The Regulars: the American Army 1898-1941

Parameters, Winter, 2004 by Cole C. Kingseed

The Regulars: The American Army 1898-1941. By Edward M. Coffman. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004. 517 pages. $35.00. Reviewed by Colonel Cole C. Kingseed, USA Ret., Former Chief of Military History, US Military Academy, 1999-2001.

Few books on military history will be received with as much interest as Edward M. Coffman's The Regulars: The American Army 1898-1941. The long-awaited sequel to Coffman's The Old Army, this volume tells the story of the American Army's evolution from a frontier constabulary force on the eve of the Spanish-American War to a professional force that prepared to wage global warfare against the forces of fascism. At the heart of this remarkable transformation was the Army's officer corps, which Coffman posits provided the character of the Regular Army. Spurred by an organizational revolution that created a professional Army staff and an institutional education system that gave the Army's leadership the vision of what modern war required, the US Army entered World War II with a rapidly expanding force led by officers who had earned their collective spurs in an interwar military characterized by austere budgets and slow promotions. When the United States entered the war in 1941, it was the Regulars who commanded all but two divisions that eventually served in combat.

To explain how the Regular Army met this challenge, Coffman describes the evolution of the nation's land force by focusing on its leadership and its culture. Similar to his approach in writing The Old Army, Coffman relies extensively on oral histories and interviews, as well as official records and government reports. The net result is social history at its best, expressed by one of the premier military historians of his age.

What makes this particular volume so interesting and engaging is Coffman's comprehensive approach to his subject. His description of the Army's recruiting practices is especially interesting. Each active regiment contributed an officer on a two-year assignment, later supplemented by retired officers recalled to active service, and an appropriate number of enlisted personnel to carry out this mission. Recruiters and Army doctors rejected nearly 75 percent of the applicants prior to World War I. Applicants were generally attracted by economic necessity, the possibility of advancement, and the desire for adventure and the glamour of military life, not that much different from America's current force.

Coffman also examines the contributions of Secretary of War Elihu Root, whose managerial revolution converted the Army's senior leadership into a highly professional core of officers. Root's greatest battle was for the establishment of a general staff that would centralize both planning and coordination and "avoid such a debacle as the mobilization in 1898." Backed by President Theodore Roosevelt, Root got his General Staff in 1903. He then created the Army War College and began a revolution in Army education. Next he persuaded Congress to make the first major change in the federal government's relationship with the state militias since George Washington's administration.

The Army was still struggling with these organizational changes when the Military Academy class of 1909 entered the Army. Members of that distinguished class included George S. Patton, Jr., William H. Simpson, and Jacob L. Devers, all destined to command armies of army groups in World War II. When this trio graduated, they were extremely pleased that Congress had raised the Army base pay for the first time since 1870. Second lieutenants now received $1,700 as their annual base pay. West Pointers now comprised roughly 43 percent of the officer corps, slightly less than those commissioned from civil life, while the remaining 13 percent were commissioned from the ranks.

Secretary Root's visionary reforms also found expression in the Army's emphasis on institutionalized progressive education. Coffman traces the Class of 1909 through their initial garrison schools which every lieutenant and captain with less than ten years of service had to attend for two hours a day for 90 days--which Root labeled "the foundation of the whole system." The next step in the educational system was the General Service and Staff College, which evolved into a sophisticated study of tactics. Summing up the Leavenworth experience, future Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall said, "I learnt how to learn."

The final step in the Army's education system was the War College. The students were rigorously selected and the curriculum included practical work on map problems, war games, military history, and mandatory work on plans in the War College Division of the War Department General Staff. Following the classroom instruction was a six-week staff ride over Civil War battlefields, which hardened the recent graduates both physically and mentally. Officers on duty in the nation's capital might also be fortunate enough to attend the Industrial War College in addition to the standard senior service college.