The United States Liquidation Commission agreed to pay to the French Government the sum of 3,000,000 francs for port dues assessed against our vessels for their use of French ports during the war.
When these and other subsidiary questions of settlement had been decided and the proper credits established by agreement in each instance, the United States Liquidation Commission took up the task of a general blanket settlement of the business relations between France and the United States during the war. This was a long and involved work; but, since the major items in the settlement had already been determined, there was little difficulty in securing an agreement. The General Settlement was dated November 25, 1919. It embraced all transactions between the two nations from April 6, 1917, to August 20, 1919, except (1) France’s purchases of our surplus military property, (2) the railroad transportation and the port dues settlements noted above, and (3) France’s claim arising from the overseas transportation of American troops in French transports. The sum total of the other claims showed that the United States owed France 1,488,619,027.52 francs and that France owed the United States $177,149,866.86. The rate of exchange and form of payment were left to future negotiations by the United States Treasury; but, assuming that francs were worth ten to the dollar, the net balance in favor of the United States was about $28,000,000.
We are not yet ready, however, to determine the net financial result of the international war business relations in which America was a participant. There was still the money to be realized from the sale of our surplus military property abroad. It will be remembered that one of the two functions of the United States Liquidation Commission was to dispose of the expeditionary property. Out of the sales transactions arose the largest single credit to the account of the United States on the international ledger: the proceeds from the bulk sale of A. E. F. installations and supplies to the French Government.
The arguments sustaining the wisdom of a bulk sale of the expeditionary property have already been sufficiently rehearsed in this volume. The first step on our part leading to the negotiations was to take an inventory of the entire property. The difficulty encountered then may be deduced from the fact that the French and the British, whose surpluses were not inordinately greater than ours, never even attempted such an inventory of their own property. The A. E. F. was a going concern, continually drawing from the stocks on hand, and its personnel was shifting and diminishing. Nevertheless, by a strong force of men, under the direction of Colonel J. H. Graham, Engineer Corps, in six weeks of day and night work, such an inventory was taken, the property being divided into eighteen categories, as follows: 1. Clothing and textiles; 2. Subsistence supplies; 3. Kitchen utensils and household furnishings; 4. Machinery, metals, tools, and hardware; 5. Building materials; 6. Forest products; 7. Railway and dock equipment; 8. Transport equipment (trucks, motor cars, motorcycles, wagons, horses and mules, etc.); 9. Hospital supplies, toilet supplies, and chemicals; 10. Photographic, measuring, and musical instruments; 11. Electrical equipment; 12. Oils, gasoline, and paints; 13. Ordnance and gas-warfare equipment; 14. Blasting apparatus and supplies; 15. Printing machinery and supplies; 16. Office fixtures, stationery, and supplies; 17. Hides and leather; 18. Aëronautical equipment.
These eighteen categories included only the movable property of the A. E. F. There were still to be considered the fixed installations—the barracks, camps, hospitals, warehouses, docks, railroad yards, buildings of almost every conceivable type. Judge Parker, the chairman of the Commission, cabled to France, before he sailed for Europe, a direction that the installations be inventoried and appraised. This work was first undertaken by Colonel Graham, who later, after he took charge of the inventory of movables, was succeeded by Brigadier General Edgar Jadwin, whose subsequent appraisal was known as the Jadwin Report. It showed the war cost of construction to have been $165,661,000, the normal cost $81,543,000, and the armistice value $39,256,000. As a matter of fact, any sum obtainable for the installations was clear gain, since the salvage value of the structures would not have paid the cost of dismantling (assuming that this work would have required the labor of 40,000 men for seven months), the ground rentals, and the costs of restoring the sites to their original condition.
Photo by Howard E. Coffin
WRECK OF COAL MINE AT LENS
Photo by Signal Corps