# VFW Volume 12 "The Washington Conference On The Limitation Of Armament"



## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This post is to introduce the Kindle version of Volume 12 of the series entitled "AMERICA Great Crises In Our History Told by Its Makers" which was published as a print version by the Veterans of Foreign Wars.  This 11th volume covers the last two years (1916-191 of the Great War (WW1) and shortly after.  This Kindle version is published in partnership with the VFW who receive 50% of sales revenue. 


REVIEWERS WANTED!  If you would like to review any of the books in this series, PM me with your Amazon email address and I will gift copies to you.  

This is the publisher description of Volume 12.

This final volume returns us to American shores – and follows American troops
into battle in Europe. There's President Wilson's address to Congress declaring
war on Germany, and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George's response. You'll
read the text of the declaration, the proclamation of compulsory military
service, and General Pershing's official report on the American mobilization in
France. There's a contemporary press report of the “Big Bertha” aerial
bombardment of Paris, and a survivor's account of the sinking of the troopship
President Lincoln. There are highly personal accounts of battles as well as
official reports, and fascinating descriptions of the war in the air. You'll
read correspondence between General von Hindenburg and Marshal Foch as they
negotiate the Armistice, the text of the Kaiser's abdication and an eye-witness
report of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. The volume concludes with
documents relating to the post-war Presidencies of Harding and Coolidge.


Introduction To The Series

"After you've heard two eyewitness accounts of an auto accident, you begin to
worry about history." This observation, attributed to the comedian Henny
Youngman, summarizes the dilemma you face when you want to find out what really
happened in the past. When you read a history book, the "facts" are actually the
author's own interpretation, often colored by a conscious or unconscious wish to
have you share a particular point of view. You're one step (or many steps)
removed from the original source material.

That's why the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States compiled this 12-
volume collection of writings of people who actually witnessed the key events in
American history - the actual actors in the events or contemporary observers of
them. Past historians have spent decades locating, studying and consulting vast
amounts of material such as this. This meticulously chosen selection brings you
the essence of history as originally recorded by those who participated in it.

You'll be reading mostly eye-witness accounts, by people contemporary with the
events they describe, including many significant historical figures themselves.
So you can make your own assessments, draw your own conclusions and gain an
understanding of past events undistorted by the prejudices, assumptions and
selectivity of professional historians. In some instances where there aren't
reliable or easily accessible eye-witness accounts, the compilers have chosen
extracts from objective, authoritative historians of past generations such as
Francis Parkman whose judgements have stood the test of time. Through these
accounts, your knowledge of American history will be immeasurably greater, your
understanding of the key events in the building of the nation immensely
increased.

Founded in 1899, the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States (VFW) is a
nonprofit organization dedicated to foster camaderie among United States
veterans of overseas conflicts, from the Spanish-American War to Iraq and
Afghanistan, and to ensure that they receive due respect and entitlements for
the sacrifices they and their loved ones have made on behalf of the nation. With
this mission, the VFW has a natural desire to encourage a broad understanding
and appreciation of American history, and this essential collection of
historical documents makes a huge contribution to that aim.

This reissue was scanned, formatted and converted to e-book format by
Library4Science.com with the permission and encouragement of the VFW, to make
the series more accessible to a wider public. The VFW receives 50% of all
royalty revenue from these e-books. This book is about 300 print pages long.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America in the Great War-and After."

*America Mobilizes*

General John Pershing's Official Report.

_LANDING in France, June 13, 1917, General Pershing Was the first American soldier in uniform to set foot on the continent of Europe for the purpose of making war. The next day Marshal Joffre conducted him to Napoleon's tomb, where the case containing the Emperor's sword was opened and the sword was handed to the American genera1issimo an unprecedented honor. He kissed it reverently and returned it to Marshal Joffre. On June 15, General Pershing visited Picpus Cemetery and placed a wreath of American Beauty roses on the tomb of Lafayette, with the historic remark, "Lafayette, we are here."

Six months later 176,665 American troops were in France; and on the day of the Armistice the American army numbered 3,665,000, of whom over 2,000,000 were at the front.

Pershing here reviews the vast military and industrial preparation that had to be made for this greatest troop movement in history. The operation cost over $20,000,000,000, or approximately $5,000 per soldier._

I ASSUMED the duties of this office on May 26, 1917, and, accompanied by a small staff, departed for Europe on board the S.S. "Baltic," May 28. We arrived at London on June 9 and, after spending some days in consultation with the British authorities, reached Paris on June 13.

Following the rather earnest appeals of the Allies for American troops, it was decided to send to France, at once, one complete division and nine new 1 y organized regiments of Engineers. The division was formed of regular regiments, necessary transfers of officers and men were made, and recruits were assigned to increase these units to the required strength.

The offer by the Navy Department of one regiment of Marines to be reorganized as Infantry was accepted by the Secretary of War, and it became temporarily a part of the First Division.

In the five months ending June 30, German submarines had accomplished the destruction of more than three and one-quarter million tons of Allied shipping. During, three years Germany had seen practically all her offensives except Verdun crowned with success. Her battle lines were held on foreign soil and she had withstood every Allied attack since the Marne. The German general staff could now foresee the complete elimination of Russia, the possibility of defeating Italy before the end of the year and, finally, the campaign of 1918 against the French and British on the Western front which might terminate the war.

It can not be said that German hopes of final victory were extravagant, either as viewed at that time or as viewed in the light of history. Financial problems of the Allies were difficult, supplies were becoming exhausted and their armies had suffered tremendous losses. Discouragement existed not only among the civil population but throughout the armies as well. Such was the Allied morale that, although their superiority on the Western front during the last half of 1916 and during 1917 amounted to 20 percent, only local attacks could be undertaken and their effect proved wholly insufficient against the German defense. Allied resources in man power at home were low and there was little prospect of materially increasing their armed strength, even in the face of the probability of having practically the whole military strength of the Central Powers against them in the spring of 1918.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our Country.

*Airplane Duels*

By Major Edward Vernon (Eddie) Rickenbacker, American Ace of Aces.

_HEADING a roll of "aces," (as army aviators who shot down five or more enemy planes were designated), was Rickenbacker, from whose "Fighting the Flying Circus" this account of two representative exploits is taken. The title of American Ace of Aces descended to Major Rickenbacker from the original holder, Major Raoul Lufbery, who had brought down eighteen enemy planes in single combat when he was killed in action, May 19, 1917.

On October 30, 1918 twelve days before the Armistice was signed Rickenbacker won his twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth victories, completing his score. Later, however, on November 9, Squadron 94, which he commanded, was credited with shooting down the last enemy plane to be felled during the war. This squadron was the first to fly over the German lines, completed more hours flying than any other American organization, and won more victories._

IT was April 29, 1918, that I had my first turn of luck. I was in the air with Captain James Norman Hall following a course towards Pont-a-Mousson, as that experienced flyer led the way.

Whether or not he knew all along that a German craft was in that region I could not tell. But when he began to change his direction and curve up into the sun I followed close behind him knowing that there was a good reason for this maneuver. I looked earnestly about me in every direction.

Yes! There was a scout coming towards us from north of Pont-a-Mousson. It was at about our altitude. I knew it was a Hun the moment I saw it, for it had the familiar lines of their new Pfalz. Moreover, my confidence in James Norman Hall was such that I knew he couldn't make a mistake. And he was still climbing into the sun, carefully keeping his position between its glare and the oncoming fighting plane. I clung as closely to Hall as I could. The Hun was steadily approaching us, unconscious of his danger, for we were full in the sun.

With the first downward dive of Jimmy's machine I was by his side. We had at least a thousand feet advantage over the enemy and we were two to one numerically. He might outdive our machines, for the Pfalz is a famous diver, while our faster climbing Nieuports had a droll little habit of shedding their fabric when plunged too furiously through the air. The Boche hadn't a chance to outfly us. His only salvation would be in a dive towards his own lines.

These thoughts passed through my mind in a flash and I instantly determined upon my tactics. While Hall went in for his attack I would keep my altitude and get a position the other side of the Pfalz, to cut off his retreat.

No sooner had I altered my line of flight than the German pilot saw me leave the sun's rays. Hall was already half-way to him when he stuck up his nose and began furiously climbing to the upper ceiling. I let him pass me and found myself on the other side just as Hall began firing. I doubt if the Boche had seen Hall's Nieuport at all.

Surprised by discovering this new antagonist, Hall, ahead of him, the Pfalz immediately abandoned all idea of a battle and banking around to the right started for home just as I had expected him to do. In a trice I was on his tail. Down, down we sped with both throttles full open. Hall was coming on somewhere in my rear. The Boche had no heart for evolutions or maneuvers. He was running like a scared rabbit. I was gaining upon him every instant and had my sights trained dead upon his seat before I fired my first shot.

At 150 yards I pressed my triggers. The tracer bullets cut a streak of living fire into the rear of the Pfalz tail. Raising the nose of my aeroplane slightly the fiery streak lifted itself like a stream of water pouring from a garden hose. Gradually it settled into the pilot's seat. The swerving of the Pfalz course indicated that its rudder no longer was held by a directing hand. At 2,000 feet above the enemy's lines I pulled up my headlong dive and watched the enemy machine continuing on its course. Curving slightly to the left the Pfalz circled a little to the south and the next minute crashed onto the ground just at the edge of the woods a mile inside their own lines. I had brought down my first enemy aeroplane and had not been subjected to a single shot.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our Country."

*The "Big Berthas" Bombard Paris*

Contemporary Press Report and That of General Rohne.

_WHILE the Allies were being pushed back by the Germans, in their great 1918 attack called the Kaiserbattle, on March 23 the Teutons sprang a surprise by bombarding Paris from a distance of nearly seventy miles. The feat was performed, as here described in a press dispatch and in a supplementary statement by General Rohne, a leading German artillery authority, by three of the longest range guns devised during the war.

Their most damaging projectile, fired on Good Friday, March 29, plunged through the roof of the Church of St. Gervais during services and killed almost a hundred people, mostly women and children. Among the few men slain was the Secretary of the Swiss Legation, the only Legation in Paris that was on speaking terms with Germany.

The sole object of the bombardment was terrorism. The "Big Berthas" (named after Bertha Krupp) were presently silenced by French gunfire._

THIS date (Saturday, March 23) was marked by a new departure in warfare. Paris was startled by a heavy shell falling in the town at 7:30 a.m. It was followed by others at intervals of about 20 minutes for some few hours. The effects of the bombardment were entirely without military importance, the only results being some destruction of property and the killing and wounding of a number of harmless citizens, including many women and children. On the 24th, Palm Sunday, Paris was again shelled, and Good Friday was also singled out as an appropriate day for the work of destruction. On the latter date the churches of Paris would be filled with worshipers, and there would be a grand opportunity for repeating on land the brave deed achieved in sinking the "Lusitania" on the sea. A church was struck, part of the roof blown in, with the result that 76 persons were killed and 90 wounded, of whom a large proportion were women and children. On March 30 the victims numbered 8 dead and 90 wounded, but with these two exceptions the casualties were limited to quite small numbers, rarely over one, for each shell fired. At the beginning of May the bombardment ceased fora time.

It did not take long to discover where the guns were stationed, and within a few hours from the time the bombardment began it was located by French aviators behind the St. Gobain Forest, not far from La Fere. A few days later the positions of two others were ascertained. All three gun emplacements were on the reverse slope of a wooded hill known as the Mont de Joie, between the Laon-La Fere railway and the Laon-La Fere road, where they were hidden by the trees. It was an outlying spur of the hill-mass of St. Gobain. A line drawn from Fourdrain to Couvron and Aumencourt would run through the center of the position of the three gun-pits arranged approximately in the form of an equilateral triangle, the apex of which pointed towards Paris. They were all well under the crest line. Each installment consisted of a concrete pit in the shape of a long and deep trench to which a line of railway ran back to the Laon-La Fere railway line. At the front end of each a concrete platform was constructed on which the gun carriage rested. This was carefully covered by branches of trees which, combined with the neighboring wood, served to protect the position as much as was possible from view. When a big gun was fired a number of 17-cm. guns in its neighborhood were simultaneously let off so as to cover the sound of the larger explosion, and whenever the French aviators were seen approaching, the anti-aircraft guns were brought into action and volumes of smoke also discharged to render observation difficult. Except at the time of discharge the gun was not elevated, its long-chase being kept down to avoid detection. Accommodation for the gun crews was provided in a bomb-proof dugout, which was connected with the gun-pit by a deep trench.

The distance from the big guns to the French lines was about six miles ; the French heavy guns were some two miles farther back. A range of eight miles is long for accurate practice, but on the fourth day (i.e., March 26) a shell fell into one of the gun cuttings and rendered the gun useless. It must be remembered that unless a shell dropped actually in the trench or on the gun it could not do much harm. Artillery fire and bombs from the air were continuously directed on the position.

It was not till May 3 that a very clear atmosphere allowed continuous observation. It was then seen that only one gun was in action and the concentrated fire of the French heavy guns would appear to have silenced it. From that day forward no shell fell on Paris till May 27, by which time the gun had been repaired.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*The Allies In The Rhineland*

By Gregory Mason, Correspondent with the American Army of Occupation.

_THIS account of the manner in which the armies of occupation governed the Rhineland under the terms of the Armistice was written by an American war correspondent stationed with the American and French armies during the Meuse-Argonne campaign and after the German capitulation. This general survey of the situation existing during the first six months after the Americans occupied Coblenz, with the Britons in Cologne and the French at Mainz or Mayence, is taken from "The Outlook," by permission.

Under the terms of the Peace Treaty of June 28, 1919, the temporary occupation of the Rhineland was extended to fifteen years or more, contingent upon Germany fulfilling every requirement of the Treaty.

On December 1, 1918, the American army was the first of the Allied forces to reach its objective Coblenz. The British crossed from Belgium two days later and the French entered Mainz, December 15, 1918._

TO disturb existing conditions as little as possible when compatible with the best interest of the general public is the principle which guides the Allies in governing the portions of German territory occupied by their troops under the terms of the Armistice. The know n admiration of the Germans for intelligence in the adoption of rules and consistency in the application of them has made the Allies proceed very carefully. It would not do, they think, to issue an ordinance in haste and then be obliged to ignore or change its application, for that would mean to lose face before the people they are governing, so potent is the German reputation for the love of logic and efficiency.

Whether the territory occupied is held by French, British, Belgian or American troops, the administration of it is essentially an inter-Allied matter. Local commanders are allowed a good deal of discretion, but all general principles are determined by reference to an inter-Allied military commission or to Marshal Foch, as the head of the military forces of the Allies. Hence there is a great similarity in the way different sections of occupied Germany are administered, whether they are actually held by French, British, Belgian or Americans. This unity of control is just as valuable in the administration of quasi-conquered territory as it was valuable in the actual prosecution of battles. For instance, the intention is to make the administration of this territory as humane as possible. The Belgians wanted to apply to the Germans the same harsh regulations which the Germans had used on them, but the inter-Allied directorate wisely blocked Belgium's natural desire to have "an eye for an eye."

This whole work of occupation goes through three phases : first, military occupation ; second, the seizure of the means of administration ; and, third, economic treatment of the occupied regions.

The military occupation is essentially police work. By whatsoever troops, it is performed in pursuance of rules laid down by Marshal Foch. It has followed the same military zones into which the Germans divided the territory now occupied by the Allies.

If Marshal Foch gave the word, the Allied army could advance instantly deep into Germany.

Marshal Foch's police rules are strict but not harsh. They are aimed to protect the people of the occupied zones, and they are softened everywhere as soon as the conduct of the natives justifies such relaxation. For instance, one of the first general rules in all the occupied zones was that the inhabitants must remain indoors from eight o'clock in the evening until six o'clock in the morning, but local commanders were given authority to relax it as they saw fit. When I was in Coblenz, the Americans had already allowed the people an extra hour on the streets in the evening, and at Kaiserlauten the French had postponed curfew until half-past ten. The German gendarmerie is purely local in all the occupied zones, and much use has been made of it. Wherever there were German army officers in positions of responsibility in the gendarmerie, they were removed, the Allied policy being generally to trust local functionaries and to leave them in office whenever they can be used, but to dismiss all officials who were appointed by Berlin.

At first all use of telephones was forbidden to the inhabitants who occupied towns, but this rule has been relaxed also. In the French zone the natives are allowed telephone calls within their own city; while in Coblenz the Americans allow this and also permit the use of five trunk lines from the occupied territory into Germany proper. Thus a German in Coblenz may talk directly to a German in Berlin. Except in cases of extreme personal necessity, all such calls are supposed to be confined to the transaction of important business, and of course American army censors "listen in" on every call. This privilege was given to the Germans of Coblenz because it was found that the sudden and complete interruption of contact between the two banks of the Rhine caused a great deal of inconvenience and suffering.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*Holding The Germans At Chateau-Thierry*

British Press Report and a French Tribute.

_FOLLOWING the first contact with the enemy at Cantigny, on May 31, 1918 the American Second Division, which included a brigade of marines, was deployed across the Chateau-Thierry-Paris road in a gap in the French line where, General Pershing reports, "It stopped the German advance on Paris." Opposed to the Americans were the best troops the Germans had at their command. The action lasted until July 1.

This British press dispatch, dated June 5, recounts the initial clash between the Americans and Germans for possession of Chateau-Thierry. The character of the fighting along the Marne at this time is indicated by the statement that, with 8,000 men engaged, the Marine Corps casualties numbered 69 officers and 1,531 men dead and 78 officers and 2,435 men wounded.

Appended is the order of General Degoutte complimenting the Marines for their work at Chateau-Thierry and subsequently at Belleau Wood._

ON May 31, when the Germans were already in the outskirts of Chateau-Thierry, an American machine-gun unit was hurried thither in motor lorries. Chateau-Thierry lies on both banks of the Marne, which is spanned by a big bridge. To the northward a canal runs parallel with the river and is crossed by a smaller bridge.

The Americans had scarcely reached their quarters when news was received that the Germans had broken into the northern part of Chateau-Thierry, having made their way through the gap they had driven in our lines to the left of the town and then pouring along the streets to the bridge, intending to establish themselves on the south bank and capture the town.

The American machine gunners and French colonials were thrown into Chateau-Thierry together. The Americans immediately took over the defense of the river bank, especially the approaches to the bridge. Fighting with their habitual courage and using their guns with an accuracy which won the highest enconiums from the French, they brought the enemy to a standstill.

Already wavering under the American fire, the Germans were counter-attacked by the French colonials and driven from the town. They returned to the attack the next night and under cover of darkness crept into the town along the river bank and began to work their way through the streets, toward the main bridge. At the same moment a tremendous artillery bombardment was opened upon the southern half of the town.

When within range of the machine guns the Germans advanced under the cover of clouds of thick white smoke from smoke bombs, in order to baffle the aim of the American gunners. A surprise, however, was in store for them. They were already crossing the bridge, evidently believing themselves masters of both banks, when a thunderous explosion blew the center of the bridge and a number of Germans with it into the river. Those [about 100] who reached the southern bank were captured.

In this battle in the streets, and again at night, the young American soldiers showed a courage and determination which aroused the admiration of their French colonial comrades. With their machine guns they covered the withdrawal of troops across the bridge before its destruction, and although under severe fire themselves, kept all the approaches to the bank under a rain of bullets which nullified all the subsequent efforts of the enemy to cross the river. Every attempt of the Germans to elude the vigilance of the Americans resulted in disaster.

During the last two days the enemy has renounced the occupation of the northern part of Chateau-Thierry, which the American machine guns have made untenable. . . . Against their casualties the Americans can set a much greater loss inflicted by their bullets on the enemy. They have borne their full part in what a French staff officer well qualified to judge described as one of the finest feats of the war.

Army Headquarters, June 30, 1918.

In view of the brilliant conduct of the Fourth Brigade of the Second United States Division, which in a spirited fight took Bouresches and the important strong point of Bois de Belleau, stubbornly defended by a large enemy force, the General commanding the Sixth Army orders that henceforth, in all official papers, the Bois de Belleau shall be named "Bois de la Brigade de Marine."


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*Breaking The Hindenburg Line*

United States Government Statement.

_DISCOURAGED by the weakening morale of his troops, who believed no longer in his lavish promises of victory, General von Ludendorff, succeeding von Hindenburg in the German High Command, pronounced August 8, 1918, "the blackest day of the war." It was on that day that American, supported by Canadian, troops, as here recounted, smashed through the Hindenburg Line north of Bellenglise, stormed Bellicourt and seized Nauroy. Retreating German regiments signalized their state of mind by shouting to the fresh troops moving up to replace them in the front lines "Don't fight!" and "You are only prolonging the war!"

In the final smash, which completely routed the enemy on this battle front, September 29, two American Divisions, the Twenty-seventh and the Thirtieth, took a leading part._

IN September, 1918, the Second American Corps (Twenty-seventh and Thirtieth Divisions) was placed at the disposal of the Fourth British Army for operations against the Hindenburg Line east of Peronne.

On the night of September 23-24 the Thirtieth Division took over what was known as the Nauroy sector, with a front of 3,750 yards, about 1,000 yards west of the main Hindenburg Line, and approximately on the old Hindenburg Outpost Line. On the next night the Twenty-seventh Division took over the Gouy sector, on the left of the Thirtieth Division and connecting with it; its front was 4,500 yards, approximately along the old British front line trenches, very close to the Hindenburg Outpost Line.

On September 27, a preliminary operation was undertaken to straighten the line of the Thirtieth Division and to bring the Twenty-seventh up to the start line for the main attack. The Thirtieth Division succeeded, but by the afternoon of September 28 the Twenty-seventh Division was back nearly in its original position.

