If the United States Should Go to War

IN the course of the last few years a succession of events has given rise among our people to an uncommon, if not unprecedented, interest in our military affairs, and a corresponding amount of discussion of our preparedness or unpreparedness for war. A good deal of the arguing has seemed to be based upon uncertain and insufficient data regarding our actual resources in men, arms, and equipment. The purpose of this paper is, not to settle the question of our military preparedness or unpreparedness for war, but to assist the reader in pondering the question for himself, and perhaps enable him to get somewhat nearer to a satisfactory answer than he has yet come.

In time of peace, the military land force of the United States consists of the Army, or Regular Army. In time of war, or of domestic disturbance, the Army may be supplemented with a contingent of Militia, or with a contingent of Militia and a contingent of Volunteers. The Militia is a state force except when called into the service of the United States. It cannot be called into such service except by the President, who is the sole judge of the occasion therefor, and of the number to be called out. Volunteers can be called for only by Congress, or under authority of an act of Congress. The Militia is divided into the organized Militia, or National Guard, and the unorganized Militia. The Regular Army, the Volunteer Army, and the National Guard, are all recruited in time of peace by voluntary enlistment; but in time of war the Regular and the Volunteer armies have been recruited by draft or conscription.

Let us now try to determine what force the country commands for immediate use against a possible invading force. According to the official Army Register for 1911, published December 1, 1910, we have in the Army 85,392 officers and men. Numbers are but one of the factors of military power. Among the other factors are composition, organization, equipment, and training. By composition is meant the character and strength of the various elements, such as infantry, cavalry, artillery, etc., of which the Army is composed. The proportioning of the several arms to one another is determined by the needs of one arm. In all armies this principal or main arm is the infantry, for the reason that the infantry is the most mobile of all arms, taking into account all kinds of ground or terrain. Troops that are or may be formed into field armies are called mobile troops, as distinguished from depot or garrison troops. In our Army we have no depot troops; and our only garrison troops are the coast artillery. These man our seacoast forts.

Organization is the arrangement of the parts of the Army into companies, regiments, brigades, divisions, and such other units as may be necessary to their efficient command and administration in peace and in war. In our Regular Army the most irregular conditions obtain in respect to organization. The largest unit of organization is the regiment, which numbers on a peace footing from 800 to 1000 men. In a regularly organized army, regiments of the same arm of the service are grouped together to form brigades, and groups of brigades, with proper reinforcements of other arms, constitute mixed divisions, or divisions. A division is the smallest unit which regularly comprises more than one tactical arm. While a company, battalion, regiment, or brigade, is all infantry, all cavalry, or all artillery, a division regularly comprises infantry, cavalry, and artillery.

In the armies of Europe, divisions are grouped together, as they were in our Civil War, to form army corps. In our Army, that is, in our Field Service Regulations, — for it is only there that we have an army, — they are grouped together to form what we call field armies. The largest unit which, marching on one road, can be expected to form up from column into line of battle in one day is in Europe the army corps, numbering about 30,000 men; and in our army, the division, numbering about 20,000 men.

Our Regular Army is distributed over our territory and island possessions, from Maine and Alaska to Porto Rico and the Philippines. To get at the force available for our defense against invasion, we must determine the portion of it that is stationed in the United States, exclusive of Alaska. Taking the situation as it was just before the mobilization for manœuvres in Texas, and considering only mobile troops, we have in the United States 35,456 officers and men, with 104 pieces of artillery, as shown in columns 1 to 3 of Table I.

Of heavy field artillery we have, it would seem from official representation, 140 pieces, but no personnel, not even an organization on paper. For these reasons I have not considered any of this arm as available.

Each regiment of infantry and of cavalry should include, according to our Field Service Regulations, a company of machine-gun men, with six machine guns. Each has, in fact, but one platoon with two such guns. The infantry and cavalry are thus short of two thirds of their proper complement of machine guns.

TABLE I. REGULAR MOBILE TROOPS IN UNITED STATES AT PEACE STRENGTH

Our present battalion of engineers consists of four companies. The Field Service Regulations, however, require that it shall consist of three companies, which would transform the two battalions and two companies of the foregoing table into three battalions and one company.

