How We Went to War

Front matter

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Contents

CBAPTUB PAm

I. INTBODT7CTION 1

II. The Task 19

Introduction

'T^HERE is nothing finer in American history ^ than the way in which the American people, as a whole, responded to the call for war with Germany. This statement might seem too broad. Some critics might take issue with it. They might point to the peace-at-any-price campaign which was wide-spread over the country from the beginning of the World War in 1914 to the very hour when America was forced to take up arms. They might point to sporadic outbursts of disloyalty by certain foreign-born elements of our population, who placed the cause of the lands of their birth above the welfare of their adopted country. They might point to certain members of Congress, even, who by their obstructionist tactics gave evidence of lukewarmness for the war, and even of outright lack of patriotism. Every conmiunity has had its pacifists, its pacifists with honest hearts and weak heads, its dishonest pacifists working in the interest of the country's enemy, its slackers, its malcontents. This has been true of every nation in every past war. But certain it is that when on April 6, 1917, our government , accepted the German challenge to our rights and liberties, the American people ranged themselves behind their leaders with a steadfast purpose to meet their heavy task, to make every sacrifice that the world might be freed from the horror of German militarism and Kultur.

Look at their record.

In the first eighteen months of the war by the volunteer system and the selective draft they raised their armies from hardly 250,000 men to 3,000,000, of whom more than one*half were moved to the battle-front in France.

Their navy was increased by volunteers from 65,000 men to over 500,000, and ships by the hundred were added to their sea force.

Starting with an ahnost negligible number of merchant vessels, they had laid the foundation of the greatest merchant marine in the world.

During the same period they had paid to their government more than $4,000,000,000 in taxes, and had advanced to it in loans by the purchase of Liberty Bonds and War Savings Stamps more' than $9,000,000,000.

To make easier the lives of their fighting men and to heal the wounds inflicted on the world by German Kultur, they had given, through the Red Cross, the Y. M. C. A., the Knights of Columbus, and other philanthropic agencies, full a half-biUion dollars. But, above all, they had oflFered the lives of their men and their women and stood ready to bear increasing sorrows and heavier burdens.

These figures are not to be read in a spirit of boastf ulness. America has not yet had to drain the very dregs of the cup of sorrow, as have France and Great Britain, Belgium, Serbia, and Italy. America has not had to stand with her back to the wall to meet the onslaught of hordes of modern savages, the product of years of a system of perverted education, based on a perverted system of morality. These figures are given because they answer the charges of the Germans abroad and the Germans at home, that the American people were not wholeheartedly in the war. They answer the old argument of the pacifists that the American people would not suflFer themselves to be dragged into a conflict 3,000 miles away, and would endure dishonor and outrage rather than fight in defense of their own and the world's liberty. The things that the Germans and pacifists said the Americans would not do they have done, and they have done it in full measure. It is true that following the outbreak of the European War we had two and a half years of divided opinion and hesitation, but those were years of education and they brought us to a common opinion and a conmion purpose. Had the heads of our government been less idealistic, of less pacific minds, that period might have been briefer and we might have faced the conflict better prepared for it. They did not lead the people to war. They did not even teach the people to prepare for war. Their every effort was to keep the country at peace. But they, too, were learning. Few people in the United States at the beginning of the World War realized the peril that lay in Germany's aggression. Few had ever heard of the Pan-

German movement. Few believed that Germany was really carrying out a well-laid scheme to secure the rule of the world by force. The full depth of Germany's guilt was not known. When the neutrality of Belgium was violated and there followed a series of excesses that shocked civilization, some public men and writers did proclaim our danger and warn us to make ready to meet it. But the lesson was learned slowly. The rape of Belgium shocked all decent people, but Belgium was three thousand miles away, and we did not see those horrors dose at hand. It took time to reveal them to us. Military necessity was the excuse of Germany's apologists, and with some it found credence. We did not realize that the Belgium horror was but a part of a long-laid plan to bring the world to its knees under the lash of frightfulness. That a nation supposed to be civilized could commit such crimes seemed incredible.

In 1915 blinking eyes began to open wide. Clouds of poison-gas were rolled across the British front, deaUng a hideous death to gallant soldiers who were fighting fairly, and Germany o HOW WE WENT TO WAR

was seen again violating the rules of warfare laid down by The Hague conventions to which she had acceded. While men still had faith in her honor, her scientists were experimenting *bn cats and dogs to devise the cruellest form of weapon for her army's use. Liquid fire followed the gas, and then began the murderous career of her submarines.

