IV

                        OVER WHEN?  PLANS FOR SENDING AN IMMEDIATE

                     EXPEDITIONARY FORCE TO FRANCE, APRIL - JUNE 1917


                    The decision for war answered only the first half of a
               two-part question.  The United States now had to address how
               to fight.  Controversies surrounding the depth and nature of
               US involvement abounded during the weeks following the
               American declaration of war.  The central clashes focused
               first on whether to amalgamate American soldiers into
               existing Allied lines or to create an independent US Army,
               and second on whether to send an immediate expeditionary
               force to France or to withhold US troops until they could be
               trained and organized within the country.  In resolving
               these dilemmas, Wilson proved once again that he believed
               strongly in the authority of the civilian President over the
               military and that his concerns were noticeably different
               from those of his military advisors.
                    The thought of committing an army to the Continent was
               revolting to some American political figures.  While
               testifying before the Senate Finance Committee on 6 April,
               Major Palmer R. Pierce, an aide to the Secretary of War and
               a member of the War College Division, was asked by Committee
               Chair Thomas S. Martin of Virginia about the
               Administration's budget proposal.  Pierce explained that the
               budget would cover necessary expenses such as "clothing,
               cots, camps, food, pay. . . .  And we may have to have an
               army in France."
                    "Good Lord!" Martin thundered, "You're not going to
               send soldiers over there, are you?"^1 
                    Even after Pershing had departed for France with the
               seeds of his first division, some politicians sought to
               prevent any further American expeditionary force.  A
               concurrent resolution submitted to the House of
               Representatives on 28 June argued that since the nation
               waged war ostensibly for self-defense, it should send no
               soldiers beyond its own shores.  Warning that "the
               contemplated service of American freemen in the Army
               involves being ordered into the zone of modern artillery and

               _                    _

                    ^1 Palmer, _Newton D. Baker:  America at War_, 1:120.

                                             1
                                                                          2

               machine-gun fire from which few men escape with their lives
               and almost none without wounds," this resolution declared:
                              Rule 1.  That the land forces or Army of the
                         Republic, in whatever manner raised or recruited,
                         shall be employed only to execute the laws of the
                         Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions,
                         and other use is declared to be unconstitutional. 
                         Under no circumstances shall it be legal to order
                         soldiers to engage in battle in foreign countries.
                              Rule 2.  That in the proper exercise of their
                         inalienable rights as American freemen, and as
                         proclaimed in rule one, soldiers may legally and
                         honorably refuse to go upon any ship or vessel
                         bound or to be ordered to a foreign shore.^2 

                    Legislators were not alone in their reluctance to field
               an expeditionary force.  Although he would soon change his
               mind on the issue, Secretary of War Baker stated as late as
               a week after the declaration of war that no army would leave
               the US "until its members have been thoroughly seasoned." 
               Recalling after the war the rationale for the massive
               American loans to the Allies, Treasury Secretary William G.
               McAdoo explained that at the time he believed that "the
               dollars that we sent through these loans to Europe were, in
               effect, substitutes for American soldiers. . . ."  Wilson's
               personal secretary, Joseph Tumulty, noted a consensus among
               many leading journals that an increase in the strength of
               the army was needed, but mostly for the purpose of defense
               of the nation's borders.  The Zimmermann Telegram, released
               by Britain on 24 February, had fueled fears of a Mexican
               invasion and thus emphasized the importance of domestic
               security.  Colville Barclay, the British Charge d'Affaires
               in Washington, also noted this public sentiment toward
               _                    _

                    ^2 House Concurrent Resolution 15, 65th Congress, 1st
               Session, Submitted by Mr. Hilliard, 28 June 1917.  The
               seeming redundancy of Rule 2 was designed to allow soldiers
               a legal escape clause so that they would not be bound under
               military law to any orders declared illegal in Rule 1.  See
               also Baker's letter to the Chair of the House Committee on
               Military Affairs, in which the Secretary of War offers three
               arguments in rebuttal to the resolution:  (1) that defensive
               measures often require a nation to "strike when opportunity
               affords," (2) that the US has sent troops into foreign lands
               on numerous occasions "in defense of our honor and our legal
               rights. . . ," and (3) that while the Constitution restricts
               the power to raise and support an army and navy and the
               power to declare war to Congress, it gives the President
               sole authority as Commander-in-Chief.  Baker to S. Hubert
               Dent, Jr., Chair, House Committee on Military Affairs, 13
               August 1917, RG 165/10050-88, NA.
                                                                          3

