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America in the War

"Courage France!"AMERICA'S entrance into the bloodiest conflict of all ages was not, as in the case of England and France, a hasty step of the moment.  It came as the culmination of a long series of incidents and national injuries at the hands of the Imperial German Government.  Its roots may be traced back almost three years to the beginning of the world war.  Since the early days of August, 1914, when the Germans shamelessly violated the neutrality of Belgium, ruthlessly put her men, women and children to the sword, and brazenly declared that treaties were but scraps of paper, many in the United States realized that the day must come sooner or later when our government must throw its tremendous strength and resources into the balance and take its part in the fight in behalf of humanity and civilization.

This feeling gained strength steadily in the succeeding months with Germany's use of the submarine as an offensive weapon of war.  On February 10, 1915, President Wilson sent the first of his many notes of protest to the German Government, declaring that he would hold it strictly accountable for the sinking of any American merchant vessels.  Less than two months later, on May 7, the nation was shocked by the sinking, absolutely without warning, of the great passenger liner, the Lusitania, with the loss of 1,154 lives, of which 114 were American.  National sentiment rose to the point of almost demanding a suspension of diplomatic relations with the German government.

However, an open break was averted by the latter's promise not to sink passenger ships in the future without proper warning and without giving their occupants an opportunity to escape.  The attack on merchant ships, however, was continued, aggravating sorely the already inflamed public opinion.  This led the State Department, after President Wilson had laid all the facts before a joint session of Congress, to send a direct ultimatum to Berlin, stating that diplomatic intercourse would be severed immediately unless its method of submarine warfare was abandoned.  Immediately a reply was returned, agreeing in the main to these demands.

After the peace negotiations in the fall of 1916 proved fruitless, the German government, yielding to the advice of its military party that this course would put the war to a speedy end, announced on January 31, 1917, that unrestricted submarine warfare would be carried on in specified zones.  Four days later Ambassador Bernstorff was handed his passports and our friendly relations with Germany ceased.  On February 26 President Wilson asked for authority to arm merchant vessels as a protection against submarine attacks.  A few days after, he appeared before a memorable joint session of the Congress, set forth the attempts he had made to maintain friendly relations with Germany, and asked that the existence of a state of war between the two nations be declared.

On April 4, 1917, the Senate passed the war resolution by a vote of 82 to 6, while the House of Representatives, after a wild and stormy session which lasted until 3 o'clock on the morning of April 6, also adopted it by a vote of 373 to 50.  The president affixed his signature to the resolution the same day.  Its text was as follows:

"Whereas, the Imperial German government has committed repeated acts of war against the government and the people of the United States, therefore, be it

"Resolved, by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in congress assembled, that the state of war between the United States and the Imperial German government, which has thus been thrust upon the United States, is hereby formally declared; and that the President be and is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the government to carry on war against the Imperial German government; and to bring the conflict to a successful termination, and all the resources of the government are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States."

The whole energy of the government from that day was devoted to war measures and war demands.  Our army and navy were pitifully inadequate.  In the belief that we were independent of European broils, they had been maintained upon a peace basis and used merely for purposes of policing our home and island possessions.  With 3,000 miles of water between us and the nearest great nation, they were thought amply sufficient to guard us from all aggression.

Map showing drafted men percentage by stateOur army, scattered over thousands of miles, numbered about 190,000 men, while our annual appropriation for its maintenance reached a little more than $100,000,000.  In the nineteen months between the declaration of war and the conclusion of the armistice, it grew in numbers to 3,665,000 men, of whom more than 2,000,000 were in France.  The fiscal appropriation for the maintenance of this military establishment from June 30, 1918, to June 30, 1919, aggregated $15,300,000,000.  The growth of the navy was almost in proportion to that of the army.  On April 5, 1917, about 250 vessels were under the control and operation of the navy department.  At the close of the war, this number had grown to 1,990 vessels.  There were 5,000 officers and 70,000 enlisted men of the navy serving in European waters alone when the war ended.  This was a greater number than the full strength of the navy before we commenced hostilities.  Our merchant marine, an adjunct of the navy, was even more marvelous in its growth under the stress of national necessity and war conditions.  The production of merchant ships was at the rate of about 70,000 gross tons monthly in April, 1917.  Most of these flew the flags of other nations.  Nineteen months later our ship yards along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts had expanded under governmental management until their production was at the rate of 350,000 gross tons a month.  Our tonnage threatened England's supremacy of the seas.

