UC-NRLF 
 
 WHO SHALL WRITE OUR klLIHlHY HISTORY? 
 
 Reprinted from 
 THE IKFAKTRY JOURNAL. 
 
GIFT OF 
 

 
 WHO SHALL WRITE OUR 
 MILITARY HISTORY? 
 
 Proceedings of a Conference on the Military History of the 
 
 United States at the Twenty-Eighth Annual Meeting 
 
 of the American Historical Association, Boston, 
 
 Massachusetts, December 28, 1912 
 
 :A. 
 
 M.. APR..2..-.10.11.. 
 
 Reprinted from the 
 
 INFANTRY JOURNAL 
 
 for January- February, 1913 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 THE UNITED STATES INFANTRY ASSOCIATION 
 1913 
 

Who Shall Write Our Military History? 
 
 Proceedings of a Conference on the Military History of the United States 
 
 at the Twenty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the American Historical 
 
 Association, Boston, Massachusetts, December 28, 1912. 
 
 NOTE. Through the interest of a number of the members of the American 
 Historical Association, following Professor R. M. Johnston s introduction of the 
 subject in the September-October INFANTRY JOURNAL, a conference, at the recent 
 annual meeting of the Association in Boston and Cambridge, was devoted to the 
 consideration of our military history, with particular reference to the means whereby 
 at least a start may be made towards writing it in accordance with modern historical 
 method. Upon the invitation of the American Historical Association the general 
 staff of the Army was represented by Major James W. Me Andrew, U. S. Army, 
 under orders of the War Department, and by Captain George H. Shelton, 2Qlh 
 Infantry, and Captain Arthur L. Conger, i8th Infantry. Professor Albert Bush- 
 nell Plart, of Harvard, presided. Because of the importance of the subject and the 
 discussion thereof, as well as the interest manifested by the attending members, the 
 proceedings are reproduced here in practically complete form. 
 
 T 
 
 HE MEETING was called to order at ten o clock a. m. The chairman, 
 Professor Hart, said: 
 
 This conference, ladies and gentlemen, has been called at the instance of 
 several people, military and civilian, who feel that the science of military history 
 has entered upon a new aspect, that the point of view towards military events 
 and their relation to civil history and to the destinies of the nation has some 
 what altered and that it is to the advantage of the American people that there 
 should be a more intelligent understanding of military history, with a view to 
 the protection of the nation in the future. Armies used to be destructive, and 
 when they had gone through a campaign they left a wilderness behind them. 
 The armies of to-day are delensive; their part in the present day in maintaining 
 civilization is to prevent such fearful catastrophes as those which overtook 
 all the elder civilizations down to one thousand years ago. We are here, 
 further, to join in a conference between civilians and military men. I take 
 it that the main purpose of this meeting is, by an exchange of views, to come 
 upon some plan by which the furtherance of military history in the proper 
 sense shall be facilitated. The civilian present who has most acquaintance 
 with these data, these details, is my colleague, Professor R. M. Johnston, and 
 I will ask him what he thinks may be done by such a conference and by the 
 enlargement of such a science. 
 
 PROFESSOR JOHNSTON said: 
 
 Whatever my preferences may be, I feel I cannot evade at the outset a 
 question that will undoubtedly present itself to many of those here present. 
 The issue had better be met frankly, or else our position will remain uncertain 
 and assailable. The study of military history is at the present moment under 
 a cloud. There is more than a disposition to frown it down, to taboo it as 
 
 264340 
 

 being in some way antagonistic to the call of pacifism which holds the public 
 ear. The study of war in the minds of many would make us accessories to 
 putting back the clock of civilization. 
 
 Now what is the answer to that? Perhaps the best answer we could make 
 on the present occasion would be to point to the President of the Association, 
 Colonel Roosevelt. Who could prove more conclusively by his public acts 
 that a man whose courage and fighting instincts are almost excessively developed 
 may yet be the strongest and most rational advocate of peace? I allude, of 
 course, to the treaty of Portsmouth. But there is perhaps a better reason. 
 Are we not, as scholars, entitled to say to the pacifists: If you wish to put 
 down war, surely you should wish to ascertain what are the facts of war, 
 otherwise how can you present a case? And our object as students of history 
 is simply and dispassionately to set out facts; we will leave it to others to 
 argue from them. But for myself I prefer to rest our case on even stronger 
 ground. I prefer to say that at a moment when so much false sentimentalism, 
 uninformed flabbiness and gush are the fashion and we hear so little about those 
 ancient virtues of which military courage is the strong and secure rock, little 
 enough harm will be done if a few of us at least cultivate a subject which is 
 largely concerned with them. 
 
 The subject of military history presented few difficulties in the days, not so 
 long passed, when history itself was considered merely a branch of polite 
 literature, not to say rhetoric. The historian s solicitude was concentrated 
 on the flags and the drums, on the roar of the guns, and the awful carnage; 
 and he made extremely vivid and completely false pictures out of it all. 
 Within a very few years past we have changed all that, just as in pure literature 
 Captain Bluntschli and his invaluable chocolate have rapidly superseded 
 Captain d Artagnan and his overworked rapier. 
 
 In ordinary political history we have prosaically got down to the documents 
 and to a close and unrhetorical examination of facts as facts. So in military 
 history we have abandoned the drum and trumpet and begun to analyze the 
 psychology of generals, on the documents critically examined, and their tactical 
 and strategical methods as seen from a technical point of view. And it may 
 be said, not unfairly, that to judge from the innumerable bad books and few 
 really first rate ones produced the subject is one of extreme difficulty. 
 
 Of late years military history has received growing attention in Europe, 
 and in a large sense the lead in this movement may be ascribed to Germany. 
 It was largely by a technical study of her campaign against Austria in 1 866 that 
 she succeeded in improving her army in such a way as to make secure the result 
 she obtained in the war against France in 1870. She continued on the same 
 path after that war, and other countries followed, making the historical 
 study of war the basis for the efficient organization of their national armies. 
 In other words a present necessity, an actual military problem, has inspired 
 much of the best work that has been done. 
 
 It would exceed the limits of the time at my disposal to review the condition 
 of military historical studies in Europe; I will confine myself to pointing out 
 a few of the facts, and to contrasting them with those in this country. Most 
 of the great European nations have, as one of the essential parts of their 
 general staff, an historical section. In France and Germany these bodies 
 stimulate much valuable work and make possible the publication of much 
 documentary matter. They are stronger, however, on their technical than 
 
on their scholarly side, and their work often suffers from being written too 
 near the event. In those same two countries are published several first rate 
 journals and magazines devoting themselves wholly or in part to military 
 matters and history. In a recent quarterly number of the Historisches 
 Jahrbuch of the Gorres Geselschaft, which pays little attention to military 
 history, I counted in the current bibliography over twenty titles for the 
 Franco-Prussian war alone. With us, while we have several excellent service 
 journals, the editor of one of which we are fortunate enough to have with us 
 to-day, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that military history plays no part 
 in them. 
 
 Then there is the academic side. In England, where military history is 
 not nearly as much developed as in France and England, Oxford has a chair 
 of military history filled by Professor Wilkinson. In addition the university 
 has in Professor Oman one of the foremost military historians of the day, 
 while Professor Firth has produced at least one quite remarkable book in 
 the same field. In Germany there is a famous seminar in military history, 
 that of Professor Delbriick at Berlin. In this country a half-course which I 
 give intermittently at Harvard is, so far as I know, the only thing of the sort 
 to be found in our universities, though our military institutions pay, as is 
 natural, some attention to the matter, as the welcome presence at this meeting 
 of Major McAndrew and Captain Conger demonstrates. 
 
 And yet we have all the necessary elements for this study ready to our hands. 
 In the Civil War and the mass of printed documentary material which the 
 government has published we have the most admirable field imaginable for 
 seminar work, for the production of a whole library of first rate military 
 histories. The society of which we are the appreciative guests to-day has 
 shown the way in publishing excellent material for military history, and 
 occasionally strategical and tactical studies of real value. We have produced 
 much military history of a minor character, especially memoirs. A past mem 
 ber of this society established a notable reputation as a military historian, 
 and we have among us to-day those who are following in the footsteps of the 
 late John Codman Ropes. Among young men at college are many, I believe, 
 who would gladly take up this work if only a lead were given them. 
 
 What, then, are we to do to further our purpose? That is precisely what we 
 are here to discuss, and I do not wish to anticipate what others may have to 
 suggest. But this much it is at all events safe to say. If we can get experts 
 in scholarly methods and experts in military science to extend the friendly 
 hand of cooperation; if we can obtain more recognition for historical work 
 at army headquarters; if we can establish seminar work in our universities; 
 if we can find or found a journal in which military history would obtain recog 
 nition; if we could found a national society for military history by all or 
 by any such steps we should certainly further the cause of this deserving study. 
 
 THE; CHAIRMAN: Military history includes two terms, the subject and 
 method, and military science and discussion of military events and principles, 
 and nothing could be more fitting than that this conference should participate 
 of both elements. We are very fortunate indeed in the presence and the 
 interest here of several members of the United States Army, of whom I shall 
 call as the first Captain Arthur L. Conger, of the Army Service Schools at 
 Fort Leaven worth. 
 
CAPTAIN CONGER said: 
 
 No one appreciates better than the military man the fact that military 
 history to-day plays the role of Cinderella. Occasionally at these meetings 
 she may be dressed magically by some fairy godmother, such as our friend 
 Professor Johnston on this occasion, and taken to the ball for a few brief 
 dances with the prince, but this does not prevent her having to return to her 
 place in the ashes on the kitchen hearth as soon as the ball is over. While 
 her sisters occupy a place of honor in the world, no one has either a kind word 
 or any attention to give her. Yet we who know our Cinderella know that she 
 is really more beautiful than all her sisters and look forward with hope to the 
 time when the prince shall seize, as she departs, the golden slipper, in the form 
 of a conception of what military history really is, whereby he may seek her 
 out, identify her, and give her her rightful place in the palace. 
 
 Why is it that military history is to-day a discredited subject among 
 scholars, and why are such military histories as we have so unsatisfactory and 
 misleading? 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that Germany, which has given us our historical 
 method and our modern conception of war, should have failed to combine 
 the two and set a standard for the writing of military history. Yet, though the 
 historical section of the German general staff publishes an increasing number 
 of volumes yearly, the contents of these volumes shows not only that the 
 writers are not acquainted with the principles of historical method, but that 
 the direction is imbued with Napoleon s conception of official history a 
 point of view promulgated by the government for its own purposes. Thus 
 we may see how wide a gap in the matter of history exists between the official 
 military world and the world of scholarship as represented by the German 
 universities. Nor are the universities given access to the war archives, as 
 that could only result in overthrowing the official view. 
 
 The historical section of the German general staff is indissolubly connected 
 with the name of von Moltke, who as chief of staff organized it and gave close 
 supervision to its work. While von Moltke had no training in historical 
 method, in the modern sense, yet his large experience enabled him to appre 
 ciate the value of first-hand evidence and he brought to the investigation 
 of the wars, the historic materials for the study of which were under his 
 control, a certain ripeness of judgment and practical knowledge which saved 
 him many errors. 
 
 The war of 1866 with Austria was the first important war in which Prussia 
 had been engaged for more than a half-century. It was thus manifestly 
 of prime importance for von Moltke, and indeed the whole army, to study the 
 history of that war in detail in order to ascertain the good as well as the bad 
 features of Prussian training and tactics, to clear up beyond question those 
 points which needed improvement to insure success gainst a more formidable 
 foe than Austria. 
 
 The facilities for a review of events in campaign in the German army may 
 be appreciated when it is known that every evening each battalion and higher 
 commander makes a report of the day s events. Should he desire to change 
 his report subsequently he cannot have the original report back, but may 
 forward as many supplementary reports as he pleases, to be filed with the 
 original. Anyone who has worked with our own Civil War reports, many of 
 them written months after the events described, cannot fail to appreciate 
 
the relatively easy task history writing would be were this wealth of data 
 available, by subordinates as well as principals and all written the same day. 
 
 Take in connection with the above the methodical trained habits of the 
 German staff officer: he sets his watch each morning with the official time 
 piece at headquarters; at each important occurrence during the day, be it 
 the time of opening artillery fire or the time the column reaches a certain 
 crossroad, he consults his watch and, not trusting memory, jots down the event 
 with the precise time in his note-book. Some note-books of this character 
 have been published in facsimile,* and one can readily see that with records 
 of this sort kept and turned in to the historical bureau, historical writing may 
 become a matter of far greater precision than has hitherto been possible. 
 
