Book Review
Judge Advocates in the Great War: 1917–1922
Reviewed by Captain Bradan T. Thomas
Mr. Fred Borch has done it again. More than twenty-five years in the making, Judge Advocates in the Great War: 1917–19221 masterfully shepherds readers through the history and evolution of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps during its critical development more than a century ago.2 Dividing his coverage of legal operations during the Great War geographically, Mr. Borch provides a host of information about how our organization supported the Allied war effort on multiple fronts. Through expert use of primary sources, Judge Advocates in the Great War: 1917–1922 whisks readers effortlessly from the marbled halls of Washington, D.C.,
through the damp trenches of France, to the frozen tundra of Siberia,
all places where judge advocates (JAs) served dutifully.3
While Mr. Borch is a stalwart champion of preserving our Corps’s history
and development on an organizational level,4
the focus of his latest monograph is more granular and personal. Beyond
mere descriptions of the remarkable feats the JAG Corps accomplished as
a whole during the global crucible of World War I,
Judge Advocates in the Great War: 1917–1922
devotes individualized attention to the JAs who served in the Great War.
More than a thin roster of names or a simple list of service dates, Mr.
Borch presents biographical information and available personal data on
nineteen “legal clerks” and each of the 436 JAs who served our Corps
during the Great War.5
Opening with a brief history of the Army when the United States entered World War I, Mr. Borch sets the scene for its dizzying expansion from a force of 133,000 Soldiers to a mighty titan composed of nearly three million (due largely to conscription overseen by a JA).6 Of course, to serve its purpose, the War Department needed to clothe, train, and transport this mass levy; this challenge required new infrastructure and partner-force cooperation.7 Eventually, some two million “doughboys” served in the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), which General John J. Pershing organized into two armies, seven corps, and forty-two divisions.8 General Pershing’s AEF supported the Allied cause throughout the United States’ involvement in the war, fighting in battles such as Cantigny, Château-Thierry, and Saint-Mihiel.9 Doughboys also carried the Allied torch at the Meuse-Argonne offensive, which proved decisive in “the war to end all wars.”10
Alongside the Army’s rapid growth was the culling of a robust pool of uniformed lawyers to advise, assist, and accompany the fighting force wherever the war required. Two months after Congress declared war on the Central Powers, the War Department sought to expand the JAG Corps by commissioning twenty civilians to serve as JAs.11 Soon thereafter, Congress authorized the appointment of additional uniformed attorneys in the JAG Corps, prompting interest from over five thousand applicants; the War Department offered commissions to approximately three hundred.12
With additional legal support to AEF operations, the Army asked more of the JAG Corps and its newly commissioned JAs than ever before, and both did what they do best: they rose to the occasion. Mr. Borch outlines the impressive performance of numerous JAs who shaped our Army and our Corps into the fighting force we know today. One such individual was Major General Enoch Crowder, whose served as the Judge Advocate General for twelve-years.13 His tenure as the Judge Advocate General coincided with his appointment as the Provost Marshal General, the role in which he oversaw the Selective Service Act that effectuated the military draft of millions of Americans.14 Major General Crowder was instrumental in several changes that resonate throughout our Corps today, such as overseeing revisions to both the Articles of War and the Manual for Courts-Martial.15 Another example of selfless service in uncertain times was future Supreme Court Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter, who left his position on the Harvard Law School faculty in 1917 to serve as Secretary of War Henry Stimson’s legal counsel in Washington, D.C.16
Much like today, JAs’ call to service during World War I extended beyond domestic borders, leading to their practice in increasingly complex and untrodden legal territory. Mr. Borch deftly captures the JAG Corps’s wholesale evolution from a barebones, nearly dormant force to a full-scale, tiered legal organization replete with nine “bureaus” of practice specially created to meet the demand of a global conflict.17 While these practice areas have evolved over the last century, the JAG Corps mission has remained the same: to provide “principled counsel and premier legal services, as committed members and leaders in the legal and Army professions, in support of a ready, globally responsive, and regionally engaged Army.”18
In describing the development of and approach to new practice areas and legal issues, such as conflict of laws, fiscal concerns related to expenditures abroad, and court-martial jurisdiction over Civilians accompanying the force,19 Mr. Borch provides insight about the JAs who oversaw and effectuated those advancements. From then-Brigadier General Walter Bethel, the top AEF attorney and adviser to General Pershing,20
to Major John White, who worked to formalize the Army’s criminal
jurisdiction over its own Soldiers in the United Kingdom,21
JAs sought to provide solutions to both existing and forecasted
problems. This included efforts away from the front lines, such as the
