19. All Germans and Austrians, naval, mi_History of the World War

evacuated within one month from Turkish dominions, and those in remote

districts as soon after that time as may be possible.

20. Compliance with such orders as may be conveyed for the disposal of

equipment, arms and ammunition, including the transport of that portion

of the Turkish army which is demobilized under Clause 5.

21. An Allied representative to be attached to the Turkish Ministry of

Supplies in order to safeguard Allied interests. This representative to

be furnished with all aid necessary for this purpose.

22. Turkish prisoners are to be kept at the disposal of the Allied

Powers. The release of Turkish civilian prisoners and prisoners over

military age is to be considered.

23. An obligation on the part of Turkey to cease all relations with the

Central Powers.

24. In case of disorder in the six Armenian vilayets the Allies reserve

to themselves the right to occupy any part of them.

25. Hostilities between the Allies and Turkey shall cease from noon,

local time, Thursday, the 31st of October, 1918.

THE AUSTRIAN AGREEMENT

Military Clauses

1. The immediate cessation of hostilities by land, sea and air.

2. Total demobilization of the Austro-Hungarian army and immediate

withdrawal of all Austro-Hungarian forces operating on the front from

the North Sea to Switzerland. Within Austro-Hungarian territory, limited

as in Clause 3 below, there shall only be maintained as an organized

military force reduced to pre-war effectiveness. Half the divisional,

corps and army artillery and equipment shall be collected at points to

be indicated by the Allies and United States of America for delivery to

them, beginning with all such material as exists in the territories to

be evacuated by the Austro-Hungarian forces.

3. Evacuation of all territories invaded by Austro-Hungary since the

beginning of the war. Withdrawal within such periods as shall be

determined by the commander-in-chief of the Allied forces on each front

of the Austro-Hungarian armies behind a line fixed as follows:--

From Pic Umbrail to the north of the Stelivo it will follow the crest of

the Rhetian Alps up to the sources of the Adige and the Eisaeh, passing

thence by Mounts Reschen and Brenner and the heights of Oetz and

Zoaller. The line thence turns south, crossing Mount Toblach and meeting

the present frontier Carnic Alps. It follows this frontier up to Mount

Tarvis and after Mount Tarvis the watershed of the Julian Alps by the

Col of Predil, Mount Mangart, the Terglou and the watershed of the Cols

di Podberdo, Podlaniscam and Idria. From this point the line turns

southeast towards the Schneeberg, excludes the whole basin of the Save

and its tributaries. From Schneeberg it goes down towards the coast in

such a way as to include Castua, Mattuglia and Volosca in the evacuated

territories.

It will also follow the administrative limits of the present province of

Dalmatia, including the north Lisarica and Trivania and, to the south,

territory limited by a line from the Semigrand of Cape Planca to the

summits of the watersheds eastwards, so as to include in the evacuated

area all the valleys and water course flowing towards Sebenaco, such as

the Cicola, Kerka, Butisnica and their tributaries. It will also include

all the islands in the north and west of Dalmatia from Premuda, Selve,

Ulbo, Scherda, Maon, Paga and Puntadura in the north up to Meleda in the

south, embracing Santandrea, Busi, Lisa, Lesina, Tercola, Curzola, Cazza

and Lagosta, as well as the neighboring rocks and islets and passages,

only excepting the islands of Great and Small Zirona, Bua, Solta and

Brazza. All territory thus evacuated shall be occupied by the forces of

the Allies and of the United States of America.

All military and railway equipment of all kinds, including coal

belonging or within those territories, to be left in situ and

surrendered to the Allies, according to special orders given by the

commander-in-chief of the forces of the associated Powers on the

different fronts. No new destruction, pillage or requisition to be done

by enemy troops in the territories to be evacuated by them and occupied

by the forces of the associated Powers.

4. The Allies shall have the right of free movement over all road and

rail and waterways in Austro-Hungarian territory and of the use of the

necessary Austrian and Hungarian means of transportation. The armies of

the associated Powers shall occupy such strategic points in

Austria-Hungary at times as they may deem necessary to enable them to

conduct military operations or to maintain order. They shall have the

right of requisition on payment for the troops of the associated Powers

whatever they may be.

5. Complete evacuation of all German troops within fifteen days not only

from the Italian and Balkan fronts, but from all Austro-Hungarian

territory. Internment of all German troops which have not left

Austro-Hungary within the date.

6. The administration of the evacuated territories of Austria-Hungary

will be entrusted to the local authorities under the control of the

Allied and associated armies of occupation.

7. The immediate repatriation without reciprocity of all Allied

prisoners of war and internal subjects and of civil populations

evacuated from their homes on conditions to be laid down by the

commander-in-chief of the forces of the associated Powers on the various

fronts. Sick and wounded who cannot be removed from evacuated territory

will be cared for by Austria-Hungary personnel, who will be left on the

spot with the medical material required.

Naval Clauses

1. Immediate cessation of all hostilities at sea and definite

information to be given as to the location and movements of all

Austro-Hungarian ships. Notification to be made to neutrals that freedom

of navigation in all territorial waters is given to the naval and

mercantile marine of the Allied and associated Powers, all questions of

neutrality being waived.

2. Surrender to Allies and the United States of fifteen Austro-Hungarian

submarines completed between the years 1910 and 1918 and of all German

submarines which are in or may hereafter enter Austro-Hungarian

territorial waters. All other Austro-Hungarian submarines to be paid off

and completely disarmed and to remain under the supervision of the

Allies and United States.

3. Surrender to Allies and United States with their complete armament

and equipment of three battleships, three light cruisers, nine

destroyers, twelve torpedo boats, one mine layer, six Danube monitors,

to be designated by the Allies and United States of America. All other

surface warships, including river craft, are to be concentrated in

Austro-Hungarian naval bases to be designated by the Allies and United

States of America and are to be paid off and completely disarmed and

placed under the supervision of Allies and United States of America.

4. Freedom of navigation to all warships and merchant ships of Allied

and associated Powers to be given in the Adriatic and up the River

Danube and its tributaries in the territorial waters and territory of

Austria-Hungary. The Allies and associated Powers shall have the right

to sweep up all mine fields and obstructions, and the positions of these

are to be indicated. In order to insure the freedom of navigation on the

Danube, the Allies and the United States of America shall be empowered

to occupy or to dismantle all fortifications or defense work.

5. The existing blockade conditions set up by the Allied and associated

Powers are to remain unchanged and all Austro-Hungarian merchant ships

found at sea are to remain liable to capture, save exceptions may be

made by a commission nominated by the Allies and the United States of

America.

6. All naval aircraft are to be concentrated and impactionized in

Austro-Hungarian bases to be designated by the Allies and United States

of America.

7. Evacuation of all the Italian coasts and of all ports occupied by

Austria-Hungary outside their national territory and the abandonment of

all floating craft, naval materials, equipment and materials for inland

navigation of all kinds.

8. Occupation by the Allies and the United States of America of the land

and sea fortifications and the islands which form the defenses and of

the dockyards and arsenal at Pola.

9. All merchant vessels held by Austria-Hungary belonging to the Allies

and associated Powers to be returned.

10. No destruction of ships or of materials to be permitted before

evacuation, surrender or restoration.

11. All naval and mercantile marine prisoners of the Allied and

associated Powers in Austro-Hungarian hands to be returned without

reciprocity.

THE GERMAN AGREEMENT

1. Cessation of operations by land and in the air six hours after the

signature of the armistice.

2. Immediate evacuation of invaded countries: Belgium, France,

Alsace-Lorraine, Luxemburg, so ordered as to be completed within

fourteen days from the signature of the armistice. German troops which

have not left the above-mentioned territories within the period fixed

will become prisoners of war. Occupation by the Allied and United States

forces jointly will keep pace with evacuation in these areas. All

movements of evacuation and occupation will be regulated in accordance

with a note annexed to the stated terms.

3. Repatriation beginning at once and to be completed within fifteen

days of all inhabitants of the countries above mentioned, including

hostages and persons under trial or convicted.

4. Surrender in good condition by the German armies of the following

equipment: Five thousand guns (two thousand five hundred heavy, two

thousand five hundred field), twenty-five thousand machine guns, three

thousand minenwerfers, seventeen hundred airplanes. The above to be

delivered in situ to the Allies and the United States troops in

accordance with the detailed conditions laid down in the annexed note.

5. Evacuation by the German armies of the countries on the left bank of

the Rhine. These countries on the left bank of the Rhine shall be

administered by the local troops of occupation under the control of the

Allied and United States armies of occupation. The occupation of these

territories will be carried out by Allied and United States garrisons

holding the principal crossings of the Rhine, Mayence, Coblenz, Cologne,

together with bridgeheads at these points in thirty kilometer radius on

the right bank and by garrisons similarly holding the strategic points

of the regions.

A neutral zone shall be reserved on the right of the Rhine between the

stream and a line drawn parallel to it forty kilometers (twenty-six

miles) to the east from the frontier of Holland to the parallel of

Gernsheim and as far as practicable a distance of thirty kilometers

(twenty miles) from the east of stream from this parallel upon Swiss

frontier. Evacuation by the enemy of the Rhine lands shall be so ordered

as to be completed within a further period of sixteen days, in all

thirty-one days after the signature of the armistice. All movements of

evacuation and occupation will be regulated according to the note

annexed.

6. In all territory evacuated by the enemy there shall be no evacuation

of inhabitants; no damage or harm shall be done to the persons or

property of the inhabitants. No destruction of any kind to be committed.

Military establishments of all kinds shall be delivered as well as

military stores of food, munitions, equipment not removed during the

periods fixed for evacuation. Stores of food of all kinds for the civil

population, cattle, etc., shall be left in situ. Industrial

establishments shall not be impaired in any way and their personnel

shall not be moved. Roads and means of communication of every kind,

railroad, waterways, main roads, bridges, telegraphs, telephones, shall

be in no manner impaired. No person shall be prosecuted for offenses of

participation in war measures prior to the signing of the armistice.

7. All civil and military personnel at present employed on them shall

remain. Five thousand locomotives, one hundred fifty thousand wagons and

five thousand motor lorries in good working order with all necessary

spare parts and fittings shall be delivered to the associated Powers

within the period fixed for the evacuation of Belgium and Luxemburg. The

railways of Alsace-Lorraine shall be handed over within thirty-six days,

together with all pre-war personnel and material. Further material

necessary for the working of railways in the country on the left bank of

the Rhine shall be left in situ. All stores of coal and material for the

upkeep of permanent ways, signals and repair shops left entire in situ

and kept in an efficient state by Germany during the whole period of

armistice. All barges taken from the Allies shall be restored to them.