 The manner in which von Moltke dealt with the materials of the war of 
 1866 may best be appreciated by a study of the Memorial of July 25, i868,"j" 
 presented to the king proposing certain changes in and additions to the 
 regulations. From this we may see that almost no detail of tactics was too 
 small to escape his notice. The causes of success as well as of failure were 
 examined and the proposed changes in the regulations were all based on a 
 careful study of actual occurrences. 
 
 Thus the spirit of the study of the war of 66 was one of investigation in 
 which von Moltke and the general staff are seeking to know, and so far as 
 practicable to promulgate the truth about the war. After 1870 various 
 causes combined to produce a change of attitude. The quarrel between 
 Bismarck and von Moltke in front of Paris, the undesirability of allowing the 
 French or even the Germans to realize by how narrow a thread success had 
 often hung in the balance during the war, and the growing friction between 
 the states of the newly formed German Empire pointed to a policy not only 
 of suppression but, where desirable, of conversion of facts, and the employ 
 ment of the official historical bureau to promote certain political aims soon 
 became adopted as a fixed policy. 
 
 The work of preparing the official account of the war of 1870-71 was 
 completed in 1873 and bears the imprint of the master-mind of von Moltke, 
 whose cunning hand is visible again and again in artfully concealing the 
 truth without becoming too deeply involved. It was soon recognized, how 
 ever, that certain statements in the official history explaining the reasons for 
 the concentration on the Rhine, J implying that the movement of troops to 
 the frontier was only begun after the completion of the mobilization and 
 asserting that the concentration was carried out to the last detail on a pre 
 arranged plan without friction were likely to prove misleading to German 
 officers themselves and thereby injure the efficiency of the army in future 
 campaigns. To correct these wrong impressions means were taken to give 
 the army the real facts without, however, disclosing them publicly. 
 
 When it came to dealing with the causes of failure of the French army in 
 1870 we find the official history stating:^]" 
 
 *See, for example, "Lebenserinnerungen von Gustav von Schubert," 
 Leipzig, 1909, p. 320. 
 
 f Moltke s Taktisch-strategische Aufsatze," published by the Great 
 General Staff on the centenary of von Moltke s birth, Berlin, 1900, p. 73. 
 
 Ji 870-7 1, vol. i, pp. 84-88. 
 
 1870-71, vol. I, p. 86. 
 
 fVol. I, p. 22. 
 
8 
 
 The internal state of the army labored under serious disadvantages. . . . 
 The non-commissioned officers had lost their former high position. . . . 
 The junior officers of the army did not devote their entire abilities to the 
 service. . . . The prevailing favoritism extended even to persons of tarnished 
 reputation very naturally disgusted them and opened out very little prospect 
 for the future. . . . The same element of favoritism had also raised into 
 high positions many men who were unequal to their duties, exercising its 
 disastrous influence here as it ever will. Owing to the constant change in 
 the form of government, that loyalty and attachment to a lineal dynasty 
 which in other countries avert dangers to the public well being, had ceased 
 to exist both in the army and in the nation. 
 
 The last sentence betrays the purpose of the whole, to build an argument 
 in favor of a lineal dynasty by ascribing the failure of the French army in 
 a large measure to the fact that Napoleon III had not been born to the purple. 
 The facts that conditions were reversed in 1 806, and that probably no armies 
 were ever more devoted to their leaders than were his later ones to Napoleon I, 
 are overlooked. 
 
 One section of the German general staff concerns itself with writing mono 
 graphs on wars in which Germany has not herself taken part. In these we 
 find displayed the strongest partisanship, as well as every pretext made use 
 of for justifying the German military system. 
 
 Thus we read in the monograph on the Boer war: 
 
 The British military administration cannot be absolved from the severe 
 reproach that it had not properly appreciated the tactical experiences of 
 former struggles in South Africa.* 
 
 The regulations under which the army took the field in 1899 followed 
 comparatively closely the lines of the German regulations. The unfavorable 
 conditions of training, however, under which especially the infantry and 
 cavalry suffered in the mother-country, where exercises in varied terrain 
 are almost an impossibility, prevented the materialization of the principles 
 of training approved in Germany.! 
 
 A footnote quotes Lord Wolseley as saying that "Maneuvers on the con 
 tinental system were impracticable in England since they would unfavorably 
 affect recruiting."! 
 
 When we stop to consider what are the former struggles, lack of considera 
 tion of which is so severe a reproach, we find the episodes of Majuba Hill 
 and the Jameson Raid hardly enough, it seems, to build a new system of 
 tactics upon. 
 
 In view of the similarity between the German and English tactics, the 
 general staff finds it necessary to explain why these tactics proved wanting 
 in South Africa, and ascribes it to faulty training. No mention is made of 
 the fact that the German tactics were found equally inapplicable to the con 
 ditions of warfare in Germany s own African colonies. 
 
 In the footnote we find the opportunity of justifying the German maneuver 
 system and conscription law eagerly taken advantage of; also the real 
 objection to the maneuvers as conducted in Germany, namely, the hardship 
 caused by quartering troops on the inhabitants, is skilfully lost to view. 
 
 But not content with casting slurs on the British War Office and system 
 
 *Kriegsgeschichtliche Einzelschriften, Heft 32, p. 16. 
 \Ibid., p. 17. 
 %Ibid., p. 1 8. 
 
of training, the general staff history strikes further directly at the morale of 
 the troops: 
 
 With the fruitless yet by no means especially costly attacks at Paardeburg 
 there began to spread a nervousness of suffering loss, and of making an attack 
 which bore bad fruit far beyond the limits of South Africa, while one sub 
 stantial reason for the long continuance of the war was, undoubtedly, the 
 avoidance of striking any crushing blow at the Boers. 
 
 The account goes on to relate that it would have been easy (for the Boers) 
 to penetrate through their (the English) thin firing line and for Cronje to 
 escape but for the errors of deWet and other leaders.* 
 
 The injustice of this becomes apparent when we consider the heroic losses 
 sustained by certain British organizations at Paardeburg without flinching, 
 and that the failure of the attack must be ascribed to faulty orders of the high 
 command resulting in undue dispersion and lack of coordination of the attack 
 ing troops rather than to losses or nervousness resulting from losses. From 
 this time on we find further that the Boers were unable to make any effective 
 resistance to the main British advance, which was everywhere successful. 
 In the guerilla warfare which followed we find the Boers skilfully avoiding 
 contact with main columns but descending in relatively overwhelming forces 
 on lightly guarded convoys and small bodies of troops which often offered 
 heroic resistance against overwhelming odds. In strong contrast with its 
 arraignment of the British morale at Paardeburg the German official account 
 credits the failure of the Boers who throughout the war proved unable to 
 take up and sustain a vigorous offensive to an "error of judgment" on the 
 part of the Boer leaders, thus seeking to deprive the English of the credit 
 of deserving even the successes which they actually reaped. 
 
 The British artillery also comes in for its quota of disparagement. The 
 account says, referring to the lyddite shells: 
 
 In spite of the overwhelming fire . . . their effect on the well intrenched 
 Boers was small. When they burst they usually made a most diabolical 
 noise, but the fragments were very few in number, and the shells made holes 
 in the sandy soil about 60 cm. (two feet) wide and 30 cm. (one-foot) deep.f 
 
 The account goes on to quote from a participant: 
 
 The lyddite shells had, as a rule, no effect whatever on men lying down. 
 I have been present myself when Boers had their clothes scorched by bursting 
 lyddite projectiles but only had their skins scratched. The Boers had little 
 respect for the British artillery, especially for its lyddite fire. . . . We 
 were frequently not deterred thereby from getting out from under cover to 
 make coffee under lyddite fire. 
 
 As a matter of fact a shell making a hole in sandy soil two feet wide and a 
 foot deep is a shell of unusual power for a field gun. A high-powered shell 
 is, however, not usually employed against troops, but to demolish particular 
 objects, since their effect is highly localized. Here, as elsewhere, a quotation 
 is introduced without reference to person, time, or place, for the very trans 
 parent purpose of instilling into the minds of German officers the belief that 
 the British artillery is not to be dreaded, and also into the minds of the British 
 
 *Kriegsgeshichtliche Einzelschriften, Heft 33, p. 71. 
 jlbid., p. 73. 
 
10 
 
 that their artillery is not to be relied on for effectiveness, for it is well known 
 that these monographs are promptly translated into English and perhaps 
 more widely read and credited in England than in Germany. 
 
 Thus it will be seen how far from being calm, judicial, and critical investi 
 gations into the truth of history are the German official accounts. Nor is 
 this onesidedness confined to their dealings with foreign nations such as 
 France and England; it becomes apparent in their treatment of the troops 
 of the minor German states. 
 
 It is well known that the crossing of the lines of march of the Prussian 
 Guard Corps and the XII (Saxon) Corps, on the i8th of August, 1870, was 
 not accidental, but was designed in order to bring the Guard Corps into what 
 was believed to be the place of honor for making the decisive attack. It 
 had, however, the opposite result. The Guard Corps had, it is true, full 
 opportunity for the display of its fighting prowess, but the Saxon corps eventu 
 ally was found to be in the place for bringing about the final decision at Saint 
 Privat. 
 
 The official account published by the German general staff in 1873 glossed 
 over to some extent the desperate situation of the Guard Corps before the 
 arrival of the Saxons, but rendered substantial justice to the Saxons: 
 
 Both (Prince George of Saxony and Crown Prince Albert) had the intention 
 of first securing the occupation of Roncourt and then advancing to the attack 
 of Saint Privat. However some of the Saxon leaders received direct informa 
 tion of the state of the battle at Saint Privat and, urged to participate in the 
 furious struggle of the Guard at that place as soon as possible, turned in that 
 direction.* 
 
 Compare the above with the following taken from the study of the battle 
 published by the general staff in 1 905 : 
 
 Lieut, v. Esbeck, sent to find out where the XII Corps was, met the Saxon 
 infantry advancing west of the small wood between Roncourt and Montois la 
 Montagne. ... He reported to the regimental commander that the Guard 
 urgently needed support in flank. . . . Through the efforts of Lieut, 
 v. Esbeck a total of five and a half battalions turned out of the Saxon attacking 
 line towards Saint Privat, while the remaining troops continued in the direction 
 of Roncourt. . . . Lieut, v. Esbeck had no orders to divert the march of 
 the Saxons towards Saint Privat. He acted independently under the impres 
 sion that the left wing of the ist Guard Infantry Brigade was not making 
 headway north of the large basin towards Roncourt; it was anyway not his 
 intention to draw the Saxons away towards Saint Privat but merely to hasten 
 their advance on Roncourt which he believed to be still occupied. f 
 
 The contrast between these, two views needs no comment. As an excuse 
 for the divergence of the " study " published in 1905 from the history published 
 in 1873 it has been alleged that much new material had been brought to light 
 in the meantime, and especially that much of value had been gleaned from 
 replies to question sheets sent out to participants. Anyone who has had 
 any practise in historical criticism will readily appreciate the futility of the 
 attempt to reconstruct a history, based on such reliable sources as was the 
 official account of 1873, on the strength of recollections written thirty years 
 after the event. 
 
 *Der Krieg, 1870-71, vol. n, p. 881. 
 f Der 1 8 August, 1870," pp. 508-9. 
 
II 
 
 In speaking of the artillery preparation for the final assault on Saint Privat 
 the 1873 history says: 
 
 The combined fire of the Saxon artillery and the ten Prussian batteries, 
 south of the Chaussee, was not long in showing its effect on the village (of 
 Saint Privat) encumbered with French troops. . . . Practically at the same 
 time the Saxons reached the north and northwest and the Guard the west 
 and south of the burning village.* 
 
 Compare with the above the laborious effort of the 1905 study to show 
 that the Saxon artillery did not assist in the fire preparation for the assault 
 on Saint Privat: 
 
 When Crown Prince Albert . . . observed that his infantry in part pro 
 ceeded towards Saint Privat, after Roncourt was in the hands of the Germans, 
 he directed his artillery to turn against Saint Privat. This renewed change of 
 position was made with great difficulty. The batteries south of the woods of 
 Aboue had not yet fully deployed in their position there when it became 
 necessary to limber up again. The movement came to a standstill, hampered 
 by the infantry; from the north some few batteries hastened up and crowded 
 into the newly gained firing position. By the time order had been fully 
 restored and the batteries were all in position Saint Privat was already in the 
 hands of the Germans. f 
 
 The "study" goes on to relate that it was the Guard who made the charge 
 on Saint Privat from the north as well as from the west and south, admitting 
 that a few Saxon companies became mixed in the charge from the north with 
 a Guard regiment, but offsetting this with the statement that as a matter of 
 fact the troops charging from the south were the first to reach the village. 
 
