America's First Year of War
An Anniversary Summary April 6, 1918, marked the first anniversary of the participation of the United States in the European War. The period was primarily one of preparation. If America did little actual fighting in the first year, it nevertheless achieved a great deal both in strengthening the cause of the Allies and in getting ready to play its own part on the battlefields of Europe. The increase in the war strength of the army is shown in the following figures:
| APRIL, 1917 | ||
| Officers. | Men. | |
| Regulars | 5,791 | 121,797 |
| National Guard | 3,733 | 76,713 |
| Reserve Corps | 4,000 | |
| National Army | ||
| —— | ——— | |
| Total | 9,524 | 202,510 |
| APRIL, 1918 | ||
| Officers. | Men. | |
| Regulars | 10,698 | 503,142 |
| National Guard | 16,893 | 431,583 |
| Reserve Corps | 96,210 | 77,360 |
| National Army | 516,839 | |
| ——— | ———— | |
| Total | 123,801 | 1,528,924 |
Of these 1,652,725 officers and men, several hundred thousand were already in Europe in April, either in training camps or on the battle front. "Over 100,000" was the figure given by General Pershing when he announced the number of adequately trained, fully equipped American troops that were immediately available for use in the battle of Picardy. The War Department had announced its expectation of having 1,500,000 American soldiers in the war zone before the end of 1918. The progress of training in the camps in the United States was unexpectedly rapid, and at the close of the first twelve months our troops were going across the Atlantic as fast as transportation could be provided.
General Pershing and his staff arrived in France on June 15, 1917, and less than a month later the first division of American troops followed him. Exactly 187 days after the United States declared war the first American soldiers were in the trenches. The first contingents were ordered abroad well in advance of the time intended, or expected, when war was declared.
LABORS IN FRANCE
The preliminary labors in France necessitated by the presence of an ever-increasing army were both diverse and herculean. Docks had to be constructed, railways built and equipped and cantonments, hospitals, and a base constructed. American engineers went into the French forests and there did the work of the pioneers of the American Northwest, cutting down trees to build the permanent camps which were to replace the temporary cities. They built a railroad 600 miles long from the points of disembarkation to the operating base. The rolling stock it carried was all shipped across the ocean from the United States.
All this was accomplished with great rapidity. An army locomotive, for example, was built in twenty-one days and shipped to the expeditionary forces. In a few weeks after the first departures there were urgent calls for other locomotives, for cars, trucks, logging trains, sectional buildings to be assembled on arrival. All these took many ships and appreciably delayed the transport of men. There was sent everything from fabricated ironwork for buildings and trestles to nails and crossties for the railroads. Among the items of construction is an ordnance base costing $25,000,000. Most of this preliminary work was approaching completion as the first year ended. Much of it is finished.
American troops occupy trench sectors of their own in the line northwest of Toul, and in the neighborhood of Verdun. They have taken up positions also in other sectors, and the main body is operating with the Allies in opposing the German advance. Casualties in the first year of war reached a total of 2,368, distributed as follows:
| Killed in battle | 163 |
| Died of disease or accident | 957 |
| Lost at sea | 237 |
| Died of wounds | 52 |
| Other causes | 47 |
| Missing and prisoners | 63 |
| Wounded | 829 |
| —— | |
| Total | 2,368 |
RAISING THE NEW ARMIES
Most remarkable in the preparations for the struggle was the method of raising the new armies, namely, conscription. With comparatively little opposition the selective draft law was passed by Congress barely five weeks after the declaration of war, and three weeks later 9,600,000 young men were registered for military service. By June 30 the 4,000 local draft boards were ready to begin the task of examination and exemption. Sixteen cantonments, small cities in themselves, were already under construction in various parts of the country for the reception of the drafted men. Ninety days after this work began the initial groups of the first national army were on their way to these camps. In a steady stream since then the men have been called up, organized into military formations, and put under intensive training.
The first half million are now ready and are being sent across the ocean, to complete their training within the war zone and take their place on the battle front. As fast as the camps are emptied new men are being summoned to refill them, new battalions formed, and new forces sent forward. Another 800,000 unmarried men without direct dependents are under notice to report for duty.
The cost of raising the army under the selective draft law has been only 54 cents per registrant, $1.69 per man called up, and $4.93 per man accepted for service.
With the national army there have also been made available the 450,000 men of the National Guard, who meantime have been mustered into the Federal service and trained under their own officers. Of these three divisions, the Rainbow, (so called because almost every State in the Union is represented in its composition,) the New England, and the Sunset (Far Western) Divisions have already gone abroad, and the first two have won honorable mention in the battle zone.
