Funston's sudden death from a heart attack in February 1917, realigned the Regular Army forces. He organized provisionally a cavalry brigade and three infantry divisions, but they existed for less than three months. With the nation's entry into World War I and the need for troops in Europe, Pershing's divisions were disbanded. Smaller units, however, continued border surveillance.[1]
Authorization of Permanent Divisions
While the Army concentrated most of its regulars in the United States on the Mexican border in 1915, the ongoing war in Europe prompted Secretary of War Lindley M. Garrison to reexamine national defense policies. Among other matters, he asked the General Staff to investigate the organizations and strength figures needed by the Regular Army and National Guard, the reserve forces required, and the relationship of the regulars and guardsmen to a volunteer force. Garrison held the opinion that the federal government's lack of control over the National Guard was a fundamental defect.[2]
Members of the General Staff worked for six months to answer Garrison, and the War Department published their findings as the Statement of Proper Military Policy in 1915. It outlined a 281,000-man Regular Army and a 500,000-man federal reserve. An additional 500,000 reserve force was to buttress the reserves. Under the new policy the National Guard was downgraded to a volunteer contingent force that would be used only during war.[3]
Proposed legislation based on the policy statement, which was dubbed the "Continental Army" plan, quickly ran into congressional opponents who were unwilling to abandon the National Guard. But the debate led eventually to the National Defense Act of 1916. The new act provided that the "Army of the United States" would consist of the Regular Army, the Volunteer Army, the Officers' Reserve Corps, the Enlisted Reserve Corps, the National Guard in the service of the United States, and such other land forces as were or might be authorized by Congress. The president was to determine both the number and type of National Guard units that each state would maintain. Both the Regular Army and the National Guard were to be organized, insofar as practicable, into permanent brigades and divisions. Command echelons above divisions reverted to army corps and armies, the traditional command system; no mention was made of independent field armies directly controlling divisions. Undoubtedly the war in Europe, which involved large armies, caused the staff to revert to that system. To resolve the long-standing question of whether Guard units could be used outside the United States, the law empowered the president to draft units into federal service under certain conditions. Men in drafted units would be discharged from state service and become federal troops subject to employment wherever needed. Congress continued to dictate regimental organizations.[4]
The War Department published new tables of organization for infantry and cavalry divisions in May 1917. The structure of the infantry division remained
- ↑ Rpt of TAG, ARWD, 1917, p. 196–97; GO 8 and 25, Southern Department, 1917, copies in Division General files, DAMH-HSO; Order of Battle of the United States Land Forces in the World War (1917–19), Zone of the Interior (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1949), pp. 602–05.
- ↑ John P. Finnegan, Against the Specter of a Dragon (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1974), pp. 45–46; Rpt of Sec. of War, Appendix C, Statement of Proper Military Policy, ARWD, 1915, pp. 113, 126–31.
- ↑ Statement of Proper Military Policy, pp. 126–31; Finnegan, Against the Specter of a Dragon, pp. 47–48.
- ↑ Weigley, History of the United States Army, 344–48; WD Bull 16, 1916; Finnegan, Against the Specter of a Dragon, p. 44–52; "Mobilization in Spite of War Department," 153+.