Apart from the forementioned deficiencies, the several arms of the service are not in proper proportion to one another. The number of infantry to which each of the auxiliary arms would correspond, in a mixed force properly organized, is shown in column 4. It will be seen therefrom that no two of them correspond to the same number; and that the largest number of infantry for which we have a proportional complement of auxiliary troops is 7000, or, discarding the heavy artillery, 10,000. Taking the latter number as the basis of our calculation, and figuring out the proportional forces of auxiliary arms, we get as a possible field division the force shown in Table II, below.

The infantry will have to be organized into brigades, and the signal troops into a battalion. It would also be necessary to form a division staff. This work involves the detailing of officers from Washington, and the travel of these officers from their various stations to division headquarters. However well-instructed and well-trained they may be, they will lack experience in their new positions, and will be at a disadvantage compared with officers serving on permanent staffs, such as the corresponding officers of European armies.

The formation of this division will leave a surplus of all classes of troops, which, with some transference perhaps from one arm of the service to another, would about suffice to guard the communications of the division and repair the losses in men.

This division is the largest force which we can consider ourselves able to put into the field to advance against an enemy, within a period of from three to six weeks after mobilization commences. The time would depend upon the original disposition of the troops, and the point or points at which they are concentrated.

The quota of heavy artillery, in case it could be provided, would be one battery or four pieces, and one hundred and twenty-two officers and men.

An act of Congress authorizes the President to expand the organizations of the Regular Army to their full war strength when it may seem to him expedient to do so, and to add to the medical corps accordingly. The result of a mobilization on a war strength, and the number of infantry corresponding to each of the several arms, is shown in Table III on the following page. It is assumed that the necessary machinegun companies are formed and equipped, that the forementioned unorganized troops of the engineer corps, signal corps, and hospital corps have been organized (the medical department being slightly increased), and that the engineer battalions are formed of three companies each.

TABLE II. REGULAR TROOPS IN UNITED STATES AS A MOBILE DIVISION

From these 62,853 officers and men, we could get 24,122 infantry with the proper complement of auxiliary troops. This force, being sorted into independent cavalry, two mixed divisions and an auxiliary division, might be dignified with the name of field army, though it is little larger than a European army corps. (See Table IV, on page 837.)

The surplus of men would about suffice to guard the communications and keep the ranks full for, say, six months. But the mobilization of this force involves the incorporation of about 27,000 additional men. In all the great armies of the world this is done by calling to the colors what are known as Reserves, men who have served from one to three years in the ranks, and upon discharge are held to service only for an occasional manœuvre and to fill up the ranks in time of war. All the arms, uniforms, and equipments for these men are kept in store, ready for immediate issue when needed. In our Army there is no such provision for filling the ranks. Our 27,000 men would have to be newly enlisted. To get them of the physical standard which now obtains in the Army, it would be necessary to examine over 135,000, for not one in five applicants is accepted. Before they are sent to a camp of instruction, all the necessary uniforms, tentage, and other equipment would have to be, or should be, collected there for them. It would then be necessary to see that the arms, uniforms, and personal equipment are properly issued to them, which includes the fitting of each individual man. Only when this work, or the greater part of it, is done, should the training of these raw recruits begin, to be carried on until they are transformed into reliable soldiers. All this would prolong the process of mobilization, so that six months should be allowed for it. In this time, or before the first general engagement, the Army might provide for its quota of heavy artillery, say eleven batteries, or fortyfour pieces and 1342 officers and men. The equipping and training of this army might be done partially or imperfectly in less time than the writer has allowed for it. But he assumes in his calculation that the force raised is all to be used, and is to meet the enemy on equal terms, and not to humiliate us with a new Bladensburg or Bull Run, nor saddle us for another generation with a monstrous pension budget.

TABLE III. REGULAR MOBILE TROOPS IN UNITED STATES AT WAR STRENGTH

This regular force might be increased with militia. Let us suppose that the organized Militia, or National Guard, is all called out. According to the last War Department report, this force numbers 119,660 officers and men. Deducting the contingent of Hawaii, the coast artillery, the general staffs, altogether 9805, we get for comparison with the foregoing figures, a remainder of 109,855. This aggregate of the forces of forty-eight states and territories would be made up as indicated in Table V, on page 838.

