At once a great wave of homesickness spread over the A. E. F. That song of careless valor, “Where do we go from here?” to the swinging beat of which a million men had marched forward over the French roads, became a querulous “When do we go home?” When indeed? It had taken nearly a year and a half to transport the A. E. F. to France. Disregarding the fact that the Army overseas had at its disposal less than half as many troopships as had supported it up to November 11, before the men could start home in great numbers there had first to be created in France an embarkation system with a capacious equipment of camps and port buildings, if the expedition were to return in good order and not as a disorganized mob.
Never was a daily journal scanned with such emotion as was the Stars and Stripes by its readers during this period of waiting. The Stars and Stripes was the official newspaper of the enlisted men of the A. E. F. After the armistice anything pertaining to the return of the troops to America was the most important news which the publication could possibly print. The Stars and Stripes published the monthly schedules of transport sailings, told of the extraordinary expansion of the Yankee transport fleet, noted the continual improvement in the shipping efficiency of that fleet, rejoiced in black-face type when some ocean flyer broke the record for the turn-around, as the round trip to America and back was called, and in general kept the personnel of the expedition informed of the movement homeward. But, although the return of the A. E. F. was a transportation feat actually more astonishing than that which had placed the forces in Europe, yet to the hundreds of thousands of homesick boys who watched the brown fields of France turn green in the spring of 1919, the pace of the snail and the turtle seemed speed itself in comparison to the progress made by the demobilization machine.
The A. E. F. in November, 1918, possessed no port equipment capable of quick conversion into a plant for embarking the expedition. There had been no need of large port installations in France for the use of debarking troops. The A. E. F. had crossed to France under a scheme of identification that was a marvel of system and organization. Once the system was perfected, every military unit bore as part of its name a so-called item number that told the debarkation officers (by reference to the shipping schedules) exactly where each unit should go upon arrival. So it was with individuals and small detachments traveling as casuals. Their item numbers placed them instantly in the great structure of the A. E. F. No need for vast port rest camps in which thousands must wait until G. H. Q. disposed of them. They were placed before they sailed from America. Expense and confusion saved by the art of management!
The armistice changed all about. Our military ports in France had to become ports for the embarkation of troops with an equipment vastly expanded. America had sent to France an Army perfectly clothed and accoutered. For the sake of uniformity the home ports of embarkation had prepared the 2,000,000 troops for the voyage, and this meant issuing smaller or larger quantities of clothing and other personal articles to practically every man who sailed. The A. E. F. proposed to return its men to their homes well dressed, clean, and self-respecting, and it was logical, too, to accomplish this purpose in France in the process of embarking the troops. To carry out the plan, however, required an extensive plant, something not to be materialized by a wave of the hand. France after the armistice was to witness an extensive military construction carried on by the Americans at their ports.
Brest, Bordeaux, and St. Nazaire had been the three principal landing places for our troops sent to France directly from the United States. Brest, near the northeasternmost extremity of France, possessed a harbor with water that could accommodate the largest ships afloat, but the water near shore was too shallow for docks at which large ships could berth. Consequently the troops rode in lighters between ships and shore. This was Brest’s chief disadvantage as a military port, but it was not a serious disadvantage.
Next southward came St. Nazaire, on the Loire River a few miles inland. The first of the expeditionary troops landed at St. Nazaire, in July, 1917. The port boasted of docks with berths for troopships, but the waters of the river were too shallow for the largest transports.
Still farther south was Bordeaux, fifty-two miles from the ocean on the Gironde River. What few troops landed at Bordeaux were incidental, for the port construction at Bordeaux and other great developments at Bassens and Pauillac nearer the mouth of the river were conducted by the A. E. F. with the view of making the Gironde the chief ocean terminal for the reception of army supplies shipped from the United States. Troopships could tie up to the docks at Bordeaux, but the Gironde was so narrow and its tidal currents were so swift that the military administration of the port had to manage the stream on a schedule as it might operate a single-track railroad. There were several places in the river where vessels could not pass each other.
After November 11 followed a few days of indecision and bewilderment in the A. E. F. No one in Europe knew precisely what the armistice meant or what the victorious armies could expect. Quickly, however, it transpired that the armistice was permanent; it was peace itself for all practical purposes, and the only forces we should need to maintain in France would be those chosen to conduct the measured advance into Germany and to garrison the occupied territory. Within a week General Pershing designated the troops for the Army of Occupation and released the rest of the American Expeditionary Forces (more than half its total numerical strength) for return to the United States as soon as transportation facilities were available. He charged the Chief Quartermaster of the expedition with the duty of embarking the returning forces.[1]
The Chief Quartermaster of the A. E. F. at once designated Brest, St. Nazaire, and Bordeaux as the ports of embarkation. The early plan was to send 20 per cent of the expedition home via Bordeaux and the rest in equal numbers through St. Nazaire and Brest. As it worked out, practically all the overseas soldiers returned through these three ports, although a few sailed from Marseilles, Le Havre, and La Pallice. The division of work, however, did not materialize as planned. Bordeaux handled less than its fifth of the forces, and the embarkations at St. Nazaire were not much larger than those at Bordeaux. The great mass of the A. E. F. came back via Brest, and at Brest was set up the largest installation for the embarkation of passengers the world had ever seen.
