WHAT AMERICA DID
[Illustration: TROOP TRANSPORT LEAVING NEW YORK FOR FRANCE]
WHAT AMERICA DID
_A Record of Achievement in the
Prosecution of the War_
BY
FLORENCE FINCH KELLY
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE
COPYRIGHT, 1919,
BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
_All Rights Reserved_
_Printed in the United States of America_
PREFACE
My purpose in this book has been to condense into a brief account just
those things that the ordinary man or woman wants to know about how
we prepared for and waged our share in the world war. I have tried to
picture the large outlines of achievement, to present the important
facts, and to show how it was all inspired and rushed forward by the
flaming spirit of the people. Volumes will be required, and will of
course be written, to tell comprehensively and in detail the complete
story of America’s many-sided effort in the prosecution of the war.
But I have sought, rather, to make such a book as would meet the needs
of the every-day reader by disregarding details and weaving into the
panorama of our war adventure only the essential facts of each phase of
war effort and the spirit by which it was all unceasingly animated.
In such a volume, it seemed to me, there was no place for account of
the controversies that have raged over almost every step of progress,
nor for mention of criticisms or investigations or even of the mistakes
that delayed by a few weeks or a few months the reaching of the peak of
achievement in this or that particular. All of them, doubtless, will be
chronicled in those many volumes that will tell the story of America’s
participation in the war comprehensively and in detail. Otherwise, they
will all be forgotten in six months. It is achievement that counts,
and this book aims only to be a record of things that were done.
But it is in no boastful spirit and with no vainglorious purpose that
“What America Did” is presented. There is no one of the millions who
shared in that doing but knows and is glad to say that beside what
Britain, or France, or Italy did or Belgium suffered America can only
stand with bent head and reverent heart. It is much to be desired
that a similar record, presenting outlines and essential facts within
a space possible for the reading of the average busy person, of the
achievements and sacrifices of each of these nations should be prepared
for our own and for coming generations. For the sum total of their
testimony would so utterly disprove the old, old lie that a democracy
can not be efficient and so summarily cast it into outer darkness that
men would never again say it or believe it as long as time lasts. If
this little volume is privileged to do its share toward proving that
“the highest and best form of efficiency is the spontaneous coöperation
of a free people” I shall feel it an honor to have done the work of
assembling and presenting its evidence.
To those many officials and temporary assistants of the
Government--they are far too many to mention separately--who have
given me their cordial and painstaking coöperation in my effort to
make all the facts and figures and statements of this work accurate
and authoritative I wish to acknowledge my very great indebtedness.
Without their constant and most courteous help the book would have been
impossible.
FLORENCE FINCH KELLY.
New York City,
May, 1919.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE v
FOREWORD: ENTERING THE WAR xiii
PART ONE
THE FIGHTING FORCES
SECTION I. ON LAND
CHAPTER
I. THE MAKING OF THE ARMY 3
II. HOUSING THE SOLDIERS AND THEIR SUPPLIES 20
III. FEEDING AND EQUIPPING THE ARMY 24
IV. CREATING A MUNITIONS INDUSTRY 34
V. CARING FOR THE WOUNDED 48
VI. THE WELFARE OF THE SOLDIERS 59
VII. MAINTAINING THE ARMY IN FRANCE 70
VIII. AT THE FRONT 83
SECTION II. BY SEA
IX. EXPANSION IN THE NAVY 95
X. OPERATING AN OCEAN FERRY 105
XI. WORKING WITH THE ALLIED NAVIES 113
XII. THE NAVY ON LAND 120
XIII. THE WINGS OF THE NAVY 127
XIV. THE TRAINING OF THE RESERVES 133
SECTION III. IN THE AIR
XV. CREATING A NEW BRANCH OF WARFARE 139
XVI. PROVIDING THE MEANS 143
XVII. TRAINING THE MEN 151
XVIII. THE BALLOON CORPS 160
XIX. FLYING IN FRANCE 163
XX. AMERICAN CONTRIBUTIONS 167
PART TWO
THE NATION BEHIND THE FIGHTERS
XXI. FINANCING THE WAR 173
XXII. THE BRIDGE OF BOATS 184
XXIII. ORGANIZING THE NATION 198
XXIV. INFORMING THE PUBLIC 206
XXV. WAR-TIME CONTROL OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY 220
XXVI. “THE GREATEST MOTHER IN THE WORLD” 228
XXVII. FEEDING THE NATIONS 236
XXVIII. THE MANAGEMENT OF FUEL 250
XXIX. THE SPIRIT OF THE PEOPLE 260
XXX. LABOR AND THE WAR 273
XXXI. BIG-BROTHERING THE FIGHTING FORCES 283
