Men in the fighting line were full of solemn thanksgiving the day the armistice was signed. At home we built bonfires and rejoiced. In Paris the celebration was a jubilee. It meant home to the Americans, with eyes turned toward our shores, coming back to firesides with the sense of a hard duty finished with honor.
Much has been heard since November 11, 1918, of regret that war was not continued until Berlin was captured. There was no such feeling on the front line on that glad day in November. The Allies could have gone on to Berlin, but the victory would have been no greater, only costlier in lives. Those who think that the troops should have been ordered "On to Berlin," instead of accepting the victory through the terms of the armistice, ought to recall the statement by Marshal Foch. When the terms had been drawn up, one of the American Peace Commissioners asked General Foch whether he would rather the Germans would reject or accept the armistice that had been drawn up. The commander of the Allied armies answered:
The only aim of war is to obtain results. If the Germans sign an armistice on the general lines we have just determined we shall have obtained the result we seek. Our aims being accomplished, no one has the right to shed another drop of blood.
But the armistice did not end naval operations in Europe. It changed them and lessened the number of ships and men required. The terms of the armistice were to be carried out. The Second Division of the American Expeditionary Forces, commanded by General Lejeune, now head of the Marine Corps, composed of men of the Army and the Marine Corps, was sent to Germany as part of the Army of Occupation.
The starving had to be fed, and the Americans alone had the food and the organization. Everywhere in Europe there was the reaction from long strain. Having put our hands to the plow, we could not turn back until stable conditions were restored. And there were problems more difficult than those confronted in war.
When I reached Paris in March, 1919, the conditions in the Adriatic had reached an acute state. Vice-Admiral Niblack, the senior Allied officer charged with carrying out the armistice agreements on the Adriatic, came to Paris, and outlined to me the imminence of such clashes as later occurred at Trau, and such coups as that of D'Annunzio at Fiume, unless the authority of the Allied Council was promptly invoked. He had recently succeeded Rear Admiral W. H. G. Bullard on the Adriatic Mission. Before leaving Spalato, where he maintained headquarters, Admiral Niblack, in concert with other Allied commanders, had established a shore patrol, because of the fear of an outbreak. By the terms of the armistice, an Allied Naval Mission was created, and the Americans were given oversight over a stretch of ex-Austrian territory about three hundred miles long on the Dalmatian coast, embracing the ancient towns of Trau and Spalato. Admiral Niblack urged that the duties and rights of the Italians and Jugo-Slavs be set forth and their observance enforced.
It was a tense time. I had just returned from Rome as the guest of the Italian Navy, where American and Italian admirals exchanged views upon future naval problems and the future type of naval craft. In both nations there was the earnest desire to strengthen and cement the American and Italian friendship, jeopardized by the situation on the Dalmatian coast. I had scarcely finished my interview with Admiral Niblack, who felt the need of prompt action to prevent trouble in the Adriatic, when I received a visit from Count V. Macchi Cellere, the Italian Ambassador to the United States. He had felt the approaching disagreement between Wilson and Orlando and had hurried to Paris to make an earnest effort to avert it. A charming gentleman, who loved his country passionately, he had a sincere attachment for the United States, where he was highly esteemed. He sensed that, if President Wilson did not approve Italy's claims on the Adriatic, the people of his country would feel deep disappointment. He foresaw that the sincere admiration of the Italians for President Wilson, as shown on his visit to Rome, would be turned into resentment. He was deeply moved in his appeal in advocacy of the position of his country, which he pressed with great earnestness. He believed in his soul that if the aspirations of the Jugo-Slavs were approved and they obtained important bases on the Adriatic, such settlement would prove disastrous to his country. Knowing my regard for Italy and his countrymen, and assured of my personal friendship, he felt free to speak without reserve. I never saw him after the break at Paris, but I knew his disappointment was poignant. When he died, not long afterwards, at Washington, I had the honor to send his body home on an American dreadnaught with distinguished escort, a token of American regard for Italy and its diplomatic representative.
When, during the command of Rear Admiral Philip Andrews, who served two years in charge of our naval forces in the Adriatic, as well as the American member of the Allied Armistice Commission, the shore patrol was removed, the duty of preserving order fell on the Serbs. Their central authority was light and order was not always preserved. Though there was no real authority for it, the American naval force was the real factor in maintaining order. Admiral Andrews came to be recognized by common consent as the controlling influence in that zone in the early days when authority was feeble. That country being ex-Austrian territory, some one did at times have to exercise authority. Our naval representative was looked upon to do this, and exercised it principally by moral force and fair dealing. His leadership was recognized, even demanded, by the Allies and by the Jugo-Slav government at Belgrade.
FROM MANILA TO THE ADRIATIC