THE NEW ALLY IN COUNCIL

The weight of America's participation in the war did not begin to be felt until the autumn of 1917, when the aftermath of the Russian collapse, followed by the Italian disasters, made the Allies turn with more and more reliance to the new belligerent. Not alone in men, money, ships, and munitions did the Allies look for American aid, but for business counsel and administrative efficiency. The war had not been well conducted. Lloyd George frankly said so. The American mind was needed at the Allied conferences to contribute its share in remedying the defects of a division of command, from which had flowed a succession of costly errors. Hence the United States, being in the war to join hands with a unified Allied command, not to act independently, became an influential factor at the war parleys.

The presence of American representatives for the first time at an Allied war conference in Paris, which took place in November, 1917, was greeted in belligerent Europe as an event of deep significance. The United States since its belligerency had not shared in the Allied deliberations; but the need of unity—a single front, a single army, a single nation, as the French Premier, M. PainlevÉ, defined it—made its representation imperative. The delegation, which was headed by Colonel Edward M. House, and included Admiral Benson and General Bliss, set out on an avowed war mission while peace balloons floated in the air. As the President's reputed bosom confidant, who had been to Europe before on supposed peace missions, Colonel House was credited with bearing instructions to look over the ground for practicable peace formulas. His presence among the American representatives made this impression so general that the State Department had to deny that he was a Wilson peace envoy. He was heading a war mission pure and simple whose aim was to weld the United States firmly as a member of the Allied powers.

The purpose of the Allied conference was to form a more complete coordination of the activities of the various nations warring against Germany. A more comprehensive understanding of their respective needs, in order that their joint efforts attained the highest war efficiency, was also sought. A prime factor to this end was to avoid any conflict of interests among the participants.

"The United States," Secretary Lansing explained, "in the employment of its man power and material resources desires to use them to the greatest advantage against Germany. It has been no easy problem to determine how they can be used most effectively, since the independent presentation of requirements by the Allied Governments have been more or less conflicting on account of each Government's appreciation of its own wants, which are naturally given greater importance than the wants of other governments.

"Though the resources of this country are vast and though there is every purpose to devote them all, if need be, to winning the war, they are not without limit. But even if they were greater they should be used to the highest advantage in attaining the supreme object for which we are fighting.

"It is the earnest wish of this Government to employ its military and naval forces and its resources and energies where they will give the greatest returns in advancing the common cause."

The American Government accordingly was represented at the conference to determine how this object could be achieved. Primarily the conferees met to create in effect a great general staff to direct the energies of the cobelligerents and so motivate military strategy that entire nations would act merely as units in the operations. They endeavored to make the whole fighting forces of the Allies into one mighty war-making machine.

The United States projected as an indispensable bulwark in this scheme by being practically the treasury and storehouse of the Allies. It had already poured out money and supplies at their call with lavish hand. Each had sent a mission to the United States to present its case and needs. The Government heard them, and the resources of the United States were freely drawn upon to meet their necessities. Each mission, however, had confined its requests largely or solely to its own requirements. Each clamored for men, ships, money, food, munitions, or whatever other war essential it wanted. A lack of coordinated plans and predetermined objectives weakened the scope of America's assistance on account of the scattered and piecemeal methods by which it was obtained. Consequently the United States, while providing for its own war necessities, determined that it must have a voice in arbitrating on the further needs of the Allied nations by weighing them side by side at the war conference, so that its resources could be distributed among them in pursuance of a coordinated plan aiming at achieving collective, not individual, advantage. Germany had pointed the way in showing the success to be obtained by combined effort. Germany and her three partners were one. The Allies were many and, so far, had been disjointed. The entry of the United States became the occasion for making an endeavor to coalesce the Allies to a closely knit bloc on the Teutonic method.

Great Britain, momentarily disheartened by the checks the Allied cause had sustained owing to a division of command and organization, was braced by the appearance of the American mission at the Allied conference. Said the London "Times":

"In several points, of late, things have not been going too well for the Allies, but none of their reverses or disappointments matters if only the great war power of the United States, military and economic, is rightly directed to the common end."

"The gain to the Allied cause of the alert American intellect and American freedom from convention," the "Daily Graphic" said, "should be of priceless value. Seeing that the guiding principle of the American delegates is to discover how the resources of their country can give the greatest results in bringing about the defeat of Germany, the unanimity of the conference is assured."

"Americans," remarked J. L. Garvin in the London "Observer," "have less jaded brain cells and more open minds. They are not involved in any past mistakes or shortcomings. They are uncommitted to any set theory and are relatively free from local European feelings. Their moral compass, so to speak, is less exposed to magnetic aberrations and is more likely to point true. They are in Europe only to win the war in Europe. They want to get to the bottom of the problem. They will have all conceivable data for getting to the bottom of it."