 After thus robbing the Saxon corps of all credit of participating in the attack 
 on Saint Privat, in a manner scarcely creditable to a press agent, the "study" 
 awards the Saxons these few damning words of faint praise : 
 
 But from all this the conclusion should not be drawn that the envelopment 
 by the XII Corps was entirely barren of results. A movement against a 
 flank always has a certain moral effect on the defender even if he has employed 
 sufficient means to meet it; he still feels the threatening of his line of retreat. J 
 
 One unacquainted with German conditions will at once ask: Would the 
 Saxon officers still living who participated in this battle remain silent in the 
 face of these statements, even when made from an official source, were they 
 not true? Reference to the Saxon newspapers of the years 1906-7 will show 
 that they were not allowed to pass unchallenged. The fact that the denials 
 were mainly anonymous points to the fact that a German army officer is not 
 allowed to contradict the "official view." 
 
 This domination of the official view is further indicated by the storm of 
 official protest and anger over the publication of the "War Letters" of General 
 Kretschman, edited by his daughter, Lily Braun. These letters mention 
 certain plundering and excesses committed by German troops on the field of 
 battle, but worst of all, from the official viewpoint, the fact that the now 
 famous cavalry charges made on the i6th of August, 1870, were not undertaken 
 willingly by the cavalry leaders, but only after stormy protests and every 
 
 *Der Krieg, 1870-71, vol. 2, p. 890. 
 tDer 18 August, 1870, p. 524. 
 llbid., p. 565- 
 
12 
 
 possible attempt to evade the order to charge. The editor tells us in the 
 preface to the second edition, published in 1904 a few months after the first, 
 that she had been publicly but falsely accused by her cousin, a lieutenant in 
 the army, of having insulted her father in his grave by violating his written 
 instructions to have his personal correspondence burned upon his death, 
 while so eminent an authority as General Boguslawski, in reviewing the work, 
 said that twenty-five or thirty letters should have been omitted for decency s 
 sake and quoted as applicable to the editor the saying of the Duke of Biron, 
 as he stepped up to the guillotine: "I have been unfaithful to my God, to my 
 king, and to my people." 
 
 Thus may be realized how serious in Germany is the offense of contra 
 dicting the official history. But, as a matter of fact, the higher officers under 
 stand quite well the lack of value of the official history as history and look 
 elsewhere when they wish to study their own wars. 
 
 Time will not permit an examination of the work of the French general 
 staff historical section. In some ways it is superior to the work of the German 
 general staff, but it is still far from being satisfactory, as historical work. 
 
 We have enough, however, to give an answer to the question why military 
 history is in disrepute: it is because those in exclusive control of the main 
 sources either do not know how to use, or for some reason will not use 
 them intelligently to write military history. 
 
 When we come to the field of our own military history we find a numerous 
 bibliography rich in pretentious and controversial work but singularly lacking 
 in works of merit, because no one equipped with a working knowledge of 
 historical method and the necessary technical knowledge of war has yet 
 presented us with any considerable work on our own campaigns. 
 
 Much can be done by the American Historical Association, by our universi 
 ties, and by the establishment of a magazine devoted to military history to 
 remedy this situation, but I do not believe a real solution of the problem can 
 be found which leaves out of consideration the establishment of an historical 
 section of our general staff. Certain fundamental work, such as the establish 
 ment of the basic data relative to the strength, organization and armament 
 of armies as well as the preparation of reliable maps, can only be accomplished 
 in this way. 
 
 To argue that the establishment of such a section would give rise to addi 
 tional works of partisanship is inadmissible because the section could have 
 no possible reason for such partisanship. Nor could our government have 
 any possible objection to a clear statement of the whole truth of every period 
 of our own military history as well as that of other nations. 
 
 It is, of course, possible that incompetent officers might be assigned to 
 this work, but against that the best safeguard would be the close cooperation 
 and interest of the American Historical Association in the work, which would 
 make the assignment of such an officer "for political reasons "an impossibility. 
 
 THE CHAIRMAN: I suppose we all realize that everyone of us here present 
 is a potential soldier, that we are all liable in the last resort to be called into 
 the service of our country, and under the new conditions which are coming 
 over the country those who cannot shoulder the musket must at least have the 
 red cross bound upon their arms, and the time is possibly coming when every 
 young man, as he approaches age, will have the opportunity of proving that 
 he can be a soldier by a brief military service under the flag of his country. 
 
13 
 
 A representative of the militia, who has had considerable service and expe 
 rience in the state militia of New York, is present, and I am going to call next 
 upon Mr. Oswald Villard, editor of the New York Evening Post. 
 
 MR. ViivivARD said: 
 
 Ladies and gentlemen, I was not aware that any such position was assigned 
 to me in this discussion or that it would partake of so formal a nature, and so 
 I must say that I have not prepared any formal paper, as the gentlemen have 
 done who have preceded me. My interest in the matter is not as a former 
 militiaman, nor altogether as a student of current military affairs, but as one 
 who has tried somewhat to write history and hopes to do something more along 
 the line of military history in the years to come. 
 
 As I have listened to the discussion here the question has come to me as to 
 whether we were not discussing two separate things, whether the ideals that 
 some of us have in view are not so different from those of the military gentlemen 
 who are present as to make it impossible for us to unite. Is there not a different 
 conception of ideas on the part of gentlemen like Captain Conger? Do they 
 not confine in their minds the study of military history to the technical purpose 
 of preparing military men to take command in the field? Is their desire not 
 to write history from the point of view of instruction in tactics and strategy 
 and eulogy, whereas those of us who are interested in the study of history as 
 a purely historical study are interested from the broader point of view of the 
 national life, of the setting forth of the actual occurrences of the past, with less 
 attention to detail? In Mr. Roosevelt s remarkable address* last night he 
 appealed for a broader view, a more interesting treatment and more vital 
 treatment of history. Can we expect from official sources, at least that treat 
 ment of the general subject of history which I think most of us will agree 
 Mr. Roosevelt is the leader of among our historians? Take the question of 
 the preparation of American history by the American general staff. That, 
 it seems to me, would invariably lead to the writing of history from one partic 
 ular point of view, perhaps from a predetermined point of view. I am prob 
 ably at the other extreme from Captain Conger; I am a peace man and almost 
 a peace-at-any-price man; I am not one who can subscribe to the doctrine 
 that war is necessary in the future or that we must produce soldiers in order 
 to prevent it. Heaven forbid! Is it not a fact that gentlemen who are 
 engaged in the military profession and who are most honorably inspired with 
 eal to improve that profession, to elevate it in this country, to dignify it, would 
 necessarily, from their very position in the military profession, have a bias? 
 Will they not necessarily develop their history from the point of view of proving 
 that the country needs to do this or that in order to defend itself, in order to 
 avert this threatening degradation that may come to us if some other nation 
 should impose its will upon our will? These are matters that I would like 
 to have submitted to you for your considereation. 
 
 The general staff is a comparatively new institution. Lest you think that 
 I am unfriendly to it I would like to make the personal statement that I 
 believe I was the first editor in this country to advocate the establishment 
 of a general staff, more than twenty years ago, and I have always been friendly 
 to the idea. The fact is, however, that the development of the general staff 
 
 *History as Literature; an address by Theodore Roosevelt, President of the 
 American Historical Association, Symphony Hall, Boston, December 27, 1912. 
 
14 
 
 has disappointed many of its friends, and that is not so much due, it seems to 
 us, to the men who have composed it, who have been the flower of the service, 
 as to certain conditions under which they operate. Congress has felt some 
 what dissatisfied with the way it has been conducted ; at least, one may deduce 
 that from the fact that in the last session of Congress the general staff was 
 decreased and may be still further decreased. It has shown a certain tendency 
 to mix in with political affairs, to lay down the law to Congress, whether rightly 
 or wrongly, it has seemed to do so, and Congress has resented it. The future 
 of that institution therefore is obviously open to question. It is a fact in 
 military history that General Sherman found it necessary, because of his 
 relations with the politicians and Congress, to transfer the army headquarters 
 from Washington to St. Louis. Conditions in the War Department had 
 become so intolerable as to make that necessary. It is not an impossible 
 thought that at some future time it may be advisable, both from the point 
 of view of the politicians and of the general staff, to transfer the activities of 
 that body away from Washington, perhaps to Fort Leavenworth or some other 
 army school, like West Point. 
 
 The detail to the general staff is, as you are aware, for a period of four years. 
 Under the recent law passed by Congress at the past session that law is being 
 rigidly enforced and no man -can serve again with the general staff unless he 
 has spent a certain amount of time with his regiment or corps, as the case may 
 be. That in itself would, it seems to me, make against the writing of scientific 
 history in the War Department. 
 
 A section of the general staff, it has always seemed to me, interested in the 
 preparation of history, the writing of history, can perform a very great service 
 by developing the instruction at the service schools, as it is already doing at 
 West Point particularly, in the teaching of the men in the service how to write. 
 That, after all, is the fundamental thing. Professor Johnston has pointed out 
 in his paper that certain qualifications are necessary to the military student 
 as to the historian, and one of those is that he shall learn how to write. Now 
 the service has produced certain great writers, even in recent years, without 
 referring again to Sherman or Sheridan or Grant. I might point more particu 
 larly to Herbert Sargent and others and John Bigelow, Jr., who have shown 
 that they can treat this subject; but the mass of the men who come out of 
 West Point are not as well equipped even to record their observations as they 
 ought to be. 
 
 Finally, I sincerely hope that out of this conference there will grow a civilian 
 national society for the study of military history, free from any violence, from 
 any prejudgment. I think that if I should attempt to write history from my 
 peace-loving point of view I should reflect discredit upon Professor Hart, from 
 whom I have learned what little I know about historical writing. That, it 
 seems to me, is not the right way to go at it, any more than it would be to start 
 off with the theory that we have got always to carry on war or that we must 
 demonstrate that present conditions are not what they ought to be, from our 
 individual point of view. History is history and the recording of facts pre 
 cisely as we see them, and the culling of truths is, after all, what historians 
 are after. I hope we can form a society which will raise a structure, which 
 will reach those of us who are moving in that direction how we may proceed, 
 which will lead to an interchange of ideas, and which will have as its members 
 the distinguished military gentlemen who are here to-day; and they can help 
 us, I am sure, as I think we can help them. 
 
15 
 
 THE CHAIRMAN: The biographer of John Brown, a rigorous biographer, an 
 impartial biographer, yet a sympathetic biographer, may simply be considered 
 to represent both peace and war at such a conference. We have every shade 
 of opinion and point of view in a conference of this kind, and nothing can be 
 more enlightening in the way of a searchlight than a talk like that which Mr. 
 Villard throws upon the subject from his point of view. 
 
 I am going next to call upon the man among us who I suppose has had most 
 actual experience in the military art, namely, Col. T. I v . Livermore, retired, 
 U. S. Army. 
 
 COLONEL LIVERMORE said : 
 
 Mr. Chairman, ladies, and gentlemen, it is a great surprise and a great 
 pleasure to me to be here, to be called upon to take part in a conference upon 
 military history, a branch in which I have always been interested and which 
 I believe to be one of the most important branches of history. I was absent 
 from town at the time this was started and I know nothing of the purpose of 
 this meeting except what I have gathered from Professor Johnston since I 
 arrived, through the papers which he handed me, which were published in the 
 INFANTRY JOURNAL, one by himself and one by the editor. 
 
 It was a great pleasure to me to know that the meeting was to be called 
 here in this hall, this hall which Mr. Ropes established for the purposes of 
 military history. Most of us know that twenty or thirty years ago the 
 Military Historical Society of Massachusetts was established and for a long 
 time met at his house, where he was in the habit of inviting once a month some 
 distinguished Confederate or Federal commander, and, after a jovial dinner, 
 they would read papers and we would all discuss them there at his house. 
 Afterwards this hall was built, mainly at Mr. Ropes expense, and dedicated 
 to this purpose. ... In these meetings, although we didn t always arrive 
 at the exact truth, we learned more than we probably could have learned 
 otherwise from the way in which the subjects were viewed by many of the 
 principal actors and of what they thought of the motives that prompted the 
 movements and the results of those movements. In the memoirs of the 
 society many of these were published and furnished valuable contributions as 
 material for military history. . . . It is therefore peculiarly appropriate that 
 a conference which has for its object cooperation in writing military history 
 should have its meeting here. I am also very glad indeed to see officers from 
 the War College and from the service schools present here and taking an interest 
 in the subject. 
 
 For more than thirty years I have urged strongly upon the War Department 
 and upon the generals commanding the Army the establishment of a general 
 staff, and especially of a military historical section of such general staff. After 
 wards, when the general staff was about to be organized, I recommended 
 informally a military historical section to that body. What we have heard 
 from these papers today tends to confirm what I thought then of the impor 
 tance of the subject. Military history is not only one of the most important 
 branches of military science, but it may be regarded as the basis of military 
 science. The rules of strategy and grand tactics are either based upon or 
 checked up by military history in its broadest sense. To know what we can 
 do under certain circumstances we must know what other men did under 
 similar circumstances before. Considering what has been said in the papers 
 that I have heard and from what I have learned of the purposes of this meeting, 
 
i6 
 
 with which I am in general agreement, I think I can express my views better 
 by reading a few extracts from the introduction to a volume which I am now 
 publishing in continuation of Mr. Ropes "Story of the Civil War." 
 