Training CampsTo furnish an ample supply of men and officers for the land forces, the national guards of the different states of the union were called into federal service, fifteen camps for the special training of officers were established, enlistment of men to increase the strength of the regular army and navy was speeded up, while the passage of the Selective Service Act on May 18, 1917, provided millions of men to follow in the national army divisions.

[Click on the map at right to view an enlargement.]  Nearly 10,000,000 men between the ages of 21 to 30 registered under the first call on June 5, 1917; the second registration on June 5, 1918, provided 744,865 men; the third on August 24, 1918, yielded 157,963 men.  By a later enactment, the draft ages were extended to include all men between the ages of 18 and 45.  None of the latter, however, was ever called to the colors, though about 13,000,000 registered on September 12, 1918.  The end of the war came before they were needed.  Thirty-six camps and cantonments were erected at suitable locations throughout the country to house, train and equip the men in the various branches of the military and naval service.

Shortly after the declaration of war, John J. Pershing, then a brigadier-general in charge of the American forces operating against the Mexican bandit, Villa, was called to Washington and made commander-in-chief of the American Expeditionary Forces.  With a small staff of picked officers, he reached France early in June, 1917, and set about the tremendous task of laying the broad foundation for the army of millions which was to follow.  Vice-Admiral Sims, who was entrusted with supreme command of our naval forces in European waters, had arrived in England somewhat earlier, accompanied by a fleet of American destroyers, stripped for action against the German undersea terrors.  His task was to cooperate with the British fleet in the elimination of the submarines, then at the high water mark of their nefarious warfare, and to work out a convoy system for the troop transports bearing American soldiers to French ports.

After a thorough study at first hand of the British and French systems of warfare and the organization of their armies, General Pershing revised the composition of our forces, increasing the strength of a division from about 14,000 to 28,000 men, and adding to it units made necessary by the refinements of four years of intensive fighting.  He obtained French and British officers and noncommissioned officers to assist in the training of the American forces which had not yet been brought over.  He also built up his general staff system, so necessary to the efficient functioning of large bodies of troops.

Meanwhile, American engineers had begun the construction of great docks at the ports of St. Nazaire, Brest, Bordeaux and Le Havre; miles of railroads were laid; machine shops and storage depots were constructed, while training areas for the divisions as they arrived from America were laid out back of the battle zone.  It was found beneficial for them to spend six weeks to two months in these areas in intensive training before going into quiet sectors for their first taste of actual warfare.

The eastern front of the battle line, extending roughly from the western edge of the Argonne Forest to the Swiss border, was agreed upon as the sector which the American army should occupy when it had grown to its full strength and received its proper training.  The plan was that the Belgians should defend the northern end of the line, the British, with the Channel ports at their back for supplies from England, were to hold a wide stretch southward and join the French forces, which, with Paris at their rear, were to link up with the Americans east of Rheims.

Of some of the necessary implements of modern warfare, the new American army had practically nothing in the way of equipment.  This was particularly true of artillery, aviation and tanks, all of which were highly essential for offensive operations.  By arrangement with the French government, General Pershing obtained from its factories enough artillery to furnish thirty divisions.  These guns were the 75 and 155 millimeter rifles and the 155 millimeter howitzers.

Manufacture of these guns was started almost simultaneously in American factories, but few more than 100 had been completed and passed all tests before the war ended.  In aviation, the situation was little better.  Our program, which started off with bright prospects, fell down.  The French came to our rescue and supplied our aviators with the different kinds of planes necessary for warfare until our reorganized air program had materialized.  The first squadron, completely equipped with American planes, took the air early in August, 1918.  The Liberty motor, designed by American engineers, made our planes of certain designs the best on the front.  Had the war lasted a few months longer, our supremacy in the air would have been overwhelming.  The same condition applied in regard to tanks as in aviation and artillery.  The French supplied our bare needs until American factories could furnish them in quantity production.

