Titular functions of an organizing character, nevertheless, had been conferred upon six members of the Cabinet in August, 1916, through the creation of a "Council of National Defense"; they were charged with the "cooerdination of industries and resources for the national security and welfare." The actual labor of cooerdination, however, was to be exercised by an advisory commission of seven, which included Howard E. Coffin, in charge of munitions, Daniel Willard, president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, in charge of transportation, Julius Rosenwald, president of the Sears-Roebuck Company, in charge of supplies including clothing, Bernard M. Baruch, a versatile financial trader, in charge of metals, minerals, and raw materials, Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, in charge of labor and the welfare of workers, Hollis Godfrey in charge of engineering and education, and Franklin H. Martin in charge of medicine. The commission at once prepared to lay down its programme, to create sub-committees and technical boards, and to secure the assistance of business leaders, without whose cooeperation their task could not be fulfilled.

Following plans developed by the Council of National Defense, experts in every business likely to prove of importance were called upon to cooerdinate and stimulate war necessities, to control their distribution, to provide for the settlement of disputes between employers and wage-earners, to fix prices, to conserve resources. Scientific and technical experts were directed in their researches. The General Medical Board and the Committee on Engineering and Education were supervised in their mobilization of doctors and surgeons, engineers, physicists and chemists, professors and graduate students in the university laboratories. Everywhere and in all lines experience and brains were sought and utilized. State Councils of Defense were created to oversee the work of smaller units and to establish an effective means of communication between the individual and the national Government. Naturally much over-organization resulted and some waste of time and energy; but the universal spirit of voluntary cooeperation evoked by the Councils overbalanced this loss and aided greatly in putting the country on an effective war basis. As Wilson said, "beyond all question the highest and best form of efficiency is the spontaneous cooeperation of a free people." In return for their efforts the people received an education in public spirit and civic consciousness such as could have come in no other way.

Of the committees of the Council, that on munitions developed along the most elaborate lines, becoming of such importance that on July 28, 1917, it was reorganized as the War Industries Board. As such it gradually absorbed most of the functions of the Council which were not transferred to other agencies of the Government. During the autumn of 1917 the activities of the Board underwent rapid extension, but it lacked the power to enforce its decisions. As in the case of the General Staff, it was important that it should have authority not merely to plan but also to supervise and execute. Such a development was foreshadowed in the reorganization of the Board in March, 1918, under the chairmanship of Bernard M. Baruch, and when the President received the blanket authority conferred by the Overman Act, he immediately invested the War Industries Board with the centralizing power which seemed so necessary. Henceforth it exercised an increasingly strict control over all the industries of the country.

The purpose of the Board was, generally speaking, to secure for the Government and the Allies the goods essential for making war successfully, and to protect the civil needs of the country. The supply of raw materials to the manufacturer as well as the delivery of finished products was closely regulated by a system of priorities. The power of the Board in its later development was dictatorial, inasmuch as it might discipline any refractory producer or manufacturer by the withdrawal of the assignments he expected. The leaders of each of the more important industries were called into council, in order to determine resources and needs, and the degree of preference to which each industry was entitled. Some were especially favored, in order to stimulate production in a line that was of particular importance or was failing to meet the exigencies of the military situation; shipments to others of a less essential character were deferred. Committees of the Board studied industrial conditions and recommended the price that should be fixed for various commodities; stability was thus artificially secured and profiteering lessened. The Conservation Division worked out and enforced methods of standardizing patterns in order to economize materials and labor. The Steel Division cooeperated with the manufacturers for the speeding-up of production; and the Chemical Division, among other duties, stimulated the vitally important supply of potash, dyes, and nitrates. Altogether it has been roughly estimated that the industrial capacity of the country was increased by twenty per cent through the organizing labors and authority of the War Industries Board.

The success of this Board would have been impossible without the building up of an extraordinary esprit de corps among the men who were brought face to face with these difficult problems of industry and commerce. Their chairman relied, of course, upon the cooeperation of the leaders of "big business," who now, in the hour of the country's need, sank their prejudice against governmental interference and gave freely of their experience, brains, and administrative power. Men whose incomes were measured in the hundreds of thousands forgot their own business and worked at Washington on a salary of a dollar a year.

The same spirit of cooeperation was evoked when it came to the conservation and the production of food. If steel was to win the war, its burden could not be supported without wheat, and for some months in 1917 and 1918 victory seemed to depend largely upon whether the Allies could find enough to eat. Even in normal times Great Britain and France import large quantities of foodstuffs; under war conditions they were necessarily dependent upon foreign grain-producing countries. The surplus grain of the Argentine and Australia was not available because of the length of the voyage and the scarcity of shipping; the Russian wheat supply was cut off by enemy control of the Dardanelles even before it was dissipated by corrupt officials or reckless revolutionaries. The Allies, on the verge of starvation, therefore looked to North America. Yet the stock of cereals when the United States entered the war was at a lower level than it had been for years and the number of food animals had also been reduced.

To meet the crisis President Wilson called upon one of the most interesting and commanding personalities of modern times. Herbert Clark Hoover was a Californian mining engineer, of broad experience in Australia, China, and England, who in 1914 had been given control of Allied Relief abroad. The following year he undertook the difficult and delicate task of organizing food relief for Belgium. He was able to arouse the enthusiastic sympathy of Americans, win financial support on a large scale, procure the much-needed food, and provide for its effective distribution among the suffering Belgians, in spite of the suspicions of the Germans and the hindrances thrown in his path. A master organizer, with keen flair for efficient subordinates, of broad vision never muddied by details, with sound knowledge of business economics, and a gift for dramatic appeal, Hoover was ideally fitted to conduct the greatest experiment in economic organization the world had seen. Unsentimental himself, he knew how to arouse emotion—a necessary quality, since the food problem demanded heavy personal sacrifices which would touch every individual; brusque in manner, he avoided giving the offense which naturally follows any interference with the people's dinner and which would destroy the essential spirit of voluntary cooeperation.

Five days after the declaration of war, President Wilson, through the Council of National Defense, named a committee on food supply, with Hoover at its head, and shortly thereafter named him food commissioner. Hoover began his work of educating the people to realize the necessity of economy and extra-production; but he lacked the administrative powers which were essential if his work was to prove effective, and it was not until August that Congress passed the Lever Act which provided for strict control of food under an administrator. This measure encountered strong opposition in the Senate and from the farmers, who feared lest the provisions against hoarding of food would prevent them from holding their products for high prices. Wilson exerted his personal influence vigorously for the bill in the face of congressional opposition, which demanded that large powers of control should be given to a Senate committee of ten, and he was finally successful in his appeal. He thereupon appointed Hoover Food Administrator with practically unlimited powers, legalizing the work already begun on his own initiative.

Hoover at once made arrangements to prevent the storage of wheat in large quantities and to eliminate speculative dealings in wheat on the grain exchanges. He then offered to buy the entire wheat crop at a fair price and agreed with the millers to take flour at a fair advance on the price of wheat. Fearful lest the farmers should be discouraged from planting the following year, 1918, he offered to buy all the wheat that could be raised at two dollars a bushel. If peace came before the crop was disposed of, the Government might be compelled to take over the wheat at a higher price than the market, but the offer was a necessary inducement to extensive planting. In the meantime Hoover appealed to the country to utilize every scrap of ground for the growing of food products. Every one of whatever age and class turned gardener. The spacious and perfectly trimmed lawns of the wealthy, as well as the weed-infested back yards of the poor, were dug up and planted with potatoes or corn. Community gardens flourished in the villages and outside of the larger towns, where men, women, and children came out in the evening, after their regular work, to labor with rake and hoe. There were perhaps two million "war gardens" over and beyond the already established gardens, which unquestionably enabled many a citizen to reduce his daily demands on the grocer, and stimulated his interest in the problem of food conservation. As a result of Hoover's dealing with the farmers, during the year 1917 the planted wheat acreage exceeded the average of the preceding five years by thirty-five million acres, or by about twelve per cent, and another additional five million acres were planted in 1918. The result was the largest wheat crop in American history except that of 1915, despite the killing cold of the winter of 1917 and the withering drought of the summer of 1918. An increase in the number of live stock was also secured and the production of milk, meat, and wool showed a notable development.

Hoover achieved equal success in the problem of conserving food. He realized that he must bring home to the individual housewife the need of the closest economy, and he organized a nation-wide movement to secure voluntary pledges that the rules and requests of the Food Administration would be observed. People were asked to use other flours than wheat whenever possible, to be sparing of sugar and meat, to utilize substitutes, and rigidly to avoid waste. On every billboard and in all the newspapers were to be seen appeals to save food. Housewives were enrolled as "members of the Food Administration" and were given placards to post in their windows announcing their membership and the willingness of the family to abide by its requests. Certain days of the week were designated as "wheatless" or "meatless" when voluntary demi-fasts were to be observed, the nonobservance of which spelled social ostracism. To "Hooverize" became a national habit, and children were denied a spoonful of sugar on their cereal, "because Mr. Hoover would not like it." Hoover, with his broad forehead, round face, compelling eyes, and underhung jaw, became the benevolent bogey of the nation. It was a movement of general renunciation such as no country had undergone except at the pinch of biting necessity.[7] In the meantime prices were prevented from rapid increase by a system of licenses, which tended to prevent hoarding or speculation. Attempts to capitalize the need of the world for private gain, or in common parlance, to "profiteer," were comparatively rare and were adequately punished by revocation of license or by forced sale of hoardings.

