History of the world war; an authentic narrative of the world's greatest war including the Treaty of Peace and the League of Nations Covenant

Front matter

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Chapter I. A War for International Freedom rj,au

A Conflict that was Inevitable — The Flower of Manhood on the Fields of France — Germany's Defiance to the World — Heroic Belgium — Four Autocratic Nations against Twenty-four Committed to the Principles of Liberty — America's Titanic Effort — Four MUIion Men Under Arms, Two Million Overseas — France the Martyr Nation — The British Empire's Tremendous Share in the Victory — A River of Blood Watering the Desert of Autocracy 19

Chapter V. The Great War Begins

Germany Invades Belgium and Luxemburg — French Invade Alsace — ^England's "Contemptible Little Army" Lands in France and Belgium — The Murderous Gray-Green Tide — Heroic Retreat of the British from Mons — Belgium Overrun — Northern France Invaded — Marshal Joffre Makes Ready to Strike . . 75

Chapter VI. The Trail of the Beast in Belgium

Barbarities that Shocked Humanity — Planned as Part of the Teutonic Policy of SchrecMichkeit — How the German and the Him Became Synonymous Terms — The Unmatchable Crimes of a War-Mad Army — ^A Record of Infamy Written in Blood and Tears — Official Reports 88

Chapter VII. The First Battle of the Marne

Joffre's Masterly Plan — The Enemy Trapped Between Verdun and Paris — Gallieni's " .\rmy in Taxicabs " — Focb, the "Savior of Civilization," Appears — His Mighty Thrust Routs the Army of Ilausen— Joffre Salutes Foch as "First Strategist in Europe" — Battle that Won the Baton of a Marshal 110

Chapter XIII. Britannia Rules the Waves

German and British Squadrons Grapple off the Chilean Coast — Germany Wins the First Round — England Comes Back with Terrific Force — Graphic Picture of the Destruction of the German Squadron off Falkland Islands — English Coast Towns Bombarded for the First Time in Many Years . . . 201

Chapter XIV. New Methods and Horrors of Warfare

Tanks — Poison Gas — Flame Projectors — Airplane Bombs — Trench Mortars — Machine Guns — Modern Uses of Airplanes for Liaison and Attacks on Infantry — Radio — Rifle and Hand Grenades — A War of Intensive Artillery Preparation — A Debacle of Insanities, Terrible Woxmds and Horrible Deaths . , . 217

Chapter XV. German Plots and Propaganda in America

Trailing the German Plotters — Destruction of Ships — Pressure on Congress — Attacks in Canada — Zimmerman's Foolish Effort to Embroil America with Mexico and Japan — Lies of the Propagandists After America Entered the War — Dumba, Von Bernstorff, Von Papen and Boy-Ed, a quartet of Unscrupulous Destructionists 231

Chapter XVI. Sinking of the Lusitania

The Submarine Murderers at Work — Germany's Blackhand Warning — No Chance for Life — The Ship Unarmed and Without Mimitions — The President's Note — Germany's Lying Denials — Coroner's Inquest Charges Kaiser with Wilful Murder — "Remember the Lusitania" One of America's Big Reasons for Declaring War . . ,- 247

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Chapter XVII. Netjve Chapelle and War in Blood- Soaked Trenches

War Amid Barbed-Wire Entanglements and the Desolation of No Man's Land — Subterranean Tactics Continuing Over Four Years — ^Attacks that Cost Thousands of Lives for Every Foot of Gain 265

Chapter XVIII. Steadfast South Africa

Botha and Smuts, Rocks of Loyalty Amid a Sea of Treachery — Civil War that Ended with the Drowning of General Beyers and the Arrest of General De Wet — Conquest of German Colonies — Trail of the Hun in the Jungle . 280

Chapter XIX. Italy Declares War on Austria

Her Great Decision — D'Anmmzio, Poet and Patriot — Italia L-redenta — German Indignation — The Campaigns on the Isonzo and in the Tyrol . . . 287

Chapter XX. Glorious Gallipoli

a Titanic Enterprise — Its Objects — Disasters and Deeds of Deathless Glory— The Heroic Anzacs — Bloody Dashes up Impregnable Slopes — Silently they Stole Away — A Successful Failure 302

