Modernizing the American War Department: Change and Continuity in a Turbulent Era, 1885-1920 (review)

Daniel R. Beaver's work examines the War Department during what he calls the "critical years 1885-1920" (viii). It is in this period, he argues, that its leadership faced significant challenges from technology, progressivism, and the Great War. The author presents a descriptive and analytical narrative centered on the department's human institutions, the secretary of war, the commanding general of the army (the chief of staff in later years), and the army bureau chiefs, because he insists that "people do make a difference" (xiv).

Although the hub of the work is from 1885-1920, Beaver's solid study is much broader. It begins just after the disastrous War of 1812, as Congress investigated ineptness and inefficiency in the War Department and the army. It concludes in 1940 on the eve of America's entry into World War II, what the author calls the department's "greatest test since 1861" (viii). In essence, his work is a history of organizational change set against the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution in America.

Beaver argues that the transformation that resulted from massive industrialization and market-based commercial systems did not just affect artisans, farmers, and workers. Soldiers and government bureaucrats likewise struggled to cope with the challenges to traditional practices and relationships created by international corporations. War Department bureaucrats like John C. Calhoun sought to establish effective systems that could adjust to the new environment. Calhoun, known to most survey students as the fire-eating secessionist from South Carolina, was one of the first architects for change. As secretary of war in 1817, he acted as "both reformer and modernizer," arguing to allow for "an expansible peacetime regular army" to augment state militias. He created military departments to replace corrupt civilian contractors. These departments became powerful bureaucracies within the department's hierarchy that frequently clashed with the commanding general, whose powers were ambiguous by design. This division of power solidified civilian control by the secretary, nurtured branch loyalty within the army, and laid the foundations of departmental politics that continues in today's Pentagon (2).

Technology spawned by the Industrial Revolution played an enormous role in the War Department's development. In a short period after 1880, Beaver explains, the army acquired more new equipment and weapon systems than any other period in the army's history. This "critical mass of technological innovations transformed and modernized the conduct of war in the West" (xii), yet this infusion initially created chaos until a system was developed to manage it, such as during World War I with the introduction of the combat airplane. Beaver writes, "Americans knew neither what they wanted nor how to build or use it." Automobile executives who dominated the aircraft production program actually impeded the development of modern combat aircraft. Instead of mass-producing advanced warplanes in an orderly fashion, "existing practices brought the delivery of obsolete, virtually useless aircraft to the American army in France" (182-83).

This is a very readable book, and the crown jewel of Beaver's scholarship is the superb bibliography contained in the notes and essay on sources. These are clearly organized and open up the depth of the work. Whether one is studying the United States Army, the Industrial Revolution, the Progressive Era, or the Great War, Modernizing the American War Department is a major contribution to the literature.