At 5:50 a.m., September 29, the corps attacked, supported by the Australian Corps. The Second British Corps attacked simultaneously on its right, and the Third British Corps on its left. The attack was to be led by tanks, behind a rolling barrage. The start line was slightly to the east of the Hindenburg Outpost Line, and the objective east of Nauroy and Gouy. The plan provided that after the Americans had reached their objectives the Australians were to pass through them and continue in the advance.

The Thirtieth Division was already on the starting line, close behind the initial line of the barrage. The Twenty-seventh, however, had not yet been able to take the three strong points the Knoll, Guillemont Farm and Quennemont Farm and was consequently about 1,000 yards behind the barrage line, which was east of them. The question of changing the barrage lines for this division was raised, but decided in the negative, the brigade designated to make the attack having reported at 6 p.m. on the 28th that it expected to be within 400 yards of the barrage lines, or possibly even on the intended starting line, before the hour for attack.

The barrage fell as planned at 5:50 a.m., September 29, stood for four minutes on the initial line, and then advanced at the rate of 100 yards in four minutes. The Thirtieth Division advanced behind it, Sixtieth Brigade in first line. The One Hundred and Seventeenth Infantry was to follow across the tunnel, then deploy, facing south and cover the right of the Australians after the relief. Arrangements were made to seize the southern exit of the tunnel which lay in the division sector.

The German barrage was not heavy, but nevertheless there were many casualties, especially in the support battalions. Smoke and fog rendered it difficult to keep direction and contact. The One Hundred and Twentieth Infantry on the right crossed the Hindenburg Line and occupied Nauroy, the One Hundred and Seventeenth reached its proper position, facing southeast and connecting the One Hundred and Twentieth with the Forty-sixth British Division. The One Hundred and Nineteenth, however, on the left, was enfiladed by machine guns from its own left, and had to form a defensive flank in that direction, reaching back to the tunnel and then connecting with the Twenty-seventh Division. A battalion of the One Hundred and Seventeenth and one of the One Hundred and Eighteenth were sent to support this flank. In this position the Australians passed through the lines and relieved the Thirtieth Division on the afternoon of September 29.

In the Twenty-seventh Division, the Fifty-fourth Infantry Brigade made the attack under the same difficulties on account of fog and smoke. It also received machine-gun fire in enfilade from the direction of Vendhuile, outside its sector to the left. Part of the right regiment, the One Hundred and Eighth, by a detour to the south avoided Quennemont Farm and reached the Hindenburg Line south of Bony. Groups from all attacking battalions succeeded in penetrating between the strong points and reaching the Hindenburg Line; but by dusk only the extreme right retained its footing in that line. Here the division was relieved by the Australians, and remained in support; numerous groups, however, aggregating 1,000 men remained with the Australians and assisted them in cleaning up the Hindenburg Line on the right, taking it throughout the rest of the sector, and occupying part of the village of Bony.

The following is a quotation from the dispatch of Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, dated January 7, 1919: "North of Bellenglise the Thirtieth American Division (Major Gen. E. M. Lewis), having broken through the deep defenses of the Hindenburg Line, stormed Bellicourt and seized Nauroy.

"On their left the Twenty-seventh American Division (Major-Gen. J. F. O'Ryan) met with very heavy enfilade machine-gun fire, but pressed on with great gallantry as far as Bony, where a bitter struggle took place for the possession of the village."


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*"On The Brink Of The Precipice"*

Ambassador Walter H. Page to President Wilson.

_HERE is first a telegram, dated, London, June 28, 1917, from Ambassador Page to President Wilson, followed by a letter written the next day, disclosing the precarious financial condition of Great Britain and the Allies at that time. Arthur J. Balfour, to whom particular reference is made, had succeeded Sir Edward Grey as British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and Bonar Law was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Page relays a call for financial help from Britain to the United States, the Allies being "on the brink of the precipice."

It is well to remember that, since the war began, Great Britain had advanced to her Allies 193,849,000 (approximately $1,000,000,000), while the United States, at that time, had advanced to Great Britain $686,000,000 and to the other Allies $427,000,000.

This correspondence is taken from the "Life and Letters of Walter H. Page," by permission of Doubleday, Page & Co._

MR. BALFOUR asked me to a conference at seven o'clock with him, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and their financial advisers. It was disclosed that financial disaster to all the European Allies is imminent unless the United States Government advances to the British enough money to pay for British purchases in the United States as they fall due.

Bonar Law reports that only half enough has been advanced for June and that the British agents in the United States now have enough money to keep the exchange up for only one day more. If exchange with England fall, exchange with all European allies also will immediately fall, and there will be a general collapse.

Balfour understood that in addition to our other loans and our loans to France and Italy, we would advance to England enough to pay for all purchases by the British Government made in the United States. He authorizes me to say that they are now on the brink of a precipice, and unless immediate help be given financial collapse will follow. He is sending an explanatory telegram to Spring Rice.

I am now convinced that these men are not overstating their case. Unless we come to their rescue we are all in danger of disaster. Great Britain will have to abandon the gold standard.

THE financial panic (it's hardly less) that more than threatens this Government raises the question, Why on earth do the British drift along till they reach a precipice? That's hard to answer. It's their way. They are too proud to acknowledge their predicament even to themselves until events force them to do so. Mr. Balfour informs me that the agreement that he reached in general terms with Mr. McAdoo was this that our Government would thenceforth lend (1) to France and Italy (and Russia?) the sums they would otherwise have to borrow from England (as they have all the while been borrowing) and (2) in addition lend to England whatever sums should be required to pay for British Government purchases in the United States. So much for that. I have no information whether that is Mr. McAdoo's understanding.

Now, Bonar Law assured me at the fearful financial conference to which they invited me that the Treasury Department had given Lever (the English financial agent) only half enough in June to meet the British Government's bills in the United States. Since they had reckoned on meeting all such bills from advances made by us, they find themselves unable to go further without our help. They have used all the gold they have in Canada.

This, then, is the edge of the precipice. It came out that, a few weeks ago, the French came over here and persuaded the British that in addition to the French loan from the United States they were obliged to have the British loans to them continued for how long, I do not know. Bonar Law said, "We simply had to do it."

The British, therefore, in spite of our help to France, still have France on their back and continue to give her money. I know that for a long time the British have felt that the French were not making a sufficient financial effort for themselves. "A Frenchman will lightly give his life for any cause that touches his imagination, but he will die rather than give a franc for any cause." There is a recurring fear here lest France in a moment of war-weariness may make a separate peace.

As things stand today, there is a danger of the fall of exchange and (perhaps) the abandonment of specie payments. These British run right into such a crisis before they are willing to confess their plight even to themselves.

They are not trying to lie down on us : they are too proud for that. Why they got into this predicament I do not fully know. I know nothing of what arrangements were made with them except what Mr. Balfour tells me. It seems to me that some definite understanding ought to have been reduced to writing. But here they are in this predicament, which I duly reported by telegram.

It is unlucky that "crises" come in groups two or three at once. But the submarine situation is as serious as the financial. I have a better knowledge of that than I have of the financial situation. But in one respect they are alike the British drive ahead, concealing their losses, their misfortunes and their mistakes, till they are on the very brink of disaster: that is their temperament. Into this submarine peril (the Germans are fast winning in this crucial activity there's no doubt about that) I have gone pretty thoroughly with their naval men and their shipping authorities. Admiral Sims has reached the same conclusions that I have reached independently, from his point of view. The immediate grave danger for the present lies here. If the present rate of destruction of shipping goes on, the war will end before a victory is won. And time is of the essence of the problem ; and the place where it will be won is in the waters of the approach to this Kingdom not anywhere else. The full available destroyer power that can by any method be made available must be concentrated in this area within weeks (not months). There are not in the two navies half destroyers enough : improvised destroyers must be got. There must be enough to provide convoys for every ship that is worth saving. Merely arming them affords the minimum of protection. Armed merchantmen are destroyed every day. Convoyed ships escape almost all. That is the convincing actual experience.

If we had not come into the war when we did, and if we had not begun action and given help with almost miraculous speed, I do not say that the British would have been actually beaten (Tho' this may have followed), but I do say that they would have quickly been on a paper money basis, thereby bringing down the financial situation of all the European Allies; and the submarine success of the Germans would or might have caused a premature peace. They were in worse straits than they ever confessed to themselves. And now we are all in bad straits because of this submarine destruction of shipping. One sea-going tug now may be worth more than a dozen ships next year.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*President Wilson Acclaims The Armistice*

In an Address to Congress.

_HAVING, on January 8, 1918, outlined the "Fourteen Points" upon which the terms of the Armistice were based, President Wilson was elated when, early on the morning of November 11 following, he was notified that the Armistice had been signed and that the Great War was at an end. He promptly prepared the accompanying address to Congress, and on November 17 issued the ensuing Thanksgiving Proclamation.

It will be noted that President Wilson, in the first hour of victory, cautions the victors against committing excesses, reminding them, as well as Congress, that "To conquer with arms is to make only a temporary conquest; to conquer the World by earning its esteem is to make permanent conquest." At the same time, "Armed imperialism such as the men conceived who were but yesterday the masters of Germany is at an end, its illicit ambitions engulfed in black disaster."

THE war thus comes to an end ; for, having accepted these terms of Armistice, it will be impossible for the German command to renew it._

It is not now possible to assess the consequences of this great consummation. We know only that this tragical war, whose consuming flames swept from one nation to another until all the world was on fire, is at an end and that it was the privilege of our own people to enter it at its most critical juncture in such fashion and in such force as to contribute, in a way of which we are all deeply proud, to the great result. We know, too that the object of the war is attained; the object upon which all free men had set their hearts; and attained with a sweeping completeness which even now we do not realize. Armed imperialism such as the men conceived who were but yesterday the masters of Germany is at an end, its illicit ambitions engulfed in black disaster. Who will now seek to revive it?

The arbitrary power of the military caste of Germany, which once could secretly and of its own single choice disturb the peace of the world, is discredited and destroyed. And more than that much more than that has been accomplished. The great nations which associated themselves to destroy it have now definitely united in the common purpose to set up such a peace as will satisfy the longing of the whole world for disinterested justice, embodied in settlements which are based upon something much better and more lasting than the selfish competitive interests of powerful States. There is no longer conjecture as to the objects the victors have in mind. They have a mind in the matter, not only, but a heart also. Their avowed and concerted purpose is to satisfy and protect the weak as well as to accord their just rights to the strong.

The humane temper and intention of the victorious Governments have already been manifested in a very practical way. Their representatives in the Supreme War Council at Versailles have by unanimous resolution assured the peoples of the Central Empires that every thing that is possible in the circumstances will be done to supply them with food and relieve the distressing want that is in so many places threatening their very lives; and steps are to be taken immediately to organize these efforts at relief in the same systematic manner that they were organized in the case of Belgium. By the use of the idle tonnage of the Central Empires it ought presently to be possible to lift the fear of utter misery from their oppressed populations and set their minds and energies free for the great and hazardous tasks of political reconstruction which now face them on every hand. Hunger does not breed reform ; it breeds madness and all the ugly distempers that make an ordered life impossible.

For with the fall of the ancient Governments, which rested like an incubus on the people of the Central Empires, has come political change not merely, but revolution; and revolution which seems as yet to assume no final and ordered form, but to run from one fluid change to another, until thoughtful men are forced to ask themselves, With what Governments and of what sort are we about to deal in the making of the covenants of peace?

With what authority will they meet us, and with what assurance that their authority will abide and sustain securely the international arrangements into which we are about to enter? There is here matter for no small anxiety and misgiving. When peace is made, upon whose promises and engagements besides our own is it to rest?

Let us be perfectly frank with ourselves and admit that these questions cannot be satisfactorily answered now or at once. But the moral is not that there is little hope of an early answer that will suffice. It is only that we must be patient and helpful and mindful and above all of the great hope and confidence that lie at the heart of what is taking place. Excesses accomplish nothing. Unhappy Russia has furnished abundant recent proof of that. Disorder immediately defeats itself. If excesses should occur, if disorder should for a time raise its head, a sober second thought will follow and a day of constructive action, if we help and do not hinder.

The present and all that it holds belong to the nations and the peoples who preserve their self-control and the orderly processes of their Governments; the future to those who prove themselves the true friends of mankind. To conquer with arms is to make only a temporary conquest; to conquer the world by earning its esteem is to make permanent conquest. I am confident that the nations that have learned the discipline of freedom and that have settled with self-possession to its ordered practice are now about to make conquest of the world by the sheer power of example and of friendly helpfulness.

The peoples who have but just come out from under the yoke of arbitrary government and who are now coming at last into their freedom will never find the treasures of liberty they are in search of if they look for them by the light of the torch. They will find that every pathway that is stained with the blood of their own brothers leads to the wilderness, not to the seat of their hope. They are now face to face with their initial test. We must hold the light steady until they find themselves. And in the meantime, if it be possible, we must establish a peace that will justly define their place among the nations, remove all fear of their neighbors and of their former masters, and enable them to live in security and contentment when they have set their own affairs in order. I, for one, do not doubt their purpose or capacity. There are some happy signs that they know and will choose the way of self-control and peaceful accommodation. If they do, we shall put our aid at their disposal in every way that we can. If they do not, we must await with patience and sympathy the awakening and recovery that will assuredly come at last.

THE PRESIDENT'S THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION OF NOVEMBER 17, 1918

It has long been our custom to turn in the autumn of the year in praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God for His many blessings and mercies to us as a nation. This year we have special and moving cause to be grateful and to rejoice. God has in His good pleasure given us peace. It has not come as a mere cessation of arms, a relief from the strain and tragedy of war. It has come as a great triumph of Right.

Complete victory has brought us, not peace alone, but the confident promise of a new day as well, in which justice shall replace force and jealous intrigue among the nations. Our gallant armies have participated in a triumph which is not marred or stained by any purpose of selfish aggression. In a righteous cause they have won immortal glory and have nobly served their nation in serving mankind. God has indeed been gracious. We have cause for such rejoicing as revives and strengthens in us all the best traditions of our national history. A new day shines about us, in which our hearts take new courage and look forward with new hope to new and greater duties.

While we render thanks for these things, let us not forget to seek the Divine guidance in the performance of those duties, and Divine mercy and forgiveness for all errors of act or purpose, and pray that in all that we do we shall strengthen the ties of friendship and mutual respect upon which we must assist to build the new structure of peace and goodwill among the nations.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*The Dawes Plan To Collect From Germany*

A Contemporary Analysis from "Current Opinion".

_EARLY in 1924, Charles Gates Dawes, a former Comptroller of the Currency and Chairman of the General Purchasing Board of the A. E. F. during the Great War, headed a committee appointed by the Reparations Commission to investigate the possibilities of a German budget and the capability of Germany to pay her debts under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. After an exhaustive investigation, the Dawes Report, or Plan, was laid before the Commission, and was promptly accepted by France (with some reservations), Great Britain, Italy, Belgium and, last but not least, Germany. The United States offered to assist in a loan of $400,000,000 to Germany, on condition that the Dawes Plan be applied as written.

Here is a summary and interpretation of it, taken from "Current Opinion" for May, 1924, which reflects the general attitude of the creditor nations toward Germany at that time. Dawes was elected Vice-President in 1924._

AFTER deluges of rumor, we now have the Dawes Report. In substance, it is British ; in form, it saves the face of France ; and it represents a momentous advance towards economic peace in Europe. Here is precisely what the report means :

First, the French army remains in the Ruhr, but the occupation becomes "invisible." All German industries are restored to Germany.

Secondly, while the total of German reparations, namely 33 billion dollars, is not in terms reduced, the annual payments from Germany, at present amounting to a nominal 2 billion dollars, are limited to 250 million dollars the first year; rising to about 600 million dollars in the fifth or normal year. If the Allies take commodities, Germany is to be credited with the value. In other words, the above sums are inclusive. This represents a cut of Germany's total annual payments of seven-eighths at the outset and two-thirds in a normal year. The British payments to the United States are, by the way, about 150 million dollars a year.

The contributions by Germany are to be assisted at the outset by a foreign loan, but, in a normal year, are to be derived from (1) the budget, (2) the railways and (3) a mortgage on all Germany's industries.

In a normal year 300 million dollars will come from the taxes. On the railroads, bonds will be secured, the interest on which, with other receipts, will produce 225 million dollars. And on the general industries there will be bonds producing 75 million dollars for a normal year. There is to be a prosperity index which will show at any given time whether Germany can be expected to pay larger sums than stipulated.

All Germany's internal debts are wiped out with the fall of the mark. She can thus create external obligations like the above and still balance her domestic budget. She will be expected to do this. As for her credits abroad, the Committee over which the British banker, Reginald McKenna, presides, has reported that at the end of 1923 Germany had about $1,700,000,000 thus deposited in foreign countries, chiefly as the result of selling marks to a million too trustful buyers, who have suffered a total loss.

The Reichsbank (or a substitute) is to be set up in Berlin and is again to issue a currency, backed by the gold standard. This means that German marks, as now reckoned by the quadrillion, will cease to be a grim financial jest.

In order to meet her initial payments of reparations and to establish a gold reserve as basis of her new currency, Germany must borrow 200 million dollars from other countries. And she must submit to a measure of international control of her finances, her railways and her industrial bonds, allocated to reparations. For the control of these vast affairs, there is to be a dependence, in some measure, on the League of Nations, with the hope that the United States will participate, if only by "observation" and friendly counsel.

A document so detailed and complicated as the Dawes Report, which is made public as we go to press, and the acceptance of which is expected of both France and Germany, is not easy thus rapidly to summarize. Naturally, it has been blessed by Sir John Bradbury, the spokesman of the Bank of England. It is not less natural that, even in accepting the Report, Paris should be suspicious. Will Germany pay even the reduced amount? Is she not building up an army of 300,000 men, or three times the allowance under the Treaty of Versailles? Did not Bismarck's birthday lead to demonstrations on behalf of a Kaiser? Is not Stresemann himself talking in favor of the monarchy? And has not Bavaria acquitted Ludendorff amid profuse demonstrations of exuberance? At the German Elections, so often postponed and now inevitable, the German National Party is demanding a plebiscite on "the king question," and attacks of toothache have necessitated frequent visits to Berlin on the part of the Crown Prince. The Imperial Flag is popular and there is "a drive" for the creator of the German Navy, Admiral von Tirpitz. The results of the Bavarian elections are reactionary. And Germany has anticipated the Dawes Report by a reluctant howl of calculated anguish, accentuated by the death of her chief industrialist, Hugo Stinnes.

All this has given France a fit of the nerves. And she has approached Great Britain in order to obtain a defensive alliance as the price doubtless of acquiescence in the Dawes Report. Prime Minister Macdonald in London has replied that such guarantee must depend on agreement over reparations and must be arranged through the League of Nations. To this, the attitude of Poincare [the French Premier] is reported to be that he would be ready to admit Germany in September to the League of Nations, provided that Germany has accepted the Dawes Report and submitted to examination of her alleged armaments.

In the teeth of this situation, the "Berliner Tageblatt" has published what it declares to be the secret treaty signed by France and Czecho-Slovakia on January 25, 1914. In any war with Germany, France and Czecho-Slovakia will support one another. And both powers will support Poland in a war with Germany. In a war between Poland and Russia, the two signatory powers will remain neutral. If Austria tries to join Germany, the two powers will occupy her territory; and if Germany restores the Hohenzollerns, war on her will be declared. While attempts are to be made to establish friendly relations with Russia, any attack by Russia on Roumania will be resisted by France and Czecho-Slovakia. The two powers will oppose Italy's attempt to dominate the Mediterranean.

While Foreign Secretary Benes, of Czecho-Slovakia, declares that these documents are "forged," one does not seem to find so explicit a disclaimer on the part of France. . . . The calm economics of Messrs. Dawes and McKenna are thus enunciated amid a whirlpool of intrigue.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*America Declares War On Germany*

President Wilson's Address to Congress and the Text of the Declaration.

_ADDRESSING Congress on February 3, 1917, President Wilson said he would wait for an "overt act" by a submarine to prove that the German Government meant to war openly on the United States. On March 2 following, the American steamship "Algonquin" was sunk without warning, and presently three other vessels met the same fate off the English coast. Thereupon Congress was summoned by the President to meet on April 2, "to receive a communication on grave questions of national policy." It was interpreted as being preliminary to war. Pacifists and pro-German Americans protested in vain; and the general populace accepted the decision as having been forced upon the United States by the Prussianistic leaders of Germany.

Herewith is the main part of President Wilson's address, followed by the text of the declaration of war passed by the Senate and House of Representatives, April 6, 1917._

I HAVE called the Congress into extraordinary session because there are serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made, and made immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally permissible that I should assume the responsibility of making.

On the 3rd of February last I officially laid before you the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Government that on and after the first day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of humanity and use its submarines to sink every vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and Ireland or the western coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean. That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare earlier in the war, but since April of last year the Imperial Government had somewhat restrained the commanders of its undersea craft, in conformity with its promise, then given to us, that passenger boats should not be sunk and that due warning would be given to all other vessels which its submarines might seek to destroy, when no resistance was offered or escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were given at least a fair chance to save their lives in their open boats. The precautions taken were meager and haphazard enough, as was proved in distressing instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed.

The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and without thought of help or mercy for those on board, the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those of belligerents. Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe conduct through the proscribed areas by the German Government itself and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reckless lack of compassion or of principle.

I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in fact be done by any government that had hitherto subscribed to humane practices of civilized nations. International law had its origin in the attempt to set up some law which would be respected and observed upon the seas, where no nation had right of dominion and where lay the free highways of the world. By painful stage after stage has that law been built up, with meager enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished that could be accomplished, but always with a clear view, at least, of what the heart and conscience of mankind demanded.