Chapter XXI. The Greatest Naval Battle in History

The Battle of Jutland — ^Every Factor on Sea and in Sky Favorable to the Germans — Low Visibility a Great Factor — A Modern Sea Battle — Light Cruisers Screening Battleship Squadron — Germans Run Away when British Fleet Marshals Its Full Strength — Death of Lord Kitchener 311

Chapter XXII. The Russian Campaign

The Advance on Cracow — ^Von Hindenburg Strikes at Warsaw — German Barbarism — The War in Galicia — The Fall of Przemysl — ^Russia's Ammunition Fails — The Russian Retreat — The Fall of Warsaw — Czemowiti . . 327

Chapter XXIII. How the Balkans Decided

Ferdinand of Bulgaria Insists Upon Joining Grermany — Dramatic Scene in the King's Palace — The Die is Cast — Bulgaria Succumbs to Seductions of Potsdajn Gang — Greece Mobilizes — French and British Troops at Salonild— Serbia Over-nm — Roimiania's Disastrous Venture in the Arena of Mara . . 347

Chapter XXIV. The Campaign in Mesopotamia

British Army Threatening Bagdad Besieged in Kut-el-Amara — ^After Heroic Defense General Townshcnd Surrenders After 143 Days of Siege — New British Expedition Recaptiu-es Kut — Troops Push on up the Tigris — ^Fall of Bagdad, the Magnificent 370

Chapter XXV. Canada's Part in the Great War t.^«i

By Col. George G. Nasmith, C. M. G.

Enthusiastic Response to the Call to Action— Valcartier Camp a Splendid Example of the Driving Power of Sir Sam Hughes— Thirty-three Liners Cross the Atlantic with First Contingent of Men and Equipment— Largest Convoy Ever Gathered Together— At the Front with the Princess Pat's— Red Cross- Financial Aid— Half a Million Soldiers Overseas— Mons, the Last Stronghold of the Enemy, Won by the Men from Canada— A Record of Glory . . . .381

Chapter XXVI. Immortal Verdun

Grave of the Mihtary Reputations of Von Falkenhayn and the Crown Prince — Hindenburg's Warning— Why the Germans Made the Disastrous Attempt to Capture the Great Fortress— Heroic France Reveals Itself to the World— "They Shall Not Pass"— Nivelle's Glorious Stand on Dead Man Hill— Lord NorthcUffe's Description— A Defense Unsurpassed in the History of France 398

Chapter XXVII. Murders and Martyrs

The Case of Edith Cavell — Nurse Who Befriended the Helpless, Dies at the Hands of the Germans — Captain Fryatt's Martyrdom — How Germany Sowed the Seeds of Disaster 409

Chapter XXVIII. The Second Battle of Ypres

The Canadians in Action — Undismayed by the New Weapon of the Enemy — Holding the Line Against Terrific Odds — Men from the Dominion Fight Like Veterans 412

Chapter XXIX. Zeppelin Raids on France and England

First Zeppelin Attack Kills Twenty-eight and Injures Forty-four — Part of Germany's Policy of Frightfulness — Raids by German Airplanes on Unfortified Towns — Killing of Non-Combatants — The British Lion Awakes — Anti- Aircraft Precautions and Protections — Policy of Terrorism Fails .... 417

Chapter XXX. Red Revolution in Russia

Rasputin, the Mystic — The Cry for Bread — Rise of the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates — Rioting in Petrograd — The Threatening Cloud of Disaster — Moderate Policy of the Duma Fails — The Fatal Easter Week of 1917 — Abdication of the Czar — Last Tragic Moments of the Autocrat of All the Russias — Grand Duke Issues Declaration Ending Power of Romanovs in Russia — Release of Siberian Revolutionists — Free Russia 425

Chapter XXXI. The Descent to Bolshevism

Russia Intoxicated with Freedom — EUhu Root and His Mission — Last Brilliant Offensive in Galicia — The Great Mutiny in the Army — The Battahon of Death — Kerensky's Skyrocket Career — Kornilov's Revolt — Loss of Riga — Lenine, the Dictator — The Impossible "Peace" of Brest-Litovsk .... 438

Chapter XXXII. Germany's Object Lesson to the ^^^m United States

Two Voyages of the Deutschland — ^U-53 German Submarine Reaches Newport and Sinks Five British and Neutral Steamers off Nantucket — Rescue of Survivors by United States Warships — ^Anti-German FeeUng in America Reaching a CKmax 459