[Footnote 7: Restaurants and hotels cooeperated; during a period of only two months they were reported as having saved nine thousand tons of meat, four thousand tons of flour, and a thousand tons of sugar. City garbage plants announced a decrease in the amount of garbage collected ranging from ten to thirteen per cent.]

As a result of the organization of food supply, the stimulation of production, and the prevention of waste, America was able to save the Entente nations, and, later, much of central and southeastern Europe from starvation, without herself enduring anything worse than discomfort. The Government was able at the same time to provide the troops in France with food which, to the poilus at least, seemed luxurious. When the United States entered the war the country was prepared to export 20,000,000 bushels of wheat; instead it sent over 141,000,000. In four months, in the summer of 1918, the American people saved out of their regular consumption and sent abroad half a million tons of sugar. The autumn of 1918 saw an increase of nearly a million tons of pork products over what was available the previous year. Altogether, during the crop year of 1918, America doubled the average amount of food sent to Europe immediately before the war, notwithstanding unfavorable weather conditions and the congestion of freight that resulted from other war necessities. The total contribution in foodstuffs exported to Europe that year amounted to a value of about two billion dollars. This was done without food cards and with a minimum of edicts. It was the work of education and conscience.

Fuel like food was a war necessity and there was equal need of stimulating production by assuring a fair profit and of eliminating all possible waste. Without the steam power provided by coal, raw materials could not be transformed into the manufactured articles demanded by military necessity, nor distributed by the railroads and steamships. Soon after the declaration of war, a committee of coal operators, meeting under the authorization of the Council of National Defense, drew up a plan for the stimulation of coal production and its more economical distribution. This committee voluntarily set a price for coal lower than the current market price, in order to prevent a rise in manufacturing costs; it was approved by the Secretary of the Interior, who warmly praised the spirit of sacrifice displayed by the operators. Unfortunately the Secretary of War, as chairman of the Council of National Defense, repudiated the arrangement, on the ground that the price agreed upon was too high. The operators were discouraged, because of the difficulty of stimulating production under the lower price which Secretary Baker insisted upon; they were further disappointed at the postponement of plans for a zone system and an elimination of long cross hauls, designed to relieve the load that would be thrown upon railroad transportation in the coming winter.

In August, Wilson was empowered by the Lever Act to appoint a Fuel Administrator and chose Harry A. Garfield, President of Williams College. Conditions, however, became more confused. The fuel problem was one of transportation quite as much as of production; the railroads were unable to furnish the needed coal-cars, and because of an expensive and possibly unfair system of car allotment, coal distribution was hampered. Add to this the fact that numerous orders for coal shipments had been deferred until autumn, in the belief that the Administration, which in the person of Baker was not believed to look on the coal operators with favor, would enforce low prices. Hence during the last three months of the year an unprecedented amount of coal had to be shipped, and the congestion on the competing railroads was such that the country faced a real coal famine. In December, the Government recognized the obvious fact that the railroad must be placed under one management, if the confusion in the whole industrial situation were to be eliminated. President Wilson accordingly announced that the Federal Government would take over the railroads for the period of the war.

This measure came too late to save the country from the evil effects of the fuel shortage. The penalty for the delays of the preceding summer had to be paid, and it was the heavier because of the severity of the winter. Overloaded trains were stalled and harbors froze over, imprisoning the coal barges. Thirty-seven ships laden with essential military supplies were held up in New York harbor for lack of fuel, and long strings of empties blocked the sidings, while the shippers all over the country cried for cars. To meet the crisis Garfield decreed that all manufacturing plants east of the Mississippi should be shut down for five days and for a series of Mondays, until the 25th of March. The order applied also to places of amusement, private offices, and most stores, which were not allowed to furnish heat. Munitions plants and essential industries, as well as Government offices were naturally excepted. "Heatless Mondays" caused great inconvenience and bitter criticism, for they came at the moment when it was most important that the economic life of the nation should be functioning at its greatest efficiency. But the embargo helped to tide over the crisis. As in the case of food, the public, once it appreciated the necessity of the situation, accepted it cheerfully. Domestic economy was also widely preached and applied, to the slogan, "Save a shovelful of coal a day." The elimination of electric advertisements and the diminution of street lighting, served to lessen the non-essential demand for coal; and the crisis also forced the introduction of "daylight saving," the advancement of the clock by an hour, during the months extending from March to October, thus saving artificial light.

In the meantime the Fuel Administration, the operators, and the miners were cooeperating to increase coal production. The enthusiasm of the mine workers was stimulated by making them realize that they were indeed part of the fighting forces. A competitive spirit was aroused and mining conditions were bettered to keep them satisfied. Labor responded to the call. Holidays were omitted and emulation between different shifts became keen.[8] Increased production was paralleled by more efficient distribution. A zone system, finally put into operation, eliminated approximately 160,000,000 car miles. Local fuel administrators kept in constant touch with the need of the localities under their jurisdiction, studied methods of abolishing unnecessary manufacturing use of coal and refused coal to non-essential industries.

[Footnote 8: In 1918 the average number of days worked by each miner in the bituminous fields was greater by twelve than that of 1917, and by twenty-five than that of 1916. During the half-year period from April to September, 1918, bituminous production was twelve per cent greater than in the corresponding period of the previous year, which had itself established a record, despite the decrease in the number of mine workers.]

Similar increase in the production and saving of oil was accomplished. The oil-burning vessels of the allied navies and merchant marines, the motor transport service of the armies, all made this necessary. In 1918 the production of oil in the United States was fourteen per cent greater than in 1914. In response to an urgent cable from Marshal Foch, which ran: "If you don't keep up your petrol supply we shall lose the war," a series of "gasless Sundays" was suggested. For nearly two months, merely at the request of the Fuel Administration and without any compulsion except that arising from public opinion, Sunday motoring was practically abandoned. That most crowded of motor thoroughfares, the Boston Post Road from New York to Stamford, might have served as playground for a kindergarten. The estimated saving of gasoline amounted to a million barrels: about four per cent of the gasoline sent abroad in 1918 was provided by the gasless Sundays.

Credit must be given the Fuel Administration for the large measure of success which it finally secured. It was slow in its early organization and at first failed to make full use of the volunteer committees of coal operators and labor representatives who offered their assistance and whose experience qualified them to give invaluable advice. But Garfield showed his capacity for learning the basic facts of the situation, and ultimately chose strong advisers. When he entered upon his duties he found the crisis so far advanced that it could not be immediately solved. Furthermore, in a situation which demanded the closest cooeperation between the Fuel and the Railroad Administration, he did not always receive the assistance from the latter which he had a right to expect.

As a war measure, the temporary nationalization of the railroads was probably necessary. Whatever the ultimate advantages of private ownership and the system of competition, during the period of military necessity perfect cooerdination was essential. Railroad facilities could not be improved because new equipment, so far as it could be manufactured, had to be sent abroad; the only solution of the problem of congestion seemed to be an improvement of service. During the first nine months after the declaration of war a notable increase in the amount of freight carried was effected; nevertheless, as winter approached, it became obvious that the roads were not operating as a unit and could not carry the load demanded of them. Hence resulted the appointment of McAdoo in December, 1917, as Director-General, with power to operate all the railroads as a single line.

During the spring of 1918 the Administration gradually overcame the worst of the transportation problems. To the presidents and management of the various railroads must go the chief share of credit for the successful accomplishment of this titanic task. Despite their distrust of McAdoo and their objections to his methods, they cooeperated loyally with the Railroad Administration in putting through the necessary measures of cooerdination and in the elimination of the worst features of the former competitive system. They adopted a permit system which prevented the loading of freight unless it could be unloaded at its destination; they insisted upon more rapid unloading of cars; they consolidated terminals to facilitate the handling of cars; they curtailed circuitous routing of freight; they reduced the use of Pullman cars for passenger service. As a result, after May, 1918, congestion was diminished and during the summer was no longer acute. This was accomplished despite the number of troops moved, amounting during the first ten months of 1918 to six and a half millions. In addition the railroads carried large quantities of food, munitions, building materials for cantonments, and other supplies, most of which converged upon eastern cities and ports. The increase in the number of grain-carrying cars alone, from July to November, was 135,000 over the same period of the previous year.