While General Pershing was engaged abroad in these preparations for our army, equally strenuous efforts were being made at home on a large scale during the summer and fall months of 1917.  All agencies and departments of the government were organized for the building of an efficient war machine, while the business interests of the nation were reorganized on a war basis.  Huge contracts for supplies of all kinds were let; the output of hundreds of factories was taken as a whole by the government; the iron and steel mills of the country were converted virtually into great ordnance arsenals for the manufacture of powder, guns, shells, and other war munitions.  A great ship building program was launched to provide vessels to carry our soldiers and supplies to France; many vital agencies, including the railroad, telegraph, telephone and cable lines were put under governmental control; the food and fuel control bill, designed to conserve our supply of food and coal so as to meet both our own domestic needs and the requirements of our allies, was passed.  More than a million men were in training camps, learning the fundamentals of military discipline and tactics.

The first Liberty Loan in June, 1917, provided $2,000,000,000 for war needs; the second in October, of the same year, yielded an additional $3,000,000,000; the third in May, 1918, provided the same amount of revenue; the fourth in October, 1918, provided $6,000,000,000; while the final one in May, 1919, yielded $4,500,000,000.  All of these were largely oversubscribed on each call from the Treasury.  In addition to these sources of revenue, the congress passed income, excess profits, and other forms of tax bills which yielded other billions directly for the support of the war.

Before the end of 1917, five full American divisions had reached France.  They were the First and Second Regulars, the Twenty-sixth National Guard Division from New England, the Forty-first National Guard Division from the Pacific coast, and the Forty-second Division, made up from the national guards of 26 states.  By the end of October, some of the more seasoned men, who had come across as early as June, were sent into a quiet sector in the Vosges Mountains near the Swiss border.  There in the early days of November, the first American blood was spilled in a clash with German soldiers.  Privates Enright, Gresham and Hay were killed in a patrol encounter.  During the latter part of the same month, American engineers, armed with spades and rifles, helped to repel the German counter-attacks in the operations around Cambrai.

The latter part of 1917 and the spring months of 1918 were dark days for the allied cause.  Russia, which had been a bulwark on the eastern frontier by attacks on the Central Powers whenever the latter pushed forward in the west, definitely dropped out of the war.  Italy crumbled under the assaults of the Austrians and fell back far into her own territory.  France and England had their backs to the wall with the cream of the German army pitted against them.  The German submarines were playing havoc with their shipping upon the seas and threatening them with starvation.  The European members of the allied cause, therefore, were ready to quit or to accept almost any kind of a compromise in order to obtain peace.  Their fighting morale, their resources in men, money, and supplies were at low ebb.  German propaganda, sifting through in insidious ways, had nearly sapped their fighting vitality.

Under these depressing circumstances, General Pershing worked day and night to bolster up the situation until his army arrived.  Tremendous pressure was brought to bear upon him by both the English and French, who were apprehensive of the fighting qualities of the American soldiers, to consolidate his divisions and their organizations, as they arrived in France, with units of their armies, to use his forces as replacements for their own troops, and not to train an independent army which should have a definite sector of the battle front.  Each of them was striving to obtain certain advantages which would accrue to them by union of the Americans with them.  Each was still acting independently of the other in operations against the common foe, for necessity had not yet driven them to selection of Marshal Foch as Commander-in-Chief of all the allied armies.

To this policy of consolidation General Pershing gave a decidedly negative answer.  He was determined that the American army should not play "second fiddle" to any in Europe.  He believed it best to avoid such all entangling alliance.  He knew that by the summer or fall of 1918 he would have sufficient troops, trained under battle conditions, to constitute an integral force, able to take the offensive in every respect, and to cope with any class of foe they drew sword against.