From the first the sympathy of the great majority of Americans was with the Allies. Even then Germany might have taught us to respect her. She taught us to despise. Her declaration of a war zone around her enemies' coafits on February 4, 1915, gave us the first real warning of trouble ahead. The right of American ships and American citizens to traverse the seas in time of war was firmly established by long-standing principles of international law. If Germany could have maintained a blockade of enemy ports the case would have been diflFerent, but even then she would have had to safeguaard the lives of passengers and crews of both enemy and neutral merchant vessels. This she could not do. Her navy, except her submarines, had been driven from the seas.

mXRODUCTION 7

and, disregarding President Wilson's warning that she would be held to "strict accountability" for her acts, she sent those submarines forth on their mission of piracy. On March 28 the British steamship Falaba was sent to the bottom with 111 Kves; on April 8 the Harpalyce, carrying food to starving Belgium, was torpedoed, and fifteen of the crew were lost. Vessel after vessel was simk without warning. It was the sinking of the Cunard liner Lusitania on May 7 that fanned America's anger into full flame. By that crowning murder 1,154 men, women, and children lost their lives, and of these 114 were Americans. This alone was enough to convince the unbiassed of the sinister nature of Germany's plans and the peril to the world in the victory of such a people.

Had the German Government dehberately planned to open the eyes of America to Germany's intentions and to the danger that lay behind those intentions, it could not have acted

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more ^ci^itly. Slowly the whole system of frightfulness was imfolded, and the perversion of the German mind laid bare. Despite our warnings, ship after ship was murderously sunk.

German ZeppeKns and airplanes dropped tlie bombs on open towns, dealing death to huj dreds of innocent men, women, and childrei There was no respect for that emblem of mercj the Red Cross. The wounded and the nurse of the hospitals became fair game for any Hun nish warrior of the air, and hospital-ships, will their freight of wounded, choice marks for those that lurked under the sea. Even as I write comes the news of the sinking of the hospitalship Llandovery Castle, when on an errand of mercy, and 258 persons, including 14 women nurses, were killed.

Future historians, reviewing the events of these times, will certainly wonder at those two and a half years when America endured so many wrongs at Germany's hands, and took no other action than to strive to bring her to reason by argument, unsupported by even a show of force. They will wonder why, when the threat was so evident, we made no preparation to meet the storm. The truth is we had a pacific and altruistically minded administration; we had a Congress which contained a large number of pacifists, some pacifists from jjincerely patriotic motives, and others for reasons purely selfish. To-day no man in the world is more hated by the Germans than President Wilson. They charge him with being a tool of Great Britain, and with deliberately leading us to war, to the ruin of their hope for victoiy and worid dominion. Nothing could be more false. He strove patiently to keep us at peace, often in the face of bitter opposition at home, but that day came, when, as he has said: "The right is more precious than peace.'' From that day he has been for "force, force to the utmost," and he has had behind him a united Congress and a united people. But they were not for war because, as a German has written, "war is the most august of aU human activities"; they were for war because only by war could the world be made "a decent place in which to live."

"The object of America in this war," the President has said, "is to deliver the free peoples of the world from the menace and the actual power of a vast military establishment, controlled by an irresponsible government, which, having secretly planned to dominate tha world, proceeded to cany out the plan without regard either to the sacred obUgations of treaty or the long-established practices and long-cherished principles of international action and honor; which chose its own time for the war, delivered its blow fiercely and suddenly, stopped at no barrier, either of law or mercy, swept a whole continent within the tide of blood — ^not the blood of soldiers only, but the blood of innocent women and children, also, and of the helpless poor, and now stands, balked but not defeated, the enemy of four-fifths of the world. . . ."

We can imagine the historian puzzling over the question as to why we were so long in discovering this menace, why we did not see it when Belgium was overrun and ruined, and the Lusitania sunk. His perspective will be better than ours. He will be able to trace the whole series of great events from their beginning to their end. He will find the germs of the war in those days fifty years ago when the Germans overran France and formed the German Empire, with Prussia at its head. He will review Germany's fifty years of military preparation. He will study the outpourings of Germany's states-^ men, her educators, her publicists, and see them all tending to instil in the German mind a desire for conquest, and to prepare the people for a sudden rush that would carry them on the first stage toward world domination. He will marvel that the rest of the world was so blind as not to foresee what lay ahead and prepare for it.