This minimum of right the German Government has swept aside, under the plea of retaliation and necessity and because it had no weapons which it could use at sea except these, which it is impossible to employ, as it is employing them, without throwing to the wind all scruples of humanity or of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the intercourse of the world.

I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of noncombatants, men, women and children, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be. The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind.

It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination.

The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion.

The German Government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defence of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their right to defend. The intimation is conveyed that the armed guards which we have placed on our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be. Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual ; it is likely only to produce what it was meant to prevent ; it is practically certain to draw us into the war without either the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents. There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making ; we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life.

With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it; and that it take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defence, but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the government of the German Empire to terms and end the war.

What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable cooperation in counsel and action with the governments now at war with Germany, and, as incident to that, the extension of those governments of the most liberal financial credits, in order that our resources may so far as possible be added to theirs.

It will involve the organization and mobilization of all the material resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the incidental needs of the nation in the most abundant and yet the most economical and efficient way possible.

It will involve the immediate full equipment of the Navy in all respects, but particularly in supplying it with the best means of dealing with the enemy's submarines.

It will involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United States, already provided for by law in case of war, of at least 500,000 men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of universal liability to service, and also the authorization of subsequent additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed and can be handled in training.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*The First American Army In Attack*

From General Pershing's Report.

_IN destroying the St. Mihiel wedge, the American forces fought for the first time as a unit under their own commanders headed by General Pershing, who made this report to the War Department. The operation proved conclusively the fighting ability of American troops organized and acting independently on the offensive. Strategically, it vastly improved the Allied communications and restored to the Allies in that area the power to attack at any moment and in any direction. The St. Mihiel salient had been held by the Germans since September, 1914. Held now by our First Army, with other American armies at hand, the occupation of this region menaced the German front and threatened the Hindenburg Line.

As here reported, the American army numbered about 500,000 men, including 70,000 French, mainly colonials. Sixteen thousand prisoners, 443 guns and a mass of stores were taken at the expense of less than 7,000 casualties._

AT BOMBON on July 24 there was a conference of all the commanders-in-chief for the purpose of considering Allied operations. Each presented proposals for the employment of the armies under his command, and these formed the basis of future cooperation of the Allies. It was emphatically determined that the Allied attitude should be to maintain the offensive. At the first operation of the American army the reduction of the salient of St. Mihiel was to be undertaken as soon as the necessary troops and material could be made available. On account of the swampy nature of the country it was especially important that the movement be undertaken and finished before the fall rains should begin, which was usually about the middle of September.

Arrangements were concluded for successive relief of the American divisions, and the organization of the First American Army under my personal command was announced on August 10, with La Fertesous-Jouarre as headquarters. This army nominally assumed control of a portion of the Vesle front, although at the same time directions were given for its secret concentration in the St. Mihiel sector.

The force of American soldiers in France at that moment was sufficient to carry out this offensive, but they were dispersed along the front from Switzerland to the Channel. The three army corps headquarters to participate in the St. Mihiel attack were the 1st, 4th and 5th. The 1st was on the Vesle, the 4th at Toul and the 5th not yet completely organized. To assemble combat divisions and service troops and undertake a major operation within the short period available and with staffs so recently organized was an extremely difficult task. Our deficiencies in artillery, aviation and special troops, caused by the shipment of an undue proportion of infantry and machine guns during the summer, were largely met by the French.

The reduction of the St. Mihiel salient was important, as it would prevent the enemy from interrupting traffic on the Paris-Nancy Railroad by artillery fire and would free the railroad leading north through St. Mihiel to Verdun. It would also provide us with an advantageous base of departure for an attack against the Metz-Sedan railroad system, which was vital to the German armies west of Verdun, and against the Briey Iron Basin, which was necessary for the production of German armament and munitions.

The general plan was to make simultaneous attacks against the flanks of the salient. The ultimate objective was tentatively fixed as the general line Marieulles (east of the Moselle) heights south of Gorze-Mars in Tour-Etain. The operations contemplated the use of the western face of three or four American divisions, supported by the attack of six divisions of the Second French Army on their left, while seven American Divisions would attack on the southern face, and three French divisions would press the enemy at the tip of the salient. As the part to Le taken by the Second French Army would be closely related to the attack of the First American Army, General Petain placed all the French troops involved under my personal command.

By August 20 the concentration of the scattered divisions, corps, and army troops, of the quantities of supplies and munitions required, and the necessary construction of light railways and roads, were well under way.

On August 30 a further discussion with Marshal Foch was held at my headquarters at Ligny-en-Barrois. In view of the new successes of the French and British near Amiens and the continued favorable results toward the Chemin des Dames on the French front, it was now believed that the limited Allied offensive, which was to prepare for the campaign of 1919, might be carried further before the end of the year. At this meeting it was proposed by Marshal Foch that the general operations as far as the American army was concerned should be carried out in detail by:

(a) An attack between the Meuse and the Argonne by the Second French Army, reinforced by from four to six American divisions.

(b) A French-American attack, extending from the Argonne west to the Souain road, to be executed on the right by an American army astride the Aisne and on the left by the Fourth French Army.

To carry out these attacks the ten to eleven American divisions suggested for the St. Mihiel operation and the four to six for the Second French Army, would have eight to ten divisions for an American army on the Aisne. It was proposed that the St. Mihiel operation should be initiated on September 10, and the other two on September 15 and 20, respectively.

The plan suggested for the American participation in these operations was not acceptable to me because it would require the immediate separation of the recently formed First American Army into several groups, mainly to assist French armies. This was directly contrary to the principle of forming a distinct American army, for which my contention had been insistent. An enormous amount of preparation had already been made, a construction of roads, railroads, regulating stations and other installations looking to the use and supply of our armies on a particular front. The inherent disinclination of our troops to serve under Allied commanders would have grown and American morale would have suffered. My position was stated quite clearly that the strategical employment of the First Army as a unit would be undertaken where desired, but its disruption to carry out these proposals would not be entertained.

A further conference at Marshal Foch's headquarters was held on September 2, at which General Petain was present. After discussion the question of employing the American army as a unit was conceded. The essentials of the strategical decision previously arrived at provided that the advantageous situation of the Allies should be exploited to the utmost by vigorously continuing the general battle and extending it eastward to the Meuse. All the Allied armies were to be employed in a converging action. The British armies, supported by the left of the French armies, were to pursue the attack in the direction of Cambrai ; the center of the French armies, west of Rheims, would continue the actions already begun to drive the enemy beyond the Aisne; and the American army supported by the right of the French armies, would direct its attack on Sedan and Mezieres.

It should be recorded that although this general offensive was fully outlined at the conference no one present expressed the opinion that the final victory could be won in 1918. In fact, it was believed by the French High Command that the Meuse-Argonne attack could not be pushed much beyond Montfaucon before the arrival of winter would force a cessation of operations.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*The Kaiser Abdicates And Apologizes In Exile*

By William II, of Germany.

_THIS initial document, dated Amerongen, Holland, November 28, 1918, and published in Berlin, November 30, is the actual abdication issued by the former Kaiser from his first place of exile on Dutch soil. Supplementing it is his apologetic explanation, taken from his "Memoirs," by permission of Harper & Brothers, of his reasons for fleeing from Germany.

Two days before the Armistice was signed, Prince Maxmilian of Baden, officiating as Chancellor, had published for William II an unsigned but authorized abdication. Neither the Kaiser nor the Crown Prince were then ready to confess personal guilt and military failure. However, the Kaiser's explanation that he fled because it would have been foolhardy and of no benefit to the Fatherland for him to remain is supported by Hindenburg in a statement made in March 1919.

As a farewell gesture, the Kaiser approved the new Socialist Chancellor Frederick Ebert._

BY the present document I renounce forever my rights to the crown of Prussia and the rights to the German imperial crown. I release at the same time all the officials of the German Empire and Prussia and also all officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers of the Prussian Navy and Army and of contingents from confederated States from the oath of fidelity they have taken to me, as their Emperor, King, and supreme chief.

I expect from them until a new organization of the German Empire exists that they will aid those who effectively hold the power in Germany to protect the German people against the menacing dangers of anarchy, famine, and foreign domination.

Made and executed and signed by our own hand with the imperial seal at Amerongen, November 28 (191.

WILHELM.

For thirty years the army was my pride. For it I lived, upon it I labored. And now, after four and a half brilliant years of war with unprecedented victories, it was forced to collapse by the stab in the back from the dagger of the revolutionists, at the very moment when peace was within reach!

And the fact that it was in my proud navy, my creation, that there was first open rebellion, cut me most deeply to the heart.

There has been much talk about my having abandoned the army and gone to neutral foreign parts.

Some say the Emperor should have gone to some regiment at the front, hurled himself with it upon the enemy, and sought death in one last attack. That, however, would not only have rendered impossible the Armistice, ardently desired by the nation, concerning which the commission sent from Berlin to General Foch was already negotiating, but would also have meant the useless sacrifice of the lives of many soldiers of some of the very best and most faithful, in fact.

Others say the Emperor should have returned home at the head of the army. But a peaceful return was no longer possible; the rebels had already seized the Rhine bridges and other important points in the rear of the army. I could, to be sure, have forced my way back at the head of loyal troops taken from the fighting front; but by so doing, I should have put the finishing touch to Germany's collapse, since, in addition to the struggle with the enemy, who would certainly have pressed forward in pursuit, civil war would also have ensued.

Still others say the Emperor should have killed himself. That was made impossible by my firm Christian beliefs. And would not people have exclaimed:

"How cowardly! Now he shirks all responsibility by committing suicide!" This alternative was also eliminated because I had to consider how to be of help and use to my people and my country in the evil time that was to be foreseen.

I knew also that I was particularly called upon to champion the cause of my people in the clearing up of the question of war guilt which was disclosing itself more and more as the pivotal point in our future destiny since I, better than anyone else, could bear witness to Germany's desire for peace and to our clean conscience.

After unspeakably arduous soul struggles, and following the most urgent advice of my counselors of the highest rank who were present at the moment, I decided to leave the country, since, in view of the reports made to me, I must needs believe that, by so doing, I should most faithfully serve Germany, make possible better armistice and peace terms for her, and spare her further loss of human lives, distress and misery.

When the Entente's demand that I and the German army leaders should be surrendered for trial before Entente tribunals became known, I immediately asked myself whether I could be of use to my fatherland by giving myself up before the German people and the German Government had expressed themselves regarding this demand. It was clear to me that, in the opinion of the Entente, such a surrender would so seriously shake the prestige of Germany, as a state and people, for all time, that we could never again take our place, with equal rights, equal dignity, and equal title to alliances, in the first rank of nations, where we belonged.

I recognized it as my duty not to sacrifice the honor and dignity of Germany. The question resolved itself in deciding whether there was any, way to give myself up which might benefit the German nation and not subject it to the above-mentioned disadvantages. Were there such a way I should have been ready without hesitation to add another sacrifice to those already made.

The question of my giving myself up has also been debated as I know in well-meaning and earnest German circles. Wherever this was due to psychological depression or failure to realize the impression which self-chastisement, self-debasement, and fruitless martyrdom in the face of the Entente's demand, cursorily mentioned above, it was in order to arrive at a cleancut decision in other words, at an emphatic refusal.

It was otherwise with the considerations based upon the assumption that I might, by taking upon myself, before the eyes of the whole world, the responsibility for all important decisions and acts of my Government connected with the war, contribute toward making the fate of the German nation easier. Here was not an act of unpolitical sentimentality, but, on the contrary, a deed which, in my eyes, had much to commend it. The thought that, according to the Constitution of the Empire then in force, not I, but the Chancellor alone as well known bore the responsibility, would naturally not have bothered me with regard to this.

Had there been even the slightest prospect of bettering Germany's situation by taking such a step, there would have been no possible doubt for me personally as to what I should do. Already I had shown my personal willingness to sacrifice myself when I left the country and gave up the throne of my fathers, because I had been erroneously and deceivingly assured that I could, by so doing, make possible better peace terms for my people and prevent civil war. I should likewise have made this further attempt to help my people, despite the fact that, in the meantime, one of the considerations in favor of it which have been urged upon me viz., the prevention of civil war had already turned out to be false.

There was, however, no possibility of helping the German people by such an act. Surrender of my person would have had no result beyond our obedience to the demand from the Entente that I be given up. For no tribunal in the world can pronounce a just sentence before the state archives of all the nations participating in the war are thrown open, as has been done, and is still being done, by Germany.

Who, after the unprecedented judgment of Versailles, could still summon up optimism enough to believe that the Entente nations would place their secret documents at the disposal of such a tribunal? Therefore, after careful reflection on my part, I gave the decisive importance that was due to the above-mentioned dignity and honor, and rejected the idea of giving myself up. It was not for me to play the role of Vercingetorix, who, as is well known, relying upon the magnanimity of his foes, surrendered himself to them in order to obtain a better fate for his people. In view of the conduct of our enemies during the war and in the peace negotiations, it was surely not to be assumed that the Entente would show any greater magnanimity than did Caesar when he threw the noble Gaul into chains, subsequently had him executed, and, in spite of what Vercingetorix had done, enslaved his people just the same.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*Britain Welcomes America Into The War*

By Prime Minister David Lloyd George.

_A FEW weeks before making this speech at the American Club in London, April 12, 1917, David Lloyd George had become Prime Minister of England, in succession to Herbert Asquith. Previously (on the drowning of Lord Kitchener as the result of a German submarine attack on the British battleship "Hampshire" in the North Sea), in June, 1916, he had become Secretary for War.

His administration was called upon to face an extraordinary series of crises. In meeting them the new Prime Minister exhibited great resourcefulness and audacity in action, as well as fire and force in oratory, of which this is an excellent example. His quickness in grasping a situation, combined with his enthusiasm and courage, braced the British People to "carry on" to victory, and was of incalculable value to the Allies.

An equally cordial welcome was extended by Premier Ribot, in the French Senate._

I AM in the happy position, I think, of being the first British Minister of the Crown who, speaking on behalf of the people of this country, can salute the American nation as comrades in arms, I am glad. I am proud. I am glad not merely because of the stupendous resources which this great nation can bring to the succor of the Alliance, but I rejoice as a Democrat that the advent of the United States into this war gives the final stamp and seal to the character of the conflict as a struggle against military autocracy throughout the world. That was the note that rang through the great deliverance of President-Wilson. . . . The United States of America have a noble tradition, never broken, of having never engaged in a war except for liberty, and this is the greatest struggle for liberty they have ever embarked upon. I am not at all surprised, when one recollects the wars of the past, that America took its time to make up its mind about the character of this struggle. In Europe most of the great wars of the past were waged for dynastic aggrandizements and for conquest. No wonder that when this great war started there were some elements of suspicion still lurking in the minds of the people of the United States of America. There were many who thought, perhaps, that kings were at their old tricks, and although they saw the gallant Republic of France fighting, some of them perhaps regarded France as the poor victim of conspiracy and of monarchical swashbucklers. The fact that the United States of America has made up its mind finally makes it abundantly clear to the world that this is no struggle of that character, but a great fight for human liberty.

They naturally did not know at first what we had endured in Europe for years from this military caste in Prussia. It never has reached the United States of America. Prussia was not a democracy. The Kaiser promises that it will be a democracy after the war. I think he is right. But Prussia not merely was not a democracy. Prussia was not a Staff; Prussia was an army. It had great industries that had been highly developed; a great educational system; it had its universities, it had developed its science.

All these were subordinate to the one great predominant purpose, the purpose of all a conquering army which was to intimidate the world. The army was the spear-point of Prussia; the rest was merely the haft. That was what we had to deal with in these old countries. It got on the nerves of Europe. They knew what it all meant. It was an army that in recent times had waged three wars, all of conquest, and the unceasing tramp of its legions through the streets of Prussia, on the parade grounds of Prussia, had gone into the Prussian head. The Kaiser, when he witnessed on a grand scale his reviews, got drunk with the sound of it. He delivered the law to the world as if Potsdam was another Sinai, and he was uttering the law from the thunder clouds.

Why is it that Germany deliberately in the third year of the war provoked America to this declaration, and to this action? Deliberately! Yes ; resolutely! It has been suggested that the reason was that there were certain elements in American life which Germany was under the impression would make it impossible for the United States to declare war. That I can hardly believe ; but the answer has been afforded by General Hindenburg himself in the very remarkable interview which appeared in the press.

He depended clearly on one of two things that the submarine campaign would have destroyed international shipping to such an extent that England would have been put out of business before America was ready. According to his computation, America would not be ready for twelve months. He does not know America. Then alternatively, and when America was ready at the end of twelve months with her army, she would have no ships to transport that army to the field of battle. In Hindenburg's words, "America carries no weight." I suppose he means that she has no ships to carry it in!

Well, it is not wise always to assume, even when the German General Staff has miscalculated, that they have had no ground for their calculation; and therefore it behooves the whole of the Allies Britain and America in particular to see that the reckoning of von Hindenburg is as false as the one he made about his famous line which we have already broken. . . . The road to victory, the guarantee of victory, the absolute assurance of victory is to be found in one word ships! In a second word ships! In a third word ships! I see that America, with that quickness of comprehension which characterizes your nation, fully realizes that, and to-day I observe that they have already made an arrangement to build a thousand 3,000-tonners for the Atlantic. I think that the German military advisers must already begin to realize that this is another of the tragic miscalculations which is going to lead them to disaster and to ruin.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*The First World Flight*

Recounted by Pilot Lowell H. Smith to Flight Historian Lowell Thomas.

_THE round-the-world flight of the United States Army Air Service during 1924 was one of the greatest achievements in the history of aviation. Of the four airplanes which started from Seattle, Washington, April 6, two, the "Chicago" and "New Orleans," manned respectively by Lieutenants Lowell H. Smith and Leslie P. Arnold, and by Lieutenants Erik Nelson and John Harding, returned to Seattle on September 28, having flown 26,345 miles in 365 hours 11 minutes flying time.

Here is an account of two of the most hazardous stages of the flight, the "hop" from Alaska to Asia and from Iceland to Greenland. It is taken from Lowell Thomas's "The First World Flight," by permission of Houghton, Mifflin and Company. The flagplane "Seattle," piloted by Major Frederick Martin, crashed into a mountain in Alaska, and the "Boston" was forced down and wrecked off the Faroe Islands, the crew resuming the flight at Pictou, N. S._

AT 11:3 5 on the morning of May 15, 1924, we set forth across the Pacific, and at five minutes past midday we passed over the last bit of American soil that we were to see for a long time. Bering Sea is one of the roughest bodies of water in the world, as we had long since discovered, and right here where it joins the North Pacific is the roughest part. The sky in the southwest in the direction of Paramushiru had suddenly turned black, while due west it was still clear. So we headed toward the Komandorskis, deciding to take our chances with the Bolsheviks rather than face the wrath of the storm. For three hours we flew out of sight of land, wondering all the time what the Russians would think when they saw three giant planes swoop down out of the sky in this remote region where even ships only come about once a year.

After we had changed our course to avoid the storm and headed for the Komandorskis, our nearest land was Copper Island, two hundred and seventy miles away. This island is nine miles long and one mile wide not a very large object, and one that could be easily missed in an ocean, had our navigation been at fault. This was our first long water flight and consequently our first real test, so that, after straining our eyes for hours in an effort to sight Copper Island, it was rather a triumph to see it eventually "dead ahead," over our radiator caps.

At 3:05 we arrived over Copper Island, heading northwest toward Bering Island, the largest of the group, and at five o'clock saw a dent in the coast and the wireless towers of the Soviet looming above the village of Nikolski. About the same moment I spotted the "Eider" [an American supply ship] five miles offshore. But it was too rough for us to come down away out there, and her officers, realizing this, steamed to three miles from Nikolski and dropped buoys while we circled above the island.

Although it was early Wednesday morning of May 15, when we left Attu, and we were only five hours in the air, it was Thursday afternoon, May 16, when we landed at the Komandorskis, for we had crossed the one hundred and eightieth meridian, where time changes, and had dropped a day of our lives.

As we taxied toward the buoys, a boat put out from shore, so after mooring we climbed back in our cockpits ready to take off again if necessary. The boat came alongside, with five men on board, two in uniform and three in civilian clothes. All had long beards, and looked just as Russians marooned away out here ought to look. None could speak English and of course we knew as little about their language as we knew about Chinese. . . . Fortunately, there was a sailor on the "Elder" who was a Lithuanian from Chicago and proved a capable interpreter. We explained that we had been forced to put in at their islands because of storms to the south. When we assured them that we were birds of passage winging our way round the world, and that we merely desired to remain overnight, they said they would send a wireless message to Moscow to see what Comrade Trotsky had to say. . . . At daylight just as we were getting ready to take off, out came the bearded committee in their little boat with word from Moscow that we could not be allowed to stop there. We thanked them for their courtesy, and chuckled to ourselves a bit because we had already remained as long as we wanted. . . . And at 9:30 a.m. on the 17th of May we were over a headland jutting out into the ocean beneath us and knew that we were at last above the continent of Asia and had completed the first aerial crossing of the Pacific.

