The Career of Leonard Wood Part 10

At the same time he had the opportunity by invitation of seeing the German and French {208} armies mobilized at the time of the Bosnia-Herzegovina episode when all Europe was on the verge of war.

The German army of maneuver was at Saarbrucken--ready. Practically the whole of the French army of maneuver was on the Loire--ready. He saw one immediately after the other--less than two days apart. Mr. White, then American Amba.s.sador to France, asked him what he thought of the French army and his answer was that despite the fame of the German military machine France in the next war would surprise the world by the fitting effectiveness of her forces. He based this conclusion on the relation of officers and men and the discipline founded on respect and confidence rather than fear of officers.

Then followed the centenary mission to the Argentine and a couple of years as Chief of Staff of the American army before he could effectively begin his campaign.

The first gun was a letter sent out by Wood under permission of the Secretary of War which proposed to many presidents of colleges and universities in the United States the establishment of several experimental military training camps {209} for students. These camps were to be placed one on the historic field of Gettysburg and the other at the Presidio of Monterey, California. The former opened on July 7th and closed on August 15th, and the latter extended from July 1st to August 8th. In all 222 students took this training, 159 at Gettysburg and 68 in Monterey.

It was the first trial, and it was a very small and insignificant response. Indeed it gives a good idea of the importance in which military preparedness was held in this country at that moment-- 100,000,000 inhabitants; 222 volunteers.

Those were the days when the people of this land and many others were hard at work upon commercial pursuits and when for amus.e.m.e.nt the world and his wife danced tango to ragtime music. So-called alarmists cried "Look out for war!" Major Du Maurier of the British army wrote a play called "An Englishman's Home," which startled and puzzled Englishmen for a while, but could not carry an audience for one week in this country. n.o.body took any interest in what his neighbor was doing, to say nothing of what Germany or any other countries were planning.

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Yet Wood was not discouraged. He was started on a long campaign and he knew he had to prepare to prepare. Furthermore the men in the universities who could see ahead came forward in his support and in support of the idea. Four years later President Drinker of Lehigh University wrote of the amazing success of the movement: "We owe it largely to Major-General Wood's farsightedness as a man of affairs and to his great qualities as a soldier and patriot, that our country was awakened to the need of preparedness, and this beginning of military training in our youth was due wholly to his initiative." [Footnote: _National Service Magazine_.]

Small as the beginning was it was a plant with the germ of strength in it, since at this first camp in Gettysburg the members formed then in 1913 the Society of the National Reserve Corps of the United States.

Wood at once cooperated with this slender offshoot and gave it all the support in his power. He sent letters as Chief of Staff of the Regular Army to college presidents at the same time that the president of the new Corps did so--both suggesting an advisory committee to {211} a.s.sist the government in the encouragement and practical advancement of the training camp idea. This committee was formed and Presidents Hibben of Princeton and Drinker of Lehigh were elected president and secretary. The committee with these officers in charge gave a.s.sistance to Wood in his organizing work so that out of the small beginnings in the two camps an enormous organization arose which trained tens of thousands of young men to be officers and made the immense expansion of the little American army to 4,000,000 soldiers possible.

Pushing always quietly but unremittingly ahead Wood helped these officers to increase the camps from two to four in the summer of 1914--in Vermont, Michigan, North Carolina and California--with a total attendance of 667 students.

Then came the Great War and the beginning of the work on a large scale. From college students, who reported on the interest and pleasure which they got out of the summer camp, the life in the open and the military instruction afforded by regular army men, the movement extended to business men, lawyers, preachers and so on. Wood {212} opened the Plattsburg camp on Lake Champlain to the latter and started the first business man's camp. Each man paid his own railway fares, his own living expenses while in camp and bought his uniform and equipment, except arms, with his own money.

That year (1915) 3,406 men attended the five camps. In 1916 six camps were opened and 16,139 men attended them. At the close of the first Plattsburg camp the business men formed an organization for furthering and extending this training just as the college men had done at Gettysburg two years before. And in 1916 these two organizations consolidated and organized the present Military Training Camps a.s.sociation of the United States.

All through this period, taking advantage of the European war, drawing lessons from the tragic happenings just across the Atlantic, Wood went about the country, as little "Bobs" of Kandahar had previously done in England, speaking in halls, in camps, in churches, at clubs, at festivals, on special and unspecial occasions of all kinds. He drove home the subject which he knew so well and others knew hardly at all.

He met all comers of {213} every grade in arguments and debates--those who were const.i.tutional objectors, pacifists, people who thought arbitration much more effective, people too proud to fight or too busy to get ready--all comers of all kinds. And the Great War day by day helped him. He spent his summers going from one camp to another, traveling all over the United States.