There were, before the war, in France and England some far-sighted men who urged their people to make ready for a German attack, but it is doubtful if even these realized the completeness of Gennany*s preparations or her contemplated barbarity of warfare. It was incredible that a great modem nation should have been drilled and ^educated into a race of barbarians.

Lord Roberts warned England, and England, lost in a maze of party squabbles and Irish quarrels, did not listen, so that when the German hordes struck into France she could only send against them an army of 150,000 men. A gallanter army never went to battle, but it was hopelessly outnumbered and almost wiped out. For our own lack of preparation before 1914 there was good reason. We were separated from Europe by 3,000 miles of sea, and it did not seem that we could ever be involved in a European conflict or threatened seriously by a European Power. For our policy of unpreparedness after 1914 there was less reason, for we had before us a lesson to study — ^the events in Belgium and France, and incident after incident which betrayed the German method and true purpose. We had our public men who foresaw our danger, and warned us, even if we did not go to war, to prepare for eventualities. We did not listen. We did order a considerable increase in our naval establishment, but as to our army we did practically nothing.

It is a fact that at the beginning of the war we had many pronounced pacifists in places of influence in the government. Our foreign relations were in the hands of WilUam J. Bryan, whose hobby was peace maintained by treaty and arbitration, an excellent, but at that time an imworkable, plan. When war threatened us he was for peace at almost any price and against military preparation. His declaration that a million Americans would spring to arms overnight if danger threatened us has become a hackneyed joke. However, he did sign those two able notes which President Wilson sent to Germany on the sinking of the Lusitaniaj and then, finding the American peo^ pie becoming warlike and out of sympathy with his policies, retired. He was followed by Robert Lansing, who has conducted the State Department with dignity and courage, and in the spirit of its best traditions.

The then Secretary of War, Lindley M. Garrison, seeing trouble ahead, did make every effort to secure some measure of military preparation, but he met opposition in both houses of Congress, and he did not seem to have hearty support from most of the other members of the administration. There was a theory that to arm thoroughly would be a threat to Germany which might disarrange the delicate negotiations then proceeding. Besides, Count von Bemstorff and his army of propagandists were active in holding us to the ways of peace. Universal service on a modified scale was talked of, but the politicians declared that the American peopie would never suffer such a system. Mr. Garrison tried to obtain a compromise with his plan for a "continental army," an army of 500,000 volunteers serving part time, but this, too, was blocked, and on June 3, 1916, the National Defense Act was passed which made the inadequately trained National Guards of the States into a second line of national military defense. Under this act the government was authorized to recruit the Guard up to 300,000 men, while the war strength authorized for the regular army was raised to 287,000. Mr. Garrison retired and was succeeded by Newton D. Baker, who had been mayor of Cleveland, a man generally credited at that time with holding pronounced pacifist principles. Certainly under Mr. Baker's leadership in the months preceding our entry into the war little was done to strengthen our military arm in any large way. There began a wide-spread agitation for preparedness all over the country.

Mass-meetings were held; great parades, emphasizing the demand, marched the streets; many patriotic organizations carried on a campaign of education, but little effective work was done by the government. There could be only two reasons for this. The first is political. The men of all parties, who had the power to act effectively, misread the character of the mass of the American people and feared for their political future. The second is ignorance and lack of foresight. Having little knowledge of German history and German character, they sincerely believed that we were able to continue honorably at peace. The President himself, a year before the war broke out, declared in a public speech that we were in no danger from any quarter. Some time later he weakened and declared that this was the last great war America could keep out of. One conspicuous man who did see the danger, warned us of it, and acted to the best of his limited power, was General Leonard Wood. By establishing a series of camps for intensive military training he secured the nucleus of the great corps of officers we were so soon to need. Meanwhile the eyes of the Americans, from the President down, were being opened to the true menace of Germany. Mr. Wilson worked patiently to bring Germany to reason and to avoid war honorably, but he and the whole people were fast losing patience. Those who failed to see in Germany^s atrocities in Europe and on the seas, or in her violations of international law, a just reason for our entering the war, were aroused when she was caught carrying on in our own neutral land a campaign of violence and intrigue. Factories were blown up, infernal machines were placed on our merchantmen, strikes were fomented, efforts were made to destroy our rail and water communications. Two attaches of the embassy. Captains Boy-Ed and Von Papen, were caught and sent home. Still we were patient and the archplotter. Count von Bemstorff, remained. The Germans fooled themselves. It was a common argument of theirs that the Americans were a people sunk in the sloth of prosperity, who thought of nothing but the dollar, and were deaf to the calls of honor and justice. Could they clean up Europe, the German supermen would make short work of these imbeciles. They misread President Wilson — a college professor, they said, given to words, not action, especially warlike action. Brazenly they broke all their promises, and tore up all their agreements with us. It was on January 31, 1917, that their government announced that it would sink without warning the vessels of any nation* ality found in certain areas of the seas surrounding their enemies. The one thing to do, the President did promptly. On February 3 he broke oflf diplomatic relations with Germany.