XXXII. RUNNING THE RAILROADS 301
XXXIII. THE WORK OF WOMEN FOR THE WAR 311
XXXIV. FIGHTING THE UNDERGROUND ENEMY 327
XXXV. AT THE HEART OF THE NATION 338
ILLUSTRATIONS
Troop Transport Leaving New York for France _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Cantonment Three Months after Construction was Begun 16
Training a Machine Gun Company 16
Interior of a Cantonment Library 64
Dock in a French Port Developed by the United States 72
Mobile Kitchen Back of the Front Lines 88
An American Big Gun in France 88
Troop Ships Entering Brest 105
Mine Barrage across the North Sea 112
Naval Gun on Railway Mount 128
Airplane Ambulance 152
American Flying Field in France 152
A Shipyard in the Making 192
The Fifty Shipways of the Same Yard 192
Wounded Men in a Hospital Weaving Rugs 232
Unloading Wheat at a French Port 248
In a Red Triangle Hut in the Battle Zone 288
A Pleasant Evening in a Hostess House 296
Salvation Army Lassies at the Front 296
Woman’s Land Army Members Sorting Potatoes 312
Training Camp of Woman’s Land Army 312
View from Washington Monument, August, 1917 340
Same View One Year Later 340
WHAT AMERICA DID
FOREWORD: ENTERING THE WAR
When the United States entered the war, April 6th, 1917, she had an
army, including all the forces of the Regular Army, the National Guard
and the Reserve Corps, totaling 202,510 men and 9,524 officers, a navy
not large but well prepared, and the nucleus of an aeronautical section
so small and undeveloped that it was negligible. Behind these fighting
forces that, except the navy, were insignificant in comparison with
the vast numbers of men swaying back and forth across the battlefields
of Europe was a nation that ever since its birth had held the profound
conviction, a fundamental of its political creed, that this country
should never allow itself to be drawn into the quarrels of Europe.
Generation after generation had watched transatlantic wars blaze up
and go their bloody way and had seen their flames fed by racial hates
and jealousies, commercial greed, desire of territory, and dynastic
and personal ambitions. And each successive generation had detested
more deeply the whole foul crew of those motives and had been more
determined that America should have no concern in the struggles they
inspired. No one who does not understand how deeply rooted was this
conviction in the political beliefs and ideals, the traditions, the
very life of the American people can appreciate what it meant to them
to plunge into the war. It demanded no less than a revolution in their
methods of thought and in their attitude toward the rest of the world.
The Monroe Doctrine, moreover, which for nearly a century had been
almost as fundamental in our political life as the Constitution itself,
made our abstention from interference in Europe a point of honor. For
in its declaration that Europe must keep its hands off the western
hemisphere was the implied and recognized obligation that the United
States must keep its fingers out of Europe.
Until within a few months of our entrance into the war the vast
majority of our people, probably no less than nine-tenths of those who
were reading and thinking about it, saw in it nothing more than one of
those recurring European quarrels, such as their fathers, grandfathers,
and great-grandfathers had watched from this side the Atlantic with
growing determination that this country should not be entangled in
their strife. All that vast majority believed profoundly that the
United States should hold aloof from this war for the same reasons that
it had kept out of the previous bloody struggles. The American people
can scarcely be blamed that they did not for a long time perceive
the real cause of the war--the desire of the German Emperor and his
people to win world dominion and establish a German autocracy over the
conquered peoples. For no nation, and very few individuals, even among
the near neighbors of Germany, at first realized that this was the
goal of the Kaiser and his Government. Some of those nations had now
and then apprehended danger, but only each one for itself, but upon
the fingers of one hand could be counted the statesmen and publicists
of Europe who perceived the intention of world conquest, until the
field-gray legions had been started upon the adventure. And those few
who had declared such a conviction concerning German purpose had had
their trouble for their pains. For no one had heeded their warning.
Slowly, as evidence accumulated that convicted Germany out of her
own mouth and was surveyed in the light of the event to which it all
pointed, did the governments and peoples that were being attacked come
to a realization of the truth.