TRAINING NEW OFFICERS
The National Guard had its own officers. There was none, however, to spare for the national army. The regular military establishment could provide only a handful. Two classes at West Point were graduated in advance of the usual time, but they were not enough to affect the situation. The new army was, therefore, provided with carefully selected, specially trained officers, chosen by merit rather than on the old system of political appointments, by the general adoption of the Plattsburg training camp system, initiated in 1915. When war was declared there were already in the United States some 20,000 graduates of the Plattsburg, Fort Oglethorpe, and other training camps, who had undergone at least one month's intensive military training, supplemented by military studies when out of camp.
The Plattsburg organization was taken over by the War Department, and a series of sixteen training camps for officers, in which most of the earlier Plattsburg graduates were commissioned as subaltern and company officers, was opened at advantageous points, and continued until the middle of August, 1917. Of 40,203 candidates enrolled in these camps 27,341 qualified for commissions. Sufficient officers were thus at the cantonments to receive and command the national army when the men arrived. A second series of officers' training camps was begun in August, to add to the line and staff. Approximately 23,000 candidates attended, of whom 17,237 obtained commissions. Many who failed have since been enlisted and appointed noncommissioned officers in the national army. A third series was instituted in January, 1918, to create an officers' reserve force. Only enlisted men were admitted, except for a limited number of students who had received military training in schools under army officers during the last ten years. About 18,000 are in attendance, and the problem of officering the new armies has practically been solved.
PROVIDING THE GUNS
When war was declared, the Army Ordnance Department had ninety-seven officers. It now has 5,000 in America and abroad, and in the first year of the war had spent $4,756,500,000. To its peace-time task of administering eleven small Government arsenals has been added the problem of getting quick production of shells of all calibres, rifles, ammunition, grenades, and bombs from some 1,400 private manufacturing establishments. It has acquired a total of 2,475,219 square feet of storage space, has 2,701,880 square feet more under construction, and requires 23,000,000 square feet altogether to store its supplies. It has miles of railroad sidings, all inclosed, including 50 miles of track especially built, and it handles 10,000 carloads of explosives a month, with the total steadily increasing. The complexity of the Ordnance Department's task may be seen in the fact that the number of items made and supplied to the troops totals about 100,000, ranging from the small firing pin of a rifle to a complete 16-inch gun and emplacement, or a motor truck or tractor. Reserves of all these spare parts must be maintained and ready for distribution.
The Ordnance Department has had to create organizations, build new plants, finance them and to design as well as to manufacture not only the weapons themselves, but thousands of tools, gauges, and jigs required for their manufacture. For instance, the French Government offered the secret of the recoil mechanism in the carriages of its famous .75 guns. To manufacture these it was necessary to machine steel castings so accurately that they will not be off two-thousandths of an inch in a distance of more than six feet.
BUILDING NEW PLANTS
Never had machinery been built in the United States to work on so large a scale with such a degree of accuracy. The Ordnance Department had to persuade manufacturers to undertake this difficult work, to assist them financially to build a thirteen-acre plant, to purchase and manufacture $6,000,000 worth of special tools, and develop an organization to do this. The contract was signed on Nov. 1, 1917, and today the plant is completed and is turning out the recoil mechanisms.
The Nitrate Division has under construction two plants for the manufacture of powder, costing $45,000,000 each.
The Ordnance Department itself has provided for the army 1,400,000 rifles, has brought the production of them up to 45,000 a week, or enough to equip three army divisions; has secured deliveries on 17,000 machine guns and brought the rate of production of them from 20,000 to 225,000 a year. It has increased the rate of production of field guns, heavy and light, from 1,500 to 15,000 a year, and is manufacturing 35,000 motor trucks and tractors to haul them and their ammunition. It has remodeled the British Enfield rifle so that it can be produced in quantities to take American ammunition and adopted two new types of machine guns, the Browning, heavy and light.
The United States entered the war resolved to win supremacy in the air. Congress adopted an appropriation of $640,000,000, in addition to $15,000,000 already granted, to provide the best airplane service possible. The best motor engineers in the country combined their talents to provide a motor, and the result of their efforts was the Liberty motor, asserted to be superior to anything used by any army air corps. Delivery of the new motors in quantity has been delayed by various causes. But the initial difficulties have been solved and quantity production of battle planes, as well as of training planes, is expected during the Summer of 1918. While there are more than seventy different types of airplane motors on the western allied front, the United States is relying on a single standardized type, greatly reducing the ratio of forty-seven men required on the ground by foreign service for every man in the air.
