Division commander

“ Division after division passed, each commander of an army corps or division coming on the stand during the passage of his command, to be presented to the President, cabinet, and spectators. The steadiness and firmness of the tread, the careful dress on the guides, the uniform intervals between the companies, all eyes directly to the front, and the tattered and bullet-ridden flags, festooned with flowers, all attracted universal notice. Many good people, up to that time, had looked upon our Western army as a sort of mob ”

“ A division which had only a portion of its troops at a time in the front line could last longer than a division that had put all its reserves into action and had worn out the personnel of the whole division.
Much depended upon the division commander and his staff. If he were capable and his division well-trained, he could accomplish results through prompt tactical adaptability to the situation on his front without unnecessary sacrifice of his men. In holding ground against machine-gun fire the fewer men on the front the better. ”

“ The reader will excuse me; older heads and more exact pens have frequently, when ladies intervened, made much longer digressions.
The halt was but for a moment. An aide-de-camp, weary-looking, on a horse covered with foam, dashed up to the division commander, bearing an order from the commander-in-chief that the division must join its corps at Antietam without delay. The fight might [Pg 18] be renewed in the morning, and if so, fresh troops were needed. ”

“ For the division, as for the corps, the framework of the tactical deployment depends upon the commander's tactical plan, as too does the allotment of duties in the fight to the various units, divisions, brigades, and regiments, or to the tactical groups, advanced guard, main body, reserve, etc., and any attempt at retaining the command in one hand is obviously out of the question. ”

“ Another increasing source of embarrassment to the Divisional Commander and his subordinate Officers lay in the calls which were made on the 62nd Division, during 1915, to supply drafts for service overseas. Even the extraction from 2nd Line units of the men fit only for Home Service upset the composition of those units, and interrupted the continuity of training and the growth of an esprit de corps. ”

“ He should have under him, for carrying into effect the orders or views of the Commander of the Forces, an adjutant, and a quarter-master-general, with a sufficient number of assistants attached to them; and one of each department, according to our present plan, should be appointed to each division of the army; and a brigade-major ought also to have the superintendance of the staff duties of each brigade. ”

“ In like manner, when he did get ready to execute an order, after giving most intelligent instructions to division commanders, he would go in with one division, holding the others in reserve until he could superintend their movements in person also, forgetting that division commanders could execute an order without his presence. ”

“ It imparts cohesion and flexibility to the armed mass. Without discipline an army is only an armed mob over which a commander would have no control, and upon which he could not rely in the execution of his plans. When the army is to be mobilized the regiments are brought together and organized into brigades and divisions. Two or more regiments form a brigade; two or more brigades form a division. A general officer of the grade of brigadier-general is assigned to the command of a brigade, and one of the grade of major-general to the command of a division. ”

“ The divisions commanded by lieutenant-generals are completely organized bodies capable, in case of need, of independent action and requiring little supervision from the corps commander. The general commanding the army corps has to deal directly with only a few subordinates, the commanders of his infantry divisions, of his cavalry brigade or division, and of his artillery brigade, and with the heads of the corps organizations for such purposes as supply and medical service. He inspects and tests the condition of all the various units, but he does not attempt to do the work of his subordinates. ”

“ The best battle-formation for the infantry of a division engaged in a decisive attack, and, generally speaking, in all attacks, is the two brigades placed alongside each other, dividing the front, and regulating their own reserves. If the division is acting alone, it is important that, as a general rule, the divisional commander should retain two complete battalions as general reserve. ”

“ There was no such thing as a division comprehending a proportion of all three arms under the control of a divisional commander; and though we do hear frequently of brigades, the word signifies merely the temporary grouping of certain corps under a single officer, rarely an essential part of the general organisation. The subjoined list gives a tolerable idea of the allotment of functions among the members of the staff. ”

“ A fixed organization such as an infantry regiment, the studies noted, forced the commander to base his operational plans on the organization rather than on the mission. Task force structures would permit him to organize his forces to accomplish a broader variety of missions. The division that evolved consisted of three brigade headquarters, nine infantry battalions, two armored battalions, division artillery, and combat and combat service support. The brigade headquarters elements had no permanently assigned combat or support units. ”

“ Within the division, pride of company, [46] of battalion, of regiment, was instilled, and the different units developed rivalries which were amalgamated in a sense of rivalry with other divisions.
Every cantonment had the "best" division in the United States before it went to France, where rivalry expressed itself on the battlefield. The record of the war is by divisions. Men might know their division, but not their corps commander. Divisions might not vary in their courage, but they must in the amount of their experience and in the quality of their leaders. ”

“ The Federal Commander-in-Chief determines the effective state, the formation and division of the contingents of the Federal army, as well as the organization of the Landwehr, and has the right of determining the garrisons within the Federal territory, as well as of ordering that any part of the Federal army be made ready for war. ”

“ As General Longstreet fitly expresses it in his recollections of the war: “The division commanders fought the battle.” The Official War Records afford incontestable proof that the commanders not only of divisions, but of brigades and even regiments, had to shift for themselves. They warrant the assertion that, in no other of the great battles of the rebellion, are there to be found so many complaints from commanding officers, in both armies, of being unsupported in attacks and left exposed on the flanks and obliged to fall back by being actually taken on the sides and in the rear. ”

