The Career of Leonard Wood

by Joseph Hamblen Sears

The purpose of the camps and what they will lead to in time of peace and did lead to in time of war is perhaps best shown in one of General Wood's statements: "The ultimate object sought is not in any way one of military aggrandizement, {215} but to provide in some degree a means of meeting a vital need confronting us as a peaceful and unmilitary people, in order to preserve the desired peace and prosperity through the only safe precaution, viz.: more thorough preparation and equipment to resist any effort to break the peace."

That at a time when there was no European War in sight.

Now consider General Pershing's report of Nov. 21, 1918--after the close of the war. The first American air force using American aeroplanes went into action in France, that is to say in the war, in August, 1918--16 months after the declaration of war by the United States and four years after the beginning of the war itself. During the entire time that the United States was in the war, a little over 19 months, not one single American field gun was fired at the enemy and only 109 had been received in Europe at all. No American tank was ever used against the enemy in the whole war. Yet a month or six weeks after the declaration of war troops began to go to Europe and at its close in November, 1918, the army {216} consisted of 3,700,000 men, of whom more than 203,000 were newly made officers. Half of this force at least got over to the other side of the Atlantic and at least half of them took part in the fighting at one time or another of the 19 months.

One would have said at the outset that a commercial nation like the United States, filled with factories, mechanics and mechanically inclined brains, could and would have made guns and aeroplanes and uniforms far quicker than it made soldiers and officers. Yet such was not the case.

A French officer here in America at that time studying American mobilization said:

"I knew you recruited over 3,500,000 men in 19 months. That is very good, but not so difficult. But I am told also that although you had no officers reserve to start with you somehow found 200,000 new officers, most of them competent. That is what is astonishing and what was impossible. Tell me how that was done." [Footnote: National Magazine.]

There is only the one answer, that the officers' training camps started in 1918 by Leonard Wood and fostered by him and the people of this nation {217} who then and later agreed with him made the impossible possible and made the new, raw army effective and in time. It was what came to be known as the "Plattsburg Idea;" which, getting really going first in May 16, 1917, as a regular part of the United States mobilization, did its work before arms and ammunition were ready, before uniforms could be had, before camps had been even laid out and before the first draft had been taken. At that time 40,000 selected men were in training for officers' positions in sixteen camps. That is to say, in 40 days 150,000 applications had been received, 100,000 men examined and 40,000 passed as fit and ready for training.

It was the work in 1913, 1914, 1915 and 1916. It was the Plattsburg idea adapted to war conditions. Without it the situation regarding men might easily have been the same as the situation regarding guns, aeroplanes and uniforms.

Plattsburg, being in New York State, naturally became the type of camp, since in 1914 Wood, having been relieved of his position as Chief of Staff, was detailed to command the Department of the East with his headquarters on Governor's {218} Island in New York Harbor. He no sooner took up this new work than the Department of the East, where fifty-six per cent, of the National Guard of the whole country was included, became a seething office of energy and work. In so far as the training camp idea went this energy was centered in Plattsburg.

At the same time General Wood inaugurated the Massachusetts National Guard Maneuvers--the first of their kind held in this country--and added a water attack on Boston. He also assisted Governor Whitman in putting through the New York State Legislature the bills creating the State Military Training Commission, under whose management all boys between the ages of sixteen and eighteen undergo a simple but effective training in the rudiments of military tactics and receive the athletic training of a short camp life each year--all involving the inculcation of the principles of discipline, of order and of self care.