               domestic defense and warned that "there appears to be a
               strong feeling in the States in favour of limited co-
               operation for purely American purposes."  These media and
               public opinions did not inherently preclude an expeditionary
               force, but they did seem to emphasize domestic defense as
               being of far greater importance.^3 
                    Even Wilson himself did not yet seem committed to
               fielding an expeditionary force.  His declaration of war
               speech had made no mention of the possibility, largely
               because he assumed that the mere threat of American
               intervention would suffice to convince Germany of the
               hopelessness of its situation and motivate it to sue for
               peace.  The request for an immediate, direct, American role
               in the war, therefore, would have to come from the Allies.^4 
                    Some Allied political leaders questioned the wisdom of
               creating an American expeditionary force as well.  They
               feared that if the US focused its energy on mobilizing,
               training, equipping, and supplying its own force, it would
               ignore the immediate Allied needs of food, munitions and
               most importantly money.  The Allied armies might starve or
               their governments go bankrupt before the United States could
               raise a significant army.  Charles A. Repington, military
               correspondent for the _Times_ of London, argued that "the
               direct military intervention of the United States in the war
               is not practicable, even were America to desire it."  In a
               conversation with Colonel Edward M. House, Wilson's longtime
               friend and intimate advisor, Joseph Allen Baker, a member of
               the British Parliament, contended that the Allies needed
               support in the form of food and armaments more than they
               needed man-power:
                         No greater service could be rendered to the cause
                         of the Allies than in continuing to supply our
                         requirements in Munitions and Food, and helping us
                         in Finance.  We could supply the men and do the
                         fighting if the United States would keep the track

               _                    _

                    ^3 Baker to Theodore Roosevelt, 13 April 1917, Box 3,
               Document 63, Baker Papers, LOC; William G. McAdoo, _Crowded_
               _Years_ (Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, 1931), 376-77; Tumulty to
               Wilson, 24 March 1917, _PWW_, 41:462-64; Colville Barclay,
               "The Assistance Which the United States Might Render to the
               Entente Powers in the Event of Their Intervention in the
               War," 7 February 1917, WO 106/467, Public Records Office
               (hereafter, PRO), Great Britain, cited in David R. Woodward,
               _At War with the Kaiser_ (forthcoming), Chapter 3;  Barbara
               Tuchman, _The Zimmermann Telegram_, 168-200.

                    ^4 Kathleen Burk, "Great Britain in the United States,
               1917-1918:  The Turning Point," _International History Review_
               1 (2 April 1979):  234.
                                                                          4

                         across the Ocean clear, and ensure our receiving
                         the full quantity of the necessary supplies.^5 

                    Thomas Beaumont Hohler, the Secretary of the British
               legation in Mexico, explained to Colonel House in another
               conversation that an attempt to arm an American force could
               jeopardize Allied needs such as munitions, since every
               bullet given to an American infantryman was one not sent to
               a British or French soldier in the trenches of Western
               Europe:
                         I referred to fears I had heard expressed lest
                         munitions, etc. should be held up from the Allies
                         in order to arm American forces which would be in
                         the process of training:  this would materially
                         hamper the cause and so defeat the very aim which
                         the United States would, in the eventuality, be
                         pursuing.  He said such a course had been
                         insidiously insinuated to them from German
                         sources, but it would not by any means be the
                         case:  heretofore the United States Government had
                         allowed us to obtain munitions, credit and food: 
                         once the break came, they would `pump them in.'.^6 

                    In reality, of course, House was correct; the creation
               of an American army itself threatened none of the support
               that the Allied leaders desired.  The Americans would have
               to rely on the Entente powers for most of their weaponry
               anyway, so the organization of an expeditionary force could
               not decrease the supply of that which America itself did not
               have.  More potentially worrisome was food production, but
               the capacity of America's heartland was enormous and capable
               of feeding both America and the Allies.  Money itself was of
               little concern, since extensions of credit were relatively
               easy to arrange.  These worries alone did not preclude an
               _                    _

                    ^5 Charles A. Repington, reprinted in "Our State of
               Preparedness for War," _Literary Digest_ 54 (17 February
               1917):  385-87; Conversation between J.A. Baker and House,
               22 February 1917, related in letter from J.A. Baker to
               Arthur James, 2 April 1917, _PWW_, 41:532-36.

                    ^6 Thomas Beaumont Hohler to Lord Charles Hardinge,
               Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, including text
               of conversation with House, 23 March 1917, _PWW_, 41:458-60. 
               In this same letter Beaumont Hohler had referred to Wilson
               as "the most agile pussy-footer ever made."  The President's
               own opinion of Beaumont Hohler upon their first meeting in
               February 1914 was also less than complimentary:  "Not having
               my surgical instruments with me, I found it impossible to
               get an idea into his head."  Wilson to Walter Hines Page, 24
               February 1914, ibid., 29:283-84.
                                                                          5

