Show general story of the A E F copyright 1931 in by the north anitra ftfe vl v can allenc horld including the reproduction in hol V sula W jl caff ff or lo 10 part prohibited CHAPTER continued As the situation in which we found ourselves regarding artillery ammuel aloa was approaching a crisis it became necessary to lay the whole ques lion before the munitions board after a full investigation of their resources both the french ami british concluded that aey could un dermake to meet our requirements with the distinct understanding that their plants must be greatly increased in capacity and that we should furnish raw materials promptly the late gen H bliss ahlet of the war department general staff represented us in the allied conference end reported results and agreements reached ue had brought the latest data from home and his knowledge concerning steel and munitions enabled bla to give valuable assistance to my chief of ordnance in our efforts to find ft solution to the difficult munitions problem A letter from secretary of war baker dated september 10 had only recently been received and gave me an idea of some of his problems in part he wrote as follows 1 I am especially concerned eliat our troops should not be engaged in actu a fighting in I 1 ranee until they are there in such numbers and have made euch thorough preparation that their first appearance will be encouraging both to their own morale and to the of our people here I 1 think it goes without saying that the germans will make a very special effort to strike swiftly and strongly against any part of the line which we undertake to defend in order to be able to report to their people encouragingly about our participation and also with the object of discouraging our soldiers and our people as much as possible in the matter of selecting corps and division commanders I 1 constantly feel that I 1 ought to have your advice and judgment from all that you have said supplemented by all I 1 have learned elsewhere the need for young and physically strong men Is apparent and I 1 am perfectly willing to go any limit in meeting this requirement it will of course necessitate pass ing over a substantial number of our older generals who are very eager to go to I 1 ranee abid who in their own ideas and that of the country have certain right to be preferred but their occupation here in the training of troops Is of course a valuable con to the cause and whenever I 1 can feel sure in the selection of the younger roan that he actually has the capacity to develop to a sufficient ex tent to justify his being preferred to a man of greater experience I 1 shall not hesitate mobilizing of army delayed in view of the emergency that was BO clearly set forth by the joffre and balfour missions when they visited the states and which was con firmed after my arrival in france and reported with all emphasis I 1 have never been able to understand the un necessary delay caused by waiting six for the construction of large cantonments canton ments before calling out men and assembling them for training of course it was particularly urgent that the specialists and laborers need cd in france to build up our facilities should have been provided as fast as they could be i profitably employed but nothing have postponed the liu mediate mobilization of the combat units of the regular army and the national guard CHAPTER the units of the twenty sixth dl vision maj gen clarence edwards commanding began to arrive the lat ter part of september continued dur ing october and the early part of november and were now assembled in the billeting area near Neut chateau I 1 inspected the division to ember 11 1017 and found the various or presented a very credit able appearance the officers seemed alert and military and the personnel looked strong and vigorous their instruction st bad been carried out under the direction of brigadier general traub one of the brigade commanders and seemed to be well advanced the probable situation as to man power in which the allies would find themselves in the spring was causing much solicitude the germans had captured riga in september keren elys power was ar an end and the bolshevik government was established with and in control the situation was such that russia had become entirely negligible as tar aa assistance to the allies was con berned an analysis of the possible strength ot the contestants showed eliat ger many would be able to spare a conald erable number of divisions from alie russian front careful study by mv staff in operation cooperation co with the allied staffs had led to the conclusion ahat her total number in the west by spring would be as coiny as not counting the possibility of the added strength of forty eight divisions franr austria thi greatest erea test number the allies could muster to estimates would be ac divisions counting two ameri jiin could not be counted on to do aloro than barely ald her own even with the help of the eleven allied divisions then on that front other american divisions might poa be in europe by may 1 it they should arrive according to schedule which was doubtful but they would be too late to participate in the expected early spring campaign atthe low rate of arrival we should not have more than halt of the twenty one dl visions promised by the war depart ment ready for service by june outcome depended on america in this war where the battle lines extended across entire countries and in which the qualities of the opponents were about equal the aspect largely resolved itself into a consideration of the number and loca alon of divisions on either side the situation as of such a character that it was a question which side could provide the superiority of forces necessary to success in other words the outcome would depend upon the num her of troops that america could send over all eyes were on the eastern front to allied statesmen the collapse of russia meant possible grave political consequences to the allied command ars it forecast the release of divisions and the increase in the enemy s ranks in belgium and northern france to a preponderance that could not be overcome to us it indicated a race between americas best effort to pour our fighting men into france and germany s best deter to crush the allies before our soldiers could arrhe in sufficient num bers to dominate the battlefield faced defeat with allies our estimates of the shipping for troops and supplies as set forth in the plan by which a due proportion of combat and line of communication troops were to form such increment of six divisions would require by june 1 for the shipment of twenty four dl visions a total of over tons no one seemed to know where we were to obtain the tons of shipping in addition to the GOO tons we were then supposed to be using it appeared almost certain then thai should disaster befell the allied armies that under these conditions we would have to go down with them I 1 always felt certain however thai tonnage could be found for our pur pose if the necessary pressure were exerted to force it into use appeals were made continuously and bently in an effort to get action on this vital question but several months elapsed before it really came taken as a whole the apparently slow progress of our preparation in europe also caused considerable ad verse comment if not dismay among the allies inquiries were made dl erectly by the military and civil officials as to why we did not move more rapidly to which the reply was al ways lack of shipping new british offensive immobilized by the mud of ri ander where british attacks had continued intermittently from the end of july to the middle of io ember with rather excessive losses the british command er in chief turned to a more sout lierly portion