All civil and military personnel at present employed on such means of

communication and transporting including waterways shall remain.

8. The German command shall be responsible for revealing within

forty-eight hours all mines or delay acting fuses disposed on territory

evacuated by the German troops and shall assist in their discovery and

destruction. The German command shall also reveal all destructive

measures that may have been taken (such as poisoning or polluting of

springs, wells, etc.) under penalty of reprisals.

9. The right of requisition shall be exercised by the Allies and the

United States armies in all occupied territory, "subject to regulation

of accounts with those whom it may concern." The upkeep of the troops of

occupation in the Rhine land (excluding Alsace-Lorraine) shall be

charged to the German Government.

10. An immediate repatriation without reciprocity according to detailed

conditions which shall be fixed, of all Allied and United States

prisoners of war. The Allied Powers and the United States shall be able

to dispose of these prisoners as they wish. This condition annuls the

previous conventions on the subject of the exchange of prisoners of war,

including the one of July, 1918, in course of ratification. However, the

repatriation of German prisoners of war interned in Holland and in

Switzerland shall continue as before. The repatriation of German

prisoners of war shall be regulated at the conclusion of the

preliminaries of peace.

11. Sick and wounded, who cannot be removed from evacuated territory

will be cared for by German personnel who will be left on the spot with

the medical material required.

12. All German troops at present in any territory which before the war

belonged to Roumania, Turkey or Austria-Hungary shall immediately

withdraw within the frontiers of Germany as they existed on August 1,

1914. German troops now in Russian territory shall withdraw within the

frontiers of Germany, as soon as the Allies, taking into account the

internal situation of those territories, shall decide that the time for

this has come.

13. Evacuation by German troops to begin at once and all German

instructors, prisoners and civilian as well as military agents now on

the territory of Russia (as defined before 1914) to be recalled.

[Illustration: Photograph]

French Official Photograph.

DRAFTING THE DRASTIC TERMS OF SURRENDER

The above French official photograph is the first received in this

country showing the statesmen of the Allied Powers at Versailles

drafting the armistice terms, which later were accepted by the German

plenipotentiaries, and virtually brought the World War to an end. The

men in the photograph are: Left side of table, left to right--General

di Robilant of Italy; Baron Sidney Sonnino, Italian Foreign Minister;

Vittorio Orlando, Italian Premier; Colonel E. M. House, representative

of President Wilson; General Tasker H. Bliss, U. S. A.; (next man

unknown); Eleutherios Venizelos, Greek Premier; Vesnitch, Serbian

Premier. Right, side of table, left to right--Admiral Wemyss, R. N.

(with back turned); General Sir Henry Wilson; Field Marshal Sir

Douglas Haig; General Sackville-West; Andrew Bonar Law, British

Chancellor of the Exchequer; David Lloyd George, British Premier;

Georges Clemenceau, French Premier; Stephen Pichon, French Foreign

Minister.

[Illustration: Photograph]

GERMANS FLEEING BEFORE ALLIED ADVANCE

To speed their retreat the German engineers built a temporary bridge

using a British tank as a foundation.

[Illustration: Photograph]

THE GERMAN GOOSE-STEP

The Kaiser reviews his troops marching with the goose-step. This

photograph shows the pick of the German army. Most of these men were

killed by the end of the first year of the war.

14. German troops to cease at once all requisitions and seizures and any

other undertakings with a view to obtaining supplies intended for

Germany in Roumania and Russia (as defined on August 1, 1914).

15. Renunciation of the treaties of Bucharest and Brest-Litovsk and of

the supplementary treaties.

16. The Allies shall have free access to the territories evacuated by

the Germans on their eastern frontier either through Danzig or by the

Vistula in order to convey supplies to the populations of those

territories and for the purpose of maintaining order.

17. Evacuation by all German forces operating in East Africa within a

period to be fixed by the Allies.

18. Repatriation, without reciprocity, within maximum period of one

month, in accordance with detailed conditions hereafter to be fixed, of

all civilians interned or deported who may be citizens of other Allied

or associated states than those mentioned in clause three, paragraph

nineteen.

19. The following financial conditions are required: Reparation for

damage done. While such armistice lasts no public securities shall be

removed by the enemy which can serve as a pledge to the Allies for the

recovery or repatriation of the cash deposit, in the National Bank of

Belgium, and in general immediate return of all documents, specie,

stocks, shares, paper money together with plant for the issue thereof,

touching public or private interests in the invaded countries.

Restitution of the Russian and Roumanian gold yielded to Germany or

taken by that Power. This gold to be delivered in trust to the Allies

until the signature of peace.

20. Immediate cessation of all hostilities at sea and definite

information to be given as to the location and movements of all German

ships. Notification to be given to neutrals that freedom of navigation

in all territorial waters is given to the naval and merchant marines of

the Allied and associate Powers, all questions of neutrality being

waived.

21. All naval and mercantile marine prisoners of war of the Allied and

associated Powers in German hands to be returned without reciprocity.

22. Surrender to the Allies and the United States of America of all

German submarines now existing (including all submarine cruisers and

mine-laying submarines), with their complete armament and equipment, in

ports which will be specified by the Allies and the United States of

America. Those which cannot take the sea shall be disarmed of the

material and personnel and shall remain under the supervision of the

Allies and the United States. All the conditions of the article shall be

carried into effect within fourteen days. Submarines ready for sea shall

be prepared to leave German ports immediately upon orders by wireless,

and the remainder at the earliest possible moment.

23. The following German surface warships which shall be designated by

the Allies and the United States of America shall forthwith be disarmed

and thereafter interned in neutral ports, to be designated by the Allies

and the United States of America and placed under the surveillance of

the Allies and the United States of America, only caretakers being left

on board, namely:

Six battle cruisers, ten battleships, eight light cruisers, including

two mine layers, fifty destroyers of the most modern type. All other

surface warships (including river craft) are to be concentrated in naval

bases to be designated by the Allies and the United States of America,

and are to be paid off and completely disarmed and placed under the

supervision of the Allies and the United States of America. All vessels

of the auxiliary fleet (trawlers, motor vessels, etc.) are to [be]

disarmed. Vessels designated for internment, shall be ready to leave

German ports within seven days upon directions by wireless, and the

military armament of all vessels of the auxiliary fleet shall be put on

shore.

24. The Allies and the United States of America shall have the right to

sweep all mine fields and obstructions laid by Germany outside German

territorial waters, and the positions of these are to be indicated.

25. Freedom of access to and from the Baltic to be given to the naval

and mercantile marine of the Allied and associated Powers. To secure

this Allies and the United States of America shall be empowered to

occupy all German forts, fortifications, batteries and defense works of

all kinds in all the entrances from the Cattegat into the Baltic, and to

sweep up all mines and obstructions within and without German

territorial waters without any question of neutrality being raised, and

the positions of all such mines and obstructions are to be indicated.

26. The existing blockade conditions set up by the Allies and associated

Powers are to remain unchanged and all German merchant ships found at

sea are to remain liable to capture. The Allies and the United States

shall give consideration to the provisioning of Germany during the

armistice to the extent recognized as necessary.

27. All naval aircraft are to be concentrated and immobilized in German

bases to be specified by the Allies and the United States.

28. In evacuating the Belgian coasts and ports, Germany shall abandon

all merchant ships, tugs, lighters, cranes and all other harbor

materials, all materials for inland navigation, all aircraft and all

materials and stores, all arms and armaments, and all stores and

apparatus of all kinds.

29. All Black Sea ports are to be evacuated by Germany, all Russian war

vessels of all descriptions seized by Germany in the Black Sea are to be

handed over to the Allies and the United States of America; all neutral

merchant vessels seized are to be released; all warlike and other

materials of all kinds seized in those parts are to be returned and

German materials as specified in clause twenty-eight are to be

abandoned.

30. All merchant vessels in German hands belonging to the Allied and

associated Powers are to be restored in ports to be specified by the

Allies and the United States of America without reciprocity.

31. No destruction of ships or materials to be permitted before

evacuation, surrender or restoration.

32. The German Government will notify neutral governments of the world,

and particularly the governments of Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Holland,

that all restrictions placed on the trading of their vessels with the

Allied and associated countries, whether by the German Government or by

private German interests, and whether in return for specific concessions

such as the export of shipbuilding materials or not, are immediately

canceled.

33. No transfers of German merchant shipping of any description to any

neutral flag are to take place after signature of the armistice.

34. The duration of the armistice is to be thirty days, with option to

extend. During this period, on failure of execution of any of the above

clauses, the armistice may be denounced by one of the contracting

parties on forty-eight hours' previous notice. It is understood that the

execution of Articles 3 and 18 shall not warrant the denunciation of the

armistice on the ground of insufficient execution within a period fixed,

except in the case of bad faith in carrying them into execution. In

order to assume the execution of this convention under the best

conditions, the principle of a Permanent International Armistice

Commission is admitted. This commission shall act under authority of the

Allied military and naval commanders-in-chief.

35. This armistice to be accepted or refused by Germany within

seventy-two hours of notification.

CHAPTER LIV

PEACE AT LAST

War came upon the world in August, 1914, with a suddenness and an impact

that dazed the world. When it seemed, in 1918, that mankind had

habituated himself to war and that the bloody struggle would continue

until the actual exhaustion and extinction of the nations involved,

peace suddenly appeared. The debacle of the Teutonic alliance was both

dramatic and unexpected, except to those who knew how desperate were the

conditions in the nations that were battling for autocracy. Bulgaria was

first to crumble, then Turkey fell, and Austria-Hungary deserted

Germany. The Kaiser and his military advisers, left alone, appealed to

the Allies through President Wilson, for an armistice during which peace

terms might be negotiated. Prince Maximilian of Baden, a statesman whose

liberal ideas were rumored rather than demonstrated, was chosen to open

negotiations. President Wilson, acting in concert with the Allies,

referred Prince Maximilian to Marshal Foch.

While negotiations were pending, a cabled message was received on

November 7th to the effect that the armistice had been signed and that

all soldiers would cease fighting on two o'clock of that afternoon. It

was a false report, but it spread with incredible speed throughout the

country. Celebrations which included virtually every American, made the

country a gala place for twenty-four hours. The American people with

characteristic good nature laughed at the hoax next day and settled down

in patience to await the inevitable declaration of an armistice.

The true report arrived about three o'clock, Eastern time, in the

morning of November 11th. Shrieks of whistles, the booming of cannon,

and the clangor of bells, awoke millions of sleeping persons, many of

whom trooped into the streets to mingle their rejoicings with those of

their neighbors. For a day there was high carnival in town and country

throughout the land, then the nation settled down to face the imminent

problems of reconstruction.