Colossal work has been done by the Quartermaster Corps, which supplies almost everything that a soldier needs, except ammunition; which transports those supplies as well as the soldier, feeds him, clothes him, and provides him with shelter. The war found the Quartermaster General's office without funds, Congress having adjourned without voting the Army Appropriation bill. But it tided over the interval until money was forthcoming. It has since spent $2,789,684,778, has clothed the draft armies and fed them, supplied the oversea forces with the million things they need, and there are at present few complaints of its work. The details are seen in columns of figures all running into millions.
In this first year the Quartermaster Corps has spent $60,000,000 for horse-drawn vehicles and harness, more than $50,000,000 for horses, mules, and harness, and now estimates it will need for fuel and forage alone more than half a billion dollars.
ARMY MEDICAL CORPS
In preparation for large numbers of wounded and invalided men, the Medical Corps of the army has enlisted doctors and nurses by the thousand. In addition to the work being done for the Red Cross, which is a separate institution, the Army Medical Corps has enlarged its personnel from 8,000 to 106,000, including orderlies, stretcher bearers, and ambulance drivers. Its 900 doctors before the war are now increased to 18,000. It had 375 army nurses a year ago; now it has 7,000. It had no ambulance service; now it has 6,000 drivers in training. Reconstruction institutions are being provided in the United States on a more comprehensive scale than any other nation at war has attempted. Already a few wounded soldiers are being reconstructed at Medical Corps hospitals so as to be able to support themselves now that they are blind or crippled. Professional men, nurses, and attendants from our most noted civil reconstruction hospitals have been added to the personnel of the Medical Corps for this work.
The hundreds of thousands of men taken from civil life into the army are now showing a death rate from disease below that of men of military age in civil life.
WORK OF THE NAVY
The navy was ready and began to take part in the war even before the formal declaration, for as early as March 12, 1917, in response to the President's order, it began arming American merchantmen and fighting their battles. Meantime, the navy gathered in recruits and set about building ships and getting in supplies ready for the more important work which followed when the nation was actually at war. At present there are 150 warships, including battleships, with 35,000 personnel, in the war zone.
In a year the navy has more than trebled its personnel. As a beginning it called up its own reserves and also the National Naval Volunteers and the Coast Guard. The following figures show the increased personnel:
| APRIL, 1917 | ||
| Officers. | Men. | |
| Regular Navy | 4,366 | 64,680 |
| *Naval Reserves | 10,000 | |
| Naval Volunteers | 10,069 | |
| *Coast Guard | 4,500 | |
| Marine Corps | 426 | 13,266 |
| —— | ——— | |
| Total | 4,792 | 102,515 |
| APRIL, 1918 | ||
| Officers. | Men. | |
| Regular Navy | 7,798 | 192,385 |
| *Naval Reserves | 10,033 | 79,069 |
| Naval Volunteers | 805 | 15,000 |
| *Coast Guard | 639 | 4,250 |
| Marine Corps | 1,389 | 38,629 |
| —— | ——— | |
| Total | 20,664 | 329,333 |
| *Approximately. | ||
On May 4, twenty-eight days after the declaration of war, United States destroyers arrived at a British port to assist in patrolling European waters, and on the following day Admiral Sims attended an allied war conference at Paris. The first of the regular armed forces of the United States to land in France were units of the naval aeronautic corps. They arrived on June 8. The first contingent of the army transported and convoyed by the navy was landed safely at a French port early in July. Night and day since then American warships have convoyed transports and supplies across the Atlantic and brought the ships safely back. Only one empty transport in its care has succumbed to an enemy attack, and only two naval vessels have been sunk by enemy U-boats—the destroyer Jacob Jones, torpedoed Dec. 6, and the patrol vessel Alcedo, a converted yacht, sunk Nov. 5, 1917. The small destroyer Chauncey was sunk in collision with a British transport. The Cassin was torpedoed, but reached port under her own steam, was repaired, and returned to service. Casualties in the navy have been 144 killed or died and 10 wounded; total, 154.
