Photo by Signal Corps
ENGINEERS CONSTRUCTING BEAUNE UNIVERSITY
One hundred observation balloons were ripped up and used for tarpaulins, wagon covers, and the like. The rest of the A. E. F. balloons were returned to the United States.
Airdromes on leased lands, occupied by small aviation units of the A. E. F., were turned back to the owners of the property after troops had dismantled all the war structures. With the exception of these, the entire plant equipment of the Air Service in France, consisting of training stations, observation schools, supply depots, and the like, was taken over by the French Government. The American surplus of aircraft in England was disposed of by the British Government, acting as agent for the United States.
CHAPTER XIV
TECHNICAL SUPPLIES
The demobilization problem of the Corps of Engineers was a two-branched one in that, while the Engineers had purchased heavily of supplies in the United States, they had used those supplies principally in France, where also they had placed contracts for the delivery of large quantities of engineering materials which it was not expedient to ship to the A. E. F. from the United States. When the armistice came, it found great engineering production projects well advanced both in this country and abroad, large surpluses of materials on hand on both sides of the ocean, and in France an enormous activity in the construction of buildings and other more or less permanently installed facilities for the expedition. In France the Engineer Corps was charged with the duty of building docks, port terminal facilities, storage depots, hospitals, barracks, railroads, and other equipment for the Army, as well as that of building roads and bridges, tunneling out mines, and stringing wire for the troops at the front. It was the job of the Engineers after the armistice to terminate this whole vast business, closing out the contracts, settling with the contractors, disposing of surplus supplies, and storing reserves for possible use by a future army of large size.
At the time of the armistice the Engineers were engaged on more than 600 separate construction projects in France. The work on 246 of these was stopped immediately, and the only permitted post-armistice construction was that of facilities to be used during the demobilization of the A. E. F. These cancellations accounted for a saving of $135,000,000. The cancellations included projects for the construction of 450 miles of railroad. Contracts with French producers of engineering materials were canceled to the value of $30,000,000. In settling with the contractors the Engineers followed the principle that the American Government would compensate the foreign producers for all losses sustained by them, but would pay no anticipated profits. Eventually the French contractors’ claims were settled by the payment of less than $1,500,000. Purchase orders placed with French producers, calling for the delivery of materials worth about $13,000,000, were canceled and settled for less than $90,000, of which sum about $60,000 was paid for supplies accepted in the settlement.
The Engineers in France found considerable constructive work to do after the armistice. There were camps to be built at the American ports of embarkation in France, nearly 10,000 miles of roads to be repaired, and schools, theatres, and athletic fields, including the Pershing Stadium near Paris, to be constructed. These, and the installations put in before the armistice, constituted for the A. E. F. a physical equipment on which the American Government had spent hundreds of millions of dollars; yet after the return of the Expeditionary Forces, the physical installation in France, taken as a whole, was more of an embarrassment to the United States than an asset. Some of the railroads, docks, and other great pieces of construction work undoubtedly possessed great inherent future value to the French, and we could expect to be well paid for turning them over to the French Government; but as an offset there were scores of installations of no peace-time value at all—roads, military railroads, and vast camps of flimsy construction built upon fertile farm lands. The obligation was upon the A. E. F. to restore these occupied French lands to their original condition; but there were approximately 50,000 acres of French farms so occupied, and to have restored this land would have taken the time of 30,000 men for several years.
The great reserves of engineering supplies in France, as contrasted with permanent installations, were indeed an asset, but not so much of an asset as one would think. In the first place, to sell them to private buyers in the European markets would have been a work of several years, during which time the American Government would have had to maintain in France a force of perhaps 5,000 men. Moreover, all that time the engineering stores would have been constantly deteriorating, so that their average value would not have been nearly so great as their value at the time of the armistice.
These were the considerations which led to the decision to dispose of all American engineering facilities in France, both supplies and permanent or semi-permanent installations, in one blanket, lump-sum deal with the French Government. The installations went to the French at a price difficult to fix exactly, because in this same bargain was included all other A. E. F. property not returned to the United States and not sold to other foreign countries, the French paying the flat price of $400,000,000 for the whole lot. It is estimated that the American army installations in France accounted for $32,000,000 of the total sum paid. If we accept that figure, then we must call it a good bargain; for the French Government also assumed our obligations to the French property owners, thus relieving us of the work of restoring their farms to usable condition, ripping out the plumbing and other modern conveniences with which we had profaned some of their most ancient chateaux and monasteries, and doing a thousand similar tasks, or, in lieu of such work, paying to the owners the cost of the restoration in cash.