William Crozier (General)

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William Crozier

William Crozier (born February 19, 1855 in Carrollton , † November 10, 1942 in Washington, DC ) was an American general .

Life

Military career

Crozier was in Ohio born, his father was the Senator Robert Crozier . His family later moved to Kansas . He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1876 and joined the United States Army as an officer . The artillery assigned, he participated in various Indian wars part. In 1881 he moved to the Ordnance Department . From 1879 to 1884 he was a teacher at the United States Military Academy. From 1887 to 1888 and from 1889 to 1892 he was assigned to the staff department of the Ordnance Department. In 1888, together with officer Adelbert Rinaldo Buffington , Crozier developed the Buffington-Crozier disappearing carriage . This successful disappearing tripod was used until the 1920s; however, with the advent of bombers , most of the coastal guns were considered obsolete.

Caricature of an American delegate in 1899, showing Crozier third from left

In 1899 the government sent him as a delegate to the first of the Hague Peace Conferences . Crozier took part in the Philippine-American War (1899-1900) and was assigned to the international expeditionary force during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 . In 1901 he turned down a professorship at the United States Military Academy. Crozier then developed the Springfield M1901 test rifle , which was based on the German Mauser Model 98 rifle, a potential successor to the outdated Krag-Jørgensen rifle, the Springfield M1903 rifle .

Head of the Ordnance Department

Crozier was promoted to brigadier general in November 1901 and appointed head of the Ordnance Department. He had the rifle he designed and introduced it as the Springfield M1903. However, it turned out that the rifle contained some patent infringements against the German weapons manufacturer Mauser . To avoid public debate, Crozier set to negotiate with Mauser immediately, which in 1905 resulted in the US government paying Mauser $ 200,000 in royalties. Despite the near-affair, the US President Theodore Roosevelt Crozier expressed further confidence in him.

From 1902, Crozier promoted the introduction of an orderly pistol in .45 caliber, as the .38 caliber revolvers, introduced in 1892 for the Navy and in 1892 for the army, did not prove themselves. The tender led to the introduction of the Colt M1911 .

When the cavalry demanded a light machine gun in 1911 , Crozier procured the M1909 Benet-Mercie , but without observing the usual quality assurance measures. The weapon turned out to be unsatisfactory. However , Crozier did not want to give preference to the Lewis machine gun developed by US Army officer Isaac Newton Lewis . There were personal as well as objective reasons for this, since the officers shared mutual animosities . With General Leonard Wood , who supported Lewis, Crozier got into a public dispute, so that the US Secretary of War Newton Diehl Baker junior had to call for both moderation. Ultimately, the failure of the Ordnance Department to procure an adequate light machine gun for the requirements of the First World War prompted Croziers to be recalled as head of the Ordnance Department.

Despite the introduction of a few new models of weapons, the budget for new weapons in Crozier's tenure was small. Crozier therefore focused on reorganizing the cooperation between the Ordnance Department and American research and industry . He wrote some weapons engineering studies, especially on the heavier artillery. From 1912 to 1913 he served as President of the United States Army War College in Washington for one year .

First World War

Shortly before the United States entered World War I in April 1917, Crozier appointed Henry Laurence Gantt as an advisor to the Frankford Arsenal . Crozier recognized that the Gantt chart introduced by Gantt was well suited for planning the suddenly extremely increased demand. After the entry into the war, Crozier implemented this method for the entire Ordnance Department and thus made it famous.

After his recall as head of the Ordnance Department in December 1917, US President Woodrow Wilson accepted Crozier into his council of war and in January 1918 ordered him to Europe to sound out the situation in the theaters of war in France , Belgium and Italy . Crozier visited at the request of the Italian King Victor Emanuel III. after losing the Twelfth Battle of Isonzo, the front line. He demonstrated the action of the American support which raised the bad morale of the Italian troops.

Crozier was later admitted to the Allied Supreme War Council , where he worked with Winston Churchill , then Minister of Munitions. They work out a plan to supply the Allied forces with the necessary war material. This collaboration led to the British-American tank program . In July 1918, Crozier was promoted to major general. He took over command of the northeastern area of ​​the United States with headquarters in Boston .

retirement

Crozier was in January 1919 - after 47 years of service - in retirement . That year he founded the Army Ordnance Association, the predecessor of the American Defense Preparedness Association , an organization that brings together government agencies, the military, and industry to prepare to supply the US armed forces with war materials when needed. He was a 1923 honorary doctorate of engineering from the University of Michigan awarded.

Crozier has remained connected to China since serving during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. In his retirement he traveled to Beijing with his wife Mary almost every year until the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 made it impossible. Crozier lived in Washington until his death in 1942. The Croziers' collection of Chinese ceramics and rock crystals came to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1944 .

Publications

  • Statement of Major General William Crozier, chief of ordnance, USA before the Senate Committee on military affairs, December 31, 1917 at archive.org
  • Ordnance and the world war; a contribution to the history of American preparedness, 1920 at archive.org

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Keir B. Sterling: Serving the line with excellence: the development of the US Army Ordnance Corps , US Army Ordnance Center and School, 1987, pp. 39–40 [1]
  2. ^ A b c Anne Cipriano Venzon: The United States in the First World War: An Encyclopedia , Routledge , 2013, ISBN 978-1-135-68446-4 , p. 184 [2]
  3. ↑ David Westwood: Rifles: An Illustrated History of Their Impact , ABC-CLIO , 2005, ISBN 978-1-85109-401-1 , pp. 107-109 [3]
  4. ↑ WHBSmith & Joseph Smith: The Book of Rifles in 1948 by The Telegraph Press, Harrisburg, Penn.
  5. ↑ Alexander Rose: American Rifle: A Biography , Random House , 2008, ISBN 978-0-440-33809-3 , pp. 268-271 [4]
  6. ↑ Leroy Thompson: The Colt 1911 Pistol , Osprey Publishing , 2012, ISBN 978-1-84908-836-7 , p. 8 and 11 [5]
  7. ^ Neil Grant: The Lewis Gun (Weapon, Volume 34) , Osprey Publishing , 2014, ISBN 9781782007913 , pp. 9-10, 19
  8. ^ Wallace Clark: The Gantt chart, a working tool of management , New York, The Ronald Press Company, 1922, pp. Iii - iv [6]
  9. ^ Richard A. Rinaldi: The US Army in World War I - Orders of Battle , Tiger Lily Publications, 2004, ISBN 978-0-9720296-4-3 , p. 207 [7]
  10. ^ West Point Association of Graduates on Crozier
  11. ↑ Philadelphia Museum of Art : Our Story: 1940–1950 [8]
personal data
SURNAME Crozier, William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American general
DATE OF BIRTH February 19, 1855
PLACE OF BIRTH Carrollton , Ohio
DATE OF DEATH November 10, 1942
Place of death Washington, DC