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Maverick Marine: General Smedley D. Butler and the Contradictions of American Military History
by Hans Schmidt
Most Marines know that Major General Smedley
Darlington Butler was the only officer in the Corps to win two Medals
of Honor. Most non-Marines, like Dr. Hans Schmidt,
identify Butler with his 1935 diatribe of Wall Street and Big
Business:
"I helped in the raping of half a dozen
Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The
record of racketeering is long.... Looking back on it, I feel I
might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to
operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on
three CONTINENTS" [p. 231].
Dr. Schmidt is a fan of Butler--the
"patriotic warrior hero whose courage, physical command
presence, and vernacular coarseness epitomized the popular ideal of
a soldier's general" (p. 1). This is easily understandable;
Butler's distinguished combat record and blunt, extroverted style of
leadership endeared him to the mass media and earned him a legion of
followers. Schmidt became a Butler disciple after writing the UNITED
STATES OCCUPATION OF HAITI, 1915-1934 (New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, 1971).
MAVERICK MARINE uses sixteen chapters to
interweave two subjects: (1) The life and times of Smedley Butler
and (2) The Marine Corps's role as the strong arm of American
foreign policy in the early twentieth century. Schmidt's coverage of
the former is nonpareil; his treatment of the latter, however, does
not hold up as well under scrutiny.
Butler's career in the Marine Corps began in
1898 at age sixteen. During the war with Spain, Second Lieutenant
Butler deployed with the 1st Marine Battalion to the Caribbean.
There, he found his niche in life fighting along side the men of the
"Old Corps"; after the war, Butler opted to align himself
with the "uneducated, roughneck tendencies within the
marines" (p. 10) rather than return to civilian life and
school.
During the next thirty years, Butler battled
bandits and insurrectionists around the globe in a series of armed
interventions. He served under Major Littleton W. T.
"Tony" Waller during the Philippine
Insurrection of 1899 and came to idolize the racist, bombastic,
hard-nosed campaigner--calling Waller "the greatest
soldier" he ever knew (p. 12). Waller, incidentally, earned the
nickname "Butcher of Samar" for his exploits in the
Philippines. Years later, in 1910 and 1914, Waller was in line for
the commandancy; and Butler, of course, was one of his most
vociferous supporters. Unfortunately, Waller's alleged atrocities in
the Philippines tarnished his reputation; both times, he failed to
rise to Corps's top position. Both times, Butler grew incensed at
the "highbrow professionalism and Annapolis elitism" he
perceived to be responsible for Waller's slighting (p. 121).
In 1900, Smedley marched on Tientsin and
Peking to relieve the Legation Quarter during the Boxer
Rebellion of 1900. After distinguishing himself in China (and
being wounded), Butler transferred to Panama to command one of the
companies in the newly formed Advance Base Force battalion. Butler
won both his Medals of Honor serving in subsequent expeditions to
Nicaragua (1910-1912), Veracruz (1914), and Haiti (1915-1917). It
was during Nicaragua, Schmidt asserts, that Butler "clearly
established his preeminence in the tactics of colonial warfare--bold
imperious leadership of small units so as to bluff the natives into
submission, thereby avoiding the escalating costs, perils, and
embitterments attendant to massive violence" (p. 47).
Towards the end of his Marine career, Butler
led a brigade to Shanghai in response to the Nanking Incident of
March 1927. His most successful and least controversial mission,
Butler returned from China in 1929 to his formerly held position as
commander of Quantico. Now one of the ranking generals in the Corps,
he was in line for the commandancy--but it was not to be. After
Commandant Wendell C. Neville died in office, the low-key Ben Fuller
ascended to the Corps's top post over Butler. In 1931, Butler
retired from the Corps after an off-color anecdote about Italian
Prime Minister Benito Mussolini landed him a court-martial (later
reduced to a reprimand; see pp. 208-212).
Butler made one last appearance in Marine
Corps circles four years after retirement. In 1935, he contested
General John Russell's confirmation as Commandant. Russell stood for
everything Butler opposed: He was an intellectual, graduating the
Naval Academy and War College; he embraced reform; and he saw little
combat during his career, serving a long stint in Haiti--where,
while on a diplomatic mission for the State Department, he
befriended Franklin D. Roosevelt. Schmidt clearly sides with Butler
by calling the occasion "a last hurrah for warrior standards
that were diminishing in importance at marine headquarters and as a
factor in congressional politics" (p. 214). Yet, Russell was
able to reform officer promotions, create the Fleet Marine Force
(still the backbone of the operating forces today), and nurture the
development of amphibious doctrine--the mission that would elevate
the Marine Corps to elite status in the Pacific during World
War II. This begs the question: If Butler had his way, would the
Marines ever have grown from international policemen to the
six-division amphibious assault force of the Pacific during the
1940s? Sadly, this question is beyond Schmidt's grasp. Simply put,
Butler was an anachronism.
In sum, approach this book with caution. As
simply a chronicle of Butler's life, Schmidt succeeds. However,
MAVERICK MARINE has limited utility as an operational history of the
"Colonial Infantry" Marine Corps. Although amply footnoted
and richly illustrated, MAVERICK MARINE lacks depth and perspective.
For example, there are no maps. How can you write of campaigns in
half a dozen countries without one map? Likewise, there is a
difference between a marine and a Marine; pedantic, to be sure, but
irritating for the educated reader. Although I enjoyed the book and
highly recommend it, it is not the final word on Smedley Butler. As
a counterbalance to MAVERICK MARINE, I recommend reading Bartlett's
"Old
Gimlet Eye." The truth lies somewhere in between.
Amazon Reviewer -- Capt Keith Kopets |
