The United States in the great war

Front matter

THE UNITED STATES IN THE GREAT WAR

•LAFAYETTE, WE ARE HERE"

Marshal JofFre applauding the words of General Pershing at Lafayette's Tomb on the Fourth of July, 1917. These simple words travelled instantly around the world and became imperishably famous

Chapter I

Situation in Europe When tiie United States Entered the War — List of the Warring Nations — Our People's Aversion to War — Sympathy for France — Effect of German Atrocities — The German Submarine Campaign — The Sinking of the Lusitania — The Diplomatic Discussion — The Presidential Election — Germany's Arrogant Defiance — The Declaration of War I

CHAPTER H

Our National Unpreparedness — The Struggle Over Conscription — Forces Opposed to the Draft — Scene at the First Drawing of Numbers — Mobilization of the National Army — Lack of Supplies — Work of the War Welfare Societies — Life in the Cantonments — The Soldiers' Food — Sports and Games — Military Training — Life in the Foreign Camps 21

CHAPTER HI

The Lack of Ships — The Interned German Fleet — Efforts to Disable It — The Voyage of the Transports — Losses by Attack — Our Naval Ports in France — A Training Camp in England — Instruction in Real War — First Days in the Trenches — The First American Dead

CHAPTER IV

The First Americans to Go — Work of our Ambulance Corps — The Commission for the Relief of Belgium — Our Men in the French Foreign Legion — The Lafayette Escadrille — Our Fighters in the Air — The Martyrs 67

CHAPTER V

Military Operations During the First Year of the Participation of the United States in the War — The Fighting on the Western Front — The Tanks — German Atrocities in France — The Italian Front — The Disaster on the Isonzo — Venice Imperiled — ^The Mesopotamian Campaign — Taking of Jerusalem — Had the Allies Lost the War? 85

CHAPTER VI

General Pershing Arrives in Europe — ^A Torpedo Attack — Training Soldiers in France — Early Fighting — Battle of Seicheprey — Hovy an Attack is Planned — Capture of Cantigny — Bouresches, Vaux, and Chateau-Thierry — The Marines at Belleau Wood . . log

CHAPTER VII

The Allies Take the OfFensive^Clearing the Soissons-Rheims Salient — Americans at Chateau-Thierry — Beginning of the Great German Retreat — Who Won the War? — Services of Each Nation — British Victories in Picardy — The Fallacy (?) of Devastation 133

■ifci

CONTENTS

PAGE

CHAPTER VIII

The Russian Revolution — Cause of the Revolt — German Intrigue Involved — The Shifting Control of Russian Affairs — Kerensky, Lenine, and Trotzky — Social Conditions in Russia — Rise of the Czecho-Slovaks — The Allies' Siberian Expedition — The Murman Peninsula — Position of the United States Government — The Outlook 155

CHAPTER IX

Where Teutonic Dissolution Began — The War in the South East — Bulgaria Surrenders — The Downfall of Turkey — British Victories in Palestine — Italy Regains Her War Strength — Fighting on the Piave — The Smash-up of Austria-Hungary — Aspirations of Subject Peoples — Remaking the Map of Europe — Some of the More Perplexing Problems 179

CHAPTER X

The St. Mihiel Salient — The First Independent American Operation on a Large Scale — Character of the Fighting — The Great Pincers — In the Forest of the Argonne — The Lost Battalion — Pressing on the Border Line of Germany — Distress of the Enemy — The Armistice — Flight of the Kaiser — Revolution in Germany 209

CHAPTER XI

The Navy in the War — Its Rapid Growth — The Great Training Camps — The Destroyers—Losses of Fighting Ships— The Aviation Corps— The Fleet in the North Sea — The Fighting Marines — Surrender of the German Fleet 239

CHAPTER XII

The Armistice — The Extent of the German Defeat — Terms of Surrender — Were the Allies Too Lenient? — The Advance Into Germany — Our Troops at Coblenz and Treves — Temper of the German People— The Measure of the Kaiser's Crime — The Peace Conference — President Wilson and the League of Nations — Losses of the World in Men and Money— Chronology 209

Introduction

THIS account of the participation of the United States in the Great World War is given to the pubhc at the moment when representatives of all the nations are gathered in the historic halls of Versailles to formulate a treaty of peace which shall, so far as human foresight will permit, prevent in future any recurrence of the calamity which overwhelmed Christendom in the last four years.