               American expeditionary force.  A more formidable obstacle
               would be time.
                    The most optimistic of American estimates concluded
               that in addition to the time required to raise and train it,
               at least ten months would be required to ship a force of
               500,000 to Europe.  British and French time tables were even
               less hopeful.  The British General Staff concluded that even
               after a year no more than 250,000 American soldiers could be
               put into the field.  In the face of the German submarine
               campaign which exacted its largest amount of damage in the
               month of April -- 881,027 gross tons, over 500,000 tons of
               which were British -- the Allies might not have that long to
               wait.^7 
                    On top of the delay associated with fielding an
               American army, many Allied commanders had voiced disparaging
               opinions of the quality of such a force.  General Sir
               William Robertson, the Chief of the British Imperial General
               Staff, issued a rather pointed evaluation of the capacity of
               the American military when he wrote to a fellow general, "I
               do not think that it will make much difference whether
               America comes in or not.  What we want to do is to beat the
               German Armies, until we do that we shall not win the war. 
               America will not help us much in that respect."  In a
               memorandum to Kuhn, the Chief of the Military Mission in
               Paris noted that "all of the French are somewhat afraid of
               the efficiency of our military organization."^8 
                    To solve both issues of the quality and the speed of
               American military involvement, the Allies sought to recruit
               soldiers directly into their armies.  It was seriously
               doubtful that either the American public or their
               politicians would allow such an approach, however, so the
               Allies sought an alternative:  amalgamation.  American
               soldiers could enlist into the US Army and then, either
               individually or in small units, be integrated into existing
               _                    _

                    ^7 Kuhn to Scott, "Memorandum for the Chief of Staff," 29
               March 1917, RG 165/9433-6, NA; [British] General Staff,
               "Note on the Military Forces of the United States," 5
               February 1917, WO 106/467, PRO, cited in Woodward, _At War_
               _with the Kaiser_, Chapter 3; Herwig and Trask, "The Failure
               of Germany's Undersea Offensive Against World Shipping,"
               619.

                    ^8 Robertson to General Sir A.J. Murray, 13 February
               1917, in _The Military Correspondence of Field-Marshal Sir_
               _William Robertson, Chief, Imperial General Staff, December_
               _1915 - February 1918_, ed. David R. Woodward, Publications of
               the Army Records Society 5 (London: The Bodley Head, for the
               Army Records Society, 1989), 149; Logan, Chief of Military
               Mission, Paris, to Chief of Army War College, War College
               Division, General Staff, 13 April 1917, RG 165/10050-2, NA.
                                                                          6

               Entente lines and chains of command.  These soldiers could
               receive the experienced training of the British or French in
               Europe and could therefore play a role in the fighting more
               quickly than if they were trained at home.
                    From the Allied perspective, amalgamation seemed an
               almost perfect solution; from the American perspective, both
               militarily and politically, it was out of the question. 
               Military commanders were unlikely to give up the very armies
               which they commanded, and the public would hardly swallow a
               plan which seemed to use their sons, brothers, fathers and
               husbands as mere fodder for the English and French war
               machines.  A third option which the Allies could pursue
               would be to encourage the United States to send a small
               expeditionary force immediately to Europe.  By doing so they
               could more quickly get the Americans involved in the war and
               perhaps even wear down some of the opposition to
               amalgamation.  It was this proposal which the Allies
               eventually pressed.^9 
                    With the professed reason of discussing the nature of
               military cooperation between the US and the Entente Powers,
               Britain asked to send a mission to the US in early April
               1917.  The President was not eager for such visits; he
               desired to maintain both the military and the diplomatic
               detachment implied by his designated status of "Associate
               Power," and he wrote to Baker that "a great many will look
               upon the mission as an attempt to in some degree take charge
               of us as an assistant to Great Britain."  Wilson, however,
               acquiesced to the request and on 13 April a British mission
               led by Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Arthur J.
               Balfour and Lieutenant General Tom Bridges left Liverpool. 
               Wanting to make their appeals heard as well, the French sent
               a mission led by former Premier Rene Viviani and Marshal
               Joseph Joffre to coincide with the British visit.^10 
                    From the British perspective, the objective of
               convincing the Americans to send an immediate expeditionary
               force to Europe, regardless of its size, was second only to
               _                    _

                    ^9 See Thomas Clement Lonergan, _It Might Have Been Lost!: _
               _A Chronicle from Alien Sources of the Struggle to Preserve_
               _the National Identity of the A.E.F._ (New York:  G.P.
               Putnam's Sons, 1929).

                    ^10 Wilson to Baker, 11 April 1917, Box 4, Baker Papers,
               LOC.  David M. Esposito argues that Wilson's reluctance to
               receive the missions also stemmed from the fear that the
               Allies would attempt to limit America's role in the war and
               thereby to decrease the President's influence at the peace
               settlement.  See David M. Esposito, "Force Without Stint or
               Limit:  Woodrow Wilson and the Origins of the American
               Expeditionary Force" (Ph.D. dissertation, Penn State
               University, 1988), 165-66.
                                                                          7