Unquestionably the Government's administration of the railroads has a darker side. Complaints were frequent that the Railroad Administration sacrificed other interests for its own advantage. The future of the roads was said not to be carefully safeguarded, and equipment and rolling stock mishandled and allowed to deteriorate. Above all, at the moment when it was quite as essential to preserve the morale of labor on the home front as that of the troops in France, McAdoo made concessions to labor that were more apt to destroy discipline and esprit de corps than to maintain them. The authority given for the unionization of railroad employees, the stopping of piecework, the creation of shop committees, weakened the control of the foremen and led to a loss of shop efficiency which has been estimated at thirty per cent. Government control was necessary, but in the form in which it came it proved costly.

During the months when manufacturing plants were built and their output speeded up, when fuel and food were being produced in growing amounts, when the stalled freight trains were being disentangled, there was unceasing call for ocean-going tonnage. Food and war materials would be of little use unless the United States had the ships in which to transport them across the Atlantic. The Allies sorely needed American help to replace the tonnage sunk by German submarines; during some months, Allied shipping was being destroyed at the rate of six million tons a year. Furthermore if an effective military force were to be transported to France, according to the plans that germinated in the summer of 1917, there would be need of every possible cubic inch of tonnage. The entire military situation hinged upon the shipping problem. Yet when the United States joined in war on Germany there was not a shipyard in the country which would accept a new order; every inch of available space was taken by the navy or private business.

In September, 1916, the United States Shipping Board had been organized to operate the Emergency Fleet Corporation, which had been set up primarily to develop trade with South America. This body now prepared a gigantic programme of shipbuilding, which expanded as the need for tonnage became more evident. By November 15, 1917, the Board planned for 1200 ships with dead weight tonnage of seven and a half millions. The difficulties of building new yards, of collecting trained workmen and technicians were undoubtedly great, but they might have been overcome more easily had not unfortunate differences developed between William Denman, the chairman of the Board, who advocated wooden ships, and General George W. Goethals, the head of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, who depended upon steel construction. The differences led to the resignation of both and continued disorganization hampered the rapid fulfillment of the programme Edward N. Hurley became chairman of the Shipping Board, but it was not until the spring of 1918, when Charles M. Schwab of the Bethlehem Steel Company was put in charge of the Emergency Fleet Corporation as Director General of shipbuilding, that public confidence in ultimate success seemed justified.

Much of the work accomplished during the latter days of the war was spectacular. Waste lands along the Delaware overgrown with weeds were transformed within a year into a shipyard with twenty-eight ways, a ship under construction on each one, with a record of fourteen ships already launched. The spirit of the workmen was voiced by the placard that hung above the bulletin board announcing daily progress, which proclaimed, "Three ships a week or bust." The Hog Island yards near Philadelphia and the Fore River yards in Massachusetts became great cities with docks, sidings, shops, offices, and huge stacks of building materials. Existing yards, such as those on the Great Lakes, were enlarged so that in fourteen months they sent to the ocean a fleet of 181 steel vessels. The new ships were standardized and built on the "fabricated" system, which provided for the manufacture of the various parts in different factories and their assembling at the shipyards. In a single day, July 4, 1918, there were launched in American shipyards ninety-five vessels, with a dead weight tonnage of 474,464. In one of the Great Lakes yards a 5500 ton steel freighter was launched seventeen days after the keel was laid, and seventeen days later was delivered to the Shipping Board, complete and ready for service.

This work was not accomplished without tremendous expenditure and much waste. The Shipping Board was careless in its financial management and unwise in many of its methods. By introducing the cost plus system in the letting of contracts it fostered extravagance and waste and increased and intensified the industrial evils that had resulted from its operation in the building of army cantonments. The contractors received the cost of construction plus a percentage commission; obviously they had no incentive to economize; the greater the expense the larger their commission. Hence they willingly paid exorbitant prices for materials and agreed to "fancy" wages. Not merely was the expense of securing the necessary tonnage multiplied, but the cost of materials and labor in all other industries was seriously enhanced. The high wages paid tended to destroy the patriotic spirit of the shipworkers, who were enticed by greed rather than by the glory of service. The effect on drafted soldiers was bound to be unfortunate, for they could not but realize the injustice of a system which gave them low pay for risking their lives, while their friends in the shipyards received fabulous wages. Such aspects of the early days of the Shipping Board were ruthlessly reformed by Schwab when he took control of the Emergency Fleet Corporation. Appealing to the patriotism of the workers he reduced costs and increased efficiency, according to some critics, by thirty per cent, according to others, by no less than one hundred and ten per cent.

By September, 1918, the Shipping Board had brought under its jurisdiction 2600 vessels with a total dead weight tonnage of more than ten millions. Of this fleet, sixteen per cent had been built by the Emergency Fleet Corporation. The remainder was represented by ships which the Board had requisitioned when America entered the war, by the ships of Allied and neutral countries which had been purchased and chartered, and by interned enemy ships which had been seized. The last-named were damaged by their crews at the time of the declaration of war, but were fitted for service with little delay by a new process of electric welding. Such German boats as the Vaterland, rechristened the Leviathan, and the George Washington, together with smaller ships, furnished half a million tons of German cargo-space. The ships which transported American soldiers were not chiefly provided by the Shipping Board, more than fifty per cent being represented by boats borrowed from Great Britain.[9]

[Footnote 9: In the last six months of the war over 1,500,000 men were carried abroad as follows: 44 per cent in United States ships 51 per cent in British ships 3 per cent in Italian ships 2 per cent in French ships The United States transports included 450,000 tons of German origin; 300,000 tons supplied by commandeered Dutch boats; and 718,000 tons provided by the Emergency Fleet Corporation.]

More effective use of shipping was fostered by the War Trade Board, which had been created six months after the declaration of war by the Trading with the Enemy Act (October 6, 1917), and which, in conjunction with the activities of the Alien Property Custodian, possessed full powers to curtail enemy trade. It thereby obtained practical control of the foreign commerce of this country, and was able both to conserve essential products for American use and to secure and economize tonnage.

Such control was assured through a system of licenses for exports and imports. No goods could be shipped into or out of the country without a license, which was granted by the War Trade Board only after investigation of the character of the shipment and its destination or source. The earlier export of goods which had found their way to Germany through neutral countries was thus curtailed and the blockade on Germany became strangling. Products necessary to military effectiveness were secured from neutral states in return for permission to buy essentials here. Two millions of tonnage were obtained from neutral states for the use of the United States and Great Britain. Trade in non-essentials with the Orient and South America was limited, extra bottoms were thus acquired, and the production of non-essentials at home discouraged. Altogether, the War Trade Board exercised tremendous powers which, however necessary, might have provoked intense resentment in business circles; but these powers were enforced with a tact and discretion characteristic of the head of the Board, Vance McCormick, who was able successfully to avoid the irritation that might have been expected from such governmental interference with freedom of commerce.

The problem of labor was obviously one that must be faced by each of the war boards or administrations, and nearly all of them were compelled to establish some sort of labor division or tribunal within each separate field. The demands made upon the labor market by war industry were heavy, for the withdrawal of labor into the army created an inevitable scarcity at the moment when production must be increased, and the different industries naturally were brought to bid against each other; the value of any wage scale was constantly affected by the rising prices, while the introduction of inexperienced workmen and women affected the conditions of piecework, so that the question of wages and conditions of labor gave rise to numerous discussions. The Labor Committee of the Council of National Defense had undertaken to meet such problems as early as February, 1917, but it was not until the beginning of the next year that the Department of Labor underwent a notable reorganization with the purpose of effecting the cooerdination necessary to complete success.

Unlike the food, fuel, and transportation problems, which were solved through new administrations not connected with the Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of Mines, or the Interstate Commerce Commission respectively, that of labor was met by new bureaus and boards which were organic parts of the existing Department of Labor. In January, 1918, that Department undertook the formulation and administration of a national war labor policy. Shortly afterwards delegates of the National Industrial Conference Board and of the American Federation of Labor, representing capital and labor, worked out a unanimous report upon the principles to be followed in labor adjustment. To enforce these recommendations the President, on April 9, 1918, appointed a National War Labor Board, which until November sat as a court of final appeal in labor disputes. An index of the importance of the Board was given by the choice of ex-President Taft as one of its chairmen. A month later, a War Labor Policies Board was added to the system to lay down general rules for the use of the War Labor Board in the rendering of its judgments.

Not merely enthusiasm and brains enabled America to make the extraordinary efforts demanded by the exigencies of war. Behind every line of activity lay the need of money: and the raising of money in amounts so large that they passed the comprehension of the average citizen, forms one of the most romantic stories of the war. It is the story of the enthusiastic cooeperation of rich and poor: Wall Street and the humblest foreign immigrants gave of their utmost in the attempt to provide the all-important funds for America and her associates in the war. Citizens accepted the weight of income and excess profit taxes far heavier than any American had previously dreamed of. They were asked in addition to buy government bonds to a total of fourteen billions, and they responded by oversubscribing this amount by nearly five billions. Of the funds needed for financing the war, the Government planned to raise about a third by taxation, and the remainder by the sale of bonds and certificates maturing in from five to thirty years. It would have proved the financial statesmanship of McAdoo had he dared to raise a larger proportion by taxation; for thus much of the inflation which inevitably resulted from the bond issues might have been avoided. But the Government feared alike for its popularity and for the immediate effect upon business, which could not safely be discouraged. As it was, the excess profit taxes aroused great complaint. The amount raised in direct taxation represented a larger proportion of the war budget than any foreign nation had been able to secure from tax revenues.