The conference found it easier to enunciate a formula than work it out practically; but at least a beginning was made in forming an organization to prevent duplication. Leaks of energy were stopped as well as waste of material. The relations of the Allies one with another were humanized by personal contact and a good feeling established which promised a guaranty against future misunderstanding. The envoys of every nation concerned met with great expectations from America. On that one subject there was a remarkable unity. All their needs were generously met, the American resources available being allocated on the basis of war needs as a whole. But the calls upon the American barrel were so great that it was tilted at an angle which revealed that it was not like the purse of Fortunatus.

As to the results of the conference, Colonel House thus reported on his return to the United States:

"Our mission was a great success. When we left Paris the efforts of all the Allies were focused. Up to the time of the Allied conferences they were not focused. They were not working together. They are working together now, and the promises are that they will continue to do so."

The principal recommendations made by the American delegation were:

"That the United States exert all their influence to secure the entire unity of effort, military, naval, and economic, between themselves and the countries associated with them in the war.

"Inasmuch as the successful termination of the war by the United States and the Allies can be greatly hastened by the extension of the United States shipping program, that the Government and the people of the United States bend every effort toward accomplishing this result by systematic coordination of resources of men and materials.

"That the fighting forces of the United States be dispatched to Europe with the least possible delay incident to training and equipment."

Much foundation work was accomplished, covering the entire field of the war organization, diplomatic, naval, military, finance, shipping, war trade, war industries and food.

An Interallied Naval Council was formed to coordinate the naval forces of the United States and those of its associates as one. Embraced in this scheme were plans for a combined prosecution of the naval war against the German submarines and keeping the American fleet informed of the operations and policy of the British Admiralty.

In the military field the extent of the operations of the American army in Europe was determined, after lengthy conference with the chiefs of the Allied armies on the western front. All military resources of the Allied belligerents were to be pooled, the contribution of each, including the United States, being specified. The pooling arrangement, according to the State Department, guaranteed that full equipment would be available to all American troops sent to Europe during the year 1918. The United States was also to participate in the deliberations of a Supreme War Council which was created. The problem of effecting the expeditious debarkation of American troops and their transport, with the needful equipment, to the military bases, called for careful survey, and new arrangements to that end, as well as for the production of military instruments and supplies, were made.

Consideration of a vital question, that of shipping tonnage, covered a study of the loss of vessels since the war began, the estimated output of new tonnage in 1918, and the framing of a program whereby the importations of all the Allies were to be restricted in order to release a maximum amount of tonnage for the transportation of American troops.

The United States plainly was not to be a silent partner in the war. In every sphere of joint action it was to have a voice and a vote. America was to be represented at a Supreme War Council to determine the conduct of military operations, at an Interallied Naval Council, at financial, shipping, and food councils. All that was to be known of the Allied war situation the American delegates ascertained. They consulted with the British Cabinet, the British Admiralty, and with all the Allied Governments; they interviewed chiefs of staff and commanders in chief, they inspected the fronts. War preparations in the United States now proceeded with the fullest cognizance of the conditions they were designed to meet.

The need of American troops in Europe was more than hinted by the agreement of the Allies to sacrifice importations so that tonnage could be available to bring the troops across the Atlantic. "Hurry your men across," Lord Derby urged. Admiral Sir David Beatty and Sir Auckland Geddes were convinced that the growing American army was destined to strike the deciding blow of the war. Germany watched the American preparations with mingled feelings, which could only find expression in simulated doubt, derision, and scorn. The projects for raising a huge army, an armada of transport and freight ships, and a fleet of airships were ridiculed by her press writers as examples of American bluff and bluster. Americans thought in exaggerations and talked in superlatives. The United States could not conduct a war in Europe on any such unexampled scale. Neither troops nor transports—supposing the latter could be built, which was doubtful—would reach their destination. German submarines would interpose. Besides, the United States never really intended to make more than a demonstration. It was merely making a flourish. The American army was weak any way and that assured its futility as a factor in the war. It was no better than Rumania's army when that country entered the war. "The more noise the Americans make," the Cologne "Gazette" concluded, "the less they accomplish." That journal actually informed its readers that the Liberty Loan was a failure. Field Marshal von Hindenburg saw no importance in the raising of an American army, because if it were sent abroad Japan might "show a sudden inclination to square old accounts with America." The American call to arms suggested "advertising methods" to him. "The transport question would offer difficulties not less than supplies," and, of course, "the German U-boats would be a further obstacle."

The gradual on-coming of the American hosts was otherwise seen by John St. Loe Strachey, editor of the London "Spectator," who drew this picture:

"I see America entering upon the field of war as does the shadow in an eclipse. At first the orb of the moon seems barely touched. There is only a slight irregularity perceptible on the outline of the sphere, but gradually the inexorable shadow spreads and spreads till the crisis of totality is reached; in the words of the Chinese astrologers, the dragon has eaten the moon.

"What could be more soul-shaking or could bring home the sense of a force that cannot be denied than the advance of the shadow! Nothing can hurry it, nothing can delay it, nothing can avert it. The process is begun; the doom will be accomplished.

"So be it, so it must be, so it will be with America and Germany in 1918."