The breaking of diplomatic relations between states does not of necessity lead to war. In this case, considering the temper of the German mind, war seemed inevitable, and yet we made no great efiFort to be ready for it. The navy was tuned up, and work was rushed on the new vessels on the ways, but save for a flurry of recruiting for the army and the National Guard, to bring them up to their full peace strength, our military forces were not augmented. For two months more we endured with fair equa* nimity German intrigue, outrage, and insult. Ship after ship was sunk without warning, with the loss of many lives. Not content with this, Germany was endeavoring to stir Japan and Mexico to war with us, as was discovered by the intercepting of a note of January 19 from the German Foreign Office to the German minister in Mexico. There was nothing left but war. President Wilson met the issue, and Congress and the people stood ready to support him to the utmost.

"The right is more precious than peace," said the President in his address to Congress on April 2, " and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts — for democracy, for the right of those who sub* mit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free people as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.

"To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured.

"God helping her, she can do no other."

America could, indeed, do no other. She girded herself for the task.

Chapter II The Task

Ouch a task! To accomplish it demanded ^ the co-ordination of all the energies and all the industries in the country. Our enemy was 3,000 miles away, over a sea infested by his merciless submarines. He had overrun nearly all of Belgium and a goodly part of northern France, and stood intrenched from the English Channel to the Swiss border; he had conquered Serbia, Montenegro, and half of Rumania. In the east Russia still held, but only feebly. On March 3 the Czar had abdicated, and when we became Russia's ally she was in control of a government too unstable to be relied on, however good its intentions. Russia's military assistance had become even then almost nil. Our allies, France, Great Britain, and Italy, were worn by more than two years of the cruellest war in history. To us they looked for food to fill their depleted larders, for raw materials and fuel for their munition factories, for finished munitions for their armies, and for soldiers to fight with those armies and help them drive the Germans over the Rhme. To transport the food, materials, and men, the sea had to be made safe and ships found. The food had to be raised, the fuel and metals mined, the armies drUled and equipped.

Fortunately, we came to the task a united people, more than 100,000,000 strong, possessing the richest countiy m the world. It has been argued in some quarters that had our government not shown such patience in its intricate dealings with Germany, but had brought us earlier into the conflict, it would have found a people less united on war, and in their purpose to carry that war to a victorious end. It has been contended that the calm which the President preserved in his two years of diflScult negotiations with Germany, his efforts to secure peace, even "without victory,*' his admirable speeches, and his strong notes to the German Government served a purpose to prepare us for war and to reconcile us to it. Undoubtedly they did. What would have happened had we been less patient and long-suffering, had we

THE TASK 21

supported our protests against German barbarism with a great preparation for military movement, is a matter on which opinions diflfer. War might have been avoided — ^that is a pure surmise. Had we intervened earlier the war would be over to-day — that is another pure surmise. We do know that when the war came to them the American people, unprepared though they were, accepted it with a surprising unanimity of purpose to carry it through.

We had been told that there lay a possibility of trouble among our millions of citizens of German birth and descent, and the aliens in our country. The great number of them have proved absolutely loyal. It is true that in some locaUties largely settled by these people there were made feeble attempts at protest and obstruction, but these were quickly conquered by the general outburst of patriotism. Those at heart disloyal were quick to realize their danger and to shape their conduct so as to keep themselves within the law. Against the really dangerous aliens and disloyal citizens the government was quick to act, and within twentyfour hours after war was declared thousands of them were safe behind the bars. The prompt and effective work of the Secret Service, supported by local police, prevented outbreaks of any kind. The hopes and plans of Germany for wide-spread disorders blocking our preparation for hostilities were blasted, and to-day it is a common thing to see in German newspapers bitter comment on what they deem the supine attitude of the Germans in America — traitors to the Fatherland. If there were dangerous efforts at obstruction anywhere, they were in Congress, made by a few short-sighted pacifists, who could not see that America had to fight if she was to keep her liberty, and by timid politicians who pandered to the pro-German sentiments of their constituents. Even these trimmed their sails when they found how the wind blew. The administration realized the danger, and once the die was cast set itself with all vigor to meet it. For the fight we had ready a navy in weight of gun-power rated then third in the world, and manned by a personnel than which there is none better. But in a military force with which to engage effectively in so great a conflict we were woefully lacking. Our regular