 A large part of all the history that has been written relates in some way to 
 military operations. In the opinion of many historians to-day, the condition of 
 the people, their physical, intellectual, moral and industrial development, 
 especially in time of peace, are the only subjects worthy of their consideration. 
 Under the present conditions, however, peace, compatible with the demands 
 of prosperity, honor and morality, can be maintained only by due preparation 
 for war. The one great object of war is peace. If the history of three thousand 
 years does not show that no lasting peace is worth having that is not based 
 upon the ability to fight, at least half of such history has been written in vain. 
 Warfare is barbarous. It may be inhuman. All nations should disarm, but 
 in proper sequence. When all are armed and prepared in the proportion in 
 which we would wish them to prosper, let all be disarmed in the same proportion 
 and as promptly as possible. 
 
 The present period is one of rapid development. In the struggle for exist 
 ence, great nations are crowding upon each other. Universal peace will not be 
 possible until conflicting interests shall have been adjusted. All nations but 
 our own are preparing for defense. By neglecting to bear our share of the 
 burden, we are insulting the rest of the civilized world upon whom we now rely 
 for our safety in the hope that each nation will hold the other in check, and 
 save us from all trouble and expense. ... If we take the proper measures 
 for self-defense, weaker nations will gather around us and add to our strength. 
 
 The history of the Civil War is useful in keeping alive the military interest 
 of the present generation so that the next may have some civil history to record. 
 It shows that our armies, on both sides, endured as much and fought as bravely 
 as any in the world. The troops showed, perhaps, more self-reliance and more 
 capacity for the individual action demanded by the warfare of to-day than 
 those of any great army of ancient or modern times. The federal armies were 
 finally victorious; but hundreds of thousands of lives and incalculable priva 
 tions and sufferings would have been spared if the nation had been prepared 
 for war, if the federal armies had been better trained and their operations 
 more skilfully conducted. The lack of training and discipline was not so 
 apparent, because both armies suffered from it, though perhaps not always to 
 the same degree. With regard to the conduct of grand operations, it must 
 be remembered that the military training of the generals had mainly been con 
 fined to the life in a small post with one or two companies; perhaps they had 
 never expected to take part in a greater war than that just concluded with 
 Mexico. In almost any war whose operations can be thoroughly analyzed it 
 will be found that much is lost from bad troop-leading which could have been 
 saved if the same attention had been given heretofore as now to practise in 
 time of peace, on the map and in the field, of the application of military prin 
 ciples to the varied exigencies of a campaign and a battle. 
 
 From the history of the campaigns and battles of our Civil War, one can 
 learn much, not because those campaigns and battles were always well con 
 ducted, but because they gave rise to so many military situations, each one of 
 which offers a useful field for the study of military problems. We are more 
 concerned now in learning what should have been done in each case than in 
 deciding who was most to blame for not doing it. 
 
 Nearly half a century has passed since the battle of Gettysburg ; twenty-four 
 centuries since the battle of Marathon. In many respects the art of war has 
 changed more from Gettysburg to the present time, than from Marathon to 
 Gettysburg. To study the dispositions and movements of the battle of Gettys 
 burg with a view to copying them now might prove to be a fatal error. To 
 draw up an army of 85,000 men on open ground on a line of three or four miles 
 in length with an average depth of nine or ten solid ranks, and in the presence 
 of a hostile army of nearly equal strength, would be to deliver it over to cap 
 tivity or slaughter. The human factors, however, have not changed; and 
 even the forms are not so different as the dimensions. 
 
17: 
 
 The narrative of this volume has been based as far as possible upon the 
 official record. It is a common impression that the reports in themselves 
 convey intelligible and detailed accounts of the operations, and that the his 
 torian has only to select from these such material as he may need for his narra 
 tive. Most of them, however, convey no definite idea of the position of the 
 troops to any one but the officers to whom they were addressed; and many 
 have by themselves no value whatever to the historian. Yet, by repeatedly 
 comparing each with other reports and with other evidence, by the aid of 
 the detailed maps of the battle-fields, a military expert can learn where almost 
 every regiment was from the beginning to the end of a campaign or a battle. 
 This is almost the only great war for which this would be possible. The 
 official record of the War of the Rebellion is extensively consulted at home 
 and abroad, and of late years especially in England, where its value is now 
 fairly understood. 
 
 It is hoped that the references and maps in this volume will serve as a key 
 to make the reports more intelligible. Besides the official reports, many 
 accounts have been written by the commanders on each side and by others 
 who took part in the war. Some of these are very valuable; but if not based 
 upon memoranda made at the time, such accounts are not to be taken without 
 caution as reliable original evidence. The most conscientious narrator finds 
 after a short lapse of time that his recollections have been colored by the con 
 ceptions based, more or less unconsciously, upon the accounts and the discussion 
 of others. . . . 
 
 An estimate of the strength and losses of each army in each campaign and 
 battle has been tabulated. The positions of the opposing troops from month 
 to month in campaign, and from hour to hour in battle, have been so expressed 
 by a series of maps as to show at a glance the general course of the operations; 
 and what each prominent commander said and thought about the situation 
 from time to time, and his plans for meeting it, are told in the text, so that the 
 reader may have before him the data on which to base his own judgment with 
 out reference to the comments which follow. 
 
 Only a professional soldier would care, perhaps, to make an exhaustive 
 analysis of a battle; but the results are valuable to the general historian, and 
 full of interest to the untechnical reader. 
 
 In Professor Johnston s paper he comments upon the fragmentary nature of 
 the knowledge in regard to the Civil War and says, for example, "Who knows 
 what was done? Who knows what was done when Grant made his campaign 
 around Vicksburg?" and he speaks of several other instances. I have had in 
 mind to point out that error, in this volume which is just appearing, and in 
 describing the campaign at Vicksburg I have given a map for the movements of 
 the armies for each and every day when there was any considerable movement, 
 from Grant s first movement until the battle of Champion Hills. In the battle 
 of Champion Hills I have shown the position of every regiment every hour 
 and sometimes every half-hour until the engagement was finished. The same 
 thing is true of the battle of Big Black Ridge. In the assault on Vicksburg 
 I have shown on the plan where each regiment was at each stage of the assault. 
 This I have tried to do for all the operations, and it is in this way especially, 
 t seems to me, that the general staff could be of material advantage, material 
 help, to historians of the country at large. There are, as we have learned from 
 the other papers, many civilian historians all through the country, who would 
 be glad to write of the Civil War if they only knew what they were writing 
 about, if they only knew where the troops were. 
 
 I don t at all agree with the last speaker if he meant to imply that military 
 officers couldn t write history without taking one side. I think I may have 
 misunderstood the purport of his speech, but in any event I am sure that they 
 could, and it is quite possible for them to furnish not only that information 
 
which is so valuable, and to which Captain Conger referred, but also all these 
 data as to the position of troops from time to time, the strength of regiments, 
 and so forth, which would serve as a foundation for historical writing by 
 civilians. 
 
 Now, as regards the general purpose of this meeting, I am decidedly in favor 
 of the formation of a military historical society, a national military historical 
 society. I think the interest is gieat enough in it and I think our people are 
 waking up to the necessity that they will have to take a livelier interest than 
 they have been taking in military matters, and I am very glad to see that it 
 has taken its start here. 
 
 THE CHAIRMAN: We are all indebted to Colonel Livermore, who both in 
 actual service and as a retired officer has so singularly devoted himself to this 
 question of military history. There are two representatives of the Army to 
 whom we shall shortly listen. Before we listen to them I want to call for the 
 views of Professor F. M. Fling of the University of Nebraska. 
 
 PROFESSOR FLING said : 
 
 Mr. Chairman, ladies, and gentlemen, I came in here simply as a listener 
 and did not know until Professor Hart spoke to me that I would be called upon 
 to talk at all. What I shall say has been suggested to me by the discussion. 
 It seems to me that we are confounding some things here that should be kept 
 apart. I can t see that this question as to whether we are peace men or war 
 men I am a peace man myself and might disagree with my good friend 
 Captain Conger, because I think peace is within practical reach I can t see 
 that that has anything to do with military history. History has to be of the 
 past and not of the future. And whatever we may think of the future there 
 is no question that there has been a great deal of fighting done in the past. 
 The business of the historian deals with the entire past. The idea of the older 
 generation was that it was to deal with political history, but that has been 
 pretty well exploded since Freeman s day. Fighting has been a large part of 
 the history of the past and we are obliged to deal with it. 
 
 Now the question is, it seems to me, if we are going to deal with it: Who is 
 to deal with it? And you will note that Captain Conger gave a great deal of 
 time and attention in his paper to the official histories. I think that was 
 misunderstood by some of you here. His purpose was to show how it was done 
 by the official bureau, and to show that it may be an unwise thing at the present 
 time perhaps at any time to put the writing of history into an official 
 bureau; and his illustrations, it seemed to me, taken from the work of the 
 German staff or its historical section, were rather convincing. On the other 
 hand, I don t think he intended to convey the idea that history should not be 
 written by military men. I believe it should; I believe that it should be 
 written by a man who is a military man, who knows what war means techni 
 cally, who has been through enough experience to know what it is like, and at 
 the same time has had a training technically and historically. That, I think, 
 is the weak side of a good deal of military history. It is not sufficient for a 
 man to know his subject-matter. I think, again, that on the other hand 
 civilians make a mistake when they think that history cannot be written by 
 the army man, because the army man has in mind the application of things. 
 You can t apply a thing effectively until you know it. Now, the man who 
 is properly trained as a military man and as a historian knows that if his 
 
19 
 
 military history is to be of any use to him whatever he must approach it from 
 an independent point of view with the effort to discover exactly what took 
 place. When he knows that he can consider what use he can make of it. If 
 he approaches it simply from the point of view of utilizing certain things he 
 never really gets at the truth. First let us know what the truth is and then 
 the military man can understand what he can do. 
 
 This idea of pragmatic effort and I think there has been a good deal of 
 that suggested this morning is really an outgrown stage. The teaching of 
 history is a thing which we may concern ourselves with if we know what history 
 is. Teaching is not good for much unless we approach the subject from a 
 scientific, unbiased point of view, determined to know the truth, whatever 
 it may be. It may be useful or it may not, but that is not the question. 
 
 Now there is no doubt that we have got a large chance to write military 
 history in this country. I am not a specialist in United States history or the 
 history of the Civil War, but I know enough about the situation from my own 
 reading and conversation with military men who have been doing some work 
 upon it to know that we are hardly at the beginning of the work, and the real 
 trouble has been that for the most part, no matter how good our men have 
 been as military men, they didn t know how to write history, they didn t 
 know how to review it, didn t know what the historical process was. That is 
 the first point. 
 
 Now men have attempted to write a history of the Civil War; even one 
 man has attempted it, and about all one man could do in his lifetime would 
 be to write in a successful way the history of one campaign. That is the 
 trouble with our historical writing; it isn t peculiar with military historical 
 writing, but it is the trouble with history from beginning to end. Men have 
 been writing the history of the French Revolution, and we haven t a decent 
 history of the French Revolution to-day, though it was more than one hundred 
 years ago, because men were not satisfied to do what they could do and lay 
 a foundation for a synthesis, or to undertake exhaustive work upon the topic 
 that might lay a foundation for a synthesis. 
 
 The attitude of the public is a discouraging one; it is constantly discouraging 
 scientific work, constantly discouraging detail work. We can t have a sound 
 general history until we have established a reliable foundation upon which 
 the details can rest and on which the men who can use the synthesis can build 
 their structure. But until those foundations are laid, those books written, 
 no one can write a large synthesis. I don t believe that good historical work 
 can ever be done in a practical way of the Civil War until a group of well- 
 trained men first of all, to my mind, military men who know the subject- 
 matter and know what the details must mean have got together. 
 