One of these had to do with the immediate reduction of governmental

expenditures during the approaching year. President Wilson had appealed

to the voters to elect a Democratic Congress as an evidence of approval

for his administration. The reply was a Republican House of

Representatives and a Republican Senate.

The Congress that had been in continuous session since America entered

the war, ended its labors in mid-November.

For length, bulk of appropriations for the war and the number and

importance of legislative measures passed, the session was

unprecedented.

Appropriations passed aggregated $36,298,000,000, making the total for

this Congress more than $45,000,000,000, of which $19,412,000,000 was

appropriated at the first (an extra) session, at which war was declared

on Germany.

Legislation passed included bills authorizing billions of Liberty bonds;

creation of the War Finance Corporation; government control of

telegraphs, telephones and cables; executive reorganization of

government agencies, and extensions of the espionage act and the army

draft law by which men between eighteen and forty-five years of age were

required to register.

Prohibition and woman suffrage furnished sharp controversies throughout

the session. The war-time "dry" measure was completed, but after the

woman suffrage constitutional amendment resolution had been adopted,

January 10th, by the House, it was defeated in the Senate by two votes.

Every man, woman and child in the belligerent nations owed almost seven

times as much money when peace came as he did at the beginning of the

war.

Figures of the war's cost to the world compiled by the Federal Reserve

Board were summarized in the statement that the approximate public debt

per capita had increased from $60 before the war to almost $400 at the

end of July, 1918. To this was added the cost since July, which is at

the highest rate of the entire period.

The direct cost of the war was calculated by the board at somewhere

between $170,000,000,000 and $180,000,000,000, not taking into account

the authorization of the debt or the cost of indemnities.

Four-fifths of the huge burden fell upon the shoulders of the future,

only Great Britain and America absorbing a considerable amount by

taxation.

The total debt of the seven principal belligerents before the war did

not exceed $25,000,000,000.

The board contrasted these figures with the total value of the gold and

silver extracted from the earth since the beginning of the world, which,

it said, hardly exceeded $30,000,000,000.

The belligerent nations, therefore, owed about six times the amount of

all the gold and silver produced in all time.

Prices rose to three times the average of what they were at the

beginning of the war.

Great Britain's debt increased almost ten times over in the period of

the war, or from $3,580,000,000 to $32,450,000,000 down to June, 1918.

These figures do not include the debts of Australia, Canada, New Zealand

and South Africa, British colonies.

France's debt was quadrupled by the beginning of 1918, increasing from

$6,833,000,000 to $25,410,000,000.

Italy's debt rose from $2,929,000,000 to $6,918,000,000.

Figures for Russia were brought up only to September, 1917, but they

showed that at that time she owed $26,287,000,000, as compared with

$5,234,000,000 at the beginning of the war.

The public debt of the United States was calculated to January 1, 1918,

in order to be in line with those of other countries, increasing by that

date to over $8,000,000,000 from a pre-war figure of a billion and a

quarter. Since that time $11,500,000,000 have been subscribed to the

Liberty Loans, thus increasing the national debt about sixteen fold.

The most extraordinary increase of all was that of Germany, rising from

$1,208,000,000 to $26,332,000,000.

Austria owed $2,736,000,000 at the beginning of the war, which was

increased by June, 1917, to $11,573,000,000.

Hungary increased her debt from $1,392,000,000 to $5,910,000,000 by

December, 1917.

The neutrals, Denmark, Spain, Holland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland

together owed $2,871,000,000 when war began and increased their debts

only to $3,710,000,000.

Existing war obligations of the United States at the close of 1918

matured as follows:

First Liberty Loan, $2,000,000,000, redeemable at the option of the

Treasury after 1932 and payable not later than 1947; Second Liberty

Loan, $3,808,000,000, redeemable after 1927, payable in 1942; Third

Liberty Loan, $4,176,000,000, redeemable and payable without option in

1928; Fourth Liberty Loan, $6,989,047,000, redeemable after 1933,

payable in 1938; War Savings, $879,300,000 up to November, 1918, payable

in 1923.

With this program of maturity, the Treasury by exercising its option

could call in the nation's war debt for redemption in installments every

five years until 1947.

Secretary of the Treasury, William Gibbs McAdoo, who was also Director

General of Transportation, created a sensation when he resigned both

offices in November, 1918, the resignation to take effect January 1,

1919. Coming upon the eve of the peace conference in Paris and the

announcement that President Wilson intended to head the American

delegates to the conference, the resignation caused widespread surprise.

The reasons given by Mr. McAdoo were ill-health and a serious

depreciation of his private fortune during his incumbency of

governmental positions.

Following the armistice, steps were immediately taken for the

repatriation of a considerable portion of the American forces in France

and the return to their homes of the men in American training camps. The

Third Army of the United States, commanded by General Dickman, was

ordered to the western shore of the Rhine, there to co-operate with the

troops of the Allies until the conclusion of peace negotiations.

The country was amazed on November 23d when General March announced that

the casualties of the American forces which had been anticipated as

being less than 100,000, had in reality exceeded 236,000. Explanation

for this lay in the fierce on-rush of the American forces during the

last month of the war.

A forecast that many thousands of American boys would remain in France

was given by Andre Tardieu, General Commissioner for Franco-American

affairs, when addressing the Association of Foreign Correspondents in

New York City, after the armistice had been signed.

M. Tardieu appealed for permission to retain American soldiers in

France. He said:

"We want first an immediate assistance in the matter of labor. We hope

that, during the preparation and the carrying out of the transportation

of your troops back to America your technical units as well as other

units with their equipment will be able to co-operate in that effort. We

soon will have to carry out a colossal work of transportation in view of

the supplying of the regions evacuated by the enemy, of the recovering

of the railroads in Northern and Eastern France and in Alsace-Lorraine.

We will have to clean the reconquered ground of the ruins accumulated by

the German hordes. Your army will help us in this work while our

population will restore her cities and villages.

"Again in reference, not to all purchases--as a large part of our needs

will be supplied outside of the United States--but in reference to those

purchases which will be made in America, we are in need of credits in

dollars covering about fifty per cent of our total purchases for

reconstruction. The assurance of that financial help will bring to every

one in France, government and private enterprise, the courage and faith

necessary to apply to peace reconstruction the energy and the spirit of

enterprise she has so prominently shown during the war.

"We will exact from Germany the restitution of each part of the material

taken away from us as can be recovered. But, besides that restitution,

we must bear in mind that speed is a primary condition in the

reconstruction of France, and that America, on account of her immense

capacities for production, ought to give us the first help. We need

ships, chartered ships as well as ships transferred to our flag; the

speedy reconstruction of the country is strictly depending on the

revival of our mercantile fleet.

"The colossal effort put up by the United States in the building of her

fleet for war purposes will not be diverted from this sacred end if it,

in part, helps France to recover on the seas, for the revival of her

forces in peace, the means of transportation which were lost to her on

account of the war.

"In reference to these four items--labor; credit, raw materials,

ships--I have explained in detail our needs to your administration, by

whose welcome I have been deeply moved. What I told them, what I asked

for, I am telling it to you again, because a policy of secrecy does not

befit our day.

"We have lost two million and a half men; some are dead, some maimed,

some have returned sick and incapacitated from German prisons. Whether

they be lost altogether, or whether their working capacity be

permanently reduced, they will not participate in this reconstruction.

The fifteenth part of our people is missing at the very time we need all

our material and moral forces in order to build up our life again. The

younger part, yea, the stronger part of our nation, the flower of

France, has died away on the battle-fields. Our country has been bereft

of its most precious resources.

"Our war expenses, on the other side, 120,000,000,000 francs, are

weighing heavily on our shoulders. To payoff this debt there are at hand

only such limited resources as invasion has left us. The territories

which have been under German occupation for four years were the

wealthiest part of France. Their area did not exceed six per cent of the

whole country. They paid, however, twenty-five per cent of the sum total

of our taxes.

"These territories which have been, for the last three months, occupied

again by us at the cost of our own blood and of the blood of our allies,

are now in a state of ruin even worse than we had anticipated. Of the

cities and villages nothing remains but ruins; 350,000 homes have been

destroyed. To build them up again--I am referring to the building

proper, without the furnishings--600 million days' of work will be

necessary, involving, together with building material, an outlay of

10,000,000,000 francs. As regards personal property of every description

either destroyed by battle, or stolen by the Germans, there stands an

additional loss of at least 4,000,000,000 francs.

"This valuation of lost personal property does not include--as definite

figures are lacking as yet--the countless war contributions and fines by

the enemy, amounting also to billions. I need hardly say that, in those

wealthy lands, practically no agricultural resources are left.

"The losses in horses and in cattle, bovine and ovine species, hogs,

goats, amount to 1,510,000 head--in agricultural equipment to 454,000

machines or carts--the two items worth together 6,000,000,000 francs.

"Now as regards industries, the disaster is even more complete. These

districts occupied by the Germans and whose machinery has been

methodically destroyed or taken away by the enemy, were, industrially

speaking, the very heart of France. They were the very backbone of our

production, as shown in the following startling figures:

"In 1913 the wool output of our invaded regions amounted to 94 per cent

of the total. French production and corresponding figures were: For flax

from the spinning mills, 90 per cent; iron ore, 90 per cent; pig iron,

83 per cent; steel, 70 per cent; sugar, 70 per cent; cotton, 60 per

cent; coal 55 per cent; electric power, 45 per cent. Of all that,

plants, machinery, mines, nothing is left. Everything has been carried

away or destroyed by the enemy. So complete is the destruction that, in

the case of our great coal mines in the north, two years of work will be

needed before a single ton of coal can be extracted and ten years before

the output is brought back to the figures of 1913.

"All that must be rebuilt, and to carry out that kind of reconstruction

only, there will be a need of over 2,000,000 tons of pig iron, nearly

4,000,000 tons of steel--not to mention the replenishing of stocks and

of raw materials which must of necessity be supplied to the plants

during the first year of resumed activity. If we take into account these

different items we reach as regards industrial needs a total of

25,000,000,000 francs.

"To resurrect these regions, to reconstruct these factories, raw

materials are not now sufficient; we need means of transportation. Now

the enemy has destroyed our railroad tracks, our railroad equipment, and

our rolling stock, which in the first month of the war, in 1914, was

reduced by 50,000 cars, has undergone the wear and tear of fifty months

of war.

"Our merchant fleet, on the other hand, has lost more than a million

tons through submarine warfare. Our shipyards during the last four years

have not built any ships. For they have produced for us and for our

allies cannon, ammunition, and tanks. Here, again, for this item alone

of means of transportation we must figure on an expense of 2,500,000,000

francs.

"This makes, if I sum up these different items, a need of raw material

which represents in cost, at the present rate of prices in France, not

less than 50,000,000,000 francs.

