The serious representations of General Pershing were reinforced by Colonel House when he returned from abroad on the 15th of December. For six weeks he had been in conference, as head of a war mission, with the Allied political and military leaders, who now realized the necessity of unity of plan. Because of his personal intimacy with French and British statesmen and his acknowledged skill in negotiations, House had done much to bring about Allied harmony and to pave the way for a supreme military command. Like Pershing, he was convinced of the danger threatening the Allies, and from the moment of his return began the speeding-up process, which was to result in the presence of a large American force on the battle front at the moment of crisis in the early summer of 1918.
Tonnage was obviously the vital factor upon which effective military assistance depended. The United States had the men, although they were not completely trained, but the apparent impossibility of transporting them formed the great obstacle. The problem could not have been solved without the assistance of the Allies. With the threat of the German drive, and especially after the first German victories of 1918, they began to appreciate the necessity of sacrificing everything to the tonnage necessary to transport American soldiers to France. After long hesitation they agreed to a pooling of Allied tonnage for this purpose. Most of the Allied ships ultimately furnished the United States were provided by the British, whose transports carried a million American troops to France. French and Italian boats transported 112,000; our own transports, 927,000.
Thus by relying largely upon the shipping assistance of our associates in the war we were able to respond to the demands of General Pershing and, later, Marshal Foch. And thus came about the extraordinary development of our military programme from the thirty to the eighty and one hundred division plans, which resulted in tremendous confusion, but which also ultimately ensured Allied victory in 1918. Until the end of the year 1917, we had put into France only 195,000 troops, including 7500 marines, an average of about 28,000 a month. From December to February the average rose to 48,000; from March to May it was 149,000; and from June to August it was 290,000 men a month. During the four months from May to August inclusive, 1,117,000 American troops were transported to France.
Altogether about two million Americans were sent to France, without the loss of a single man while under the escort of United States vessels. No navy troop transports were torpedoed on east-bound trips although three were sunk on the return trip with loss of 138 lives. To the American and British navies must go the credit for carrying through this stupendous feat, and in the work of assuring the safety of the troop transports the navy of the United States may claim recognition for the larger share, since 82 per cent of the escorts furnished were American cruisers and destroyers. It was a nerve-racking and tantalizing experience—the troop ships sailing in echelon formation, preceded, followed, and flanked by destroyers; at night every glimmer of light eclipsed, the ships speeding ahead in perfect blackness, each inch of the sea swept by watchful eyes to discover the telltale ripple of a periscope or the trail of a torpedo, gun crews on the alert, depth bombs ready. Nor was the crossing anything like a vacation yachting cruise for the doughboys transported, packed as they were like sardines two and three decks below the waterline, brought up in shifts to catch a brief taste of fresh air, assailed at once by homesickness, seasickness, and fears of drowning like rats in a trap.
The work of the navy was far more extensive, moreover, than the safe convoying of troop ships, important though that was. The very first contingent of American overseas fighting forces was made up of two flotillas of destroyers, which upon the declaration of war had been sent to Queenstown where they were placed under the command of Admiral William S. Sims. Their main function was to hunt submarines, which, since the decree of the 1st of February, had succeeded in committing frightful ravages upon Allied commerce and seriously threatened to starve the British Isles. Admiral Sims was two years older than Pershing and as typical a sailor as the former was soldier. With his bluff and genial, yet dignified, manner, his rubicund complexion, closely-trimmed white beard, and piercing eyes, no one could have mistaken his calling. Free of speech, frank in praise and criticism, abounding in indiscretions, he possessed the capacity to make the warmest friends and enemies. He was an ardent admirer of the British, rejoiced in fighting with them, and ashamed that our Navy Department was unwilling to send more adequate and immediate assistance to their fleet. Sims's international reputation as an expert in naval affairs was of long standing. Naval officers in every country of Europe knew of him as the inventor of a system of fire control which had been adopted by the great navies of the world, and it was largely because of his studies and devices that the extraordinary records of the American fleets at target practice had been secured. The British naval officers reciprocated Sims's admiration for them, and, according to popular belief, it was at their special request that he had been sent to command our overseas naval forces. No one else could have obtained such effective coöperation between the British and American fleets.