 In the second place, in order to write history it must be handled independ 
 ently; the material that we have been working upon must be handled inde 
 pendently upon the details, independently upon the different campaigns, in 
 order to make this larger synthesis possible. The question is, how is that to 
 be done? I don t believe the universities are going to do very much of that. 
 I am interested in this thing and I had hoped that Captain Conger would say 
 something about the work being done at Fort Leavenworth. It has been 
 interesting to me ever since they started in to train army men there in his 
 torical research, studying the campaigns, putting the sources right into their 
 hands, and showing them how to work it up. I have been interested ever 
 
2Q 
 
 since they started and I have been down there and seen the work they are doing, 
 and I think there is a most promising beginning there with that big group of 
 the finest kind of men. I talked to a class one morning upon historical matters, 
 and it was a real inspiration to get before twenty-four or twenty-five men like 
 that who fixed their eyes upon you when you started and kept them there for 
 an hour. Picked men of that kind can do something yet, if we can get those 
 men into Leavenworth under a competent instructor and give them two years 
 of that kind of thing. If the Army is simply a defensive instrument and the 
 men have plenty of idle time on their hands, it is a splendid thing to work at 
 training them up as historians and let them take all the points you are working 
 up, and in a comparatively short time you will have the foundation of a valu 
 able history of the Civil War, and I think you can get those results by the right 
 kind of teaching. 
 
 I know the work being done and I know the broad scale of it and I think 
 from the men I have met that I shouldn t ask a finer type of men, men who 
 had approached the question of war from a historical point of view and such 
 a well-balanced way as these men are getting at Leavenworth, and I think if 
 we can push that thing along and give them a free hand, if we give them a 
 chance to do it in that way, historical research will take care of itself. 
 
 THE CHAIRMAN : It is a very gratifying thing to have with us here men who 
 are engaged in a scientific career at the Army War College, and it is a great 
 advantage to us to be able to listen to them. I take great pleasure in intro 
 ducing to you Maj. J. W. McAndrew of the Army War College, who will be 
 the next speaker. 
 
 MAJOR McANDREw said: 
 
 Mr. Chairman, ladies, and gentlemen, we thank the gentlemen of the 
 American Historical Association who have made it possible for us to present 
 at this conference the views of the Army on the proper methods of writing 
 military history and of awakening in our people an interest in its study. The 
 Army owes a debt of gratitude particularly to Professor Johnston for his 
 interest in this work. What he has said and written shows such a clear 
 insight into the subject from the Army s point of view that we are willing to 
 trust our case in his hands and to follow the path he has already blazed. 
 
 This is an age when science directs its efforts to the prevention rather than 
 to the cure of the ills that mankind formerly accepted as inevitable. The 
 medical profession aims to make disease of the body impossible, and no longer 
 waits for the disease to appear before taking up the fight against it. Our best 
 mechanical skill is directed towards preventing accidents to life and property 
 rather than to quick repair of the damage done. The statesman aims at a 
 stable government founded upon the happiness and prosperity of its people 
 and not at one founded upon force and repression. All this is in line with the 
 progress of the human race. 
 
 The greatest aid to science in its efforts wholly to eradicate disease is the 
 study of the history of the disease and of the warfare waged against it in all its 
 progressive stages. By such study previous mistakes are avoided and only 
 the most promising line of action need be followed. 
 
 If war be a disease, it would serve the happiness and prosperity of the human 
 race far more to prevent it than to contend with it only after its advent. 
 It can be emphatically stated that, contrary to a widespread belief, neither 
 
21 
 
 the Army nor the Navy desires war, nor looks forward to war as an ideal 
 condition for even the profession of arms. There is no more earnest advocate 
 of universal peace than the soldier who has seen war. His abhorrence of this 
 diseased condition of the political body arises not from mere sentimental 
 theory, but from an adequate conception of the horrors of the battlefield, and 
 of the frightful toll war exacts in property as well as in life. As a practical 
 man, however, the study of his profession teaches him that wars cannot be 
 avoided by doing away with armies and navies any more than that crime can 
 be prevented by abolishing the police forces of our cities. So long as the 
 disease of war is latent among nations, we believe in having at hand, -the 
 moment the disease breaks into virulence, the remedies and means to apply 
 at once the treatment that will bring it to a swift and sure conclusion. If we 
 are not prepared to do this the ravages of the disease are multiplied indefinitely. 
 
 Were the question of war or peace, then, to rest with the Army and the Navy 
 alone there could be no question that peace would be chosen. But if we read 
 our history aright we must see that with us the Army and the Navy have no 
 voice in the making of war, and that, on the contrary, war has been entered 
 upon by our nation against the counsels of our best soldiers. Even the govern 
 ment that at the time controlled the affairs of the nation cannot be held re 
 sponsible for the wars that have come upon us. It was the American people 
 as a whole that forced our officials into action. And can we even hope that 
 unbiased historians will find that our cause was always just? We recognize, 
 then, the fact that when the people will it war must come, and that in the ex 
 citement of the moment no stop is made to consider whether we are prepared 
 or not or what the appalling cost of unpreparedness is to be. The lessons that 
 might have been learned from previous wars are lost to our people because they 
 have not learned aright the history of such wars. Could we but educate our 
 people on the darker side of this history we would have a guarantee for con 
 tinued peace that all the peace societies of the world cannot give us. It is the 
 only way to prevent the nation from lightly entering upon war. 
 
 Less than twenty years ago public clamor almost forced us into war with a 
 strong nation far better prepared for war than we were and far less vulnerable. 
 The wisest counsels in the Army and the Navy were on the side of peace, 
 since they fully recognized what the appalling cost of such a war would be, 
 a cost immeasurably greater because of our unpreparedness. But it was not 
 this unpreparedness that averted war at that time. We know how lightly 
 many of our people entered into war with a foreign power in 1898. And we 
 know that in a similar state of the public mind, war would have been forced 
 upon an unwilling administration of our government though our antagonist 
 were one of the strongest world powers and not one, as fortunately for us 
 was the case at that time, as unprepared for war as we were. 
 
 We of the military recognize this danger. Since we are not in a position to 
 insist upon a continuance of peace, it is a matter of patriotism with us to 
 endeavor to have our country prepared for war. The danger will be always 
 with us until the American people are taught aright the military history of 
 their country. So long as history teaches only a part of the truth, the lessons 
 are lost to them. The American boy grows up to believe that we need not 
 fear to go to war with any nation on earth, and that success must come to us 
 without preparation for the test of war. He has reached this belief through 
 the teachings of a history that has magnified our successes in the past and mini- 
 
22 
 
 mized or passed over our reverses; a history that told nothing of the awful 
 cost of entering upon war unprepared; of the untold suffering and privations 
 that such wars brought to our people. He has seen only the glory of war, 
 and is led to believe that for our country there is no dark side to the picture. 
 And when the boy becomes a man he is ready to clamor for war when in a 
 time of public excitement he mistakes frenzy for patriotism. 
 
 Military history of our country, if written and taught aright, must bring 
 home to our people the following facts : That we have never been prepared for 
 war; that unpreparedness has not served to turn our people from war with even 
 the strongest nations; that failing to develop our military resources in time of 
 peace, we have been compelled to squander them ruthlessly when war came ; 
 and that the country has paid in every war an appalling cost in blood and 
 treasure. This, despite the fact that we have never yet waged war against a 
 first class military power, except in 1812 when, fortunately for us, our antago 
 nist had her attention diverted from us by the progress of events nearer home. 
 It would teach us, moreover, that undeveloped military resources, no matter 
 how vast, do not fit a nation to wage successful war, any more than the un 
 developed material for a football team in a large university would enable it 
 to compete successfully on the gridiron with the highly trained football team 
 of a smaller college. 
 
 Military history, to be most profitable to our people, may minimize our 
 successes in past wars if it will; but it must bring out clearly the other side of 
 the picture in order that we may recognize the reasons for our reverses and 
 profit by the mistakes we then made. 
 
 In recent years there is a decided improvement in our school histories in 
 that they teach nothing false. The trouble is that while telling the truth 
 they do not tell the whole truth. Let us take the histories of the war of 1812 
 as an example. No one can learn from them even by inference the facts that 
 in that war our reverses far outnumbered our successes, that in numerous 
 instances our hastily formed volunteers behaved disgracefully and that they 
 proved generally unreliable; or that we enlisted ten men to one that our 
 antagonist could bring against us. That, after all, we did not conquer peace; 
 that the best we can claim for our side is that the issue was undecided; and 
 that had England not had her attention so fully occupied at the time in Europe 
 the issue would surely have been against us are facts scarcely deducible from 
 many histories of that war. 
 
 In recent years the nations that are best prepared for war have given much 
 time and attention to the preparation of critical military histories of the 
 wars in which they have been involved, and have even extended their studies 
 to include the wars of other nations deemed worthy of study. This is now 
 considered of importance secondary only to the work of preparation for 
 possible future wars. It is essentially the work of the general staff of an army, 
 and we are among the very few first class powers that have not taken up the 
 work. The fault of the omission does not lie wholly at the door of our general 
 staff. It is only ten years since the law gave us a general staff. At first 
 its efforts were directed to finding itself, to determining what was its proper 
 sphere, and then to doing all that could be done to make up for the neglect 
 of years in preparing for possible future wars. Just at the time when our 
 general staff might have taken up the critical study of past American cam 
 paigns, the reduction in the number of officers assigned to general staff duty 
 
again deferred the work. But our general staff must in the near future assign 
 & section of its best equipped officers to this important work, since it is realized 
 that every day sees the loss of valuable material for research, and that errors 
 once accepted as facts are difficult to eradicate. Moreover, the professional 
 fitness of our officers is best advanced by a study of a correct history of our 
 past campaigns in war. In the meantime our War College is devoting part 
 of its time to a study of the principal campaigns of our Civil War, a study 
 conducted according to the accepted methods of modern historical research. 
 This work is necessarily slow, and it will take years to get in this way a com 
 plete history of our campaigns because the War College has other work to do 
 and but one year is allotted to the officers taking the course there. But it has 
 already produced some valuable critical studies of the campaigns of 1861 to 
 1865, all that we have that are of any real value to us. 
 
 Of course much of this work is of technical value only, and is intended to 
 advance the professional knowledge of our officers and not as a history for 
 the public. It is doubtful if the public generally would show any interest in 
 such purely professional studies since the officers who prepared them were 
 not historians in any sense of the word. The professional historian may 
 however, accept the facts brought out in these studies, and weave them into 
 the general history of the time. 
 
 Of the four qualifications enumerated by Professor Johnston as necessary 
 for the equipment of the writers of military history, viz., technical knowledge 
 of the military art, erudition, critical skill, and literary skill, two may be 
 looked for among soldiers and two in general among civilians. It may be 
 considered hopeless to expect to find them all combined in any one man. It 
 would seem, then, that our military histories must be written by both soldiers 
 and civilians, since either class alone cannot reach the desired result. There 
 must be collaboration. 
 
 We must confess that we are not prepared to say just how we can bring 
 about this result. We hope that this discussion will bring out some practicable 
 working plan. The general staff of the Army will welcome your cooperation 
 in the matter, and the present chief of staff and his assistants stand ready 
 to further, as far as the law will permit, any practicable plan that may be 
 advanced. 
 
 We do not corne here asking for your assistance in adding a single regiment 
 to our army nor a single battleship to our navy. But we do ask your earnest 
 cooperation in the work of putting before the American people a full and 
 correct military history of our country, one that will bring home the lesson 
 that while war may be a calamity under any circumstances, its cost in blood 
 and treasure is multiplied many times when we enter upon it unprepared. 
 
 We believe the education of our people in our military history will be the 
 best guarantee of continued peace when the question rests with them whether 
 there shall be peace or war; and that it will teach the lesson that when war 
 is unavoidable, when it is forced upon us by other nations, or when the life or 
 honor of our country demands it, the only way to minimize its horrors, to 
 bring it to a swift and, for us, favorable conclusion is to be prepared for war. 
 We believe the history of nations for the past century teaches the lesson that 
 the best deterrent against war is adequate preparation for war. 
 
 Let me again impress upon you the fact that the Army and the Navy do 
 not stand for war, that they do not want war, and that they have no voice in 
 
24 
 
 bringing about war. War is either forced upon us by other nations or is 
 entered upon by the will of our own people. The danger in the first .con 
 tingency can be reduced to a minimum or wholly removed by adequate prepar 
 ation for war in time of peace. In the second contingency, the best way to 
 keep our own people from being carried away by an excess of patriotic fervor, 
 and, in the excitement of the moment, entering upon war lightly, or from enter 
 ing upon war at all under any conditions except where our national life or honor 
 demands it is to place before them, and educate them in, a correct military 
 history of our country, one that will give all the truth and be absolutely free 
 from bias or prejudice. Surely this is a work that patriotism demands of us, 
 and one that will do more to bring continued peace to our country than could 
 any work heretofore done or proposed by our peace societies. We even invite 
 the cooperation of such societies, since here is a field wherein we all can work 
 towards the attainment of the same desired end. Educate the people in our 
 military history and then let them decide whether the United States can best 
 ensure peace and reduce the cost and the horrors of war to a minimum by prep 
 aration for war in time of peace or by doing away with armies and navies. We 
 of the Army and Navy will confidently leave our case for decision in the hands 
 of a people who know the military history of their country. 
 
