CHAPTER I

AMERICA REMAKES THE WORLD

F it had not been for America the war would not have been won."

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These are the words of Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States. They were uttered on the Fourth of July, 1919, in an address by the President to soldiers and sailors on the United States transport, George Washington, during the voyage of the President and his party back from the Peace Congress in Versailles.

The President made this declaration after he had been in contact with official representatives of all the countries concerned in the World War. It came after conferences in which every shade of friendly and hostile thought had been developed. It was made after cool deliberation and with full knowledge that history would sit in judgment upon the words.

The pronouncement of the President represented more than the opinion of an individual. It contained the proud record of a nation which entered the world-shaking conflict with no idea of profit. The fighting force of the United States in the World War was a sword unsheathed for Democracy. The plain statement of the President had in it nothing of boasting. It was a plain narration of fact set down so that future generations of Americans might look for inspiration to the mighty deeds of those who struck the deciding blow against Germany that civilization might live.

Why did America enter the war? The immediate cause was the declaration by Germany of ruthless submarine warfare. But there was a greater cause, a reason having deeper roots and truer significance. President Wilson described the real underlying cause in that same Fourth of July address:

"America did not at first see the full meaning of the war that has just ended. At first it looked like a natural raking out of the pent-up jealousies and rivalries of the complicated

politics of Europe. Nobody who really knew anything about history supposed that Germany could build up a great military machine like she did and not refrain from using it.

"They were constantly talking about it as a guarantee of peace, but every man in his senses knew that it was a threat of war, and the threat was finally fulfilled and the war began. We at the distance of America looked on at first without a full comprehension of what the plot was getting into, and then at last we realized that there was here nothing less than a threat against the freedom of free men everywhere.

"Then America went in, and if it had not been for America the war would not have been won. My heart swells with a pride that I cannot express when I think of the men who crossed the seas from America to fight on those battlefields. I was proud of them when I could not see them, and now that I have mixed with them and seen them, I am prouder of them still. For they are men to the core, and I am glad to have had Europe see this specimen of our manhood.

"I am proud to know how the men who performed the least conspicuous services and the humblest services performed them just as well as the men who performed the conspicuous services and the most complicated and difficult. I will not say that the men were worthy of their officers. I will say that the officers were worthy of their men. They sprang out of the ranks, they were like the ranks, and allrank and file-were specimens of America.'

America performed her mighty task with a patriotism fired by the loftiest of motives. The determination that carried it through to victory was of slow but steady growth. The seed of it was planted when German atrocities in Belgium shocked the civilized world. The wanton destruction of the Lusitania gave to that determination fibre and substance. Thereafter it was only a question of days until American indignation would compel a declaration of war against the Teutonic allies.

The armed forces of America called from all ranks in life made a thrilling demonstration of American vigor and efficiency. A total force of 4,800,000 men rallied to the colors of the army and the navy and the marine corps. Back of these

stood a united nation resolved upon a victory that would forever remove the menace of autocracy from the world.

The maximum of America's effort naturally was exerted in France. There was the final battlefield, the chosen place where the hosts of militarism were overthrown by the armies of democracy. In that titanic conflict 2,084,000 American soldiers engaged, and of these 1,390,000 Yankee doughboys fought in the front line.

This mighty army scored the greatest offensive success of the war against Germany when in the battle of the Argonne forest, lasting forty-seven days from September 26th to November 11, 1918, it, in the words of General Pershing, achieved its object which was "To draw the best German divisions to our front and to consume them."

During its entire campaign in France, the American Army never retreated. At Château-Thierry, where the enemy had established a salient, the 2d and 3d Divisions of the American Army were thrown into a gap across the flood of the advancing German offensive. That offensive, flushed with victory and with a determination to end the war, was stopped dead in its tracks. Not only was the enemy halted, but the Americans immediately counter-attacked and wrested from the best divisions of the German Army the strongly fortified position of Belleau Wood, later named by the grateful French people "The Wood of the Brigade of Marines Vaux and Bouresches." This vigorous defensive and counter-offensive of the Americans stimulated the entire fighting force of the Allies. From that day there never was any question of an allied victory.

Coupled with these hammer blows on defensive and offensive came American efficiency in lifting man power and weight of munitions until both outnumbered and outweighed the utmost the Teutonic Allies could put into the field. More than 2,000,000 men were carried from America to France during our nineteen months of warfare. Of these more than a million and a half were transported in the last six months of the war, as against half a million in the first thirteen months. When transportation facilities had settled into a steady swing the average number of men sent to France was 10,000 a day.

America produced 2,500,000 Springfield and Enfield rifles up to the time of the signing of the armistice, and sent overseas 1,500,000,000 rounds of rifle munitions. More than 20,000,000 rounds of complete artillery ammunition were produced in American plants, as against a total of 9,000,000 rounds produced in French and British plants. Throughout the war, even before America entered, the Allies fought almost wholly with American powder and high explosive. At the time of the signing of the armistice, the American production of smokeless powder was forty-five per cent greater than the production of the British and French combined.

Forty-two American divisions reached France, and of these, twenty-nine divisions participated in front line fighting. Of the divisions that did not participate, virtually all were used for replacements of men killed or wounded in the fighting or were just arriving in France when hostilities ceased. American divisions were under enemy fire in battle for two hundred days, and during this time they fought in thirteen battles of some magnitude. Two of these battles, those of St. Mihiel and the Argonne, were fought wholly by Americans, under American officers.

From the second week of October, 1918, until the end of the war, all of the twenty-nine active American divisions were engaged with the enemy. They held 101 miles of battle front, which was twenty-three per cent of the entire battle line. From the middle of August until the end of the war, they held a longer front of the battle line than that held by the British forces.

The advances of the American divisions against the enemy totalled 485 miles, an average advance for each of the twentynine divisions of seventeen miles. Most of this was achieved against the most desperate resistance of which the enemy was capable. The American forces captured 63,000 prisoners, 1,378 pieces of field artillery, 708 trench mortars and 9,650 machine guns. The total American battle losses of the war were 48,900 killed and 236,000 wounded. It was a terrific price paid in heroic lives and in wounds that in some cases were worse than death. But it purchased for the world a measure of true freedom such as the human race had never known.

The cost in lives to the United States was far less than