In seeking to sell its bonds the Government, rather against its will, was compelled to rely largely upon the capitalists. The large popular subscriptions would have been impossible but for the assistance and enthusiasm shown by the banks in the selling campaign. Wall Street and the bankers of the country were well prepared and responded with all their strength, a response which deserves the greater credit when we remember the lack of sympathy which had existed between financial circles and President Wilson's Administration. Largely under banking auspices the greatest selling campaign on record was inaugurated. Bonds were placed on sale at street corners, in theaters, and restaurants; disposed of by eminent operatic stars, moving-picture favorites, and wounded heroes from the front. Steeple jacks attracted crowds by their perilous antics, in order to start the bidding for subscriptions. Villages and isolated farmhouses were canvassed. The banks used their entire machinery to induce subscriptions, offering to advance the subscription price. When during the first loan campaign the rather unwise optimism of the Treasury cooled enthusiasm for a moment, by making it appear that the loan could be floated without effort, Wall Street took up the load. The first loan was oversubscribed by a billion. The success of the three loans that followed was equally great; the fourth, coming in October, 1918, was set for six billion dollars, the largest amount that had ever been asked of any people, and after a three weeks' campaign, seven billions were subscribed. Quite as notable as the amount raised was the progressive increase in the number of subscribers, which ranged from four million individuals in the first loan to more than twenty-one millions in the fourth. Equally notable, as indicating the educative effect of the war and of the sale of these Liberty Bonds, was the successful effort to encourage thrift. War Savings societies were instituted and children saved their pennies and nickels to buy twenty-five cent "thrift stamps" which might be accumulated to secure interest-bearing savings certificates. Down to November 1, 1918, the sale of such stamps totalled $834,253,000, with a maturity value of more than a billion dollars.

The successful organizing of national resources to supply military demands obviously depended, in the last instance, upon the education of the people to a desire for service and sacrifice. The Liberty Loan campaigns, the appeals of Hoover, and the Fuel Administration, all were of importance in producing such morale. In addition the Council of National Defense, through the Committee on Public Information, spread pamphlets emphasizing the issues of the war and the objects for which we were fighting. At every theater and moving-picture show, in the factories during the noon hours, volunteer speakers told briefly of the needs of the Government and appealed for cooeperation. These were the so-called "Four Minute Men." The most noted artists gave their talent to covering the billboards with patriotic and informative posters. Blue Devils who had fought at Verdun, captured tanks, and airplanes, were paraded in order to bring home the realities of the life and death struggle in which America was engaged. The popular response was inspiring. In the face of the national enthusiasm the much-vaunted plans of the German Government for raising civil disturbance fell to the ground. Labor was sometimes disorganized by German propaganda; destruction of property or war material was accomplished by German agents; and valuable information sometimes leaked out to the enemy. But the danger was always kept in check by the Department of Justice and also by a far-reaching citizen organization, the American Protective League. Equally surprising was the lack of opposition to the war on the part of pacifists and socialists. It was rare to find the "sedition" for which some of them were punished, perhaps over-promptly, translated from words to actions.

* * * * *

The organization of the industrial resources of the nation was complicated by the same conditions that affected the purely military problems—decentralization and the emergency demands that resulted from the sudden decision to send a large expeditionary force to France. The various organizing boards were so many individual solutions for individual problems. At the beginning of the war the Council of National Defense represented the only attempt at a central business organization, and as time went on the importance and the influence of the Council diminished. The effects of decentralization became painfully apparent during the bitter cold of the winter months, when the fuel, transportation, and food crises combined to threaten almost complete paralysis of the economic and military mobilization.

The distrust and discouragement that followed brought forth furious attacks upon the President's war policies, led not merely by Roosevelt and Republican enemies of the Administration, but by Democratic Senators. The root of the whole difficulty, they contended, lay in the fact that Wilson had no policy. They demanded practically the abdication of the presidential control of military affairs, either through the creation of a Ministry of Munitions or of a War Cabinet. In either case Congress would control the situation through its definition of the powers of the new organization and the appointment of its personnel.

President Wilson utilized the revolt to secure the complete centralization toward which he had been aiming. He fought the new proposals on the ground that they merely introduced new machinery to complicate the war organization, and he insisted that true policy demanded rather an increase in the efficiency of existing machinery. If the General Staff and the War Industries Board were given power to supervise and execute as well as to plan, the country would have the machinery at hand capable of forming a central organization, which could determine in the first place what was wanted and where, and in the second place how it could be supplied. All that was necessary was to give the President a free hand to effect any transfer of organization, funds, or functions in any of the existing departments of government, without being compelled to apply to Congress in each case.

The struggle between Wilson and his opponents was sharp, but the President carried the day. He exerted to the full his influence on Congress and utilized skillfully the argument that at this moment of crisis a swapping of horses might easily prove fatal. Opposing Congressmen drew back at the thought of shouldering the responsibility which they knew the President would throw upon them if he were defeated. On May 20, 1918, the Overman Act became law, giving to the President the blanket powers which he demanded and which he immediately used to centralize the military and industrial organization. Bureau chiefs were bitter in their disapproval; the National Guard grumbled, even as it fought its best battles in France; politicians saw their chance of influencing military affairs disappear; business men complained of the economic dictatorship thus secured by the President. But Mr. Wilson was at last in a position to effect that which seemed to him of greatest importance—the concentration of responsibility and authority.

Upon the shoulders of the President, accordingly, must rest in the last instance the major portion of the blame and the credit to be distributed for the mistakes and the achievements of the military and economic organization. He took no part in the working out of details. Once the development of any committee of organization had been started, he left the control of it entirely to those who had been placed in charge. But he would have been untrue to his nature if he had not at all times been determined to keep the reins of supreme control in his own hands. His opponents insisted that the organization was formed in spite of him. It is probable that he did not himself perceive the crying need for centralization so clearly in 1917 as he did in 1918; and the protests of his political opponents doubtless brought the realization of its necessity more definitely home to him. But there is no evidence to indicate that the process of centralization was forced upon him against his will and much to show that he sought always that concentration of responsibility and power which he insisted upon in politics. The task was herculean; ironically enough it was facilitated by the revolt against his war policies which resulted in the Senate investigation and the Overman Act. His tactics were by no means above reproach, and his entire policy nearly went on the rocks in the winter of 1917 because of his inability to treat successfully with the Senate and with Republican Congressmen.

When all is said, however, the organization that was developed during the last six months of the war transported and maintained in Europe more than a million and a half American soldiers; at home it maintained two millions more, ready to sail at the earliest opportunity; and it was prepared to raise and equip an army of five and a half millions by June 30, 1920. The process had been slow and the results were not apparent for many months. Furthermore, because of the intensity of the danger and the absolute need of victory, cherished traditions were sacrificed and steps taken which were to cost much later on; for the price of these achievements was inevitable reaction and social unrest. But with all the mistakes and all the cost, the fact still remains that the most gigantic transformation of history—the transformation of an unmilitary and peace-loving nation of ninety million souls into a belligerent power—was successfully accomplished.



CHAPTER VIII

THE FIGHTING FRONT

The encouragement given to the Allies by the entrance of the United States into the war injected a temporary ray of brightness into the situation abroad, but with the realization that long months must elapse before American aid could prove effective, came deep disappointment. The spring of 1917 did not bring the expected success to the French and British on the western front; and the summer and autumn carried intense discouragement. Hindenburg, early in the spring, executed a skillful retreat on the Somme front, which gave to the Allies the territory to which their previous capture of Peronne and Bapaume entitled them. But the Germans, losing some square miles, saved their troops and supplies. British attacks on the north gained little ground at terrible cost. The French offensive, planned by Nivelle, which was designed to break the German line, had to be given up after bloody checks. There was mutiny in the French armies and the morale of the civilian population sank.

The hopes that had been aroused by the Russian revolution were seen to be deceptive; instead of a national movement directed towards a more active struggle against Germany, it now appeared in its true colors as a demand for peace and land above everything. The Brusilov attack, which the Allies insisted upon, proved to be a flash in the pan and ended with the complete military demoralization of Russian armies. The collapse of the Italian forces at Caporetto followed. Italy was not merely unable to distract the attention of the Central Powers by a determined offensive against Austria, but she threatened to become a liability; no one knew how many French divisions might have to be diverted to aid in the defense of the new Piave front. General Byng's break of the German lines at Cambrai was more than offset by the equally brilliant German counter-attack. And every day the submarine was taking its toll of Allied shipping.