Fortifications[Photo at left - "Defensive Fortifications:  The white, star-shaped splotches are new shell holes, with fresh dirt showing."]  The storm of the supreme German offensive, heralded in Berlin as the beginning of the end of the war, and announced on the battle front with an artillery preparation that blew everything in front of it to atoms, broke on Picardy on March 21, 1918.  The English were overwhelmed, and the wedge between the British and French armies, which was the objective of the drive, came near becoming an actuality.  Under the stress of the situation which this crisis produced, occupation of a definite American sector was postponed temporarily.  On March 28, General Pershing tendered to Marshal Foch, who had been agreed upon the day previous as supreme commander of the allied forces in France, his whole army, consisting of 343,000 men, for use as the need of the hour demanded.  During April and the early part of May, the majority of them were sent to quiet sectors to relieve veteran French and English divisions, which were needed at the more critical points of the German attack.  As they quickly showed their mettle, and the need for fresh troops became more acute, the Americans were thrust into the thickest and hottest of the battle in late May and June, when the Germans launched their drive to reach Paris.

The First Division had the honor of making the first distinctly American attack in the war.  On May 28, it assaulted the German frontal positions in the Montdidier salient and swept forward to the capture of the town of Cantigny.  They held it against all counter-attacks.  This action, though local in its scope, had the electrical effect of stimulating the nerves of the weary French, who had waited so long for an active participation of the Americans in the van of the fighting.  The Germans also were given an inkling of the American fighting qualities, which had been scoffed at in Berlin by the military party in order to minimize the importance of our participation in the war.

A few days later, the Second Division, including the Marines, was hurried up to help check the advance of the Germans in the Aisne-Marne salient.  They not only held the best Prussian Guard divisions, but recaptured from them the town and railroad station at Bouresches.  At Belleau Woods, which followed, the feats of the Americans amazed both friend and foe.  The Germans were expelled from the woods with heavy losses and thrown back 900 yards on their front.  Meanwhile, the Third Division had been in action on the Marne.  Its machine gunners, brought up hurriedly from a training area, were thrown into the thick of the fray by assignment to the task of holding the bridge-head on the Marne at Chateau-Thierry.  By the latter part of June, the force of the German drive had been exhausted in the Marne salient, and the enemy rested for the final spring he was preparing to make at Paris, the heart of France, and the center of her resistance.

The German plan to exhaust all resources and all men in a final huge effort to crush the British and French, capture Paris, and end the war before the full American strength could be brought to the rescue, had been evident for some time.  The reserves on both sides were dwindling fast.  Under the spur of necessity, a meeting of the allied premiers, together with General Pershing, was held at Abbeville, France, on May 2, at which the British agreed to place at the disposal of the United States all the ships necessary to transport immediately ten or more divisions.  These were to be held in reserve while training, yet ready to be thrown into the line at any time necessity demanded.  With this aid from the British, more than 500,000 first-class combat troops reached France from the United States in June and July.

The final offensive of the Germans was launched on July 15.  The American troops, who had gone through their baptism of fire and had their mettle tested in the offensive of the previous month, were placed at the very apex of the German thrust in the Marne salient in the Chateau-Thierry district.  They met charge after charge for three days, breaking wave after wave of attack.  On the morning of the fourth day, July 18, which marked the turn in the tide of allied fortunes, they sprung forward as a part of the great counter-offensive of Marshal Foch, which ended two weeks later in the complete reduction of the Marne salient and the capture of more than 25,000 prisoners, 750 guns, and large stores by the American troops engaged.

In this pivotal battle of the war, after which the glory of German arms waned and the sun of Hun military supremacy quickly set, eight American divisions, totalling about 225,000 combat troops, took part.  They were the First, Second, Third and Fourth Regular Divisions, and the Twenty-sixth, Twenty-eighth, Thirty-second, and Forty-second National Guard Divisions.  Without them the French could never have launched a counter-offensive.  Without their inspiring courage and fierce initiative, it is doubtful whether Paris could have been saved.  The aid of American troops in these crucial two months marked another of those periods, occurring more than once during the four years of the war, in which the fate of the allied cause hung by a thread, and defeat was staved off by a hair.

Marshal Foch had delivered a master stroke in making the counter-offensive stroke on July 18.  Not only was the impending danger averted and Paris saved, but the offensive had been wrested from the hands of the Germans.  They were thrown back on the defensive, with tremendous loss of morale to their troops and to the people in Germany.