The American people were still longer in understanding the full
significance of the purpose with which Germany launched the war. For
their knowledge that through many centuries one after another of the
European powers had striven through blood and devastation and agony to
gain dominance over the others made them for a long time heedless of
the meaning of the accumulating evidence and led them, in all honesty
and conscientiousness, to absolve themselves of any responsibility or
obligation. German propaganda of the most insidious and plausible sort,
its sources well concealed, was busy everywhere and, although it had no
success in changing the direction of the spontaneous sympathies of the
people, it did aid in preventing them from discerning for many months
the real cause and purpose of the war.
Moreover, that any nation in the twentieth century should lust for
world dominion and should set out to gain it seemed to the average
American mind so impossible, so insane a purpose that it was loath to
believe the truth. More and more evidence had to be accumulated and
pressed home, more and more proof of the satanic methods by which the
Germans were seeking to gain both their immediate and their ultimate
ends had to be shown the American people before they could realize the
full truth and the full significance of the German purpose. Not until
that purpose ceased to stagger their belief did the sense of obligation
begin to stir their spirits.
Hardly less universal and profound than the political conviction that
this nation should stay out of European entanglements and let Europe
settle her own quarrels in her own way was the moral and intellectual
conviction that war is a wasteful and wicked means of bringing about
any desired result. For more than a generation this belief had been
growing and striking deep root in the minds and hearts of the American
people. The nation that sprang to arms in April, 1917, was a nation
that loathed war from the bottom of its heart.
So powerful and so universal were these convictions, that the country
should be kept aloof from European dissensions and that war should be
considered only as a last resort in a righteous cause, that no leader
could have put the country wholeheartedly into the war until the masses
of the people were convinced that the moment had come when they must
enter it. And they were not, in their millions, thus convinced until
the events near the end of 1916 and early in 1917 had shown them the
path they must take. Then it was--and until then it would not have
been--a united and determined country that took up the cross of war and
faced the ascent of Calvary--how completely and closely united and how
sternly determined the pages of this book will try to show.
PART ONE THE FIGHTING FORCES
SECTION I. ON LAND.
CHAPTER I
THE MAKING OF THE ARMY
The United States sprang into the greatest war the world has ever
known, a war in which men and machines and resources were being
consumed in enormous quantities, with an army numbering, all told, only
212,000. The first necessity was to create, train and equip an army
that would, at the earliest possible moment, number millions of men
and thousands of officers. American sentiment had always been strongly
opposed to the principle of compulsory military service and the only
attempt the country had ever made to use the draft system, during the
Civil War, had caused dissatisfaction, disturbance and riot in civil
life and in its military results had been practically a failure.
Through many days of discussion in Congress and throughout the country
the question was threshed out, while enlistments to the number of over
800,000 were swelling the ranks of the Regular Army, National Guard and
Reserve Corps organizations. In the end, there was general agreement
that only the draft system could furnish the enormous numbers of men
required and draw them from civil life with democratic justice and
with due regard to social and economic interests.
As a large number of foreign born citizens had come here to escape
the compulsory military service of their native countries, there
were many grave fears of the result and it was even expected that in
centers of foreign population there would be riotous demonstrations of
protest. But those who were thus apprehensive had not rightly estimated
the intelligence, the democracy and the Americanism of the whole
citizenship of the country, foreign as well as native born.
The success of the Selective Service Law, enacted by Congress on May
18, 1917, was as spectacular as it was complete. The entire machinery
of registration, compilation and report was organized and made ready
for operation in the eighteen days following the enactment of the law
and was wholly manned by volunteer service from civil life. On June
5th, in a single day, without disturbance or protest anywhere, the
entire male population of the country between the ages of twenty-one
and thirty, inclusive, went to the registration booths and registered
for military service, and practically all the returns were in
Washington within twenty-four hours. Two subsequent registrations of
young men who had reached the age of twenty-one after June 5th brought
the number of registrants up to a little more than 10,000,000 men.
