The Direction of Supply Activities in the War Department; An Administrative Survey, II

1944 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-498
Author(s):  
John D. Millett
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Establishment ◽  
General Staff ◽  
War Department ◽  
Chief Of Staff ◽  
General Officers ◽  
Planning Development ◽  
The Military ◽  
Secretary Of War

Interestingly enough, in the extensive consideration given to War Department reorganization immediately after World War I, almost no attention was paid to the possible value of the S.O.S., A.E.F., experience. Three thousand miles behind the A.E.F., in Washington, it may have seemed that there was little to distinguish between the Services of Supply and the Purchase, Storage, and Traffic Division of the General Staff with its accumulation of hostile reaction.In August, 1919, the General Staff of the War Department presented its version of desirable legislation for the reconstitution of a peace-time Army. The measure provided for a General Staff Corps to consist of a Chief of Staff with the rank of General, five assistants to be detailed from the general officers of the line, five Brigadier Generals, and 220 other officers. The bill provided that the Chief of Staff should have “supervision of all agencies and functions of the military establishment” under the direction of the President or the Secretary of War; and it went on to provide that “the Chief of Staff shall be the immediate adviser of the Secretary of War on all matters relating to the Military Establishment, and shall be charged by the Secretary of War with the planning, development, and execution of the war program.

“A Perilous Venture for Democracy”: Soldiers, Sexual Purity, and American Citizenship in the First World War

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberley A. Reilly
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Sexual Morality ◽  
Military Government ◽  
World War ◽  
War Department ◽  
The Military

This essay examines the influence of the social purity movement on the U.S. government's campaign to protect servicemen from the temptations of drink and illicit sex during World War I. This influence had been forged in the context of U.S. imperialism in the two decades prior to American entry into the war, as purity reformers linked the sexual morality and temperance of soldiers serving in occupied territories overseas to racial purity and national character at home. War Department policymakers who were allied with the purity movement likewise understood male moral restraint and sexual self-control to underpin democratic self-governance. This linkage between civic virtue and moral virtue was especially problematic at the outset of the war, as many native-born Americans (progressive policymakers included) questioned whether all members of the ethnically and racially diverse nation had the capacity for self-government. The goals of social purity and wartime policymakers were thus aligned as the War Department launched its crusade against liquor and sexual vice within the military. Government officials required moral sobriety of servicemen in order to remake the body politic. But even as they demanded virtuous conduct from the man in uniform, they simultaneously infantilized the “soldier lad” in their effort to safeguard him.

The Habsburg Command Conspiracy: The Austrian Falsification of Historiography on the Outbreak of World War I

1996 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 181-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graydon A. Tunstall
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
General Staff ◽  
The Military

Before a single Austro-Hungarian soldier boarded the train for transport to his deployment area at the outbreak of World War I, the military plans put into motion, or rather not put into motion, by Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, the chief of the Habsburg General Staff (1906–11 and 1912–17), had sealed the fate of the initial campaigns on the Russian and Balkan fronts.

scholarly journals The Army-Navy Contest for Control of Land-Based Antisubmarine Aviation and the Military Unification Debate, 1942–1948

2019 ◽  
pp. 270-295
Author(s):  
George H. Monahan
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War ◽  
Western Atlantic ◽  
War Department ◽  
Military Command ◽  
Post War ◽  
Civilian Leadership ◽  
The Military ◽  
Secretary Of War ◽  
The U.S

In this chapter, George H. Monahan discusses the success of the German U-boat offensive in the Western Atlantic after the U.S. entry into World War II, which led the War Department leadership to believe that the U.S. Navy was not employing adequate antisubmarine tactics. In the application of airpower to combat the submarine threat, the War Department and Army leadership believed that aggressive "hunter-killer" tactics would prove more effective than the Navy's preferred defensive tactic of conducting aerial patrols in the vicinity of convoys. Navy leaders, meanwhile, contended that its defensive tactics were the best method of protecting shipping. A bitter interservice conflict ensued as the War Department sought to initiate an Army Air Forces antisubmarine offensive over the Bay of Biscay. Claiming jurisdiction over all air operations at sea, the Navy leadership firmly opposed the War Department's initiative and insisted that Army Air Forces antisubmarine units operate according to the Navy's defensive doctrine. Secretary of War Henry Stimson's frustration over Admiral Ernest King's refusal to accede to the War Department antisubmarine initiative led the former to support a post-war reorganization of the military command apparatus, thereby ensuring Navy subordination to civilian leadership under an overarching Secretary of Defense.

