Page:John Banks Wilson - Maneuver and Firepower (1998).djvu/108

 86 and a machine gun squadron, an artillery regiment, and auxiliary units. The board rejected the three-regiment unit because it eliminated a general officer billet, recommending instead a square cavalry division of some 13,500 men.

The Superior Board completed its work on 1 July 1919, but Pershing held the report to consider its findings. He did not forward it to the War Department until almost a year later.

Although Pershing temporarily shelved the Superior Board Report, Congress and the War Department proceeded to explore postwar Army organization. On 3 August 1919, Secretary Baker proposed a standing army of approximately 500,000 men and universal military training for eighteen- and nineteen-year-old males. With that number the department envisaged maintaining one cavalry and twenty infantry divisions. March testified that before 1917, when the Army was stationed at small, scattered posts, officers had no occasion to command brigades or divisions or gain experience in managing large troop concentrations. Under the proposed reorganization, officers would have the opportunity to command large units and to train combined arms units, thus correcting a major weakness of past mobilizations.