The American Government accordingly was represented at the conference to determine how this object could be achieved. Primarily the conferees met to create in effect a great general staff to direct the energies of the cobelligerents and so motivate military strategy that entire nations would act merely as units in the operations. They endeavored to make the whole fighting forces of the Allies into one mighty war-making machine.
The United States projected as an indispensable bulwark in this scheme by being practically the treasury and storehouse of the Allies. It had already poured out money and supplies at their call with lavish hand. Each had sent a mission to the United States to present its case and needs. The Government heard them, and the resources of the United States were freely drawn upon to meet their necessities. Each mission, however, had confined its requests largely or solely to its own requirements. Each clamored for men, ships, money, food, munitions, or whatever other war essential it wanted. A lack of coordinated plans and predetermined objectives weakened the scope of America's assistance on account of the scattered and piecemeal methods by which it was obtained. Consequently the United States, while providing for its own war necessities, determined that it must have a voice in arbitrating on the further needs of the Allied nations by weighing them side by side at the war conference, so that its resources could be distributed among them in pursuance of a coordinated plan aiming at achieving collective, not individual, advantage. Germany had pointed the way in showing the success to be obtained by combined effort. Germany and her three partners were one. The Allies were many and, so far, had been disjointed. The entry of the United States became the occasion for making an endeavor to coalesce the Allies to a closely knit bloc on the Teutonic method.
Great Britain, momentarily disheartened by the checks the Allied cause had sustained owing to a division of command and organization, was braced by the appearance of the American mission at the Allied conference. Said the London "Times":
"In several points, of late, things have not been going too well for the Allies, but none of their reverses or disappointments matters if only the great war power of the United States, military and economic, is rightly directed to the common end."
"The gain to the Allied cause of the alert American intellect and American freedom from convention," the "Daily Graphic" said, "should be of priceless value. Seeing that the guiding principle of the American delegates is to discover how the resources of their country can give the greatest results in bringing about the defeat of Germany, the unanimity of the conference is assured."
"Americans," remarked J. L. Garvin in the London "Observer," "have less jaded brain cells and more open minds. They are not involved in any past mistakes or shortcomings. They are uncommitted to any set theory and are relatively free from local European feelings. Their moral compass, so to speak, is less exposed to magnetic aberrations and is more likely to point true. They are in Europe only to win the war in Europe. They want to get to the bottom of the problem. They will have all conceivable data for getting to the bottom of it."
The conference found it easier to enunciate a formula than work it out practically; but at least a beginning was made in forming an organization to prevent duplication. Leaks of energy were stopped as well as waste of material. The relations of the Allies one with another were humanized by personal contact and a good feeling established which promised a guaranty against future misunderstanding. The envoys of every nation concerned met with great expectations from America. On that one subject there was a remarkable unity. All their needs were generously met, the American resources available being allocated on the basis of war needs as a whole. But the calls upon the American barrel were so great that it was tilted at an angle which revealed that it was not like the purse of Fortunatus.
As to the results of the conference, Colonel House thus reported on his return to the United States:
"Our mission was a great success. When we left Paris the efforts of all the Allies were focused. Up to the time of the Allied conferences they were not focused. They were not working together. They are working together now, and the promises are that they will continue to do so."
The principal recommendations made by the American delegation were: