The Infantry Problem
Why do militaries struggle to produce the most crucial soldier?
“First, all battles and all wars are won in the end by the infantryman. Secondly, the infantryman always bears the brunt. His casualties are heavier, he suffers greater extremes of discomfort and fatigue than the other arms. Thirdly, the art of the infantryman is less stereotyped and far harder to acquire in modern war than that of any other arm” declared British Field-Marshall Earl Wavell.[1] Even as technology has changed, the infantryman is still the most important part of the military. Yet, militaries still struggle to enlist, train, and preserve infantry units even though they suffer a disproportionate number of casualties raising an important question, why do militaries always struggle with this? There are three areas to examine in answering this question: recruitment, training, and battle. Three case studies will be used: the Union Army's recruitment practices in the Civil War, the training undertaken by the British Army in World War I, and the American Army's struggle to procure enough infantry in World War II.
While there is still a debate about when “modern” war became a phenomena, there is no doubt that in the 19th century, the infantry branch began to change. The American Civil War was an infantry centric war while the cavalry and artillery provided a supporting role. This would require a large number of recruits, but the Union sought volunteers under the impression that the war would not last long. However, it was clear by 1862 that this would not be the case and the North had already exhausted its volunteer pool. The Union made every effort to avoid the inevitable—a national draft. However, in 1863, Senator Henry Wilson, chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, sponsored the Conscription Act, which established the first national draft system. This act required every male citizen, as well as immigrants who had applied for citizenship, between the ages of 20 and 45 to register for service.[2] This was the first time that the United States had officially pursued nationwide conscription. It was not well received because as Pulitzer prize-winning historian Fred Albert Shannon pointed out, “military service was not an ingrained idea in the American mind.”[3]
Up to that point in time, the United States had relied solely on the volunteer citizen soldier. The principle of “states’ rights” had been applied to the army but relying solely on volunteers was now a luxury.[4] New York governor Horatio Seymour wrote to President Lincoln arguing that the draft was illegal, but Lincoln replied that only if the Supreme Court deemed it illegal would it be stopped since the Union frankly could no longer, “waste time to experiment with the volunteer system.”[5] The Union continued a dual policy of volunteers and conscription though few men were drafted. For example, of the 292,441 names drawn in the first draft after the act was passed in 1863, only 9,881 were drafted for military service.[6] In fact, in the Midwest, some enlisted because they feared the social stigma among their fellow soldiers if they were found out to be conscripts.[7] Every Spring, the enlistment of soldiers whose contracts were up prompted the Union to try and retain them through bonuses, leave, and loyalty to their fellow soldiers.
During the first few years of the War, Union Brigades were built around 2-3 regiments totaling 1800-2500 men, by 1864-1865, they averaged 5-7 regiments with some brigades needing as many as 10 regiments to form a full-strength brigade. But the number of regiments filling out brigades wasn’t the only problem, almost all of the new recruits were men who were either forced to be there, men who had previously been rejected because of medical issues, or criminals.[8] A large contingent included “bounty men” who took signing bonuses to enlist then deserted and proceeded to do so again, but by 1864, there was a crackdown and many were forcibly conscripted into the army.[9] General Ulysses S. Grant wrote bitterly of recruits arriving in 1864 “who have never done any fighting and never intended to when enlisted” and said that “of this class of recruits we do not get one for every eight bounties paid to do good service.”[10] This desperate scramble to fill ranks was the realization of the Union's stark reality: the shift from a volunteer force to one sustained by conscription and coercion was both a testament to the war's brutality and a harbinger of the challenge of sustaining the recruitment of citizens for the infantry in the future.
