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Officers who have never seen a corps, division, or brigade organized and on the march can not be expected to perform perfectly the duties required of them when war comes.

Elihu Root

At the opening of the twentieth century, following the hasty organization and deployment of the army corps during the War with Spain, the Army's leadership realized that it needed to create permanent combined arms units trained for war. Accordingly, senior officers worked toward that goal until the nation entered World War I. Their efforts reflected the principal mission of the Army at the time: to defend the vast continental United States and its modest insular empire in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. During this period the infantry division replaced the army corps as the basic combined arms unit. Growing in size and firepower, it acquired combat support and service elements, along with an adequate staff, reflecting visions of a more complex battlefield environment. The cavalry division, designed to achieve mobility rather than to realize its combined arms potential, underwent changes similar to those of the infantry division. Army leaders also searched for ways to maintain permanent divisions that could take the field on short notice. That effort accomplished little, however, because of traditional American antipathy toward standing armies.

The Army began closely examining its organizations after the War with Spain. The War Department had been severely criticized for its poor leadership during the 1898 mobilization. Under the guidance of Secretary of War Elihu Root, it established a board to plan an Army war college that would "direct the instruction and intellectual exercise of the Army." This concept inspired creation of the General Staff in 1903, which led to major reforms in Army organization and mobilization.

Under the leadership of Maj. Gen. Adna R. Chaffee, the Chief of Staff, the new organization had a profound influence on the structure of the field army. In 1905 the War Department published Field Service Regulations, United States Army, in which Capt. Joseph T. Dickman, a General Staff member and future Third Army commander, drew together contemporary thought on tactics and