"And this formidable figure, gentlemen, does not cover everything. I

have not taken into account the loss represented for the future

production of France by the transformation of so many factories which

for four years were exclusively devoted to war munitions. I have not

taken into account foreign markets lost to us as a result of the

destruction of one-fourth of our productive capital and the almost total

collapse of our trade. I have not taken into account the economic

weakening that we will suffer tomorrow owing to that loss, to which I

referred a while ago, of 2,500,000 young an vigorous men."

This was one of the great by-products of the war. Thousands of young

Americans, vigorous evangels of democratic thought, remained in Europe

to bring American ideals and American force into the affairs of the old

world.

Those who returned were formidable factors in re-shaping the affairs of

the nation. Grave injustices were done in some instances to young men

who had volunteered in the early days of the war through patriotic

motives and who returned to find their places in industry taken by

others. In the main, however, the process of absorption went forward

steadily and without serious incident.

One factor making for satisfactory adjustment was the insurance system

put into effect by the United States Government, affecting its war

forces. Immediately following the armistice, the following announcement

was made:

Preparations by the government for re-insuring the lives of soldiers and

sailors on their return have been hastened by the signing of the

armistice. Although regulations have not yet been fully drafted, it is

certain that each of the 4,250,000 men in the military or naval service

now holding voluntary government insurance will be permitted within five

years after peace is declared to convert it without further medical

examination into ordinary life, twenty-pay life, endowment maturing at

the age of sixty-two, or other prescribed forms of insurance.

This insurance will be arranged by the government, not by private

companies, and the cost is expected to be at least one-fourth less than

similar forms offered by private agencies. The low cost will result from

the fact that the government will pay all overhead administration

expenses, which, for private companies, amount to about seventeen per

cent of premium receipts; will save the usual solicitation fees and, in

addition, bear the risk resulting from the wounding or weakening of men

while in the service. Private companies would not write insurance on

many wounded men, or their rates would be unusually high.

The government will arrange to collect premiums monthly, if men wish to

pay that way, or for longer periods in advance. This may be done through

post-offices. The minimum amount of insurance to be issued probably will

be $1,000, and the maximum $10,000, with any amount between those sums

in multiple of $500. There will be provision for payments in case of

disability as well as death, according to the tentative plan.

Thus will be created out of the government's emergency war insurance

bureau the greatest life insurance institution in the world for peace

times, with more policyholders and greater aggregate risks than a half

dozen of the world's biggest private companies combined. Out of the

experience gained may eventually develop expansion of government

insurance to old age, industrial and other forms of insurance, in the

opinion of officials who have studied the subject.

Regulations for reinsuring returning soldiers and sailors are being

framed by an advisory board to the military and naval section of the war

risk bureau, consisting of Arthur Hunter, actuary of the New York Life

Insurance Company; W. A. Fraser, Omaha, of the Woodmen of the World, and

F. Robertson Jones, of the Workmen's Compensation Publicity Bureau, New

York.

Plans also are under consideration for allowing beneficiaries of men who

have died or been killed in the service to choose between taking monthly

payments over a period of twenty years or to commute these payments in a

lump sum.

CHAPTER LV

AMERICA'S POSITION IN WAR AND PEACE

By common consent of the Entente Allies, President Wilson was made the

spokesman for the democracy of the world. As Lloyd George, Premier

Clemenceau of France, Premier Orlando of Italy, and other Europeans

recognized, his utterances most clearly and cogently expressed the

principles for which civilization was battling against the Hun. More

than that, these statesmen and the peoples they represented recognized

that back of President Wilson were the high ideals of an America pledged

to the redemption of a war-weary world.

The war produced a sterility in literature. Out of the great mass that

was written, however, two productions stood out in their nobility of

thought and in their classic directness of expression. These were the

address before Congress by President Wilson on the night of April 2,

1917, when, recognizing fully the dread responsibility of his action, he

pronounced the words which led America into the World War, and the

speech made by him on Monday, November 11, 1918, when addressing

Congress he announced the end of the war. Other declarations of the

President that will be treasured as long as democracy survives, are

those enunciating the fourteen points upon which America would make

peace, and two later declarations as to America's purposes.

His address of April 2d was delivered before the most distinguished

assemblage ever gathered within the hall of the House of

Representatives. The Supreme Court of the United States, headed by the

Chief Justice, every member of the embassies then resident in

Washington, the entire membership of the House and Senate, and a host of

the most distinguished men and women that could crowd themselves into

the great hall, listened to what was virtually America's Declaration of

War.

The air was still and tragic suspense was upon every face as the

President began his address. At first he was pale as the marble rostrum

against which he leaned. As he read from small sheets typewritten with

his own hand, his voice grew firmer and the flush of indignation and of

resolution overspread his countenance. He said:

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS:

I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because there are

serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made, and made

immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally permissible

that I should assume the responsibility of making.

On the third of February last I officially laid before you the

extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Government that on and

after the first day of February it was its purpose to put aside all

restraints of law or of humanity and use its submarines to sink every

vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and

Ireland on the western coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled

by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean. That had seemed to

be the object of the German submarine warfare earlier in the war, but

since April of last year the Imperial Government had somewhat restrained

the commanders of its undersea craft in conformity with its promise then

given to us that passenger boats should not be sunk and that due warning

would be given to all other vessels which its submarines might seek to

destroy, when no resistance was offered or escape attempted, and care

taken that their crews were given at least a fair chance to save their

lives in their open boats. The precautions taken were meager and

haphazard enough, as was proved in distressing instance after instance

in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree

of restraint was observed. The new policy has swept every restriction

aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character,

their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent

to the bottom without warning and without thought of help or mercy for

those on board, the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those of

belligerents. Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the

sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were

provided with safe conduct through the proscribed areas by the German

Government itself and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of

identity, have been sunk with the same reckless lack of compassion or of

principle.

I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in

fact be done by any government that had hitherto subscribed to the

humane practices of civilized nations. International law had its origin

in the attempt to set up some law which would be respected and observed

upon the seas, where no nation had right of dominion and where lay the

free highways of the world. By painful stage after stage has that law

been built up, with meager enough results, indeed, after all was

accomplished that could be accomplished, but always with a clear view,

at least, of what the heart and conscience of mankind demanded. This

minimum of right the German Government has swept aside under the plea of

retaliation and necessity and because it had no weapons which it could

use at sea except these which it is impossible to employ as it is

employing them without throwing to the winds all scruples of humanity or

of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the

intercourse of the world. I am not now thinking of the loss of property

involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and

wholesale destruction of the lives of noncombatants, men, women, and

children, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest

periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property

can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people can not be.

The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare

against mankind.

It is a war against all nations: American ships have been sunk, American

lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of,

but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been

sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no

discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide

for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be

made with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness of judgment

befitting our character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited

feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion

of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right,

of human right, of which we are only a single champion.

When I addressed the Congress on the twenty-sixth of February last I

thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms,

our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to

keep our people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it

now appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws

when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant

shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks as the

law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves

against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open

sea. It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity indeed,

to endeavor to destroy them before they have shown their own intention.

They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all. The German

Government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all within the

areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defense of rights

which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their right to

defend. The intimation is conveyed that the armed guards which we have

placed on our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law

and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be. Armed neutrality is

ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face of

such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual: it is likely only to

produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically certain to draw

us into the war without either the rights or the effectiveness of

belligerents. There is one choice we can not make, we are incapable of

making; we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most

sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated.

The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs;

they cut to the very roots of human life.

With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the

step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves,

but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I

advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial

German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the

government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the

status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it; and that it

take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough

state of defense but also to exert all its power and employ all its

resources to bring the Government of the German Empire to terms and end

the war.

What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable

co-operation in counsel and action with the governments now at war with

Germany, and, as incident to that, the extension to those governments of

the most liberal financial credits, in order that our resources may so

far as possible be added to theirs. It will involve the organization and

mobilization of all the material resources of the country to supply the

materials of war and serve the incidental needs of the nation in the

most abundant and yet the most economical and efficient way possible. It

will involve the immediate full equipment of the navy in all respects

but particularly in supplying it with the best means of dealing with the

enemy's submarines. It will involve the immediate addition to the armed

forces of the United States already provided for by law in case of war

at least five hundred thousand men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen

upon the principle of universal liability to service, and also the

authorization of subsequent additional increments of equal force so soon

as they may be needed and can be handled in training. It will involve

also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the Government,

sustained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be sustained by the

present generation, by well conceived taxation.

I say sustained so far as may be equitable by taxation because it seems

to me that it would be most unwise to base the credits which will now be

necessary entirely on money borrowed. It is our duty, I most

respectfully urge, to protect our people so far as we may against the

very serious hardships and evils which would be likely to arise out of

the inflation which would be produced by vast loans.

In carrying out the measures by which these things are to be

accomplished we should keep constantly in mind the wisdom of interfering

as little as possible in our own preparation and in the equipment of our

own military forces with the duty--for it will be a very practical

duty--of supplying the nations already at war with Germany with the

materials which they can obtain only from us or by our assistance. They

are in the field and we should help them in every way to be effective

there.

[Illustration: Photograph]

British Official Photograph

BELGIAN SOVEREIGNS RE-ENTER BRUGES

King Albert and Queen Elizabeth of Belgium saluting the Allied colors,

on their triumphal entry into Bruges at the head of their victorious

army, October 23, 1918.

[Illustration: Photograph]

SURRENDER OF THE GERMAN HIGH SEAS FLEET

Actual photograph showing the greatest naval surrender in history--the

German fleet arriving to surrender. Below, The commanders of the

British and American fleets, Admirals Beatty and Rodman, the King of

England and the Prince of Wales viewing the surrender.

I shall take the liberty of suggesting, through the several executive

departments of the Government, for the consideration of your committees,

measures for the accomplishment of the several objects I have mentioned.

I hope that it will be your pleasure to deal with them as having been

framed after very careful thought by the branch of the Government upon

which the responsibility of conducting the war and safeguarding the

nation will most directly fall.

While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very

clear, and make very clear to all the world what our motives and our

objects are. My own thought has not been driven from its habitual and

normal course by the unhappy events of the last two months, and I do not

believe that the thought of the nation has been altered or clouded by

them. I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had in mind when

I addressed the Senate on the 22d of January last; the same that I had

in mind when I addressed the Congress on the 3d of February and on the

26th of February. Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the

principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against

selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and

self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of

action as will henceforth ensure the observance of those principles.

Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the

world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that

peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments backed

by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the

will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such

circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be

insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for

wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that

are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.

