Courtesy Photo | Roosevelt Hall at Washington Arsenal, completed in 1907 as the home of the Army War...... read more read more
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by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
On June 24, 1908, a War Department General Staff reorganization folded the Second Division into the Third Division, depriving the Army of its independent intelligence organization. The situation would decline further until, by 1910, the Army had only a limited intelligence committee buried in the War College and working solely for the college’s planners.
On August 15, 1903, the War Department created a General Staff system. The reorganization replaced the commanding general of the Army with a chief of staff to oversee three new divisions of the General Staff: the First for administration, training, and mobilization; the Second for military information; and the Third, essentially the War College, for war plans, military education, technical manuals, and permanent fortifications and harbor defense.
The Second Division absorbed the existing Military Information Division (MID) established in 1885 under the Adjutant General. The MID collected and disseminated information about foreign armies and oversaw the Army’s military attachés. With the establishment of the Second Division on a coequal footing with other major functions of military command, the Army seemingly accepted the role intelligence played in both war and peace. For a few years, the division, located a short walk from the State, War, and Navy Building in Washington, D.C., was in high demand by the Army staff and the Army at large.
Unfortunately, this favorable situation was not to last. In 1907, the War College moved to larger facilities at Washington Arsenal (now Fort McNair). Because of its dependence on the resources of the Second Division, the War College president lobbied for the Second Division to move as well. Lt. Col. Thaddeus W. Jones, chief of the Second Division, argued to keep his staff close to the chief of staff and secretary of war and proposed instead the detail of personnel to work with War College planners when needed. Army Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. J. Franklin Bell, however, approved the move, which was completed in May 1908.
Although the two divisions were to remain independent at their shared location, within a month, the War College president found the arrangement impractical and recommended the divisions be fully merged. Despite Colonel Jones’ continuing protests, on June 24, 1908, War Department General Order No. 104 created a new Second Section comprised of a Military Information Committee and a War College Committee under the College president. The new Military Information Committee’s mission differed little from that of the Second Division and it initially retained a semblance of independence. Soon, however, Colonel Jones’ seven-member committee was working solely for War College planners rather than producing intelligence to satisfy the needs of the entire Army. Reports from field sources and attachés piled up without processing, and the committee’s library and priceless intelligence records were scattered throughout the college.
In 1910, the new Army chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood, reorganized his General Staff into four divisions: Mobile Army, War College, Coast Artillery, and Militia Affairs. This time, the intelligence mission simply became one of the functions of the War College Division, destroying any vestiges of the organization’s former independence. The Army would not have another functioning intelligence organization until 1917, after the United States entered the war in Europe.
| Date Taken: | 06.21.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 06.21.2022 10:53 |
| Story ID: | 423421 |
| Location: | FORT HUACHUCA, ARIZONA, US |
| Web Views: | 38 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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