The monumental palace built by kings for their own glory, and to house their obsequious courts, is to serve as the manger wherein to lay the babe of a worldwide democracy.

The great hall, which less than half a century ago resounded with the acclaims of those who, on the ruins of France, established the German Empire and committed its fortunes to the Imperial house of Hohenzollern, will now witness the disintegration of that empire, while the head of the fallen house lies in exile in a foreign country — a suppliant for the protection of a nation which only a few months ago he planned to rob.

In 1871 the halls of Versailles witnessed the apotheosis of the sword. To-day they behold the endeavors of those who have won by the sword to establish for the future a wiser, more humane, more Christian method of settling disputes among nations.

The United States was late in its entrance upon the war, but first of all the nations outside of France, to send its delegates to the peace conference. In these correlated facts there is a significance readily discernible by those who will stop to give them due consideration.

Ours has never been a military nation. We have had our wars — five of them in our 130 years of national existence. But they have been unsought wars, forced upon us by conditions which we patiently strove to correct before taking up the sword. The measure of our aversion to war may fitly be judged by the complete unpreparedness for war which has attended our every entrance upon hostilities — and this last one more than any.

The United States gave formal notice of its entrance upon the prodigious struggle just ended after it had raged for two years and six months. Yet with the conflagration thus furiously roaring in our full view, and its sparks falling fast upon our territory to our own hurt, we made no preparation to join those who were doing their best to put it out. When belatedly convinced that, unless subdued, the flames of war would carry us down with the rest in one universal disaster, we had to begin preparations to take part in the fight from the very bottom. If the period of our participation in actual conflict was but brief, and indeed it scarcely exceeded six months, it was the fierce rush to fit ourselves to fight which showed most the temper, of which the nation was made, and most impressed the enemy with the irresistible character of this last new and terrible force that he had aroused.

In the body of this book I have discussed briefly the futile question as to what nation won the war, and have shown that to each of the several belligerents on the side of the Entente is due so much of the credit that exclusive glory can be the meed of none.

As these words are being written the question before the world has less to do with the history of the fighting that is past, than with the question of the form of peace which is very present. If the United States was late upon the battlefield her envoys were early at the peace conference. By the persgnal presence there of the President of the United States ours was made a delegation that need yield nothing in point of

INTRODUCTION

dignity to that of any other nation. The position they held of complete detachment from any selfish national interest or amhition justified the anticipation that they would stand foremost as the representatives of peace with justice, a peace which should be permanent and mark the end of war. To this the President of the United States, alike as chief executive of the nation and in his capacity as a member of the Peace Conference, is committed. Back of him, so far as may be judged from the expressions of the newspapers of the country, the people stand as a unit in the conviction that such a peace can only be successfully established and permanently maintained by means of a League of Nations. The suggestion of such a league I think may fairly be said to have originated in the United States. If its actual creation shall be due to our influence in the Versailles Conference whatever there may be of regret for the tardiness of our appearance in the war may well be assuaged by the reflection that this great boon to humanity was due to American endeavors.

It is as yet too early to determine the extent to which the war waged for the protection of democracy may extend the system of democracy throughout the world. At this moment Russia is in complete anarchy, and Germany apparently on the verge of civil war. The duties of the Peace Conference are made mexpressibly more difiicult by the fact that a great part of the territory, and of the people with whom it has to deal, is now without responsible government, a prey to disorder and to revolution. No great war ever ended without a prolonged period of precisely such unrest and turmoil. But we may well believe that out of this present chaos will be evolved a wider measure of democracy, a more just reorganization of society in the countries aff^ected, and a peace that shall be enduring because it will be guaranteed by a League of Nations systematically organized, and directed by a code which shall have been formulated by the best representatives of democratic principles to-day.