Chapter XXXIII. America Transformed by War

The United States Enters the Conflict — The Efficiency of Democracy — Six Months in an American Training Camp Equal to Six Years of German Compulsory Service — American Soldiers and Their Resourcefulness on the Battlefield—Methods of Training and Their Results— The S. A. T. C 464

Chapter XXXIV. How Food Won the War

The American Farmer a Potent Factor in CiviUzation's Victory — Scientific Studies of Food Production, Distribution and Consumption — Hoover Lays Down the Law Regulating Wholesalers and Grocers — Getting the Food Across — Feeding Armies in the Field 478

Chapter XXXV. The United States Navy in the War

Licrease from 58,000 Men to Approximately 500,000 — Destroyer Fleet Arrives in British Waters— "We Are Ready Now"— The Hunt of the U-Boats— Gunnery that is Unrivalled — Depth Charges and Other New Inventions — The U-Boat Menace Removed — Surrender of German Under-Sea Navy . . 483

Chapter XXXVI. China Joins the Fighting Democracies

How the Germans Behaved in China Seventeen Years Before — ^The V/hirligig of Time Brings Its Own Revenge — The Far Eastern Republic Joins Hands with the Allies — German Propaganda at Work — Futile Attempt to Restore the Monarchy — Fear of Japan — War — Thousands of Chinese Toil Behind the Battle Lines in France — Siam with Its Eight Millions Defies the Germans — End of Teuton Influence in the Orient 498

Chapter XXXVII. The Defeat and Recovery of Italy

Subtle Socialist Gospel Preached by Enemy Plays Havoc with Guileless Italians — Sudden Onslaught of Germans Drives Cadorna's Men from Heights —The Spectacular Retreat that Dismayed the World— Glorious Stand of the Italians on the Piave — Rise of Diaz 502

Chapter XXXVIII. Redemption of the Holy Land

a Long Campaign Progressing Through Hardships to Glory — General AHenby Enters Jerusalem on Foot — Turkish Army Crushed in Palestine — Battle of Armageddon 50G

Chapter XXXIX. America's Transportation Problems p^qb

Government Ownership of Railroads, Telegraphs, Telephones — Getting the Men from Ti-aining Camps to the Battle Fronts — From Texas to Toul— A Gigantic Sj^stem Working Without a Hitch 513

Chapter XL. Ships and the Men Who Made Them

The Emergency Fleet Corporation — Charles M. Schwab as Master Shipbuilder — Hog Island the Wonder Shipyard of the World — An Unbeatable Record — Concrete Ships — Wooden Ships — Standardizing the Steel Ship — Attitude of Labor in the War — Samuel Gompers an Unofficial Member of the Cabinet — Great Task of the United States Employment Service 520

Chapter XLI. Germany's Dying Desperate Effort

The High Tide of German Success — An Army of Six Million Men Flung Recklessly on the Allies — Most Terrific Battles in all History — The Red Ruin of War from Arras to St. Quentin — Amiens Within Arms' Reach of the Invaders — Paris Bombarded by Long-Range Guns from Distance of Seventy-six Miles — A Generalissimo at Last — Marshal Foch in Supreme Command .... 531

Chapter XLII. Chateau-Thierry, Field of Glory

German Wave Stops with the Americans — Prussian Guard Flung Back — The Beginning of Autocracy's End — America's Record of Valor and Victory — Cantigny — Belleau Wood — Thierry — St. Mihiel — Shock Troops of the Enemy Annihilated — Soldier's Remarkable Letter 545

Chapter XLIII. England and France Strike in the North

Second Terrific Blow of General Foch — ^Lens, the Storehouse of Minerals, Captured — Bapaume Retaken — British Snap the Famous Hindenburg Line — The Great Thrust Through Cambrai — Tanks to the Front — Cavalry in Action 663

Chapter XLIV. Belgium's Gallant Effort

The Little Army Under King Albert Thrusts Savagely at the Grermans — Ostend and Zeebrugge Freed from the Submarine Pirates — Pathetic Scenes as Belgians are Restored to Their Homes 573 l