The British Army at the outbreak of World War I was a small highly trained, and motivated force but hugely vulnerable when compared to the mammoth armies marching around the rest of the continent. By the fall of 1914, the British Expeditionary Force that had been sent to France had been wiped out forcing the British Army to remake itself and rely on citizen soldiers. It would take almost two years for the British Army to train and equip enough formations to enable large-scale offensive operations on the Western Front. But this took time as the infantry branch was becoming more complex; soldiers were no longer simply required to stand in line and fire at opponents from point-blank range as had been done in the previous centuries. As one lieutenant described:
“Our time was devoted to training for the offensive or ‘fattening up for the slaughter’ as we cheerfully called it. For the first week or so we confined ourselves to platoon and company training, to smarten up the men and correct the somewhat slouching habits which there was always a tendency to contact during a long spell in the trenches. Three or four days of drill, bayonet fighting, musketry, bomb throwing, and kindred pursuits.”[11]
Skills such as reconnaissance, firing a rifle accurately, performing specific roles within a squad or platoon, and understanding the basics of combined arms warfare were not just a luxury but essential. Refining these skills was challenging as they mostly had to be done in the trenches themselves. It was also taking much longer to train recruits at a time when demand for frontline infantry was needed the most. Thus, the British Army's evolution from a small, elite force to a mass mobilized entity reveals the painful truth that modern warfare demanded not just numbers, but a profound rethinking of infantry tactics and training amidst the unforgiving realities of trench warfare.
The staggering casualty rates among American infantry divisions during World War II highlight a critical issue in military operations: the immense toll on frontline soldiers, regardless of their training or experience. The 4th Infantry Division, a regular army division, had been training nonstop for two years in the United States and England training for the invasion of Normandy. Yet for all the training, the division lost 95% of the infantry that had landed on Utah Beach in just one month of combat. Its commanding officer, General Raymond Barton exclaimed in early July that, “We no longer had the division we brought ashore.”[12] Examining a whole period of service of an infantry division continues this trend; of the 22,858 battle casualties suffered by the 9th Infantry Division during the war, over 96% were sustained by the three frontline infantry regiments.[13] For the infantry divisions most heavily engaged in combat after D-Day in Europe, total battle and nonbattle casualty rates during 11 months of combat reached as high as 252%.[14] This was because the army’s replacement system continually fed new personnel into the line divisions to maintain their end strength near authorized levels. But strangely enough, World War II was fought with the lowest overall death rate in the history of the U.S. Army.[15] While some historians argue that the nature of the conflict was so different in scale, scope, and duration that it makes comparisons questionable, the numbers do bear it out.[16] Nonetheless, while all evidence suggests that training and experience can save lives, the lethality of modern weapons used by even a weak enemy reveals its limitations.
This dire shortage of trained infantrymen became even more pronounced as the war progressed, affecting the strategic capabilities of the U.S. Army. By October 1944, the window of opportunity to win the war before Christmas had closed as Operation Market Garden, a British plan to cross the Rhine River using airborne divisions, failed, and simultaneously diverted vital resources away from U.S. army’s facing the German border. This was compounded by the fact that the Army had run out of trained riflemen. The casualties in Normandy and subsequent fall battles at Aachen and the Hurtgen Forest resulted in an acute shortage, as historian Rick Atkinson described,
“Frantic efforts were made to muster more riflemen into battle. The Army had culled privates and NCOs from forty divisions while they were still training in the United States. Seventeen of those divisions had lost at least two-thirds of their infantry privates and countless junior officers, who then were sent overseas as individual replacements while recruits filled the ranks behind them. Not only were the original divisions devastated by this turnover – the 65th Infantry Division reported that some platoons had churned through as many as sixteen platoon leaders even before leaving the United States.”[17]
Pulling soldiers directly from divisions showed the shortcomings of the Infantry Replacement Training Command (I.R.T.C.).[18] The command was in charge of camps across the country that were supposed to be stockpiling replacements put through 15 weeks of training. They would then be shipped overseas, reported to replacement depots, and eventually be assigned to a unit. However, in 15 weeks of battle in France, the U.S. army suffered 29,000 killed and 106,000 wounded and missing, which was far more than what IRTC was producing.[19] The U.S. Army regularly overestimated the number of casualties they would suffer it campaigns but failed to identify that the vast majority would be in one branch, the infantry. The most consistent disconnect between infantry on the battlefield and off it is the time it takes to train infantry soldiers and the rate of casualties that infantry soldiers suffer on the battlefield.