Strung out between Iceland and Greenland, about one hundred and twenty-five miles apart, were five American ships, the cruiser "Richmond," with Rear-Admiral Magruder on board, the cruiser "Raleigh," and the destroyers "Barry," "Reid," and "Billingsby." Captain Lyman A. Cotton, in command of the Admiral's flagship "Richmond,"described this stretch from Iceland to Greenland as the longest and most difficult leg of the trans-Atlantic flight. Says Lieutenant Smith :

We realized when we passed over the "Billingsby" that it would be good-bye to her. So we flew low in order to wave to our old friends, and we were cheered to find that the sailors had painted "Good Luck" in huge white letters on the deck. Perhaps the telling of this sounds prosaic, but to us, out there in the middle of the North Atlantic on the most dangerous leg of our World Flight, such encouragement from our Navy friends made an impression that looms large in our memories even now. Next we passed the "Barry," displaying two flags from her yard. This was a signal to notify us that there was dangerous weather ahead. But it was too late to turn back now. Nor was there any place to park out there in the Atlantic midway between Iceland and Greenland. There was nothing we could do but carry-on and trust in Providence and our Liberty motors. . . . Seventy-five miles out from Greenland we struck the first floes. As we neared the coast, the ice increased until we were flying over a seemingly endless expanse of fantastic bergs of every size and shape. Some looked as high as the Chicago Tribune Tower or the Woolworth Building. Had we seen them under different conditions the sight, no doubt, would have inspired us. As it was, they were terrifying, because we never saw them until we were right upon them. We had to fly as low as thirty feet off the water in order to keep our bearings at all, so you can just imagine the close shaves we had while playing tag and leap-frog with those icebergs!

We were traveling along at a speed of ninety miles an hour, and could see only between a hundred and a hundred and fifty feet ahead, so use your own imagination as to how soon a plane traveling at that speed could use up the distance that we could see, and then try and figure out how little time was left us to sight a berg ahead, decide which way to turn, and then execute the maneuver. Three times we came so suddenly upon huge icebergs that there was no time left to do any deciding. We simply jerked the wheel back for a quick climb, and were lucky enough to zoom over the top of it into the still denser fog above. Here we were completely lost and unable to see beyond the prop and wing-tips. Blindly we would grope and feel our way downward, hoping against hope that the little space we should eventually descend into just above the surface of the water would be clear of ice for a great enough distance to enable us to glance around, size up the situation, and get set for dodging the next one.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*War With Mexico Is Threatened*

By Robert Lansing, Secretary of State.

_THIS review of the outrages perpetrated on American citizens by Mexican bandits and soldiery, secretly instigated by the German Government, is Secretary Lansing's official reply, dated June 20, 1916, to a protest from the de facto Government of Mexico against the presence of American troops in Mexico.

The bandit leader was Pancho Villa. His followers had invaded New Mexico, plundering and slaying civilians before U. S. troops arrived.

General Funston was authorized to send a strong American force into Mexico to "get Villa alive or dead," and disperse his murderous band. A force of over 4,000 men, under General Pershing, entered Mexico in March, 1916, and remained there until 1917. Several clashes had occurred with Mexican troops, with casualties on both sides, when President Wilson called for an army of militia to safeguard the Mexican border. War was averted, but our ran, militia got good training for the sterner warfare that awaited them in Europe._

SIR: I have read your communication, which was delivered to me on May 22, 1916, under instructions of the Chief Executive of the de facto Government of Mexico, on the subject of the presence of American troops in Mexican territory, and I would be wanting in candor if I did not, before making answer to the allegations of fact and the conclusions reached by your Government, express the surprise and regret which have been caused this Government by the discourteous tone and temper of this last communication of the de facto Government of Mexico.

The Government of the United States has viewed with deep concern and increasing disappointment the progress of the revolution in Mexico. Continuous bloodshed and disorders have marked its progress. For three years the Mexican Republic has been torn with civil strife; the lives of the Americans and other aliens have been sacrificed; vast properties developed by American capital and enterprise have been destroyed or rendered non-productive; bandits have been permitted to roam at will through the territory contiguous to the United States and to seize, without punishment or without effective attempt at punishment, the property of Americans, while the lives of citizens of the United States, who ventured to remain in Mexican territory or to return there to protect their interests, have been taken, in some cases barbarously taken, and the murderers have neither been apprehended nor brought to justice. It would be difficult to find in the annals of the history of Mexico conditions more deplorable than those which have existed there during these recent years of civil war.

It would be tedious to recount instance after instance, outrage after outrage, atrocity after atrocity, to illustrate the true nature and extent of the widespread conditions of lawlessness and violence which have prevailed. During the past nine months in particular, the frontier of the United States along the lower Rio Grande has been thrown into a state of constant apprehension and turmoil because of frequent and sudden incursions into American territory and depredations and murders on American soil by Mexican bandits, who have taken the lives and destroyed the property of American citizens, sometimes carrying American citizens across the international boundary with the booty seized.

American garrisons have been attacked at night, American soldiers killed, and their equipment and horses stolen. American ranches have been raided, property stolen and American trains wrecked and plundered. The attacks on Brownsville, Red House Ferry, Progreso Post Office and Las Pelades, all occurring during September last, are typical. In these attacks on American territory, Carranzita adherents and even Carranzita soldiers took part in the looting, burning and killing. Not only were these murders characterized by ruthless brutality, but uncivilized acts of mutilation were perpetrated. Representations were made to General Carranza, and he was emphatically requested to stop these reprehensible acts in a section which he has long claimed to be under the complete domination of his authority.

Notwithstanding these representations and the promise of General Nafarete to prevent attacks along the international boundary, in the following month of October a passenger train was wrecked by bandits and several persons were killed seven miles north of Brownsville, and an attack was made upon United States troops at the same place several days later. Since these attacks, leaders of the bandits well known both to Mexican civil and military authorities, as well as to American officers, have been enjoying with impunity the liberty of the towns of Northern Mexico. So far has the indifference of the de facto Government to these atrocities gone that some of these leaders, as I am told, have received not only the protection of that Government, but encouragement and aid as well.

Depredations upon American persons and property within Mexican jurisdiction have been still more numerous. This Government has repeatedly requested in the strongest terms that the de facto Government safeguard the lives and homes of American citizens and furnish the protection which international obligation imposes, to American interests in the northern States of Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, Chihuahua and Sonora, and also in the States to the south.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*A Close-Up Of The Great Argonne Battle*

By Major-General Robert Lee Bullard.

_AS commander of the First Division, then of the 3rd Corps and finally of the Second American Army in France, General Bullard saw and tells, in his "Personalities and Reminiscences of the War," from which this account is taken by permission of Doubleday, Page & Company, of the intimate, fighting, human aspect of the war.

During the preparation of the Meuse-Argonne offensive, Bullard was practically in command of more than half a million men. It was in the early stages of this `greatest battle ever fought by American troops" that he took command of our Second Army.

Previously General Bullard had written the famous message at the opening of the Second Battle of the Marne, July, 1918, which marked the turning point of the war, concluding with the words, "We are going to counter-attack." His victorious troops were pushing on toward Metz, driving the Germans before them, when the Armistice was signed._

RARELY have I seen anything more carefully or completely planned and prepared for than the beginning of the battle of the Meuse-Argonne. I remembered the question of the French staff officer a year before in Lyons, when he saw one of our detachments lost and straying over France "Have you no staff?" We now had a staff.

On the wonderful French maps the plans showed the immediate and remote objectives of each corps. The maps in many bright colors reminded me of the criticism of the American officer who a few months before had remarked to a French general that the French staff were going in too much for making "Easter eggs," referring to the many colored areas of oval shape on these maps. And now our own staff were making "Easter eggs."

In all these preparations there were some failures. Two brigadier-generals and one major-general who were slow and unenergetic or careless, who were not impressed by their responsibilities in preparation, shortly lost their commands upon my recommendation; and later, in battle, I know of two other major-generals who lost theirs in other corps near me. This of course is hardly believable as we read only American histories of our fighting in France. These never refer to any failure or laxity in battle or duty by even the humblest American soldier.

As I read some of these narratives I know we are now going to transmit to our children the same exaggeration of uniform American duty, bravery, and prowess as fill the popular histories of our Revolution such histories as made it necessary for General Upton to tell the truth in his "Military Policy of the United States."

The hardest work that I did or saw done by others in France was the holding of men to duty in service and battle. In the early days some of our military theorists who had been little at the front desired to reduce the military police used for this purpose. As our fighting increased these military police had, on the contrary, to be augmented in every way possible. An unbroken line of them now followed our attacks.

This arrangement of all troops completed, General Pershing came on a visit of verification. He inquired about things in a very good-humored, agreeable, almost careless way; yet I knew that underneath his easy manner was inexorable ruin to the commander who did not have things right. He shows the least personal feeling of all the commanders that I have ever known, and never spares the incompetent.

Early on the morning of the 26th we attacked. That day my corps advanced almost as far as we had anticipated. I was feeling good. We crossed the awful wire entanglements of No Man's Land and beyond; we crossed the Forges Brook; the enemy's reaction in our front had not been violent and my corps that day had suffered no great losses. Yet we had had no walk-over. We had just made a start. More fighting and further advances were necessary before we should reach the final corps objective the enemy's third position.

The fighting was renewed the next day, the next day, and the next, before we reached that third position. On one of these days the whole army was gathered and made a concerted attack and advance. The resistance of the enemy was steadily stiffening. Wherever his machine guns were encountered and they were encountered after the passage of his first line the progress was exceedingly difficult. Indeed, his first defense seemed to be almost wholly machine guns. But now also, as my corps went forward, we began to catch a heavy artillery fire from the high ground on the right bank of the Meuse. It was becoming exceedingly annoying, more so as we advanced. Two days of the first four of the battle were used in my corps for cleanups of enemy machine-gun positions that we had passed over in the advance.

In our halt in front of the enemy's third position a very great difficulty was being encountered in reaching the advanced troops with ambulances, food and ammunition. From Montzeville across the old No Man's Land and up to the enemy's front line, a distance of perhaps seven kilometers, a road of pre-war days was shown on the map. As we passed over this distance in the first day's attack there was no sign of this road except stones scattered in two or three years' ploughing by the enemy's great guns. It had been shell-cratered over and over. As our infantry line advanced, it was followed along this old road by a great force of engineers and pioneers who by sheer numbers, with tooth and nail, scratched and levelled and macadamized a road over which ambulances, food, ammunition and artillery followed almost as rapidly as the troops advanced.

The workman formed practically a continuous line on both sides of the road and swarmed back of the side lines like ants, gathering gravel and broken stone to be thrown upon the roadbed. They worked night and day without cessation, with a devotion not surpassed by the men who were risking their lives in the very front lines. They could use only the lightest implements, because their trains with heavier tools could not be brought for some time upon the ground. The men gathered stones by hand and brought them to the roadbed where they sank in the mud of late shell craters almost as if they had been dropped into a bottomless sea, so soft was the ground and so destructive the passage of vehicles. It was an exhausting, heart-breaking, discouraging, ever-continuous operation that lasted all the time (three weeks) that I remained with the First Army and long after, I am told. But the road worked, and gradually solidified and hardened. I consider it altogether in making, upkeep and operation the most wonderful piece of work that I saw executed during the World War.

Between the 7th and 10th I visited brigade and division headquarters of the 4th Division. They were fighting hard and uncertainly. They still had the Bois de Fay, whose southern edge was being swept by a terrible machine-gun fire from the enemy on both the right and the left flank. Passage or reinforcements to the troops in the Bois was impossible by day, and by night almost so. The division was almost exhausted. Their food was used up and their ammunition almost gone, but they still held on weak, scattered and disorganized by heavy losses and repeated enemy counter-attacks, but still in the Bois de Fay. The division commander, General Hines, greatly concerned, half asked me to allow withdrawal from the wood. "No," I answered, "we've got to stay there; we give up nothing. Your division has done magnificent work and shown wonderful courage.

"Then tell them so!" he exclaimed. And I did so at once, from his German dugout headquarters at Cuisy.

I ordered a corps airplane to fly over and scatter down to the troops in that wood (that was the only way they could be reached) a citation for their bravery and an encouragement to stick. They did stick, while I ordered all the artillery and all the airplanes that I could lay my hands on to bombard Brieulles and the fort near it that was decimating these men with machine-gun fire, and to bombard also the enemy's batteries in the hills east of the Meuse. Brieulles and its fort upon the hill were smashed and destroyed by airplanes and heavy artillery. Their destruction relieved the 4th Division. The troops in the Bois de Fay were reinforced, fed and saved. Their losses and the strain upon them had been very great, the greatest that I have known. I shall remember this as one of the finest if not the finest deed that I have known. They were gassed, bombarded with artillery, and riddled with machine-gun fire, but they had stayed, and the enemy was at last pushed out of the wood by their drive.

While my corps was at a standstill struggling at Brieulles, Bois de Fay and Bois des Ogons, it seemed to me that also the whole First Army was nearly at a standstill. Daily I heard reports of attacks by corps and divisions, but the gains were small and irregular and the losses too great for the results. In most of these attacks, both general and local, our infantry, on account of difficult ground, trenches, wire and enemy machine-gun nests, were unable to or did not follow closely our rolling barrage. These barrages did not annihilate the enemy. That enemy had learned to bury himself and, our barrage having passed over him, to rise from his pits and, with the skill of the trained soldier, stop or slaughter our advancing infantry, coming too far behind the barrage.

For a week, it seems to me, the First Army was practically at a standstill. Daily communiques told us of our Allies' progress on other fronts : we were making none. Officers in high command, I know, were worried. I was among the number, but at last success at Brieulles, Bois de Fay, and the Bois des Ogons relieved me. My corps was in position now to take up a further advance. And of the Bois des Ogons an incident: The 80th Division had twice in strong attacks taken the wood and twice had been thrown out with severe losses. The general commanding, when I visited his headquarters, half asked me to be allowed to give up the attempt. "Give it up and you are a goner; you'll lose your command in twenty-four hours. Make one more attack. This time you'll take the wood and throw the enemy out." He did. He was given a corps shortly afterward.

Near my front lines while still in the Bois de Fay I witnessed a magnificent spectacle four or five squadrons of our airplanes passing over to harass the enemy's rear. The whirr of their wings filled the air with an angry, terrifying roar. So great a number one hundred and twenty or more I had never before seen. To the Germans, who must already have been feeling their inability to resist, so great a number at one time and place must have carried discouragement. The whirr of their wings is terrifying even to good troops. It makes them feel that they are helpless underneath, thus dominated from above. Our troops, especially new troops, had felt this and had made bitter complaint of being undefended against the enemy's planes. Yet no such number of enemy planes ever appeared where I served. I never saw enemy planes at one time anywhere exceeding a dozen.

In the enemy's surly retirement between the Marne and the Aisne his active airplanes gave ours all we could do. They destroyed many of our balloons : I once saw two or three go as fast as the enemy aviator could fly from one to the other. Now in the battle of the Meuse-Argonne I can remember seeing comparatively few enemy airplanes : only one as far back as my own headquarters, and it was then being pursued by two of our own going for all the world like a wild bird in terrified flight before a hawk. Certainly now the enemy was outnumbered by us in the air. This was another sign that this great battle would have but one end, the defeat and driving of the enemy from the field.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*The Liberty Loan Army*

By Guy Emerson, a Director of the Government Loan Organization.

_IT was during the second Kaiserbattle of the Lys, April, 1918, that the Third Liberty Loan drive was made in the United States, as here recounted by the spokesman of the Government. It was put before the public on the anniversary of our entrance into the war, and the fact that the American soldiers were in the trenches brought the war closer home and made the success of the third loan drive a foregone conclusion. Aiming for $3,000,000,000, it yielded $4,170,069,650 from 17,000,000 men, women and children.

As here stated, in reviewing the work of the Liberty Loan Army, besides that of the American forces in the field and at sea, "The enemy understood the futility of trying to defeat a people that enlisted against him 22,777,680 (loan subscribers) at home, 4,000,000 (soldiers) in the field and 300,000 (sailors) on the water."_

OUR army was our first line in the war against Germany. Our second line of offense and defense was the navy, and behind both stood another line without which neither the army nor the navy could have "carried on. This third force was the greatest unit ever marshaled in the history of this or any other country the Liberty Loan Army. Before a man in the United States uniform entered a trench, before the first depth bomb had been dropped on a U-boat, this army, which finally carried a roster of 22,777,680 names, had entered the war.

Think of it! One person in every five in the immense population was in the war!

True, their contribution to the eventual triumph of our arms was measured in dollars while that of the men at the front or on the seas was in lives or limbs. Yet it is a fact that dollars were as powerful relatively as men in bringing the Boche to bay.

Various causes have been given to account for the startlingly sudden collapse of the Kaiser's army. Some say that the Allies' superior military strategy brought it to its knees. Others contend that success against the U-boats broke it down. Both are partly right, for each helped to undermine the German morale. But however great the contribution of both was, it is safe to say that the front presented by the Liberty Loan Army was a vital factor. The belated German consciousness that the United States as a whole was in the war, as tangibly represented in the strength of the Liberty Loan Army, helped to shatter the Germans' will to victory. As much as the men in khaki or in blue, this gigantic unit bore in upon his mind as an unyielding opponent. He understood the futility of trying to defeat a people that enlisted against him to the number of 22,777,680 at home, 4,000,000 in the field and 300,000 on the water.

There is another angle to this important element of morale. In inverse ratio to the weakening of the spirit of the Germans against this resistless body there came a daily strengthening of the morale of our own men and those of the Allies through this manifestation at home. Where there are two opposing wills to victory in the field, the one that has the greater backing at home is certain to overwhelm the other.

It was not the dollar that won the war, it was the spirit behind the dollar. Before Prince Max asked for the armistice he had learned that $9,978,835,800 had been subscribed in this country toward his defeat. It is natural to assume that this fact did not impress him so much as the related fact that millions of persons had participated in the subscription.

Up to the end of the Fourth Loan, which coincided with the negotiations for the Armistice, $16,971,909,050 had been paid in and this helped to save life to an extent that we can only imagine. It was the confident expectation when the Americans halted the German onslaught at Chateau-Thierry that the end of the war would come in the following spring. None dared to hope that it would come before Christmas. When the crash came in November, even the Allied commanders were bewildered by its suddenness. Had the war been prolonged to the spring of 1919, it is certain that we would have paid a large toll in lives. Some have estimated that 100,000 more of our young men would have been sacrificed. That the war did not drag along for six months more may be ascribed in part to the effect that the demonstrated loyalty of the Liberty Loan Army had upon German morale.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*Peace, Voted By Congress, Is Vetoed And Finally Declared*

Text of the Knox Resolution and Wilson's Veto Message.

TEXT OF KNOX RESOLUTION PASSED BY CONGRESS

_PEACE by Congressional action, independently of President Wilson, was undertaken by the Senate in May 1920, led by Republican Senator Philander C. Knox, who contended that the war was over, in fact and in law; that the objects for which we had entered the struggle had been achieved; that a "power-maddened administration" was continuing a technical state of war solely for the purpose of coercing the Senate into ratifying the Treaty.

His accompanying resolution was passed by the Senate and later concurred in by the House of Representatives. On May 27, Wilson vetoed it for the reasons given in his appended letter to the House.

At the special session of Congress in 1921 a peace resolution was adopted declaring the state of war between Germany and the United States at an end. It was signed by President Harding on July 2 of that year._

THE joint resolution of Congress, passed April 6, 1917, declaring a state of war to exist between the Imperial German Government and the Government and people of the United States, and making provisions to prosecute the same, be, and the same is hereby repealed and said state of war is hereby declared at an end.

Provided, however, that all property of the Imperial German Government, or its successor or successors, and of all German nationals which was on April 6, 1917, is or has since that date come into the possession or under control of the Government of the United States or any of its officers, agents or employees from any source or by any agency whatsoever, shall be retained by the United States and no disposition thereof made, except as shall specifically be hereafter provided by Congress, until such time as the German Government has, by treaty with the United States, ratification whereof is to be made by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, made suitable provisions for the satisfaction of all claims against the German Government of all persons, wheresoever domiciled, who owe permanent allegiance to the United States, whether such persons have suffered through the acts of the German Government or its agents since July 31, 1914, loss, damage, or injury to their persons or property, directly or indirectly, through the ownership of shares of stock in German, American, or other corporations, or have suffered damage directly in consequence of hostilities or any operations of war, or otherwise, or until the German Government has given further undertakings and made provisions by treaty, to be ratified by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, for granting to persons owing permanent allegiance to the United States, most favored nation treatment, whether the same be national or otherwise, in all matters affecting residence, business, profession, trade, navigation, commerce and industrial property rights, and confirming to the United States all fines, forfeitures, penalties, and seizures imposed or made by the United States during the war, whether in respect to the property of the German Government or German nationals, and waiving any pecuniary claim based on events which occurred at any time before the coming into force of such treaty, any existing treaty between the United States and Germany to the contrary notwithstanding.

That in the interpretation of any provision relating to the date of the termination of the war or of the present or existing emergency in any acts of Congress, joint resolutions or proclamations of the President containing provisions contingent upon the date of the termination of the war or of the present or existing emergency, the date when this resolution becomes effective shall be construed and treated as the date of the termination of the war or of the present or existing emergency, notwithstanding any provision in any act of Congress or joint resolution, providing any other mode of determining the date of the termination of the war or of the present or existing emergency.

That until by treaty or act or joint resolution of Congress it shall be determined otherwise, the United States, although it has not ratified the Treaty of Versailles, does not waive any of the rights, privileges, indemnities, reparations or advantages to which it and its nationals have become entitled under the terms of the Armistice signed November 11, 1918, or any extensions or modifications thereof or which under the Treaty of Versailles have been stipulated for its benefit as one of the principal allied and associated powers and to which it is entitled.

That the joint resolution of Congress approved December 7, 1917, declaring that a state of war exists between the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Government and the Government and the people of the United States and making provisions to prosecute the same, be, and the same is hereby repealed, and said state of war is hereby declared at an end, and the President is hereby requested immediately to open negotiations with the successor or successors of said Government for the purpose of establishing fully friendly relations and commercial intercourse between the United States and the Governments and peoples of Austria and Hungary.