Chapter XLV/ Italy's Terrific Drive

Enemy Offensive Opens on Front of Ninety-Seven Miles — Repulse of the Austrians — Italy Turns the Tables — Terrific Counter-Thrusts from the Piave to Trente— Forcing the Alpine Passages— Battles High in the Air— English, French and Americans Back up the Itahans in Himabling the Might of Austria — D'Annunzio'a Romantic Bombardment of Vienna — Diaz Leads his Men to Victory , 582

Chapter XLVI. Bulgaria Deserts Germany

Greece in the Throes of Revolution — Fall of Constantine — Serbians Begin Advance on Bulgars — Thousands of Prisoners Taken — Surrender of Bulgaria—

PAOa Panic in Berlin — ^Passage Through the Country Granted for Armies of the

Allies — Ferdinand Abdicates — Germany's Imagined Mittel-Europa Dream

Forever Destroyed 591

Chapter XLVII. The Central Empires Whine for Peace

Austria-Hungary Makes the First Plea — President Wilson's Abrupt Answer — Prince Max, Camouflaged as an Apostle of Peace, made Chancellor and Opens Germany's Pathetic Plea for a Peace by Negotiation — The President Replies on Behalf of all the Allied Powers — Foch Pushes on Regardless of Peace Notes. 603

Chapter XLVIII. Battles in the Air

Conquering the Fear of Death — From Individual Fights to Battles Between Squadrons — Heroes of the Warring Nations — ^America's Wonderful Record — From Nowhere to First Place in Eighteen Months — The Liberty Motor . .611

Chapter XLIX. Health and Happiness of the American Forces Record of the Red Cross on all Fronts — A Gigantic Work Well Executed— Y. M. C. A. — Y. W. C. A. — Knights of Coltmabus — ^Jewish Welfare Association — Salvation Army — American Library Association — Other Organizations — Surgery and Sanitation 622

Chapter L. The Pirates of the Under-Seas

Germany's Ruthless Submarine PoKcy — A Boomerang Destroying the Hand that Cast It — Terrorism that Failed — One Hundred and Fifty U-Boats Sunk or Captured — Shameless Surrender of the German Submarines and of the Fleet They Protected 631

Chapter LI. Approaching the Final Stage

Cutting the Railroads to Cambrai — Americans Co-operate with British in Furious Attack — Douai and St. Quentin Taken — ^The Battle Line Straightened for the Last Mighty Assault — ^All Hope Abandoned by the Kaiser. . . . 640

Chapter LII. Last Days of the War

American Troops Join with the Allies in Colossal Drive on 71-mile Front — Historic Sedan Taken by the Yanks — Stenay, the Last Battle of tl^e War — How the Opposing Forces Greeted the News of the Armistice 643

Chapter LIIL The Drastic Terms of Surrender

Handcuffs for Four Nations — Bulgaria First to Fly the White Flag — ^Allenby's Great Victory Forces Turkey Out — ^Austria Signs Quickly — Germany's Capitulation Complete and HumiUating 648

Chapter LIV. Peace at Last

An TJnfoimded Rumor Starts Enormous Jubilation — Armistice Signed Four Days Later — Kaiser Abdicates and Flees to Holland — Cowardly Ruler Seeks

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Protection of Small Neutral Nation — Looking Into the Future — Cost of War to the Nations — Liberty Loans — Reconstruction Problems — McAdoo Resigns — ^American Ideals in the Old World 660

Chaptek LV. America's Position in Peace and War

President Wilson's Stirring Speech in Congress Which Brought the United States into the War — His Great Speech Before Congress Ending the War — The Fourteen Points Outlining America's Demands Before Peace Could be Concluded — Later Peace Principles Enunciated by the President. . . . 669

The Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Forces Tells the Story of the Magnificent Combat Operations of his Troops that Defeated Prussia's Legions — Official Accoimt Discloses Full Details of the Fighting. . 701

Chapter LIX. President Wilson's Review of the War

a Year in the Life of the United States Crowded with Great Events — Tribute to the Soldiers and Sailors, the Workers at Home Who Supplied the Sinews of the Great Undertaking, the Women of the Land Yv'ho Contributed to the Great Result — The Future Safe in the Hands of American Businessmen. . 720

Summarized Chronology of the War 729

Foreword

THIS is a popular narrative history of the world's greatest war. Written frankly from the viewpoint of the United States and the AUies, it visualizes the bloodiest and most destructive conflict of all the ages from its remote causes to its glorious conclusion and beneficent results. The world-shaking rise of new democracies is set forth, and the enormous national and individual sacrifices producing that resurrection of human equality are detailed.

