THE TRANSPORT WHICH CARRIED PRESIDENT WILSON TO THE PEACE CONFERENCE
An aerial view of the George Washington. This ship carried to France more soldiers than any other transport except the Leviathan.
On July 4, 1917, he sent the following cablegram to London:
"Strictly confidential." From the President for Admiral Sims.
From the beginning of the war, I have been greatly surprised at the failure of the British Admiralty to use Great Britain's great naval superiority in an effective way. In the presence of the present submarine emergency they are helpless to the point of panic. Every plan we suggest they reject for some reason of prudence. In my view this is not a time for prudence but for boldness, even at the cost of great losses.
In most of your dispatches you have quite properly advised us of the sort of aid and coöperation desired from us by the Admiralty. The trouble is that their plans and methods do not seem to us efficacious. I would be very much obliged to you if you would report to me, confidentially, of course, exactly what the Admiralty has been doing, and what they have accomplished, and, added to the report, your own comments and suggestions, based upon independent thought of the whole situation, without regard to the judgment of any one on that side of the water.
The Admiralty was very slow to adopt the protection of convoy and it is not now, I judge, protecting convoys on adequate scale within the danger zone, seeming to keep small craft with the Grand Fleet. The absence of craft for convoy is even more apparent on the French coast than on the English coast and in the Channel. I do not see how the necessary military supplies and supplies of food and fuel oil are to be delivered at British ports in any other way within the next few months than under adequate convoy. There will presently not be ships or tankers enough and our shipbuilding plans may not begin to yield important results in less than eighteen months.
I believe that you will keep these instructions absolutely and entirely to yourself, and that you will give me such advice as you would give if you were handling the situation yourself, and if you were running a Navy of your own.
Woodrow Wilson.