In the 21st century, it’s often a notion among analysts and commentators that infantry has become obsolete in favor of drones, artificial intelligence, and other technologies but the war in Ukraine has shown the perils of embracing this a cure all. When Russia initially invaded Ukraine, people of all ages flocked to recruitment centers to volunteer. Some grew frustrated when they weren't drafted immediately and voiced their complaints. Due to limited resources and equipment, the Ukrainian military couldn't enlist everyone, but they managed to form new units, expand existing ones, and improvise training on the fly. But now after two and half years of grinding battles, the average age of Ukraine’s frontline soldiers is now 43, criminals are now eligible to fight, and many who volunteered initially have been fighting for two straight years with little rest.
In December 2023, President Zelenskyy stated that Ukraine would need an additional 450,000 to 500,000 soldiers to resist Russia in 2024. The Ukrainian parliament had been considering new mobilization legislation for several weeks to try and make up for this shortage, which included lowering the minimum conscription age from 27 to 25. Although the age was reduced in separate legislation last July and approved by parliament, Zelensky never signed it into law, without fully explaining his reasons.
The new draft legislation, rewritten several times, proposed calling up another 400,000 Ukrainian troops. However, it has stalled in parliament due to objections from lawmakers about certain punitive measures they consider unconstitutional. These measures include restricting the property rights of draft dodgers, impounding their cars, and blocking their bank accounts. But fully passing the law was one of the most difficult of the war so far. Mykola Kniazhytskyi, an opposition lawmaker from Lviv, commented on the situation, stating, “That's highly unpopular. Truth be told, mobilization is a hot political potato, and no one wants to be holding it.”[20]
Ukraine is now drafting 30,000 men a month to try and make up for the manpower shortage.[21] During the summer of 2022, Ukrainian officials reported the army was suffering 1,000 casualties a day in the Donbas region, if those numbers are anywhere near the current casualty rate, Ukraine is merely replacing casualties rather than generating new formations.[22] Anecdotal reporting from the front line confirmed this as recruits have been trickling in small groups rather than large formations much like the replacement system the U.S. army had in World War II.[23] The American army managed to obscure the most glaring issues related to their shortage of infantry with its abundance of equipment and overwhelming firepower; Ukraine’s current predicament highlights how shortages in equipment only exasperate infantry casualties.
The historical struggles of militaries to sustain sufficient numbers of trained infantry soldiers is both a persistent and the critical challenge in modern warfare. From the Union Army in the Civil War to the British Army in World War I and the American Army in World War II, the consistent issues of recruitment, training, and sustaining infantry units have led to significant strategic and operational difficulties. The current situation in Ukraine starkly illustrates that, despite advancements in technology and changes in warfare, the fundamental problem remains. The difficulties Ukraine faces in maintaining its infantry strength amidst high casualty rates and equipment shortages reveal that the infantryman's role, while indispensable, continues to be fraught with peril. Ultimately, the ability to recruit, train, and preserve a capable and resilient infantry force is essential for any military's effectiveness, and addressing these challenges is crucial for success in future conflicts.
References
Atkinson, Rick. 2013. The Guns at Last Light. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
Beevor, Antony. 2009. D-Day: The Battle for Normandy. London: Penguin Books.
Beschloss, Michael. 2018. Presidents of War. New York: Broadway Books.
Catton, Bruce. 1953. A Stillness at Appomattox (Army of the Potomac, Vol. 3). New York: Doubleday.
—. 1968. Grant Takes Command. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company.
Dettmer, Jamie. 2024. "Draft-dodging plagues Ukraine as Kyiv faces acute soldier shortage." Politico. March 25. Accessed August 2, 2024. https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-faces-an-acute-manpower-shortage-with-young-men-dodging-the-draft/.
Gilbert Beebe, Michael DeBakey. 1952. Battle Casualties, Incidence, Mortality, and Logistic Considerations. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, Publisher.
Hart, Peter. 2008. The Somme: The Darkest Hour on the Western Front. New York: Pegasus Books.