“ Divisions and brigades should, where necessary, be reorganized and put in position, and all stragglers returned to their companies and regiments. Your army is not now in condition to resist an attack. It must be made so without delay. Staff officers must be sent out to obtain returns from division commanders and assist in supplying all deficiencies.
When it is considered that Halleck found occasion to issue such an order a whole week after the end of the battle, it must be admitted that the sharp criticism and direct reprimand it contained were well deserved. ”

“ On the Western Front in France, 29 divisions (7 Regular Army, 11 National Guard, and 11 National Army) fought in combat. Of the others, 7 served as depot divisions, 2 of which were skeletonized, and 5 were stripped of their personnel for replacements in combat units, laborers in rear areas, or expeditionary forces in North Russia or Italy. The provisional black division was broken up, but its four infantry regiments saw combat. ”

“ In strategy we must never ask what is to be the strength of a division or a corps, but how many corps or division an army should have. There is nothing more unmanageable than an army divided into three parts, except it be one divided into only two, in which case the chief command must be almost neutralised. ”

“ Field operations usually involved less than a regiment or were conducted by gathering the geographically closest elements of several regiments on a temporary basis. Army Regulations, nevertheless, continued to repeat the ideas for organizing army corps, divisions, and brigades, with the division described as "the fundamental element and basis of organization of every active army." ”

“ If ever the plan of calling out men by ballot is adopted, I would beg leave to suggest, that a certain number of battalions of the regular army, from adjoining districts, should be permanently considered a division; [Pg 257] and when a force was wanted in any part of the world, either the division, or a brigade of it, should compose the whole or a part of that force; and would not thus an esprit du corps be established in such a division, like what was found so admirably calculated for mutual support amongst the battalions and brigades of the light, 3rd, 4th, &c. ”

“ It is economical in Divisional Staff, and increases the importance and efficiency of the Divisional Command. It provides 12 Battalions for a Division, as in Germany, but without the insertion of an extra link—the Regiment—in the chain of Command. The almost universal organization of Infantry in foreign armies in Army Corps of 2 Divisions, Divisions of 2 Brigades, and Brigades of 2 Regiments, must be considered, for reasons already stated, a faulty one. The British Divisional organization, both in Infantry and Cavalry, is undoubtedly superior. ”

“ The Test—World War I
Both [French and British] commissions were anxious for an American force, no matter how small. ... I opposed this on the ground that the small force would belittle our effort; was undignified and would give a wrong impression of our intentions. I held out for at least a division to show the quality of our troops and command respect for our flag. ”

“ A corps d'armée should, be commanded by a Lieutenant-general. This rule is almost universal in Europe. The number of marshals in France under Napoleon was so great, that officers of this grade were often assigned to corps d'armée.
A grand division of an army should be commanded by a General of Division. In England, the assimilated grade is that of major-general, and in France at the present time, the younger lieutenant-generals, or the maréchaux-de-camp, command divisions.
A brigade should be commanded by a Brigadier-general. ”

“ The new law replaced the old territorial departments with corps areas, which assumed the tasks of administering and training the Army. Each corps area was to have at least one National Guard or Organized Reserve division. Corps areas were to be combined into army areas for inspection, mobilization, maneuver, and demobilization. Rather than mandating the structure of regiments as in the past, Congress authorized the number of officers and enlisted men for each arm and service and instructed the president to organize the units. ”

“ After World War I the Army quickly demobilized its forces, but memories of the unpreparedness of 1917 caused the nation to change the way it maintained its military forces. Infantry and cavalry divisions, rather than regiments or smaller units, became the pillars that would support future mobilization. Officers examined the structure of those pillars and adopted a modified, but powerful, square infantry division designed for frontal attack and a small light cavalry division for reconnaissance. ”

“ The Americans adopted a huge division organization consisting of more than 28,000 men and approximating the size of a French, British, or German corps. Although part of the argument for such a large organization was the shortage of trained American officers required for divisions, the primary rationale was tactical. ”

“ With these new ordinances, the Army departed from national and international practice, and the infantry division replaced the army corps, which had been used in the Civil War and the War with Spain, as the basic unit for combining arms. Since the mid-nineteenth century a typical European army corps had consisted of two or more divisions, a cavalry brigade, a field artillery regiment, and supporting units—about 30,000 men. Divisions usually included only infantry. Although they sometimes had artillery, cavalry, or engineer troops, they rarely included service units. ”

“ Your division has the distinction of being the first to arrive in France. May every man in your ranks aim to make the First Division the first in accomplishment. With you came a body of the marines, those well-disciplined, ship-shape soldiers of the navy. ”

“ The army was therefore constituted in a number of divisions, each of two or more brigades with cavalry and artillery sufficient for its own needs. It was even more important that each divisional general, with his own staff, should be a real commander, and not merely the supervisor of a section of the line of battle, for he was almost in the position that a commander-in-chief had formerly held. The need of generals was easily supplied when there was so wide a field of selection. ”

“ Divisional combat and combat service support also grew. An antiaircraft artillery battalion was added for air defense, an engineer regiment replaced the battalion, and a military police company supplanted the platoon. Given the increases in the arms and combat support elements, the division needed greater maintenance and quartermaster resources, and the committee urged expansion of these units to battalions. ”

“ It is very desireable, that the soldiers should not lose the habit of marching; and the divisions should march ten or twelve miles twice in each week, if the weather should permit, and the roads in the neighbourhood of the cantonments of the division should be dry. But I repeat, that the great object of the attention of the [Pg 202] general and field officers must be, to get the captains and subalterns of regiments to understand and perform the duties required of them, as the only mode by which the discipline and efficiency of the army can be restored and maintained during the next campaign. ”