The author desires to express his obligation to the corps of brilliant and devoted journalists who served as war correspondents during the progress of the struggle now ended. While the fighters made history, these writers recorded it. In many instances their letters from the front, written under the most trying circumstances, in waterlogged trenches, dark and dismal dugouts, on the seat of a speeding lorry, or in some shell-torn hut with the guns roaring about them, had all the vivacity and spirit of well wrought literary productions. The work of such men as Philip Gibbs, Percival Gibbons, Frederick Palmer and Edwin L. James gave to readers of English throughout the world so vivid, picturesque and graphic an idea of the world conflict day by day that there is left to the historian little except the task of harmonizing conflicting reports and describing the broader strategy of the war of which the correspondent cannot be informed. At the beginning of the war it was the policy of the military authorities of ail nations to bar the correspondents from the front and to circumscribe rigidly their freedom of expression. As the war progressed this policy was gradually abandoned. It is perhaps the best testimonial to the position which the capable and earnest correspondent bears in relation to the operations of the army to which he is accredited that these restrictions should have been relaxed, and the end of the war should have found the correspondents given every facility for observing and recording its progress.

Willis J. Abbot.

Jan. lo, 1919.

THE UNITED STATES IN THE GREAT WAR

CHAPTER I

SITUATION IN EUROPE WHEN THE UNITED STATES ENTERED THE WAR — LIST

OF THE WARRING NATIONS OUR PEOPLe's AVERSION TO WAR SYMPATHY

FOR FRANCE— EFFECT OF GERMAN ATROCITIES THE GERMAN SUBMARINE

CAMPAIGN THE SINKING OF THE "lUSITANIa" THE DIPLOMATIC DISCUSSION

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION GERMANY'S ARROGANT DEFIANCE THE

DECLARATION OF WAR

THE United States entered upon the Great War in Europe when, on the 6th of April, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson signed the war resolutions which had been adopted by the House of Representatives that morning, and by the Senate two days earlier.

All Europe, and part of Asia and Africa as well, was at that moment in the grip of war. The German armies seemed to be securely established in France and Belgium. Russia was in the throes of revolution, and had ceased to be a factor in the war activities of the Allies. What might come of the overthrow of her government, and the attempt to erect upon its ruins a new edifice of democracy it was too early to tell. It was not, however, too early to recognize the fact that as an aid to the Allies Russia could no longer be counted upon. At various points along her battle line in the east her soldiers were fraternizing with the Germans and Austrians in their front. The revolutionary powers, sedulously encouraged by Germany, were breaking down military discipline in the army so that soldiers no longer obeyed or even saluted their officers. The great divisions at the front were melting away, as the soldiers were told by foreign intriguers that those who hastened home would be given tracts of land in the distribution of the property of the privileged classes which the revolutionary government had begun. Even at the moment it was clear that Russia could no longer be relied upon to keep the Central Powers busy along the eastern battle-front, and, as the months rolled by, the extent of the Russian defection, and the degree to which the intrigue of Germany with the revolutionary leaders had fomented it, convinced military men that the Allies must fight out their fight without hope of further assistance from that enormous state now fallen for the time into the grip of anarchy.

As a result of the Russian withdrawal the armies of both Germany and Austria along the eastern front were freed from any apprehension of the armies of the Czar, and were able to concentrate their assaults, upon those more western forces still actively in the field. The effect of this was shown most disastrously in the check which the Austrians were able to put to the triumphant progress of the Italian forces which had fought their way gallantly into Austrian territory, through the difficult passes of the

© Harris ^.- Ewing

Count Johann H von BernstorfF, the former German Ambas-

Dolomite and Julian Alps, had taken Goiitzia and menaced the interior of Austria, and even Germany, through the Austrian back door. Freed from further apprehension of Russia Germany was able to send troops to Austria's aid, and held the Italians in check, until by the devious devices of intrigue and trickery their defensive power was undermined and a serious defeat threw their armies back into their own territory for a prolonged defensive.