These officers and men, nearly 110,000, will furnish us the personnel for an army based upon 25,000 infantry, with a sufficient force for the protection of the communications, and reserves to keep the ranks full for about five years. The field army would number about 36,000 officers and men, and eighty pieces of artillery. It would have no horse artillery or heavy artillery, and very few machine guns.

In a mobile army there should be about one general officer to every 2500 enlisted men. Our Regular Army contains about one for every 3400, and the National Guard about one for every 2600. The proportion in the National Guard being about right, practically all of the National Guard, if acting as a unit, would be commanded by National Guard generals. We know little or nothing as to the ability of these officers. The popular estimate of it, in and out of military circles, does not seem to be high. Judging from our military history, and what the writer has personally observed, it should be pretty low.

It may as well be admitted too that in our Regular Army the generals are not our best card. Few, if any of them, have done anything that can be considered a demonstration of fitness for their high offices in the field. But they are well instructed theoretically, and their lack of practical training is being gradually repaired by experience at manœuvres. There is good reason for believing that, so far as the regular forces are concerned, the officers and men, assuming the recruits to be trained as before indicated, will be approximately up to the standard of the best foreign armies, and be fully armed and equipped.

TABLE IV. REGULAR MOBILE TROOPS IN UNITED STATES AT WAR STRENGTH

Of the National Guard, eighty-seven per cent are reported by the Chief of the Division of Militia Affairs to be ‘sufficiently armed and equipped for field service.’ But the word ‘equipped ’ as used in this report seems not to include horses or mules, wagons, ambulances, or caissons, and it is uncertain how far it includes medical and surgical equipment, signal and engineer equipment. Referring to the National Guard, the Secretary of War reported to Congress, December 12, 1910: ‘It is not fully equipped for field service.’

Neither does the Chief of the Division of Militia Affairs report what per cent of the National Guard is physically fit for field service. The only figures bearing on this point are given in a quotation from the report of the medical officer who inspected the sanitary troops in a number of camps of instruction. Referring to the contingents from three states, he says, ‘ The physical disqualifications of at least fifty per cent of the personnel was apparent. Anæmia, deficient physical development, and evidences of improper nourishment before entering camp, were in evidence, . . . cases of infectious diseases were brought into this camp that should have been apparent before the organizations left their stations, such as typhoid fever and advanced tuberculosis.’ An inspector of infantry remarks: ‘The physical examination of the men in the National Guard is not strict enough. . . . We are spending ammunition and imparting instruction, such as it is, on a great many men who would never be accepted for service.’

There is no report as to what per cent of the National Guard is adequately trained, or has attained any definite standard of proficiency. All the training that is required of it by law is five consecutive days of camp or field service, and twenty-four drills or periods of target practice or other instruction, in the course of a year. Of the organizations that assembled during the last year for drill or target practice, about forty per cent failed to parade an average strength of two thirds of their number. Only seventytwo per cent of the enrolled strength attended target practice. The course pursued in this exercise is so different from that of the Regular Army that no satisfactory comparison can be made between the marksmanship of the Militia and that of the Army. It is plain, however, that the infantry of the National Guard is very deficient in this cardinal qualification. ‘The field efficiency of the organized Militia of the United States varies from that of a high standard to a very low one. The officers and men of some state forces know little even of their elementary duties.’

TABLE V. MOBILE NATIONAL GUARD IN THE UNITED STATES AT PEACE STRENGTH

When armies move toward each other at the outbreak of war the three tactical arms come into contact with the enemy, and engage him in the following order: first, cavalry; second, artillery; third, infantry. The arm, therefore, that should be the readiest, the best prepared for active service, is the cavalry; the next readiest should be the artillery, and the least the infantry. In our National Guard the order of readiness is just the reverse of this. The best prepared is the infantry, and the least prepared the cavalry. The horse artillery, which should accompany the independent cavalry, does not exist.