Lawler, Dave. 2022. "Ukraine suffering up to 1,000 casualties per day in Donbas, official says." Axios. June 15. Accessed August 2, 2024. https://www.axios.com/2022/06/15/ukraine-1000-casualties-day-donbas-arakhamia.
Mansoor, Peter. 1999. The GI Offensive in Europe: The Triumph of American Infantry Divisions, 1941-1945. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Méheut, Constant. 2024. "Ukraine Is Conscripting Thousands More Troops. But Are They Ready?" New York Times. July 30. Accessed August 1, 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/30/world/europe/ukraine-war-troops-russia-mobilization.html.
Office, The Senate Historical. n.d. "The Civil War: The Senate's Story." United States Senate. Accessed December 24, 2023. https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/civil_war/ConscriptionAct.htm.
Reevell, Patrick. 2024. "Ukraine's desperate need for soldiers spurs exodus of young men." ABC News. August 1. Accessed August 3, 2024. https://abcnews.go.com/International/ukraines-desperate-soldiers-spurs-exodus-young-men/story?id=112441257.
Rostker, Bernard D. 2013. Providing for the Casualties of War: The American Experience Through World War II. Santa Monica: RAND.
Shannon, Fred Albert. 1928. The Organization and Administration of the Union Army 1861-1865. Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark Co.
1946. "The Making of the Infantryman." American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 51, No. 5 376-379.
Wavell, Earl. 1945. "In Praise of Infantry." The Times, April 19.
Woodworth, Steven E. 2006. Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee. New York: Vintage Books.
[1] Earl Wavell, "In Praise of Infantry." The Times, April 19. 1945.
[2] The Senate Historical Office. n.d. "The Civil War: The Senate's Story." United States Senate.
[3] Fred Albert Shannon, The Organization and Administration of the Union Army 1861-1865. (Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark Co. 1928), 294.
[4] Ibid., 5-38.
[5] Michael Beschloss, Presidents of War. (New York: Broadway Books, 2018), 217-218.
[6] Shannon, 306.
[7] Steven E. Woodworth, Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee (New York: Vintage Books, 2006), 215.
[8] Bruce Catton. A Stillness at Appomattox (Army of the Potomac, Vol. 3), (New York: Doubleday. 1953), 23.
[9] Ibid., 24.
[10] Bruce Catton, Grant Takes Command (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. 1968), 368.
[11] Peter Hart, The Somme: The Darkest Hour on the Western Front (New York: Pegasus Books. 2008), 44.
[12] Antony Beevor, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy (London: Penguin Books. 2009), 242.
[13] Peter Mansoor, The GI Offensive in Europe: The Triumph of American Infantry Divisions, 1941-1945 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999), 251-252
[14] Ibid., 254-255.
[15] Gilbert Beebe, Michael DeBakey. Battle Casualties, Incidence, Mortality, and Logistic Considerations (Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, Publisher. 1952), 21
[16] Bernard D. Rostker Providing for the Casualties of War: The American Experience Through World War II. Santa Monica: RAND. 2013),
[17] Rick Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light. (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2013), 410.
[18] "The Making of the Infantryman." American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 51, No. 5 376-379. (1946): 376.
[19] Ibid., 377.
[20] Jamie Dettmer, "Draft-dodging plagues Ukraine as Kyiv faces acute soldier shortage." Politico, March 25, 2024.
[21] Patrick Reevell, "Ukraine's desperate need for soldiers spurs exodus of young men." ABC News. August 1, 2024.
[22] Dave Lawler, "Ukraine suffering up to 1,000 casualties per day in Donbas, official says." Axios, June 15, 2022.
[23] Constant Méheut, "Ukraine Is Conscripting Thousands More Troops. But Are They Ready?" New York Times, July 30, 2024.
Good article. As you allude to with the anecdote from the First World War, another issue is that infanteering is a specialism in its own right; while all soldiers learn the basics, you can't carry out proper infantry tasks without people specifically trained in detail to undertake them.
That’s a really great post, top to bottom. Especially the commentary on modern analysts focusing on disruptive innovations that cause us to lose track of fundamentals…keep ‘em coming