Newton D. Baker to Woodrow Wilson

You handed me on Tuesday last the enclosed memorandum on the General Strategy of the Present War between the Allies and the Central Powers by Major H. H. Sargent, United States Army, Retired. On my return to my office I discovered that I had received an earlier copy of the memorandum, and had referred it to the War College with a request that its suggestions be studied and a comprehensive statement made of the opinion of the War College on the subject. In the meantime Senator Chamberlain in October sent me a plan submitted to him by a Mr. Rihani, to which General Bliss had undertaken to prepare a reply for my signature; but which reply I did not sign because I felt that a discussion of the question involved statements to which no publicity at present could, with safety, be given. I therefore, had the letter rewritten, and sent it to you for your information.

The suggestions made by Major Sargent, while not identical with those of Mr. Rihani, are in the main the same. I have reread the Sargent memorandum, and also the War College discussion of the strategy of the present war of which I enclose a copy for your information.

I think you need not take the time to read the Sargent paper. In brief it is a criticism of the strategy of the Allies, on the ground that a deadlock has been reached on the Western Front, and that Napoleon, in his first campaign, and various other military Captains, broke such deadlocks by seeking new points of attack.

I think it is fair to say that Major Sargent's argument consists of pointing out that if the Western line were held by no larger force than is necessary to hold it safely, while the strength of the Central Powers was scattered by attacks upon Constantinople through Russia, and at any other point where a fresh exercise of force could be made, it would have the effect of detaching from the Central Powers their Balkan Allies, depriving them of both military resources and food supplies, and hasten peace by breaking the spirit of the German people. Incidentally, Major Sargent feels that if America were to undertake such a plan, and he prefers the Eastern Mediterranean as the place for us to strike, it would enable "America to reap her proper share of the glory" rather than to "continue to play second fiddle to England and France." The War College memorandum which I herewith enclose I have read twice throughout, and I confess I see no answer to the arguments upon which it proceeds.

Assuming that we could continue to supply additional increments of armies to France and maintain them there in sufficient number to preserve the morale of the French people, and assuming that for this purpose only a relatively small part of the total Army of the United States would be needed, we would still have to face the transportation difficulty to put a large army at any other and necessarily a more remote point. Should we take a Mediterranean point, the dangers of Mediterranean transportation are very much greater than those to which we are already subjected. Should we seek to go by a Pacific route, the length of the journey makes the whole plan inadmissible in view of the enormous tonnage necessary first to transport an adequate army, and second to keep it supplied. I think the arguments in the War College paper are quite conclusive on this point, and that the tonnage question necessarily controls the strategy of this war so far as our participation in it is concerned whatever conditions there may be on the other side.

But it is to be remembered that operation by an independent army in some other theatre of war would have to be by a large army. I should be very much alarmed indeed if we had an army of less than a half million men in Russia at this time, and I confess I would look with grave apprehension upon the situation of an army of the United States, even a half million strong, undertaking to conduct independent operations anywhere in the Balkan country. It would be surrounded by a population of very uncertain political and military stability, and might at any time be thrown wholly on its own resources and subjected to over-powering pressure by a concentrated movement against it along short interior lines from the Central Powers. General Sarrail's Army at Salonica is said to have more than a half million men, and its leader is said to be an ambitious soldier, and yet it has been substantially immobile, because of the difficulties of supply, terrain and disease; the latter element having at times put as much as one fourth of his entire force out of action. I think we are obliged to assume that Salonica was as favorably a selected point as there is for such an independent force as it had the approval of the highest authorities in both the French and British Armies, and that the forces there have been of no military value beyond the fact that it has required a large contingent of Turkish, Bulgarian, Austrian and German forces to prevent its movements.

If you have the leisure to look at the War College study, I feel sure that the argument used in it will seem impressive, if not conclusive, against the undertaking of any such additional expedition, at least until the transportation question is in a different situation. In the meantime, the whole problem of equipment and supplies for the army which we have raised is at the beginning, and it would be a substantial time before we could equip, arm and supply an army of a million men in addition to those already called out, and as to the latter, of course, a substantial force must be maintained in this country and the remainder are, in some sense, pledged for use on the Western Front in cooperation with the British and French forces there.