Maj. Gen. Henry C. Corbin and Colonel WagnerIn 1909 Assistant Secretary of War Robert Shaw Oliver, a veteran with experience as a volunteer, Regular, and Guard officer, adopted another approach to readiness. Following the European example of mixing regulars and reserves in the same formation, he divided the nation into eight districts. Within each district, Oliver planned to form brigades, divisions, and corps for training Regular and Guard units. The district commander was to supervise all assigned regulars, but to exercise only nominal control over Guard units, which were to be federalized only during a national emergency or war. Nevertheless, Oliver expected the district commander to influence the citizen-soldier by manifesting an interest in the reserve forces. The plan was voluntary for the National Guard, but by early 1910 the governors of the New England states and New York had agreed to have their units participate.[1]
About the same time this agreement was reached, the Army modified its field organizations, retaining divisions but replacing the corps and army commands with a field army. Since the mid-nineteenth century military theorists had debated the need for the corps. Col. Arthur L. Wagner, a founding father of the Army school system, believed that it was a necessary echelon between division and army, but based on experience during the Civil War Maj. Gen. Andrew A. Humphreys, former Chief of Staff of the Army of the Potomac, disagreed. Humphreys wanted a strong division capable of independent operations, noting that the terrain and poor roads in the United States prevented the easy maneuver or movement of a large unit.[2]
Agreeing with Humphreys, the General Staff decided that a command made up of divisions, designated as a field army, best fit the nation's needs. As described in the Field Service Regulations' of 1910, the field army comprised two or more infantry divisions, plus support troops, which included pioneer infantry (service troops for the forward area of the battlefield), heavy artillery, engineers, signal and medical troops, and ammunition and supply units, which could maneuver and fight independently. Cavalry might be included in the division if appropriate.[3]
To fit within the new concept, the General Staff, in conjunction with the Army School of the Line at Fort Leavenworth, made the infantry division a
- ↑ Rpt of the Sec. of War, ARWD, 1909, pp. 28–32; "The First Field Army, the Initial Step in the Correlation of the Regular Army with the National Guard," The National Guard Magazine 6 (Apr 1910): 352–54; WD GO 35, 1910.
- ↑ McClure, "The Infantry Division," pp. 6–9; Field Service Regulations, 1910, p. 13.
- ↑ Field Service Regulations, 1910, p. 13.