WILSON'S VETO MESSAGE

TO the House of Representatives: I return herewith, without my signature, House Joint Resolution 327, intended to repeal the Joint Resolution of April 6, 1917, declaring a state of war to exist between the United States and Germany, and the Joint Resolution of December 7, 1917, declaring a state of war to exist between the United States and the Austro-Hungarian Government, and to declare a state of peace. I have not felt at liberty to sign this resolution because I cannot bring myself to become party to an action which would place ineffaceable stain upon the gallantry and honor of the United States.

The resolution seeks to establish peace with the German Empire without exacting from the German Government any action by way of setting right the infinite wrongs which it did to the peoples whom it attacked and whom we professed it our purpose to assist when we entered the war. Have we sacrificed the lives of more than one hundred thousand Americans and ruined the lives of thousands of others and brought upon thousands of American families an unhappiness that can never end for purposes which we do not now care to state or take further steps to attain?

The attainment of these purposes is provided for in the Treaty of Versailles by terms deemed adequate by the leading statesmen and experts of all the great peoples who were associated in the war against Germany. Do we now not care to join in the effort to secure them?

We entered the war most reluctantly. Our people were profoundly disinclined to take part in a European war, and at last did so, only because they became convinced that it could not in truth be regarded as only a European war, but must be regarded as a war in which civilization itself was involved and human rights of every kind as against a belligerent Government. Moreover, when we entered the war we set forth very definitely the purposes for which we entered, partly because we did not wish to be considered as merely taking part in a European contest. This Joint Resolution which I return does not seek to accomplish any of these objects, but in effect makes a complete surrender of the rights of the United States so far as the German Government is concerned.

A treaty of peace was signed at Versailles on the twenty-eighth of June last which did seek to accomplish the objects which we had declared to be in our minds, because all the great Governments and peoples which united against Germany had adopted our declarations of purpose as their own and had in solemn form embodied them in communications to the German Government preliminary to the Armistice of November 11, 1918. But the treaty, as signed at Versailles, has been rejected by the Senate of the United States, though it has been ratified by Germany. By that rejection and by its methods we had in effect declared that we wish to draw apart and pursue objects and interests of our own, unhampered by any connections of interest or of purpose with other Governments and peoples.

Notwithstanding the fact that upon our entrance into the war we professed to be seeking to assist in the maintenance of common interests, nothing is said in this resolution about the freedom of navigation upon the seas, or the reduction of armaments, or the vindication of the rights of Belgium, or the rectification of wrongs done to France, or the release of the Christian populations of the Ottoman Empire from the intolerable subjugation which they have had for so many generations to endure, or the establishment of an independent Polish State, or the continued maintenance of any kind of understanding among the great powers of the world which would be calculated to prevent in the future such outrages as Germany attempted and in part consummated.

We have now, in effect, declared that we do not care to take any further risks or to assume any further responsibilities with regard to the freedom of nations or the sacredness of international obligations or the safety of independent peoples. Such a peace with Germany a peace in which none of the essential interests which we had at heart when we entered the war is safeguarded is, or ought to be, inconceivable, as inconsistent with the dignity of the United States, with the rights and liberties of her citizens, and with the very fundamental conditions of civilization.

I hope that in these statements I have sufficiently set forth the reasons why I have felt it incumbent upon me to withhold my signature.

WOODROW WILSON.
The WHITE HOUSE, May 27, 1920.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*Signing The Treaty Of Versailles*

By Harry Hansen, Special American Correspondent.

_THIS pen-picture of the historic scene in the great palace at Versailles, where, June 28, 1919, Germany signed the peace terms dictated by the Allies, is taken from Hansen's "Adventures of the Fourteen Points," by permission of the Century Company, the author having been a special American correspondent at the Peace Conference in Paris. The Treaty had been fully drafted on Map 6, but the original German delegation to whom it was handed refused to accept it. There ensued a series of conversations between the Germans and M. Clemenceau, as President of the Conference, which delayed the signing until June 28.

The ceremony, as here described, occurred in the very Hall of Mirrors in which William I of Prussia was proclaimed German Emperor in 1871. This Treaty of 1919 was made with the German Republic, of which Friedrich Ebert had become first President in February, 1919._

THE greatest attention had been given to the staging of the culminating event in the Hall of Mirrors. It is a long and narrow room, more like a corridor than a salon. The delegates ascended the marble staircase and passed through what at one time were the apartments of Marie Antoinette to the Salon de la Paix, the Hall of Peace, whence they entered the Hall of Mirrors. At this end of the hall were the chairs for the invited guests. Then came tables for secretaries of certain delegations. Beyond that stood the long horseshoe table that ran along the mirrored side of the hall. At the middle of the table, facing the high embrasured windows, was the place for M. Clemenceau, President of the Conference. To his left, in the direction of the Hall of Peace, were reserved places for the delegates of Great Britain, the British Dominions, and Japan. Here the angle in the table was reached, and then came the places reserved for Germany. There followed the seats of Uruguay, Peru, Panama, Nicaragua, Liberia, Hondurus, Brazil, Haiti, Guatemala, Bolivia and Equador. At the right hand of the President sat the commissioners from the United States. Then came France, Italy and Belgium. Beyond the turn of the table came the places of Greece, Poland, China, Cuba, Rumania, Hedjaz, Siam, Serbia and Czecho-Slovakia. Behind this table were tables for secretaries, and behind them, extending toward the Hall of War, came seats for the representatives of the press of the world. Inside the horseshoe table were smaller tables for secretaries, and a small one before the chairman's place was reserved for the interpreter. In the middle stood the table on which lay the treaty of peace and three other documents to be signed simultaneously with it; the protocol, to be signed also by all the delegates; the Rhine province agreement, to be signed by the five great Powers and Germany; and the Polish treaty, to be signed by the five great Powers, Poland and Germany.

On the day before the ceremony Herr von Haniel sent word to the Peace Conference that the German delegates had received no formal assurance that the document they were to sign in the Hall of Mirrors was identical with the treaty handed them on June 19th. M. Clemenceau immediately drafted a letter assuring them formally that the document was identical in all its parts, and this was carried to the Germans by M. Dutasta, General Secretary of the Conference.

Similarly, the places reserved for the delegation from China were not to be occupied. This was the one rift in the lute, for the Chinese commissioners, in protest against the clauses of the treaty agreeing to the transfer of the German leaseholds to Japan, decided not to sign the Treaty. A month before the Chinese plenipotentiaries had made a formal request of the Peace Conference that the question involved in the Shantung matter be not included in the Treaty, but be postponed for future consideration. This request was denied. On the morning of June 28 M. Lou Tseng Tsiang, president of the Chinese delegation, asked that China be permitted to sign with the explanatory note, "Under the reservation made at the plenary session of May 6, 1919, and relative to the question of Shantung (Articles 156, 157, and 15." He pointed out that the Swedish plenipotentiary signed the act of the Congress of Vienna with a reservation. The request was not acceded to by the Conference, and when the time for signature came, the Chinese did not respond. The attitude of the Chinese delegation in this matter was consistent with its point of view that Japan should have been asked by the Peace Conference to vacate Shantung and turn all German property over to China.

There was to be only one official Treaty of Peace, printed on Japanese vellum, with a large margin and held together by red tape. This copy was to be placed in the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France, and a copy given to all the governments concerned in its signing. In order to expedite the signing, which at the best speed possible would take nearly an hour, the seals of the commissioners, which were considered necessary, had been placed on the document before the signing. These were the personal seals of the signatories, for these men signed in person and not as officials of their governments. For this reason it was not considered proper for President Wilson to use the seal that had been selected for him, one bearing the American eagle and the words, "The President of the United States of America." President Wilson thereupon substituted a seal from a ring, given him at the time of his marriage by the State of California, which bore his name in stenographic characters. Some of the commissioners did not possess personal seals, but obtained them before they were needed.

When the time came for opening the historic session, the long hall was crowded with delegates, visitors, and newspaper representatives. The commissioners had put in almost an hour passing from table to table to seek autographs of men as notable as themselves. The guests bobbed up and down in their chairs, trying to observe the great men of the Conference. A score of Garden Municipaux circulated among the crowd for a very good reason: they were instructed to keep a watch on the pens and ink-wells in the hall, and to prevent these articles being pilfered by souvenir-hunters.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*The Last A. E. F. Drive To Sedan*

By General Sir Frederick Maurice, British Chief-of-Staff.

_GALLANTRY on the part of the First American Army, of which General Summerall was commanding his old 1st Division in the van, enabled a French Division, composed mainly of natives of Sedan, to be the first to enter the city, November 6, 1918. The main line of German communications had been cut, and realizing that only a cessation of hostilities could save his armies from complete disaster, the enemy appealed for an immediate armistice.

This account of our last and most spectacular advance is given by the British chief of staff, whose book, "The Last Four Months" (Little, Brown & Company), is the best record of the closing campaign that may ever be written.

Meanwhile, the Allies were sweeping through Belgium. The line on the Scheldt River was carried, with American aid, on November 4, and Belgium was practically free of the invader._

THERE was no chance now for the leisurely retreat to the Meuse which Ludendorff had planned. It was essential to withdraw to the river as quickly as possible, but to do this without incurring irremediable disaster it was still as necessary as it had been since the end of September to delay to the utmost the British advance on Namur and the American progress towards Sedan.

This was the position of which Foch proposed to take advantage by continuing the general plan of his great battle. Gouraud and the Americans were to strike for Mezieres and Sedan and block the southern exits, while the British armies made for Maubeuge and Mons and threatened Namur before the Germans in western Belgium could get away. The advance on Namur would force the Germans to come out of the greater part of Belgium in a hurry or be cut off, and would save that sorely tried land from the destruction which was inevitable if it became the scene of pitched battles, while the advance on Mezieres and Sedan would have the same effect on the German center. The French armies in the center were, therefore, to continue their role of harassing and delaying the German retreat, and the Belgian armies were to keep the Germans busy on the Scheldt. The French troops on King Albert's right, however, with the help of two American divisions sent up to reenforce them, were to assist the British advance by forcing the line of the Scheldt about Audenarde.

On November 1 the last drive began, as had that of September, with a Franco-American attack, and again there lay in front of the American left a stretch of mountain forest, the Forest of Bourgogne, a northern extension of the Argonne. Again the intention was to force the Germans out of the forest by a combined advance of the Americans to the east of it, and of Gouraud's army to the west. This time the plan was completely successful. On the right of the American battle front the Third American Corps attacked in the Meuse valley, while the Fifth American Corps broke clean through such parts of the Kriemhilde [Hindenburg] Line as it had not previously captured, and made an advance of about five miles in the one day. Simultaneously Gouraud extended his hold on the heights on the eastern bank of the Aisne opposite Vouziers.

The Germans were in no mind for a repetition of the Argonne struggle. Before the battle started their morale had begun to give way under the steady pressure of the American advance, and now it gave way altogether, while the American divisions which had done most of the hard fighting in October had either been rested and their ranks refilled, or had been relieved by fresh divisions, with the result that the First American Army was as full of vigor and energy as it had been on September 26, despite the continuously wet and cold weather on the bleak hills of the Meuse.

On November 2 the First American Corps on the left of the First Army drove forward six miles, captured Burzancy, and lined the eastern edge of the Bourgogne Forest, Gouraud at the same time reaching its western edge throughout its length. The Germans immediately evacuated the forest and began a general retreat before the First American Army and Gouraud's right.

During the night of November 3 the infantry of the Second American Division, giving the weary Germans no time to reorganize a defense, made a remarkable pursuit and advanced in the darkness straight through the German lines for a distance of five miles. This great progress enabled the Americans to bring forward long-range guns and to shell the railway stations of Longuyon and Montmedy, through which the Crown Prince was trying to get away as much as possible of his war material.

The clearing of the Bourgogne Forest had enabled Gouraud to join hands with the Americans on November 3 to the north of the forest, and he thus obtained a straight front of some nine miles beyond the Aisne east of Attigney. He was now able to threaten the retreat of the German troops holding the formidable Brunehilde Line farther west between Attigny and Rethel, by pushing forward his right wing in conjunction with the American advance. On November 4 he drove the enemy back from the southern portion of the canal which connects the Aisne near Attigny with the Meuse near Sedan. This maneuver compelled the Germans to fall back from the Brunehilde Line in order to avoid being cut off from Mezieres, and the French entered Rethel on November 6.

Meanwhile, by November 5 the American front had sprung forward another six miles, and on the evening of the 6th, despite the endeavors of the German machine gunners to delay the pursuit, a division of the First American Corps reached the Meuse opposite the southern outskirts of Sedan, twenty-one miles from its starting point of November 1. Gouraud, with a longer distance to go and with the resistance of the German troops, who had fallen back from the Brunehilde Line, to overcome, did not reach his objective, Mezieres, until the evening of the tenth.

While the First and Fifth American Corps were advancing northwards towards Sedan the right of the Third Corps began to strike out eastwards, and it crossed the Meuse and occupied Dun on November 4. Thence on the following days, the Third, Second Colonial and Seventeenth French Corps on the right of the First American Army gradually wore down the resistance of the Germans in the wooded Meuse hills, and on the morning of November 11, when the Armistice came into effect, the Franco-American front was within six miles of Montmedy, where the German Crown Prince had lived during the battle of Verdun, when he was not in his dugout on the Montfaucon Hill. Though Montmedy was not entered by the Allies until the Germans had withdrawn in accordance with the Armistice terms, they found on arrival that defeat had not changed the German nature, for the little town was pillaged by the enemy's troops before they left. These operations on the east bank of the Meuse towards Montmedy were extended southwards by the Second American Army, which began the long threatened movement toward the Briey iron fields.

The opinion is widely held that the Armistice of November 11 was premature. It is argued that we had the German armies at our mercy, and that the foundations of peace would have been more sure if we had ended the war by forcing the surrender in the field of a great part of those armies, or failing that, had driven our beaten enemy back across the Rhine and followed him into the heart of Germany. The reception of the German troops by the German people, their march into the German towns through triumphal arches and beflagged streets with their helmets crowned with laurels, and the insistent statements in Germany that the German armies had not been defeated, that the Armistice had been accepted to save bloodshed, and to put an end to the sufferings of the women and children aroused amazement and disgust in the victors. There was very real anxiety lest after all we had failed to convince Germany that war did not pay; it was felt that we ought to have brought the realization of what war means home to the German people in their own country, and that, had we done so, the long-drawn-out negotiations in Paris would have been concluded more speedily and more satisfactorily. It is worth while, therefore, examining the situation as it was at the time of the Armistice, and considering the case as it presented itself to the men who had to decide whether hostilities should cease or not.

There is no question but that the German armies were completely and decisively beaten in the field. The German plenipotentiaries admitted it when they met Marshal Foch, and von Brockdorff-Rantzau admitted it at Versailles, when he said after the Allied peace terms had been presented to him: "We are under no illusions as to the extent of our defeat and the degree of our want of power. . . . We know that the power of the German army is broken."

Even if these admissions had not been made, the condition of the German lines of retreat to the Rhine is conclusive evidence of the condition of their armies. Every road was littered with broken-down motor-trucks, guns, machine guns and trench mortars. Great stacks of supplies and of military stores of all kinds were abandoned. Every railway line was blocked with loaded trucks which the Germans had been unable to remove. The sixty miles of railway in the valley of the Meuse between Dinant and Mezieres was filled from end to end with a continuous line of German freight trains carrying guns, ammunition, engineering equipment and other paraphernalia. On the Belgian canals alone over eight hundred fully charged military barges were found.

It is beyond dispute that on November 11 the lines of communication immediately behind the German armies had been thrown into complete disorder by the streams of traffic which were converging on the Meuse bridges, disorder greatly intensified by the attacks of the Allied airman. The German armies, unable to resist on the fighting front, could no longer retreat in good order, partly because of the congestion on the roads and railways behind them, which not only hampered the movements of the troops, but prevented the systematic supply to them of food and ammunition, partly owing to the fact that there were not horses left to draw the transport of the fighting troops.

If ever armies were in a state of hopeless rout, the German armies were in the second week of November, 1918. . . . But the Allied armies had reached, or very nearly reached, the farthest limit at which for the time being they could be kept regularly supplied. The reasons for this were twofold. In the first place the Allied lines of communication grew steadily longer as the Germans were driven back, and even before our victorious advance began the state of the railways and the amount of rolling stock in France had caused anxiety. . . . At the time of the Armistice the motor lorries were working in double and treble shifts, and the strain upon them caused by the bad roads and the incessant work was such that in the Fourth Army on November 11 more than half of the lorries at the service of the army had broken down. The troops were receiving no more than bare necessities, and at one time had with them nothing more than the day's food carried by the men.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*The Loss Of The "President Lincoln"*

By Chaplain G. C. Whimsett, U. S. N.

_ALTHOUGH more than two million American soldiers were convoyed to Europe and not a single eastbound transport under American escort was sunk by enemy submarines, several westbound ships, including the "President Lincoln," the torpedoing and sinking of which, May 31, 1918, is here described by one of the survivors, were not so fortunate. The reason was that the transports returning westward, almost empty, did not have the same protection as the loaded ones going eastward, owing to an insufficiency of cruisers and destroyers.

Attacked without warning, and struck by three torpedoes, the ship, which was originally German owned, sank 18 minutes after she was first hit. Four officers and 23 men were lost. More than 700 survivors were picked up by American destroyers. Some of the other torpedoed transports, such as the "Finland" and "Mount Vernon," were able to make their way back to French ports, with no lives lost._

ON the morning of May 30, 1918, the "President Lincoln," on her fifth return trip, was steaming at full speed in company with the "Ryndam," "Susquehanna" and "Antigone." At about 8:57 a.m., when we were commencing to zigzag, a torpedo wake was sighted about 600 yards to the port beam, by persons on the port side of the ship, several of whom called to the bridge. The order "hard right rudder" was given. Before the ship could respond to the motion of the steersman, an explosion took place, which shook and raised the ship out of the water. Before the concussion of the explosion was over, another took place, seemingly in the same part of the ship.

General alarm was sounded throughout the ship and all hastened to their "abandon ship" stations. Before most of them could get there, however, still a third explosion took place, well aft of the first two and on the port side. It was afterwards learned that the first two torpedoes had hit the ship just aft of the bridge, one about on the level of the water and the other about 15 feet below, both hitting in the coal bunkers, at which place men were engaged at the time in shifting coal from one bunker to another. The third explosion hit just aft of the engine room.

Immediately following these explosions, the ship took a heavy list to port. All guns began firing, for the purpose of keeping the submarine below, although no periscope was sighted. The other three ships which accompanied us sped away, soon disappearing over the horizon.

Slowly the ship righted herself on an even keel, though gradually sinking, and it was thought for a time that she might be saved. Therefore word was not passed to abandon the ship, but to stand by prepared.

In the meantime all safety valves had been opened; working parties had gone throughout the ship to estimate the damage; men wounded in the explosions had been brought to the sick bay and given what treatment was possible; and the army sick, of whom we had 120, were prepared for the open boats. At 9:10 the captain, by a motion of his hand, signaled all to abandon ship.

The ship was equipped with fourteen lifeboats, two of which were destroyed in the explosion, and two were smashed in lowering. The other ten were safely lowered and shoved off, taking with them all sick and all army passengers. The next step was the throwing over of the life-rafts, which was hurriedly done, then the jumping into the water of the men who remained on board. This was all accomplished within five or six minutes at the most. All the time the forward guns kept up an incessant firing, the after guns by this time being under water.

At 9:15 the ship gave a sudden lurch and sank, stern first, just 18 minutes after she was first hit.

The men who had jumped in the water climbed on rafts and the boats took on their full capacity. At about 10 o'clock when every one was feeling more or less comfortable and waiting for some one to come and pick us up, we sighted what was thought to be a sail on the horizon. We watched it, as it came closer, and finally made it out to be a submarine. It was hard to express the feeling that existed upon discovering this submarine. Every one had settled back, feeling that the worst was over, and tranquilly waiting to be rescued. To have this "sea-louse" come upon us, to add to our misery, was enough to "get any one's goat." As the submarine came closer we saw that she had on her bow a large gun, trained on us. There was also a smaller gun on her stern.

These guns were variously estimated to be of 6- and 4-inch caliber, respectively. The submarine circled us several times, with the guns trained on us, and the gun crews were continuously changing the loads, as if to tantalize and intimidate us. The submarine commander called out, in plain English, for our captain, but fortunately the captain and other officers had removed their blouses and substituted sailors' jumpers, the officers in the boats taking the oars. The answer was given back that the captain had been last seen on the ship.

For two long, anxious hours the submarine remained with us, continuously searching for the captain, perhaps with the object of sinking another ship which might be coming up to our aid.

At about 12 o'clock the submarine took aboard two of the sailors, leading them both below. These men later stated that they had been given coffee, and one of them said that he had seen on the submarine's bulkhead a list of five ships namely : the "Leviathan," "Agamemnon," "Mount Vernon", "President Grant" and "President Lincoln," all ex-German passenger liners. As he was looking at this list, a German sailor scratched off the name of the "President Lincoln" and said, "Now we have but four more to get." Needless to say, that list was never changed.

After the return of these men, Lieutenant Isaacs was taken aboard the submarine and retained as a prisoner. This being done the submarine left us, remaining on the surface, as she proceeded on her way. At about 3:30 in the afternoon, she paid us another unsociable visit, repeating her maneuvers of circling and loading and training guns on us until 5:30 when she left us for good.

As dusk came, it was seen that the rafts and boats were by this time widely scattered, and it was evident that if something were not done by morning they would be completely separated. Therefore, the executive officer of the ship took charge of the ten lifeboats, tied all rafts together, and they in turn were tied to the lifeboats. This task was not completed until about 9 o'clock. The leading boat lit a kerosene lamp and all stood by and patiently waited.