In the region of the Balkans the moment of the entrance of the United States showed nothing encouraging to the Allied cause. Greece had not yet finally thrown off the domination of her pro-German King Constantine and his army, lurking in the rear, had made impotent the joint French and British army at Saloniki, so that the Germans and Austrians had been able to sweep down upon Serbia and overwhelm that people in an invasion which for ferocity and barbarity has perhaps never been paralleled in the history of war. Turkey, meantime, had every reason to be exultant. She had beaten back the British from the Dardanelles, though later revelations show that had the invaders made but one more effort they must have succeeded. Farther to the south, in Mesopotamia, the forces of General Maude had just taken Bagdad thus wiping out to some extent the memory of the loss of the British force under General Townshend at Kut-el-Amara. But for the moment the British operations in this part of Asia Minor seemed none too promising, for the revolution in Russia had put an abrupt end to the progress of the Russian armies about Lake Van, which prior to that outbreak had been pressing gallantly forward and giving every indication of ability to beat back the Turks and effect a juncture with the British forces.

Returning to the western front we find that the German grip upon France and Belgium appeared unshaken, though for the moment the German armies under Hindenburg were engaged in a retreat, undertaken for strategic purposes. Yet this retreat was not wholly voluntary, for almost at the moment when the American congress was debating war the British had struck the foe savagely near Arras and had driven hini back with heavy

© Harris & Ewing

Captain Von Papen, Germany's Military Attache in this country who characterized us in a letter as "Idiotic Yankees"

losses. Verdun was successfully continuing the gallant defense by which for more than two years it had upheld the French watchword, "They shall not pass," while Paris in a new security, destined to be rudely shocked nearly a year later, had settled down to the conviction that the advance of the foe had been permanently checked far from her city gates.*

Such, then, roughly outlined, was the situation of the principal belligerents in the main theatre of war when the United States, after prolonged hesitation, determined to enter the conflict on the side of the Entente Allies.

There were at the moment, after the United States declared war upon the Central Powers, engaged in the war upon Germany and her Allies twelve nations, namely: Great Britain, France, Russia, Belgmm, Serbia, Japan, Italy, Montenegro, San Marino, Portugal, Rumania, and the United States. Their population exceeded 977,260,000 people.

Against these were marshalled the Central Powers, namely: Austria, Germany, Turkey, and Bulgaria. The forces opposed to the Entente Allies numbered at the moment of the entrance of the United States 156,572,000. But the disparity in numbers was more apparent than real. It has already been explained that the Russian revolution eliminated that nation from the list of effective belligerents. Serbia and Rumania had been put out of action by overwhelming defeat. Japan had never taken the slightest part in the fighting in western Europe where the war was to be decided, and even her naval services in the Pacific were of little value in view of the dominant strength of the British navy. Portugal contributed little to the course of the fighting and naturally such pigmy nations as Montenegro and San Marino were without military significance. And the predominance of British population is due to the incorporation in it of the teeming millions of India, and of British colonies in Asia and Africa whose part in the war bore no just proportion to the numbers of their inhabitants. It is fair to say that prior to the entrance of the United States the Entente Powers were outnumbered in actual fighting population, as they were almost in-

*A full description and history of the progress of the war which had reached this stage at the time of the entrance upon it of the United States will be found in the author's earlier volume "The Nations at War."

en,

Captain Karl Boy-Ed, the former German Naval Attache

variably outnumbered on every field of battle. The latter condition, however, was due more to the fact that the Germans had the advantage of a central position, and short interior lines, than to the disparity in total man-power between the two groups of belligerents.

After the entrance of the United States upon the war many other nations followed her into the conflict. Among them were Cuba, Panama, Greece, Siam, China, Brazil, and Peru. None of these contributed especially to the strength of the Allies unless it were Greece. Brazil, through the activity of her navy, was of some assistance in patrolling the seas.