public campaign of then-Brigadier General Samuel Ansell, Acting Judge
Advocate General between 1917 and 1919, to reform the Articles of War in
favor of affording more due process to Soldiers facing
court-martial.22
Sergeant Major Edmond G. Toomey (standing) was a legal clerk assisting Major Albert J. Galen (seated) in Siberia. (Credit: Fred L. Borch III)
Beyond coverage of sweeping organizational changes, the showpiece of Judge Advocates in the Great War: 1917–1922
is the detailed compendium of biographies that covers each of the 436
JAs who made those changes possible.23
Recognizing that “[o]ur Army’s people are our greatest strength,”24
Mr. Borch honors the service and preserves the memory of those who
sported the quill and sword insignia on their lapels during the Great
War, providing as much detail as primary sources allow.25
Thanks to Colonel William Seward Weeks and his foresight in collecting
and organizing these biographies a century ago26
(and to Mr. Borch for unearthing them some years later), we now have an
unrivaled opportunity to commune with our professional predecessors and
learn about those that helped to grow and shape our organization. These
biographies, some of which accompany questionnaires that offer
additional detail, provide a snapshot of each JA’s wartime duties and,
in some cases, fascinating specifics about their impressive pre- and
post-war endeavors.27
Numerous JAs who served in the newly expanded JAG Corps went on to excel in various capacities, both in and out of uniform. At least sixteen of the 436 JAs who served in the Great War became general officers (to include eight judge advocates general),28
and countless others continued to serve honorably at lower ranks.29
Of those who hung up their uniforms after the war were fifteen judges
serving at all levels and in multiple countries (to include the U.S.
Supreme Court and one of the war crimes trials convened at Nuremberg
following World War II), four congressmen, three senators, three college
football coaches, two secretaries of war, one Olympian, and numerous
professors at prestigious law schools (plus one dean).30
Beyond this impressive slate of individuals, JAG Corps alumni served
nationwide in numerous elected and nominative positions at the Federal,
state, and local levels.31
Among perhaps the most notable figures outside of the JAG Corps (in addition to Associate Justice Frankfurter) are Lieutenant Colonel Edmund Morgan, who chaired the committee that ultimately proposed the Uniform Code of Military Justice after World War II,32 and Colonel John Wigmore, whose widely hailed treatise on evidence was the precursor to the Federal Rules of Evidence.33 While these are but a few concrete examples of JAs who extended influence well beyond their uniformed service, each of the 436 JAs who served in our Corps during World War I undoubtedly informed our modern practice.
To excel and adapt to the needs of the future, we, as a Corps, must understand and appreciate our past. While the legal challenges we face are modern, our ability to surmount them is not—it has been the lifeblood of our organization since 1775.34
Through changed conditions, shattered paradigms, and unpredictable
outcomes, we are connected to our past—collectively and
individually—through the oath we take, the insignia we wear, and the
organization we serve. Our faithful Regimental Historian and Archivist
has sourced and spotlighted a rare opportunity for the twenty-first
century JA to connect to our Corps’s past. Tomes exist on the history of
the Great War, but precious is the chance to learn about each individual
who selflessly contributed to the legal wellbeing of the Allied forces
worldwide.
Though no person featured in
Judge Advocates in the Great War: 1917–1922
is alive today, Mr. Borch has preserved their service, sacrifice, and
selflessness forever. As stewards of the dual profession of arms and
law,35 JAs owe it to their future to learn about our past. Those interested in a copy of the book may request one from the Regimental Historian and Archivist at The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School. TAL
CPT Thomas is the Brigade Judge Advocate for 1st Cavalry Division Sustainment Brigade at Fort Cavazos, Texas.
Notes
1. Fred L. Borch III, Judge Advocates in the Great War: 1917–1922
(2021). The Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps distributed copies of
Judge Advocates in the Great War: 1917–1920
throughout the Corps in late 2021.
2. During World War I, our Corps was known as the “Judge Advocate
General’s Department.”
The Judge Advoc. Gen.’s Corps, The Army Lawyer: A History of The Judge Advocate General’s Corps,
1775–1975, at 198 (1975) [hereinafter
JAG Corps History]. The change in designation from “Department” to “Corps” occurred after World War II. Id.
3. While the War Department recruited attorneys to serve as judge advocates (JAs) based on their legal acumen, some did fight in combat. For example, prior to becoming the seventeenth Judge Advocate General, then-Colonel Blanton Winship earned the Distinguished Service Cross for “extraordinary heroism in action” for having “personally led [the few available men] forward under heavy rifle, machine-gun, and shell fire,” “destroying several machine guns and killing many of the enemy.” Borch, supra note 1, at 55–56. Additionally, then-Lieutenant Colonel J. Leslie Kincaid earned the Distinguished Service Cross while volunteering to command a battalion of the 106th Infantry Regiment, which he led in combat and fought alongside, machine gun in hand. Id. at 57.