St. Quentin CanalThis stroke also enabled General Pershing to withdraw his veteran troops from the line and concentrate them, together with those divisions which had arrived in June and July, in the Toul sector for the forthcoming offensive against the St. Mihiel salient.  The Thirtieth and Twenty-seventh Divisions only were left to cooperate with the British in Belgium and Flanders and to assist them two months later in the breaking of the Hindenburg line at its toughest and most vital point along the St. Quentin Canal.  [Photo at right - "St. Quentin Canal:  Looking northeast of Hindenburg Line and south of Bellicourt, France."]

The formal organization of the First American Army under the personal command of General Pershing was made on August 10.  The sector allotted for the first offensive on a large scale by an independent American force extended roughly from a point southeast of Verdun, around the nose of the St. Mihiel salient, and thence east to the Moselle River.  The front was about forty miles.  The attack was to be in the form of a surprise, and all operations and preparations previous to it, therefore, had to be made by night.  They involved a tremendous amount of work of the most delicate nature.  It was necessary to bring several divisions from their training areas in the western part of France, a distance of several hundred miles.  In addition to the fourteen American combat divisions, which were to be used directly in the operations or held in reserve, it was necessary to have thousands of corps and army troops, ambulance units, hospital sections, and other auxiliary parts of a complete army.  The whole number of men to be engaged in one capacity or another brought the total up to approximately 600,000 men.

The artillery concentration was especially noteworthy.  With the guns loaned by the French, the Germans were notably outclassed in artillery of all calibers.  Three huge naval guns, brought from the United States and mounted upon railroad trucks, held Metz and all the strategic points in the rear of the German lines in their range.  The superiority of the Americans in the air was quite as decided as in artillery.  Both French and English contributed some of their best squadrons of bombing, observation, and scout aeroplanes.

The attack started at one o'clock on the morning of September 12, 1918, with a four hours' bombardment of towns, strong points, and shelters held by the Germans.  At five o'clock the artillery laid down all intense barrage on the front line trenches of the enemy, lifting each four minutes and advancing about one hundred yards ahead of our infantry.  The Germans, bewildered by the intensity and volume of our artillery fire, and astounded by the waves of fresh, young, and vigorous American troops, made but little resistance, except with machine guns.  Within little more than twenty-four hours, the line had been advanced eight to ten miles at points, St. Mihiel had been retaken, the nose of the salient pinched off, and a new, straight line, running from Pont-a-Mousson through Thiaucourt, Vigneulles, and Fresnes up to Verdun had been formed.  What the French had tried to accomplish unsuccessfully through four years of fighting at the loss of thousands of men, General Pershing with his new army had done successfully in little more than a day.

The booty was heavy.  More than 16,000 prisoners were captured, about 450 guns of many calibers were taken, a great quantity of valuable material and supplies fell into our hands, more than a score of French villages and towns were released from German domination.  Metz, the western hinge of the German army, was brought under the threat of our guns and put in danger of being flanked.  The American losses were extremely slight, about 7,000, most of which were light casualties.

Upon the heels of this brilliant accomplishment, the Thirtieth Division, composed of the national guard troops of Tennessee and the Carolinas, and the Twenty-seventh Division, of New York, cooperating with the British and Australians, smote the Germans another decisive blow by breaking through the hitherto impregnable Hindenburg line where the St. Quentin Canal passes through a tunnel under a ridge near Cambrai.  Preceded by a galling artillery fire and a strong array of British tanks, the guardsmen impetuously gained all their objectives and took thousands of prisoners.  They continued their pursuit of the Germans until relieved on October 19 to recuperate and obtain replacements.  Their advance covered about 18 miles.

Less than seventy-two hours after the opening gun in the St. Mihiel drive had been fired, General Pershing, leaving a thin defensive line to hold the gains he had made, began, under the cover of night and with the greatest secrecy, the withdrawal of the greater part of his troops for use in what proved to be the greatest battle in American history.

