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ID:
141788
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| Summary/Abstract |
The U.S. government facilitated the repatriation of more than 125,000 Americans stranded in Europe upon the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 by declaring neutrality and dispatching the U.S. Relief Commission, which comprised U.S. warships carrying gold to assist desperate citizens. Participating U.S. officers conducted unauthorized tours of battlefields and arms plants to glean intelligence that would aid American mobilization plans. The relief commissioners and many of the Americans they aided, moreover, championed additional humanitarian interventions in war-torn regions and catalyzed the defense preparedness movement in the United States.
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| 2 |
ID:
179025
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| Summary/Abstract |
As the First World War came to an end, the U.S. Navy's leadership engaged in a bitter fight over the “lessons” of the war. Admiral William S. Sims and Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels fought against each other's irreconcilable positions. Sims argued that the Navy Department's inexpert civilian secretary had hamstrung mobilisation, impeded the anti-submarine campaign, and ostracised capable officers in favour of friends upon whom he bestowed medals. Daniels countered that his administration had masterfully responded to the crisis of war. The Navy's record, Daniels insisted, could best be summarised as “a great job greatly done.” Only disloyal nit-pickers could find fault in its accomplishments. The Sims-Daniels controversy raged in congressional hearings, the press, and in partisan histories written by the protagonists. The heart of the dispute and its uncertain resolution rested in radically different understandings of American civil–military relations, naval heroism, and the determinants of victory.
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