As our war against Germany recedes into the past its temporal boundaries become more sharply defined, and it assumes the character of a complete entity—a rounded-out period of time in which the United States collected her men and resources, fought, and shared in the victory.

As such it offers to the critic the easy opportunity to discover that certain things were not done. American airplanes did not arrive at the front in sufficient numbers. American guns in certain essential calibers did not appear at all. American gas shells were not fired at the enemy. American troops fought with French and British machine guns to a large extent. The public is familiar with such statements.

It should be remembered that the war up to its last few weeks—up to its last few days, in fact—was a period of anxious suspense, during which America was straining her energies toward a goal, toward the realization of an ambition which, in the production of munitions, dropped the year 1918 almost out of consideration altogether, which indeed did not bring the full weight of American men and matÉriel into the struggle even in 1919, but which left it for 1920, if the enemy had not yet succumbed to the growing American power, to witness the maximum strength of the United States in the field.

Necessarily, therefore, the actual period of hostilities, between April 6, 1917, and November 11, 1918, was devoted in this country to laying down the foundations of a munitions industry that should bring about its overwhelming results at the appointed time. What munitions of the more difficult sort were actually produced in this period might almost be termed casual to the main enterprise—pilots of the quantities to come.

The decision to prepare heavily for 1919 and 1920 and thus sacrifice for 1917 and 1918 the munitions that might have been produced at the cost of any less adequate preparation for the more distant future, was based on sound strategical reasoning on the part of the Allies and ourselves.

On going back to the past we find that on April 6, 1917, the United States scarcely realized the gravity of the undertaking. There was a general impression, reaching even into Government, that the Allies alone were competent to defeat the Central Powers in time, and that America's part would be largely one of moral support, with expanding preparation in the background as insurance against any unforeseen disasters. In line with this attitude we sent the first division of American troops to France in the spring of 1917 to be our earnest to the governments and peoples of the Allies that we were with them in the great struggle. Not until after the departure of the various foreign missions that came to this country during that spring did America fully awake to the seriousness of the situation.

All through the summer of 1917 the emphasis upon American man power in France gradually grew, but no definite schedule upon which the United States could work was reached until autumn or early winter, until the mission headed by Col. Edward M. House visited Europe to give America place on the Supreme War Council and in the Interallied Conference. The purpose of the House mission was to assure the Allies that America was in the war for all she was worth and to determine the most effective method in which she could cooperate.

In the conferences in London and Paris the American representatives looked into the minds of the allied leaders and saw the situation as it was. Two dramatic factors colored all the discussions—the growing need for men and the gravity of the shipping situation. The German submarines were operating so effectively as to make exceedingly dark the outlook for the transport on a sufficient scale either of American troops or of American munitions.

As to man power, the Supreme War Council gave it as the judgment of the military leaders of the Allies that, if the day were to be saved, America must send 1,000,000 troops by the following July. There were in France then (on Dec. 1, 1917) parts of four divisions of American soldiers—129,000 men in all.

The program of American cooperation, as it crystallized in these conferences, may be summarized as follows:

1. To keep the Allies from starvation by shipping food.

2. To assist the Allied armies by keeping up the flow of matÉriel already in production for them in the United States.

3. To send as many men as could be transported with the shipping facilities then at America's command.

4. To bend energies toward a big American Army in 1919 equipped with American supplies.

In these conferences sat the chief military and political figures of the principal European powers at war with Germany. In the Supreme War Council were such strategists as Gen. Foch for the French and Gen. Robertson for the British, Gen. Bliss representing the United States. The president of the Interallied Conference was M. Clemenceau, the French prime minister. Mr. Winston Churchill, the minister of munitions, represented Great Britain, while Mr. Lloyd-George, the Prime Minister of England, also participated to some extent in the conferences.

Out of bodies of such character came the international ordnance agreement. It will be apparent to the reader that this agreement must have represented the best opinion of the leaders of the principal Allies, initiated out of their intimate knowledge of the needs of the situation and concurred in by the representatives of the United States. The substance of this agreement was outlined for Washington in a cabled message signed by Gen. Bliss, a document that had such an important bearing upon the production of munitions in this country that its more important passages are set down at this point:

This agreement had a profound effect upon American production of munitions. Most important of all, it gave us time; time to build manufacturing capacity on a grand scale without the hampering necessity for immediate production; time to secure the best in design; time to attain quality in the enormous output to come later as opposed to early quantity of indifferent class.

In the late autumn of 1917, shortly after Russia collapsed and withdrew from the war, it became evident that Germany would seize the opportunity to move her troops from the eastern front and concentrate her entire army against the French and British in 1918.

This intelligence at once resulted in fresh emphasis upon the man-power phase of American cooperation. As early as December, 1917, the War Department was anticipating the extraordinary need for men in the coming spring by considering plans for the transport of troops up to the supposed limit of the capacity of all available American ships, with what additional tonnage Great Britain and the other Allies could spare us. It is of record that the actual dispatch of troops to France far outstripped these early estimates.

Then came the long-expected German offensive, and the cry went up in Europe for men. England, "her back against the wall," offered additional ships in which to transport six divisions over and above the number of troops already scheduled for embarkation, agreeing further to feed and maintain these men for 10 weeks while they were brigaded with British units for final training. After the six additional divisions had embarked there was still need of men, and the British continued their transports in our service. The high mark of shipment was in July, when 306,000 American soldiers were transported across the Atlantic, more than three times the number contemplated for July in the schedule adopted six months earlier.

The effect of this stepping up of the man-power program upon the shipment of supplies was described by Lieut. Col. Repington, the British military critic, writing in the Morning Post (London) on December 9, 1918, in part as follows:

The really amazing thing which America did was to place in France in 19 months an army of the size and the ability of the American Expeditionary Force. The war taught us that America can organize, train, and transport troops of a superior sort at a rate which leaves far behind any program for the manufacture of munitions. It upset the previous opinion that adequate military preparedness is largely a question of trained man power.

When the war touched us our strategical equipment included plans ready drawn for the mobilization of men. There were on file at the Army War College in Washington detailed plans for defending our harbors, our coasts, and our borders. There were also certain plans for the training of new troops.

It is worthy of note, however, that this equipment included no plan for the equally important and equally necessary mobilization of industry and production of munitions, which proved to be the most difficult phase of the actual preparation for war. The experience of 1917 and 1918 was a lesson in the time it takes to determine types, create designs, provide facilities, and establish manufacture. These years will forever stand as the monument to the American genius of workshop and factory, which in this period insured the victory by insuring the timely arrival of the overwhelming force of America's resources in the form of America's munitions.

B. C.

Washington, May, 1919.