At six in the morning he would appear in one of them ready for inspection, and any day anywhere where there was a camp one might see him in the early morning sunshine, or the early morning rain striding up one company street and down another followed by new and old officers, peering into this dog tent and that kitchen, examining this man's rifle and that man's kit, praising, criticizing and jamming enthusiasm in two hours into a group of a thousand men in a manner they knew not how, nor clearly understood. It was just what he had done in Cuba, just what he had done in the Philippines where he had organized drilling, athletic and condition-of-equipment compet.i.tions in each company, each regiment, each brigade, each division--one pitted against another, all at it hot and heavy; {214} not because Wood came along and looked them over, but because when he did look them over he could spot any weakness in any part of the work with unerring certainty--not alone because he could spot any weakness, but because he knew a good point when he saw it and gave credit where credit was due.

It is perhaps not out of place here to look back in the light of events which occurred afterwards and are now a part of history and secure an estimate of what this work did for this country in awakening the people to a sense of the critical situation, to prepare an army which should do its part in the world war, to bring that army into line in France at what seems to have been a critical moment and to help bring the war itself to a successful conclusion in conjunction with the Allied armies which had held on so long against such terrific odds.

The purpose of the camps and what they will lead to in time of peace and did lead to in time of war is perhaps best shown in one of General Wood's statements: "The ultimate object sought is not in any way one of military aggrandizement, {215} but to provide in some degree a means of meeting a vital need confronting us as a peaceful and unmilitary people, in order to preserve the desired peace and prosperity through the only safe precaution, viz.: more thorough preparation and equipment to resist any effort to break the peace."

That at a time when there was no European War in sight.

Now consider General Pershing's report of Nov. 21, 1918--after the close of the war. The first American air force using American aeroplanes went into action in France, that is to say in the war, in August, 1918--16 months after the declaration of war by the United States and four years after the beginning of the war itself. During the entire time that the United States was in the war, a little over 19 months, not one single American field gun was fired at the enemy and only 109 had been received in Europe at all. No American tank was ever used against the enemy in the whole war. Yet a month or six weeks after the declaration of war troops began to go to Europe and at its close in November, 1918, the army {216} consisted of 3,700,000 men, of whom more than 203,000 were newly made officers. Half of this force at least got over to the other side of the Atlantic and at least half of them took part in the fighting at one time or another of the 19 months.

One would have said at the outset that a commercial nation like the United States, filled with factories, mechanics and mechanically inclined brains, could and would have made guns and aeroplanes and uniforms far quicker than it made soldiers and officers. Yet such was not the case.

A French officer here in America at that time studying American mobilization said:

"I knew you recruited over 3,500,000 men in 19 months. That is very good, but not so difficult. But I am told also that although you had no officers reserve to start with you somehow found 200,000 new officers, most of them competent. That is what is astonishing and what was impossible. Tell me how that was done." [Footnote: _National Magazine_]

There is only the one answer, that the officers' training camps started in 1918 by Leonard Wood and fostered by him and the people of this nation {217} who then and later agreed with him made the impossible possible and made the new, raw army effective and in time.

It was what came to be known as the "Plattsburg Idea;" which, getting really going first in May 16, 1917, as a regular part of the United States mobilization, did its work before arms and ammunition were ready, before uniforms could be had, before camps had been even laid out and before the first draft had been taken. At that time 40,000 selected men were in training for officers' positions in sixteen camps. That is to say, in 40 days 150,000 applications had been received, 100,000 men examined and 40,000 pa.s.sed as fit and ready for training.

It was the work in 1913, 1914, 1915 and 1916. It was the Plattsburg idea adapted to war conditions. Without it the situation regarding men might easily have been the same as the situation regarding guns, aeroplanes and uniforms.

Plattsburg, being in New York State, naturally became the type of camp, since in 1914 Wood, having been relieved of his position as Chief of Staff, was detailed to command the Department of the East with his headquarters on Governor's {218} Island in New York Harbor.

He no sooner took up this new work than the Department of the East, where fifty-six per cent, of the National Guard of the whole country was included, became a seething office of energy and work. In so far as the training camp idea went this energy was centered in Plattsburg.

At the same time General Wood inaugurated the Ma.s.sachusetts National Guard Maneuvers--the first of their kind held in this country--and added a water attack on Boston. He also a.s.sisted Governor Whitman in putting through the New York State Legislature the bills creating the State Military Training Commission, under whose management all boys between the ages of sixteen and eighteen undergo a simple but effective training in the rudiments of military tactics and receive the athletic training of a short camp life each year--all involving the inculcation of the principles of discipline, of order and of self care.