We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards

them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse

that their government acted in entering this war. It was not with their

previous knowledge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars

used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days when peoples were

nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in

the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were

accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools. Self-governed

nations do not fill their neighbor states with spies or set the course

of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will

give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest. Such designs can

be successfully worked out only under cover and where no one has the

right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of deception or

aggression, carried, it may be, from generation to generation, can be

worked out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts or

behind the carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged

class. They are happily impossible where public opinion commands and

insists upon full information concerning all the nation's affairs.

A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a

partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be

trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a

league of honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals

away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and

render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart.

Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a

common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of

their own.

Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope

for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things

that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia? Russia was

known by those who knew it best to have been always in fact democratic

at heart, in all the vital habits of her thoughts, in all the intimate

relationships of her people that spoke their natural instinct, their

habitual attitude towards life. The autocracy that crowned the summit of

her political structure, long as it had stood and terrible as was the

reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in origin, character, or

purpose; and now it has been shaken off and the great, generous Russian

people have been added in all their native majesty and might to the

forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for

peace. Here is a fit partner for a League of Honor.

One of the things that has served to convince us that the Prussian

autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that from the very

outset of the present war it has filled our unsuspecting communities and

even our offices of government with spies and set criminal intrigues

everywhere afoot against our national unity of counsel, our peace within

and without, our industries and our commerce. Indeed it is now evident

that its spies were here even before the war began; and it is unhappily

not a matter of conjecture but a fact proved in our courts of justice

that the intrigues which have more than once come perilously near to

disturbing the peace and dislocating the industries of the country have

been carried on at the instigation, with the support, and even under the

personal direction of official agents of the Imperial Government

accredited to the Government of the United States. Even in checking

these things and trying to extirpate them we have sought to put the most

generous interpretation possible upon them because we knew that their

source lay, not in any hostile feeling or purpose of the German people

towards us (who were, no doubt as ignorant of them as we ourselves

were), but only in the selfish designs of a government that did what it

pleased and told its people nothing. But they have played their part in

serving to convince us at last that that government entertains no real

friendship for us and means to act against our peace and security at its

convenience. That it means to stir up enemies against us at our very

doors the intercepted note to the German Minister at Mexico City is

eloquent evidence.

We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we know that

in such a government, following such methods, we can never have a

friend; and that in the presence of its organized power, always lying in

wait to accomplish we know not what purpose, there can be no assured

security for the democratic governments of the world. We are now about

to accept gauge of battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall, if

necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify its

pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts with

no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate

peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German

peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the

privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of

obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be

planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no

selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no

indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices

we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of

mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as

secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.

Just because we fight without rancor and without selfish object, seeking

nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free

peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as

belligerents without passion, and ourselves observe with proud punctilio

the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.

I have said nothing of the governments allied with the Imperial

Government of Germany because they have not made war upon us or

challenged us to defend our right and our honor. The Austro-Hungarian

Government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified endorsement and

acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare adopted now

without disguise by the Imperial German Government, and it has therefore

not been possible for this government to receive Count Tarnowski, the

Ambassador recently accredited to this government by the Imperial and

Royal Government of Austria-Hungary; but that government has not

actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on the

seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of postponing a

discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. We enter

this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are no

other means of defending our rights.

It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in

a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not

in enmity towards a people or with the desire to bring any injury or

disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible

government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of

right and is running amuck. We are, let me say again, the sincere

friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing so much as the

early re-establishment of intimate relations of mutual advantage between

us--however hard it may be for them, for the time being, to believe that

this is spoken from our hearts. We have borne with their present

government through all these bitter months because of that

friendship--exercising a patience and forbearance which would otherwise

have been impossible. We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to

prove that friendship in our daily attitude and actions towards the

millions of men and women of German birth and native sympathy who live

amongst us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it towards

all who are in fact loyal to their neighbors and to the government in

the hour of test. They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as

if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. They will be

prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be

of a different mind and purpose. If there should be disloyalty, it will

be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but, if it lifts its

head at all, it will lift it only here and there and without countenance

except from a lawless and malignant few.

It is a distressing and oppressive duty, Gentlemen of the Congress,

which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be,

many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful

thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most

terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be

in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall

fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our

hearts--for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to

have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of

small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of

free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the

world itself at last free. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and

our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with

the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is

privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave

her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God

helping her, she can do no other.

His address to Congress on November 11, 1918, while all the Allied

Nations were celebrating with exultant hearts the victory that had come

to them, was no less dramatic than the speech that had marked the

beginning of the war. He prefaced it by reading the drastic terms of the

armistice granted to Germany. Continuing he said:

The war thus comes to an end; for, having accepted these terms of

armistice, it will be impossible for the German command to renew it.

It is not now possible to assess the consequences of this great

consummation. We know only that this tragical war, whose consuming

flames swept from one nation to another until all the world was on fire,

is at an end and that it was the privilege of our own people to enter it

at its most critical juncture in such fashion and in such force as to

contribute, in a way of which we are all deeply proud, to the great

result. We know, too, that the object of the war is attained; the object

upon which all free men had set their hearts; and attained with a

sweeping completeness which even now we do not realize. Armed

imperialism such as the men conceived who were but yesterday the masters

of Germany is at an end, its illicit ambitions engulfed in black

disaster. Who will now seek to revive it?

The arbitrary power of the military caste of Germany which once could

secretly and of its own single choice disturb the peace of the world is

discredited and destroyed. And more than that--much more than that--has

been accomplished. The great nations which associated themselves to

destroy it have now definitely united in the common purpose to set up

such a peace as will satisfy the longing of the whole world for

disinterested justice, embodied in settlements which are based upon

something much better and more lasting than the selfish competitive

interests of powerful states. There is no longer conjecture as to the

objects the victors have in mind. They have a mind in the matter, not

only, but a heart also. Their avowed and concerted purpose is to satisfy

and protect the weak as well as to accord their just rights to the

strong.

The humane temper and intention of the victorious governments have

already been manifested in a very practical way. Their representatives

in the Supreme War Council at Versailles have by unanimous resolution

assured the peoples of the Central Empires that everything that is

possible in the circumstances will be done to supply them with food and

relieve the distressing want that is in so many places threatening their

very lives; and steps are to be taken immediately to organize these

efforts at relief in the same systematic manner that they were organized

in the case of Belgium. By the use of the idle tonnage of the Central

Empires it ought presently to be possible to lift the fear of utter

misery from their oppressed populations and set their minds and energies

free for the great and hazardous tasks of political reconstruction which

now face them on every hand. Hunger does not breed reform; it breeds

madness and all the ugly distempers that make an ordered life

impossible.

For with the fall of the ancient governments, which rested like an

incubus on the peoples of the Central Empires, has come political change

not merely, but revolution; and revolution which seems as yet to assume

no final and ordered form, but to run from one fluid change to another,

until thoughtful men are forced to ask themselves, with what governments

and of what sort are we about to deal in the making of the covenants of

peace? With what authority will they meet us, and with what assurance

that their authority will abide and sustain securely the international

arrangements into which we are about to enter? There is here matter for

no small anxiety and misgiving. When peace is made, upon whose promises

and engagements besides our own is it to rest?

Let us be perfectly frank with ourselves and admit that these questions

cannot be satisfactorily answered now or at once. But the moral is not

that there is little hope of an early answer that will suffice. It is

only that we must be patient and helpful and mindful above all of the

great hope and confidence that lie at the heart of what is taking place.

Excesses accomplish nothing. Unhappy Russia has furnished abundant

recent proof of that. Disorder immediately defeats itself. If excesses

should occur, if disorder should for a time raise its head, a sober

second thought will follow and a day of constructive action, if we help

and do not hinder.

The present and all that it holds belongs to the nations and the peoples

who preserve their self-control and the orderly processes of their

governments; the future to those who prove themselves the true friends

of mankind. To conquer with arms is to make only a temporary conquest;

to conquer the world by earning its esteem is to make permanent

conquest. I am confident that the nations that have learned the

discipline of freedom and that have settled with self-possession to its

ordered practice are now about to make conquest of the world by the

sheer power of example and of friendly helpfulness.

The peoples who have but just come out from under the yoke of arbitrary

government and who are now coming at last into their freedom will never

find the treasures of liberty they are in search of if they look for

them by the light of the torch. They will find that every pathway that

is stained with the blood of their own brothers leads to the wilderness,

not to the seat of their hope. They are now face to face with their

initial test. We must hold the light steady until they find themselves.

And in the meantime, if it be possible, we must establish a peace that

will justly define their place among the nations, remove all fear of

their neighbors and of their former masters, and enable them to live in

security and contentment when they have set their own affairs in order.

I, for one, do not doubt their purpose or their capacity. There are some

happy signs that they know and will choose the way of self-control and

peaceful accommodation. If they do, we shall put our aid at their

disposal in every way that we can. If they do not, we must await with

patience and sympathy the awakening and recovery that will assuredly

come at last.

FOURTEEN PRINCIPLES OF PEACE

On Tuesday, January 8, 1918, President Wilson placed the peace terms of

the United States Government before both houses of Congress, in joint

session. The fourteen principles were:

1. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall

be no private international understanding of any kind, but diplomacy

shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.

2. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial

waters, alike in peace and war, except as the seas may be closed in

whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of

international covenants.

3. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the

establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations

consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

4. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be

reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

5. A free, open-minded and absolutely impartial adjustment of all

Colonial claims based upon a strict observance of the principle that in

determining all such questions of sovereignty, the interests of the

populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims

of the government whose title is to be determined.

6. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all

questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest

co-operation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an

unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent

determination of her own political development and national policy, and

assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under

institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance

also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The

treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come

will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her

needs, as distinguished from their own interests, and of their

intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

7. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored,

without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common

with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will

serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they

have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations

with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and

validity of international law is forever impaired.

8. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions

restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871, in the matter

of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for

nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more

be made secure in the interests of all.

9. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along

clearly recognized lines of nationality.

10. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we

wish to see safeguarded and restored, should be accorded the freest

opportunity of autonomous development.

11. Roumania, Serbia and Montenegro should be evacuated, occupied

territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea,

and the relations of the several Balkan States to one another determined

by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance

and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and

economic independence and territorial integrity, of the several Balkan

States, should be entered into.

12. The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured

a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under

Turkish rule, should be assured an undoubted security of life and an

absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the

Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships

and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

13. An independent Polish State should be erected which should include

the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which

should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose

political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be

guaranteed by international covenants.

14. General association of nations must be formed under specific

covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political

independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

President Wilson in his address to Congress on February 11, 1918,

presented these four principles which are to be applied in arranging

world peace:

1. That each part of the final settlement must be based upon the

essential justice of that particular case and upon such adjustments, as

are most likely to bring a peace that will be permanent.

