“Battles Were Not Fought in Lines”: Nationalism, Industrialism and Progressivism in the American Military Discourse, 1865-1918
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“Battles Were Not Fought In Lines”: Nationalism, Industrialism and Progressivism in the American Military Discourse, 1865-1918 Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Leif A. Torkelsen, A.B., M.A., J.D. Department of History The Ohio State University 2018 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Geoffrey Parker, Adviser Dr. Nathan Rosenstein Dr. Bruno Cabanes Copyright by Leif A. Torkelsen 2018 Abstract Although notably modest in size compared to its European counterparts, the United States Army was still acutely aware of the technological and tactical developments occurring overseas in the decades prior to the First World War. Nonetheless, in the years 1914-17, US military planners were stubbornly reluctant to accept the extraordinary innovations then taking place on the battlefields of Europe. Worse still, when the United States finally did enter the war, the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in France resisted adopting the techniques and tactics of their allies, developed in battle at such great cost. Instead, the U.S. Army’s Field Service Regulations clung to a vision of lines of riflemen, advancing in open order, overcoming all resistance with controlled rifle fire followed-up with the bayonet. Trained in such outmoded and linear tactics (“open warfare”, as Pershing called it), the American troops fighting in France needlessly suffered heavy losses. This, despite the fact that the American army possessed a modern general staff, numerous service schools and journals, military attachés and observers the world over. The reasons for this failure lay in the development of the military discourse developed by the U.S. Army in the decades prior to World War One. This discourse did not develop, as Samuel Huntington would have it, in the splendid cultural isolation of the western frontier. Rather, it evolved very much in the spirit of the times, embracing the cultural cross-currents of nationalism, industrialism, and progressivism. The result was that the U.S. Army filtered information about warfare abroad in such a way as to maintain its adherence to outdated tactical doctrine. This was further exacerbated by an increasingly centralized and technocratic approach to warfare that limited the army’s ability to adapt to change. In effect, the U.S. Army adopted the institutional architecture of modernity, not to improve its ability to wage war, but to symbolize its commitment to modernity as conceived within the broader national discourse. In order to provide an accurate portrayal of the U.S. Army’s military discourse, I will rely heavily on the articles and books published by military officers in their debates over tactics, weapons, and strategy. This approach gives the historian a more intimate look at what the officer corps was actually thinking. The generation after the Civil War witnessed numerous service ii journals come into being. Importantly, these journals were all independent of the War Department. All were private associations relying on subscriptions, membership dues, and limited advertising. As such, they enabled officers of all ranks to air their views with a minimum of official interference. Indeed, younger officers often tried to make their mark in a service plagued by glacial promotion through their writings. More importantly, government funds were provided to purchase and distribute copies of the various journals to the numerous military outposts on the frontier. These journals were not just read by a privileged few, but they were widely available. iii Acknowledgements The prolonged gestation of this dissertation, shocking even by pachydermatous standards, demands the acknowledgement of those who made it possible. Three people stand above all others: Linda Percival, Katherine Torkelsen and Geoffrey Parker. Together, they provided the hugs and kicks necessary for me to get the job done. iv Vita 1991………………………………..………..A.B. History, Princeton University 1995…………………………………..……..J.D., University of Michigan Law School 1996-2003……………………………..…….Managing Director, Princeton Technology Management 2006……………………………………….…M.A. History, The Ohio State University 2003-2008……………………………..…….Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of History, The Ohio State University 2008-2011………………………………...…Managing Director, Dragoon Capital 2011-2016…………………………………...Chief Financial Officer, Carl Smith Pipeline 2017 to Present…………………………..…..Adjunct Professor, Department of Economics, Belmont University Fields of Study Major Field: History Minor Fields: Ancient History Early Modern Europe The Spanish Empire v Table of Contents Abstract…………………………………………………………………..