Following the Italian debacle, the Bolshevik revolution of November indicated that Russia would wholly withdraw and that that great potential source of man-power for the Allies could no longer be counted upon. Allied leaders realized that Germany would be able to transfer large numbers of troops to the western front, and became seriously alarmed. "The Allies are very weak," cabled General Pershing, on the 2d of December, "and we must come to their relief this year, 1918. The year after may be too late. It is very doubtful if they can hold on until 1919 unless we give them a lot of support this year." Showing that the schedule of troop shipments would be inadequate and complaining that the actual shipments were not even being kept up to programme, Pershing insisted upon the importance of the most strenuous efforts to secure extra tonnage, which alone would make it possible for the American army to take a proper share in the military operations of 1918.

The serious representations of General Pershing were reinforced by Colonel House when he returned from abroad on the 15th of December. For six weeks he had been in conference, as head of a war mission, with the Allied political and military leaders, who now realized the necessity of unity of plan. Because of his personal intimacy with French and British statesmen and his acknowledged skill in negotiations, House had done much to bring about Allied harmony and to pave the way for a supreme military command. Like Pershing, he was convinced of the danger threatening the Allies, and from the moment of his return began the speeding-up process, which was to result in the presence of a large American force on the battle front at the moment of crisis in the early summer of 1918.

Tonnage was obviously the vital factor upon which effective military assistance depended. The United States had the men, although they were not completely trained, but the apparent impossibility of transporting them formed the great obstacle. The problem could not have been solved without the assistance of the Allies. With the threat of the German drive, and especially after the first German victories of 1918, they began to appreciate the necessity of sacrificing everything to the tonnage necessary to transport American soldiers to France. After long hesitation they agreed to a pooling of Allied tonnage for this purpose. Most of the Allied ships ultimately furnished the United States were provided by the British, whose transports carried a million American troops to France. French and Italian boats transported 112,000; our own transports, 927,000.

Thus by relying largely upon the shipping assistance of our associates in the war we were able to respond to the demands of General Pershing and, later, Marshal Foch. And thus came about the extraordinary development of our military programme from the thirty to the eighty and one hundred division plans, which resulted in tremendous confusion, but which also ultimately ensured Allied victory in 1918. Until the end of the year 1917, we had put into France only 195,000 troops, including 7500 marines, an average of about 28,000 a month. From December to February the average rose to 48,000; from March to May it was 149,000; and from June to August it was 290,000 men a month. During the four months from May to August inclusive, 1,117,000 American troops were transported to France.

Altogether about two million Americans were sent to France, without the loss of a single man while under the escort of United States vessels. No navy troop transports were torpedoed on east-bound trips although three were sunk on the return trip with loss of 138 lives. To the American and British navies must go the credit for carrying through this stupendous feat, and in the work of assuring the safety of the troop transports the navy of the United States may claim recognition for the larger share, since 82 per cent of the escorts furnished were American cruisers and destroyers. It was a nerve-racking and tantalizing experience—the troop ships sailing in echelon formation, preceded, followed, and flanked by destroyers; at night every glimmer of light eclipsed, the ships speeding ahead in perfect blackness, each inch of the sea swept by watchful eyes to discover the telltale ripple of a periscope or the trail of a torpedo, gun crews on the alert, depth bombs ready. Nor was the crossing anything like a vacation yachting cruise for the doughboys transported, packed as they were like sardines two and three decks below the waterline, brought up in shifts to catch a brief taste of fresh air, assailed at once by homesickness, seasickness, and fears of drowning like rats in a trap.

The work of the navy was far more extensive, moreover, than the safe convoying of troop ships, important though that was. The very first contingent of American overseas fighting forces was made up of two flotillas of destroyers, which upon the declaration of war had been sent to Queenstown where they were placed under the command of Admiral William S. Sims. Their main function was to hunt submarines, which, since the decree of the 1st of February, had succeeded in committing frightful ravages upon Allied commerce and seriously threatened to starve the British Isles. Admiral Sims was two years older than Pershing and as typical a sailor as the former was soldier. With his bluff and genial, yet dignified, manner, his rubicund complexion, closely-trimmed white beard, and piercing eyes, no one could have mistaken his calling. Free of speech, frank in praise and criticism, abounding in indiscretions, he possessed the capacity to make the warmest friends and enemies. He was an ardent admirer of the British, rejoiced in fighting with them, and ashamed that our Navy Department was unwilling to send more adequate and immediate assistance to their fleet. Sims's international reputation as an expert in naval affairs was of long standing. Naval officers in every country of Europe knew of him as the inventor of a system of fire control which had been adopted by the great navies of the world, and it was largely because of his studies and devices that the extraordinary records of the American fleets at target practice had been secured. The British naval officers reciprocated Sims's admiration for them, and, according to popular belief, it was at their special request that he had been sent to command our overseas naval forces. No one else could have obtained such effective cooeperation between the British and American fleets.

While at first the major portion of the American fleet was retained in home waters for the protection of American coasts and ports, a policy which aroused the stinging criticism of Admiral Sims, gradually the fleet added strength to the Allied navies in their patrol of European coasts and the bottling-up of the German high seas fleet. Destroyer bases were maintained at Queenstown, Brest, and Gibraltar, from which were dispatched constant patrols. Individual destroyers, during the first year of service overseas, steamed a total of 60,000 miles. Their crews were on the watch in the dirtiest weather, unable to sleep, tossed and battered by the incessant rolling, without warm food, facing the constant peril of being swept overboard and knowing that their boat could not stop to pick them up. American submarine-chasers and converted yachts, mine-sweepers on their beneficent and hazardous duty, were equally active. Naval aviators cooeperated with the British to patrol the coasts in search of submarines. Late in 1917, six battleships were sent to join the British Grand Fleet, which was watching for the Germans in the North Sea, thus constituting about twelve per cent of the guarding naval force. More important, perhaps, was the American plan for laying a mine barrage from the Scotch coast across to Norwegian waters. The Ordnance Bureau of the navy, despite the discouragement of British experts, manufactured the mines, 100,000 of them, and shipped them abroad in parts ready for final assembling. The American navy was responsible for eighty per cent of the laying of the barrage, which when finished was 245 miles long and twenty miles wide. The complete story of the achievements of the navy cannot now be told in detail. It was not always inspiring, for numerous mistakes were made. Confusion of counsels in the Naval Board left one important bombing squadron so bereft of supplies that after an expenditure of four millions only two bombs were dropped in the entire course of its operations. But there are also to be remembered the unheralded stories of heroism and skill, such as the dash of the submarine-chasers and destroyers through the mine fields at Durazzo, and the work of our naval guns in the attack on Zeebrugge.

The armies, safely brought to France, were meanwhile undergoing the essential intensive training, and the task of organizing the service of supply was being undertaken. The training given in the United States before sailing had been in the ordinary forms of drill and tactics; now it was necessary that there should be greater specialization. Numerous schools for the training of officers were established. For the troops the plan for training allowed, according to the intent of General Pershing, "a division one month for acclimatization and instruction in small units from battalions down, a second month in quiet trench sectors by battalion, and a third month after it came out of the trenches when it should be trained as a complete division in war of movement."[10] The entire process of training was a compromise between speed and efficiency. During the latter months of the war many of the American troops were put on the battle-line when they were by no means sufficiently trained. Certain draft units were transported and thrown up to the front after experience of a most superficial character; there are instances of men going into action without knowing how to load their rifles or adjust their gas masks properly. But on the whole the training given was surprisingly effective in view of the speed with which it was accomplished. American skill with the rifle won the envy of foreign officers, and the value of American troops in open warfare was soon to be acknowledged by the Germans.

[Footnote 10: This plan could not be fulfilled for troops coming to France in 1918, because of lack of time.]

The same sort of centralization sought by Wilson in America obviously became necessary in France with the expanding plans for an enormous army. In February, 1918, the Service of Supply was organized. With its headquarters at Tours, the S. O. S. was responsible for securing, organizing, and distributing all the food, equipment, building materials, and other necessities demanded by the expeditionary force. In order to provide for the quantities of essential supplies and to avoid the congestion of the chief ports of France, certain ports were especially allotted to our army, of which the most important were St. Nazaire, Bordeaux, and Brest. The first, a somnolent fishing village, was transformed by the energy of American engineers into a first-class port with enormous docks, warehouses, and supply depots; Brest rose in the space of twelve months from the rank of a second-class port to one that matched Hamburg in the extent of its shipping. In all, more than a dozen ports were used by the Americans and in each extensive improvements and enlargements proved necessary. At Bordeaux not more than two ships a week, of any size, could conveniently be unloaded prior to June, 1917. Eight months later, docks a mile long had been constructed, concrete platforms and electric cranes set up; within a year fourteen ships could be unloaded simultaneously, the rate of speed being determined only by the number of stevedores. For unloading purposes regiments of negroes were stationed at each port.