Two ideals have been before us in the preparation of this necessary work. These are simpUcity and thoroughness. It is of no avail to describe the greatest of human events if the description is so confused that the reader loses interest. Thoroughness is an historical essential beyond price. So it is that official documents prepared in many instances upon the field of battle, and others taken from the files of the governments at war, are the basis of this work. Maps and photographs of unusual clearness and high authenticity illuminate the text. All that has gone into war making, into the regeneration of the world, are herein set forth with historical particularity. The stark horrors of Belgium, the blighting terrors of chemical warfare, the governmental restrictions placed upon hundreds of milHons of civilians, the war sacrifices falling upon all the civiHzed peoples of earth, are in these pages.

It is a book that mankind can well read and treasure.

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CHAPTER I A War for International Freedom

Y FELLOW COUNTRYMEN: The armistice was signed this morning. Everything for which America fought has been accomplished. The war thus comes to an end."

Speaking to the Congress and the people of the United States, President Wilson made this declaration on November 11, 1918. A few hours before he made this statement, Germany, the empire of blood and iron, had agreed to an armistice, terms of which were the hardest and most humiliating ever imposed upon a nation of the first class. It was the end of a war for which Germany had prepared for generations, a war bred of a philosophy that Might can take its toll of earth's possessions, of human lives and liberties, when and where it will. That philosophy involved the cession to imperial Germany of the best years of young German manhood, the training of German youths to be killers of men. It involved the creation of a military caste, arrogant beyond all precedent, a caste that set its strength and pride against the righteousness of democracy, against the possession of wealth and bodily comforts, a caste that visualized itself as part of a power-mad Kaiser's assumption that he and God were to shape the destinies of earth.

When Marshal Foch, the foremost strategist in the world, representing the governments of the Allies and the United States, delivered to the emissaries of Germany terms upon which they might surrender, he brought to an end the bloodiest, the most destructive and the most beneficent war the world has known. It is worthy of note in this connection that the three great wars in which the United States of America engaged have been wars for freedom. The Revolutionary War was for the liberty of the colonies; the Civil War was waged for the freedom of manhood and for the principle of the indissolubility of the Union; the World War, beginning 1914, was fought for the right of small nations to

2 19 self-government and for the right of every country to the free use of the high seas.

More than four million American men were under arms when the conflict ended. Of these, more than two million were upon the fields of France and Italy. These were thoroughly trained in the military art. They had proved their right to be considered among the most formidable soldiers the world has known. Against the brown rock of that host in khaki, the flower of German savagery and courage had broken at Chateau-Thierry. There the high tide of Prussian militarism, after what had seemed to be an irresistible dash for the destruction of France, spent itself in the bloody froth and spume of bitter defeat. There the Prussian Guard encountered the Marines, the Iron Division and the other heroic organizations of America's new army. There German soldiers who had been hardened and trained under German conscription before the war, and who had learned new arts in their bloody trade, through their service in the World War, met their masters in young Americans taken from the shop, the field, and the forge, youths who had been sent into battle with a scant six months' intensive training in the art of war. Not only did these American soldiers hold the German onslaught where it was but, in a sudden, fierce, resistless counter-thrust they drove back in defeat and confusion the Prussian Guard, the Pommeranian Reserves, and smashed the morale of that German division beyond hope of resurrection.

The news of that exploit sped from the Alps to the North Sea Coast, through all the camps of the Allies, with incredible rapidity. ''The Americans have held the Germans. They can fight," ran the message. New life came into the war- weary ranks of heroic poilus and into the steel-hard armies of Great Britain. "The Americans are as good as the best. There are millions of them, and millions more are coming," was heard on every side. The transfusion of American blood came as magic tonic, and from that glorious day there was never a doubt as to the speedy defeat of Germany. From that day the German retreat dated. The armistice signed on November 11, 1918, was merely the period finishing the death sentence of German militarism, the first word of which was uttered at Chateau-Thierry.