               the need for spurring American shipbuilding.  The British
               would argue that an American presence, whatever its form,
               could achieve two purposes:  first, it would boost the
               sagging morale of the Tommies and _poilu_, and second, it
               would provide the US an opportunity to show the flag and
               demonstrate its commitment to the cause.  A third reason
               offered by some was not to be presented to the Americans: 
               the thought that by getting its nose bloodied in combat with
               the Germans, the US might dedicate itself even more to the
               Allies.  Robertson had written to Haig, "I am also urging
               them to send some troops to France at once even if only a
               brigade.  It would be a good thing to get some Americans
               killed and so get the country to take a real interest in the
               war."^11 
                    Washington "cheered, clapped, honked, tooted and in
               other noisy ways showed its approval" when the British
               Mission arrived at Union Station at three o'clock on 22
               April.  After being greeted by several government officials,
               including Lansing, and under a canopy of British and French
               flags flying over houses, the visitors were taken by cavalry
               escort to the Franklin McVeagh Home on 16th Street.^12 
                    Bridges lost no time in stepping on toes at the US War
               Department.  Within a week of his arrival in Washington he
               wrote to Scott and requested that a regular division be sent
               immediately across the Atlantic.  Citing the effect of such
               a presence on the morale of both the Entente and the Central
               Powers he wrote, "The sight of the Stars and Stripes on this
               continent will make a great impression on both sides. . . . 
               To this end I would like to see one of your regular
               divisions sent to France at once."  He also suggested how
               America's participation should evolve:  "If you ask me how
               your force could most quickly make itself felt in Europe, I
               would say by sending 500,000 untrained men at once to our
               depots in England to be trained there, and drafted into our
               armies in France."  Bridges claimed that in only a little
               more than ten weeks these soldiers could be killing the Hun. 
               He attempted to soften this proposal by suggesting that
               these soldiers could eventually be "drafted back into the US
               Army and would be a good leavening of seasoned men," but his
               suggestion met with a cool reception from the Chief of
               Staff.  Potentially more worrisome for Bridges, both Baker
               _                    _

                    ^11 War Cabinet (116), 10 April 1917, Cab. 23/2, PRO, and
               War Cabinet Office to Oliphant, 12 April 1917, FO 800/208,
               PRO, cited in Kathleen Burk, _Britain, America and the Sinews_
               _of War, 1914-1918_ (Boston:  Allen & Unwin, 1985), 102;
               Robertson to Haig, 10 April 1917, Woodward, _Military_
               _Correspondence of Robertson_, 169.

                    ^12 Diary of Thomas W. Brahany, 22 April 1917, _PWW_,
               42:121.
                                                                          8

               and Wilson saw this letter.  When the British general
               pressed the issue with Baker, the Secretary of War informed
               him that recruiting American citizens directly into the
               British or French army was unacceptable because it would
               undermine America's war effort.  Baker described to Wilson
               his conversation with Bridges on 2 May:
                         General Bridges took up with me the question of
                         their being allowed to recruit for British service
                         in this county -- first, as to British-born
                         subjects resident here and, second, as to citizens
                         of the United States.  I told him that we could in
                         no event allow the opening of recruiting offices
                         here for the recruitment of American citizens as
                         that would take from us the whole power of
                         exempting persons indispensable to the industry of
                         the country, upon which the success of all parties
                         interested depended.^13 

               House had already forwarded a similar proposal from Herbert
               Hoover to Wilson in mid-February.  The President had made no
               comment then and his position had not mellowed by the time
               of the British visit.  The Allies would not receive Wilson's
               blank check to recruit Americans and thus -- with
               amalgamation at least temporarily out of the picture as well
               -- they would have to resort instead to obtaining an
               immediate American expeditionary force.^14 
                    The French seemed at first no more successful than the
               British in their discussions with the American military
               _                    _

                    ^13 Bridges to Scott, 30 April 1917, WO 106/467, PRO,
               cited in Woodward, _At War with the Kaiser_, Chapter 3; Burk,
               _Britain, America and the Sinews of War_, 123; Baker to
               Wilson, 2 May 1917, Box 4, Documents 109 and 110, Baker
               Papers, LOC.  Baker did mention, however, that the War
               Department would not necessarily try to stop any American
               who wished to volunteer for service under the Union Jack,
               since such numbers would undoubtedly be too small to have an
               adverse effect on American mobilization.

                    ^14 House to Wilson, 14 February 1917, with enclosure,
               Hoover to House, 13 February 1917, _PWW_, 41:226-29.  Wilson
               did send a copy of Hoover's letter to Baker with the
               comment, "Here is a letter so pertinent to the inquiries
               being made by the Council on National Defense that I am
               taking the liberty of sending it to you for consideration. 
               It comes from a very experienced man."  Wilson was more
               interested, however, in Hoover's insights on shipping and
               food distribution than he was in his suggestions for
               allowing Allied recruitment in the US.  See Wilson to Baker,
               with enclosures, 14 February 1917, Box 4, Documents 37 and
               37-2, Baker Papers, LOC.
                                                                          9

