A former Air Force lawyer and law professor at the University of New Mexico, Joshua E. Kastenberg has written extensively on U.S. Army law in the late nineteenth century. In this book, Kastenberg moves into the twentieth century with an examination of Enoch Crowder, who served as the U.S. Army's Judge Advocate General from 1911 to 1923. Crowder also served as provost martial during World War I and oversaw the conscription system that facilitated the army's dramatic expansion from 120,000 to over four million soldiers. Kastenberg argues that the large number of civilian lawyers inducted into the army for the war helped reform military law. The army's experience in the First World War created a template for its Second World War expansion and began a process of judicial reform that culminated in the 1950 Uniform Code of Military Justice.

A cavalry officer, Crowder served as Judge Advocate in the Philippines and Cuba, advised Secretary of War Elihu Root on reforming the Army, and observed the Japanese army during the Russo-Japanese War. Kastenberg says little about these years, instead focusing on Crowder's importance to the development of military law during Woodrow Wilson's administration. Crowder modernized military law by arranging for army officers to attend leading law schools and attracting talented lawyers by arranging reserve army commissions for them. These included Felix Frankfurter and two other future Supreme Court justices, and numerous others who later occupied posts in the federal judiciary. In 1916, Crowder updated the Articles of War, which had last been updated in 1874. The Articles of War govern military discipline and courts martial, and the 1916 update reduced the severity of sentences for petty offenses; limited military trials of civilians, which had been common during the Civil War; and improved due process. In fact, Kastenberg argues that military courts were ahead of civilian courts in protecting the accused from self-incrimination, antagonistic judges, and other abuses. The 1920 revision of the Articles of War, produced in light of wartime experience, further strengthened a defendant's rights and required a unanimous vote to impose the death penalty.

Anticipating U.S. entry into the war, Crowder began working with sympathetic members of Congress on a conscription law in 1916. Only through conscription would the United States be able to raise an army large enough to significantly affect the war on the Western Front. Kastenberg's discussion of the draft builds on John Whiteclay Chambers' To Raise an Army: The Draft Comes to Modern America.Footnote ¹ Like Chambers, Kastenberg lauds Crowder for shaping a draft that was fair, universal, and nonpolitical, unlike Civil War conscription, which allowed draftees to purchase replacements.

The large number of soldiers, many of them conscripts, proved a challenge to army lawyers, and Crowder expanded the Judge Advocate General's office from twelve judge advocates to more than four hundred. Even with this expansion, most trials were prosecuted by line officers with limited legal training assigned to cases on an ad hoc basis before returning to their regular duties. Judge advocates operated in an oversight role, advising officers on legal issues and reviewing the findings of courts-martial. Many cases involved allied militaries and governments, which further complicated matters. Kastenberg discusses these in detail, as well as the legal issues involving the internment of Germans in the United States; prosecutions of German saboteurs, such as those responsible for the Black Tom explosion; prosecutions of U.S. soldiers for crimes committed against civilians in Belgium, France, and Germany; as well the U.S. expeditions to Russia, and the treatment of German prisoners of war.

Military law remains an understudied topic, and this immensely detailed book will be of value to anyone researching the topic. Kastenberg summarizes numerous courts-martial, with charges ranging from petty crimes to rape and murder, as well as military offenses, including desertion, conduct unbecoming an officer, disloyalty, and sedition. The book suffers, though, from insufficient analysis. Between 1917 and 1921, the U.S. Army held 31,000 general courts-martial and 300,000 lesser trials over what were essentially misdemeanor offenses that could not lead to dishonorably discharged soldiers. As Kastenberg notes, this is a huge number, accounting for almost 10 percent of U.S. soldiers. By September 1917, the army was dishonorably discharging one hundred soldiers per week. What explains this high rate? How did military justice compare to the civilian courts in terms of crimes, conviction rates, and sentencing? Kastenberg provides numerous examples of African Americans tried in courts-martial, but provides no assessment of whether these occurred at higher rates than the army average, the rates of conviction, the severity of sentences, or comparisons to the treatment of African Americans in civilian courts. A reader will finish this book with many unanswered questions.