Early in the following year satisfactory adjustments were made and the punitive expedition was withdrawn. Villa was not captured, but it is confidently believed the troubles on the border have been greatly mitigated.
CHAPTER X
Called to Command the American Expeditionary Forces in France
Meanwhile matters were moving swiftly, the results of which were to summon General Pershing to other and far higher duties. The attitude of Germany was steadily becoming too unbearable for any self-respecting nation to endure. War may be the great evil which it is often called, and doubtless no words can describe its horrors, but there is one evil even worse—for a nation to lose its ideals. The time for action by the United States had come.
In President Wilson's war message after referring to the dastardly deeds of Germany he wrote, "I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would be done by any government that had hitherto subscribed to humane practices of civilized nations," and he refers also to the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of noncombatants—men, women and children—engaged in pursuits "which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate."
In spite of the Teutonic claim of a higher "kultur" than other nations and the loudly expressed desires for the "freedom of the seas," Germany's brutal disregard of the rights of neutrals had extended far beyond the confines of Belgium, which she ruthlessly invaded and ravaged.
On the sea her former promises were like her treaty with Belgium—"scraps of paper."
And the President had now behind him not merely the sentiment of his people, but also specific examples to uphold him. For instance, Admiral Sampson in the war with Spain, had appeared May 12, 1898, with his fleet before Santiago, Cuba. There he conducted a reconnaissance in force in his efforts to locate the Spanish fleet, of which Admiral Cervera was in command. Sampson, however, did not bombard the city, because, in accordance with the accepted laws of nations, he would have been required to give due notice of his intention in order that the sick, women, children and non-combatants might be removed. And yet everyone knew that a hard, quick bombardment of Santiago would have given him the city. He attacked the forts only, and before a gun was fired gave his ships' captains word that they were to avoid hitting the Spanish Military Hospital.