Foreword

• Author: Sydney Connor,Carl J. Friedrich
• DOI: 10.1177/000271625026700101
• Published date: 01 January 1950
• Date: 01 January 1950
• Published By: Sage Publications, Inc.

vii

FOREWORD

THE

first

American

military

occupation

is

said

to

have

begun

when

Colonel

George

Rogers

Clark

surprised

the

garrison

at

Kaskaskia

during

the

night

of

July

4,

1778.

The

ensuing

military

government

was

so

successful

that

some

of

the

French

inhabitants

of

the

region

were

persuaded

to

join

as

cobelligerents

with

the

invaders.

Col.

Clark

operated

tactfully

through

local

authorities,

held

his

troops

under

strict

control,

and

established

useful

precedents.

Among

the

many

Ameri-

can

belligerent

occupations

since

1778,

General

Winfield

Scott,

as

Military

Gov-

ernor

of

Mexico

City

seventy

years

later,

inaugurated

a

regime

which

might

equally

well

have

served

as

precedent

for

many

of

the

procedures

rediscovered

under

stress

of

combat

conditions

during

World

War

II.

American

military

government

aroused

little

interest

between

wars,

however,

and

was,

by

1941,

largely

forgotten.

The

United

States

had

renounced

territorial

aggrandizement

as

a

war

objective,

and

no

other

reason

for

belligerent

occupation

(other

than

to

collect

reparations

or

restore

order)

had

then

been

clearly

imagined.

War

plans,

therefore,

had

no

military

government

annexes,

and

during

the

period

from

1941

to

1943,

when

oc-

cupation

policies

were

being

anticipated

and

plans

for

military

government

train-

ing

programs

were

being

drafted,

all

that

remained

of

American

experience

was

a

small,

recently

completed

field

manual

and

a

four-volume

record

of

post-armistice

occupation

in

World

War

I.

’

.

The

Second

World

War

brought

a

rich

harvest

of

experience

and

a

vast

record

of

military

government

operations

all

over

the

world.

It will

be

many

years

be-

fore

all

that

has

been

learned

will

be

clearly

analyzed

and

fully

understood.

In

the

meantime,

military

government

has

become

a

focal

point

of

much

bitter

con-

troversy.

Intimately

related

to

United

States

foreign

policy

during

and

after

the

war,

fraught

with

the

perplexing

problems

of

how

to

deal

with

&dquo;cobelligerents,&dquo;

liberated

countries,

and

conquered

enemies,

the

deeds

of

Allied

military

govern-

ment

have

been

highly

praised

and

roundly

denounced.

In

this

welter

of

con-

flicting

opinion,

the

social

scientist

and

the

practitioner

of

the

art

of

government

have

often

searched

in

vain

for

sound

factual

reporting,

and

securely

anchored

analysis

in

terms

of

established

scientific

principles.

THE

ANNALS

offers

these

papers

in

the

hope

that

they

will

be

a

contribution

toward

the

much-needed

clarification

of

the

issues

military

government

presents

to

the

student

of

political

and

social

science.

Most

of

the

Americans

who

participated

in

wartime

overseas

administration

have

now

returned

to

civilian

life,

and

it

is

for

these

to

show

how

the

operation

has

suc-

ceeded

or

failed

thus

far.

Contributors

to

this

volume

have

been

chosen

for

the

special

points

of

view

which

they

brought

to

their

work

as

military

government

officers

or

advisers,

for

their

special

experiences

during

the

war,

and

for

their

con-

tinuing

interest.

No

volume

of

this

length

could

cover

all

the

many

aspects

of

human

relations,

social

and

political,

specific

and

collective,

which

appear

when

military

government

aims

and

activities

in

World

War

II

are

carefully

examined.

The

objective

of

this

volume has

been

to

add

to

the

growing

library

of

information

about

a

politico-military

phenomenon

whose

boundaries,

as

a

science

or

a

profes-

sion,

have

not

yet

been

defined.

’

SYDNEY

CONNOR

CARL

J.

FRIEDRICH