On September 12th, 1918, occurred the registration under the extended
age limits of eighteen to forty-five when over 13,000,000 names were
added to the list. Thus in a year and a half of war America listed
and classified as to physical fitness and occupational and domestic
status her full available power of 23,700,000 men. Out of the first
great registration and the two small ones supplementing it and from
the Regular Army and the National Guard there had been sent overseas
at the signing of the armistice, November 11th, 1918, a little more
than 2,000,000 men and there were in the United States, ready for
transportation to France, 1,600,000. The American Army totaled at that
time 3,665,000. A few of those who had gone were in Italy, Russia, or
elsewhere, but nearly all of them were in France, trained, equipped
and either on the fighting line, in supporting divisions, or waiting
in the rear ready for the front. Those in the American training camps
were being transported to France at the rate of from 200,000 to 300,000
per month and would all have been overseas by early spring of 1919. The
work of classifying the registrants of September, 1918, and of making
the selections for military service was already under way and the flow
of these men into the training camps had begun. The plans were all
ready for operation for calling into military service 3,000,000 more
men from this registration, for training them in the American camps two
or three months and then sending them to France for a final training
period of six or eight weeks. If the war had continued until the next
summer, as it was then universally believed it would, the United States
would have had ready for service at the front, within two years of its
declaration of war, an army of between 6,000,000 and 7,000,000 men,
taken from civilian life, trained, equipped and transported across the
Atlantic Ocean within that time.
The mechanism by which this army was gathered, examined, selected,
classified and sent to training camps worked as smoothly, as
efficiently and as swiftly as if the country had been trained for a
century in martial methods. The quotas to be furnished by states,
counties and smaller districts were apportioned and local boards were
appointed to have charge of the task of calling the selected men,
examining and classifying them and sending to the training camps those
finally chosen as physically fit for the service and able to serve
without injury to dependents or to essential industry.
Registration also had been carried on under these local boards, each
registrant being numbered in order. The draft call was made by means
of a lottery drawing in Washington where each number that was drawn
summoned all the men of the same registration number in all of the
4,500 local boards throughout the country. The local boards called
in the men whose numbers were chosen, examined them as to physical
condition, considered their claims to exemption, if such were made,
on the ground of being the necessary support of dependents or of
being engaged in an essential industry, decided for or against them
and certified their names to the district board, which acted as a
board of review for local boards, as exempted or held for service. If
approved for service by the district board, the local board inducted
them into the service and sent them to a cantonment or camp to begin
their military training. Each of these 4,500 local boards was officered
by three men, one of whom had to be a physician. All of them were
civilians who worked practically without pay, until, after some months,
a small allowance was made for their remuneration. They carried through
the arduous work, frequently entailing many hours per day, in addition
to their regular business or professional affairs, which had to be much
neglected meanwhile, in order that they might offer this important
service to their country at the moment of need. The draft organization,
besides these 13,500 local board members, included over 1,000 district
board members, medical, legal and industrial advisers, clerks,
Government appeal agents, and others amounting, all told, to a compact,
nation-wide body of over 190,000.
The democratic ideals of America have never had a more searching trial
or a more triumphant vindication than was afforded by the swift and
efficient making of this Army of Freedom. Columbia stretched out a
summoning finger, saying, “I need you!” and there came to her service
millionaire’s son and Chinese laundryman, descendant of generations
of Americans and immigrant of a day, farmer, banker, merchant, clerk,
country school teacher, university professor, lawyer, physician, truck
driver, yacht owner, down-and-outer, social favorite--from village and
country and town and city they came, representing every occupation,
every social grade, every economic condition in the republic. On
the democratic level of service to the country they gathered in the
barracks and without a whimper or a word of protest the millionaire’s
son cleaned out stables, the young man reared in luxury washed his own
mess kit and served on the kitchen police, and all of them worked at
their training and their drill as hard as day laborers from dawn till
dark.
Fourteen tribes of American Indians were represented among the soldiers
of the National Army, as the forces formed from the Selective Service
were called for more than a year, to distinguish them from the Regular
Army and the National Guards. Then all three were merged into the
single organization of the United States Army. Among the most efficient
soldiers were several regiments of negroes. Every civilized nation on
the face of the globe, every language, and every important dialect
were represented in the ranks of the soldiers of freedom who carried
the Stars and Stripes on the battle fields of France. Through the
office of the base censor of the American Expeditionary Forces passed
letters in forty-nine languages. Chinese, Syrian and Dane, Persian and
Irishman, Japanese and Italian, Latin American and Swede, vied with
the New Englander, the Kentuckian, the Texan and the Kansan in loyalty
to the United States, in enthusiasm for our ideals and willingness to
defend them with their lives. In the September registration men of
fifty-two different tongues were listed in New York City. In the first
draft men were called and accepted who claimed birth in twenty-two
separately listed countries, while a contingent from Central and South
America was not credited in the official report to the separate nations
they represented and nearly two thousand men from scattered and small
countries were lumped together under the designation of “Sundries.” But
all of them zealously fought for America.