Joel Spingarn's “Constructive Programme” and the Wartime Antilynching Bill of 1918

1992 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Ellis
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
Mob Violence ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
Colored People ◽  
War Department ◽  
Democratic Administration ◽  
National Emergency ◽  
The Military ◽  
Congressional Action

In the summer of 1918, the white chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Major Joel E. Spingarn, called for urgent congressional action on mob violence. He seized the opportunity of a post in the Military Intelligence Branch (MIB) of the War Department General Staff in Washington, D.C., to put forward a “constructive programme,” the central idea of which was the passage of a bill to make lynching in wartime a federal offense. Attempting to exploit the peculiar circumstances of the national emergency and the expansion of federal powers during World War I, Spingarn also proposed a series of more modest initiatives designed to lessen discrimination and raise black morale. The official reaction to the arguments he advanced in support of his program sheds light on the reluctance of the Democratic administration of Woodrow Wilson to develop a policy on race relations. It also suggests some of the problems and hazards facing a would-be reformer working from within.

scholarly journals Engineer Richard Fiedler and his flamethrower epic in Russia on the eve of the First World War

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 64-89
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Establishment ◽  
Military Equipment ◽  
The First World War ◽  
New Type ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Russian Military ◽  
Technical Solutions ◽  
The Military

The appearance of flamethrowers as weapons is an example of the sagacity of lone individuals in the development of military equipment. Prior to World War I the German engineer Richard Fiedler invented the workable specimens of portable backpack (light) flamethrowers, trench (heavy) flamethrower, automatic igniters to flamethrowers, telescopic automatic flamethrower and other inventions, related to flamethrowing technology. Fiedler managed to reach the gunreach of jet flamethrowers to the distances ​​that are difficult to cover even today, and also to substantiate the tactical methods of their application. Fiedler's flamethrowers were successfully tested in Russia and in Germany in 1909–1910. Using the financial interest of Fiedler, the specialists of the Chief Engineering Directorate of the Russian Military Ministry reached an agreement with him for the purchase of the latest model of the backpack flamethrower, compositions of fire mixtures for various purposes, and certain details of flamethrowers, which he kept secret as his «know-how». However, this line was closed in Russia in 1911 by the Military Minister V.A. Sukhomlinov and his assistant A.A. Polivanov on formal grounds. Fiedler's inventions were not scrutinized by the military establishment of Great Britain and France at all. The opportunity to acquire a new type of weapons was missed for Russia and Entente Powers from the very beginning. The main reason for the indifferent attitude towards flamethrowers in the prewar period was the false ideas about the future war as a maneuverable and quick. The patents for technical solutions beyond the scope of «general ideas» about the means of warfare were also underestimated. But later they became harbingers of the emergence of new directions for the creation of weapons. It is important to take this fact into account while choosing the most promising directions for the creation of military equipment. In Germany, after almost a decade of tests and doubts, Fiedler's flamethrowers were accepted for service and delivered to pioneer detachments in 1912. They were improved and used effectively throughout the war. The Allies were to make their own flamethrowers themselves in the course of war, hastily, mainly from German models. There is no reliable information about the inventor`s fate after 1912.

Interservice Competition and the Political Roles of the Armed Services

1961 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel P. Huntington
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Establishment ◽  
Shipbuilding Industry ◽  
The Military

“Conventional wisdom” (to purloin a phrase from Galbraith) holds that interservice competition necessarily undermines economy, efficiency, and effective central control in the military establishment. The remedy is further unification, possibly even the merger of the services into a single uniform. The conventional wisdom also holds that political action by military groups necessarily threatens civilian control. The remedy is to “keep the military out of politics.” The pattern of American military politics and interservice rivalry since World War II, however, suggests that the conventional wisdom may err in its analysis of their results and falter in its prescription of remedies.Service political controversy between the world wars had two distinguishing characteristics. First, on most issues, a military service, supported, perhaps, by a few satellite groups, struggled against civilian isolationists, pacifists, and economizers. The Navy and the shipbuilding industry fought a lonely battle with the dominant forces in both political parties over naval disarmament. The Army lost its fight for universal service after World War I, and throughout the Twenties clashed with educational, labor, and religious groups over ROTC and with other groups over industrial mobilization preparation. In the annual budget encounters the issue usually was clearly drawn between service supporters who stressed preparedness and their opponents who decried the necessity and the legitimacy of substantial military expenditures. To the extent that the services were in politics, they were involved in conflicts with civilian groups.

