The Neck of the Bottle; George W. Goethals and The Reorganization of the U.S. Army Supply System, 1917-1918
College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1992. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. ix, [1], 201, [5] pages. Includes Acknowledgments, Introduction, Conclusion, Notes, Bibliography, and Index. Chapters cover The Emergency Fleet Corporation; Military Mobilization; Winter Crisis; Reorganization of the Quartermaster Corps; The Storage and Traffic Division; The Procurement Issue; Procurement Reform; Supply Crisis in the Summer of 1918; and Accomplishment of the Purchase, Storage, and Traffic Reorganization. Dr. Phyllis A. Zimmerman eared her Ph.D. from Indiana University. She was recipient of the 1978-79 Dissertation Year Research Fellowship from the Center of Military History, Department of the Army. She had previously published an entry on George W. Goethals in The Dictionary of American Military Biography. She later joined the faculty at Ball State University and continued with a distinguished career in academia. In a new book, The Neck of the Bottle: George W. Goethals and the Reorganization of the U.S. Army Supply System, 1917-1918, Phyllis A. Zimmerman describes the efforts of one man to bring modern and rational order to the U.S. Army's supply system. George W. Goethals successfully engineered the Panama Canal, but he could not engineer a modern, rational organization for the U.S. Army, even in the face of the crisis of World War I. Despite his best efforts at centralization of the General Staff, American military logistics remained painfully chaotic, and the heads of bureaus--the so-called chiefs--proved adept at preserving their authority. At war's end, Goethals found himself with a largely paper organization, which dissolved during the confusion of demobilization. Goethals was recruited to manage the military mess that existed in 1917. He has been credited by historians with producing a virtual managerial revolution by his dramatic and drastic reorganization of the War Department's supply apparatus and combining of bureaus into a single division for purchase, storage, and traffic. But while this evaluation is not totally wrong, Phyllis A. Zimmerman concludes in this first large-scale study of his efforts, it has overestimated Goethal's contribution to order and efficiency. Military historians, political scientists, and students of public administration will find this look at Goethals and his work a significant contribution to the understanding of the course of World War I, the problems of reforming military structure, the politics of the Wilson administration, and the power of resistance of bureaucracies generally. George W. Goethals, a West Point graduate who led the Corps of Engineers in the Panama Canal construction, was recalled from retirement to deal with the bottleneck in mobilizing the army for world war. Goethals was a hero for his Panama Canal feat, but Theodore Roosevelt had given him sole authority over the project. President Wilson, however, had various committees working under separate authority. Assigned initially to the Emergency Fleet Corporation, Goethals clashed with other committee heads over the issue of wooden versus steel ships. Politics, divided authority, and utter chaos marked the World War I mobilization efforts, and Goethals was forced out of the EFC. He was soon invited back to reorganize the Army supply system. Army supplies were obtained by five bureaus, headed by five fiercely independent chiefs. Goethals had had success with central control of the Panama Canal project, so his plan for Army supply was to centralize, coordinate, and modernize. The bureaus were entrenched in old traditions, however, and resented the impending loss of power. Historians have regarded Goethals as the man who revolutionized Army supply, but as Zimmerman argues here in the first large-scale study of his efforts, the war ended abruptly, with Goethals's plan untested in the field. It perhaps fell to Army Chief of Staff Peyton C. March to advance Goethals vision in the immediate post-WWI period. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: Goethals, World War I, U.S. Army, Procurement, Quartermaster Corps, Emergency Fleet Corporation, Military Mobilization, Military Logistics, Service of Supply, Newton Baker, Barnard Baruch, Peyton C. March, John J. Pershing, War Department, Shipping
ISBN: 0890965153
[Book #82270]
Price: $125.00