Thus the history of the way in which the Government of the United States, when war was eventually declared, secured its officers is told. {219} One might go into detail, but the main facts are not altered by any amount of detail. They stand out clearly--the awakening of our land in time by the energy and patriotic spirit of one man, supplemented by the untold amount of work accomplished at his suggestion by thousands of patriotic American citizens.

And in the midst of this work before war was declared General Wood, as a part of his plan of preparedness, asked some ten or twelve men to come to Plattsburg at different times to speak to the student officers. Among these men he included the two living ex-presidents of the United States--Mr. Taft and Colonel Roosevelt. He first submitted the list of speakers to the War Department so that the Department might eliminate any one of them who for any reason should appear to be undesirable.

After two weeks, having had no reply, he sent out the invitations and from time to time these speakers came and addressed the members of the different camps.

Roosevelt on his arrival at Plattsburg handed to Wood the speech he proposed to deliver; and {220} in view of the known critical att.i.tude which the former took towards the administration Wood asked two other army officers to go over the proposed speech with him and help him to eliminate anything which might be questioned upon such an occasion.

The address was delivered at about five o'clock in the afternoon at the camp and when it was finished Roosevelt was heartily congratulated personally by many men of both political parties, among them two distinguished Democrats--John Mitchel, Mayor of New York, and Dudley Field Malone, Collector of the Port of New York.

After dinner Roosevelt left in the evening to go into the city of Plattsburg, a mile or two away from the camp, to take the midnight train for New York. As he stood on the platform of the railway station some time after eleven in the evening he was interviewed by the newspaper reporters. No military person was present. What he said was given out on territory not under military jurisdiction and it had nothing to do with the Plattsburg speech. Roosevelt spoke to the newspaper men in his usual forcible fashion:

"In the course of his speech he remarked that {221} for thirteen months the United States had played an ign.o.ble part among the nations, had tamely submitted to seeing the weak, whom we had covenanted to protect, wronged; had seen our men, women and children murdered on the high seas 'without action on our part,' and had used elocution as a subst.i.tute for action. 'Reliance upon high sounding words unbacked by deeds,' said he, 'is proof of a mind that dwells only in the realm of shadow and of sham.' Under the Hague Convention it was our duty to prevent, and, if not to prevent, then to undo, the hideous wrong that was done in Belgium, but we had shirked this duty. He denounced hyphenated Americans, professional pacifists and those who would subst.i.tute arbitration treaties for an army, or the plat.i.tudes of peace congresses for military preparedness."

The next day Wood received a telegraphic reprimand from the Government in Washington. "In this telegram of disapproval. Secretary Garrison said it was difficult to conceive of anything which could have a more detrimental effect than such an incident. The camp, held under the {222} Government auspices, was conveying its own impressive lesson in its practical and successful operation and results. 'No opportunity should have been furnished to any one to present to the men any matter except that which was essential to the necessary training they were to receive. Anything else could only have the effect of distracting attention from the real nature of the experiment, diverting consideration to issues which excite controversy, antagonism and ill-feeling, and thereby impairing, if not destroying, what otherwise would have been so effective.' General Wood replied, as follows: 'Your telegram received, and the policy laid down will be rigidly adhered to.'" [Footnote: _The Independent_.]

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THE GREAT WAR

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IX

THE GREAT WAR

On April 6, 1917, war having been that week declared by the United States against Germany, Major-General Leonard Wood, ranking officer in the United States Army--that is to say, the man occupying the senior position in our army--being then in sound health of mind and body and fifty-six years of age, wrote and personally delivered two identical letters, one to the Adjutant-General of the Army and the other to the Chief of Staff, requesting a.s.signment for military service abroad.

No acknowledgment or reply was ever received from either source.

Early in April he received notice that the Department of the East of which he was then commander was abolished and in its place three new and smaller departments created, in spite of vigorous protests by several Governors of Atlantic States. He was offered any one of the following {226} three military positions that he might select--the Philippines, Hawaii or the "less important post" at Charleston, South Carolina.

He at once selected the post at Charleston.

On May 12th he proceeded to Charleston and began the organization of the Southeastern Department. In the months immediately following he had selected and laid out eleven large training camps and had taken charge of the supervision of three officers' training camps, one at Oglethorpe, one at Atlanta and one at Little Rock.

On August 26th he received orders to proceed to Camp Funston in Kansas to command the cantonment there and train for service a division of national troops designated as the 89th Division.

Towards the end of the year he was ordered to proceed to Europe to observe the military operations of the war. Leaving Camp Funston the day before Thanksgiving, he landed in Liverpool on Christmas Day, 1917. In London he called by invitation upon General Robertson, the British Chief of Staff, and upon his old friend, Sir John French. He then proceeded to Paris on December 31, and between January 2nd and 14th, 1918, {227} went over the British front with Generals Cator and Rawlinson. On the 16th he was at Soissons with the French.