Immediately upon the first outbreak in Europe President Wilson issued his proclamation of neutrality, and called upon the people of the United States to observe neutrality "in thought and deed." That was a task difficult of fulfilment. Indeed as the months wore on it became impossible. While it was quite true that among our people was a great body of German-Americans, as those either of German birth or immediate German lineage were called, the dominant intellectual forces in the nation were almost from the

UNITED STATES IN THE GREAT WAR "Barred Zones" and "Safety Lanes" Outlined in Germany's Note.

very outset favorably inclined to the Allies. They openly declared their sj^mpathy, and, to a very great degree, advocated the entrance upon the war on the Allied side.

Beyond doubt it was the large admixture of English lineage and blood among our people which caused this attitude on the part of a section of the populace, numerically small but exerting an influence beyond its numbers. In the roster of those who urged incessantly the taking up of arms by the United States English names not only predominate — they almost monopolize the list. But in addition to the distinctly pro-British sentiment thus manifested there was a very wide-spread feeling of earnest sympath; for France. Republics may, as the maxir has it, be ungrateful, but the sentiment o affection and gratitude to France springin. from the aid she extended to us in our Revo lutionary War is wide-spread among th American people, despite the large admixtur among them in these latter days of foreigi elements ignorant of our earlier history Two incidents of the war fitly indicated th extent of this policy among our people.

One of the many gallant and culture( American boys who, even before their owi nation entered the war, joined the FrencJ army as aviators and laid down their live

German destrojerb and submarine chasers lymg m a foreign harbor in that service, was Kiffen Rockwell. "I pay my part for Lafayette and Rochambeau" he answered proudly when someone asked him on the flying field in France what he was doing in a French uniform when his country clung to cold neutrality:

And later when the flood of American soldiers began pouring into France General John J. Pershing, Commander of the American Expeditionary Force, was taken to visit the tomb of Lafayette. Advancing he laid a wreath upon the sarcophagus with the brief and simple words which the whole world found eloquent,

"Lafayette, zve are here .'"

The heart of France, sorely burdened, though not crushed, under the heavy hand of the foe, revived at these words of promise, and Christendom rejoiced that opportunity had been given to a soldier of the United States to speak them.

This feeling of loyalty to the England whence our forefathers had come, and to the France which had helped us to win our independence, were dominant forces in bringing the United States into the war. That

France had helped us against England did not in the least embarrass those who fell that now was the time when we should fight shoulder to shoulder against a common foe For that common foe was Germany, and history showed that it was a German kin§ on England's throne, an alien monarcf scarce able to speak the English tongue, whc forced our forefathers into revolt and strovt to crush English liberty in the Englisli colonies. The English people, and theii most representative figures in parliament, were with the American colonists in theii struggle for liberty — and the wisest and most philosophic of Englishmen to-day admit that the fight which won American hbertj saved English liberty as well.

The effect of such considerations upon American public sentiment favoring wai upon Germany was enormously enhanced by the news of the frightful atrocities committed by the Germans in their march through Belgium. These atrocities, unparalleled ir the records of modern warfare — unless it be by the barbarities perpetrated by the Germans themselves in the march to Pekin, t the time of the Boxer rebelHon in China —

ocked the civihzed world. The callous

pvernment of the Kaiser, seemingly in-

apable of comprehending the fact that the

ilation of women, and the wholesale slaugh-

er of inoffensive civiHans could arouse an

ntagonism throughout the world that might

e fatal to Germany, at first did not take

he trouble to deny commission of the

rimes. Later it strove to excuse them as the

ecessary accompaniments of a state of war.*

To the indignation which the atrocities

ommitted by

jhe German

I r m y had

iroused in the

[iVmerican mind

|yas added the

wrath awaken-

Sd by the course f the German u b m a r i n e ampaign. In he end this ssault upon lur rights on he high seas 7as made by the President lie reason for declaring war ikpon Germany. iFechnically, it ivas perhaps Ihe determin-

Eig cause, but o observer f the slow Awakening of thewar spirit in the United States can lioubt that resentment f o r ':he unspeakable barbarities of Germany in the war, and determination that German military autocracy should not overwhelm the democracies of England and France had quite as much to do with it as had the German assault upon our commerce.