At 11 o'clock rockets were sighted in the distance and then a message was flashed from the destroyer for such it proved to be to extinguish all our lights. Coming closer, we saw it to be a destroyer, the U. S. S. "Warrington." After about fourteen long hours, which seemed weeks, of tumbling and floating around in the vast ocean, the sight of this destroyer was enough to make us want to rise up from our cramped-up positions and give one long, tremendous, heart-rending, gladsome cheer, but such a demonstration would have interfered with the signalling and conversation with the destroyer. It signaled us that it would take aboard our sick, and within the next hour 550 of the more than 700 survivors were transferred to the "Warrington." Those who remained waited patiently until 3 o'clock in the morning, when the second destroyer, the U. S. S. "Smith," arrived and took us all aboard. Both destroyers waited until morning to see if any occupants of rafts or boats had been overlooked, and finding none, at daybreak proceeded to Brest, arriving there shortly after noon on June 2. Here the entire crew and officers were placed on board the U. S. S. "Great Northern" and returned to the States, there to be refitted and returned to sea again.

Four officers and twenty-three men were lost when the "President Lincoln" was torpedoed and sunk.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*Foch Given The Supreme Command*

From General Pershing's Official Report of His Offer to Foch and Its Consequences.

_FIRST of these historic documents is the note of Pershing to Foch, dated at Bourbon, March 28, 1918, offering to subordinate the American forces to the French command in fighting what is known as the Kaiser-battle, or Battles of the Somme, of the Lys and of the Second Aisne-Marne the most tremendous contact of the war. At the time, the British line was breaking and greater coordination on the part of the Allies was imperative. Pershing led the way. Foch was duly commissioned Commander-in-Chief on April 3.

His choice was dictated by his great military ability and character. Foch was the George Washington of the Allies, the one general who had the confidence of all armies and all governments. It was to him rather than to France that the Allies yielded precedence. Following the initial note of Pershing to Foch is an extract from General Pershing's report of September, 1919._

I HAVE come to tell you that the American people will hold it a high honor that their troops should take part in the present battle. I ask you to permit this in my name and in theirs. At the present moment there is only one thing to do, to fight. Infantry, artillery, aeroplanes, all that I have I put at your disposal do what you like with them. More will come. In fact, all that may be necessary. I have come expressly to tell you that the American people will be proud to take part in this, the greatest and most striking battle of history.

When, on March 21, 1918, the German army on the western front began its series of offensives, it was by far the most formidable force the world had ever seen. In fighting men and guns it had a great superiority, but this was of less importance than the advantage in morale, in experience, in training for mobile warfare, and in unity of command. Ever since the collapse of the Russian armies and the crisis on the Italian front in the fall of 1917, German armies were being assembled and trained for the great campaign which was to end the war before America's effort could be brought to bear. Germany's best troops, her most successful generals, and all the experience gained in three years of war were mobilized for the supreme effort.

The first blow fell on the right of the British armies, including the junction of the British and French forces. Only the prompt cooperation of the French and British General Headquarters stemmed the tide. The reason for this objective was obvious and strikingly illustrated the necessity for having some one with sufficient authority over all the Allied armies to meet such an emergency. The lack of complete cooperation among the Allies on the western front had been appreciated, and the question of preparation to meet a crisis had already received attention by the Supreme War Council. A plan had been adopted by which each of the Allies would furnish a certain number of divisions for a general reserve, to be under the direction of the military representatives of the Supreme War Council, of which General Foch was then the senior member. But when the time came to meet the German offensive in March these reserves were not found available and the plan failed.

This situation resulted in a conference for the immediate consideration of the question of having an Allied Commander-in-Chief. After much discussion, during which my view favoring such action was clearly stated, an agreement was reached and General Foch was selected. His appointment as such was made April 3, and was approved for the United States by the President on April 16. The terms of the agreement under which General Foch exercised his authority were as follows:

Bouvais, April 3, 1918.

General Foch is charged by the British, French and American Governments with the coordination of the action of the Allied armies on the western front; to this end there is conferred on him all the powers necessary for its effective realization. To the same end, the British, French and American Governments confide in General Foch the strategic direction of military operations.

The Commanders-in-Chief of the British, French and American armies will exercise to the fullest extent the tactical direction of their armies. Each Commander-in-Chief will have the right to appeal to his Government, if in his opinion his army is placed in danger by the instructions received from General Foch.

(Signed)

G. CLEMENCEAU PETAIN F. F OCH LLOYD GEORGE D. HAIG, F. M.

HENRY WILSON,

General, 3, 4, 18.

TASKER H. BLISS,

General and Chief of Staff.

JOHN J. PERSHING,

General, U. S. A.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*Foch Launches His Great Counter-Attack*

By Captain Shipley Thomas, 26th Infantry, U. S. A.

_THIS "boldest stroke of the war," begun by Marshal Foch on July 18, 1918, a month before he was made a Marshal of France and after the failure of the Germans in their last desperate drive toward Paris, is thus described by Captain Thomas, in his "History of the A. E. F.," published by George H. Doran Company.

The risk the Allies took was tremendous, the enemy still having a marked superiority in men and guns, but it was an opportunity that Pershing grasped and urged upon the French generalissimo, with an offer of eight American divisions. Two of them, the First and Second, were with the Tenth French Army that was hurled against the foe just south of Soissons. The Germans were "buried" under this surprise attack, ending with the capture of Soissons.

General Pershing reported of his combat troops, "In every trial, defensive or offensive, they have proved themselves equal to any troops in Europe."_

AT 4:35 a.m. [July 18, 1918] the stillness of the night was rent with one terrific crash, as every Allied gun from the Aisne to Chateau-Thierry roared with the rolling barrage, and the infantry went over. This was the hour for which every member of the 1st Division had waited so patiently through the grim months of maneuver and trench warfare, for here now, man to man, they were to prove themselves in attack, and to show to all the world that American troops had entered at last on the real mission of hurling back the Germans.

Every step forward was a yard snatched away from the enemy, where yards counted most, for they were closing the neck of a salient.

To General Bullard his promotion had come too soon. He now commanded the Third American Army Corps, and the change had come on the very day before his 1st Division, which he had trained and watched develop under his careful guidance, was to make the attack which would print its name in letters of gold throughout the ages. Brigadier General Charles P. Summerall, who had so efficiently commanded the 1st Field Artillery Brigade of the 1st Division was that night made Division Commander.

There were three objectives laid out in the orders for the attack ; other orders were to follow for the attacks on the succeeding days. It was an anxious moment, that moment of the jump-off, for to every one along the whole battle line the question came how much artillery have the Germans massed behind this sector? The barrage started forward, bursting ahead of the infantry and then up went the rockets and flares from the German front lines calling for their own artillery to put down a protective barrage. On went the Allied barrage and behind it the waves of infantry of the leading battalions. A minute later came the German artillery reply, but it was not strong; it was apparent that they did not have many guns on this front. Forward swung the Allies on a five-mile front, following their barrage, but that day the barrage was not as close protection as it had been at Cantigny, for the gunners did not dare to lay their fire too close to the infantry since they had not fired a single registration shot and were firing solely by map. This gave the Germans time, after our barrage had passed them, to come up and man their machine guns before our infantry came upon them. The Allies passed the front lines without any check. There were no trenches except little shell holes, there was no wire, the front line was not well organized. Evidently the Germans in their two weeks' occupancy of this line had not thought it worth while to dig in, probably expecting to move on toward Paris almost any day.

The Germans certainly had put into practice all the theories of open warfare. That first line was nothing more than an outpost line, thinly held and meant only to check an advance long enough to warn the second line, and get them out of their dugouts and into the positions. But this time there had been no warning. There was no Allied artillery preparation during which the German troops in the second line could be led stoically out of the dugouts and into their fire positions. Also there was no warning from the higher staff that an attack was expected. The Germans were taken completely by surprise. And the Allied soldiers who were making the attack that morning were the first to realize it. The Germans had been outwitted and it would be easy going for the Allies, until the Germans got themselves together and recovered from their surprise. Accordingly to every man it came that he must push on at top speed, that no machine-gun nest which got into action between our barrage and our infantry should be allowed to check that rush, and that the infantry must keep up behind the barrage as close as they could, to prevent this.

Then came the second German defensive line, and that was almost as easy as the first had been. The defenders were few and far between. What machine guns there were in action were silenced by the swift rush the Allied soldiers made to stop them. Sweeping ever forward went the line. Meanwhile the second wave of the leading battalion stopped on the second German line to mop it up. They were well repaid for their pains. That second line was full of Germans in dugouts who had not been notified in time to get out to their positions before the Allied waves were upon them. The moppers-up took a heavy toll of them in German prisoners ten here, fifteen there, fifty in a cellar, a hundred in that cave, so that the score soon ran into the thousands. Usually they came out without any fuss on hearing that unmistakable challenge of the moppers-up. But there was one cave that the leading battalion of the 26th Infantry passed over out of which shots kept coming. The second wave tried to surround the cave and this drew machine-gun firing. Try as they might, no one could get within range of the mouth without drawing a great deal of attention. This was holding up the second wave when one of the big French tanks came along. The officer sent word to the tank to come over and help clean out the cave and in a few minutes the tank was waddling up to the mouth like a huge turtle, while the machine-gun bullets bounced off its thick sides. Down into the mouth of the cave it went firing all its guns. All was silent for a moment, and then the tank backed out, and following it came a column of German infantry, their hands held up over their heads. Six hundred prisoners including a colonel came out of the cave, and a shame-faced lot they were to be caught in a hole like that. But it was still more strange to see the consternation on their faces when they saw the Americans. The surprise of that attack was written on the face of every one of those prisoners, and with it was the dread lest the stories be true that the Americans killed all the prisoners they took.

By 5:35 a.m., one hour after the attack began, the assaulting lines were on their "First Objective," that blue line on the official map where the barrage was to stand for so many minutes, while the assaulting waves were reorganized, the front rank filled up, while the moppers-up were busy cleaning out the German second position. But this time the infantry did not have to "dig in." Very soon the barrage, which was bursting out in front while the heavies were pounding the next line of German resistance, would move on and with it would go the infantry. The Allies had progressed well in that first hour. The Ist (Regular) Division had swung swiftly across that flat plateau, meeting very little resistance, and the Second (Regular and Marine), when it came out of the wood, after its final rush to get in the line, found that it was ahead of the French division on its right and left, and the whole line was moving along as per schedule.

Then the barrage started forward again. The Allied guns were shooting at almost their extreme range now, and the barrage was placed well ahead of the infantry, for the zone of dispersion increases with the range. Then, too, some batteries were not firing, for the Allied artillery was now moving forward, a battery at a time and this thinned down the barrage. Still, the advancing waves pressed on, and now the tanks were there to help them. As soon as a German machine-gun nest opened its fire, word was sent to the nearest tank and it headed for the nest and began firing its sawed-off 75-mm. gun and all its machine guns, and the Allied infantry rushed the spot as soon as the German fire slackened. The German resistance was stiffening but was not yet fully organized. This the attacking troops realized, and they realized also that speed and still more speed would be the salvation of that day. Every yard they went forward meant a yard lost to the Germans, but more than that, every minute that they lost meant stiffer resistance on the German third line which they were approaching. It was the first great attack for the Americans, and to both the French and the Americans there was that feeling that they had been selected from all the Allied strength to make this decisive blow which, as the news spread, would cheer the hearts of millions in all the Allied countries, who the day before were silently wondering when Paris would fall. To be the picked troops, champions of all the Allies, and to be fighting alongside the famous 1st Moroccan Division with its Foreign Legion, was incentive enough to those officers and men of the 1st and 2nd Divisions, from the Regular Army and the Marine Corps, to bring out the greatest qualities of heroism in pushing the line forward.

But not alone to the infantry is the credit for that swift advance due. The field artillery of those three divisions also did heroic work in that attack. Heedless of personal danger, they limbered up the guns and took them forward along the shell-swept roads, across the fields on which the German artillery was beating and went into battery behind the infantry. As soon as the attack began, all attempts at screening of movements, all camouflage for batteries was abandoned. Speed in getting the guns forward so that the infantry should have all the protection that it was possible to give them, speed in bringing up caisson after caisson of ammunition so that those guns should never be silent, and speed in running forward observation officers with telephones, were the watchwords with the artillery that day. The batteries fired from each position until the range became too great; then one by one they limbered up, and went forward at a gallop to the place where the battalion commander, coolly sitting his horse on that shell-torn field, gave them orders to put the battery into action. Swiftly the guns were unlimbered despite the hail of German machine-gun bullets and high explosive; and the horses were scarcely led away before the guns were in action, so perfect was the teamwork of gunners and drivers. The roads, once the attack started, were a mass of transports moving forward. Every road out of the forest was choked with the trains of a division, while through them all galloped the artillery. It was once more "Forward the Guns," that old cry of open warfare almost forgotten in the three years of trench warfare. To see the guns go forward is a sure sign of victory.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*Compulsory Military Service*

Proclaimed by President Wilson and Approved by Samuel Gompers.

_CONGRESS passed the law authorizing military conscription on May 18, 1917, and the President immediately issued the accompanying proclamation, calling the nation to arms and directing how the law should be enforced. All our previous wars had been fought by volunteers, excepting for a brief period in the Civil War when the draft was resorted to in such localities as could not secure their allotted quota of soldiers otherwise.

The spirit in which the proclamation was received is reflected in the ensuing statement of Samuel Gompers, as head of the American Federation of Labor. Gompers, a former pronounced pacifist, urged American labor to support the war.

On June 5, in response to the draft call, about 9,500,000 men registered, representing practically the entire young manpower of the nation, the age limits of the first draft being twenty-one and thirty. No distinction was made between enlisted men and those conscripted._

THE power against which we are arrayed has sought to impose its will upon the world by force. To this end armament has been increased until it has changed the face of war. In the sense in which we have been wont to think of armies, there are no armies in this struggle, there are entire nations armed. Thus, the men who remain to till the soil and man the factories are no less a part of the army that is France than the men beneath the battle flags. It must be so with us. It is not an army that we must shape and train for war; it is a nation.

To this end our people must draw close in one compact front against a common foe. But this cannot be if each man pursues a private purpose. All must pursue one purpose. The nation needs all men; but it needs each man not in the field that will most pleasure him, but in the endeavor that will best serve the common good. Thus, though a sharpshooter pleases to operate a trip-hammer for the forging of great guns and an expert machinist desires to march with the flag, the nation is being served only when the sharp-shooter marches and the machinist remains at his levers.

The whole nation must be a team, in which each man shall play the part for which he is best fitted. To this end Congress has provided that the nation shall be organized for war by selection; that each man shall be classified for service in the place to which it shall best serve the general good to call him.

The significance of this cannot be overstated. It is a new thing in our history and a landmark in our progress. It is a new manner of accepting and vitalizing our duty to give ourselves with thoughtful devotion to the common purpose of us all. It is in no sense a conscription of the unwilling; it is, rather, selection from a nation which has volunteered in mass. It is no more a choosing of those who shall march with the colors than it is a selection of those who shall serve an equally necessary and devoted purpose in the industries that lie behind the battle line.

The day here named is the time upon which all shall present themselves for assignment to their tasks. It is for that reason destined to be remembered as one of the most conspicuous moments in our history. It is nothing less than the day upon which the manhood of the country shall step forward in one solid rank in defense of the ideals to which this nation is consecrated. It is important to those ideals no less than to the pride of this generation in manifesting its devotion to them that there be no gaps in the ranks.

It is essential that the day be approached in thoughtful apprehension of its significance, and that we accord to it the honor and the meaning that it deserves. Our industrial need prescribes that it be not made a technical holiday, but the stern sacrifice that is before us urges that it be carried in all our hearts as a great day of patriotic devotion and obligation, when the duty shall lie upon every man, whether he is himself to be registered or not, to see to it that the name of every male person of the designated ages is written on these lists of honor.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington this 18th day of May in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and seventeen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and forty-first.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*Moving Our Troops Overseas*

By Vice-Admiral Albert Cleaves.

_ADMIRAL CLEAVES, who commanded the Convoy Service protecting American transports and supply-ships on their voyages across the Atlantic, here recounts the manner in which this greatest troop movement in history was accomplished, beginning June 14, 1917. As stated, 1,142 troop-laden transports crossed the Atlantic, carrying a total of 2,079,880 American soldiers. The cruiser escorts were almost entirely American, as were the destroyer escorts through the submarine danger zone. But for the success of this unprecedented feat of transportation the war would have ended differently.

In recognition of his brilliant services, Cleaves was made a full admiral, and was awarded the Victory Medal with star, and D. S. M. (both Navy and Army). This account is taken from his "History of the Cruiser and Transport Force."_

ON the 23rd of May, 1917, I was informed in Washington that I had been selected to command the first expedition to France. I returned to New York at once, and personally inspected the ships which the War Department had taken over; after consulting with the Army Quartermaster in charge of the conversions, we notified our respective departments that the expedition would be ready to sail on June 14th, and accordingly at daylight on that date in an exceptionally thick fog, the entire force got under way from North River and the Lower Bay, and stood out to sea in prearranged order. It was a memorable occasion when the transports backed out into the river from their piers, and the cruisers, yachts and destroyers weighed anchor. Only the most skillful handling of the ships by their captains could have prevented collision at the start, but the necessity of the occasion justified all risks.

The entire number of vessels in the expedition was thirty-seven, composed of cruisers, destroyers, converted yachts and transports. The total number of troops in the first division was 15,032, under command of Major General Sibert.

Generally speaking, the formation of each group was to place the transports in the center, while the escorting ships were disposed on the flanks in such a way as to provide all around protection. The "Maumee," oil tanker, was sent on several days ahead of the expedition, with orders to maintain a certain position on the route for the purpose of refueling the destroyers at sea, a maneuver involving special gear and seamanship, which had been successfully developed in the destroyer force only a few months before. Without the ability to oil these destroyers at sea the expedition would have been greatly delayed, because all except the newest of them would have had to be towed.

The route of the expedition lay well north of the Azores, as it was known at that time the Germans were using those islands as a submarine base. The so-called submarine zone extended to 17 degrees west longitude, but the latest reports received from the Navy Department before sailing showed sinkings as far west as 30 degrees.

The voyage was uneventful save for a night attack against the first group by submarines on the 22nd of June, 1917, in latitude 48 00'00" north, longitude 25 50'00" west. The following day the first group was met by a destroyer division from Queenstown and later by two French sloops which had been sent out to meet us, and to act as escort to Quiberon Roads. The next morning we arrived off St. Nazaire.

The second group was also attacked by a submarine when about 150 miles off the French coast. Commander Neill, who attacked the submarine, was subsequently decorated by the British Government for this exploit. The third and fourth groups arrived on schedule time, and on June 26th the last vessels were safely anchored in the St. Nazaire Roads.

This was only the beginning, but the way had been pointed out, and from this modest start was rapidly developed the greatest transport fleet in history. Subsequent voyages were of greater magnitude, but different only in details. Neither winter gales, nor heavy seas, nor the spread of submarinism to the very gates of our harbors ever delayed the sailing of a transport by an hour.

There were, in all, 1,142 troop-laden transports that sailed from these shores for Europe, and they carried a total of 2,079,880 soldiers. Forty-six and one-quarter percent were carried in United States ships, and all but 2 1/2 percent of these sailed in United States naval transports. Lacking a large merchant marine, our government was compelled to contract with foreign governments for the transportation of 55 3/4 percent of this army in foreign bottoms. At great expense, a total of 208 foreign ships were employed: 196 British, eight French, two Italian, one Norwegian, one Portuguese and one Brazilian. Forty-eight and one-quarter percent of the United States overseas army was transported in British ships, 3 percent in British leased Italian ships and 2 1/2 percent in French, Italian and other foreign ships.

In the month of July, 1918, during which more of our soldiers were transported in foreign ships than in any other month during the war, British ships carried 175,526, or 56 1/2 percent of the month's total of 311,359. This was the greatest number transported in any one month under the British flag. In the same month of July, 1918, 11,502, or 3 1/2 percent of the total, sailed in British-leased Italian ships; 11,866, or 4 percent of the total, in French, Italian and other foreign ships; and the remainder, 112,465, or 36 percent of the total, sailed in United States ships. This was the smallest percentage carried in any one month under the United States flag.

In the matter of providing escorts for these transports, however, the figures are more satisfactory, although here again it is to be remembered that the naval power of Great Britain was concentrated in the North Sea while that of France was held for the most part in the Mediterranean. All the troops carried in United States ships were escorted by United States men-of-war; that is, cruisers, destroyers, converted yachts and other anti-submarine craft. Also, for the most part, the troops carried in British, French and Italian ships were given safe conduct through the danger zones by United States destroyers. In connection with this work it should be mentioned that, in addition to the twenty-four United States cruisers assigned for ocean escort duty, there were with my Force a squadron of six French cruisers to assist in this work and they did fine and useful service. Roughly, 82 3/4 percent of the maximum strength of the naval escorts provided incident to the transportation of United States troops across the Atlantic was supplied by the United States Navy, 14 1/8 percent by the British Navy, and 3 1/8 percent by the French Navy.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*The War In The Air*

By Captain Shipley Thomas, 26th Infantry, U. S. A.

_CAPTAIN THOMAS, historian of the American Expeditionary Forces, thus recounts, in his authoritative "Story of the A. E. F.," published by George H. Doran Company, the invaluable aid rendered by the Air Service in driving the Germans back over their boasted Hindenburg Line and ending the Great War six months to a year earlier than had been anticipated. American pilots shot down 755 enemy planes and 71 balloons, losing 357 planes and 34 balloons.