Germany's defiance to the world, her determination to

A WAR FOR INTERNATIONAL FREEDOM 21 force her will and her ''kultur" upon the democracies of earth, produced the conflict. She called to her aid three sister autocracies: Turkey^ a land ruled by the whims of a long line of moody misanthropic monarchs; Bulgaria, the traitor nation cast by its Teutonic king into a war in which its people had no choice and little sympathy; Austria-Hungary, a congeries of races in which a Teutonic minority ruled with an iron scepter.

Against this phalanx of autocracy, twenty-four nations arrayed themselves. Populations of these twenty-eight warring nations far exceeded the total population of all the remainder of humanity. The conflagration of war literally belted the earth. It consumed the most civilized of capitals. It raged in the swamps and forests of Africa. To its call came alien peoples speaking words that none but themselves could translate, wearing garments of exotic cut and hue amid the smart garbs and sober hues of modem civilization. A twentieth century Babel came to the fields of France for freedom's sake, and there was born an internationalism making for the future understanding and peace of the world. The list of the twenty-eight nations entering the World War and their populations follow:

Countries. Population.

United States 110,000,000

Austria-Hungary 50,000,000

Costa Rica 425,000

Gautemala 2,000,000

Great Britain* 440,000,000

Honduras 600,000

* Including colonies.

The following nations, with their populations, took no pari in the World War:

Montenegro 500,000

Nicaragua 700,000

San Marino 10,000

Countries. Population.

Abyssinia 8,000,000

Afghanistan 6,000,000

Andorra 6,000

Countries. Population.

Argentina 8,000,000

22 HIST0RY OF THE WORLD WAR

CouKtries. T ' Population.

Paraguay 800,000

Switzerland 3,760,000

Countries. ^ Population.

Monaco 20,000

* Including colonies.

Never before in the history of the world were so many races and peoples mingled in a military effort as those that came together under the command of Marshal Foch. If we divide the human races into white, yellow, red and black, all four were largely represented. Among the white races there were Frenchmen, Italians, Portuguese, English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Canadians, Australians, South Africans (of both British and Dutch descent) New Zealanders; in the American army, probably every other European nation was represented, with additional contingents from those already named, so that every branch of the white race figured in the ethnological total.

There were representatives of many Asiatic races, including not only the volunteers from the native states of India, but elements from the French colony in Cochin China, with Ann am, Cambodia, Tonkin, Laos, and Kwang Chau Wan. England and France both contributed many African tribes, including Arabs from Algeria and Tunis, Senegalese, Saharans, and many of the South African races. The red races of North America were represented in the armies of both Canada and the United States, while the Maoris, Samoans, and other Polynesian races were likewise represented. And as, in the American Army, there were men of German, Austrian, and Hungarian descent, and, in all probabiHty, contingents also of Bulgarian and Turkish blood, it may be said that Foch commanded an army representing the whole human race, united in defense of the ideals of the Allies.

It will be seen that more than ten times the number of neutral persons were engulfed in the maelstrom of war. Millions of these suffered from it during the entire period of the conflict, four years three months and fifteen days, a total of 1,567 days. For almost four years Germany rolled up a record of victories on land and of piracies on and under the seas.

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TERRITORY OCCUPIED BY THE ALLIES UNDER THE ARMISTICE OF NOVEMBER 11, 1918

Dotted area, invaded territory of Belgium, France, Luxembourg and Alsace- Lorraine to be evacuated in fourteen days; area in small squares, part of Germany west of the Rhine to be evacuated in twenty-five days and occupied by Allied and U. S. troops; lightly shaded area to east of Rhine, neutral zone; black semi-circles, bridge-heads of thirty kilometers radius io the neutral zone to be occupied by Allied 4XBaie8

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Little by little, day after day, piracies dwindled as the murderous submarine was mastered and its menace strangled. On the land, the Allies, under the matchless leadership of Marshal Ferdinand Foch and the generous co-operation of Americans, British, French and Italians, under the great Generals Pershing, Haig, Petain and Diaz, wrested the initiative from von Hindenburg and Ludendorf, late in July, 1918. Then, in one hundred and fifteen days of v/onderful strategy and the fiercest fighting the world has ever witnessed, Foch and the Allies closed upon the Germanic armies the jaws of a steel trap. A series of brilhant maneuvers dating from the battle of Chateau-Thierry in which the Americans checked the Teutonic rush, resulted in the defeat and rout on all the fronts of the Teutonic commands.