 THE CHAIRMAN: There is one more regular speaker, who will next be offered. 
 I observe the first vice-president of the American Historical Association here, 
 and I will ask him to take the chair, as I am under bond to preside at a meeting 
 at twelve o clock. After Maior Shelton s paper, there will be a contribution 
 to this meeting by one who speaks by authority. When Colonel Roosevelt 
 was Police Commissioner in New York he had a habit of going about to see 
 where the men were, whether the policemen were standing on post, and I 
 suppose he has dropped in to the War Section this morning to make sure that 
 we are doing our duty. Will Professor Dunning take the chair? 
 
 Professor William A. Dunning took the chair 
 
 PROFESSOR DUNNING: The first vice-president fails to understand why, 
 when the president is here, he is called upon to take the chair. Perhaps it is 
 because it is customary when the superior is present to have the subordinate 
 do the work 
 
 We will now listen to a paper by Major Shelton of the United States Army. 
 
 MAJOR SHELTON said : 
 
 Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, not so long ago an American 
 woman educator suggested that there be a united effort to destroy all the tin 
 soldiers and the toy cannon that are now among the playthings of our boy 
 youth, on the theory that these things instill into the young the military spirit 
 and the love of war, and that they provoke all the evil consequences qf mili 
 tarism. Now it may be, if war is the mere illusory consequence of an un 
 healthy mental condition of a people, as some profess to believe, that this 
 suggestion is not without psychological weight. But presuming, for the 
 moment, this view of war correct, it still would seem that there might be 
 danger to us in the literal administration of the suggested remedy, even if as 
 potent as its advocate believed. Wholly to destroy the military spirit and to 
 discourage all thought of war in the youth of this country while the military 
 spirit is still developed elsewhere in the world, and the idea of war, if not 
 encouraged, is at least recognized, might mean our destruction some time in 
 
25 
 
 the future through inability to protect ourselves from aggression. But there 
 is another consideration more closely related to our present subject. Suppose, 
 also for a moment, that war is not an illusion due to a perverted mental state, 
 but, on the contrary, a natural condition of man in his present state of develop 
 ment. Would the destruction of military toys, in which the boy youth seems 
 to find much delight, serve then the purpose planned? Would the destruction 
 of all the dolls in the world., let me ask, kill the spirit of motherhood in the 
 future woman? Dolls do not provoke motherhood; they respond to a natural 
 demand. What if tin soldiers are no different? But these two things, you 
 may say, are not to be compared, and, saying this, you may, of course, be right, 
 but also you may be wrong; for I hold that there is no one yet that has proved 
 or even attempted to prove that these things do not come from exactly the same 
 cause the mere struggle for existence. No one pretends to deny continued 
 necessity for this struggle on the part of the individual. The man driven to 
 hunger, no matter what his moral training or his moral strength, will even 
 commit crime to appease his appetite which is one reason for the continued 
 existence of police. Are we sure yet that we can properly deny that the same 
 instinct works in men collectively? Unless we be, there is reason for the con 
 tinued existence of armies. Nations are men collectively, as well as men 
 divided. The starving nation may struggle, may even commit international 
 crime, to avoid what seems worse. It is a common argument of those who hope 
 for the passing of war that the poverty of a nation must serve to prevent it 
 entering upon war. Those who employ this argument are ignorant of history. 
 Are the Balkan allies in Europe now among the wealthy nations of the world? 
 Where in the world s money markets could they have borrowed money for 
 war six months ago? Can anybody believe that it would not be easier for them 
 to borrow money now to continue war than it would have been to borrow but 
 a few months ago to begin war? Was Japan, in 1903. wealthy as nations go? 
 Were the Boers nationally wealthy when they fought England? Was Spain 
 wealthy in 1898? Was Prussia wealthy in 1866 when she could not borrow 
 money at ten per cent? Was she wealthy when she faced France four years 
 later? Yet would anyone have suggested ten per cent interest to Prussia after 
 Metz? Search the past and the same questions and the same answers stare 
 out from every corner. The world little likes the oppression of the poor by 
 the rich even though it is slow to prevent oppression. It little likes aggression 
 by rich nations. But it applauds always successful resistance whether by the 
 individual or the nation. Is this anything less than recognition of the moral 
 right, if not the necessity, of both to struggle for existence? 
 
 Now, if I am correct in my judgment that no one has undertaken seriously 
 to establish any difference between tin soldiers and wax dolls, it seems to me 
 a very singular fact. For whatever may be the purpose of the future, war has 
 been a factor of world development since the beginning of recorded time. 
 Not only this, but it has been by far the most important factor. Most of the 
 records of the world s history are accounts of the world s wars. 
 
 It is a common thing now to decry war as an unnecessary evil; yet if war is 
 an unnecessary evil to-day, it must always have been an unnecessary evil. 
 Probably those who believe it both unnecessary and evil to-day believe the 
 same thing of it in the past. But no one has so proved it nor attempted so 
 to prove it. No one, in short, has studied war in the abstract sufficiently to 
 be able to declare convincingly whether or not war as a factor in world develop- 
 
26 
 
 ment has meant on the whole evil or good. I am not here to plead the cause 
 of war; but it seems to me if I am correct in this that there is a tempting field 
 still open to the investigator. 
 
 Not so many years ago I read with interest in the public press the report 
 that a well known American educator was to devote the remainder of his life 
 to study in this field. Judging by the fragmentary comment that has come 
 from him through the press since, the report was wrong. Judged in this way 
 it would seem only that, convinced before beginning his study that war has 
 been an evil, he is concerned now only with reiterating his conviction. The 
 field of research to which I have referred is never to be covered by prejudice 
 and is never to be covered at all by anyone unwilling to give, if necessary, the 
 entire working period of his life to research, criticism, and logical deduction 
 before he gives his conclusions to the world. 
 
 All this may seem aside from the subject of this conference. Yet it is not 
 aside; it is directly and closely related. For it is certain that we can know 
 accurately little of what war has meant in our own national life until we have 
 some knowledge of what war has meant in world development. And there is 
 an even more important connection. Those who decry war as unnecessary 
 under all circumstances are believers in peace under all circumstances. Those 
 who believe that the military spirit can be killed by the destruction of toy 
 soldiers believe that peace, like war, is the simple result of a state of mind. 
 The patriotic fervor which sweeps a whole people into defense of its hearth 
 stones must then be made impossible. But to do this something more than 
 soldiers of tin, even soldiers of flesh and blood, must be got rid of. The soldiers 
 of history must be forgot. In other words, if we follow arguments of this kind 
 to their logical conclusion, and we may find plenty of them to follow in the 
 utterance of many earnest advocates of the cause of peace, is it not clear that 
 they rest for admission upon the denial, or, at least, upon the suppression of 
 the facts of history? It is not worth while to inquire now whether the facts 
 of history can be permanently suppressed, so long as there remains the possi 
 bility of their discovery; but it is within our province, I think, to ask whether 
 the advocates of any cause who fear the truth can hope ever to win, or, indeed, 
 ever to do their cause anything but harm? Certainly those who hope for the 
 day of universal peace can do nothing more likely to postpone it than to oppose 
 the accurate recording of the days of war. 
 
 In our purpose now to seek the means whereby an accurate record of our 
 own war history may be assured, it would seem then that, first of all, we should 
 have supporting us every earnest advocate of peace. I hope we may; but 
 my experience so far has given me little ground for expectation. It is unfor 
 tunate, but true, that earnestness and love of peace do not always betoken^ 
 wisdom. Outside of this class, which ought to be wholly with us, but which 
 will in fact be divided, and possibly quite largely in opposition, there are, so- 
 far as I can see, but two classes of our people likely to take active interest 
 in our present endeavor. The first of these is composed of historians, his 
 torical students, and those interested in one way or another in historical research. 
 I take it that this class is finely represented by the Association under whose 
 auspices this conference is assembled. But the interest of this class, speaking 
 generally, is indirect, lying as it must simply in the broad purpose of attaining 
 historical truth and avoiding permanent record of historical error. But this 
 purpose alone should be sufficient to induce both sympathy and assistance;: 
 
2? 
 
 and before we go far I think it will be found that both are needed. The other 
 and last class is the military services of our country and those interested with 
 them in developing an efficient military system. Please mark that I do not 
 say an efficient army and navy, but an efficient military system, a thing that 
 this country has never had, but which, good or bad, with us must include 
 much more than the few active forces ordinarily maintained. 
 
 Yet this system has a history antedating the history of the nation, a history 
 worked out at much cost in American lives and dollars, which no one yet has 
 had the courage or the knowledge accurately to record. And the history of 
 this system is the military history of this country. Where in war lives have 
 been unnecessarily expended or dollars wasted in military extravagance it 
 has been due to its faults. Where there has been real success in war it has been 
 due to its virtues. But the trouble is that few of us realize all the waste and 
 extravagance, and fewer still probably where our real successes have lain, or 
 how much counted as success has in truth been failure. And we never shall 
 know these things until we have an accurate record of our military history ; 
 and we never shall be able to create an efficient military system until this 
 record has not merely been made available but has been studied and our mili 
 tary system established in accordance with the principles deduced therefrom. 
 
 Count me wholly selfish then, if need be, in confessing a greater interest 
 now in the development of an efficient military system than in pure historical 
 truths. Yet while counting me thus and making due allowance for corre 
 sponding prejudices, admit also, as I think you must, that the record of his 
 torical truths is not an end of itself, but a means to judgment of, and better 
 preparation for, the future. Admitting this, I think we shall find ourselves 
 not far apart. 
 
 From this you may judge that it is less a question with me concerning who 
 shall write our military history than whether our military history shall be 
 written. It may be said truthfully enough that the military history of the 
 world has never been written accurately and this, notwithstanding that 
 perhaps nine lines out of every ten recounting what purports to be the history of 
 the old world are concerned with the deeds of war. It would be no less our duty 
 to recount our own history accurately, if possible, were there nothing preceding 
 it. Our national history, as history goes, covers a brief period of world time, 
 but a period during which the arts familiar to us had early reached a stage 
 where accurate account of all that has occurred ought to be the easiest of all 
 records in the world to put in form. And yet I doubt, if the commonly accepted 
 beliefs of much of our national history be taken as a criterion, whether our 
 history is any more accurately recorded than the history of ancient Greece 
 and Rome. There can be but one reason for this. And this reason lies in 
 the failure accurately to record, not our deeds in peace, but our deeds in war; 
 since, notwithstanding the comparative brevity of our national life and the 
 longer periods of peace intervening between wars, still war in its inception, 
 its progress, and its results has made up by far the larger part of our history, 
 as it has of every other history in the world. 
 
 The question, indeed, is not who shall write our military history but who can 
 write it. So far, speaking generally, it has been written by the civilian. It 
 is no criticism of the many fine accounts of detached military events that are 
 a part of our literature to say that the civilian has failed in his task, if, indeed, 
 he ever consciously undertook it. These accounts are of undoubted value. 
 
28 
 
 but they are of value not as military history but as sources of military history. 
 On the other hand, it may be urged that since practically all that has been 
 produced in the way of military history has been written by civilians, it follows 
 that the military man can produce nothing, or, at least, nothing better. But 
 this conclusion does not in fact follow. There has been so far no means by 
 which our military history could be produced by men of military training. It 
 is to find this means that we are seeking your assistance now. 
 
 Again, it may be said that in the brief text-books of history which are all 
 that the student in general can be expected to peruse, it is impossible to record 
 more than the bare facts, and since the details must be omitted, it matters 
 not whether the writer has technical knowledge of the military art or not. 
 This is true provided that there be available stores of exact information and 
 reasoned deductions from which the historical writer untrained in the military 
 art can draw the facts to be recorded in histories of this kind. But where are 
 those stores now? They do not exist. And the point I would like to make is 
 that they cannot be brought into existence until some one not merely trained 
 in modern historical methods, but acquainted with the technicalities of the 
 military art, has given the best there is in him to their production. In other 
 words, our military history, if it is ever to be correctly written, either for the 
 military or the civilian student, must be first prepared by the militarily trained 
 historian alone, or by the militarily trained historian in collaboration with the 
 untrained civilian. 
 