2. That peoples and provinces are not to be bartered about from

sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were mere chattels and pawns in a

game, even the great game now forever discredited, of the balance of

power; but that

3: Every territorial settlement must be made in the interest and for the

benefit of the populations concerned, and not as part of any mere

adjustment or compromise of claims amongst rival states; and,

4. That all well-defined national aspirations shall be accorded the

utmost satisfaction that can be accorded them without introducing new or

perpetuating old elements of discord and antagonism that would be likely

in time to break the peace of Europe and consequently of the world.

President Wilson, in his Liberty Loan address in New York on September

27th, thus stated this government's interpretation of its duty with

regard to peace:

1. The impartial justice meted out must involve no discrimination

between those to whom we wish to be just and those to whom we do not

wish to be just. It must be a justice that plays no favorites and knows

no standard but the equal rights of the several peoples concerned;

2. No special or separate interest of any single nation or any group of

nations can be made the basis of any part of the settlement which is not

consistent with the common interests of all;

3. There can be no leagues or alliances or special covenants and

understandings within the general and common family of the League of

Nations;

4. And more specifically, there can be no special, selfish economic

combinations within the league and no employment of any form of economic

boycott or exclusion except as the power of economic penalty by

exclusion from the markets of the world may be vested in the League of

Nations itself as a means of discipline and control.

5. All international agreements and treaties of every kind must be made

known in their entirety to the rest of the world.

[Illustration: Map: Europe, North Africa, East Asia.]

THE WAR ZONE ESTABLISHED BY GERMANY, FEBRUARY, 1917, THAT BROUGHT

AMERICA INTO THE WAR.

CHAPTER LVI

THE WAR BY YEARS

Germany's military strength developed during forty years of preparation,

and the offensive plans of the German High Command developed in

connection with an extraordinary spy service in France, Belgium, Russia,

England and the United States, culminated in a simultaneous campaign on

land and by sea, affecting these five nations.

AUGUST 1, 1914-AUGUST 1, 1915

Belgium and Northern France were overrun by a German invading force

under General von Kluck. The heroic effort of the French army under

General Joffre and a supreme strategic thrust at the German center by

General Foch turned back the German tide at the battle of the Marne. The

scientific diabolism of the German High Command was revealed when poison

gas was projected against the Canadians at Ypres, torturing, blinding

and killing thousands.

German terrorism on the high seas culminated in the sinking of the

Cunard liner Lusitania by a German submarine off the Irish coast. Men,

women and children to the number of 1,152 lost their lives. Of these 102

were Americans.

German colonies in South Africa were invaded by British South African

troops under General Louis Botha, who during the Boer War commanded a

division against the British. The German holdings at Tsing-Tau and in

the Marshall Islands were seized by Japan.

German cruisers that had raided sea-going commerce were destroyed. The

most noted of these was the Emden, which was defeated and destroyed by

the Australian cruiser Sydney off the Cocos Islands.

German sea power was further humiliated in a running fight off Helgoland

in which the battle cruiser Blucher was sunk and in a battle off the

Falkland Islands in which three German cruisers were destroyed.

Italy entered the war on May 23,1915, and invaded Austria on a

sixty-mile front. Russian forces, after early successes, were defeated

at Tannenburg by von Hindenburg, the outstanding military genius on the

German side.

The development of aircraft as an aid to artillery and as a destructive

force on its own account, was rapid, and the use of machine guns and

hand grenades in trench operations became general.

AUGUST 1, 1915-AUGUST 1, 1916

The tragic sea and land operations at the Dardanelles and Gallipoli

marked this year with red in British history. Sir Douglas Haig succeeded

Sir John French as Commander-in-Chief of British forces in France. The

outstanding operation of the British forces on the western front was the

bloody battle of the Somme, beginning July 1st, and continuing until the

fall of 1915. The losses on both sides in that titanic struggle

staggered two continents. Especially heroic were the attacks of the

Canadians in that great battle and especially heavy were the losses in

killed and wounded of the Canadian regiments. They ranked in magnitude

with the depletion that came to the Australian and New Zealand armies in

the fatal Gallipoli campaign.

This year will be glorious forever in the annals of France because of

the heroic defense at Verdun. That battle tested to the limit the

offensive strength of the German machine and it was found lacking in

power to pierce the superhuman defense of the heroic French forces under

Petain and Nivelle.

Bulgaria entered the war on October 14, 1915, with a declaration of war

against helpless Serbia. Greece, torn by internal dissensions, inclined

first to one side, then to the other. The occupation of Saloniki by

French and British expeditionary forces finally swung the archipelago to

the Allies.

A British Mesopotamian force under General Townshend, poorly equipped

and unsupported, was cut off in Kut-el-Amara, and surrendered to the

Turks on April 29, 1916.

The Italian forces under General Cadorna made a sensational advance

terminating in the capture of Gorizia. Portugal entered the war on the

side of the Allies after it had refused to give up to Germany several

German ships interned in Portuguese ports.

An object lesson in German submarine possibilities was given America

when the Deutschland, a super-submarine cargo vessel, arrived in

Baltimore, Maryland, on July 9, 1916. The Deutschland later was

converted into a naval submarine and re-visited American shores, sinking

a number of merchant vessels. It was one of the German submarine fleet

surrendered to the Allies in November, 1918.

Russia proved itself to be a military ineffective. German armies under

von Mackensen and von Hindenburg occupied Warsaw, Brest-Litovsk, Lutsk,

and Grodno. Grand Duke Nicholas was removed from the command of the

Russian armies and Czar Nicholas assumed command.

Germany's pretensions to sea power ended with the battle of Jutland, May

31, 1916, when its High Seas fleet fled after a running fight with

British cruisers and destroyers. Never, thereafter, during the war did

the German ships venture out of the Bight of Helgoland.

AUGUST 1, 1916-AUGUST 1, 1917

This year was marked by two dramatic episodes. The first of these was

the sudden entrance and the equally sudden exit of Roumania as a factor

in the World War.

The second was the appearance of the United States which became the

deciding factor in the war.

Roumania created enthusiasm in Allied countries when it declared war on

Austria-Hungary August 27th. A sudden descent by a Roumanian army into

Transylvania on August 30th was hailed as the harbinger of further

successes. These hopes were turned to ashes when von Mackensen headed an

irresistible German and Austrian rush which fairly inundated Roumania.

The retreat from Transylvania by the Roumanians was turned into a rout.

Bulgarian forces invaded the Dobrudja region of Roumania and on November

28th the seat of the Roumanian Government was transferred from

Bucharest, the capital, to Jassy. Roumania ceased to be a factor in the

war on December 6th, when Bucharest fell to von Mackensen. Emperor Franz

Josef of Austria-Hungary died on November 22d, while Austrian hopes were

at their highest.

America's appearance as a belligerent was forecast on January 31, 1917,

when Germany announced its intention of sinking all vessels in a

blockade zone around the British Isles. Count von Bernstorff was handed

his passports on February 3d, and on April 2d President Wilson, in a

remarkable address to Congress, advised a declaration of war by the

United States against Germany. This was consummated by a formal vote of

Congress declaring war on April 6th.

This action by America was followed by the organization of a Council of

National Defense. Under this body the resources of the nation were

mobilized. The council was later virtually abandoned as an organizing

factor, its functions going to the War Industries Board, presided over

by Bernard Baruch; the Fuel Administration, under Dr. Harry A. Garfield;

the War Trade Board, with Vance C. McCormick at its head; and other

governmental bodies. George Creel headed the Committee on Public

Information.

Conscription was decided upon as the foundation of America's war-making

policy, and the training of officers and privates in great training

camps was commenced. Great shipping and aircraft programs were

formulated and the nation as a whole was placed upon a war footing.

The Russian revolution beginning in bread riots in Petrograd, spread

throughout that country, with the result that Russia disappeared as one

of the Entente Allies.

FROM AUGUST 1, 1917-NOVEMBER 11, 1918

America's might and efficiency were revealed in the speed and

thoroughness with which her military, naval and civilian resources were

mobilized and thrown into the conflict. Under the supervision of the

Chief of Staff, two million American soldiers received the final touches

in their military training and were transported safely overseas. They

became the decisive factor in the war during the summer and fall of

1918. To their glory be it recorded they never retreated.

Chateau-Thierry, St. Mihiel, Siecheprey, Boureches Wood, Cantigny,

Belleau Wood, the Argonne, Sedan and Stenay are names that will rank in

American history with Yorktown, New Orleans and Gettysburg. The "land of

dollars" became over night the "land of high ideals" to the civilized

world. Lightless nights in cities, restriction of the use of gasoline on

Sundays and daylight-saving legislation linked civilians to soldiers in

war effort.

Italy suffered a severe reverse beginning October 24, 1917, when the

German forces rushed through a portion of the Italian army that had been

honey-combed with pro-German Socialistic propaganda.

Canada again emblazoned its name in history through the heroic capture

of Passchendaele on November 6, 1917.

The Russian revolution turned to the Bolsheviki when Lenine and Trotsky

at the head of the Reds seized Petrograd on November 7th and deposed

Alexander Kerensky, leader of the Moderate Socialists. The Czar Nicholas

was executed by the victorious Bolsheviki and the Imperial family made

captives.

The British Mesopotamian forces advanced into Palestine and Mesopotamia,

destroying the Turkish army under Ahmed Bey in a battle terminating

September 29, 1917. General Stanley Maude, the leader of the expedition,

died in Mesopotamia November 18, 1917.

General Allenby commanding British and Arabian forces, routed and

destroyed three Turkish armies in Palestine, capturing Jerusalem which

had been held by the Turks for six hundred and seventy three years.

The turning point of the war came on March 29, 1918, when General Foch

was chosen Commander-in-Chief of all the Allied forces. This followed

Germany's great drive on a fifty-mile front from Arras to La Fere.

Successive German thrusts were halted by the Allied forces now strongly

reinforced by Americans.

Foch, patiently biding his time, elected to halt the German drive with

Americans. The Marines of the United States forces were given the post

of honor, and at Chateau-Thierry the counter-thrust of Foch was

commenced by a complete defeat of the Prussian Guard and other crack

German regiments, by the untried soldiers of America.

From Chateau-Thierry to the armistice which went into effect at eleven

o'clock on November 11th was only a short span of time, but in it was

compressed the humiliation of arrogant Teutonic imperialism, the

destruction of militaristic autocracy, and the liberation of the world.