               planners.  They arrived in Washington on 25 April and their
               mission was made all the more important by the failure of
               the Nivelle offensive earlier that same month, a disastrous
               attack which cost 120,000 casualties (twelve times greater
               than Nivelle's own estimates) and precipitated mutiny in
               fifty-four divisions -- half of the entire French army! 
               They did seek to coordinate their effort with the British,
               and on 26 April they agreed to pursue the goal of the
               immediate dispatch of a regular division to France, followed
               as quickly as possible by conscripted reinforcements.  On 27
               April Joffre spoke to the students at the Army War College. 
               Following the speech he retired to the college president's
               office to meet with Baker, Scott and Bliss.  The Frenchman
               repeated his appeal for "men, men, men" and requested that
               an American division be sent to Europe at once, submitting a
               tentative plan drafted by the French General Staff and the
               American Military Attache in Paris two weeks before.  He
               emphasized that the Americans needed to organize and raise
               an independent army, but reiterated that they should
               nonetheless send an expeditionary force immediately to the
               front.^15 
                    The General Staff opposed such a course of action with
               a strong and unified voice.  Even before the declaration of
               war, American military planners had rejected such an idea. 
               When Baker asked Bliss to voice his opinion concerning
               Roosevelt's proposed volunteer division, the Assistant Chief
               of Staff presented an argument that applied equally well in
               response to recommendations such as the one from Joffre.  He
               saw the immediate dispatch of an untrained force as merely
               the beginning of a mass butchering of green American
               recruits.  He counseled that any effect on Allied morale
               gained by "showing the American flag" would quickly wane as
               that force was decimated on the battlefield.  Arguing that
               "the moral effect . . . _must_ be considered in connection
               with many other things," Bliss asked:
                         Where is the moral effect to be produced by a
                         small and the only available force. . . ?  If the
                         proposed force is sent abroad and put _at once_ into
                         the field . . . it must be accompanied by two or
                         three times its strength in order to promptly meet
                         the excessive losses that an insufficiently
               _                    _

                    ^15 Alistair Horne, _The Price of Glory:  Verdun, 1916_
               (London:  Penguin Books, 1987 [1962]), 319-25; Bridges to
               Chief of Imperial General Staff Sir William Robertson, 29
               April 1917, Cab. 21/53, cited in Burk, _Britain, America and_
               _the Sinews of War_, 123; Major James A. Logan, Jr., Chief of
               Military Mission, Paris, to Kuhn, 13 April 1917, Subj: 
               Military Studies on possible Participation of American
               Troops in Operations in France, RG 165/10050-2; Coffman, _The_
               _War to End All Wars_, 8-9.
                                                                         10

                         trained force will incur.  We will have to feed in
                         raw troops to take the place of raw troops.^16 

               Lieutenant Colonel W.H. Johnston concurred and later, after
               Wilson had decided to send an immediate expeditionary force
               to France, argued that sending untrained troops into battle
               could lead to a vicious circle whereby more and more of the
               nation's efforts would go toward replacing the "casualties
               of a small force instead of training an adequate force for
               later participation in the war."^17 
                    Bliss also correctly surmised the unstated British hope
               that a few American casualties might stimulate the US
               fighting spirit.  He cautioned against this tactic, however,
               and further asked:
                         What about the moral effect of this at home?  It
                         is conceivable that from the English or French
                         point of view these very losses, unnecessarily
                         severe, will produce the moral effect that they
                         desire.  They may think that this will still
                         further our fighting blood.  But for what purpose
                         and to what effect?  Will they want to so stir us
                         that we will insist on rushing great armies of
                         ill-trained men into the field?  They certainly
                         will not want this; therefore, if they as well as
                         the Central Powers _know_ that the vast bulk of our
                         forces must be held for prolonged training, what
                         is the valuable moral effect that will result? 
                         Will not the moral effect turn into depression
                         when they find that a rapidly dwindling small
                         force will not be followed by others for a good
                         many months?^18 

                    Kuhn and the War College Division equally opposed such
               a plan.  In late January Kuhn had requested information from
               the Director of Naval Intelligence on the numbers of men,
               animals and vehicles comprising the current belligerent
               forces and the tonnage needed to transport them, but his
               query cannot be viewed as the prelude to endorsement of an
               immediate expeditionary force.  In reality, he was
               attempting to create an embarkation problem for a War
               College course and no one in the General Staff seemed to
               have any information on the subject.  When Scott had ordered
               _                    _

                    ^16 Bliss to Baker, undated but probably March 1917, Box
               1, Document 60, Baker Papers, LOC.

                    ^17 Lt. Col. W.H. Johnston to Chief of Staff, Memorandum
               of dissent, 11 May 1917, RG 165/10050-8.

