various War Department publications, greatly easing the task of determining requirements for mobilizations. Although the new tables did not alter the basic combat triad structure of the infantry division, their formulation was accompanied by internal changes in the infantry regiments and the divisional support echelon. Revisions eliminated the pack train, authorized a small engineer train, and manned the engineer, supply, and ammunition trains with military personnel instead of civilians.[1]
In 1912 Congress created a service corps within the Quartermaster Corps to replace civilian employees and soldiers detailed from combat units for duty as wagonmasters, teamsters, blacksmiths, and other such laborers and artificers. Only nineteen civilians—veterinarians and clerks—remained in the division. For the first time, sources for military police and train guards were specified. Traditionally, commanders gave regiments or battalions that had suffered severely in battle the honor of serving as provost guards, especially those that had conducted themselves with distinction.[2]
In the infantry regiment, besides the provisional machine gun company provided for in 1910, provisional headquarters and supply companies were to provide mounted orderlies and regimental wagon drivers. The arrangement eliminated the need to detail men from rifle companies, a practice that had plagued unit commanders since the Revolutionary War. These and other changes raised the division's strength to 22,646 officers and enlisted men and 19 civilians.[3]
The place of possible employment continued to influence the division's basic structure. Before the tables of organization were prepared, the staff debated whether a division should have two or three infantry brigades, noting that European armies continued to use a two-division corps organization. Maj. Nathaniel E McClure, appointed as an instructor in military art at the Army Service Schools, Fort Leavenworth, in 1913, attributed the European organization to economy in the use of personnel and to the proper use of sophisticated road networks. He concluded, however, that what the Europeans really wanted was a corps built upon multiples of three-regiments, brigades, and divisions. When preparing the Stimson Plan, the officers determined that a division with two infantry brigades limited the commander's ability to subdivide his forces for frontal and flank attacks while at the same time attempting to maintain a reserve. Along with ease of command, deployment on a road influenced the decision. Because a division containing two infantry brigades would make less economical use of road space than one of three brigades, the three-brigade division remained the Army's basis for combining arms. In march formation, it measured about fifteen miles.[4]
The revision of the cavalry division in many ways paralleled that of the infantry division. Military personnel manned ammunition and supply trains, and troopers from the cavalry regiments served as military police and train guards. Each cavalry regiment was authorized provisional headquarters and machine gun troops similar to those in the infantry regiment. The most significant change was in the division's three cavalry brigades, with each being reduced from three to
- ↑ Memo, WCD for C of S, 21 Feb 1914, sub: Tables of Organization, US Army, 1914, AGO file 8371, RG 165, NARA; Tables of Organization: U.S. Army, 1914 (Washington: D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1914), p. 19 (hereafter cited as TO, 1914).
- ↑ TO, 1914, p. 19; James A. Huston, Sinews of War: Army Logistics (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1966), p. 295; Wagner, Organization and Tactics, pp. 19–20.
- ↑ TO, 1914, pp. 12–13, 19.
- ↑ McClure, "The Infantry Division." p. 10; Report on the Organization of Land Forces in ARWD, 1912, pp. 103–04.