NAVAL AUXILIARIES
At first there was a shortage of the small vessels required for minor naval duties. Some 800 craft of various kinds have been taken over and converted into the types needed, thus providing the large number of vessels required for transports, patrol service, submarine chasers, mine sweepers, mine layers, tugs, and other auxiliaries. Hundreds of submarine chasers have been built besides the new destroyers put into service. There are now four times as many vessels in the naval service as there were a year ago. The destroyer fleet now building in record time is at least as large a fleet of this type of craft as England is believed to have.
The United States battle fleet has grown to twice the size of the peace-time fleet. As schools in gunnery and engineering they are training thousands of gunners and engineers required for the hundreds of vessels added to the navy and the many merchantmen furnished with arms and gun crews. Target practice in past years had been devoted mainly to practice with the big guns. Special attention during the past year has been devoted to the guns of smaller calibre, effective against submarines.
When war was declared there were under construction, or about to be started, 123 new naval vessels:
| Battleships | 15 |
| Battle cruisers | 6 |
| Scout cruisers | 7 |
| Destroyers | 27 |
| Submarines | 61 |
| Fuel ships | 2 |
| Supply ship | 1 |
| Transport | 1 |
| Gunboat | 1 |
| Hospital ship | 1 |
| Ammunition ship | 1 |
Most of these have now been completed and the few remaining are well under way. Meantime contracts have been placed for 949 new vessels, including submarine chasers designed here which have done good service. Altogether there have been added to the navy since April 6, 1917, vessels to the number of 1,275, aggregating 1,055,116 tons.
When the Government seized the 109 German-owned ships lying in American ports, the German engineers believed that their vessels had been damaged beyond repair for a year at least. Within six months the ships were in running order and have since carried numbers of American troops and huge quantities of supplies to the fighting lines in France. The damage was repaired by navy artificers and engineers under the jurisdiction of naval officers.
BUILDING NEW SHIPS
The vital question of shipping was assigned early in the year to the United States Shipping Board, now headed by E. N. Hurley, while the Emergency Fleet Corporation, since made subordinate to the board, was intrusted with the execution of the building program. Congress appropriated $1,135,000,000 for this purpose, and on March 1, 1918, $353,247,000 of this sum had been spent. Friction and consequent delay, however, at the outset caused vital changes in the composition of the Shipping Board. General Goethals, manager of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, resigned after a controversy with Mr. Denman, the first Chairman of the Shipping Board, over the comparative merits of wooden and steel ships. There have been other causes—labor troubles, lack of material, and of building facilities, of which America had few.
Meantime the seized German ships, with an aggregate of more than 700,000 tons dead weight to manage, have been put in service, vessels under construction in private shipyards have been commandeered and completed, and at least three new ships planned and constructed by the Shipping Board have been finished and are now at sea. The seizure of 150,000 tons of Dutch shipping in American ports has further added to the Government's immediate resources, while an agreement with Japan has made another 200,000 tons of shipping available.
America's shipping industry had run down, until in the year before war was declared the total output of shipyards in the United States was only 250,000 tons. The Shipping Board drew up a program to construct 8,164,508 tons of steel ships, 1,145 ships in all, and 490 wooden ships, with a total tonnage of 1,715,000. Only a small part of this enormous total could be constructed in the first year of the war with the shipyard facilities available, and it has been necessary to build new shipyards on an enormous scale. Volunteer shipworkers have been enlisted from all quarters, and in April, 1918, work was proceeding at 150 shipyards in various parts of the country.
The following figures show the actual number of ships put into the water since the Shipping Board took control of the situation:
| Steel ships requisitioned on ways, completed | |
| by Emergency Fleet Corporation | |
| and now in service | 85 |
| Steel ships requisitioned on ways, turned | |
| back to former owners and now | |
| completed and in service | 15 |
| Steel ships requisitioned on ways, hulls | |
| of which have been launched | 65 |
| Steel ships contracted for by Emergency | |
| Fleet Corporation which have | |
| been completed and put into service | 3 |
| Steel ships contracted for by Emergency | |
| Fleet Corporation, hulls of | |
| which have been launched | 9 |
| Wooden ships contracted for by Emergency | |
| Fleet Corporation, hulls of | |
| which have been launched | 11 |
| —— | |
| Total | 188 |
| Steel ships requisitioned which are now | |
| actually in service | 100 |
| Steel ships contracted for by Emergency | |
| Fleet Corporation now actually | |
| in service | 3 |
| —— | |
| Total | 103 |
By April, 1918, the Government has been able to put 2,762,605 tons of shipping into the transatlantic service to carry men and munitions to France.