                    ^18 Bliss to Baker, undated but probably March 1917, Box
               1, Document 60, Baker Papers, LOC.
                                                                         11

               the study from the General Staff on possible lines of action
               in the event of war with Germany at the beginning of
               February, the military planners counseled against sending
               any troops abroad before a complete American army was
               raised.  In his initial report on 3 February, Kuhn wrote:
                         The War College Division earnestly recommends that
                         no American troops be employed in active service
                         in any European theatre until after an adequate
                         period of training, and that during this period
                         all available trained officers and men in the
                         Regular Army and the National Guard be employed in
                         training the new levies called into service.  It
                         should, therefore, be our policy at first to
                         devote all of our energies to raising troops in
                         sufficient numbers to exert a substantial
                         influence in a later stage of the war.^19 

                    In its memorandum to Scott on 29 March the War College
               Division reiterated the argument that a small force could
               exert no influence on the front and could only bring harm to
               an American effort to create an independent army.  Trained
               soldiers and officers were scarce in America, and forming
               most of them into a single division would undermine future
               American mobilization:
                         There have been indications in the press . . .
                         that there might be a popular demand for sending a
                         smaller expedition [than those of 500,000
                         proposed] composed of one or more divisions of our
                         existing regular establishment.  It is the opinion
                         of the War College Division that such an
                         enterprise would be a serious mistake, and should
                         be promptly rejected as part of our plans in this
                         emergency.  The effect of such an arrangement
                         would be to send a large part of our trained
                         personnel on an expedition that could not exert
                         any important influence on the war, with the
                         result that we would be seriously embarrassed in
                         finding trained officers for such larger forces as
                         may be required either for offensive or defensive
                         purposes.^20 


               _                    _

                    ^19 Kuhn to Director of Naval Intelligence, 30 January
               1917, RG 165/6291-12, NA, cited in Esposito, "Force Without
               Stint or Limit, 135; Memorandum from War College Division to
               Chief of Staff, 3 February 1917, Subj: Preparation for
               possible hostilities with Germany, RG 165/9433-4, NA.

                    ^20 Army War College Division to Chief of Staff Scott, 29
               March 1917, RG 165/9433-6.
                                                                         12

                    Even more than a month after the US declaration of war,
               Kuhn and the War College Division again counseled against
               the immediate dispatch of troops.  Even when Baker ordered
               them to draft plans for a possible expeditionary force on 10
               May, the military planners restated their misgivings about
               this idea.  Once more they warned, "The War College Division
               is of the opinion from a purely military point of view, that
               the early dispatch of any expeditionary force to France is
               inadvisable because of lack of organization and training,
               and because the trained personnel contained therein will be
               needed for the expansion and training of the national
               forces."^21 
                    The military planners, then, had made their position
               clear:  the immediate dispatch of an expeditionary force to
               Europe would not, in their opinion, be in the best interest
               of the American war effort.  Just such an expeditionary
               force, however, departed in June 1917 under the command of
               General John J. Pershing.  The British and French missions
               seem to have persuaded Wilson, and during the President's
               four o'clock private meeting with the French Field Marshal
               on 2 May he had "allowed General Joffre to take it for
               granted that such a force would be sent just as soon as we
               could send it."  In his sixty-five minute audience with
               Wilson the French commander successfully elicited what the
               American military planners had opposed so passionately ever
               since war had appeared likely.  It is noteworthy that the
               President was informing Baker of this commitment after he
               had already made it; it does not seem that Wilson directly
               consulted his Secretary of War.  Similarly, the President
               appears to have reached his decision independently of the
               advice being issued from the nation's military planners.^22 
                    Joseph Tumulty claimed that Wilson was extremely up-to-
               date on military matters.  In reference to the President's
               meeting with Joffre, Tumulty wrote:
                         When Marshal Joffre visited the President in the
                         spring of 1917, he was surprised, as he afterward
                         said to Secretary Daniels, to find that President
                         Wilson had such a perfect mastery of the military
                         situation.  He had expected to meet a scholar, a
                         statesman, and an idealist; he had not expected to

               _                    _

                    ^21 Kuhn to the Chief of Staff, 10 May 1917, Subj:  Plans
               for a possible expeditionary force to France, RG 165/10050-
               8, NA.  It was this memo from which Johnston dissented, not
               because he disagreed with his colleagues' opinions, but
               rather because he did not feel that they had stated their
               opposition strongly enough.

                    ^22 Wilson to Baker, 3 May 1917, Box 4, Document 109,
               Baker Papers, LOC.
                                                                         13

                         meet a practical strategist fully conversant with
                         all the military movements.^23 

                    In spite of Tumulty's claim that Wilson had a complete
               grasp of the military situation when he met with Joffre, it
               is doubtful that Wilson was cognizant of the opinions of the
               military planners.  Sir Tom Bridges of the British
               delegation certainly did not concur with Tumulty's
               assessment.  Bridges wrote of his personal interview with
               the President that "he would talk to me of American labour
               problems, railways and even golf, but of war, not a word,
               and the hundred and one questions to which I had prepared
               answers remained unasked."  During his actual conversation
               with Joffre, the President referred to none of the concerns
               which they had enunciated about an immediate expeditionary
               force.  There is no record that Baker had briefed the
               President on the General Staff's opinion of this
               recommendation.  Even after the President had made the
               decision and the General Staff had resigned itself to
               Wilson's wishes, Baker made no mention of the prior
               reservations which the War College Division had expressed. 
               In a letter to the President on 8 May, he wrote:
                         The General Staff here believe that the despatch
                         of this force will for a while satisfy the
                         sentimental desire of the French people to see
                         American soldiers on the front, and that it will
                         have an enormously stimulating effect in France. 
                         They believe, however, that very constant pressure
                         will be brought to bear from France for further
                         forces, and that the offers of England and France
                         to place their training camps at our disposal to
                         complete the training of partially trained bodies
                         of men will be pressed upon us, so that they urge
                         me to keep in mind the possibility of this sort of
                         insistence from the French and British military
                         authorities.^24 