CHAPTER LVII

BEHIND AMERICA'S BATTLE LINE

GENERAL MARCH'S OWN STORY OF THE WORK OF THE MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

DIVISION--OF THE WAR PLANS DIVISION--OF THE PURCHASE AND TRAFFIC

DIVISION--HOW MEN, MUNITIONS AND SUPPLIES REACHED THE WESTERN FRONT.

It is important that a general summary of America's military

preparations, a detailed description of the operations behind the battle

line and a detailed chronology of America's principal military

operations in France during the year 1918 should be presented to the

reader. Such a summary is afforded by the report of General Peyton C.

March, Chief of Staff, United States Army, for the last year of the war.

Addressing the Secretary of War, General March wrote in part:

The signing of the armistice on November 11, 1918, has brought to a

successful conclusion the most remarkable achievement in the history of

all warfare.

The entry of the United States into the war on April 6, 1917, found the

Nation about as thoroughly unprepared for the great task which was

confronting it as any great nation which had ever engaged in war.

Starting from a minimum of organized strength, within this short period

of sixteen months the entire resources of the country in men, money, and

munitions have been placed under central control, and at the end of this

period the Nation was in its full stride and had accomplished, from a

military standpoint, what our enemy regarded as the impossible. The most

important single thing, perhaps, in this record of accomplishment, was

the immediate passage by Congress of the draft law, without which it

would have been impossible to have raised the men necessary for victory.

In organizing, training, and supplying the vast numbers of men made

available by the draft law very many changes have been made necessary in

the organization of the War Department and in the methods existing

therein which were inherited from the times of profound peace.

Shortly after my installation as Chief of Staff I adopted the principle

of interchange of the personnel of the various staff corps of the War

Department with men who had training in France, and in the application

of this principle placed as the heads of various bureaus officers

selected on account of their ability and experience in the system of

warfare as conducted in France.

At this time, also, I found that the divisions organized in our armies

were still regarded as separate units, designated by different titles in

accordance with their origin. This made three different kinds of

divisions in the United States army--the Regular army, the National

Guard, and National army divisions. All these distinctions were

abolished and the entire army consolidated into a United States army,

without regard to the source from which drawn. The source of supply of

all replacements for the various elements of the army, without regard to

their origin, was drafted men; and the titles had no significance

whatever and were a source of possible disturbance from the standpoint

of military efficiency. There was, in fact, no actual difference between

these divisions with respect to efficiency--all have done high-grade

work from whatever source drawn. All have shown courage and capacity for

quick absorption of the fundamentals of modern military training and

irresistible dash and force in actual fighting.

When I returned from France on March 1, 1918, I came back with the

belief that the most fundamental necessity, both for the American

Expeditionary Force and for the success of the allies, was that the

shipment of troops to France should be vastly increased and should have

priority over everything else; and as this policy became effective a

study was instituted looking to our putting in France, if that was

possible, enough men to bring the war to a conclusion in the shortest

period possible. After a study of the entire situation, including as

accurate an estimate of the potential strength of our allies on the

western front and of the probable German strength as was possible, I

came to the conclusion that the war might be brought to an end in 1919,

provided we were able to land in France by June 30th of that year eighty

American divisions of a strength of 3,360,000 men. On July 18, 1918, I

submitted to you a formal memorandum, accompanied by a study of methods

by which the men could be obtained, the supplies procured, and an

analysis of the shipping which must be obtained in order to accomplish

this very large military program. This was accompanied by an estimate of

the cost of the proposed program.

In this study I recommended to you the adoption, as the American

program, of eighty divisions in France and eighteen at home by June 30,

1919, based on a total strength of the American army of 4,850,000 men.

This was approved by you and by the President of the United States and

adopted as our formal military program. To carry this program into

effect required the adoption by Congress of a change in the draft ages

so as to include men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years,

and also created a deficiency over the enormous appropriations already

made by Congress of some $7,000,000,000. The presentation of the program

to Congress, accompanied by the statement that this increase in the

army, if laws were passed by Congress which would make it effective,

would lead to success in 1919, produced prompt and favorable

consideration by that body. Up to the signing of the armistice troops

were being transported to France monthly in accordance with that

program. The results speak for themselves....

[Illustration: Photograph]

Photo by International Film Service.

THE SALVATION ARMY ON THE WESTERN FRONT

A shell-proof dugout used as a rest room for soldiers.

[Illustration: Photograph]

THE Y. M. C. A. IN THE FRONT LINE TRENCHES

The Y. M. C. A. sign beside the trench points the way to a dugout,

instead of the usual hut, in which soldiers found the comforts which

made the sign of the triangle famous.

[Illustration: Photograph]

Photo from Underwood and Underwood. N.Y.

A LETTER FROM HOME

In thousands of France's little stone houses this scene has been

duplicated. In the towns and villages soldiers were assigned or

"billeted" to the houses of the inhabitants with the result that a

deep mutual respect grew up between the two nationalities.

During the year, the most important in the history of the country both

from a military and civil standpoint, there have been four heads of the

General Staff: Major-General Hugh L. Scott, from the outbreak of the war

until his retirement, September 22, 1917; General Tasker H. Bliss, from

that date until May 19, 1918; Major-General John Biddle, Acting Chief of

Staff at periods during the absence of General Bliss in France, from

October 29, 1917, to December 16, 1917, and from January 9, 1918, to

March 3, 1918. I assumed the duties of Acting Chief of Staff on March 4,

1918, became Chief of Staff May 20, 1918, and have continued on that

duty since.

It was evident, as the war progressed, that the General Staff was acting

under an organization and in accordance with regulations which were not

only unsuited to the duties and responsibilities confronting it, but

were wholly out of date and were not suited to any General Staff

organization. Successive revisions of the orders under which the General

Staff was acting were made as events demanded, until the experience of

the year crystallized the organization of the General Staff into that

set forth in General Order No. 80 of the War Department. This order

divides the work of the General Staff into four primary divisions: 1.

Operations; 2. Purchase, Storage, and Traffic; 3. Military Intelligence;

4. War Plans. Each of these divisions is under the direction of a

director; who is Assistant Chief of Staff and is a general officer.

OPERATIONS DIVISION

The Operations Division is under the charge of Major-General Henry

Jervey, United States army, as Director of Operations and Assistant

Chief of Staff. This division is a consolidation of the former

Operations Committee and Equipment Committee, which pertained to the War

College under the previous organization. The Operations Division has had

charge of the increase in the personnel of the army during the year. On

June 30, 1917, the Regular army consisted of 250,357 officers and

enlisted men. On August 5,1917, 379,323 officers and men of the National

Guard were drafted into the Federal service. There were a few special

drafts of small numbers of National Guardsmen into the Federal service

after August 5, 1917. During the period covered by this report this

division handled the calls into service of men obtained under the draft,

the organization of these men into divisions and units necessary for the

army, and turned over for shipment overseas up to November 8, 1918,

2,047,667 men. The grand total of men in the army from returns for the

period ending October 15th is 3,624,774. This force was organized into

divisions, the proper proportion of corps, army, and service of supply

troops, and of replacement camps and training centers for Infantry,

Field Artillery, and Machine Guns in the United States. Central

officers' training schools were organized at each of the replacement

camps. Replacement camps and training centers for the various staff

departments were also organized. Development battalions were organized

at all division camps and large posts and camps for the purpose of

developing men of poor physique and the instruction of illiterates and

non-English-speaking men of the draft. During the fiscal year 5,377,468

officers and men were moved by railroad to and from the camps.

The Operations Division has during the year also handled all matters

connected with the adoption of new types of equipment, fixing allowances

for various units, the preparation of tables of equipment for them, and

the distribution and issue of equipment, and the determination of

priorities of such issue.

It has supervised and studied the needs of camps and construction work

therein, and this work in general has been characterized by marked

ability and devotion to duty.

PURCHASE, STORAGE AND TRAFFIC DIVISION

The Division of Purchase, Storage and Traffic is under the charge of

Major-General George W. Goethals, United States army, as Assistant Chief

of Staff and Director of Purchase, Storage and Traffic. This division

was organized by merging divisions previously created, and which had

been called "Storage and Traffic" and "Purchase and Supply." The new

division thus organized was subdivided into Embarkation Service,

Storage, Inland Traffic Service, and Purchase and Supply Branch.

Embarkation.--At the outbreak of the war the Quartermaster's Department

had charge of the transportation of troops and supplies and continued to

exercise these functions until August 4, 1917, when they were

transferred to a separate division of the General Staff, specially

created for the purpose, and designated as the Embarkation Service. As

already noted, this was subsequently merged with the Storage and Traffic

Division.

Two primary ports of embarkation were established, one with headquarters

at Hoboken, N. J., and the other at Newport News, Va., each under the

command of a general officer.

The Quartermaster's Department was operating a service to Panama from

New York, but with the shipment of troops to France a new condition

arose which was met only in part by taking over the Hoboken piers,

formerly owned by the Hamburg-American and North German Lloyd steamship

companies, and the magnitude of the undertaking necessitated additional

facilities. The situation at New York is complicated by the large amount

of general shipping using the port, the diversified interests, even

those of the government, and the complicated jurisdiction. An effort was

made to bring about such a consolidation and unification as to secure

greater co-operation with increased efficiency. To this end the War

Board for the Port of New York was established in November, 1917. It was

vested with full power and authority to make rules and regulations for

operating the facilities of the port, to determine priorities, and to do

what was necessary to provide for the prompt and economical dispatch of

the business of the government in and about the port. Mr. Irving T. Bush

was selected as the board's representative, with the title of chief

executive officer. In addition to representing the board he was to

arrange for the co-operative use of piers, warehouses, lighterage,

terminals, railroads, trucking, and all other transportation facilities

in and about the port.

In addition the need was felt for having a shipping expert closely

associated with the Embarkation Service, familiar with the facilities at

various ports, so that he could properly assign ships, select ships for

the cargo to be moved, and arrange for their loading. Mr. Joseph T.

Lilly was selected for this work and appointed director of embarkation.

In February, 1918, the available cargo ships were not sufficient to

carry the supplies needed for maintaining the troops overseas. To secure

the requisite additional tonnage necessitated taking ships from the

existing trade routes and determining from what imports and exports they

could best be spared without interference with those which were

absolutely necessary. This brought about a new situation which could be

handled only by those having a knowledge of the trades as well as the

characteristics of various ships serving them, since some of them were

suitable for War Department needs and some were not. It had happened

that an advantageous exchange of ships could have been made with the

Allies by which valuable time could have been saved in getting over

cargo, but there was lack of knowledge as well as lack of authority. The

whole situation was gone over at a conference between the Secretary of

War and the chairman of the Shipping Board, as a result of which the

Shipping Control Committee was created, consisting of Mr. P. A. S.