While at first the major portion of the American fleet was retained in home waters for the protection of American coasts and ports, a policy which aroused the stinging criticism of Admiral Sims, gradually the fleet added strength to the Allied navies in their patrol of European coasts and the bottling-up of the German high seas fleet. Destroyer bases were maintained at Queenstown, Brest, and Gibraltar, from which were dispatched constant patrols. Individual destroyers, during the first year of service overseas, steamed a total of 60,000 miles. Their crews were on the watch in the dirtiest weather, unable to sleep, tossed and battered by the incessant rolling, without warm food, facing the constant peril of being swept overboard and knowing that their boat could not stop to pick them up. American submarine-chasers and converted yachts, mine-sweepers on their beneficent and hazardous duty, were equally active. Naval aviators coöperated with the British to patrol the coasts in search of submarines. Late in 1917, six battleships were sent to join the British Grand Fleet, which was watching for the Germans in the North Sea, thus constituting about twelve per cent of the guarding naval force. More important, perhaps, was the American plan for laying a mine barrage from the Scotch coast across to Norwegian waters. The Ordnance Bureau of the navy, despite the discouragement of British experts, manufactured the mines, 100,000 of them, and shipped them abroad in parts ready for final assembling. The American navy was responsible for eighty per cent of the laying of the barrage, which when finished was 245 miles long and twenty miles wide. The complete story of the achievements of the navy cannot now be told in detail. It was not always inspiring, for numerous mistakes were made. Confusion of counsels in the Naval Board left one important bombing squadron so bereft of supplies that after an expenditure of four millions only two bombs were dropped in the entire course of its operations. But there are also to be remembered the unheralded stories of heroism and skill, such as the dash of the submarine-chasers and destroyers through the mine fields at Durazzo, and the work of our naval guns in the attack on Zeebrugge.
The armies, safely brought to France, were meanwhile undergoing the essential intensive training, and the task of organizing the service of supply was being undertaken. The training given in the United States before sailing had been in the ordinary forms of drill and tactics; now it was necessary that there should be greater specialization. Numerous schools for the training of officers were established. For the troops the plan for training allowed, according to the intent of General Pershing, "a division one month for acclimatization and instruction in small units from battalions down, a second month in quiet trench sectors by battalion, and a third month after it came out of the trenches when it should be trained as a complete division in war of movement."[10] The entire process of training was a compromise between speed and efficiency. During the latter months of the war many of the American troops were put on the battle-line when they were by no means sufficiently trained. Certain draft units were transported and thrown up to the front after experience of a most superficial character; there are instances of men going into action without knowing how to load their rifles or adjust their gas masks properly. But on the whole the training given was surprisingly effective in view of the speed with which it was accomplished. American skill with the rifle won the envy of foreign officers, and the value of American troops in open warfare was soon to be acknowledged by the Germans.
[10] This plan could not be fulfilled for troops coming to France in 1918, because of lack of time.
The same sort of centralization sought by Wilson in America obviously became necessary in France with the expanding plans for an enormous army. In February, 1918, the Service of Supply was organized. With its headquarters at Tours, the S. O. S. was responsible for securing, organizing, and distributing all the food, equipment, building materials, and other necessities demanded by the expeditionary force. In order to provide for the quantities of essential supplies and to avoid the congestion of the chief ports of France, certain ports were especially allotted to our army, of which the most important were St. Nazaire, Bordeaux, and Brest. The first, a somnolent fishing village, was transformed by the energy of American engineers into a first-class port with enormous docks, warehouses, and supply depots; Brest rose in the space of twelve months from the rank of a second-class port to one that matched Hamburg in the extent of its shipping. In all, more than a dozen ports were used by the Americans and in each extensive improvements and enlargements proved necessary. At Bordeaux not more than two ships a week, of any size, could conveniently be unloaded prior to June, 1917. Eight months later, docks a mile long had been constructed, concrete platforms and electric cranes set up; within a year fourteen ships could be unloaded simultaneously, the rate of speed being determined only by the number of stevedores. For unloading purposes regiments of negroes were stationed at each port.
A few miles back from the coast were the base depots where the materials were stored as they came from the ships. Thence distribution was made to the intermediate depots in the cities of supply, and finally to the depots immediately behind the fighting front. All these depots involved enormous building operations; at first the lumber was shipped, but later, American lumber jacks were brought over to cut French forests. At one supply depot three hundred buildings were put up, covering an area of six square miles, operated by 20,000 men, and holding in storage a hundred million dollars' worth of supplies. For distribution purposes it proved necessary for American engineers to take over the construction and maintenance of communications. At first American engines and cars were operated under French supervision; but ultimately many miles of French railroads were taken over bodily by the American army and many more built by American engineers. More than 400 miles of inland waterways were also used by American armies. This transportation system was operated by American experts of all grades from brakemen to railroad presidents, numbering altogether more than 70,000.