A few miles back from the coast were the base depots where the materials were stored as they came from the ships. Thence distribution was made to the intermediate depots in the cities of supply, and finally to the depots immediately behind the fighting front. All these depots involved enormous building operations; at first the lumber was shipped, but later, American lumber jacks were brought over to cut French forests. At one supply depot three hundred buildings were put up, covering an area of six square miles, operated by 20,000 men, and holding in storage a hundred million dollars' worth of supplies. For distribution purposes it proved necessary for American engineers to take over the construction and maintenance of communications. At first American engines and cars were operated under French supervision; but ultimately many miles of French railroads were taken over bodily by the American army and many more built by American engineers. More than 400 miles of inland waterways were also used by American armies. This transportation system was operated by American experts of all grades from brakemen to railroad presidents, numbering altogether more than 70,000.

In order to meet the difficulty of securing tonnage for supplies and to avoid competition with the Allies, a General Purchasing Board was created for the cooerdination of all purchases. Agents of this board were stationed in the Allied countries, in Switzerland, Holland, and Spain, who reconnoitered resources, analyzed requirements, issued forecasts of supplies, supervised the claims of foreign governments on American raw materials, and procured civilian manual labor. Following the establishment of the supreme interallied command, the Interallied Board of Supplies was organized in the summer of 1918, with the American purchasing agent as a member. Other activities of the S. O. S., too numerous to recount in detail, included such important tasks as the reclassification of personnel, the installation and operation of a general service of telephone and telegraph communication, with 115,500 kilometers of lines, and the renting and requisitioning of the land and buildings needed by the armies. It was a gigantic business undertaking, organized at top speed, involving tremendous expenditure. Its success would have been impossible without the cooeperation of hundreds of men of business, who found in it a sphere of service which enabled the army to utilize the proverbial American genius for meeting large problems of economic organization. At the time of the armistice the S. O. S. reached a numerical strength in personnel of 668,000, including 23,000 civilian employees.

From the first, Pershing had been determined that the American Expeditionary Force should ultimately operate as an independent unit, although in close cooeperation with the Allies. During the autumn of 1917 the disasters in Italy and the military demoralization of Russia had led to the formation of the Supreme Military Council of the Allies, upon which the United States was represented by General Tasker Bliss, whose rough visage and gruff manner gave little indication of his wide interests. Few suspected that this soldierly character took secret pleasure in the reading of Latin poets. The cooerdination that resulted from the creation of the Supreme Council, however, proved insufficient to meet the crisis of the spring of 1918.

On the 21st of March, the Germans attacked in overwhelming force the southern extremity of the British lines, near where they joined the French, and disastrously defeated General Gough's army. The break-through was clean and the advance made by the endless waves of German shock-troops appalling. Within eight days the enemy had swept forward to a depth of fifty-six kilometers, threatening the capture of Amiens and the separation of the French and British. As the initial momentum of the onslaught was lost, the Allied line was re-formed with the help of French reserves under Fayolle. But the Allies had been and still were close to disaster. Complete unity of command was essential. It was plain also, in the words of Pershing's report, that because of the inroads made upon British and French reserves, "defeat stared them in the face unless the new American troops should prove more immediately available than even the most optimistic had dared to hope." The first necessity was satisfied early in April. The extremity of the danger reinforced the demand long made by the French, and supported by President Wilson through Colonel House, that a generalissimo be appointed. The British finally sank their objection, and on the 28th of March it was agreed that General Ferdinand Foch should be made commander-in-chief of all the Allied armies with the powers necessary for the strategic direction of all military operations. The decision was ratified on the 3d and approved by President Wilson on the 16th of April.

General Foch had long been recognized as an eminent student of strategy, and he had proved his practical capacity in 1914 and later. It was he who commanded the French army that broke the German line at the marshes of St. Gond, in the battle of the Marne, thus assuring victory to Joffre, and he had later in the year secured fresh laurels in the first battle of the Yser. At the moment of extreme danger to Italy, after Caporetto, in 1917, he had been chosen to command the assisting force sent down by the French. Unsentimental and unswayed by political factors, he was temperamentally and intellectually the ideal man for the post of supreme Allied commander; he was furthermore supported by the capacity of General Petain, the French commander-in-chief, and by a remarkable group of army commanders, among whom Fayolle, Mangin, and Gouraud were to win particular fame. But he lacked troops, the Germans disposing of 200 divisions as against 162 Allied divisions.

Hence the hurry call sent to America and hence the heavy sacrifice now forced upon Pershing. Much against his will and only as a result of extreme pressure, the American commander-in-chief agreed to a temporary continuance of the brigading of American troops with the British and the French. He had felt all along that "there was every reason why we could not allow them to be scattered among our Allies, even by divisions, much less as replacements, except by pressure of pure necessity." He disliked the emphasis placed by the Allies upon training for trench warfare; he feared the effect of the lack of homogeneity which would render the mixed divisions "difficult to maneuver and almost certain to break up under the stress of defeat," and he believed that the creation of independent American armies "would be a severe blow to German morale." When the pinch of necessity came, however, Pershing sank his objections to amalgamation and, to his credit, agreed with a beau geste and fine phrase which concealed the differences between the Allied chiefs and won the heartiest sympathy from France and England. The principle of an independent American force, however, Pershing insisted upon, and he made clear that the amalgamation of our troops with the French and British was merely a temporary expedient.

Immediately after the stabilization of the battle-line near Amiens, the Germans began their second great drive, this time against the British along the Lys, in Flanders. The initial success of the attack, which began on the 9th of April, was undeniable, and Sir Douglas Haig himself admitted the danger of the moment: "Every position must be held to the last man. There must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight to the end. The safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind depend alike upon the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment." The value of Allied unity of command now became apparent, for heavy French reinforcements were brought up in time to help stave off the German drive on the Channel Ports.

But still the demand went up for more men and ships. "Scrap before shipping every pound that takes tonnage and is not necessary to the killing of Germans," wrote a French military authority. "Send the most infantry by the shortest route to the hottest corner. No matter what flag they fight under, so long as it is an Allied flag." On the 27th of May the Germans caught Foch by surprise and launched a violent attack on the Chemin des Dames, between Soissons and Berry-au-Bac. This formed the third phase of their great offensive. In four days they pushed before them the tired French divisions, sent into that sector to recuperate, a distance of fifty kilometers and reached the Marne. Again, as in 1914, Paris began to empty, fearful of capture. A statement sent to Wilson on the 2d of June and signed by Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and Orlando, read as follows: "There is great danger of the war being lost unless the numerical inferiority of the Allies can be remedied as rapidly as possible by the advent of American troops.... We are satisfied that General Foch ... is not over-estimating the needs of the case." Such was the peril of the Allies. But in the month of May 245,000 Americans had been landed, and in the following month there were to be 278,000 more.

Previous to June, 1918, the participation of American troops in military operations had been of comparative unimportance and less for tactical purposes than as a part of their training. In October, 1917, the First Division had been sent into trenches on the quiet Lorraine front and had engaged in raids and counter-raids. Three other divisions, the Second, the Forty-second, or "Rainbow," and the Twenty-sixth from New England, followed, and by March, 1918, they were all described by Pershing as "equal to any demands of battle action." On the 29th of April, the last-named division was engaged in something more serious than a mere raid at Seicheprey, near St. Mihiel; the number of prisoners lost indicated lack of experience, but the vigor of the American counter-attack proved definitely the will to fight. That belligerent spirit was equally displayed by various engineering units which, during the break of General Gough's army before the German assault of March, near St. Quentin, had dropped their tools, seized rifles, and, hastily organizing to cover the retreat, had secured valuable respite for various fleeing units.

More important yet, because of the moral effect achieved, was the engagement at Cantigny near Montdidier, on the 28th of May. The Americans launched their attack with skill as well as dash, and stood firm against the violence of the German reaction; this they met without assistance from the French, who had been called to oppose the German advance on the Marne. Pershing spoke of the "desperate efforts" of the enemy at Cantigny, "determined at all costs to counteract the most excellent effect the American success had produced." For three days guns of all calibers were vainly concentrated upon the new positions. Coming at the moment of extreme discouragement, Cantigny was of an importance entirely out of proportion to the numbers involved. For months France had been awaiting American assistance. A year before the French had seen Pershing and the first few doughboys, but the long delay had caused them to lose the confidence which that sight had aroused. Now suddenly came the news that the Americans were arriving in tremendous numbers and from Cantigny, north and south along the lines, spread the report: "These men will fight."

