Education And The Army

A study of the educational opportunities offered after WW1 to Amer. soldiers of the Amer. Expeditionary Forces (AEF). Some stayed in Europe and studied art, attended classes at the Sorbonne, took medical courses at London's Fellowship of Med., read law at the Inns of Court, enrolled in veterinary classes at the Univ. of Edinburgh, and studied French culture and language at numerous French univ. and inst. About 10,000 men were involved in these programs. In addition, 10,000 soldier-students attended the AEF's own univ. at Beaune. For a few months in the spring of 1919, this univ. was the largest in the English-speaking world. Other educational opportunities of various sorts were made available to virtually every soldier in the AEF. Illustrations.

We are all familiar with ROTC, West Point, and other institutions that train young men and women to be military officers. But few people know of the U.S. Army War College, where the Army's elite career officers go for advanced training in strategy, national security policy, and military-government policymaking. This book takes readers inside the U.S. Army War College to learn about the faculty, staff, administration, and curriculum.Established in 1901, the school's mission has evolved from teaching the skills of war to training officers to negotiate both the complex world of modern strategy and the civilian bureaucracy in Washington. More like a professional graduate program than an academic graduate school, much of the education takes the form of exercises and simulations.Judith Stiehm, who holds the U.S. Army Distinguished Civilian Service Medal, allows readers to judge whether the U.S. Army War College successfully prepares its students for their many roles. She is skeptical that instructors can fulfill this difficult task in an era where civilians expect our military to be invincible, to win without casualties, and to serve as peacekeepers.The Military answers to the people of the United States and it is our responsibility to know how it operates at all levels. This book is a good place to start.

Muth examines the different paths the United States Army and the German Armed Forces traveled to select, educate, and promote their officers in the crucial time before World War II. He demonstrates that the military education system in Germany represented an organized effort where each school provided the stepping stone for the next. But in the US, there existed no communication about teaching contents among the various schools.

Military education was the lifeblood of the armies, navies, and air forces of the British Empire and an essential ingredient for success in both war and peace. Military Education and the British Empire is the first major scholarly work to address the role of military education in maintaining the empire throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Bringing together the world’s top scholars on the subject, this book places distinct national narratives – Canadian, Australian, South African, British, and Indian – within a comparative context. Ultimately, this book allows readers to consider the connections between education and empire from a transnational perspective.