               While the Secretary of War did refer to the worries of the
               General Staff that this expeditionary force might motivate
               the Allies to seek additional, untrained soldiers from the
               US and therefore undermine the creation of an independent
               _                    _

                    ^23 Tumulty, _Woodrow Wilson As I Know Him_, 298-300. 
               Tumulty's attribution of this claim to Joffre probably
               reflects a good bit of embellishment.

                    ^24 Sir Tom Bridges, _Alarms and Excursions: _
               _Reminiscenses of a Soldier_ (London:  Longmans, Green and
               Co., 1938), 175; "A Conversation with Josef-Jacques-Cesaire
               Joffre," 2 May 1917, _PWW_, 42:186-91; Baker to Wilson, 8 May
               1917, Box 4, Document 123, Baker Papers, LOC.

                                                                         14

               American army, he expressed none of the fears that the
               military planners had so emotionally voiced about the
               potential slaughter of US soldiers.  Therefore, it is
               unlikely that the President directly overruled the War
               College Division and it seems quite certain that Wilson
               arrived at his decision independently of any military
               counsel other than that offered by his Secretary of War.
                    Wilson most likely acted on his own with a diplomatic
               goal in mind when he promised Joffre an immediate
               expeditionary force.  To this extent, Colonel W.H. Johnston
               was correct in his dissent on 11 May:  "If the expedition
               must be sent it is assumed that diplomatic rather than
               military reasons suggest such [a] course."  Wilson had
               decided by 2 April that "right was more precious than the
               peace," and he had sought a role as a mediator of the
               conflict for quite some time before the US entered the
               fray.^25   Although some historians discount this desire for
               mediation as a motive for entering the war, few contend that
               such desires did not move the President once he had
               committed the US to the struggle.^26   It was to be this
               _                    _

                    ^25 W.H. Johnston, Memorandum of dissent, 11 May 1917, RG
               165/10050-8; "Address to a Joint Session of Congress," 2
               April 1917, _PWW_, 41:519-27.

                    ^26 Those historians who view the desire to mediate as a
               prime reason for his decision for war include Patrick
               Devlin, who argues that by April 1917, "It would be idle for
               Wilson to go to the Peace Conference without a seat in the
               Cabinet of Nations.  The price of that seat was now war. 
               Wilson himself had no doubt of that."  See Devlin, _Too Proud_
               _to Fight:  Woodrow Wilson's Neutrality_ (London:  1974), 678-
               81; and Trask, "Woodrow Wilson and World War I," 1-6. 
               Opponents of this interpretation include J.A. Thompson, who
               contends that the weakness of Devlin's position is the slim
               likelihood of American intervention in the absence of the
               German submarine campaign.  He claims that without such a
               direct challenge to the United States, it is hard to believe
               that Wilson would have gone to war for the prospects of
               American participation in the eventual peace settlement,
               since the driving force behind his previous attempts at
               mediation had been to avoid war altogether.  Is was only
               after the battle had been joined that the desire for an
               American hand in the settlement became an over-arching theme
               of Wilson's policy.  See Thompson, "Woodrow Wilson and World
               War I:  A Reappraisal," _Journal of American Studies_ 19
               (December 1985):  338-47.  A middle ground is struck by
               Arthur Link, who claims that although Wilson's decision for
               war was governed in great part by an eye to the diplomatic
               resolution of the conflict, the President was more concerned
                                                             (continued...)
                                                                         15

               desire for a seat at the peace conference that would guide
               Wilson's decisions, and while such harmony between policy
               and objectives is admirable, the President was to make this
               resolution -- as he had before and would again -- with no
               direct consultation with his military planners.
                    In order to claim Wilson's desired role in the eventual
               negotiations, America would certainly have to endure a large
               share of the fighting and dying.  If the United States waged
               war tardily or from a distance, the Allies would never
               recognize Wilson's ideas for the postwar world. 
               Contributions such as munitions, food and money were too
               easily discounted; it would matter little that bullets were
               manufactured in the United States if it were only French and
               British soldiers who fired them.  Only if America influenced
               the outcome of the war, and only if the US had a sizable
               army on the battlefield under its own flag to demonstrate
               this influence, could Wilson mold the shape of the
               peace.^27 
                    Wilson's notion of influencing the peace settlement was
               certainly not lost on some military planners.  Even before
               the resumption of the German U-boat campaign, Captain Davis
               (the Military Attache in Athens and the author of the
               proposed American campaign through Macedonia) argued that
               American involvement would yield a "voice in the councils of
               settlement that would be beneficial and welcome because it
               would be a voice that had attained authority, in the only
               possible way, viz:  by effective participation in the
               affairs to be settled -- a participation which would be
               recognized as free from territorial greed."  Secretary Baker
               seems to have shared Wilson's postwar goals.  He certainly
               had not voiced any of the General Staff's concern to the
               President, and he had even expressed privately that "to my
               mind the war, the settlement, and the reconstruction are the
               same thing, one and inseparable."^28 
               _                    _

