| This dissertation answers the examines the role of the United States Army Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in the preparation of officers for high command and staff positions in World War 11. An investigation of the Leavenworth interwar education (when 5,000 officers graduated) and post-mobilization education (when 16,000 officers graduated), focuses on the experience of the faculty, the selection and post-graduate assignment of the students, the material instructed, the methods of instruction, and the development of rigor through ranking of student performance. A 25% sample of European Theater Divisions explains where the graduates served.; The education at Leavenworth focused on practical application of general tactical principles espoused in doctrine. Extensive practical exercises, graded by the well-qualified faculty, were the keystone of the course. Rigorous and repetitive application of problem solving techniques in a wide variety of tactical situations generated officer confidence in their ability to lead and staff, divisions and corps. Officers received little education in theory, commandership, history, or politics, but were grounded in doctrine, which changed very little from 1919 to 1940. This doctrine stressed the offensive, the coordination of all-arms attacks, and the use of both firepower and maneuver to destroy the enemy's forces.; Every division commander, nearly every assistant commander, and the majority of field artillery commanders and chiefs of staff graduated from Leavenworth between 1920 and 1940. However, only a miniscule percentage of the staff officers, G1s through G5s, graduated before 1940. Nearly half of the regimental commanders were graduates of the program before mobilization, despite their valuable education at division and corps levels. Without Leavenworth, the competence of divisions in World War II would have been significantly reduced. |
