General Officer Leadership in the U.S. Army in World War I: How They Were Made and How They Performed

This paper discusses the readiness of U.S. Army officers who served as generals during the U.S. period of involvement in World War I and the immediate post-war period of occupation in Germany (April 1917-July 1919), and asks whether the institutions of the U.S. Army adequately prepared these officers for the tasks they would be ordered to accomplish during the Great War. The pool includes 483 officers, the vast majority of whom were regular army officers, mostly graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. But it also includes those commissioned as officers through other means, as well as officers from the National Guard. The oldest wartime generals were originally commissioned as first lieutenants in 1875, the youngest in 1905. The 30-years separating their entry into the officer corps of the U.S. Army was characterized as a renaissance period for the army, during which all of the characteristics of a professional officer corps were put in place. This included post-graduate military schools, including the staff college and war college; improved means of selection for promotion; standardized officer evaluations and physical fitness criteria; and the rise of professional societies within the officer corps that provided a means to interact, share and discuss the technical aspects of their particular branch of service as well as doctrinal concepts. This period also saw the end of the American frontier period that had provided the primary mission for a standing army from colonial days. It was immediately followed by entry of the U.S. into the world of imperial nations with overseas possessions placing new demands on the army for the first decade of the 20th century. 


Chris Leins retired from the US army in the rank of Major-General, and is now undertaking a doctorate in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London on the preparation of US general officers for command before the First World War.

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