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by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
LT. COL. SWEENEY COMPLETES HIS BOOK
In June 1924, Lt. Col. Walter C. Sweeney penned and signed the preface to his book Military Intelligence: A New Weapon in War, which was then published by Frederick A. Stokes Company later that year. Having served as an intelligence officer in the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) G-2 in France during the war, Sweeney had a front row seat to the changes modern warfare brought to the field of military intelligence.
By the time Sweeney arrived in France, he had served in the military for eighteen years. When the Spanish-American War began in 1899, the 23-year-old Sweeney enlisted in the 1st West Virginia Infantry. He was commissioned shortly thereafter and deployed several times to the Philippines between 1900-1911. In 1916, then Capt. Sweeney served on General John J. Pershing’s staff during the Punitive Expedition in Mexico. The following year, noting a skill deficiency among his fellow soldiers, he authored the Army publication “Sketching Methods,” which provided officers and noncommissioned officers instructions on preparing terrain sketches quickly and without the use of hard-to-obtain mapping instruments.
When then-Maj. Sweeney arrived in France in July 1917, he was assigned to the AEF G-2 as chief of the Censorship Section. After a year, he was eager to serve on the front lines. He first joined the 5th Army Corps during the battle of St. Mihiel. Then he became the chief of staff for the 28th Division during the Meuse-Argonne campaign. By the end of the war, Colonel Sweeney had earned both a Distinguished Service Medal and a Silver Star. After the war, he spent several years as both a student and staff member at the Army War College.
Colonel Sweeney’s book, Military Intelligence: A New Weapon of War, was informed by his personal observations and experiences during the war. Believing “no military activity is so shrouded in mystery or so generally misunderstood” as military intelligence, his goal was to provide military personnel AND civilians (who could be called to serve at any time) an understanding of the “methods and means for securing and using information of the enemy, … [so they would be able] to penetrate that greatest of all obstacles to military success, ‘the fog of war.’” He devoted individual chapters to the collection, evaluation, and distribution of intelligence; the role of counterintelligence, mapping, and censorship; and the desired qualities of an effective intelligence officer or specialist. He also outlined the complex organizations of both the newly established Military Intelligence Division on the War Department General Staff and the AEF G-2 section.
While tracing the history of military intelligence back to biblical times, Sweeney defended his use of the words “new” and “weapon” in his title. The basis for these characterizations was one of scope. During the Civil War, individual commanders created ad hoc intelligence organizations that served only the local commander. The larger armies and more deadly technologies of modern war, however, demanded the systematic collection of a massive amount and varied types of information about the enemy for the development of effective operational plans and orders. This required a robust organization, utilizing hundreds more trained personnel than previously employed, to coordinate the collection, evaluation, and dissemination of intelligence at all echelons. For this purpose, military intelligence needed to be considered another weapon fully integrated into the combined arms team to ensure the success of the entire military machine. To a contemporary intelligence officer, Sweeney’s observations may seem obvious and even trite, but many of the World War I lessons regarding military intelligence would be neglected postwar and need to be revitalized when the next war began.
Maj. Gen. Sweeney retired in November 1940 after having commanded both the Sixth Infantry Brigade at Fort Douglas, Utah, and the Third Infantry Division at Fort Lewis, Washington. He passed away in 1963, but his book continues to be essential in understanding the evolution of Army intelligence in modern warfare.
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| Date Taken: | 06.11.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 06.11.2024 10:34 |
| Story ID: | 473614 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 62 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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