Four days later at Chateau-Thierry,[11] Americans proved not merely the moral but the practical value of their assistance. The German drive of the 27th of May, beginning on the Chemin des Dames, had pushed south to the Marne and westward towards Meaux. The French falling back in haste had maintained their lines intact, but were pessimistic as to the possibility of stopping the enemy advance. On the 31st of May, German vanguard units entered Chateau-Thierry, crossed the river, and planned to secure the bridges. At this moment American machine gunners of the Third Division came up with a battalion of French colonials in support, drove the Germans back to the north bank, covered the retreat of the French forces across the Marne, on the following day, and gave time to blow up the bridges. On the same day, the 1st of June, northwest of Chateau-Thierry, the Second Division came into line to support the wearied French, and as the latter came filtering back and through, soon found itself meeting direct German assaults. Stretching across the road to Paris, with the French too weak to make a stand, it blocked the German advance. Even so, the danger was not entirely parried, since the enemy held strong positions from Vaux northwest to Veuilly, which, when German reinforcements came up, would enable them to deliver deadly assaults. Those positions had to be taken. From the 6th to the 11th of June, American troops, among them marine regiments, struck viciously, concentrating against the railroad embankment at Bouresches and the hill of Belleau Woods. The stiffness of the German defense, maintained by their best troops, was overcome by fearless rushing of machine-gun nests, ruthless mopping-up of isolated stragglers, and a final clearing of the Woods by heavy artillery fire. On the 18th of June the Americans took the approaches to Torcy and on the 1st of July the village of Vaux. If the attack on Belleau Woods proved their courage, the capture of Vaux vindicated their skill, for losses were negligible.

[Footnote 11: The reader should distinguish the defensive operations at Chateau-Thierry, on the 1st of June, from the attack launched from this sector in July. Both are known as the battle of Chateau-Thierry.]

The Allied line was now in a position to contest actively any deepening of the Marne salient to the west, and American troops had so clearly proved their quality that Pershing could with justice demand a radical revision of the Allied opinion that American soldiers were fit only for the defense. His confidence in their fighting capacity was soon further put to the test and vindicated. On the 15th of July the Germans opened the fourth and last of their great drives, with tremendous artillery fire from Rheims to the Marne. They hoped to capture the former, swing far to the south and west, and, if they failed to take Paris, at least to draw sufficient troops from Flanders and Picardy as to assure a successful drive on Amiens and the Channel Ports. For the first time, however, the element of surprise in their attack was lacking. At the eastern end of the battle-line General Gouraud, with whom were fighting the Forty-second Division and four colored regiments, warned of the moment of attack, withdrew his front lines and permitted the Germans to shell empty trenches; all important positions he held firmly. On the Marne, east of Chateau-Thierry, the enemy succeeded in crossing the river in the early morning. At various points the American line was compelled to yield, although one of the American regiments stood its ground while on either flank the Germans, who had gained a footing on the south bank, pressed forward; it was, according to Pershing's report, "one of the most brilliant pages in our military annals." At noon, heedless of the warning given by the French commander, American reinforcements launched a strong counter-attack and drove the enemy back to the river; on the next morning no Germans were to be found on the south bank in front of the American troops. During the next two days German efforts to press forward were unrelaxing but in vain, and on the 18th of July, Foch launched his counter-offensive.

The inherent weakness of the Marne salient from the German point of view and the opportunity which it offered the Allied command had not been forgotten by the generalissimo. Foch waited until the enemy had spent his strength in the attacks around Rheims and on the Marne, then struck fiercely between Soissons and Chateau-Thierry. The spearhead of the main drive was composed of the First and Second American Divisions, immediately to the south of Soissons, who were operating under Mangin with the First French Moroccan Division between them. Straightway, without the orthodox preliminary artillery fire, a deep thrust was made against the western side of the salient; near Soissons, despite fierce resistance, advances of from eight to ten kilometers and large numbers of prisoners were reported in the first twenty-four hours. "Due to the magnificent dash and powers displayed on the field of Soissons by our First and Second Divisions," said Pershing, "the tide of war was definitely turned in favor of the Allies." Further to the south, the Fourth and Twenty-sixth Divisions crossed the road running from Chateau-Thierry to Soissons, pushing east; while from the southern bank of the Marne, the Third Division pushed north across the river. It was obvious to the Germans that retreat from the perilous salient must proceed at once, especially as Franco-British counter-attacks on the eastern side threatened to close it at the neck and cut the main line of German withdrawal. The retreat was executed with great skill and valor. While holding on the sides, the enemy forces were slowly pulled back from the apex, striving to win time to save artillery, although they must perforce lose or destroy great quantities of ammunition. Against the retreating foe fresh American divisions were hurled. On the 25th of July the Forty-second division relieved the Twenty-sixth, advancing toward the Vesle, with elements of the Twenty-eighth, until relieved on August 3d, by the Fourth Division. Farther east the Thirty-second had relieved the Third. The Americans had to face withering fire from machine-gun nests and fight hand to hand in the crumbled streets of the Champagne villages. Here were carried on some of the fiercest conflicts of American military history. Finally on the 6th of August the Germans reached the line of the Vesle, their retreat secured, although their losses had been terrific. But the pause was only momentary. Before they could bring up replacements, the British launched their great drive south of the Somme, the American Twenty-eighth, Thirty-second, and Seventy-seventh divisions crossed the Vesle pushing the Germans before them, and there began what Ludendorff in his memoirs calls "the last phase."

Pershing had not lost sight of his original object, which was to assemble the American divisions into a separate army. After the victories of July, which wiped out the Marne salient, and those of August, which put the enemy definitely on the defensive, he felt that "the emergency which had justified the dispersion of our divisions had passed." Soon after the successful British attack, south of Amiens, he overcame the objections of Foch and concluded arrangements for the organization of this army, which was to operate in the Lorraine sector.[12] It contained 600,000 men, fourteen American divisions and two French. On the 30th of August the sector was established and preparations made for the offensive, the first step in which was to be the wiping out of the St. Mihiel salient. This salient had existed since 1914, when the Germans, failing to storm the scarp protecting Verdun on the east, had driven a wedge across the lower heights to the south. The elimination of this wedge would have great moral effect; it would free the Paris-Nancy railway from artillery fire; and would assure Pershing an excellent base for attack against the Metz-Sedan railway system and the Briey iron basin. The German positions were naturally strong and had withstood violent French attacks in 1915. But there was only one effective line of retreat and the enemy, if he persisted in holding the apex of the salient, risked losing his entire defending force, should the sides be pressed in from the south and west.

[Footnote 12: Allied opposition to an American army was so strong as to bring threats of an appeal to Wilson. The President steadfastly supported Pershing.]

On the 12th of September the attack was launched. It was originally planned for the 15th, but word was brought that the Germans were about to retire at a rate which would have left none of them in the salient by that date. Hence the attack was advanced by three days. The attempted withdrawal secured the retreat of the German main force, but they were unable to save their rear guard. After four hours of vigorous artillery preparation, with the largest assemblage of aviation ever engaged in a single operation (mainly British and French) and with American heavy guns throwing into confusion all rail movements behind the German lines, the advancing Americans immediately overwhelmed all of the enemy that attempted to hold their ground. By the afternoon of the second day the salient was extinguished, 16,000 prisoners were taken, 443 guns and large stores of supplies captured. American casualties totaled less than 7000. The effects of the victory were incalculable. Apart from the material results, hope of which had motivated the attack, the moral influence of the battle of St. Mihiel in the making of American armies and the discouragement of the German High Command was of the first importance. "An American army was an accomplished fact," wrote Pershing, "and the enemy had felt its power. No form of propaganda could overcome the depressing effect on the morale of the enemy of this demonstration of our ability to organize a large American force and drive it successfully through his defense. It gave our troops implicit confidence in their superiority and raised their morale to the highest pitch. For the first time wire entanglements ceased to be regarded as impassable barriers and open-warfare training, which had been so urgently insisted upon, proved to be the correct doctrine."

The victory of St. Mihiel was merely the necessary prelude to greater things. During the first week of September the Allied command decided that the general offensive movement of their armies should be pressed as rapidly as possible, converging upon the main line of German retreat through Mezieres and Sedan. The British were to pursue the attack in the direction of Cambrai, the center of the French armies, west of Rheims, was to drive the enemy beyond the Aisne, while the Americans were to attack through the Argonne and on both sides of the Meuse, aiming for Sedan. Pershing was given his choice of the Champagne or Argonne sectors, and chose the latter, which was the more difficult, insisting that no other Allied troops possessed the offensive spirit which would be necessary for success. In the meantime a new American army was to be organized, to operate south of Verdun and against Metz, in the spring of 1919; in fact this was designed to be the chief American effort. As matters turned out this second American army was ready to make its offensive early in November, but in September none of the Allied chiefs expressed the opinion that the final victory could be achieved in 1918. Such were the difficulties of terrain in the Argonne advance that the French did not believe that the attack could be pushed much beyond Montfaucon, between the forest and the Meuse, before winter forced a cessation of active operations.

The defensive importance of the Argonne for the Germans could hardly be overestimated, for if the railway line running through Sedan and Mezieres were severed, they would be cut in two by the Ardennes and would be unable to withdraw from France the bulk of their forces, which, left without supplies, would suffer inevitable disaster. As a consequence the Argonne had been strengthened by elaborate fortifications which, taken in conjunction with the natural terrain, densely wooded, covered with rugged heights, and marked by ridges running east and west, made it apparently impregnable. The dense undergrowth, the bowlders, and the ravines offered ideal spots for machine-gun nests. The Germans had the exact range of each important position.

But Pershing's confidence in the offensive valor of the Americans was amply justified. On the morning of the 26th of September the initial attack was delivered, the main force of the blow falling east of the forest, where the natural strength of the enemy positions was less formidable. By noon of the second day Montfaucon was captured, and by the 29th all the immediate objectives of the attack were secured. Losses were heavy, staff work was frequently open to severe criticism, communications were broken at times, the infantry had not always received adequate artillery support, but the success of the drive was undeniable. Before the American troops, however, still lay two more lines of defense, the Freya and Kriemhilde, and the Germans were bringing up their best divisions. On the 4th of October the attack was renewed, in cooeperation with the French under Gouraud to the west of the forest who pressed forward actively; a week's more bitter fighting saw the Argonne itself cleared of the enemy. Hard struggles ensued, particularly around Grandpre, which was taken and retaken, while on the east of the Meuse the enemy was pushed back. By the end of the month the Kriemhilde line had been broken and the great railway artery was threatened. On the 1st of November the third phase of the great advance began. The desperate efforts of the Germans to hold were never relaxed, but by the evening of that day the American troops broke through their last defense and forced rapid retreat. Motor trucks were hurriedly brought up for the pursuit, and by the fifth the enemy's withdrawal became general. Two days later Americans held the heights which dominated Sedan, the strategic goal, and the German line of communications was as good as severed.

The converging offensive planned by Foch had succeeded. At Cambrai, Le Catelet, and St. Quentin, the British, with whom were operating four American divisions (the Twenty-seventh, Thirtieth, Thirty-seventh, and Ninety-first), had broken the Hindenburg line; the French had pushed the Germans back from Laon, north of the Aisne, and with the British were driving them into the narrow neck of the bottle; and now the French and Americans, by their Argonne-Meuse advance had closed the neck. The enemy faced an appalling disaster. A few weeks, if not days, of continued fighting meant the most striking military debacle of history. Germany's allies had fallen from her. Turkey, Bulgaria, and Austria-Hungary had sued for peace and agreed to cease fighting on what amounted to terms of unconditional surrender. At home, the German Government faced revolution; the Kaiser was about to abdicate and flee. On the 6th of November, the Berlin Government begged for an immediate armistice and five days later agreed to the stringent terms which the Allies presented. On the 11th of November, at eleven in the morning, firing ceased. Until the last second the battle raged with a useless intensity dictated by stern military tradition: then perfect quiet on the battle front.

At the present moment we lack the perspective, perhaps, to evaluate exactly the share of credit which the American Expeditionary Force deserves for the Allied military victory of 1918. Previous to June the military contribution of the United States had no material effects. The defense of Chateau-Thierry at the beginning of the month and the operations there and at Belleau Woods had, however, important practical as well as moral effects. The fighting was of a purely local character, but it came at a critical moment and at a critical spot. It was a crisis when the importance of standing firm could not be overestimated, and the defensive capacity of the French had been seriously weakened. The advance of American divisions with the French in the clearing of the Marne sector was of the first military importance. The Americans were better qualified than any European troops, at that stage of the war, to carry through offensive operations. They were fearless not merely because of natural hardihood, but through ignorance of danger; they were fresh and undefeated, physically and morally capable of undergoing the gruelling punishment delivered by the rearguards of the retreating Germans; their training had been primarily for open warfare. The same qualities were essential for the arduous and deadly task of breaking the German line in the Argonne, which was the finishing blow on the western battlefields.

The defects of the American armies have been emphasized by European experts. They point especially to the faulty staff-work, apparent in the Argonne particularly, which resulted in heavy losses. Staff-officers in numerous instances seem to have been ill-trained and at times positively unequal to the exigencies of the campaign. Mistakes in selection account for this to some degree, for men were appointed who were not equipped temperamentally or intellectually for the positions given them. Equally frequent were mistakes in the distribution of staff-officers. It is a notable fact, however, that such mistakes resulted from inexperience and ignorance and not from the intrusion of politics. President Wilson guaranteed to General Pershing complete immunity from the pleas of politicians and in no war fought by the United States have political factors played a role of such insignificance.

Finally, and aside from the fighting qualities of the rank and file and certain defects of the higher command, the Americans represented numbers; and without the tremendous numerical force transported to Europe in the spring and summer, the plans of Foch could not have been completed. We have the testimony of the Allied chiefs in June that without American man-power they faced defeat. It is equally obvious that without the 1,390,000 American troops which, by November, had appeared on the fighting line, the autumn of 1918 would not have witnessed the military triumph of the Allies.



CHAPTER IX

THE PATH TO PEACE

The armistice of November 11, 1918, resulted directly from the military defeat of German armies in France, following upon the collapse of Turkey, Bulgaria, and Austria-Hungary. But there were many circumstances other than military that led to Germany's downfall, and by no means of least importance were the moral issues so constantly stressed by Wilson. His speeches had been carefully distributed through the Central Empires; they had done much to arouse the subject peoples of Austria-Hungary to revolt for their freedom, and also to weaken the morale of the German people. The value of Wilson's "verbiage drives" was questioned in this country. Abroad, his insistence upon a peace of justice was generally reckoned a vital moral force in the political movements that supplemented the victories of Marshal Foch. Jugoslavs consented to cooeperate with their Italian enemies because they felt that "Wilson's justice" would guarantee a fair court for their aspirations in the Adriatic; Magyars and Austrians threw down their arms in the belief that his promise to "be as just to enemies as to friends" secured a better future than they could hope for through the continuance of the war; the leaders of the German Reichstag demanded the Kaiser's abdication in November, under the impression that Wilson had laid it down as a condition of peace.

From the time when the United States entered the war it was obvious that Wilson placed less emphasis upon defeating Germany than upon securing a just peace. Military victory meant nothing to him except as the road to peace. In his first war speeches the President, much to the irritation of many Americans, insisted that the United States was fighting the government and not the people of Germany. "We have no quarrel," he said, "with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship." In his Flag Day address he was careful not to attack "Germany" but only "the military masters under whom Germany is bleeding." Certain effects of this attitude were to be seen in the Reichstag revolt of July, 1917, led by that most sensitive of political weathercocks, Matthias Erzberger, which was designed to take political control out of the hands of the military clique. That crisis, however, was safely survived by Ludendorff, who remained supreme. President Wilson then returned to the attack in his reply to the Pope's peace proposals of August. "The object of this war is to deliver the free peoples of the world from the menace and the actual power of a vast military establishment controlled by an irresponsible government.... This power is not the German people. It is the ruthless master of the German people.... We cannot take the word of the present rulers of Germany as a guarantee of anything that is to endure, unless explicitly supported by such conclusive evidence of the will and purpose of the German people themselves as the other peoples of the world would be justified in accepting."

There was serpentine wisdom in these words, for their very vagueness attracted German liberals. Wilson did not demand a republic; he did not insist upon the Kaiser's abdication, for which Germany was not then prepared; all that he asked was a government responsible to the people, and more and more the Germans were demanding that themselves. Furthermore, he again laid stress upon the fact that the Germans need not fear vengeance such as the Allies had threatened. "Punitive damages, the dismemberment of empires, the establishment of selfish and exclusive economic leagues, we deem inexpedient." The appeal was fruitless in its immediate effects, for the political party leaders were still dominated by the military; but ultimately, in conjunction with a dozen other appeals, its influence acted like a subtle corrosive upon the German will to conquer.

Still less successful were the attempts to win Austria away from her ally by secret diplomatic conversations. In these neither President Wilson nor his personal adviser, Colonel House, placed great confidence. They had been undertaken by the French through Prince Sixtus of Bourbon, and in August, 1917, Major Armand of France discussed with the Austrian emissary, Revertata, possible means of bringing about peace between Austria and the Allies. Lloyd George enthusiastically approved this attempt to drive a wedge between Austria and Germany, was anxious to send Lord Reading as intermediary, and, upon the refusal of the latter to undertake the mission, actually dispatched General Smuts to Switzerland. The Emperor Carl seemed sincerely anxious to make sacrifices for peace and was urged by liberal counselors, such as Foerster and Lammasch, in whom the Allies had confidence, to meet many of the demands of his discontented Slav subjects by granting autonomy to the Czechs, Poles, and Jugoslavs. Negotiations were hampered by the belief of the Italians that immediate peace with Austria would prevent them from securing the territories they coveted; by the sullen obstinacy of the Magyars, who were jealous of their mastery over the Hungarian Slavs, and above all, as Colonel House had foreseen, by Austria's fear of Germany. In fact it was a stern ultimatum sent by Ludendorff that brought the wavering Carl back to his allegiance.