The first encounters of cavalry are fought mounted. These contests are decided by shock of horse against horse, or cut and thrust of sabre and pistolshot from the saddle. The cavalry, if so it may be called, that can only fight dismounted, will be about as effective against regular cavalry as it would be against a cruising airship. What socalled cavalry there is in our National Guard is generally mounted infantry. The Chief of Staff of the Army reports: ‘In the cavalry and field artillery of the National Guard the difficulty of providing horses renders satisfactory training next to impossible.’

The special inspector of the field artillery says: ‘Of all the batteries seen this summer there was but one (A of Massachusetts) capable of delivering an effective fire. ’ Referring to this arm, the Chief of Staff of the Army says: ‘It is, with the exception of a few batteries, practically uninstructed in field duty and wholly unprepared for service.’ While cavalry is the first arm to become engaged, once the engagement becomes general, the light artillery is the more important auxiliary arm. Without it the main arm, the infantry, would be paralyzed; for infantry cannot advance under the fire of modern infantry and artillery without the support of an efficient artillery.

But let us for the moment overlook the matter of training. Allowing only for lack of equipment, physical unfitness, business engagements, and other deterring causes, we should not reckon on more than seventy per cent of the reported strength of the National Guard, or in round numbers about 83,000 officers and men, to report in answer to a call; and these would probably include a considerable percentage of new, untrained men, taking the places of stayat-homes. Taking seventy per cent of the numbers given in column 2 of Table V and adding them to the corresponding numbers in Table III, we get for the combined National Guard at peace strength and Regular Army at war strength the forces shown in Table VI, on page 839 (columns 1 and 2). The auxiliary arms correspond to infantry as indicated in column 3; the corresponding army, based on 66,038 infantry, is shown in column 4. It is assumed that the heavy artillery indicated has been provided for.

TABLE VI. CONSOLIDATED MOBILE REGULAR AND MOBILE NATIONAL GUARD FORCES IN THE UNITED STATES

This force might be formed into a field army composed of a brigade of independent cavalry, three divisions, and an auxiliary division. The necessary commanders and staffs for these divisions and the field army would increase the aggregate strength to a little over 94,000. We will suppose that the surplus of about 50,000 men will repair the losses in men during the first year. If provision is made for prolonging the war beyond this time, giving recruits a year’s training and forwarding proper reinforcements of trained men every three months, we should have at the end of every three months, while the war lasts, say 10,000 new men to uniform.

Under the head of supply we must consider the whole establishment — about 140,000 men and 335 pieces in the mobile army within the United States, and 75,000 men and forty pieces outside of the mobile army within and without the United States, making about 215,000 men and 375 pieces, without counting recruits or reservists.

We have in the Army a six months’ supply of clothing, including bed-blankets, for about 170,000 men. And in the Militia a six months’ supply for about 125,000. These supplies might last 215,000 men about nine months. At the end of that time we should have a supply equal to all demands. In regard to personal equipment (haversack, canteen, cartridge-belt, meat-can, etc.) no accurate information is obtainable as to the stock on hand. For a number of years the Chief of Ordnance of the Army has been trying to accumulate a reserve for 300,000 infantry, 50,000 cavalry, and 300 batteries of artillery. But how far he has succeeded is not known. It would appear from his last annual report¹ that he has stored, in division depots, sufficient equipment for eleven full divisions at war strength — about 238,000 officers and men — for a period of six months. Equipments could be produced by the Ordnance Department at the rate of 600 sets per day. In these six months, added to six months of preparation, the department could produce a fresh supply of about 187,000 from its present plant; as many more as might be wanted would come from additional plants, public or private, put up in the mean time. Allowing three months for enlisting the new men and assembling the troops at camps of instruction, and four for equipping and training them, the army would be ready for the field about seven months after beginning to prepare for it, though with a number of militia generals, whose education would lack something more than a finishing touch.