 Germany and France have, speaking in a large sense, recorded their military 
 histories through the agency of a section of their general staffs. It is true 
 that these histories have not escaped criticism. No history does, and probably 
 no history should escape criticism. The best history is but an approximation 
 of the truth. But it is also true that the general staff histories of Germany 
 and France have not escaped the serious criticism of suppression of facts and 
 false deduction. Moreover, this criticism is undoubtedly just and it is all the 
 more serious, since the suppression and false deduction were undoubtedly pur 
 posely made. There should be nothing but condemnation for this course, 
 which, through its very failure to accomplish its purpose, has condemned 
 itself. But the "official" histories need not be wholly outlawed on this account. 
 Historical error purposely made may be worse morally than unintentional 
 error, but the difference in results may favor the intended error, since it is 
 almost certain to be discovered and disclosed. Furthermore, the incentive 
 to greater accuracy in unofficial histories, as well as the new sources of infor 
 mation afforded through the official accounts, is not to be neglected. But there 
 is another object to be attained. War everywhere, of course, is conducted 
 on much the same lines. It is the oldest of man s games. It is played by 
 teams trained in much the same way. The rules are the same the world over. 
 Yet no nation can blindly copy the methods of another in war and hope for 
 success. War brings out the deepest there is in us, in the individual and in 
 the nation. If there is anything of national unity, national thought, or 
 national spirit, it appears in war. It is for this reason that military nations 
 turn their attention to discovering what this national thing is that brings them 
 victory and prevents defeat, and discovering this they write its principles into a 
 doctrine which they endeavor to instill into the hearts and minds of their armies, 
 and with which, so far as possible, to inspire the whole body politic. But it 
 is even more important with us, without an army in any large sense and 
 
29 
 
 dependent upon the creation of armies after war is upon us, to learn what it 
 is that has actuated the conduct of our troops and our people in the past, 
 and to put the principles of this conduct into a consistent theory that may 
 become an American doctrine of war. But this is only to be discovered 
 through close study of our history and only to be formulated by men militarily 
 trained. 
 
 Since generally where a nation s military history has been recorded and a 
 doctine of war formulated, it has been the work of its general staff, it at least 
 seems likely that if our military history is ever to be recorded and a consistent 
 theory of war evolved, it must be done by the same agency. This in no sense 
 denies the vast aid that civilian individuals or associations may render in this 
 work; but it does deny that civilians, untrained militarily, either alone or com 
 bined, can ever write our military history in a manner conducive to the greatest 
 good. The foundation of a general staff properly constituted is its historical 
 section. It may well be said, then, that our general staff is not properly con 
 stituted inasmuch as it has within its organization as yet no such section. And 
 very promptly I shall admit this truth. Our general staff has been in existence 
 now for nearly a dozen years. It has never yet met the expectations its friends 
 built upon its organization, and it may not meet them for long years to come. 
 It has rarely been understood by the public, the press, or the politicians. It 
 has been freely criticized and undoubtedly it has made some enemies. As an 
 organization it is still imperfect. But the general staff has had many difficul 
 ties to contend against. It has had indeed unfortunately to struggle throughout 
 largety for its own existence. Yet, notwithstanding the ignorance, bigotry, 
 and selfishness against which it has contended, notwithstanding the imper 
 fection of its organization, it still represents in its creation the greatest step 
 forward ever taken in our military development, and its accomplishments 
 even in the brief period of its existence mean more for development and effi 
 ciency in the future than all the military legislation that was put upon the 
 statute books during the whole of our preceding national existence. Not 
 withstanding its enemies and its unpopularity in quarters where it should 
 receive support, I have full faith in its capacity to work its way and our way 
 out of the difficulties confronting us. Nevertheless, I confess freely to dis 
 appointment over its failure to establish some soi t of an historical section at 
 the outset and to still deeper disappointment over its continued failure to 
 establish such a section thereafter. For I do not believe until such a section is 
 a part of the general staff, until, indeed, it is its very foundation, that this body 
 can fulfil in any reasonable measure the functions properly pertaining to it. 
 It is of course true that as now organized, such a section, even if established, 
 could not hope to attain real success. This is not merely because the general 
 staff is not large enough to meet the present demands upon it, not even because 
 during the last session of Congress it was unfortunately reduced in number. 
 The writing of our military history is its most important work, and if to do it 
 other important work must be neglected, it should still not hesitate. Had 
 the general staff but two men within its organization, I believe that one of them 
 should be constituted into an historical section. The real difficulty lies deeper. 
 The general staff as now organized is composed of officers detailed for tours of 
 four years therewith. Frequently in practise these periods are much shorter. 
 It would be impossible to attempt seriously the research and criticism and study 
 essential to completing any part of our military history by a continually 
 
30 
 
 changing group of men such as this. In other words, the establishment of 
 a section of the general staff likely fully to meet our needs in this respect is 
 dependent upon legislation that will give to this part greater freedom in the 
 selection of its members and indefinite tenure of office to those assigned to it. 
 I believe, personally, that legislation should go much further and should give 
 to this section of the general staff authority to add civilian historians to its 
 working membership, to collaborate with civilian writers in the work of pro 
 duction, and to purchase the product, when desirable, of civilian workers in 
 the same field. The qualities required by the writer of military history, as 
 has been well shown here, are such as are rarely wholly given either to the soldier 
 or to the civilian. Nevertheless there are civilians capable of acquiring much 
 intimate knowledge of the technicalities of the military art, just as there are 
 soldiers capable of acquiring considerable erudition and some of trie literary 
 graces. Moreover, it happens not infrequently in military life that officers 
 acquiring much technical knowledge in their younger days are forced through 
 physical infirmities from the active pursuit of their profession. Qualities of 
 mind are not always lost through the physical infirmities that prevent active 
 service, and there is little doubt that, given the authority, the general staff 
 could develop a section composed of active officers when fitted for this work, 
 of retired officers who could develop at least some of the required qualities, 
 and of civilian collaborators and co-workers, which section I think would come 
 in time to meet every necessity of the case. 
 
 Moreover, the general staff would have certain advantages which civilians, 
 alone or in combination, could not hope to secure. It would have not only 
 the libraries of the War Department and the War College, probably the best 
 technical collections available in this country, the technical studies of the War 
 College classes, and the means for more readily performing the cartographic 
 work and the press work, but it would have also the great advantage of im 
 mediate access to the archives of the War Department, which hold all there is 
 of the official records of our military history. 
 
 It seems to me, then, that on all accounts our start in the right direction 
 lies through the general staff. Shall we not then frankly face the conditions 
 as they are and do what we can, in spite of the opposition to the general staff, 
 laid in ignorance, to make a start in this field in the right direction? I believe 
 that the encouragement of this Association can do much to help us now in a 
 time of serious need, that it can do much in the cause of national historical 
 truth, much toward the creation of a sound military system, and much in the 
 cause of peace, and believing this, so far as I can speak for the department 
 I informally represent, I commit our case very gladly into your hands. 
 
 PROFESSOR DUNNING: The subject of this conference must appeal very 
 strongly to one who is president of the American Historical Association and 
 who has been commander in chief of the American Army. Will Colonel 
 Roosevelt address the conference? 
 
 COLONEL ROOSEVELT said: 
 
 When Professor Johnston and Major Shelton asked me to come to this 
 session I hesitated because I do not know that you are willing to hear just the 
 things that I think you ought to hear in connection with our military history 
 and the lessons to be learned from our military history. In essence, I have 
 only to say "ditto" to the two gentlemen whose papers I have heard read 
 
since entering this room. But there are two or three things referred to by 
 them on which I would like to lay . additional emphasis. I don t believe 
 it is possible to treat military history as something entirely apart from the 
 general national history. I will go a little further than that: I think it is 
 utterly idle to try to understand the German victories in 1866 and 1870 unless 
 you study the German history from the time when Stein and Scharnhorst 
 began the reforms until those reforms reached their culmination under Ruhl 
 and Moltke. I don t think that any study of the last sixty days military 
 operations in the Balkans would help you to understand what was done if you 
 didn t study carefully the history of the Balkan people for at least a generation 
 previous to this war that we have seen going on before our eyes. I am per 
 fectly clear that the military history must be written primarily not entirely, 
 but primarily by military men, and for that reason I have felt that it should 
 be written under the observation of the general staff, but I feel that there 
 should be the collaboration of civilians with the military writers, and if those 
 civilian writers are of the proper type some of the most important lessons will 
 be taught by them, and they will be among the most important lessons because 
 they will be lessons that the military man can t with propriety teach. They 
 will be criticisms of the American government and the American people. I 
 don t wish to see the military history written by the general staff alone, because 
 the general staff can t with propriety tell the whole truth about the government 
 and about the people to the government and to the people. For instance, 
 any history of the Spanish war to be of the slightest value to our people in 
 the future would have to deal for two-thirds at least with the utter lack of 
 preparation of the American nation before it went into that war, and it would 
 have to deal not with the faults of the Army but with the faults of a civilian 
 administration of a previous generation and deal with those faults as committed 
 not by wicked people in office on their own initiative, but because the American 
 people hadn t waked up to the need of preparation, to the need of having what 
 ever forces they did have efficient. 
 
 Infinitely more than a mere military question, a question of strategy or 
 tactics, is involved in the proper military history of the United States. The 
 attitude of the people must be corrected. If the Bulgarians had for twenty- 
 five years been taught that questions of national honor and vital interest 
 could be arbitrated and had believed such teachings, you couldn t have called 
 a Bulgarian army together that could have fought you couldn t have made 
 them fight. If you teach a soldier that he can arbitrate a slap in the face, 
 you have got a soldier that you can t trust to fight; and if you teach a nation 
 so that it really believes it can arbitrate a question of national honor or vital 
 interest you have got a nation that won t fight. And there is another side: 
 If you teach a nation that it can promise to arbitrate and break its promise, 
 you are reaching it a bad lesson. If you teach a nation that to please ten or 
 fifteen per cent of its people it can agree to arbitrate, make a promise to arbi 
 trate a matter, with the certain ty that it will repudiate that promise the instant 
 that fifteen or twenty per cent of the people wish it repudiated, you have 
 entered upon a bad career from the national standpoint. And you can t 
 act that way, you can t distort the national spirit, weaken the national sense 
 of honor, without reacting to some degree upon its army. 
 
 A proper history of the Army must in part be written by the right type of 
 civilian, because it must deal with our national shortcomings, not only govern- 
 
32 
 
 mental, but popular, and point out truthfully what those national shortcom 
 ings have cost us in the past when war came upon us. I very seriously doubt 
 if there is any man in this country more genuinely an advocate of peace than 
 I am; because if there was a war either I would go to it or my sons would go 
 to it that is, a serious war, not one of our police businesses and I don t want 
 to go to war, and I don t want my sons to go; so I have every personal interest 
 in making as strong a plea for peace as any man can. But I know my fellow 
 countrymen, and I know that no matter what general resolutions they came 
 to in advance, no matter what the lack of preparations, they would go to war 
 on the drop of a hat if ever the national honor or the national interest was 
 seriously jeopardized. 
 
 The way to prevent the possibility therefore is to keep ourselves, our whole 
 military system, the Army and Navy as part of the whole military system, 
 in such a condition that there won t be any temptation on the part of anyone 
 else to go to war with us. You can t do that unless you make our people wake 
 up to the real meaning of our past history. The immediate past I suppose 
 can hardly be written of sufficiently dispassionately, because to write it truth 
 fully you would have to give great offense to so many good people, who simply 
 happened unfortunately to be in positions where anyone would have done 
 badly under the existing conditions, and who therefore did badly; and it 
 would be hard upon them to hold them up to scorn or obloquy for what really 
 wasn t their fault. In consequence it would be a very difficult thing to teach 
 the lessons of history from what has occurred while the men who did the deeds 
 are still living. 
 
 I shan t speak of the Civil War, but I shall speak of that little war, the 
 Spanish war, in which I was. I was Assistant Secretary of the Navy at the 
 outbreak of that war; it was part of my duty to help in making preparations 
 during the three months intervening between the blowing up of the Maine 
 and the actual going to war. My experiences would have been comic if they 
 hadn t been fraught with such tragedy. If I should ever write a history of 
 that war I would have to write very harshly of many high officers of the Army 
 and the Navy, especially the Army, gentlemen. The defects, for very obvious 
 reasons, were much greater among the higher officers of the Army than among 
 the higher officers of the Navy, and I should have to write with great harshness 
 of the governmental system that had permitted those faults to grow up. It 
 wasn t the fault of the officers of the Army and Navy; it was the fault of our 
 system of the preceding thirty years. And I wish I could convey to you 
 vividly an idea of the panic that prevailed along sections of the Atlantic coast. 
 You ought to recollect it, some of you, yourselves. I don t know whether 
 you do or not, but the panic that prevailed along sections of the Atlantic 
 coast at the time of the outbreak of the war with Spain was very real. , There 
 was immense pressure, for instance, through Congress, through representatives 
 responding to the people behind them, to take the Navy and distribute it on 
 the fine strategic plan of anchoring one vessel off each port down the seacoast, 
 so as to insure even the Spanish picking it up in detail. 
 