Cinema's Military Industrial Complex

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Mobile Technologies ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Physical And Mental Health ◽  
World War ◽  
Film Exhibition ◽  
Record Keeping ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
The Military

Cinema’s Military Industrial Complex examines how the American military has used cinema and related visual, sonic, and mobile technologies to further its varied aims. The essays in this book address the way cinema was put to work for purposes of training, orientation, record keeping, internal and external communication, propaganda, research and development, tactical analysis, surveillance, physical and mental health, recreation, and morale. The contributors examine the technologies and types of films that were produced and used in collaboration among the military, film industry, and technology manufacturers. The essays also explore the goals of the American state, which deployed the military and its unique modes of filmmaking, film exhibition, and film viewing to various ends. Together, the essays reveal the military’s deep investment in cinema, which began around World War I, expanded during World War II, continued during the Cold War (including wars in Korea and Vietnam), and still continues in the ongoing War on Terror.

The former chief of P. N. Wrangel’ staff P. S. Makhrov on the Red Army campaign to Western Ukraine and Western Belarus in 1939

2020 ◽  
pp. 461-471
Author(s):  
Andrey V. Ganin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
World War I ◽  
Russian Civil War ◽  
World War ◽  
General Staff ◽  
Red Army ◽  
Western Ukraine ◽  
Southern Russia

The memoirs of general P. S. Makhrov are devoted to the events of 1939 and the campaign of the Red army in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. Pyotr Semyonovich Makhrov was a General staff officer, participant of the Russian-Japanese war, World War I, and the Russian Civil war. In 1918, Makhrov lived in Ukraine, and in 1919-1920 he took part in the White movement in Southern Russia, after which he emigrated. In exile he lived in France, where he wrote his extensive memoirs. The events of September 1939 could not pass past his attention. At that time, the Red army committed approach in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. Contrary to the widespread Anti-Sovietism among the white emigrants, Makhrov perceived the incident with enthusiasm as a return of Russia to its ancestral lands occupied by the Poles.

he designs of the Russian war memorials from the World War I in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes / Kingdom of Yugoslavia: Ideas, symbols, realization

2020 ◽  
pp. 204-227
Author(s):  
Milana Živanović ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
War Memorials ◽  
The World ◽  
The Will ◽  
Kingdom Of Yugoslavia ◽  
The Military

The paper deals with the actions undertaken by the Russian emigration aimed to commemorate the Russian soldiers who have been killed or died during the World War I in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes / Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The focus is on the erection of the memorials dedicated to the Russian soldiers. During the World War I the Russian soldiers and war prisoners were buried on the military plots in the local cemeteries or on the locations of their death. However, over the years the conditions of their graves have declined. That fact along with the will to honorably mark the locations of their burial places have become a catalyst for the actions undertaken by the Russian émigré, which have begun to arrive in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Kingdom of SCS) starting from the 1919. Almost at once after their arrival to the Kingdom of SCS, the Russian refugees conducted the actions aimed at improving the conditions of the graves were in and at erecting memorials. Russian architects designed the monuments. As a result, several monuments were erected in the country, including one in the capital.

Transition of the Rusins of Austria-Hungary to the bosom of Orthodoxy in the end of 19th - beginning of 20th century: Lost perspective for Russia

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (10-4) ◽  
pp. 196-205
Author(s):  
Vadim Mikhailov ◽  
Konstantin Losev
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
World War ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Military ◽  
Church Policy

The article is devoted to the issue of Church policy in relation to the Rusyn population of Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire. In the second half of the 19th century, the policy of the Austro-Hungarian administration towards the Rusyn Uniate population of the Empire underwent changes. Russia’s victories in the wars of 1849 and 1877-1878 aroused the desire of the educated part of the Rusyns to return to the bosom of the Orthodox Church. Nevertheless, even during the World War I, when the Russian army captured part of the territories inhabited by Rusyns, the military and officials of the Russian Empire were too cautious about the issue of converting Uniates to Orthodoxy, which had obvious negative consequences both for the Rusyns, who were forced to choose a Ukrainophile orientation to protect their national and cultural identity, and for the future of Russia as the leader of the Slavic and Orthodox world.

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