In that titanic effort, America's share was that of the final deciding factor. A nation unjustly titled the ''Dollar Nation," believed by Germany and by other countries to be soft, selfish and wasteful, became over night hard as tempered steel, self" sacrificing with an altruism that inspired the world and thrifty beyond all precedent in order that not only its own armies but the armies of the Allies might be fed and munitioned.

Leading American thought and American action. President Wilson stood out as the prophet of the democracies of the world. Not only did he inspire America and the Alhes to a military and naval effort beyond precedent, but he inspired the civilian populations of the world to extraordinary effort, efforts that eventually won the war. For the decision was gained quite as certainly on the wheat fields of Western America, in the shops and the mines and the homes of America as it was upon the battle-field.

This effort came in response to the following appeal by the President:

These, then, are the things we must do, and do well, besides fighting ■■ — the things without which mere fighting would be fruitless :

We must supply abundant food for ourselves and for our armies and our seamen not only, but also for a large part of the nations with whom we have now made common cause, in whose support and by whose sides we shall be fighting;

We must supply ships by the hundreds out of our shipyards to cany to the other side of the sea, submarines or no submarines, what will every day be needed there; and —

Abundant materials out of our fields and our mines and our factories

A WAR FOR INTERNATIONAL FREEDOM 25

with which not only to clothe and equip our own forces on land and sea but also to clothe and support our people for whom the gallant fellows under arms can no longer work, to help clothe and equip the armies with which we are co-operating in Europe, and to keep the looms and manufactories there in raw material;

Coal to keep the fires going in ships at sea and in the furnaces of hundreds of factories across the sea;

Steel out of which to make arms and ammunition both here and there;

Rails for worn-out railways back of the fighting fronts;

Locomotives and rolling stock to take the place of those every day going to pieces;

Everything with which the people of England and France and Ital}^ and Russia have usually supplied themselves, but cannot now afford the men, the materials, or the machinery to make.

I particularly appeal to the farmers of the South to plant abundant foodstuffs as well as cotton. They can show their patriotism in no better or more convincing way than by resisting the great temptation of the present price of cotton and helping, helping upon a large scale, to feed the nation and the peoples everywhere who are fighting for their Hberties and for our own. The variety of their crops will be the visible measure of their comprehension of their national duty.

The response was amazing in its enthusiastic and general compliance. No autocracy issuing a ukase could have been obeyed so explicitly. Not only did the various classes of workers and individuals observe the President's suggestions to the letter, but they yielded up individual right after right in order that the war work of the government might be expedited. Extraordinary powers and functions were granted by the people through Congress, and it was not until peace was declared that these rights and powers returned to the people.

These governmental activities ceased functioning after the war:

Food administration;

Fuel administration;

Espionage act;

War trade board;

Alien property custodian (with extension of time for certain duties);

Agricultural stimulation;

Housing construction (except for shipbuilders) ;

Control of telegraphs and telephones;

Export control.

These functions were extended:

Control over railroads: to cease within twenty-one months

after the proclamation of peace.

The War Finance Corporation : to cease to fmiction six months after the war, with fmi^her time for hquidation. The Capital Issues Committee: to terminate in six months

after the peace proclamation.

The Aircraft Board: to end in six months after peace was proclaimed; and the government operation of ships, within five years after the war was officially ended. President Wilson, generally acclaimed as the leader of the world's democracies, phrased for civilization the arguments against autocracy in the great peace conference after the war. ThePresident headed the American delegation to that conclave of world re-construction. With him as delegates to the conference were Robert Lansing, Secretary of State; Henry White, former Ambassador to France and Italy; Edward M. House and General Tasker H. Bliss.

Representing American Labor at the International Labor conference held in Paris simultaneously with the Peace Conference were Samuel Gcmpers, president of the American Federation of Labor; WilHam Green, secretary-treasurer of the United Mine Workers of America; John R. Alpine, president of the Plumbers' Union; James Duncan, president of the International Association of Granite Cutters; Frank Duffy, president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, and Frank Morrison, secretary of the American Federation of Labor.

Estimating the share of each Allied nation in the great victory, mankind will conclude that the heaviest cost in proportion to pre-war population and treasure was paid by the nations that first felt the shock of war, Belgium, Serbia, Poland and France. All four were the battle-grounds of huge armies, oscillating in a bloody frenzy over once fertile fields and once prosperous towns.