The force necessary for the protection of the communications depends upon many factors, the chief of which are the number and the length of the lines. It may be assumed that there will be four of them. The length will ordinarily be less on the defensive than on the offensive, and will increase with the progress of an offensive campaign. We should allow for guarding the communications of our field army at least a division, say 20,000 men, with fortyeight pieces of artillery, which would reduce the first line of our field army to about 73,000 men, with 135 pieces of artillery.

Under modern conditions the average piece of artillery in a field army will fire about 500 rounds in one good day’s fighting. Taking three such days of fighting as falling to the average piece per year, we have 1500 rounds as the average expenditure per piece per year in a field army, and 220,500 as the yearly expenditure of the 147 pieces in the first line of our field army. Adding for the remaining 228 pieces of our whole establishment 500 per piece, we get for the total annual expenditure, 334,500 rounds. We have altogether about 220,000 rounds, or a supply for about eight months of campaigning. By the end of that time and seven months of preparation our government factory would have furnished us about 120,000 rounds, and private factories the remainder. Thereafter these establishments would produce fast enough to meet all demands.

The infantry and cavalry would need about 1200 additional machine guns. These are manufactured in the United States, both in government factories and in private factories, but at what rate the writer does not know and cannot learn for publication. We may hope, but should not expect, that in seven months the Army and the National Guard could be fully equipped with them and properly trained in their use.

The Surgeon-General has in store a field equipment for 200,000 men. How long this equipment will last and at what rate it can be replaced, the writer has indeed learned, but is not allowed to publish. He cannot say with any accuracy how the Army would be off for transportation, engineer equipment, and signal equipment. Information on these points either is not obtainable or is confidential, but he assumes that the Army could supply itself in these respects.

Apart from the items considered, we have or can probably procure, a timely supply of all necessary munitions of war. But producing and purchasing under the strain and stress of war would be very much more expensive than would a proper provision for our war requirements in time of peace. Not only this, — the supply obtained in time of war would be largely of inferior quality. It would not be possible to subject all purchases to the thorough test or inspection to which they are subjected in time of peace.

TABLE VII. SHOWING THE ORGANIZED FORCES FORMING THE FIRST LINE

A simple way to raise a larger force than we have yet considered would be to recruit the National Guard as well as the Army to its full war strength. This would give us about 130,000 more Militia, making our whole establishment number 346,000 men. Our supply of uniforms would last these men about five months. To provide for adequately increasing it and keeping it up, we should allow, say, ten months; we should not commence issuing from our reserve until five months after taking the first steps toward replenishing it. That would delay recruiting more or less, according to the extent to which we could handle recruits in civilian clothing and without bed-blankets. Let us put this delay at two months. Allowing two months for enlistment and concentration, and five months for training, we have for the minimum period of mobilization nine months. We have but 572 pieces of field artillery, including 140 heavy; and forty pieces are supposed to be outside of the United States. Assuming that the additional Militia, with the available pieces, all went into the field army, it would give the latter a strength of 224,000 men with 532 pieces of artillery, of which, say, 180,000, with 432 pieces, would be in the first line, or in advance of the lines of communication, and 44,000, with 100 pieces, on the lines of communication. Our reserve of artillery ammunition would last the whole establishment about four months. But this time added to the nine months of mobilization would make thirteen months. In that time we should have provided the manufacturing plants to furnish us ammunition and all other necessary munitions of war as fast as we should need them. Our surplus of men should provide for keeping the ranks pretty well filled for about a year.

We could not go on expanding our military establishment by enlistment. Any further expansion of it would involve the formation of new organizations, the appointment of additional officers, which means raising volunteers. Allowing the necessary time, there is no limit to the numbers that we may enroll, and organize, except that of our military population. Taking this to consist of our male citizens between eighteen and forty-five years of age, it numbers about 16,000,000. Allowing for the physically, mentally, and morally unfit, those religiously opposed to war, and those who on other grounds should be or who succeed in being exempted from conscription, and allowing also for the Navy, Naval Militia, and Marine Corps, we have about 8,000,000 available men. The rate at which we could convert this population into armies would depend upon how far, and how fast, we could eke out our inadequate supplies by purchases from abroad; and would be determined largely by the number of trained officers and men that we furnished from the Regular Army as instructors and leavens to the new organizations.

