Newton D. Baker to Woodrow Wilson

Newton D. Baker to Woodrow Wilson

Baker, Newton Diehl, 1871-1937

WWP22400

1918 June 8

Library of Congress, Woodrow Wilson Papers, 1786-1957

My dear Mr. Presiden
I return herewith the letter from Colonel House which you sent me yesterday. Substantially the same suggestions were made to General Pershing by General March before he left Europe and by me while I was in Europe. They resulted in a fairly complete separation of the Service of Supply from the purely military staff organization which General Pershing had built up in France.

At the outset, of course, General Pershing's problem was to prepare on the physical side for the receipt and maintenance of the army which was to come later. His headquarters at Chaumont became, therefore, principally offices of business administration. Later, as our troops began to go in increasing numbers, the purely military problem of training and combat grew more and more important, and General Pershing then concentrated the so-called Service of Supply at Tours, under General Kernan, preserving at Chaumont only the military staff and such liaison officers as were necessary to keep him in touch with the Tours organization under General Kernan. This was a step in the right direction, but not so long a step as plainly will have to be taken and probably ought to be taken now. The problem is as Colonel House states it, and the solution is probably the one he suggests. There are three aspects of it: First, the purely military. This involves the command of the fighting army, the training of fresh contingents, and constant military study and cooperation with the High Commands of the other armies, and is all that a military commander can possibly be expected to accomplish. If General Pershing is able to do this, it will be all that he can do.
The Services of Supply for the American Army are, of course, different from those of the French and British. Those armies have their countries at hand and the vast civilian and military personnel dealing with supply questions are under the immediate eye of Ministers of War, Munitions Ministers, Surveyors General of Purchases, and other agencies which are three thousand miles away in our forces. For this reason, very much more extensive warehouses and supply systems generally are needed by the American Army in proportion to its numbers than have been found necessary for either the British or French. My judgment is that this entire burden should be taken off General Pershing's shoulders, and the only hesitation I have had about it has grown out of my inability to find a man of sufficient breadth of view and swiftness of decision to put at the head of the business. General Goethals is the one man in the Army, so far as I know of its personnel, who could be surely entrusted with the task. I do not believe it could be done by a civilian, for the reason that it involves the actual command, at present, of 400,000 military people which in itself, of course, is a vast army and is thoroughly military in its organization and activities, and because of this fact I think Colonel House's suggestion that Mr. Stettinius could head the matter up would hardly work.
The third aspect of the case, of course, deals with the so-called diplomatic duties which General Pershing has from time to time felt called upon to perform. His visits to London and Pris have of course necessarily been frequent, and his conferences with Prime Ministers and other civilians even more frequent, but for all of this he will have no time from now on and his mind ought not to be burdened with any responsibility for such matters. The answer which General Bliss suggested to this problem, when I discussed it with him, was the appointment of a direct representative on the Supreme War Council; I know there are considerations in your mind which disincline you to that course. The only alternative seems to be the more or less permanent presence in Paris of some representative who will carry out for you all of the diplomatic negotiations of a purely war character, and thus relieve General Pershing and General Bliss from any responsibility for them whatever. Mr. Page and Mr. Sharp are of course not available for this assignment, since each of them is an ambassador to a particular country, while the representative suggested would have to move freely from London to Paris and Rome and be able to attend conferences in which four nations are represented. This I assume would be impossible for our ambassador to France, or England, or Italy, as each of them has only one part of the territorial jurisdiction and it would perhaps create difficulties if any one of them were selected to visit the countries to which the others are officially accredited. Of course the ideal solution of the problem would be to have Colonel House in Paris. I fancy his health would make him reluctant to undertake so permanent a mission, and I know that his presence here is so helpful that permanent absence on his part would be a very serious loss. I do not think Mr. Stettinius would do for this phase of the work; he is essentially a banker and his knowledge is that of a banker dealing with industrial and commercial questions. Moreover, he does not speak French, which would be a serious handicap. I have thought over this problem for several months. Nobody occurs to me who would be as available as Vance McCormick, and if he could be spared from the War Trade Board, or replaced there, his permanent residence in Paris would be the most helpful relief I can figure out. Should he or anybody else be designated there as a permanent representative on the Supreme War Council, or as simply resident in Paris for the purpose of working out these war diplomacy questions, it would of course be necessary for him to be so accredited that General Pershing would look to him for any instructions he ought to have of a diplomatic character, and his relations ought to be direct with you and me so that many questions which have some sort of diplomatic color but are primarily military could be the subject of cable correspondence between him and me without unnecessarily taking up your time until they were matured and in some form for action or decision by you.My reference above to General Goethals needs this much addition. Until now it has been impossible to spare him because there was a very large and indispensable task of organization to be done on this side, affecting storage and land and water transportation. This has now been so well done that in all likelihood it could be carried forward by someone else without serious loss of efficiency, and we are nearly, if not quite, to the place where it will be possible to send General Goethals to relieve General Kernan. When that is done, General Pershing will be able to rely on General Goethals for the whole supply question, and it will then be dissociated from his command just as the supply operations of the War Department in this country are dissociated from the command of the General operating in the field.
The suggestion of Colonel House's that we ought to do everything to magnify and strengthen the position of the Supreme Commander is, of course, sound. The British are reluctant in this matter, and therefore we should be the more zealous, as an example and an argument. General Pershing's duties under such a reorganization as Colonel House suggests would therefore be constant attention to his own troops, their preparation and their use, his own actual command of them in the field, and such conferences with General Foch or other Allied commanders as General Foch might from time to time direct, and I think in making any redistribution of these functions abroad we ought to emphasize to General Pershing our own conception of his task as being military and under General Foch to the fullest extent possible.

Respectfully yours,
Newton D. Baker



d

Letter

Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924