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This oil portrait of Major General Brown was painted during his tenure as The Judge Advocate General (between 1933 and 1937). (Photo courtesy of author)
Lore of the Corps
Arthur W. Brown
The Judge Advocate General, 1933-1937
By Fred L. Borch III
Arthur Winton Brown had a remarkable career as a Soldier and Army lawyer. When he took the oath of office as The Judge Advocate General (TJAG) on 28 February 1934, Brown had served in many locations, seen much combat, and held many important legal positions. But he is unique in our history in serving as a legal advisor on three diplomatic missions to South America.
Born in Davenport, Iowa, on 9 November 1873, Arthur Brown attended public schools in Davenport and Hempstead, New York, before earning his LL.B. degree at Cornell University in 1897. He then practiced law briefly in New York City and Salt Lake City. When the Spanish-American War began in 1898, Brown enlisted in the Utah Light Artillery. He subsequently served as a private, corporal, and sergeant and saw combat in many engagements while fighting in the Philippine Islands.
In January 1900, Sergeant Brown accepted a commission in the Regular Army as an Infantry second lieutenant in the 4th Infantry Regiment before transferring to the 27th Infantry Regiment in 1902.1 Brown spent six years in the Philippines, including a stint as the commander of the 26th Company, Philippine Scouts, and took part in jungle warfare against guerilla forces on the islands of Luzon, Samoa, and Leyte.
In 1914, when President Woodrow Wilson ordered an Army brigade to land at Veracruz, Mexico, to support Sailors and Marines there, then-Captain Brown served as the acting judge advocate (JA) of the Expeditionary Forces.2
There is little doubt that his legal work in Vera Cruz helped Brown obtain an appointment as a major in the Judge Advocate General’s Department (JAGD) in October 1916. This was a significant personal achievement as there were only twenty JA majors in the entire Army at the time—and any promotion to major in the Infantry was years away. But Brown also benefited from the fact that Congress had recently enacted legislation that doubled the size of the entire JAGD from sixteen to thirty-two officers—with major being the lowest rank in the Department.3
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Major General Brown was appointed as The Judge Advocate General on 1 December 1933. (Photo courtesy of author)
When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, Major Brown was the JA, 2d Division, at Texas City, Texas. After a brief period in Washington, D.C., he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and joined the 78th Division at Camp Dix, New Jersey; he sailed with them to France in early 1918.
Within a short time, Brown was appointed as the JA, Third U.S. Army. He participated in the Aisne-Marne, the Oise-Aisne, and the Meuse-Argonne campaigns in France. After the Armistice, Colonel Brown (he was promoted in May 1919) served as the chief claims officer of the Rents, Requisitions and Claims Service in France and occupied Germany.
After returning to the United States in 1920, Colonel Brown once again was sent overseas—this time to be the JA of the Panama Canal Department.
After three years in Panama, he served four years in Washington, D.C., in the Office of The Judge Advocate General before being assigned to Omaha, Nebraska, as the JA, VII Corps area.
Colonel Brown then had a very unusual assignment for an Army lawyer. While his official military personnel file no longer exists, it seems likely that his six years in the Philippines and three years in Panama meant he could speak Spanish, which would explain why Brown was detached from the Army in 1925 to serve with the State Department at Tacna-Arica, Chile. Brown was on the legal staff of the Plebiscitary Commission, where he and other American officials assisted in settling the boundary dispute between Chile and Peru. The plan was to hold a plebiscite to resolve the conflict, but this vote never took place.4
After returning to the United States in 1926, Brown was once again sent overseas to Central America. In 1927, he traveled to Managua, Nicaragua, where he served as the legal advisor to the Chairman of the National Board of Elections in that country.
Following his overseas duty and return to the United States, Brown served as the executive officer to TJAG. In mid-1933, Colonel Brown returned to South America once again—as the legal advisor on the League of Nations Commission appointed to administrate the Trapezium of Leticia, a remote territory of some 4,000 square miles in the Amazon rainforest. Both Colombia and Peru claimed the land, and both countries had gone to war over the disputed land. A provisional peace agreement, signed in May 1933, gave the league control over the region while negotiations between Colombia and Peru proceeded. Ultimately, the so-called “Leticia War” was resolved by a Protocol of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1934.5 Brown almost certainly played a role in the negotiations that resulted in this treaty.
On 30 November 1933, while still in South America, Colonel Brown was appointed TJAG and promoted to major general on 1 December 1933. But because he was still in South America, Brown could not take the oath of office and begin his tenure as TJAG until he returned to the United States in February 1934.
Major General Brown retired on 30 November 1937 and died in St. Petersburg, Florida, on 3 January 1958 at the age of eighty-four.6 TAL
Mr. Borch is the former Regimental Historian, Archivist, and Professor of Legal History and Leadership at The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School in Charlottesville, Virginia. Mr. Borch retired in October 2023.
Notes
1. Fred L. Borch III, Judge Advocates in the Great War 1917-1922, at 122 (2021).
2. When Woodrow Wilson entered the White House in 1913, Mexico was in the middle of an increasingly violent revolution. See The Mexican Revolution and the United States in the Collections of the Library of Congress: U.S. Involvement in the Mexican Revolution, Libr. of Cong., https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mexican-revolution-and-the-united-states/wilson-to-veracruz.html (last visited July 10, 2023) [hereinafter U.S. Involvement]. General Victoriano Huerta assassinated the liberal president, Francisco Madero, and took over the country. The Mexican Revolution and the United States in the Collections of the Library of Congress: Victoriano Huerta as President, Libr. of Cong., https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mexican-revolution-and-the-united-states/huerta-as-president.html (last visited July 10, 2023). Angry with Huerta, Wilson refused to recognize the regime and actively worked against Huerta. See U.S. Involvement, supra. On 9 April 1914, Mexican soldiers in Tampico apprehended several U.S. Sailors, including two whom they took at gunpoint off a vessel said to be flying the American flag. Id. While the Sailors were soon released, President Wilson decided to use the incident (together with the imminent arrival of a German ship carrying weapons for Huerta) as a pretext to intervene militarily in the Mexican revolution. See id. On 21 April, Sailors and Marines landed at Veracruz with the mission to prevent the delivery of weapons to Huerta. Id. When these U.S. forces faced a determined opposition, Wilson ordered a brigade commanded by Major General Frederick Funston to land at Veracruz. See id. The Navy turned over responsibility for the city’s occupation to the Army—with Captain Arthur Brown providing legal advice to Funston and his staff. United States troops left Veracruz in November 1914. Id. For more on the incident, see John S. D. Eisenhower, Intervention!: The United States and the Mexican Revolution, 1913-1917 (1993).
3. Under the provisions of the Act of June 3, 1916, Congress authorized the Judge Advocate General’s Department (JAGD) to increase from sixteen to thirty-two judge advocates, with one Judge Advocate General with the rank of brigadier general, four lawyers with the rank of colonel, seven with the rank of lieutenant colonel and twenty with the rank of major. The Judge Advoc. Gen.’s Corps, The Army Lawyer: A History of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, 1775-1975, at 107 (1975). Captains and lieutenants were not authorized in the JAGD until the outbreak of World War I in 1918. Id. at 116.
4. For more on the conflict over the provinces of Tacna and Arica, see Joe F. Wilson, The United States, Chile and Peru in the Tacna and Arica Plebiscite (1979).
5. L. H. Woolsey, The Leticia Dispute between Colombia and Peru, 29 Am. J. Int’l L. 94, 94-96 (1935).
6. Gen. Brown, 84; Former Army Judge Advocate, St. Petersburg Times, Jan. 4, 1958, at 8-B.