Abstract
In his chapter, Edward Coffman helps counteract the view (advanced by Ronald Spector1 and others) that ‘Neither the Army nor the Navy was at all prepared for the kind of war they would have to fight’ in 1917–18. Coffman argues instead that most of the top US Army officers were well prepared for the major European war in which they participated. His thesis is supported by appropriate examples. Of particular value is his excellent description and analysis of the books and readings that were assigned to American officers who attended the Staff College at Fort Leavenworth and the Army War College. These reading assignments can be seen as part of the growing pattern in the US Army to rely on formal schooling of its officers, who came into the service from several sources — West Point, other military colleges, and by direct commission — in order to lay a common foundation among the officer corps. This common foundation, especially the schooling at Leavenworth, clearly improved the professionalism of American officers between 1903 and 1917.2
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Notes
Ronald Spector, ‘You’re Not Going to Send Sailors Over There Are You?’: The American Search for An Alternative to the Western Front, 1916–1917’, Military Affairs, 36 (February 1972), p. 1.
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 Press, 1978), pp. 53–133.
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Jay Luvaas, The Military Legacy of the Civil War: The European Inheritance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959).
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John Patrick Finnegan, Against the Spector of a Dragon: The Campaign for American Preparedness, 1914–1917 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1974), pp. 162–3.
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© 1990 The Military Studies Institute of Texas A & M University
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Dawson, J.G. (1990). Comments. In: Adams, R.J.Q. (eds) The Great War, 1914–18. Studies in Military and Strategic History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11454-2_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11454-2_11
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