THE TASK 23

army on April 1, 1917, consisted of 5,791 officers and 121,797 men; the National Guard available for federal service numbered 3,733 officers and 76,713 enlisted men, and there were in the army reserve approximately 4,000 enlisted men. This made a total armed force of approximately 212,000, a number utterly inadequate for the conflict ahead.

The problem faced by the country was a mighty one. Briefly stated, these were its main elements:

To strengthen our navy, that it could meet and whip unaided the navy of Germany,

To raise an army of at least 5,000,000 men, well trained and equipped.

To bridge the sea with ships that we might transport these men to the battle-front and maintain a steady flow of food and munitions for our own and our allies' use.

To stimulate the production of food and munitions, that we might fill the shortage in our allies' lands.

To raise by taxation and loans more money than had been spent by our government since the beginning of its history.

Time pressed. The collapse of all orderly government in Russia meant a threat of increased German armies on the western front. Our allies were calling to us for food, money, men, and munitions. Fortunately for us, their armies held the enemy rigidly, while we prepared to send them succor in an ever-increasing flow.

In a military way we had one great asset, our munition-factories. During the years of our neutrality, answering the demands of Great Britain, France, Russia, and Italy, private enterprise had developed on an enormous scale plants for the manufacture of guns of all sizes, shells, and high explosives — everything, in fact, needed for the equipment of an army. These were at our government's disposal, and those who manned them, from manager and engineer to the workmen at the lathe and forge, became a part of our great patriotic army of defense. Then, too, we had wisely, by government and private enterprise, laid the foundations of a great merchant marine.

Every element in the problem was vital to its solution — army, navy, food, transport, and fi-

THE TASK 25

nance — but when we found ourselves at war the most inunediately pressing question was that of shipping. Manifestly it was impossible for us to conduct a war overseas if we did not have the vessels in which to transport the soldiers and, moreover, our alHes were sorely beset by the ravages of the enemy submarines, and were in grave danger from lack of food, fuel, and metal. The Germans* unrestricted submarine warfare was working havoc with the world's merchant marine, and at the moment when America became a belligerent, German piracy was on the high wave of success. Ships were being sunk at the average rate of more than 600,000 gross tons a month. In the month of April, alone, 893,877 gross tons of the world's merchant fleet were sent to the bottom. There were but two ways to overcome this menace : to conquer the submarines and to build ships. The first warlike act of our government was to send our navy to help our aUies combat the pirates of the underseas.

CHAPTER in

IN discussions of the shipping problem much misunderstanding often results from a confusion of the terms of ship register. The tonregister of a ship, used by all maritime nations, is 100 cubic feet. The gross tonnage of a vessel is the sum in cubic feet of all its enclosed spaces divided by 100.

The net tonnage is the gross tonnage less certain deductions on account of crew quarters, engine-room, water-ballast, and other spaces not used for passengers and cargo.

The dead-weight tonnage, or carrying capacity, is the number of long tons (2,240 pounds) of cargo and bunker-coal that the vessel is capable of carrying when loaded to the load water-line.

Displacement tonnage is the number of tons of sea-water displaced by the vessel when charged to the load water-line.

The dead-weight tonnage of a vessel can be obtained by multiplying the gross tonnage by 1.6.

THE SHIPPING PBOBLEM 27

At the beginning of the war, in 1914, according to the best available figures, there were in the world 45,403,877 gross tons of steam-vessels and 3,685,675 net tons of sailing vessels. Figuring gross for steam and net for sail, this gave a total tonnage of 49,089,552. Of the steam-vessels. Great Britain and her aUies owned 23,638,966 gross tons, and of the sailing, 1,131,- 463 net tons, a total of 24,770,429. At the same date the United States had on the seas, the Great Lakes, and in the Philippines steamers of a gross tonnage of 4,330,078, and sailing ships of a net tonnage of 1,038,116, a total of 5,368,194. Of this American tonnage but a small part was fit for foreign trade.