of his line for the final often alve of the year choosing the cam bral front on which to launch the et tort careful preparations including the concentration of an unusual num her of tanks nere made to insure a break through the enemy a defenses the tanks and the infantry were to make an opening through which the cavalry was to pass and attack the flanks of the enemy then french troops held in readiness in the vicinity were to follow As to the question of command of these combined forces when both should engard engar d it was to be left to the senior general officer in the vicinity who might be either french or british in going over these plans it seemed to me that their idea of securing operation cooperation co after the french should begin was rather vague during the day we first went to visit general byng commanding the third army who explained further details 0 the attack and the progress already made he and his chief of staff were busy receiving news from the front and felt that nil was going well british victory spur allies the attack was made on a six mile front and the british had the advantage from the outset the sudden de of the long line of tanks closely followed by the all without the usual warning preliminary artillery bombardment com plemely surprised the germans the tanks broke wide gaps in the wire and subdued the machine gun nests aiding the infantry through the defenses with a minimum of loss the front was rather narrow considering si the depth of the objectives A maximum gain of some four and a half miles was secured the first day and a greater result was prevented it was said by a serious check to the tanks at for some reason or other the french were not called into action but presumably it was because the british cavalry which was to precede them could not go forward as planned the offensive continued for two or three days longer with varying success it was however a decided victory and while not as great as the british expected it gave encouragement to the allies on the western front and no doubt helped to offset temporarily the depressing effect of the serious defeat recently sustained by the italian army CHAPTER an american mission headed by col EL M house arrived in france toward the end of november tor an conference other members of the mission were admiral W S benson gen tasker H bliss chief of staff oscar T crosby for the treasury department part ment vance mccormack lck chairman of the war trade board baan bridge colby shipping baird alonzo C taylor thomas N ns war industries dus tries and paul cravath As the representatives of different nationalities gathered in paris recent reports of decreasing losses of ocean briefly setting forth the importance of the gathering and the necessity of translating the noble spirit of the aall ance into action no attempts at ora tory were in evidence nor was there prolonged discourse on any subject naturally questions concerning avail able man power shipping munitions and supplies were mentioned but only in a general way the conference did little more than agree that the study of the various subjects should be left to committees composed of representatives it was very clear that everybody was looking to america to provide the additional man power needed to give the allies superiority none was more eager to increase our forces than our solves but on my part every possible argument to procure shipping had been presented to the allies and to our war department so when the confer ence urged the expedition of our forces it made the strongest kind of a case in favor of immediate increase of allied aid in tonnage for some time reliance upon the allies tor any considerable amount of tonnage had seemed almost in vain and it looked as though we should have to depend upon our own limited resources for most of it the british were giving some assistance in the transportation of men american ships had carried up to november 1 and the british 54 the results of the british success at cambrai were not to be permanent as the germans quickly retaliated general von marwitz hastily assembled a force of some fifteen divisions and november 30 suddenly launched a violent counterattack the british were short of reserves and before von mar altz was stopped his troops had regained most of the lost ground it was in this operation that a de tach ment of our eleventh regiment of engineers became engaged while serving with the british the men to the number of were at work in the Gau railway yard when the germans attacked one officer and nine men were wounded and the detachment tach ment withdrew they were then given arms and fought with the british war council meets again the second conference of the su preme war council was held at versailles december 1 our representatives political and military at this meeting were mr house and general bliss respectively at the opening session M drew attention to the general situation referring especially to the collapse of russia the probable release of enemy troops from that front the adverse situation in italy the depletion of allied man power and the reliance of the allies on american assistance the premier enjoined the military representatives to bear in mind that their function Is to advise the supreme war council as a whole and not merely as representatives of their respective spec tive nations on the council and that they should view the problems confronting them not from a national fl w v w general pershing the king and queen of belgium tonnage and greater destruction of german submarines with prospects of still further improvement seemed to give more of hopefulness in the gen oral situation and allied spirits were somewhat revived the british had won at and were making satisfactory progress in their advance on jerusalem which it was said would be facilitated by the use of their new base at jaffa the italians seemed to haie recovered their morale to a limited extent with the stiffening of their lines by british and french divisions and hid success fully held their own against the aus arlan attack on the not the least hopeful thing was the step just taken toward unity of corn mand in the creation 0 the supreme war council dut the decisive factor in the whole situation if it could be time was the tremendous economical and physical power of the united states to make that avail able before it was too ate was the problem upon the solution of which depended the success of the allied cause would the allies see it and would they together to bohe it when all were seated around the table in the room at the aln astry of foreign affairs prime minis ter who presided apok standpoint but from that of the allies as a whole the military representatives at this conference ft ere instructed to examine the military situation and report their recommendations as to the future plan of operations to study the immediate situation in italy from the offensive as well as from the defensive point of view and to report on the utilization of the belgian army it was evident that this body was to become a kind of not only for the discussion of resources alma and purposes but for the determination of policies looking to concert of action in support of the military efforts the spirit in which the problems were approached at this meeting made it clear that the su preme war council would sensibly promote co operation among the powers the second meeting of the inter allied conference december 3 closed its sessions none of the questions brought before the first session could be settled but they were taken up by the more permanent body the su preme war council as went on undertook to ordinate coordinate co the work of the various committees thai had been forced to handle the lems involved TO DE afi ill 11 |