[Sidenote: =Loans to the Allies=]
=237. Congress Votes Billions.= Congress voted billions of money to be
spent in various ways, and President Wilson loaned millions of dollars
to England, France, and Italy. They in turn sent great men to talk with
those who were managing our war preparations.
Never did a nation given to peace turn so quickly to war. Thousands of
Americans in Europe had already been taking part for years. Some had
joined the Canadian army or the Lafayette Squadron, part of the French
air service. Others were working under the Red Cross or the American
Committee for the Relief of Belgium.
[Sidenote: =Hoover as food administrator=]
Other measures necessary to "mobilize" the nation were quickly passed.
The railroads were put under the control of a director-general of
railroads, who ran them first of all in the service of the army. A fuel
administrator decided what factories and businesses were most necessary
in the war and in the life of the nation. Others had to limit their use
of coal, or to close down entirely for a short time. Herbert Hoover,
head of the great committee which had charge of feeding the starving
people of Belgium, was made food administrator. On one hand, he decided
how much food whole nations could buy of us. On the other, he helped
American housewives plan their daily meals to save the wheat, meat,
and fat that were needed for the soldiers, because food would "win the
war."
[Sidenote: =An army of millions=]
=238. The Selective Draft.= Millions of soldiers would have been
America's share of the Allied fighting forces if the war had gone
on longer. Congress decided that a "Selective Draft" would be the
most fair and just method of raising these millions. All men between
the ages of twenty-one and thirty, and later between nineteen and
forty-five, had to be examined by "Draft Boards," and the proper number
selected.
[Sidenote: =Great training camps built=]
Immense training camps were built, with railroad lines, electric light
and water systems, and all the needs of a modern city. Many of these
camps sprang up in a few months, ready to take care of fifty thousand
men apiece.
=239. The War's Nameless Heroes.= All these great preparations at home
were more businesslike than they were stirring and warlike. They meant
a great change in the life of the whole nation. Workers were shifted
from all kinds of small, unimportant peace-time tasks to a few gigantic
businesses on which the success of the war depended. All the efforts
of the nation were centered on saving goods, time, and money, and
producing goods to carry on the war.
[Sidenote: =Not a war of great names=]
The "home front" did not give great honors to those who held it. But
the war was fought to preserve the rights of free citizens, and it had
the nearly united support of a whole people. There are few famous names
in the fighting abroad, and few, too, at home. It was a war in which
the average man was the hero. He did not expect medals for doing his
duty in battle, or a high salary for doing his duty at home. But he did
it, and unbelievable deeds were accomplished--fleets built, factories
multiplied, waste lands planted, two million men sent across the seas,
and the war brought to a swift end.
[Sidenote: =The Burial of an "Unknown Warrior"=]
England had a great state funeral not long ago. It rivaled in ceremony
the honors paid to dead queens and kings. Throngs followed the great
procession to Westminster Abbey, where England's famous dead of all
time are buried. A tablet was placed above the tomb of a hero whom
a nation united to give its highest honors. The name on that tablet
was "To an Unknown Warrior." In America, too, the deeds of the great
number, in battle or at home, will always be nameless.
[Sidenote: =The spirit of heroism needed in peace=]
If each person, instead of looking straight ahead at the task to be
done, had looked to see who else could do it, America's war program
would have failed. It has been said that in a great nation any one
person, by himself, is lost, and does not count. The chapter in
American history just ended proves that when his country is in danger,
each citizen can and must act as if the result depended on him. This
spirit of patriotism among millions of those whom history will call
nameless heroes brought victory in the war, and if it is still followed
in peace, will bring "victories no less renowned."
[Sidenote: =An unparalleled war=]
=240. The World's Greatest War.= The war of 1914-1918 is the greatest
history has ever known, because of the number of nations in it, the
number of lives lost, the cost in goods and money, and the changes it
has made among nations.
[Sidenote: =A record in shipbuilding=]
Its size is too vast for any one mind to picture it fully. The
front-line trenches, with all their turns and twists, were six hundred
miles long, nearly equal to the straight distance from Philadelphia
to Chicago. Mountains of material had to be sent across to keep our
soldiers well fed and warmly clothed, and furnished with the cannon
and shells they must have to meet the enemy. Only about two out of
three men in the army could fight, for the third man had to keep these
mammoth quantities of supplies steadily moving toward the front. Ships
were the thing our government needed most, since it was fighting so far
away from home. American shipyards grew so rapidly that they broke all
records for number of ships launched and swiftness in building them.
The United States soon led the world in shipbuilding for this war.
[Illustration: CARRIER PIGEONS, A MEANS OF COMMUNICATION AT THE FRONT]
The War Department was so anxious to keep our men warm and comfortable
that it bought up all the wool in the country. The army had to have
thirty-five million more pairs of woolen socks than were made for the
whole nation in 1914. It used more woolen blankets in one year than the
one hundred million people in the United States buy in two ordinary
years.
[Sidenote: =Attacks carefully planned=]
=241. A War of Science.= Every movement in the war had to be planned
as exactly as possible. This was a war of science, rather than a war
of dashing adventure, as those in the past had been. Before attacks
were made on the enemy, a barrage, or curtain-like rain of shells, was
turned on his lines. This "curtain of fire" moved forward at a fixed
rate, and the men walked behind it. They had strict orders to go only
so many yards a minute, or their own guns would kill them.
[Sidenote: =Use of poison gas=]
Poison gas was one of the new weapons of this war. It caused almost
one-third of our losses in 1918. Science produced new gases so rapidly
that inventors had to be continually making new gas masks to strain out
the deadly fumes. Over thirty kinds of gas were used during the war.
No one commander could be present at once on every part of the hundreds
of miles of battle-lines, or even a small part of them. The war had to
be carried on largely by telephone. The Americans strung one hundred
thousand miles of wire in France.
[Sidenote: =Pershing trained for his work=]
=242. Pershing Heads the Army.= The youngest of American generals, John
Joseph Pershing, was put at the head of the American forces. The choice
of Pershing was hailed everywhere as a wise one. A war so immense and
mechanical needed a general who had studied the art of war thoroughly,
as Pershing had. He had seen much actual fighting, and was the only
American general who had commanded a division in actual war. He carried
with him the love and respect of all national guardsmen. They would
have followed him anywhere he wished to lead.
[Illustration: THE TANK, A NEW WEAPON IN THE WAR]
We have already heard how he had routed Villa's bandits in Mexico.
He had also led a charge of colored troops against the Spaniards in
Cuba, and had conquered a powerful savage tribe in the Philippines.
Before he was sent to Mexico he had been governor of a province in the
Philippines for four years.
[Sidenote: =Fights squarely=]
=243. A Boy Who Was Made of Fighting Stuff.= As a boy, Pershing was
brave and modest, with the ability to stay by a hard task until he
finished it. John was a hardy, active boy. He played at mimic war
and attended school. He played "hookey," and got into fights with
his fellows, but he was square. One day the father saw the signs of
battle-torn clothes and a bruised face. "Been fighting? Never let any
boy say that he has licked you," was the father's remark. John had
expected a whipping.
[Illustration:
_From a Photograph by Clinedinst_