Colonel Ayres says:
"The most important single fact about our artillery in France is that we always had a sufficient supply of light artillery for the combat divisions that were ready for front-line service. This does not mean that when the divisions went into the battle line they always had their artillery with them, for in a number of cases they did not.
"The result of the compilation is to show that in every 100 days that our combat divisions were in line they were supported by their own artillery for seventy-five days, by British artillery for five days, by French for one and one-half days, and were without artillery for eighteen and one-half days out of the 100. Of these eighteen and one-half days, however, eighteen days were in quiet sectors and only one-half of one day in each hundred was in active sectors. There are only three records of American divisions being in an active sector without artillery support. The total of these three cases amounts to one-half of 1 per cent., or about fourteen hours out of the typical 100 days just analyzed.
"The facts can be summarized in round numbers with approximate accuracy by saying that we had in France 3,500 pieces of artillery of which nearly 500 were made in America, and we used on the firing line 2,250, of which over 100 were made in America."
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1919
At the conclusion of his chapter on rifles and machine guns Colonel Ayres has an interesting bit of semi-critical comment on the question of foresight, of which some desk-experts have been inclined to doubt the United States authorities were possessed. He says:
"At this point it is appropriate to comment on the fact that there are many articles of munitions in which American production reached great amounts by the fall of 1918 but which were not used in large quantities at the front because the armistice was signed before big supplies of them reached France. In the main, these munitions are articles of ordnance and aviation equipment, involving such technical difficulties of manufacture that their production could not be improvised or even greatly abbreviated in time.
"As the production figures are scrutinized in retrospect, and it is realized that many millions of dollars were spent on army equipment that was never used at the front, it seems fair to question whether prudent foresight could not have avoided some of this expense.
"Perhaps the best answer to the question is to be found in the record of a conference that took place in the little French town of Trois Fontaines on October 4, 1918, between Marshal Foch and the American Secretary of War.
"In that conference the Allied Commander-in-Chief made final arrangements with the American Secretary as to the shipment of American troops and munitions in great numbers during the fall and winter preparatory for the campaign of 1919.