 I don t want to give names, but I had these two or three experiences : Two 
 very prominent members of Congress, one of the two or three leading members 
 of the Lower House and one of the two or three leading members of the Senate, 
 after having sufficiently bedevilled President McKinley, were shunted by him 
 off on me with instructions to gratify them if I possibly could. They demanded 
 a vessel to protect the harbor of the city in which they both lived. They were 
 
33 
 
 both very important members of the Congress and it was very difficult to do 
 anything without their aid. I was told by the President to try to get them a 
 vessel; their city demanded it. I got them a vessel; it was a Civil War monitor; 
 it was armed with one smooth-bore gun about as effective as a culverin ; it was 
 manned by twenty-one naval militia, and it was towed by a tug. I sent it 
 out there to that port and it completely satisfied them, completely satisfied 
 those two statesmen, and that city. It was quite unfit to deal with any foe 
 of modern times, although it might possibly have dealt with the Spanish 
 Armada, though I am not sure. It was preposterous as an instrument of 
 defense against any modern opponent, but it met the moral needs of the 
 situation. 
 
 I had one request to send a monitor down to anchor off Jekyl Island. Now 
 that seems an absurdity, but I was pressed to do it. I had quite an influential 
 lady, the wife of an influential man, spend about half an hour of my time one 
 day in beseeching me for a warship of some kind to be anchored in the neighbor 
 hood of the big summer hotel where she and her friends lived. 
 
 Now I am giving you actual experiences. You people who live here in 
 Boston will remember that a great many of your business men sent their 
 securities up to the safe deposits in Worcester, and there was even a proposal 
 not to allow the national guard of Massachusetts to go outside of Massachusetts 
 so that it should be ready to protect Massachusetts from the imminent Spanish 
 invasion. All those things happened right before our eyes. New York 
 Harbor was strewn with torpedoes enough to have impeded all traffic, but for 
 the fact that they wouldn t go off. So that we were freed from that danger. 
 
 In dealing with the Army and the Navy at that time I found that the Navy 
 had this very great advantage over the Army the higher officers of the Navy 
 had been obliged to practise eighty per cent of their profession as it would have 
 been practised in time of war. A battleship going to sea is taken under service 
 conditions necessarily. There wasn t a colonel in our Army who had a regi 
 ment which he took into the field under service conditions. A squadron 
 of battleships at sea is necessarily maneuvered under service conditions, nearly 
 ninety per cent of service conditions there wasn t the actual firing at that 
 time that there is now, but almost ninety per cent of service conditions. But 
 there was not a brigade commander, let alone a division commander, in our 
 Army who had seen a brigade or taken part in marching a brigade under 
 service conditions since the Civil War. The men who were with our army in 
 Santiago, the generals, the corps commanders, the division commanders, the 
 brigade commanders, were men who had been gallant second lieutenants thirty 
 odd years before in the Civil War, while for a few years afterwards a certain 
 number of them had had experience in Indian fighting, but who for over a 
 quarter of a century had served in posts where there was one company or half 
 a company and where the all-absorbing military question was the fight between 
 the captain and the quartermaster as to how high to shave a mule s tail. 
 
 Now, you gentlemen of the Army, from your experience, can corroborate 
 what I am saying. That was the training which the higher officers of the little 
 American Army had had. 
 
 Of the summer when we ambled down to attack Santiago, do you remember 
 what Mr. Dooley said? Mr. Dooley is a profound philosopher. He said that 
 in the Spanish war we were in a dream but the Spaniards were in a trance. 
 Now we can t always count upon our foes being in a trance. 
 
 In getting my regiment equipped I was very, very much helped by Secretary 
 
34 
 
 Alger I shall always remember the way he helped me by cutting the red 
 tape that had to be cut. There were certain bureau officials there also who 
 helped me materially; for instance, Jack Weston Jack Weston did everything 
 he could to help us. But most of those worthy, high-minded heads of bureaus 
 in the War Department were old gentlemen who were wholly unable to under 
 stand what modern warfare conditions meant. For instance, I had to make 
 a fight on this point: I was equipping my regiment, and it was near the time 
 of the July issue of clothing. In July they issued the clothing for the following 
 winter. Well, I had to fight all I knew how to prevent them issuing the winter 
 clothing for a tropic campaign in midsummer. Now, you gentlemen of the 
 Army know that that is the kind of thing you are up against when you are 
 dealing with the perfectly nice, high-minded bureau man. 
 
 I was bound to get brigaded with regulars. We were bound to get the 
 Krag-Jorgensen, smokeless powder rifles. The head of a department, a fine 
 old boy, did his best to get me to take black powder. He said the other was 
 an experiment and, after all, black powder would hide us from the enemy. 
 
 One particular bureau chief I had this experience with : I had made a demand 
 upon him and he pointed out to me the regulations and why I couldn t have, 
 for instance, horses or wagons. They had to advertise thirty days for their 
 horses in which case we would have gone on foot and they had to have the 
 wagons built, and that would have taken three to four months, and so forth 
 and so on. In a case like that I would go down and get Alger to override 
 it and come back. Well, for about the fourth time he looked at the requisition 
 I presented and said, "All right, you can have it, you can have it," and he 
 sank back into a chair and added: "Oh, dear! I had this bureau running 
 in such good shape and along came a war!" He treated the war as an illegiti 
 mate interruption to the activities of the War Department. It was most 
 natural that he should have done so, for the only way that a secretary of war 
 for the preceding thirty years could make a reputation was by economies; 
 and the only way he could economize without breeding hostility locally was to 
 economize as regards the efficiency of the Army under service conditions in the 
 future, and that was the way he did it. 
 
 In consequence, when the Army went down to Santiago I am speaking 
 generally the Army itself had excellent material in the ranks, notably among 
 the non-commissioned officers; about fifty per cent were recruits, but the 
 others carried them along; the non-commissioned officers were excellent; the 
 junior officers of the line were excellent there were exceptions in both cases, 
 of course; but when you got above the rank of captain, even in the line, they 
 were generally markedly inferior in their profession to the corresponding men 
 of the Navy, not because they were not the same men, since they were the 
 same men, but because they had been for thirty years deprived of every chance 
 of practising their profession. Thirty years ! You take any railroad president 
 of to-day and omit the thirty years just before he became president and leave 
 him only the practical training of the few years before that when he was a 
 $1,600 clerk at the outside, and how much of a railroad president would he 
 make? He couldn t do anything. That is what happened in our Army. 
 
 Now I don t suppose that you can get the full and accurate history written 
 of an event so close as the Spanish war. If you tried to do it, I doubt very 
 much if you would produce the right effect, because there would be the able 
 and industrious and persistent effort to misrepresent what was written, and 
 the effect upon the people might be the direct reverse of the effect you want 
 
35 
 
 to produce. But we can write about, say, the war of 1812 ; that is far enough 
 away to permit us to write about it truthfully. You can get a full statement 
 of just what we did in that war. Such a statement ought to show the very 
 extraordinary feats of valor and tactical efficiency of the small units among 
 the regular forces, among the frigates and sloops, and we have every reason 
 to be very proud of what they did. They did what no navy of any European 
 power in the preceding twenty-five years had been able to do, that is, more than 
 hold their own with the English frigates and sloops. We captured a greater 
 number of ships in single fight from the English than all the nations of Europe 
 Combined had captured from them in single fight for the preceding twenty-five 
 years; a fine thing, an excellent thing! On the Niagara frontier, after two 
 years of humiliations, it was utterly preposterous the way we developed the 
 Regular Army, which under Scott and old Jacob Brown did what the best 
 troops of France had been unable to do under their best marshals, that is, 
 meet on equal terms the British regulars in the open. At the battle of the 
 Thames there was one very noteworthy incident, the charge of the mounted 
 riflemen under Johnson, and their use then as dismounted riflemen in a way 
 that was not done in any European war at that time, and which prefigured 
 what was actually done in the Civil War. And it was a very great triumph 
 of Andrew Jackson and his volunteers at New Orleans, a very great triumph. 
 Now, all of those things should be shown. It should also be shown that we, 
 a nation of some seven million people at that time, proved unable to get into 
 the field an army competent to do any serious offensive work. It should be 
 shown that our failure to get ourselves any kind of an adequate navy resulted 
 in such widespread pressure upon our Congress as to produce a strong secession 
 movement in the northeast, pressure that resulted in a very small English 
 force keeping the whole Atlantic seaboard in a condition of panic and landing 
 and destroying the national capitol after the resistance at Bladensburg, which 
 it seems almost incredible to read of and to think that the men who ran at 
 Bladensburg were the sons of the victors of Yorktown and the fathers of the 
 men who fought at Gettysburg. It seems incredible that we should have 
 failed when Washington was taken. The war had then been going on three 
 years and yet we hadn t the good sense to develop even a small regular army 
 at that time. Now the lessons to be learned from our failures are clear. The 
 prime lesson to be learned from the war of 1812 is that it is too late to prepare 
 for war when war has begun. The next lesson to be learned and it is a very, 
 very old lesson is that all talk of a merely defensive war means simply to 
 invite disaster. There is only one effective defense, and that is the offensive. 
 There is only one way to win a fight and that is by hitting and not by parrying. 
 We had proceeded for years before 1812 on the theory that, as has been said 
 by one of our presidents, peace was our passion and we showed it. It was a 
 passion that wasn t shared by other people, and we paid the penalty for having 
 it our passion when it wasn t shared by other people. There had been a little 
 navy and we laid it up; we didn t have any regular army at all. We started 
 to begin with "the nation in arms" that was an equivalent expression at 
 the time to "our gallant volunteers." We got 4,000 men of my own state at 
 Queenstown at the beginning of the war; there was a force of a thousand mixed 
 troops on the other side, under a very competent general named Brock. Our 
 4,000 militia got together; 1,000 were ferried across and were attacked. As 
 soon as the noise of the fight came across the river the remaining 3,000 men 
 took refuge in a plea that the Constitution was being violated; they appealed 
 
to the Constitution in the true spirit of those who appeal to it for the purpose 
 of shielding their own inefficiency. They had a mass meeting on the field 
 and decided that there was no constitutional authority to take them outside 
 of the borders of the United States, and with that belated reverence for the 
 Constitution working in them they declined to go across to the assistance of the 
 thousand men who were on the other side of the Niagara, all of whom were 
 either killed or captured. A similar or rather worse incident occurred well, 
 not worse, because there is no comparative to a superlative but as bad an 
 incident occurred in the surrender of Detroit, and the Bladensburg business 
 was not much better. 
 
 The little handful of frigates and sloops which had been built some fourteen 
 years before did admirably. If we had had fifteen ships of the line as efficient, 
 not only individually but as a fleet, as the Constitution and Constellation, as the 
 Hornet and the Wasp, there would have been no war and we would have been 
 treated with profound politeness by both England and France. Our people 
 and I don t think you can blame the people, because you couldn t expect them 
 to realize how things were but our people believed that instead of battleships, 
 instead of an army, you could rely upon an attachment to peace and such 
 measures as an embargo, a "peaceful war," as it was called; and in conse 
 quence we had to pay in life and in treasure immensely during nearly three 
 years of warfare, and we had to come within a measurable distance of a great 
 disaster to the union, and all because we didn t prepare in advance and because 
 as a nation we believed that our being peaceful in a world that was not peaceful 
 would save us from war instead of provoking war. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I believe most emphatically that we ought to have a proper 
 history of the United States Army, a proper military history of the United 
 States. I believe it must be part of the general history of the United States, 
 so far as that general history is concerned with the attitude of the nation 
 towards things military. I believe it should be written by the general staff, 
 but that it should be written in collaboration with civilians who can write 
 with knowledge and frankness of those matters which it is impossible to expect 
 even a good military man who is a historian to write of with knowledge and 
 frankness. And I believe that it will be worse than useless if it doesn t tell 
 the exact truth, if it doesn t tell our disasters and shortcomings just as well 
 as our triumphs, because we shall have to learn from those disasters just as 
 much as from our triumphs. 
 
 Gentlemen, I thank you. 
 
 The following resolutions were adopted by the conference: 
 
 That in the opinion of this conference military history should be pursued 
 in a more systematic way; that a committee of five be appointed by the chair 
 to consider the best method of furthering the study and presentation of mili 
 tary history and of bringing into common action professional and civilian 
 students. 
 
 That this committee have authority to call a further conference at such time 
 and place as they may think suitable, and report their conclusions to that 
 conference; that the American Historical Association be asked to appoint a 
 special committee to cooperate with the committee above constituted. 
 
 Professor Dunning announced the following committee in accordance with 
 the resolution adopted: Professor R. M. Johnston, Chairman; Professor 
 Fred M. Fling, Colonel T. L. Livermore, Major J. W. McAndrew, and Major 
 George H. Shelton. 
 
 The conference then adjourned. 
 
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