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Captain James H. Hausman and the Formation of the Korean Army, 1945-1950

1997; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 23; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/0095327x9702300401

1556-0848

Allan R. Millett,

Korean Peninsula Historical and Political Studies

The creation of new armies for new nations or the reform of old armies for modernizing states is often tied to the tale of one or two European or American officers, reformers of herculean proportions whose charisma and professionalism shape an institution for years. Sometimes military reform becomes an engine of change for an entire society, intended or otherwise. Given the global reach of British and French military practices and the compulsive energy and hypermilitarization of Imperial Germany, it is not surprising that the great reformers are Europeans: William Carr Beresford in Portugal, Charles George Gordon in China, Ivor Herbert in Canada, H.H. Kitchner in Egypt, Orde Wingate in Jewish Palestine, John Bagot Glubb in Jordan, Joseph-Simon Gallieni in Indochina, Hubert Louis Lyautey in Morocco, Colmar von der Goltz and Liman von Sanders in Turkey, Emil Korner in Chile, Hans Kundt in Bolivia, and Max Bauer and Hans von Seeckt in China. Although not so well known in the pantheon of military imperialists, officers from the United States also played key roles in the creation of modern armies in the Middle East, the Caribbean, and Asia. Absent as statues and almost invisible in literature, these officers include Charles P. Stone in Egypt, William McE. Dye in the Kingdom of Choson (Korea), Herbert J. Slocum in Cuba, Charles Young in Liberia, Smedley D. Butler in Haiti, Henry T. Allen and Edward G. Lansdale in the Philippines, and Joseph W. Stilwell in China. With aspirations that sometimes exceeded the values of their own armies, these officer-missionaries for military professionalism sometimes left unavoidable political power in the hands of the army and a memory (often unfair) of cultural imperialism and unwanted interference in civil political development. Such was the fate of James H. Hausman, the most influential officer in shaping the army of the Republic of Korea.