The Spanish-American War demonstrated that if the United States was to be successful in its new role as an international power, its military forces were in need of serious reform. After numerous Congressional hearings on the inefficiencies and supply scandals which mobilization and combat had revealed, President McKinley appointed Elihu Root, a corporate lawyer with no military experience, as Secretary of War. Root's mission was to modernize the Army, a task at which he succeeded.
Some internationalist, expansion-minded Americans would have liked to see a much larger Regular Army grow out of Root's reforms. Not surprisingly, most of the Regular Army officers fell in this category. But Root and the more realistic reformers realized that, in addition to Americans' traditional fears of a large standing Army, no money for a large Army would be forthcoming from Congress. Secretary Root knew that the country would have to rely, as it always had, on its citizen-soldier reserves.
But what kind of reserves? The Regular Army had long sought a "national reserve" of individuals, without ties to any state and firmly under the Army's control. They looked down on the militia, and it is important to understand why.
"The Old Army" The United States Army of 1903 was a small, tightly-knit institution. The United States Military Academy produced the overwhelming majority of its officers, with many young men following their fathers and grandfathers to West Point. Only a very small number of officers were commissioned from the ranks or from other military academies. The Reserve Officers Training Corps did not yet exist, so there was practically no mechanism for bringing "new blood" into the Army.
Thus, because there were very few examples to the contrary, most Army officers of 1903 believed that only years of training could produce a good soldier. The Regulars scorned both National Guard officers and men as "amateurs," and they were deeply distrustful of the Guard's state ties. Their plan for the nation's military reserves would remove those ties.
Since its founding some 30 years before, the National Guard Association had bitterly fought such a plan. Friends of the Guard and states-rights advocates in Congress joined the battle.
The Dick Act The Guard prevailed. The act which was signed into law in January 1903--replacing the 1792 Militia Act, which had stood for 111 years--reaffirmed the National Guard as the Army's primary organized reserve. Known as the Dick Act for the Congressman and National Guard General from Ohio who had sponsored it, the 1903 law opened the way for increased federal control over the Guard. If a state wanted part of the vastly-increased federal funds which the Dick Act made available, units in that state were for the first time subject to inspection by Regular Army officers, and to specified unit strengths. The Dick Act required Guardsmen to attend 24 drills per year and five days of annual training. For the first time, there was federal pay for annual training, although not for drills. The Militia Act of 1908 increased militia appropriations to $4 million, and lifted the previous restriction of nine months active duty time in case of national emergency. The President now had the power to call the Guard in to service for any specified length of time. But in 1912 the Attorney General nullified this provision of the 1908 act by ruling that the President could not employ the militia outside of the United States.
T'he 1908 act also called for the creation of a Division of Militia Affairs within the War Department; militia affairs had previously been scattered among many different offices. The chief of the Division and all his staff were Regular Amy officers.
The National Defense Act of 1916 When World War I began in Europe in August 1914, few thought that the war would drag on for years, or that the United States would ever be involved. But by 1915 the conflict had stalemated into bloody trench warfare, and some Americans were beginning to talk about "preparedness." Once again, the structure of the nation's military forces became a political topic. Revolution and political unrest in Mexico added fuel to the discussion; troops had been sent to Veracruz in 1914 to protect American life and property, and there would be more trouble from south of the border.
The Army's Chief of Staff, Major General Leonard Wood, and Secretary of War Lindley Garrison mounted another attack on the militia. Wood, Garrison, and the entire General Staff (including the Chief of the Militia Division) argued before Congress that the militia, a collection of compartmentalized state forces, was by its very nature impossible to organize or to mobilize. Garrison and Wood had plans for a national individual reserve which they called the "Continental Army." The Continental Army, however, was flatly rejected by anti-militarists, states-righters, and friends of the militia in Congress.
The National Defense Act of 1916, the legislation which emerged from this debate, was one of the most important pieces of military legislation in United States history. The Act guaranteed the state militia's status as the Army's primary reserve force, and it mandated the term "National Guard" for that force.
But some autonomy had to be surrendered in order to get this recognition. The National Defense Act prescribed that qualifications for National Guard officers would be determined by the War Department; that each unit would have to be Federally recognized; and that units would be organized in accordance with Army tables of organization and equipment. Dozens of other provisions specified fiscal and enlistment procedures, strength requirements, and school training requirements. The President was given the authority, in case of war or national emergency, to mobilize the National Guard for the duration of the emergency. The number of yearly drills increased from 24 to 48, and annual training from five to 15 days. Drill pay was authorized for the first time, something for which the National Guard Association had long been lobbying.
Trouble on the Mexican Border Passage of the 1916 act was spurred by events on the Mexican border. In March of that year Pancho Villa, the Mexican bandit/politician, raided the town of Columbus, New Mexico. Seventeen Americans, including 9 soldiers, were killed, and scores were wounded. General John J. Pershing quickly mounted a punitive expedition to chase Villa deep into Mexico.
The Mexican government, always distrustful of its neighbor, responded by moving its troops toward the United States border. Pershing's expedition had denuded the region of troops, and there was panic in the border states. The National Guards of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona were called up, a force which soon totaled over 5,000. When the Mexicans ordered that Pershing make no move "East, South, or West" (but not North, the way back to the United States), President Woodrow Wilson decided that there was enough threat of hostilities to warrant calling up the entire National Guard.
Coming just 15 days after passage of the new National Defense Act, the call-up naturally created confusion. Many states were not sure what types of forces they were supposed to field, and did not have copies of the tables of organization and equipment under which those forces were n ow supposed to be organized. The National Guard of 1916 was hardly a "balanced" force. Units were overwhelmingly infantry because the federal government had never provided the money or the equipment required for signal, engineer, or other combat arms units. Many cavalry and artillery units had always furnished their own horses, but felt that while in Federal service their horses should be supplied by the Army. Some of these units spent months in Northern camps waiting for horses and other equipment, which in some cases never arrived.
158,664 Guardsmen eventually reported for active duty. There were not enough trains to transport even a small percentage of them to the Southwest immediately, but by July 31, 112,000 Guardsmen were in place along the border.
To the Southwestern Guardsmen, this desert region was home. But to many men from the East and Midwest, it was a desolate and forbidding place. Daytime temperatures in July and August were frequently over 100 degrees, and, except in the mountains, ther e were no trees for shade. In August, the desert "rainy season," violent thunderstorms tore down the Guardsmens' tents and flooded their camps. A Guardsman on duty in West Texas commented that the United States should march into Mexico to teach the Mexicans a lesson, "and then make them take this God-forsaken country back.
"Guardsmen who hoped for a fight were disappointed. But despite the fact that the men saw no action, the campaign was valuable nonetheless. State staffs became familiar with the problems of mobilizing large numbers of men, and many commanders got their first chance at handling large numbers of men in the field. And individual Guardsmen left the border better trained and in better physical condition.
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