The main artery of supply for the German army on the western front south of the Sambre River was a four-track railroad line running through Sedan and Mezieres.  It also joined with the network of lines around Metz, supplying the German troops in Lorraine.  Over this they hauled, in a line almost parallel to the front, their supplies, artillery, ammunition, fresh divisions, and carried back to hospitals in the rear their sick and wounded.  The mobility afforded by this system of railroads had given them a great advantage over the allies, because they could rush reserves on short notice from one sector to another, or quickly make a strong concentration of troops at any point for a mass attack.

To lose this vital artery of communication meant either that Germany must surrender, or that she must withdraw all her armies from French soil at a loss by capture of thousands of men and invaluable stores.  To safeguard it, her army had built the Kremhilde Stellung, an almost impenetrable mass of barbed wire, trenches and concrete strong points.

The strategic advantage, therefore, of cutting and capturing this pivotal point of the German lines was almost incalculable.  The difficulties corresponding were almost as great.  The region to be penetrated in gaining the objective was, in part, a forest, in part wooded hills and valleys, admirably adapted to a sturdy defense by machine guns and artillery.  Furthermore, there was little time to make adequate preparation for the attack.  Between September 14, when the withdrawal from the St. Mihiel sector commenced, and September 26, when the Argonne drive began, there were but twelve nights to move several divisions more than 100 miles, bring up light and heavy artillery, establish hospitals, prepare ammunition dumps, assemble transport, and do the thousand other things that are necessary for a great attack.  Only those who went through this strenuous period can realize the strain and physical weariness that it entailed.  To add to the difficulties of the task, the rains and the cold autumn nights had begun.

If the attack did not succeed, then General Pershing faced a campaign in the spring of 1919, with double the toll of dead and wounded.  He also was confronted with removal from command if he made a failure.  In spite of the difficulties he knew he must encounter, and the heavy casualties he was certain his army must suffer, he seized the opportunity to deal a death blow at the heart of German resistance and put an end to the war before winter began.

Flying AceThe American line of battle extended from the Meuse on the east to near the western edge of the Argonne Forest.  Nine divisions were in the line, while six were held in reserve.  Of those to make the attack, only two had had much battle experience.  The others were participating for the first time in a great offensive.  The attack, preceded as in the St. Mihiel drive, by a heavy artillery bombardment from hundreds of guns of all calibers, began in the early hours of September 26.  With the coming of daylight, the infantry went over the top behind a heavy shell and smoke barrage.  After clearing the old German trenches, they made steady progress during the day, advancing to a depth of seven or eight miles at points.  The bag of prisoners taken in this initial stage of the offensive amounted to about 10,000.

The enemy was caught off his guard and surprised.  But when the scope of the blow became visible, and he saw its true objective, reserve divisions, drawn from other fronts and amply provided with machine guns and artillery, were thrown in to stem the tide.  They held for a few days after the initial force of the attack had exhausted itself.  Time was necessary for the American command to make roads across the old trenches, bring up supplies, run artillery and ammunition forward to support the infantry, and prepare for a farther advance.

This second phase of the battle of the Argonne Forest began with an attack along the whole sector on October 4.  New divisions had arrived to take the place of those which had suffered heavily in casualties or were exhausted in the primary drive.  The next three weeks saw the most prolonged and bitter fighting in which American troops ever engaged.  Progress was made almost by yards, for by now the enemy had brought up the best of his divisions for the defense of this vital sector.  They were drawn from the British and French fronts, thereby accounting for the very rapid advance of our allies in the last days of the war.  Our losses in this second stage were extremely heavy, but when one division was exhausted, General Pershing shoved in another.  On account of the scarcity of fresh troops, some divisions went in twice.  More than a dozen were necessary to beat down the resistance on the high land between the Meuse and Aire Rivers and capture Grand Pre, Bantheville, and Brieulles.

The final and supreme phase of the attack began on the morning of November 1.  The progress was much faster, due to more favorable terrain and the presence of an increased amount of American artillery.  The pursuit became so fast that motor trucks were used to overtake the enemy and surround him before his escape.  On the morning of November 6, the Forty-second, or Rainbow Division, was ready to enter Sedan, but waited a few hours to give this special privilege to the French who were on our left flank.  The objective had been reached, and the line of communication had been cut.  The other units of the First Army, however, drove on in a northeasterly direction toward Montmedy and Stenay, and all of them had crossed the Meuse when the armistice brought hostilities to a close on November 11.