Aside from the tell-tale figures here given is the account of our biggest air battle, during the storming of the Argonne, when 30 enemy planes were trapped by A. E. F. squadrons and 13 of them were shot down within an hour, the American loss being one plane.

When the Armistice was signed, November 11, 1918, plans were under way to send to the front several thousand heavy bombing planes like the NC-4, which was the first to fly across the Atlantic._

LIKE many other parts of the American army, the Air Service was just coming into its own when the Armistice was signed. Like the infantry it got its first taste of quiet work in the Toul sector. At Chateau-Thierry it had its first taste of real fighting. The whole American air service and some British and French squadrons were assembled for the reduction of the St. Mihiel salient, with the result that the First American Army had under its command the largest aerial concentration gathered in any sector on the front at any time during the war. Again in the Meuse-Argonne offensive, the American Air Service continued its mastery of the air. On the Marne, at St. Mihiel, in the Argonne, the American air forces met the best German air forces. American pilots shot down 753 enemy planes and 71 balloons, suffering a loss of only 357 planes and 34 balloons. When the hostilities ceased on November 11, there had been assigned to the armies taking part in the great final sweep of the Germans from French soil, 45 American air squadrons, manned by 744 pilots, 457 observers, 23 aerial gunners and the necessary complement of other soldiers. These squadrons had 740 planes fully armed and equipped.

Twelve of these squadrons were equipped with machines made in America, and with the Liberty engine, which in actual service fulfilled all that was claimed for it, and proved to be America's best single contribution to war aviation.

The personnel of the air service, which was trained in the American schools, demonstrated in actual combat that it was second to none in the world for aggressiveness and skill. Our air squadron took part in 150 bombing raids, and dropped over 275,000 pounds of explosives on the enemy. They flew 35,000 hours over the line, and took 18,000 pictures of enemy positions. On innumerable occasions they regulated the firing of our artillery, flew in contact with our advancing forces, and from a height of only a few yards from the ground, machine-gunned and bombed enemy batteries, convoys and troops on the march.

The principal work of our air forces at the front during the Argonne drive was the screening of movements during the period from September 14 to 26. The weather was also bad for the flyers during this offensive, and it was necessary to confine photographs to the most important points.

Some of the most brilliant work done by our airmen, however, was during this time. On October 4 our day bombardment planes were sent to bomb Dunsur-Meuse and Landres-St. Georges, and succeeded in dropping a ton and a half of bombs on each objective.

The low-hanging clouds were filled with enemy pursuit planes and a group of 30 Fokkers and Pfalz planes swerved down on our formation. Our 90th Squadron, being in the lead, got the brunt of the attack. The formation closed in and held the enemy at a distance. Two other bombardment squadrons, the 20th and the 11th, attacked the enemy from the rear, shooting down two of them.

A general fight ensued. At the hottest part of the battle, 30 squads of the American Second Pursuit Group arrived on schedule time. The enemy, trapped, vainly struggled to escape. When the smoke of battle cleared away, 13 German planes lay shattered within a space of 1,000 feet on the ground. We lost one plane.

The work of American balloons at the front forms a bright chapter in our aerial history. Of the 35 balloon companies in France at the time of the armistice, with 446 officers and 6,365 enlisted men, 23 companies had been assigned to the armies which were actively engaged on the front.

Our balloon personnel, trained in the A. E. F., acquitted itself in a highly creditable manner. They made 1,642 ascensions and were in the air a total of 3,111 hours. They made 316 artillery adjustments, each comprising all the shots fired at one target; they reported 12,018 shell bursts; sighted 11,856 enemy planes; reported 2,649 enemy balloon ascensions; enemy batteries 400 times, enemy traffic and railroads, 1,113 times, and explosions and destructions 597 times.

American balloons were attacked by the enemy on 89 occasions; 34 of them were burned during such attacks, and nine others destroyed by shell fire. Our observers jumped from the baskets 116 times, and in no case did the parachute fail to open properly. One observer lost his life when pieces of his burning balloon fell on his descending parachute.

The actual accomplishment of the Air Service at the front was all the result of a much more tremendous accomplishment not so spectacular, but infinitely necessary in one of the most remarkable organizations ever put together, an organization that within a year's time sprang from a little branch of the Signal Corps, with 65 officers, and 1,110 men to a service of the army with 20,000 officers and 170,000 enlisted men. . . . The Service in France was fully prepared to take care of the great flotilla of planes which America was just getting ready to send across when the war was stopped.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*How The Armistice Was Negotiated And Signed*

By Marshals von Hindenburg and Foch, and Eye-Witnesses.

HINDENBURG To FOCH

Telegraphic wireless dispatch received by Marshal Foch at 12:30 a.m. on November 7, 1918.

AT 5 a.m. November 11, 1918, the Armistice was signed in the Forest of Compiegne, and Marshal Foch at once ordered the cessation of hostilities at 11 a.m. that day. Here are the preliminary telegrams that passed between Marshals Hindenburg and Foch, also an account of the arrival at the French outpost of the first German emissary, then of the German delegates as seen by a British correspondent, followed by the statement of one of the German delegates, bitterly lamenting the harshness of the terms dictated by the victors.

Based upon President Wilson's "Fourteen Points," the terms of the Armistice were designed to deprive Germany of all military and naval strength. The German delegates delayed signing the severe death warrant to the German Empire until the hopelessness of their case became convincing.

GERMAN General Headquarters to the Allies' General Headquarters; the German Commander-in-Chief to Marshal Foch: The German Government, having been informed through the President of the United States that Marshal Foch had received powers to receive accredited representatives of the German Government and communicate to them conditions of an armistice, the following plenipotentiaries have been named by it: Mathias Erzberger, General H. K. A. von Winterfeldt, Count Alfred von Oberndorff, General von Grunnel, and Naval Captain von Salow.

The plenipotentiaries request that they be informed by wireless of the place where they can meet Marshal Foch. They will proceed by automobile, with subordinates of the staff, to the place thus appointed.

FOCH To HINDENBURG

Telegraphic wireless response sent out at 1:30 a.m.

To the German Commander-in-Chief: If the German plenipotentiaries desire to meet Marshal Foch and ask him for an armistice, they will present themselves to the French outposts by the Chimay-Fourmies-La Capelle-Guise road. Orders have been given to receive them and conduct them to the spot fixed for the meeting.

HINDENBURG To FOCH

Telegraphic response received at 1 p.m.

The German plenipotentiaries for an armistice leave Spa to-day. They will leave here at noon and reach at 5 o'clock this afternoon the French outposts by the Chimay-Fourmies-La Capelle-Guise road. They will be ten persons in all, headed by Secretary of State Erzberger.

Supplementary telegraphic notice received at 1:50 p.m.

German General Headquarters to the Allied General Headquarters : The Supreme German Command to Marshal Foch: From the German outposts to the French outposts our delegation will be accompanied by a road-mending company to enable automobiles to pass the La Capelle road, which has been destroyed.

Supplementary notice received at 6 p.m.

The German Supreme Command to Marshal Foch: By reason of delay the German delegation will not be able to cross the outpost line until between 8 and 10 o'clock to-night at Haudroy, two kilometers northeast of La Capelle.

THE COMING OF THE FIRST GERMAN EMISSARY AS REPORTED BY THE FRENCH CAPTAIN AT THE OUTPOST AT CHIMAY.

Notice had reached me that an envoy might arrive and that fire had ceased in our sector. About 3 o'clock in the afternoon a German lieutenant appeared. He was magnificently turned out and magnificently mounted, and had an escort of two men. I met him about a hundred yards in front of our lines, and he wished me to go back with him to meet the plenipotentiaries. I told him I could not leave my command; and at first he made some demur, the idea of those with him being that a French officer should accompany the plenipotentiaries from the other side of the line. I assured him there would be no firing in the sector, that the plenipotentiaries could cross the line in safety, and that I would receive them at my post of command.

"This gentleman is an officer," he said to the men with him, "and as an officer I can accept and trust his word." Five o'clock was the time fixed for the arrival of the delegates, but at that hour no one arrived, the mission, as is known, actually making their appearance considerably later in the evening, when they at once proceeded on their way.

ARRIVAL OF THE GERMAN DELEGATES AS SEEN BY A BRITISH CORRESPONDENT

The roads were a mass of mud, motor-cars of all sorts were ranged by the side of the main street, and the German plenipotentiaries were temporarily halted because of a break-down to a motor lorry in the road in the front of them. There were seven cars in all, two of them belonging to French Headquarters and five being German. The plenipotentiaries must have halted for nearly half an hour, and certain members of the junior staff attached to them got down while the details of a fresh route to be followed were discussed by them with the French officers by whom they were being escorted.

The senior members remained in the cars, invisible in darkness. Those we saw were of the typical officer class, clean-shaven and almost aggressively self-contained. For the most part they were silent, but occasionally they talked in low tones.

On the pavement by the houses there was a continual movement of French soldiers. No guard was round the cars, for any sort of guard was entirely unnecessary. There was not a single individual among the two or three hundred men present who even moved forward to catch a glimpse of the mission. There was no question as to any one doubting their identity, for the cars bore on their panels the crest of the Black Eagle.

The demeanor of the French soldier was typical of the high standard of courtesy set by Marshal Foch. Both army and nation realized that with Marshal Foch in command the terms of the Armistice were in absolutely safe hands, as he had abundantly shown that he had taken to the full such measures as the situation required. He insisted, however, that every detail of the transaction should be conducted in absolute privacy, and there was not present at the historic meeting a single representative of the French or Allied press.

STATEMENT BY ONE OF THE GERMAN DELEGATES

When on November 5 we left Spa in motor cars and reached the French lines we found enemy carriages already waiting to take us to the unknown scene of negotiations. This motor tour with the French officers lasted ten hours, and it appears likely was intentionally prolonged in order to drive us all over the devastated province and prepare us by what we saw for what was shortly to be put before us in the way of hatred and revenge in the extremely severe Armistice conditions. Now and again a Frenchman pointed silently to heaps of ruins, or mentioned a name, "Voila St. Quentin." In the evening, wherever it was a train stood ready for us. The windows of the carriages were curtained, and when we awoke the next morning the train stood in the midst of a wood.

We know now that the negotiations took place in the forest of Compiegne, but a week ago we knew nothing. Perhaps it was a measure of precaution, even for our sakes, that we were taken through no town. Perhaps acts of violence were feared on the part of the population, for the hatred for us among them is boundless. The wood was evidently barred by troops to all comers. There were no houses and no tents. On the railway line stood two trains, one occupied by Marshal Foch and his people, the other by ours.

Here for three days we lived, worked, and deliberated. This seems to be the modern form of such negotiations. The castles and fortresses of olden times have gone, even for such purposes. The train with its sleeping-rooms, drawing-rooms, and dining cars was very comfortable, and we were provided with everything we wanted. The officer who had charge of the train had us supplied, and the conduct of the numerous guards who stood around was beyond reproach.

But all the hostility and the fullness of hate for our country that seems now to be cherished in France came to expression in the form of negotiations, as well as in the terrible nature of the conditions. Those of us who were soldiers wore uniforms and the Iron Cross. The introduction of the half-dozen French officers who conducted the negotiations with us "in plenum" and the greetings were of the coldest.

Foch, who showed himself only twice at the opening and at the end gave us no word of the particular politeness that in earlier times distinguished the most chivalrous nation in the world, and his officers just as little. He received us with the words, "Qu'est ce que vows desirez, messieurs?" and invited us into his business car, furnished with tables and maps. As each was to speak his own language and everything was translated, the reading of the conditions alone occupied nearly two hours. It was moreover a discovery when Foch answered that there were to be no negotiations, and only dictated matter. Altogether, with all his coldness, he was by no means so tactless and brusque as was General d'Espery at Belgrade.

Then we retired to our train, which stood on the other line. As we had been sent by the old Government, and had certainly not been authorized to sign everything without conditions, we proceeded, at the instance of Erzberger, to divide the various points under three heads, military, naval and diplomatic, and discussed them separately with the members of the enemy commissions, which consisted only of officers. Military Germany thus, with two civilians, stood face to face with now completely militarized France. The enemy maintained, in the persons of all his representatives, the same objective; their coldness was mitigated by no single word that bordered upon the human, as had marked our reception by the Marshal. The English Admiral adopted the tone of the French, and only from Foch's Chief of the General Staff, who bore the Alsatian name of Weygandt, did we perhaps receive any greater politeness.

During our two days' proceedings there was really no negotiation, and we could only try to obtain concessions on various conditions. For when the enemy demanded delivery of 160 U-boats we could only point out the technical impossibility, as we had not 160 to give. This demand had to be changed into the formula, "all U-boats." The chief point was that of food, and of this we were in a certain measure able to obtain assurance.

In the meantime, in this lonely wood, with its two railway trains, we were cut off from all intercourse with the outside world. Foch himself went off twice to Paris, and couriers were able in two hours to arrive with the papers. Thus it was possible for the enemy on Sunday, early, to hand us the Paris newspapers with the abdication of the Kaiser. We read no laughter, no triumph, in their faces. Immediately before the close of the second and last plenary sitting we placed before the enemy in the German language our protest against the treaty, but in the end we had to sign.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*The Terms Of The Armistice*

Official Text Translation.

I.-MILITARY CLAUSES ON WESTERN FRONT

_STRICTLY speaking, this document signed by Marshal Foch for France, Wemyss for England, and Secretary of State Erzberger, together with Oberndorff, Winterfeldt and von Salow for Germany, is less of an armistice to suspend hostilities than a surrender. It contains not only advance statements of the peace terms to be incorporated in the Treaty of Versailles, and of acts of submission demanded of Germany, but it embodies temporary arrangements for the government of occupied territory.

Incidental to its demand for the surrender of war materials, some delay in the negotiations was occasioned by a clause specifying the surrender of 160 U-boats. The Germans not having that many to give, the clause was changed to read "all U-boats." No mention is made of German demobilization, as the war-worn Boches were hurrying home, and the new government was only too glad to reduce an army it could neither pay nor control._

ONE- Cessation of operations by land and in the air six hours after the signature of the Armistice.

Two- Immediate evacuation of invaded countries: Belgium, France, Alsace-Lorraine, Luxemburg, so ordered as to be completed within fourteen days from the signature of the Armistice. German troops which have not left the above mentioned territories within the period fixed will become prisoners of war. Occupation by the Allied and United States forces jointly will keep pace with evacuation in these areas. All movements of evacuation and occupation will be regulated in accordance with a note annexed to the stated terms.

Three- Repatriation beginning at once to be completed within fifteen days of all the inhabitants of the countries above enumerated (including hostages, persons under trial or convicted).

Four- Surrender in good condition by the German armies of the following war material: Five thousand guns (2,500 heavy, and 2,500 field), 25,000 machine guns, 3,000 minenwerfer, 1,700 airplanes (fighters, bombers firstly, all of the D Ts and all the night bombing machines). The above to be delivered in situ to the Allied and United States troops in accordance with the detailed conditions laid down in the note (annexure No. 1) drawn up at the moment of the signing of the Armistice.

Five- Evacuation by the German armies of the countries on the left bank of the Rhine. The countries on the left bank of the Rhine shall be administered by the local troops of occupation. The occupation of these territories will be carried out by Allied and United States garrisons holding the principal crossings of the Rhine (Mayence, Coblenz, Cologne), together with the bridgeheads at these points of a thirty-kilometer radius on the right bank and by garrisons similarly holding the strategic points of the regions. A neutral zone shall be reserved on the right bank of the Rhine between the stream and a line drawn parallel to the bridgeheads and to the stream and at a distance of ten kilometers, from the frontier of Holland up to the frontier of Switzerland. The evacuation by the enemy of the Rhinelands (left and right bank) shall be so ordered as to be completed within a further period of sixteen days, in all, thirty-one days after the signing of the Armistice. All the movements of evacuation or occupation are regulated by the note (annexure No. 1) drawn up at the moment of the signing of the Armistice.

Six- In all territories evacuated by the enemy there shall be no evacuation of inhabitants; no damage or harm shall be done to the persons or property of the inhabitants. No person shall be prosecuted for offenses of participation in war measures prior to the signing of the Armistice. No destruction of any kind shall be committed. Military establishments of all kinds shall be delivered intact, as well as military stores of food, munitions and equipment, not removed during the time fixed for evacuation. Stores of food of all kinds for the civil population, cattle, etc., shall be left in situ. Industrial establishments shall not be impaired in any way and their personnel shall not be removed.

Seven- Roads and means of communication of every kind, railroads, waterways, main roads, bridges, telegraphs, telephones, shall be in no manner impaired. All civil and military personnel at present employed on them shall remain. Five thousand locomotives and 150,000 wagons in good working order, with all necessary spare parts and fittings, shall be delivered to the associated powers within the period fixed in annexure No. 2, and total of which shall not exceed thirty-one days. There shall likewise be delivered 5,000 motor lorries (carrion automobiles) in good order, within the period of thirty-six days. The railways of Alsace-Lorraine shall be handed over within the period of thirty-one days, together with pre-war personnel and material. Further, the material necessary for the working of railways in the countries on the left bank of the Rhine shall be left in situ. All stores of coal and material for the upkeep of permanent ways, signals and repair shops shall be left in situ. These stores shall be maintained by Germany in so far as concerns the working of the railroads in the countries on the left bank of the Rhine. All barges taken from the Allies shall be restored to them. The note, annexure No. 2, regulates the details of these measures.

Eighth- The German command shall be responsible for revealing within the period of forty-eight hours after signing of the Armistice all mines or delayed action fuses on territory evacuated by the German troops and shall assist in their discovery and destruction. It also shall reveal all destructive measures that may have been taken (such as poisoning or polluting of springs and wells, etc.). All under penalty of reprisals.

Nine- The right of requisition shall be exercised by the Allied and United States armies in all occupied territories, subject to regulation of accounts with those whom it may concern. The upkeep of the troops of occupation in the Rhineland (excluding Alsace-Lorraine) shall be charged to the German Government.

Ten- The immediate repatriation without reciprocity, according to detailed conditions which shall be fixed, of all Allied and United States prisoners of war, including person under trial or convicted. The Allied powers and the United States shall be able to dispose of them as they wish. This condition annuls the previous conventions on the subject of exchange of prisoners of war, including the one of July, 1918, in course of ratification. However, the repatriation of German prisoners of war interned in Holland and in Switzerland shall continue as before. The repatriation of German prisoners of war shall be regulated at the conclusion of the preliminaries of peace.

Eleven- Sick and wounded who cannot be removed from evacuated territory will be cared for by German personnel, who will be left on the spot with the medical material required.

II.-DISPOSITION RELATIVE TO THE EASTERN FRONTIERS OF GERMANY

Twelve- All German troops at present in the territories which before belonged to Austria-Hungary, Rumania, Turkey, shall withdraw immediately within the frontiers of Germany as they existed on August First, Nineteen Fourteen. All German troops at present in the territories which before the war belonged to Russia shall likewise withdraw within the frontiers of Germany, defined as above, as soon as the Allies, taking into account the internal situation of these territories, shall decide that the time for this has come.

Thirteen- Evacuation by German troops to begin at once, and all German instructors, prisoners and civilians as well as military agents now on the territory of Russia (as defined before 1914) to be recalled.

Fourteen- German troops to cease at once all requisitions and seizures and any other undertaking with a view to obtaining supplies intended for Germany in Rumania and Russia (as defined on August 1, 1914).

Fifteen- Renunciation of the treaties of Bucharest and Brest-Ltovsk and of the supplementary treaties.

Sixteen- The Allies shall have free access to the territories evacuated by the Germans on their eastern frontier, either through Danzig, or by the Vistula, in order to convey supplies to the populations of those territories and for the purpose of maintaining order.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*Clemenceau Accepts The Presidency Of The Peace Conference*

His Opening Address.

_FOLLOWING the arrival in Paris of President Wilson, on January 18, 1919, the first formal session of the Peace Conference was held at the Quai d'Orsay, attended by delegates from all the Ally Powers. Its twofold object was to impose on the Central Powers a proper penalty, in the form of reparations, for having started and so ruthlessly prosecuted the war, and to pave the way for the reconstruction of the world. Germany nor her allies had any voice in the Conference.

President Poincare of France made the inaugural speech, followed by a brief address of President Wilson nominating Georges Clemenceau as President of the Conference, and speeches of British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and Baron Sonnino of Italy seconding the nomination. The first session closed with the accompanying speech of acceptance by the venerable but stalwart French War Premier, then in his seventy-eighth year._

GENTLEMEN, you would not understand it if, after listening to the words of the two eminent men who have just spoken, I were to Keep silent. I cannot elude the necessity of expressing my lively gratitude, my deep gratitude, both to the illustrious President Wilson and to the Prime Minister of Great Britain, as well as to Baron Sonnino, for the words which they have uttered. In the past, in the days of my youth long ago now, as Mr. Lloyd George has reminded me when I traveled over America and England, I used always to hear the French blamed for the excess of politeness which led them beyond the boundaries of the truth. Listening to the American statesman and the British statesman, I asked myself whether in Paris they had not acquired our national vice of flattering urbanity.

It is necessary, gentlemen, to point out that my election is due necessarily to lofty international tradition, and to the time-honored courtesy shown towards the country which has the honor to welcome the Peace Conference in its capital. The proofs of "friendship" as they will allow me to call it of President Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George touched me profoundly, because in these proofs may be seen a new force for all three of us which will enable us, with the help of this entire Conference, to carry through the arduous task entrusted to us. I draw new confidence from it for the success of our efforts.