Indeed it was rather the manner of the German submarine campaign than the fact that it was prosecuted that stung the American people into war. It is perfectly conceivable that the Germans might have so used their U-boats as to have accomplished nearly as much as they did toward destroying British commerce, shutting off supplies of munitions, and bringing England to the verge

: *For a more comprehensive account pf German atrocities see "The Nations at War," p. ig.

A typical American-built submarine chaser. These small craft were turned out by the thousands and were ever ready to make it hot for any enemy submarine which visited our waters. Several such visitors never returned to their bases.

of starvation, without spurring America to the fightmg point.

But the same criminal fatuity which prevented their resting content with having stolen Belgium without inflicting unspeakable tortures upon its people, made it impossible for the Germans to prosecute their submarine warfare \n accordance with the humane dictates of the law of nations.

was destined to become one of our chielJ causes of complaint against the Kaiser's government. Had Germany, on her part, carefully observed the dictates of the law of the nations on the sea, while calmly and steadily pointing out the infractions of it, by Great Britain, 1917 might have told ^< different story. I

Instead of this, maddened by the spectaclet

Life savers at Whitby hauling in the litehoat which made several \ain attempts to reach the hospital ship Rohilla. sunk off the

east coast of England

There was beyond doubt a certain sympathy for Germany at sea among the American people. To their sporting spirit the hopeless inferiority of the German navy to that of Great Britain gave to the effort to accomplish something by means of the pigmy undersea boats an element of peculiar gallantry. Moreover, the desire of the British to suppress trade with Germany at every point led that nation, with its great naval supremacy, to establish rules of blockade that were not in precise compliance with the hitherto accepted laws of nations, and which at times caused loss to American citizens using the high seas in thorough accord with international law.

Such resentment against Great Britain as was aroused by these methods in the United States was artfully stimulated and extended by that German propaganda which of enormous neutral fleets bringing to her enemies cannon, shells, high-explosives, arms, uniforms, and all imaginable munitions of war, she cast off all restraint and sent out her submarines to prey on the ships not of her foes alone, but of the neutral nations, among which the United States was the greatest.

And more than this. While Great Britain had invaded the property rights of our people, causing them some loss and great inconvenience, the submarine campaigns of Germany were directed against life as well as property, and before the United States sprang to war more than 220 of her people had been sacrificed to the mad savagery of the submarines.

The proclamation by the German Government of its creation of a "war zone," comprehending all the waters immediately surrounding the British Isles and her announced intention of destroying all enemy vessels found within that zone, "without its always being possible to warn the crew or passengers of their danger," first forced upon our Government recognition of the gravity of the German menace to the rights of neutrals on the high seas.

The United States instantly protested.

submarine, the Germans urged, were forced to come to the surface, and dispatch a boat to examine the papers of a suspected craft before destroying her, it was always possible that naval aid summoned by wireless by the victim would destroy the submarine itself. As for putting the passengers and crew in safety that, according to the humane view of the Boches, was amply accomplished by

German submarines lying at their docks at Wilhelmshaven

It denounced the whole theory of a "war zone." It restated the principle of international law that a suspected vessel shall not be destroyed until she has been visited and her belligerent character, or the contraband quality of her cargo established by due examination. Even then she may not be sunk until her passengers and crew have been placed in safety.

The response of the German Government, adhered to until the collapse of that government as the result of its utter defeat in the war, was that all established principles of international law should yield to the peculiar qualities and needs of the submarine boat. These boats, it pointed out, were small, weak both structurally and defensively, able to perform their functions only when unseen, or at least when exposed to view for only the briefest possible time. If a crowding them into open boats, hundreds of miles from shore in the bleakest and stormiest gales of midwinter.