Despite its expanding population and booming economy, the United States had the smallest armed force of any major power prior to World War I, essentially an Indian constabulary. It is true that prewar reforms had federalized the National Guard, providing for a more ready and better-trained reserve, created a General Staff, and established an enhanced system of officer education that included the War College. This provided the framework for a modern military force, but the American public continued to associate universal military service and large and well-armed forces with militarism. With an authorized strength of only 3,820 officers and 84,799 men, the volunteer US Army consequently did not possess either the manpower or the modern weaponry to conduct a campaign in Europe, much less against a great power such as Germany, when the United States entered the war in April 1917.

Many Americans initially hoped to wage war against Berlin with the country’s navy, finances, and industrial, agricultural, and natural resources such as oil. But it soon became obvious that soldiers must be dispatched to European battlefields.