President Wilson has good authority for his remark that we have here for the first time a collection of delegates from all the civilized peoples of the earth. The greater the sanguinary catastrophe which devastated and ruined one of the richest regions of France, the more ample and more splendid should be the reparation nor merely the reparation for material acts, the ordinary reparation, if I may venture to say so, which is due to us but the nobler and loftier reparation we are going to try to secure, so that the peoples may at last escape from this fatal embrace, which, heaping up ruins and sorrows, terrorizes the population and prevents them from devoting themselves freely to their work for fear of the enemies who may spring up at any moment.

It is a great and noble ambition that has come to us all. We must hope that success will crown our efforts. This can only be if we have our ideas clear-cut and well defined.

I said in the Chamber of Deputies some days ago, and I make a point of repeating the statement here, that success is possible only if we remain firmly united. We have come here as friends. We must pass through that door as brothers. That is the first reflection which I am anxious to express to you. Everything must be subordinated to the necessity for a closer and closer union between the peoples which have taken part in this great war. The Society of Nations has its being here, it has its being in you. It is for you to make it live, and for that there is no sacrifice to which we are not ready to consent. I do not doubt that as you are all of this disposition we shall arrive at this result, but only on condition that we exercise impartial pressure on ourselves to reconcile what in appearance may be opposing interests in the higher view of a greater, happier and better humanity. That, gentlemen, is what I have to say to you.

I am touched beyond all expression by the proof of confidence and regard which you have been kind enough to give me. The program of the Conference, the aim marked out by President Wilson, is no longer merely peace for the territories, great and small, with which we are directly concerned; it is no longer merely a peace for the continents, it is peace for the peoples. This program speaks for itself ; there is nothing to be added to it. Let us try, gentlemen, to do our work speedily and well. I am handing to the Bureau the rules of procedure of the Conference, and these will be distributed to you all.

I come now to the order of the day. The first question is as follows: "The responsibility of the authors of the war." The second is thus expressed: "Penalties for crimes committed during the war." The third is: "International legislation in regard to labor."

The Powers whose interests are only in part involved are also invited to send in memoranda in regard to matters of all kinds territorial, financial, or economic which affect them particularly. These memoranda should be addressed to the general secretariat of the Conference. This system is somewhat novel. Our desire in asking you to proceed thus is to save time. All the nations represented here are free to present their claims. You will kindly send in these memoranda as speedily as possible, as we shall then get on with the work which we shall submit for your consideration. You can deal with the third question from the standpoint of the organization of labor.

It is a very vast field. But we beg of you to begin by examining the question as to the responsibility of the authors of the war. I do not need to set forth our reasons for this. If we wish to establish justice in the world we can do so now, for we have won victory and can impose the penalties demanded by justice. We shall insist on the imposition of penalties on the authors of the abominable crimes committed during the war. Has any one any question to ask in regard to this? If not, I would again remind you that every delegation should devote itself to the study of this first question, which has been made the subject of reports by eminent jurists, and of a report which will be sent to you entitled, "An Inquiry into the Criminal Responsibility of the Emperor William II." The perusal of this brochure will, without doubt, facilitate your work. In Great Britain and in America studies on this point have also been published. No one having any remark to make, the program is adopted.

It only remains for me to say, gentlemen, that the order of the day for our next sitting will begin with the question of the Society of Nations. Our order of the day, gentlemen, is now brought to an end. Before closing this sitting, I should like to know whether any delegate of the Powers represented has any question to submit to the Bureau. As we must work in complete agreement, it is desired that members of the Conference shall submit all the observations they consider necessary.

The Bureau will welcome the expression of opinions of all kinds, and will answer all questions addressed to it. No one has anything further to say? The sitting is closed.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*Wrecking The German Navy Under The Armistice*

By Commander Charles C. Gill, U. S. N.

_AN example of the manner in which the terms of the Armistice were enforced is given in this account by Commander Gill of the disposition of the German sea-power. The Naval conditions provided first, that all submarines be surrendered; second, that designated surface warships be disarmed and interned, and third, that all other surface warships be disarmed and placed under the supervision of the Allies and the United States of America.

Of 441 submarines built and laid down by Germany, 343 were built during the war and 70 were being built when it ended. 135 were surrendered and 96 were broken up in Germany.

Of the German capital ships here enumerated as being interned at Scapa Flow during the latter part of November and early December, 1918, a majority were sunk by their own crews, June 28, 1919, to the small regret of the Allies._

SEVENTY ships of the German Navy five battle-cruisers, nine battleships, seven light cruisers, and forty-nine destroyers were interned on November 21 [1918] at Rosyth. One battleship, one battle-cruiser, one light cruiser were short of the numbers named in the Armistice terms. The number of capital ships interned was brought up to sixteen by the inclusion of eleven battleships and five battle-cruisers. On the 22nd the enemy ships set out under a strong escort for Scapa Flow, where they were to remain until the Peace Treaty decided their fate.

At 1 1:00 a.m. on the 21st Admiral Beatty made a signal by wireless to the German Admiral: "The German flag will be hauled down at sunset today (Thursday), and will not be hoisted again without permission." This order was complied with by the Germans, but on the following day Rear-Admiral von Reuter from the "Friedrich der Grosse" issued a protest to Admiral Beatty:

"You ordered by wireless of November 21st that the German flag, after being hauled down at sunset, was not to be hoisted again without special permission. On November 21st I urgently requested the Chief of the Staff of Admiral Madden that this order should be canceled, as the German ships have flown their flags honorably. I have not yet received an answer.

"According to the terms of the Armistice, the ships were, to be interned in neutral harbors or in harbors of the Allies. As far as I know, during internment in neutral harbors during this war and former wars flags have always remained hoisted. Had I been interned in a neutral harbor this would have been the case. Neutral harbors and harbors of the Allies are absolutely parallel, according to the literal conditions of the Armistice and to the sense of the conditions of internment.

"Therefore, I esteem it unjustifiable and contradictory to international custom to order the striking of the war flags in the German ships. In addition, I am of opinion that the order to strike the flag is not in keeping with the idea of chivalry between honorable opponents. I therefore now enter an emphatic protest against this order."

The Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet made the following reply:

"Your protest against my order regarding the flying of German colors is noted. I would draw your attention to the fact that an Armistice suspends hostilities and that a state of war still exists between Germany and the Allies. Under the circumstances no enemy vessel can be permitted to fly the national ensign in British ports while under custody."

On November 20 twenty German submarines came to surrender to the British squadrons and flotillas under the command of Rear-Admiral Sir Reginald Tyrwhitt off the Suffolk Coast. The submarines were accompanied by two German transports, the "Tibania" and "Sierra Ventana, which were to take the submarine crews back to Germany. All the crews of the British ships were at their quarters, and with the U-boats in charge proceeded toward Harwich. About 20 miles off the port the ships anchored and British crews were put on board the German vessels to take them into harbor. As the boats went through the gates the White Ensign was hoisted over each German flag. On November 21 nineteen of the submarines, one having broken down on the way, surrendered to the British naval forces. On November 22 twenty more submarines were surrendered, and on November 25 a further twenty-eight U-boats arrived.


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*"Back To Normalcy" With President Harding*

Memorial Address by Charles E. Hughes, Secretary of State.

_IN the Presidential campaign of 1920, Warren Gamaliel Harding, the Republican candidate, received 16,138,914 votes, as compared with 9,142,438 cast for Cox, the Democratic candidate. It was the largest plurality on record. Taking office March 4, 1921, President Harding became ill while returning from a trip to Alaska and succumbed to a stroke of apoplexy in San Francisco, August 2, 1923.

His advocacy of American participation in the World Court and his calling of the Washington Arms Conference, as recounted in preceding pages, were outstanding acts of his Administration. Shortly before the treaties drafted at the Conference were signed, President Harding declared that their ratification would give his Administration a secure place in history. Otherwise it would be of only passing interest.

Secretary Hughes paid our twenty-ninth President this tribute at the official memorial exercises held in the House of Representatives, February 27, 1924._

MORE than two years had passed since the Armistice and we were still in a technical state of war. Rejecting the compact framed abroad, we were without an effective agreement establishing peace, opening the appropriate channels of intercourse with former enemies and safeguarding essential rights. We had expended about $40,000,000,000 on the World War and in August, 1919, our national debt had reached its highest point at $26,500,000,000, or about 10 times the amount of the national debt at the close of the Civil War. Our people were subject to a colossal burden of taxation. In 1917 the Federal Government's revenues from taxation were $1,035,000,000. In 1919 they had risen to $4,023,000,000, and in 1920 they mounted to $5,722,000,000. Economic conditions gave cause for the keenest anxiety. Our basic activities were hard hit in the inevitable reactions which followed the great expansion which was necessary to meet the demands of war. Nearly 5,000,000 workers were unemployed, and the country was looking forward with grave apprehension to a period of unparalleled suffering if conditions did not improve. As President Harding observed, "in the then existing temper of people everywhere, overwrought and exasperated at contemplated sacrifices barren of results for good, these conditions involved a menace to society." Already, some were recommending a policy of public doles, a most desperate resort. Uncertainty and instability had followed the relaxing of the tension of the great struggle. The time for debate had passed; debate had been had. It was time that a controversy which could have no result but increased bitterness should end and that the path of permissible helpful effort should be sought. President Harding met the need of the hour. That need was conciliation and cooperation ; he incarnated both.

He at once determined to end the technical state of war and to establish the necessary formal peace; and this he achieved with the least loss of time and in the only practicable way. He sought to relieve agriculture, to foster industry, to conserve the interests of our merchant marine. There was "a frank and confident appeal to a great people to apply their soundest sense and to cling to tried and trusted methods." There were conferences on unemployment and on housing. There were meetings of the representatives of industry, of labor, of transportation, of civic and commercial bodies. President Harding rejoiced in the opportunity to bring "all groups, classes, interests and sections into a splendid cooperation." Proceedings were taken speedily and efficiently to dispose of the governmental transactions incident to the war and requiring adjustment. President Harding went to the root of domestic problems by insistence on the immediate reduction of national expenditures and the lifting of the burdens of war taxation. He endeavored to reduce the staggering load of war debt by a gradual liquidation which the strictest economy could alone make possible. Said he: "Our current expenditures are running at the rate of approximately five billions a year, and the burden is unbearable. There are two agencies to be employed in correction : One is rigid resistance to appropriation and the other is the utmost economy in administration. Let us have both."

By the remarkable efficiency of his organization of budget control, by the wisdom of Treasury management, by appropriate legislative and administrative encouragement of commerce and industry, by intelligent and organized attention to the problem of unemployment, the prophecies of cynics were brought to naught, confidence was restored and, despite the exigencies that still remained and the important measures of relief still needed, there was achieved an extraordinary degree of progress. With industry revived, labor was fully employed. On June 30, 1923, the national debt had been reduced to $22,400,000,000 and the Government's program now calls for a reduction of half a billion a year. The indebtedness of Great Britain to the United States was funded on a sound basis, putting, as the President well said, "a fresh stamp of approval upon the sacredness of international obligations." The cost of government that is to say, the expenditures of the Federal Government (exclusive of expenditures payable from postal revenues and the principal of the public debt) which had amounted to $6,139,000,000 in 1920 and to $4,880,000,000 in 1921, was reduced to $3,647,000,000 in 1923. The Treasury was able to balance the budget and close the last fiscal year with a surplus of $309,000,000. And by virtue of this successful administration of the Government's business the people are now able to look forward with the utmost gratification to a further reduction of the tax load. In meeting domestic exigencies, in planning every remedial endeavor, President Harding constantly sought cooperation. He was not merely the Chief Executive but endeavored to be the effective coordinator of the functions of government. Wherever he worked, whether in the limited range of early activities or in the broad sphere of national leadership, the mainspring of his action was always the intense desire to harmonize, to find a way of agreement, to bring about teamwork. He hated strife, his gospel was that of understanding.

It was with an intense desire to contribute to the promotion of peace and to find avenues of helpfulness that he contemplated the chaotic conditions left by the Great War and our relations to other peoples. His was not the spirit of a narrow or selfish nationalism. He wished no commitment which would forfeit or impair the independence and liberty of action which was the heritage of the Republic. But he desired to safeguard this fortunate detachment from the ambitions and rivalries which had vexed the Old World, not only to conserve our own security but that America might use her freedom for an enlarged service. Let these eloquent words of his inaugural address reveal his conviction and his outlook:

"The recorded progress of our Republic, materially and spiritually, in itself proves the wisdom of the inherited policy of non-involvement in Old World affairs. Confident of our ability to work out our own destiny, and jealously guarding our right to do so, we seek no part in directing the destinies of the Old World. We do not mean to be entangled. We will accept no responsibility except as our own conscience and judgment, in each instance, may determine. Our eyes never will be blind to a developing menace, our ears never deaf to the call of civilization. We recognize the new order in the world, with the closer contacts which progress has wrought. We sense the call of the human heart for fellowship, fraternity, and cooperation.

"America is ready to encourage, eager to initiate, anxious to participate in any seemly program likely to lessen the probability of war and promote that brotherhood of mankind which must be God's highest conception of human relationship. Because we cherish ideals of justice and peace, because we appraise the international comity and helpful relationship no less highly than any people of the world, we aspire to a high place in the moral leadership of civilization, and we hold a maintained America, the proven Republic, the unshaken temple of representative democracy, to be not only an inspiration and example, but the highest agency of strengthening good will and promoting accord on both continents."

These were not idle words to catch a transient applause. He meant what he said. He knew what it was vain to attempt; he had no illusions as to causes of European disorder. He knew that the evils which afflicted Europe could find no cure except in the abatement of strife and in settlements which could not be imposed from without, but could only be achieved when the Powers directly concerned had a will to peace and were willing to agree. But his clear perception of existing difficulties made him only the more keen to find some opening for helpful effort, some way to further the cause nearest his heart, the cause of world peace, and that way was found [in the Conference on Limitation of Armament].

President Harding . . . literally wore himself out in the endeavor to be friendly. . . . He desired to make the trip to Alaska in order to see for himself its wonders, to appraise by personal examination the resources and exigencies of that great territory. Having been in office over two years he wished to address the people upon the achievements of his Administration and to present directly to them his conception of the solution of urgent problems. Above all, he craved the inspiration of direct contact with the people in many communities and the assurance of their personal interest and kindly support. That to every Executive, however masterful, is the wine of life. . . . He made his journey to Alaska, and in the course of six weeks delivered about eighty-five speeches, many of which had been carefully prepared and were most instructive discussions of a vast range of topics, such as the international court of justice, transportation problems, agriculture, law enforcement, taxation and expenditures, national business conditions, social justice, development, reclamation and water utilization, the territory of Alaska; and there was another address, which he had written and personally released for publication but was unable to deliver, giving a comprehensive review of foreign relations.

It was just before the breakdown that he stepped on foreign soil at Vancouver and voiced our historic friendship for the people of the great Dominion. "What an object lesson of peace is shown today, he exclaimed, "by our two countries to all the world. No grim-faced fortifications mark our frontiers; no huge battleships patrol our divided waters; no stealthy spies lurk in our tranquil border hamlets. Our protection is in our fraternity, our armor is our faith ; the tie that binds more firmly year by year is ever-increasing acquaintance and comradeship through interchange of citizens, and the compact is not of perishable parchment, but of fair and honorable dealing, which, God grant, shall continue for all time."


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## Library4Science (Apr 13, 2011)

This is an excerpt from volume 12 of "America, Great Crises in our History."

*The Treaty Reservations Which Failed*

Text of the Preamble and Fifteen Reservations.

_THE day the Treaty of Versailles was signed, June 28, 1919, President Wilson sailed for America, to begin his long struggle with Congress over its ratification, with the Covenant of the League of Nations incorporated. Opposition to the Covenant had developed in the Senate, led by Henry Cabot Lodge, as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who demanded such reservations as would safeguard American interests and institutions. The crux of the opposition was Article X, which a proposed reservation, as President Wilson saw and characterized it, "cut the heart out of the League of Nations."

Here is the text of the Preamble and Fifteen Reservations as adopted by the Senate before the final vote of ratification, the resolution for the adoption of which lacked seven votes of the required two-thirds. Although the resolution was a Republican (Lodge) measure, the opposition of the Republican "irreconcilables" or "bitter-enders" Was sufficient to defeat it on March 19, 1920._

RESOLVED (two- thirds of the Senators present concurring therein), That the Senate advise and consent to the ratification of the Treaty of Peace with Germany concluded at Versailles on the 28th day of June, 1919, subject to the following reservations and understandings which are hereby made a part and condition of this resolution of ratification, which ratification is not to take effect or bind the United States until the said reservations and understandings adopted by the Senate have been accepted as a part and a condition of this resolution of ratification by the Allied and Associated Powers, and a failure on the part of the Allied and Associated Powers to make objections to said reservations and understandings prior to the deposit of ratification by the United States shall be taken as a full and final acceptance of such reservations and understandings by said powers:

1. The United States so understands and construes Article I. that in case of notice of withdrawal from the League of Nations, as provided in said article, the United States shall be the sole judge as to whether all its international obligations and all its obligations under the said covenant have been fulfilled, and notice of withdrawal by the United States may be given by a concurrent resolution of the Congress of the United States.

2. The United States assumes no obligation to preserve the territorial integrity or political independence of any other country by the employment of its military or naval forces, its resources, or any form of economic discrimination, or to interfere in any way in controversies between nations, including all controversies relating to territorial integrity or political independence, whether members of the League or not, under the provisions of Article X., or to employ the military or naval forces of the United States, under any article of the treaty for any purpose, unless in any particular case the Congress, which under the Constitution has the sole power to declare war or authorize the employment of the military or naval forces of the United States, shall in the exercise of full liberty of action, by act or joint resolution so provide.

3. No mandate shall be accepted by the United States under Article XXII., Part 1, or any other provision of the Treaty of Peace with Germany, except by action of the Congress of the United States.

4. The United States reserves to itself exclusively the right to decide what questions are within its domestic jurisdiction and declares that all domestic and political questions relating wholly or in part to its internal affairs, including immigration, labor, coast-wise traffic, the tariff, commerce, the suppression of traffic in women and children and in opium and other dangerous drugs, and all other domestic questions, are solely within the jurisdiction of the United States and are not under this Treaty to be submitted in any way either to arbitration or to the consideration of the council or of the Assembly of the League of Nations, or any agency thereof, or to the decision or recommendation of any other power.

5. The United States will not submit to arbitration or to inquiry by the Assembly or by the Council of the League of Nations, provided for in said Treaty of Peace, any questions which in the judgment of the United States depend upon or relate to its long established policy, commonly known as the Monroe Doctrine; said doctrine is to be interpreted by the United States alone and is hereby declared to be wholly outside the jurisdiction of said League of Nations and entirely unaffected by any provision contained in the said Treaty of Peace with Germany.

6. The United States withholds its assent to Articles 156, 157, and 158, and reserves full liberty of action with respect to any controversy which may arise under said articles.

7. No person is or shall be authorized to represent the United States, nor shall any citizen of the United States be eligible, as a member of any body or agency established or authorized by said Treaty of Peace with Germany except pursuant to an act of the Congress of the United States providing for his appointment and defining his powers and duties.

8. The United States understands that the Reparation Commission will regulate or interfere with exports from the United States to Germany, or from Germany to the United States, only when the United States by act or joint resolution of Congress approves such regulation or interference.

9. The United States shall not be obligated to contribute to any expenses of the League of Nations, or of the Secretariat or of any commission, or committee, or conference, or other agency, organized under the League of Nations or under the Treaty or for the purpose of carrying out the Treaty provisions, unless and until an appropriation of funds available for such expenses shall have been made by the Congress of the United States; provided, that the foregoing limitation shall not apply to the United States' proportionate share of the expense of the office force and salary of the Secretary General.

10. No plan for the limitation of armaments as reported by the Council of the League of Nations under the provisions of Article 8 shall be held as binding the United States until the same shall have been accepted by Congress, and the United States reserves the right to increase its armament without the consent of the Council whenever the United States is threatened with invasion or engaged in war.

11. The United States reserves the right to permit, in its discretion, the nationals of a covenant-breaking state as defined in Article XVI. of the covenant of the League of Nations, residing within the United States or in countries other than such covenant-breaking state, to continue their commercial, financial and personal relations with the nationals of the United States.

12. Nothing in Articles 296, 297, or in any of the annexes thereto or in any other article, section, or annex of the Treaty of Peace with Germany shall, as against citizens of the United States, be taken to mean any confirmation, ratification or approval of any act otherwise illegal or in contravention of the rights of citizens of the United States.

13. The United States withholds its assent to Part XIII. (Articles 337 to 427 inclusive), unless Congress by act or joint resolution shall hereafter make provision for representation in the organization established by said Part XIII., and in such event the participation of the United States will be governed and conditioned by the provisions of such act or joint resolution.

14. Until Part 1, being the covenant of the League of Nations, shall be so amended as to provide that the United States shall be entitled to cast a number of votes equal to that which any member of the League and its self-governing dominions, colonies or parts of empire in the aggregate, shall be entitled to cast, the United States assumes no obligation to be bound, except in cases where Congress has previously given its consent, by any election, decision, report, or finding of the Council or Assembly in which any member of the League and its self-governing dominions, colonies, or parts of empire, in the aggregate, have cast more than one vote.

The United States assumes no obligation to be bound by any decision, report, or finding of the Council or Assembly arising out of any dispute between the United States and any member of the League if such member or any self-governing dominion, colony, empire, or part of empire united with it politically has voted.

15. In consenting to the ratification of the Treaty with Germany the United States adheres to the principle of self-determination and to the resolution of sympathy with the aspirations of the Irish people for a government of their own choice adopted by the Senate June 6, 1919, and declares that when such government is attained by Ireland, a consummation which it is hoped is at hand, it should promptly be admitted as a member of the League of Nations.


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