w aging w ar to t ransform the w orld 93a large army to promote his goal of a lasting peace. For that matter,
he remained certain until the end of 1916 that the country would not
enter the confl ict, notwithstanding the ongoing threat that Germany
might resume submarine attacks. According to one oft-repeated
(though likely apocryphal) story, when Wilson learned through a
newspaper account that the U.S. Army general staff had developed a
plan for war with Germany, he fl ew into a rage and threatened to
dismiss any offi cers involved. In fact, the army’s planning had been
entirely defensive in character—the War College Division had devised
a response to a hypothetical German attack on New York City. W i t h
no indication that the president contemplated intervention in
Europe, army thinking simply continued along its well-worn if
archaic path.
But not all the fault for the lack of military preparedness rested with
the president. War in Europe had provoked a debate that was
remarkably detached from the reality of the war itself. Arguments about
modernizing the army had become entangled with the strident nation-
alism of certain infl uential Republicans, such as former President Th eo-
dore Roosevelt and General Leonard Wood. Th ey saw preparedness as
a vehicle for promoting patriotism and an ethic of service. Th ey also
conjured up fanciful scenarios that envisioned the victor in the Euro-
pean war deciding that a weak United States was ripe for picking. A s
one historian of the movement puts it, “Preparedness was almost purely
defensive. Its thrust was isolationist, not interventionist.” ^
On the other side, Wilson’s fellow Democrats in Congress, especially
its powerful southern wing, had no enthusiasm for increasing the mil-
itary power at the disposal of the federal government. War Department
schemes to establish a trained reserve that might be ready in the event
of war, moreover, collided with the lobbying influence of the state
militia (recently renamed the National Guard). Th e president, reluc-
tant to alienate anyone in an election year, left it to Congress to fashion
a compromise in the form of the 1916 National Defense Act. It served
Wilson’s immediate political needs—preparedness faded as an issue—
but the result was useless for either diplomacy or war. Th e measure
established a program to expand the regular army modestly over fi ve
years, established stronger federal oversight for the National Guard, and
allowed the Guard to be used outside the continental United States. As