….ii Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………iv Vita…………………………………………………………………………..v List of Maps……………………………………………..…………………vii Chapter 1: Introduction………………………………………………………1 Chapter 2: Towards an American Way of War, 1865-82…………………..15 Chapter 3: New Schools, Old Army: The Birth of the Military-Intellectual Complex, 1882-98……………………………………46 Chapter 4: The Army in the Age of Mahan, 1888-98………………………63 Chapter 5: The Confusion of Victory: Tactics in the Spanish-American War and the Philippine Insurrection, 1898-1905……….82 Chapter 6: An Army Reformed, 1898-1912………………………………..104 Chapter 7: Leavenworth Tactics: The American Way of War and the Foreign Military Experience, 1905-1914…………………..125 Chapter 8: “Very Special Conditions”: The American View of Modern Warfare, 1912-17…………………………………………162 Chapter 9: A Baptism of Fire, April 1917 – September 1918………………185 Chapter 10: The Test of Battle: The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, September to November 1918…………………………………..234 Chapter 11: Conclusion……………………………………………………..262 Bibliography………………………………………………………………...274 vi List of Maps Map 1: Gravelotte from Battles of the 19th Century by G.A. Henty (1897) …………..34 Map 2: The Siege of Plevna from Under the Red Crescent by Charles Ryan (1897)…40 Map 3: The Battle of Santiago from The War With Spain by Charles Morris (1898)…89 Map 4: The Philippines from Nations Online………………………………………….93 Map 5: Area of Mexican Punitive Expedition………………………………………..179 Map 6: Cantigny, April 27-July 18, 1918 from American Armies and Battlefields in Europe (1938)…………………………………………………………………205 Map 7: 2nd Division Operations, June 4-July 10, 1918 from American Armies and Battlefields in Europe (1938)………………………………………………….209 Map 8: French-American Attack South of Soissons, July 18-22, 1918 from American Armies and Battlefields in Europe (1938)……………………………………..214 Map 9: Plan of Attack of First Army, September 26, 1918 from American Armies and Battlefields in Europe (1938)…………………………………………………..239 Map 10: Operations of First Army, November 1-11, 1918 from American Armies and Battlefields in Europe (1938)…………………………………………………..255 vii Chapter 1: Introduction On an oppressively hot day in July of 1918, the U.S. 28th Division, composed primarily of Pennsylvania National Guardsmen, was ordered to seize the German-held village of Courpoil. By late afternoon, the lead assault battalions had lost touch with headquarters. The commanding general sent Lt. Hervey Allen, the scion of a wealthy Pittsburgh family, to re-establish contact. As he made his way forward, Allen found the survivors of the two battalions scattered about in small groups, immobilized with exhaustion after clearing German machine gun nests from the nearby Bois de la Fère. Surveying the scene, Allen observed: “Fighting here was a great manhunt, every little group for itself. In the dense coverts all control was impossible… It was the grim common sense of the ‘doughboy’ and not our obsolete and impossible tactics that won us ground. Oh! The precious time wasted in our elaborate, useless, murderous ‘science’ called ‘musketry.’ It is as much out of style as the musket from which it takes its name. Teaching it should be made a court-martial offense. It is murder in print. Battles were not fought in lines.”1 Few American combat veterans would have disagreed with Allen’s words. How had it come to this? How did the American army, with a modern general staff, numerous service schools and journals, military attachés and observers the world over, still fail to learn any of the tactical lessons of modern warfare? Although notably modest in size compared to its European counterparts, the United States Army was still acutely aware of the technological and tactical developments occurring overseas in the decades prior to the First World War. Nonetheless, in the years 1914-17, US military planners were stubbornly reluctant to accept the extraordinary innovations then taking place on the battlefields of Europe. Worse still, when the United States finally did enter the war, the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in France resisted adopting the techniques and tactics of their allies, developed in battle at such great cost. Instead, the U.S. Army’s Field Service Regulations clung to a vision of lines of riflemen, advancing in open order, overcoming all resistance with controlled rifle fire followed-up with the bayonet. Trained in such outmoded and linear tactics (“open warfare”, as Pershing called it), the American troops fighting in France needlessly suffered heavy losses. One military historian described American tactics on the Western Front, with only modest 1 Hervey Allen, Toward the Flame: A Memoir of World War I (Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 2003 (orig. 1926)), pp. 138-139 1 hyperbole, as “smothering German machine guns with American flesh.”2 The question for historians is why American military