FINANCING THE WAR
The United States has been a great financial factor since entering the war. The Government lent to the Allies on the security of their bonds $4,436,329,750. For America's own expenses Congress has already authorized $2,034,000,000, of which one item alone, merchant shipping, accounted for more than $1,000,000,000. The total expenses in the first year were more than $9,800,000,000, but about $800,000,000 of this went for normal activities not connected with the war, so that its total cost has been about $9,000,000,000, of which more than $4,000,000,000 has been in loans to the Allies. Expenditures for aircraft alone have amounted to more than $600,000,000. Naval appropriations, made and pending, are more than $3,000,000,000; the War Department has taken $7,464,771,756. The army's annual payroll now exceeds $500,000,000 and the navy's $125,000,000, and these items are trifling compared with the cost of ships, ordnance, munitions, airplanes, motor trucks, and supplies of every kind, to say nothing of food. Allotments and allowances to soldiers' and sailors' dependents paid by the Government in the month of February alone amounted to $19,976,543.
Bonds, certificates of indebtedness, War Savings Certificates, and Thrift Stamps issued by the Treasury up to March 12 totaled $8,560,802,052.96. To meet expenses the Government has successfully floated two Liberty Loans with total subscriptions of $6,616,532,300, and on April 6, 1918, the first anniversary of America's entrance into the war, a third loan campaign for $3,000,000,000 was begun.
TAXES AND PRICES
The income tax has been greatly increased and the exemption limit lowered. New taxes have been imposed on corporate and individual profits, all profits arising out of the war have been penalized, and the old levies greatly increased. War taxes, customs duties, and internal revenue collections have brought in nearly $1,500,000,000. While the greater part of the war income and excess profits taxes are not due until June, the Treasury had collected in internal revenue taxes a total of $566,267,000 to March 12, 1918, and had sold $1,255,000,000 in certificates of indebtedness, which are receivable in payment of internal revenue taxes.
The Government has taken possession of and is operating all enemy-owned enterprises. At the same time, through a Federal Farm Loan Bureau, assistance is being given to farmers at reasonable rates of interest in providing the means for raising crops, needed in greater abundance than ever to feed the army and navy and civilian population and the peoples of the allied countries.
One of the first acts of the Administration after the declaration of war was aimed at putting a curb on the rising prices of the necessities of life. Herbert C. Hoover was appointed National Food Administrator, and after long delay his appointment was confirmed by the Senate. It was criticised, but Mr. Hoover has succeeded not only in bringing down the price of such necessaries as wheat, flour, sugar, coffee, meat, and lard, but by various devices and appeals to public sentiment has brought about a voluntary reduction of consumption and a consequent great increase in the amounts of food which America has been able to send abroad.
FOOD PROBLEMS
When the present Food Administration was created in August, 1917, the 1917 crop, in so far as productiveness was concerned, had already been planted and partly harvested. The available foodstuffs it produced were not sufficient, on the basis of normal consumption, to feed the people dependent on it, and the question of conservation became paramount. So far, "wheatless days," "meatless days," and appeals for food conservation have tided the nation over a dangerous period. The fixing of prices under a Presidential proclamation has greatly aided, speculation in wheat has been wholly eliminated, and the prices of flour and bread have been stabilized at a reasonable level.
Hand in hand with food conservation has gone the gradual control of industry of all kinds in order to concentrate the nation's resources for the purposes of war. The prices of metals necessary to war industries have been brought down by negotiation. Coal and fuel oil are controlled by Government agents, and it is not believed that the suffering caused by the fuel scarcity during the Winter of 1917-18 can be repeated.
The Government has taken over control of the railways and a number of coastwise steamship lines. It now operates 260,000 miles of railway, employing 1,000,600 men, and representing investments of $17,500,000,000.
The War Trade Board, created for the purpose of cutting off supplies to Germany through the adjacent neutrals, has developed into a powerful economic weapon in the execution of the nation's war policy.
Five Million Soldiers' Garments Made by American Women
A recent bulletin of the American Red Cross contains a report showing that up to Feb. 1, 1918, this organization had supplied 3,431,067 sweaters, mufflers, wristlets, helmets, and socks to the soldiers and sailors of the United States. Of this total 1,189,469 articles were delivered to the fighting services in January of this year. Though official figures were not available for later months, it was estimated that the total to the end of March was in excess of 5,000,000 garments, all knit by American women for the Red Cross. The same bulletin reported the distribution of 5,000,000 francs contributed by Americans for the relief of those French soldier families which have suffered most from the war.