4. E.g., Fred Borch, Lore of the Corps: Compilation from The Army Lawyer 2010–2017 (2018) (surveying the Corps’s history in the arenas of leadership, law of armed conflict, and military justice, among others).
5. See generally Borch, supra note 1, at 105–231 (summarizing biographies and accomplishments of JAs). While more than nineteen legal clerks served alongside JAs, only detailed records of JAs are known to exist. Nevertheless, Mr. Borch profiled each legal clerk for whom a record exists. Id. at 237–41.
6. Id. at 1, 17–18.
7. Id. at 2.
8. Id. at 4.
9. Id. at 4–7.
10. Id. at 7–8. The phrase “the war to end all wars” derives from H.G. Wells’s writings during the outbreak of the war, which were later compiled into The War that Will End War. H.G. Wells, The War that Will End War (1914). He later wrote in
In the Fourth Year that the phrase was popularized in late 1914. H.G. Wells, In the Fourth Year: Anticipations of a World Peace, at i (1918).
11. Borch, supra note 4, at 15.
12. Id. at 16.
13. While the senior uniformed attorney in the U.S. Army is currently “The Judge Advocate General,” that position was formerly “the Judge Advocate” prior to 31 January 1924. JAG Corps History, supra note 2, at 139.
14. Borch, supra note 1, at 17–18. See generally Joshua E. Kastenberg, To Raise and Discipline an Army: Major General
Enoch Crowder, the Judge Advocate General’s Office, and the
Realignment of Civil and Military Relations in World War I (2017), for a comprehensive overview of Major General Crowder’s
contributions to the JAG Corps during World War I.
15. Borch, supra note 1, at 17.
16. Id. at 19–20. While then-Major Frankfurter accepted a commission in the JAG Corps, it would be a mistake to call him a “uniformed” attorney, as he opted to wear civilian clothes during his service. Id.
17. Id. at 37. The nine “bureaus” were “Executive Administration, Discipline and Courts-Martial, Contracts and Finance, War Risk Insurance, Administrative Law, Transportation Matters, French and International Law, Civil Affairs, and Constitutional and Statute Law.” Id. at 37–38.
18. U.S. Dep’t of Army, Field Manual 1-04, Legal Support to
Operations
para. 1-1 (8 June 2020).
19. Borch, supra note 1, at 40–43, 51–53.
20. Id. at 37–38.
21. Id. at 42–43.
22. See id. at 24–30. See generally Battlefield Next, Interview with Mr. Fred Borch on the Ansell-Crowder Controversy of
1917–1920,
The Judge Advoc. Gen.’s Legal Ctr. & Sch., at 06:39 (Apr. 29, 2020) (downloaded using Apple Podcasts), for a
discussion of the Ansell-Crowder dispute about due process in the
military justice system in the early twentieth century.
23. Borch, supra note 1, at 105–236.
24. General James C. McConville, Initial Message to the Army Team (2019), https://api.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/561506.pdf.
25. These biographies were apparently created and compiled for inclusion in Judge Advocates Record of the War, which was intended to be a “yearbook” to commemorate those who served in the Corps. Borch, supra note 1, at xiii.
26. Id. at 221. On 1 August 1918, Colonel Weeks began his assignment as the Executive Officer at the Office of the Judge Advocate General. Id.
27. See Borch, supra note 1, at 105–236.
28. See generally id. at 105–231.
29. An astounding example of a servant-leader and dedication to duty, Edward Leroy Van Roden, served as a captain in the JAG Corps during World War I, participated in the Normandy invasion on 6 June 1944, and ultimately retired as a brigadier general. Id. at 216. In addition to these uniformed duties, he subsequently served on the Simpson Commission, which investigated the “Malmedy massacre” in 1948. Malmedy Massacre Investigation: Hearing Before a Subcomm. of the S.
Comm. on Armed Servs., 81st Cong. 4 (1949) (statement of Kenneth C. Royall, Sec’y of the
Army).
30. See generally Borch, supra note 1, at 105–231 (summarizing biographies and accomplishments of JAs).
31. See generally id.
32. Comm. on a Uniform Code of Mil. Just., Uniform Code of Military
Justice, at i (1949), https://www.loc.gov/item/49046774.
33. Borch, supra note 1, at 229.
34. See JAG Corps History, supra note 2, at 7.
35. The Judge Advoc. Gen. & Deputy Judge Advoc. Gen., U.S. Army, TJAG & DJAG Sends, Vol. 41-01, Message to the Regiment (13 July 2021).