A great many of these foreign-born men already spoke English. And the
education of those who did not began as soon as they were inducted into
the army and was continued along with their military training. In every
cantonment to which came men who did not understand English schools
were established in which they were taught to speak, read and write
the language. All the training and all the life around them were in
English and this constant association and the daily lessons soon made
most of the men fairly proficient.
Along with the training in English went instruction in American ideals,
in the reasons why America was in the war and in what the war meant to
them individually. The aim was to give to these foreign-born men the
kind of training in patriotism and in democratic ideals, condensed into
a few weeks, that the American gets by birthright and surroundings.
Many, varied and ingenious were the ways by which this was done. There
were short talks on war news, on American principles of government,
on why America was in the war, on why it was a war for freedom, and
similar topics. The special days and the heroes of nations that have
their own traditions of revolt against tyranny were celebrated by
“national nights” to which came all the sons of that nation in the
camp and as many others as could crowd into the auditorium. There were
music and speeches and national songs and the hymns of the Allies and
in all the talking the speakers would link up American democracy, its
mission in the world and the reasons why America was in the war with
the traditions of freedom, the heroes of liberty and the sacrifices
for democracy and justice of the nation whose celebration was being
held. Pamphlets and leaflets, written by men of their own nationality,
in English usually, but in their own tongue for those who could not
yet read English, which explained the causes of the war, the aims of
the combatants and America’s motives and outlined American history in
a simple and readable way, were circulated among the men. In a word,
these foreign-born soldiers-in-the-making were educated and broadened
and so imbued with democratic principles and American ideals that in
spirit they rapidly became good Americans, even if they elected to
continue citizens of their native land.
But all who wished could be naturalized during their military training.
In every cantonment was a court of naturalization and by a special
law it had been made possible to shorten the time ordinarily needed
for this process. Any man who was going forth to fight the battles of
civilization in the American army could become an American citizen,
even if he had not previously declared his intention, while he was
being trained. In one day at one of the cantonments men of fifty-six
nationalities were naturalized. At this camp sessions were held from
eight till five o’clock and were often continued until midnight, so
many were there who wished to become citizens. The majority of the
aliens in the selective service did so choose and the great bulk of the
foreign-born part of the huge army that was ferried across the Atlantic
had acquired American citizenship. Aliens who did not wish to serve
could, and some thousands did, claim, and were granted, exemption on
that ground.
Now and then Columbia’s summoning finger brought to the training
camp a slacker, or a religious or a conscientious objector. Patient
and careful inquiry was given to every case and no effort was spared
to make sure that each was receiving exact justice. The official
report of the Provost Marshal General for the first draft reckoned
that out of the more than 3,000,000 called for service no more than
150,000 of those who failed to appear on time were not accounted
for by enlistment, transference or death. The reports of the local
boards showed that the bulk of this residue was composed of aliens
who had left this country to enlist in their own armies. Out of the
remainder of 50,000 a great many of the failures to report were due
to the ignorance or heedlessness of workingmen who had moved, between
registration and the call, from one job to another in a different
locality.
The exemption usually given to religious objectors was extended, after
a few months, to include those who based their objections to sharing
in warfare upon grounds of conscience even if they were not members
of a religious organization. Out of the 3,600,000 men inducted into
the service a little less than 4,000 were accepted or recognized as
conscientious objectors. A large number of these were assigned to work
on farm or industrial furloughs. Some entered non-combatant service
and a few were allowed to join the Friends’ Reconstruction Unit.
Several hundred refused any service whatever and were sent to prison.
In the training camps the conscientious objectors were segregated and
placed in the charge of an army officer who was often able by tact
and persuasion to influence them to a different point of view. Some
swallowed their objections very soon, took up the work of training more
or less sullenly, and presently, seeing a better light and feeling the
influence of the patriotism and enthusiasm surging round about them,
became as good soldiers of Uncle Sam as any of their comrades. The
problem of the slacker and the objector was a small one in the making
of the great army that was sent overseas, but it was a vexatious one
for the honest-hearted men who had charge of it and who took infinite
pains to dispense even-handed justice in every case. “My company,”
said the captain in one large cantonment under whose command were
grouped the slackers, the religious objectors and the protesters for
conscience’s sake, “is the most interesting one in the camp--and the
most trying.”