Franklin, chairman; Mr. H. H. Raymond; and Sir Connop Guthrie,

representative of the Allies' shipping interests. The allocation and

distribution of available tonnage, as well as questions of exchange of

ships, was vested in this committee. So far as the work of the War

Department was concerned the committee was charged with the loading and

unloading cargo, coaling, supplies, repairs, and, except where vessels

are commanded by the navy, of inspection and manning. They also have

charge of the management and operation of docks, piers, slips, loading

and discharging facilities under the control of the department, or of

any board, officers, or agency operating such facilities, together with

the direction and management of minor craft to be used in connection

with the handling of steamers and their cargoes in port. The amount of

cargo shipped overseas, the efficiency of the loading, and the reduction

of the time of stay in the ports attest to the efficient manner in which

the committee has operated, and it is not too much to say that they are

to be largely credited with the results that have been accomplished.

Expeditionary depots were operated at Boston, Mass., Philadelphia, Pa.,

and Baltimore, Md., primarily for the movement of freight. When cargo

ships having accommodations for troops were loaded at these ports troops

for the available space were sent from the camps under the direction of

the commanding general at Hoboken; similarly shipments of troops were

made from Montreal, Canada, and Halifax, Nova Scotia, when practicable.

Cargo shipments were also made from other ports on the Atlantic and Gulf

coasts.

On May 25, 1918, the water transport branch of the Quartermaster's

Department was transferred and made a part of the Embarkation Service.

In April conditions abroad necessitated the speeding up shipments of

troops, and brought to the service such transports as the British

Government could spare for the purpose, which have been continued in

use. The army transports are officered and manned by the navy, as is the

greater number of the cargo ships. The arrangements for transferring

ships to naval control as well as for convoys for troop and cargo ships

are handled through the Chief of Operations of the navy, who has given

every assistance. The way in which the work has been handled by the navy

is shown by the loss of no troop ships which were under their protection

on the eastbound trips.

Inland Traffic.--The inland traffic service was established on January

10, 1918. As the government had taken over all of the railroads, the

necessity for working in harmony with the organization that was placed

in charge was apparent, and the Railroad Administration was requested to

recommend a competent traffic man to handle the work. This resulted in

the selection and assignment of Mr. H. M. Adams as chief of the section.

He in turn secured his expert assistants through the Railroad

Administration.

At the time the section was formed approximately 15,000 carloads of War

Department property held in cars were congesting various Atlantic ports.

Steps were taken which relieved this condition and brought about an

orderly movement of the traffic when and in the quantities desired. The

value of the inland traffic service was soon demonstrated and led to a

reorganization, with authority to take over the transportation

organizations of the various bureaus of the War Department, both at

Washington and throughout the country, so that as now organized the

chief of the inland traffic service exercises direct control of the

transportation of troops, of the supplies of and for the various bureaus

of the War Department, and for the contractors working for the several

bureaus. This control extends over the entire country through the medium

of representatives stationed at various traffic centers.

Working in conjunction with the Railroad Administration has resulted in

minimizing the burdens of the carriers. The work has been performed most

efficiently. More than 5,000,000 troops have been moved from their

homes, from one camp to another, and from camps to the points of

embarkation within the period covered by this report.

Arrangements have been made by which this branch will take charge of all

express movements for the War Department, as well as the tracing of the

movements of all War Department property, including the contractors and

others for the various bureaus.

Purchase and Supply.--The Purchase and Supply Branch is organized into

the following subsections: Supply Program, Purchase, Production,

Finance, and Emergency.

MILITARY INTELLIGENCE DIVISION

The Military Intelligence Division has as director Brigadier-General

Marlborough Churchill, United States army, Assistant Chief of Staff.

This division, which had been a branch, first of the War Plans Division

and then of the Executive Division of the General Staff, was separated

completely and made an independent division by general orders which

reorganized the General Staff, thus putting the Military Intelligence

Division on a par with similar services of general staffs of other

nations of the world.

The duties of the Military Intelligence Division consist, in general, in

the organization of the intelligence service, positive and negative,

including the collection and coordination of military information; the

supervision of the department intelligence officers and intelligence

officers at posts, stations, camps, and with commands in the field, in

matters relating to military intelligence; the direction of

counter-espionage work; the preparation of instruction in military

intelligence work for the use of our forces; the consideration of

questions of policy promulgated by the General Staff in all matters of

military intelligence; the co-operation with intelligence branches of

the general staffs of other countries; the supervision of the training

of officers for intelligence duty, the obtaining and issuing of maps:

and the disbursement of and accounting for intelligence funds.

One of the important functions of the Director of the Military

Intelligence Division is that of coordinating the work of this service

with other intelligence agencies. Possible duplications of work and

investigation by the State Department, Treasury Department, Department

of Justice, Navy Department, War Trade Board, and the War Department are

avoided or adjusted at weekly conferences held at the Department of

Justice and attended by representatives of these departments who

consider matters of common interest. For a similar purpose, the Director

of Military Intelligence is a member of the Fire Prevention Committee,

the War Industries Board, and the National Research Council.

For the purpose of securing close co-operation between the military

intelligence services of the nations associated in the war, the British

and French Governments were requested by the United States to send

officers to this country for liaison duty. These officers have been of

great assistance in accomplishing this end, because of their knowledge

of the details of intelligence work in Europe.

For the performance of the service for which the Military Intelligence

Division was developed, eight sections have been established, each

dealing with its peculiar problems, and working in close liaison with

its fellows....

It may not be amiss to call attention to the enthusiastic co-operation

which this division has consistently received from the various other

intelligence agencies, civilian and others. The American Protective

League, the Department of Justice, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the

Customs, the War Trade Intelligence have all co-operated in the

heartiest manner with each and every effort of the Military Intelligence

Division. Indeed, it is hardly saying too much to state that the success

of the Military Intelligence Division has in a very large measure been

due to the loyal assistance which it has received at all times from the

various agencies whose functions are similar to its own.

WAR PLANS DIVISION

The War Plans Division of the General Staff is under the direction of

Brigadier-General Lytle Brown, as Director and Assistant Chief of

Staff. A very large volume of work has been accomplished by this

division during the year. Exclusive of subjects pertaining to the

historical branch, the inventions section, and routine matters, 9,287

cases were handled by the division during the year.

These included studies as to policies for defense and the organization

of the military forces in general as published in Tables of

Organization, completed studies on the policy and plans for training the

army in general, training replacement troops, training cadres, training

centers, training schools, schools for senior and staff officers, and

plans for physical reconstruction and vocational training of wounded

soldiers.

In addition, through the Training Section, the War Plans Division has

supervision of training in general and has kept in touch by inspections

by its officers with methods used and progress made.

The Legislative, Regulations, and Rules Branch of the War Plans Division

has handled numerous changes in Army Regulations and War Department

orders made necessary by the present emergency, and has considered bills

before Congress pertaining to the army.

The Historical Branch of the General Staff was organized March 5, 1918,

to collect and compile the records pertaining to the war under the

approved policy, and satisfactory progress is being made. To June 30,

1918, 67,022 photographs and 2,590 feet of motion-picture film had been

received.

The Inventions Section was organized April 16, 1918. This section has

taken over from the different agencies of the government the preliminary

consideration of inventions and ideas of inventions of a military

nature, with a view to placing before the proper bureaus of the War

Department those having sufficient military value to warrant test and

development at the expense of the government. From April 16, 1918, to

June 30, 1918, 4,645 cases were handled, a number of which were of

exceptional merit and have already been put to use....

The Chief of Staff has as his principal assistant Major-General Frank

McIntyre, United States army, who acts as executive officer for the

General Staff and also for the Chief of Staff in his absence.

Beside the General Staff divisions which have been referred to in the

foregoing, there has been established in the General Staff a Morale

Section, under charge of Brigadier-General E. L. Munson, United States

army, which has for its object primarily the stimulation of morale

throughout the army, and maintaining a close connection and liaison with

similar activities in civil life. This section had only gotten fairly

into operation before the signing of the armistice, but had already

shown its value as a military asset.

Another important addition to the organization of the General Staff has

been the establishment of a Personnel Section, under charge of

Brigadier-General P. P. Bishop, United States army. In this section has

been consolidated the handling of appointments, promotions, and

commissions of the entire official personnel of the United States army.

This section has proved to be of the greatest value and has come to

stay.

The signing of the armistice has interrupted the conclusion of the

organization now under way for the consolidation of Procurement and

Storage under the Director of Purchase, Storage, and Traffic, but the

principle is sound from the standpoint of organization and extremely

economical in its results.

The supply of officers for the very large military program has been

throughout one of the most important problems which confronted the

General Staff. I have already indicated in the statement of the

functions of the Operations Division of the General Staff the

organization of central training camps for officers throughout the

United States. When, however, we embarked upon the final program of

placing eighty divisions in France and eighteen at home by June 30,

1919, which involved an army of approximately 4,800,000, the problem of

the supply of officers became so serious that an understanding was

obtained with the great mass of educational institutions throughout the

United States, resulting in the development of the Student Army Training

Corps. This scheme absorbed for military purposes the academic plants of

some 518 colleges and universities throughout the country, and for

vocational training in the army embraced some eighty more. This corps

was put under the charge of Brigadier-General Robert I. Rees, United

States army, and in its development we have had the energetic

cooperation of college presidents and responsible college authorities

throughout the entire United States. At the same time, in order to

increase the supply of officers, the course at West Point was cut down

to one year's intensive training, with the idea of placing at the

disposal of the government 1,000 officers a year graduated from that

extremely efficient plant rather than the graduation of about 200, which

had been the case previously throughout the war.

The separation of the Air Service from the Signal Corps, under the

provisions of the Overman bill, and the establishment of a Bureau of

Military Aeronautics, under Major-General William L. Kenly, United

States army, and of a Bureau of Aircraft Production, under Mr. John D.

Ryan, marked an extremely important step forward in the development of

this portion of the Military Establishment. The armistice closes out

this matter with the two branches of the Air Service in a state of

marked efficiency and establishes unquestionably the necessity for the

permanent separation of the Air Service from the Signal Corps in the

reorganization of the army.

During this period another new agency created in the War Department by

Executive order was the office of the Chief of Field Artillery. This

office has been filled by Major-General William J. Snow, United States

army. This establishment was accompanied by the creation in the American

Expeditionary Force in France of the office of Chief of Artillery on

General Pershing's staff, having similar relation to all the artillery

of the Expeditionary Force which the Chief of Field Artillery has toward

the mobile artillery at home. The work of this office has been

accompanied by a marked increase in the efficiency of the training

system in the various Field Artillery camps, and the office itself has

proved to be of distinct value.

19. All Germans and Austrians, naval, military or civilian, to be