Just how we would go about the formation of a volunteer army is not known. A bill making provision for it in detail has been before Congress for three years, but there has not been enough interest in the matter to bring it to a vote. We might, by judicious and energetic use of our resources, put a million of men on a war footing, trained, as well as equipped and organized, to meet a first-class foreign army, in from one to two years. Deducting 100,000 for service outside of the United States, we should have 900,000 for service within the United States. Deducting 300,000 more for reserves to repair losses for about a year, we should have 600,000 men for active service within the United States. Judging by the exigencies of our Civil War, this force would be partitioned about as follows: —

First line, in advance of lines of communication 300,000

Second line, on lines of communication 200,000 Third line, in home depots and garrisons 100,000

600,000

After about a year and a half of preparation we might be able to add to our forces by the half-million or million, until we were limited by the number necessary to be kept in reserve to repair losses. We should figure on at least twenty-five per cent of our whole military establishment as marked for death, capture, discharge, desertion, or other such casualty, in the course of the year.

The conclusions arrived at in the foregoing discussion are summarized in Table VII, at the foot of page 841, showing the properly organized forces that we can put in the field as a first line, in the periods indicated, including the heavy artillery.

Along the 3000 miles of our northern frontier we are confronted by a powerful empire with which we have done a large part of our fighting and have had more friction and differences than with any other foreign power. From Vancouver to Halifax, and from Halifax to Jamaica, dependencies of Great Britain girdle the United States with a cordon of military and naval bases of operation. On our western side, where she holds no such position of vantage, she has an ally in our one formidable rival and only supposable opponent. We could not build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama without stipulating with her, not only as to her own rights, but also as to those of all other nations, in the projected waterway, and providing—which provision, to be sure, we are now practically repudiating—that foreign nations should be allowed to use the canal in waging war against the United States.

On our southern border a nominal republic is in a condition of disorder which may at any time lead to our intervention, or some other nation’s. Should Great Britain go into Mexico and decide, as she did in Egypt, to take her time about going out, the United States would have to put her out or swallow the Monroe Doctrine.

On our eastern and western frontiers we can no longer look for safety to the vast wet ditches formed by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Should our fleets be defeated, or diverted from the defense of our coasts, a single expedition across the Atlantic or the Pacific might land on our shore a force of 100,000 men. The operation need not last twenty days. Such a force might be followed by another one of equal number in from twenty to forty days. Thus, inside of two months, 200,000 men may have descended upon us. Deducting, say, one fourth as guards for the communications, there would be about 150,000 for the first line of an invading army.

Our seacoasts are fortified at the entrances of the principal ports. But these fortifications are short of men and ammunition, and lacking in other elements of equipment, such as firecontrol, search-lights, and power-plants for the movement of ammunition. On the Atlantic coast they need as a minimum force to man them 39,549 men. To meet this need they would probably have 16,200 Regulars and 4200 Militia, together 20,400 men, making a deficiency of 19,149 men. On the Pacific side they would have more than enough men. The guns and mortars are provided with sufficient ammunition for all of them to fire continuously forty-one minutes, or for half of them to fire continuously for an hour and twenty-two minutes. The Chief of Ordnance of the Army thinks there should be ammunition for half of the guns and mortars to fire continuously for two hours. But let us believe that there is a sufficiency of men and of ammunition for the efficient working of the armaments. There can still be no greater delusion than to think that our seacoast forts constitute a protection to our coast-lines. Forts can defend a strategic line or front only under one or two conditions: that they command by their fire every practicable line of march to or between the forts, or that they include in their garrisons forces adapted and adequate to sallying out and attacking the invading columns or cutting their communications. In our seacoast forts neither of these conditions obtains. The guns and mortars command only the channels by which hostile vessels may enter the ports, and the direct approaches from these channels to the forts. The garrisons include no mobile troops, no forces suited to sallying out against the enemy. On the unprotected roads leading from rivers, creeks, estuaries, and beaches where troops might be landed, we should meet the enemy with field armies or detachments therefrom that will prevent him from landing, or drive him back upon the sea. Are we prepared as we should be to do this?