Development battalions were established in nearly all the cantonments
and did a good work in raising the efficiency of some of the men of
the army by helping them to reach better physical condition. To these
battalions were sent men who developed minor physical defects and the
men sometimes received from the local boards who fell short of the
physical standards set by the army. Medical treatment, courses of
physical training and, if necessary, surgical operations brought many
of them to so much better bodily condition that they could undertake
limited service. Many were sent to the forests of the Northwest as
part of the regiment that did most necessary work in helping to get
out spruce lumber for airplane construction. Others were prepared for
clerical and semi-civilian work in the army, thus releasing for active
service those who had had it in charge. A goodly number improved so
much under treatment that they were enabled to undertake active army
service. All told, about 250,000 men passed through the development
battalions, of whom nearly half were made fit for duty in either the
first, second or third class. Educational work was also carried on in
the battalions and many who were either illiterate or had had very
little schooling received elementary instruction from former school
teachers, of whom there were many in the ranks. Short talks on the
duties of citizenship, phases of American history, public questions,
and the causes and progress of the war and the encouragement of
discussion broadened the outlook and stimulated the minds of the men.
The necessity of organizing and training a huge army in a few months
made equally necessary a revolution in some army methods, a revolution
that was brought about by the Committee on the Classification of
Personnel appointed early in the war. For most of its work, which
constantly broadened and became more and more important, it had no
precedents, for, except a little experimenting in the British army,
nothing like it had ever been attempted before. In scope and function
and purpose it was one of those bold innovations upon army traditions
and methods which the Secretary of War introduced into the training of
this new army of democracy, with results so successful and important
that when the complete story of them is known it will be seen that they
put a new spirit into military training and were in no small measure
responsible for the splendid record made by the American army.
The Director of the Committee was a civilian, a university professor
and specialist in psychology who had won distinction by his ability to
give that science practical and fruitful application in daily life.
Its work was so varied and so well developed in all its phases that it
is possible to give here only the barest resume of its achievements.
By the methods it devised all the men who entered a cantonment, after
they had passed their physical examinations, underwent psychological
tests to determine the speed and accuracy of their mental actions,
the quality of their native intelligence and the extent of its
development. Then they passed on to interviewers who examined and
classified them according to their education and training, their
occupations and degree of skill. Afterward came trade tests to discover
whether or not the men had truly reported their occupations and ability.
These trade tests and the methods of their application, as finally
developed, were the result of much work and investigation by the
Committee that had brought in the services of psychological experts,
employment experts, statisticians and others. Their purpose was to
procure a dependable record of the special ability of every soldier
who possessed any kind of skill that would serve any one of the army’s
varied needs. Every army unit must have specialists of several kinds
and in an army that had to be built up at high speed it was necessary
to find these specialists among its numbers. Bitter experience
developed the fact, very soon, that the account of themselves which
the men gave in answer to the questions of the interviewers frequently
could not be depended on and the trade tests, which were of three
kinds, oral, picture and performance, were devised to meet this
necessity quickly and easily.
As the soldier passed through these various examinations his
interviewers entered upon his record card his physical and mental
qualifications, his trade or profession and his degree of proficiency.
Thus was tabulated, for the first time in the history of any army in
any nation, the exact physical, mental and industrial ability of every
soldier in the American army. These records were kept by the unit to
which the soldier was assigned, and followed him if he was changed to
another, for the information of the officers under whom he served. A
glance at such a card gave to an officer the knowledge he should have
concerning the aptitudes, the abilities and the character of any of his
men whom he might wish to assign to some particular service. If skilled
men were wanted in any of the scores of special occupations which the
modern army demands they could quickly and easily be brought together,
with the sure knowledge that they would be able to do what was expected
of them. One of the greatest of the many problems facing those who had
to make an army of millions of men out of raw civilians in a few months
was to be sure of getting the right man for the right place, and the
Committee on Classification of Personnel, an innovation in the making
of armies, solved it.
Similar tests helped to determine the qualifications of officers and
enabled their superiors to judge their fitness for any specified duty
with accuracy. The Personnel work was conducted by men chosen for
it because of their aptitude and their experience in civil life and
they were then trained especially for it in schools for that purpose
instituted at army camps.
