drawing on a wide array of sources in three languages, including archival material, official publications, letters and memoirs, and contemporary nonfiction and fiction, I have painted a highly detailed picture of subterranean life at the institutions in this study. The reader will find that although practices, rituals, and codes varied from one type of school to the next, the values and behaviors they inculcated were quite similar . and quite anachronistic for the liberalizing societies that the products of the schools were meant to serve. CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . vi PREFACE . 1 INTRODUCTION . 10 Competing Models of Acculturation . 11 Hallowed Ground . 12 The British Public School . 12 The Monarchical Cadet Schools . 14 The United States Military Academy . 18 Historical Context and Historiography . 19 The Role of Armies in the Nineteenth Century . 19 The Culture of European and American Officer Corps . 22 Military Education and Acculturation . 41 Sources and Organization . 50 CHAPTER 1. TRANSFORMATION AND REACTION: NINETEENTH- CENTURY SOCIO-CULTURAL CURRENTS INFLUENCING OFFICER ACCULTURATION . 53 The Threats to and Persistence of the Aristocracy . 54 Statistics . 57 Gentrification versus Embourgeoisement . 59 i Male Tribalism . 71 Changing Perspectives on Childhood . 72 The Schema of Initiation Rites in Tribal Societies . 74 Becoming Total Institutions . 81 The Characteristics of Total Institutions . 82 The Invention of Tradition? . 87 The Cult of Masculinity . 89 The Revival of Chivalry . 94 Imperialism and Masculinity . 96 Muscular Christianity . 99 Codes of Honor and the Duel . 102 Fraternal Organizations . 107 Homosexuality . 110 The Spartan Trope . 115 CHAPTER 2. ADOLESCENT MALE JUNGLES: THE BIRTH, GROWTH, AND DEVELOPMENT OF THREE MODELS OF OFFICER ACCULTURATION, 1815-1859 . 117 Origins and Contributions . 117 The Inception and Evolution of the Cadet School . 117 The Public School: The British Sonderweg . 127 The Academy Model: American Amalgamation . 131 The Early Years: Male Tribalism and Attempts at Containment . 137 Bedlam and Brutality at the Public School . 137 ii West Point: Between Turbulence and Totality . 145 Virilizing the Gentrification Process . 150 The Emergence of Initiation Rites in Tribal Milieus . 161 “A Sufficiently Stern Baptism”: The Fag’s Life at the Public School . 161 Mortification of the Self at the Cadet School . 177 Devilment at West Point . 183 Boy Governance and “Faults Peculiar to Boys” . 191 CHAPTER 3. “UNMITIGATED DOMINATION OF STRONGER OVER WEAKER”: CONTINUITY AND CHANGE, 1859-1901 . 195 Accepting Tradition and Establishing Control at the British Public Schools . 196 The Clarendon Commission . 196 The Codification of Tradition . 199 The New Approach to “Immorality” . 201 Policing Homosexuality . 202 Vaughan and “the Great Engine of Victorian Moral Outrage” . 205 “Pleasure Spread to the Power That Harried It”: Sex and Supervision at Wellington . 207 Turn-of-the-Century Traditions and the Games Obsession . 213 The Late-Nineteenth-Century Cadet Schools . 218 Initiation Rites, Loyalty, and Sport . 218 Homoeroticism, Homosexuality, and Masculinity . 236 Hazing’s Golden Age at West Point . 243 The Civil War Era . 243 iii Vigilante Justice . 247 Mob Rule and Racism . 250 Survival of the Fittest and Fraternity . 254 Similarities at the American Boarding School . 261 CHAPTER 4. CALCIFICATION OF TRADITION: THE ERA OF THE WORLD WARS, 1901-1945 . 265 The Early-Twentieth-Century British Public School . 266 Manifest Militarism . 266 “The Lowest Ranks of Serfdom” . 268 Initiation Rites . 268 The A. C. Simonds Affair . 273 Guardians of the System . 276 The Effects of Initiation and Boy Governance . 278 “The Forbidden Tree”: Homosexuality in Never Land . 280 The Hill: Envy, Infatuation, and Death “in the Flower of . Youth” . 282 Walking the “Tightrope”: Between Lust and Love . 287 Boy Governors Respond: The Case of St. Peter’s College, Westminster . 292 Peter Pan’s “Great Adventure”: Modifying the Adams Thesis . 295 Twilight at the Cadet Schools . 296 The Triumph of Tradition at West Point . 305 Societal Acceptance . 305 Gradual Codification . 310 iv Continued Attempts at Control . 310 MacArthur and the “Substitution of Subjective for Objective Discipline” . ..