Had the fighting not stopped at this time, the Germans would have been subjected to another blow at the hands of the Second American Army, formed under the command of Lieutenant-General Bullard, who launched an attack on a wide front on the morning of November 11, with the Briey coal fields as its objective.  The First Army, under Lieutenant-General Liggett, was to continue simultaneously its advance toward Longwy.  These operations were to be followed by an offensive which would have isolated Metz.

The end of the war found our forces well exhausted, our resources for further campaigning stretched to the utmost.  Our casualties in the six weeks of the Argonne offensive were close to 150,000 men, while the number who were engaged at one time or another in its different phases was more than 1,000,000.  The Germans did not have so many men, but they used their very best divisions.  More than one-third of their total strength under arms was drawn upon and gradually exhausted in the attempt to stem the American advance.

Though our strength had been put to a severe test, there was an inexhaustible reservoir of men in America who were coming over at the rate of 200,000 monthly to fill the gaps from casualties.  More than 1,000,000 men were in training camps at home, ready for service when needed.  No resort had been made to the huge numbers of men available by the extension of the draft ages from 18 to 45.  The machinery was in operation to call them to the colors as needed.  The cessation of hostilities came before any of them was sent to camp.

Forty-two complete combat divisions were overseas on November 11, 1918.  Twenty-nine of these saw service as units upon the battle front.  They were the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th regulars; the 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th, 30th, 32nd, 33rd, 35th, 36th, 37th, and 42nd national guard; and the 77th, 78th, 79th, 80th, 81st, 82nd, 88th, 89th, 90th, 91st, and 92nd national army divisions.  Two divisions, the 34th and 38th, were in reserve behind the front.  Nine other divisions, the 39th, 40th, 41st, 76th, 83rd, 84th, 85th, 86th, and 87th, were either used as depot divisions from which to fill the gaps at the front or to maintain the lines of communication and supply in the rear.  Two divisions, the 8th and 31st, had just landed in France when hostilities ceased.

Occupation[Photo at left - "With the Army of Occupation:  Yankee soldiers on the banks of the Moselle River, near Cochem, Germany; the castle on the hill in the distance was used as American Headquarters."]  After the armistice, nine divisions were sent forward to the Rhine as a part of the allied army of occupation.  They held the bridgehead and area around Coblenz, Germany.  The remainder of the combat troops was sent back to training areas in the center of France, where military schedules to maintain military discipline were kept up until transports arrived to return them to the United States.  Wounded and sick men were sent first, and the transportation of divisional units did not start until early in 1919.  A constant stream, reaching a maximum of 300,000 men monthly, flowed back across the Atlantic during the spring and summer months.  Battleships, German liners, and leased tonnage speeded the American evacuation of France and the home-coming of the men as much as possible.

Whether or not American troops won the war is a mooted question.  There has been a disposition abroad to belittle the military effort of the United States, in fact, the whole part played by this nation in the titanic struggle against the Central Powers.  Yet when the end came, France alone had more troops upon the front or held more of the battle line.  There were 200,000 more Americans than English engaged in France on the day of the armistice.  Of this, at least, there can be no doubt -- the decisive blow struck by the American armies in the Argonne Forest prevented the prolongation of the war another year.  It was the stroke that brought the German military party to its knees and caused it to beg for and accept an armistice so severe in its terms that they were little short of those which would have been exacted under an unconditional surrender.

Great as were our achievements on land and sea in the last few months of the war, our army and navy would not have reached their maximum strength until 1919.  Our varied war enterprises were just coming to fruition when the war ceased.  Quantity production of artillery, ammunition, aeroplanes, tractors, machine guns, merchant vessels, and the numerous other necessities of war had merely begun.  Our governmental machine, after many false starts, delays, and mistakes, was just beginning to function properly.  The giant of the western hemisphere had merely given a token of the latent strength that he possessed.  This token, however, was sufficient to turn defeat into victory and to establish the supremacy of American democracy over Prussian autocracy.

 
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