These individual records and the service records of the entire army,
both privates and officers, with the history of each unit, are to be
preserved among the archives of the Government.
This great army, growing at the rate of a hundred thousand per month,
nearly the whole of it composed of civilians who had been entirely
lacking in military knowledge and training, without interest in martial
affairs and, in large part, averse to the principle of warfare as a
means of settling human disputes, had to be trained in the quickest
possible time for participation in the greatest, the most shocking
and the most scientific war of all history. The Regular Army and the
National Guard together could furnish no more than 9,500 officers, a
mere handful compared with the number needed. Beginning in May, 1917,
four series of Officers’ Training Camps were held, each series lasting
three months, at which men studied and drilled with grueling intensity
twelve hours a day, fitting themselves for the work of training the
Selective Service men who began to be gathered into the cantonments
early in September. At these camps were trained, all told, 80,000
officers, from second lieutenants to colonels, although the higher
commissions were granted only at the first two series because of the
urgent need, at first, for officers of all grades. There were also
several special training schools, one for colored officers of the line,
and others in Porto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines. Several thousand
officers were trained and graduated also from Reserve Officers’
Training Corps units established at over a hundred colleges and
universities.
French and British officers and British non-coms were sent by their
governments to the United States to aid by giving practical training
out of their own experience and their assistance was of great value.
After our own men began to go overseas and have training and experience
at the front many of them were brought back for the higher importance
of the instruction they could give.
[Illustration: VIEW ACROSS ONE END OF A CANTONMENT THREE MONTHS AFTER
ITS CONSTRUCTION WAS BEGUN]
[Illustration: TRAINING A MACHINE GUN COMPANY]
From the training camp schools of intensive study and drill many
thousands of young men were assigned for work at the special
officers’ training camps where officers were prepared for the
specialized duties of the Signal, Engineer and Quartermasters Corps,
and for coast and field artillery and machine gun work. Here also
there were long hours and steady, close application. From these
special training camps 60,000 officers were graduated. A shortened and
intensified course at West Point greatly increased the number of its
graduates ready for officers’ service with the army.
In the autumn of 1918 five hundred colleges and universities became
a part of the great program of the War Department. Each of these
institutions was transformed into a martial training school and nearly
all the men students of the whole five hundred, about 170,000 in all,
joined the Students’ Army Training Corps, thus becoming members of the
United States Army. But while these youths spent much time on drill and
training they also were expected to keep up their other studies. For
this was a scientific war and demanded for its prosecution men skilled
in many branches of learning. The young men were being trained to be
not only soldiers but also engineers, chemists, physicians, geologists,
physicists, and specialists in many other lines. From their ranks the
most promising were selected and sent to military camps for six weeks
of a course of rigid and intensive military training in some special
line of military service. West Point graduates, army officers with
experience on the other side, officers loaned by our Allies, had charge
of the military supervision and work of this great body of students.
And during the summer of 1918 7,000 members of university and college
faculties attended special training camps to prepare themselves to
assist in this work. The school year’s training was expected to yield,
by the spring of 1919, from 60,000 to 70,000 officers.
Thus, by training, selection, rigid test, more intensive training, the
hardest of hard work, and still more training under men who had proved
their worth in battle and had brought back dearly won knowledge of
present day methods of warfare, the need for more, and more, and ever
more officers for the rapidly expanding army was met. And in the camps
and cantonments the daily drill, drill, drill, and again drill, drill,
drill, of a million and a half of soldiers was constantly carried on.
Early in the course of all these activities it was perceived that it
would be advisable to reconstruct the entire plan of organization of
the army in order to make the size and number of its fighting units
correspond with those of the English and French armies and thus
simplify the brigading of our troops with the others and the exchanging
of units in the front lines. This reorganization was carried out, as
was also the merging together into one body of the three organizations,
Regular Army, National Guard and National Army, in the midst of all the
high-speeded preparations for war.
Another revolution in army methods, the result of the imperious
necessity for the highest efficiency possible to obtain, whether from
soldier or officer, individual or army, was the sweeping away of the
old system of promotion by seniority. All officers below the rank of
Brigadier-General, under these new regulations, had to undergo the
passing of judgment upon them every three months by their immediate
superiors. They were rated according to their physical and personal
qualities, capacity for leadership, intelligence, and value to the
service, and promotion depended upon how well they passed these tests.