                    ^26 (...continued)
               with preventing a peace on Germany's terms than on assuring
               a peace on those of the United States.  His policies once
               committed to belligerency, however, were governed by his
               desire for participation in the settlement.  See Link,
               _Wilson, the Diplomatist_, 88-90.

                    ^27 David F. Trask, _The United States in the Supreme War_
               _Council:  American War Aims and Inter-Allied Strategy, 1917-_
               _1918_  (Middletown, CT:  Wesleyan University Press, 1961), 5-
               7; Trask, "Woodrow Wilson and World War I," 6-11.

                    ^28 Davis, Subj: Macedonian Expeditionary Force, 17
               November 1916, RG 165/9910-1, NA; Baker to Guy Mason, 29
               July 1917, Box 2, Document 51, Baker Papers, LOC.  This
                                                             (continued...)

                                                                         16

                    The General Staff's opposition to this expeditionary
               force was not, on the surface, antithetical to the idea of a
               significant American role after the war.  Their concern had
               been that an impetuous decision now might jeopardize the
               strength of any American involvement and therefore threaten
               not only the success of an independent American army but
               also the triumph of American postwar diplomacy.  In reality,
               of course, had the United States delayed it would have found
               itself with almost no military presence on the Continent at
               the close of the war.  Judging from Wilson's inability to
               convert the Allied leaders to his way of thinking even in
               light of the degree of American participation, it is likely
               that the President would have had little or no diplomatic
               influence whatsoever at the postwar negotiations. 
               Therefore, Wilson's decision was sound in the final
               analysis.  It is still impossible to ignore, however, that
               the President's choice was made with no direct consultation
               with the military planners in the War Department General
               Staff.
                    On 14 May Baker and Joffre drew up a detailed plan for
               American cooperation with the French.  Four days later, the
               same day on which Wilson signed the Selective Service Act,
               Baker announced publicly that Major General John J. Pershing
               would lead a force of about one division to France.  The
               dense fog which engulfed Pershing and his staff as they
               departed New York on the _Baltic_ symbolically enshrouded
               America's military planning.  The nature of American
               involvement was beginning to take shape, but the complete
               foundation of America's wartime policy had not yet been
               laid.  Even as late as 1 July the Secretary of War mentioned
               to Hugh Scott, then in Russia with the Root Mission, that
               "no definite plan has yet been made about the dispatch of
               further troops abroad. . . ."  Baker had either forgotten
               about the General Staff plan issued on 7 June to begin
               shipping 120,000 American troops per month beginning in
               August, or -- more likely -- he had realized that such a
               rate of dispatch was absurd.  Regardless, this letter to
               Scott demonstrates that fundamental questions regarding
               America's war effort remained to be determined.  Additional
               issues such as where best to apply American military might
               would also come to the fore only after the American First
               Army had deployed in France.  Even more than two months



               _                    _

                    ^28 (...continued)
               letter is misfiled; since the opening of the letter is
               addressed only to "Guy" and since Mason's last name is
               buried in the text of the letter, the note itself appears in
               the "G" folder.
                                                                         17

               after its declaration of war, the US was gaining only a
               vague hint of the degree of commitment which awaited it.^29 































               _                    _

                    ^29 "Minutes of a conference of May 14 with the Secretary
               of War" and "Relations between French Authorities and
               American Command," editorial translation, in Department of
               the Army, Historical Section, _The United States Army in the_
               _World War, 1917-1919_, vol 2. _Policy-forming Documents of the_
               _American Expeditionary Forces_ (Washington:  Center of
               Military History, United States Army, 1989), 5-10; For an
               account of Pershing's trip across the Atlantic see Donald
               Smythe, "Pershing Goes 'Over There':  The _Baltic_ Trip." 
               _American Neptune_ 34 (1974):  262-77; Smythe, _Pershing: _
               _General of the Armies_ (Bloomington:  Indiana University
               Press, 1986), 13-19; Baker to Scott, Petrograd, Russia, 1
               July 1917, Box 3, Document 113, Baker Papers, LOC. Kuhn to
               Bliss, 7 June 1917, Subj:  Tactical reorganization required
               to meet requirements in the European theatre of war and
               program for the progressive dispatch of troops to France, RG
               165/10050-30, NA.  See also Chapter 5 of this thesis.