Wartime service

“ CONSCRIPTION. "If we, in a moment of unthinking panic, adopt the advice of our militarists and develop an Army based on universal service, we shall prepare for ourselves the very situation in which Germany finds itself at this moment. However much we may protest that our aims are pacific, and that our Army is intended only for defensive purposes, foreign nations will view it with alarm, and will reflect that, by the help of our Navy, we can land an armed force in any country that has a sea coast. ”

“ Infantry, artillery, machine-guns, and other branches of the service were awaiting the resumption of the great German drive, by which the enemy were hoping to obtain a victorious decision and give to their brutal government supremacy in the world. ”

“ If we stave off defeat, only with the assistance of allies—all of whom have long ago adopted universal military service in its most rigorous {415} form—we shall have to reckon with their appraisement of the value of our assistance. If we are to judge by Germany's indomitable enterprise during the past two generations, she is likely to recover from the effects of this war at least as rapidly as ourselves. ”

“ Germany, France, or Japan can each mobilize in one month more troops, scientifically trained by educated officers, than this Republic could gather together in three years. In the Franco-Prussian War, Germany mobilized in the field, ready for battle, over half a million soldiers, more than one hundred and fifty thousand horses and twelve hundred pieces of artillery in five days. The United States could not mobilize for active service a similar force in three years. A [Pg 61] modern war will seldom endure longer than this. ”

“ If the war had continued until the next summer, as it was then universally believed it would, the United States would have had ready for service at the front, within two years of its declaration of war, an army of between 6,000,000 and 7,000,000 men, taken from civilian life, trained, equipped and transported across the Atlantic Ocean within that time. ”

“ The French and their allies were no more than well over German-occupied territory, before a whole German air fleet swarmed up and advanced to give battle. They flew high, intending to get above their enemies, and so in the most favorable fighting position. ”

“ There is perhaps no operation of war more difficult than that which this country has to undertake in the embarkation of its army for a continental campaign. It is not merely as regards its personnel; but large reserves of ammunition and stores, and the armaments and equipments of the artillery, engineers, [Pg 11] medical, commissariat, clothing, and other departments have to be embarked, and all so arranged as to be prepared for rapid landing after a long voyage, and possibly in the face of an enemy. ”

“ In measures relating to war, it is wisest, if you err at all, to err on the side of the largest force, and you will consequently put down your thirty-one thousand men at not more than an effective force in the field of about twenty-one thousand. This, with the four thousand now in service, will amount to twenty-five thousand effective men. The secretary of war has stated, in his report, that, for the single purpose of manning your forts and garrisons on the sea-board, twelve thousand and six hundred men are necessary. ”

“ But the war called for money, provisions, and supplies on a vast scale, and even more it demanded endurance, energy, and military experience on the part of the troops. In the almost entire absence of all these, you personally provided and organised everything, drilled those who had reached the age for military service, got together a force of cavalry to match the enemy's, and issued orders for the infantry to persevere in their training. ”

“ So far we have had the advantage on the west, but at great cost. The counter-attacks by the Germans on our troops in the course of the nights have been repulsed with loss.
In the long business of wearing down we have the advantage, both in convenience of supply-service and in freshness and number of troops. But for a decisive issue, in view of the strength of the German position, we may have to hope for the entry of some new factor upon the scene.
The strong winds have dried up the roads to a large extent, and the movement of men and guns is again becoming easier. ”

“ In these great bases, in the marvellous railway organisation, in the handling of the vast motor transport in all its forms, in the feeding and equipment of the British Army, we have the scaffolding and preparation of war, which, both in the French and English Armies, have now reached a perfection undreamt of when the contest began. But the war itself—the deadly struggle of that distant line to which it all tends? It is in the flash and roar of the guns, in the courage and endurance of the fighting man, that all this travail of brain and muscle speaks at last. ”

“ The war affords the Insurgents an opportunity of knowing Foreign Powers, with whom they form connexions, and from whom they receive aid: the war, in fine, destroys, in detail, our little army, either by the fruitless fatigues of a campaign under the present system, or by exposing it to the influence of seduction, to which the apparent remoteness of our success gives but too much room, and the effects of which are felt even amongst the European soldiers, without its being possible for the Government either to replace them or the arms which they generally carry off. ”

“ Day after day the American troops moved slowly forward, over rugged, difficult ground, broken by ravines and steep hills, through dense underbrush, in the face of deadly fire from artillery and nests of machine guns hidden in every vantage point, through incessant rain and mud and fog and penetrating cold, pushing the enemy steadily back, until they reached Sedan, cut the German Army’s most important line of communication, and so brought the end of the war in sight. ”

“ But we have not been in times of peace a military nation. The army has not had the facilities of obtaining the lavish supplies of men and money for its needs which have in times of peace and in the past, to our good fortune at the moment, been so freely given to the navy. And what you have to do now is to make a great army. [Cheers.] You have to make an army under the cover and shield of the navy strong enough to enable our country to play its full part in the decision of this terrible struggle. ”

“ By elevating the small guns the curtain fell farther and farther into the enemy's territory, thus making it possible for the Allies to go on farther and farther across No Man's Land.
The infantry rushed forward, fighting and dying nobly in a noble cause. Position after position was consolidated as the Germans fell back before the rain of shot and shell. It is always this way in an offensive, small or large. The first rush of the attacking side, be it German, French, British, or American, carries everything before it. It is the counter attack that tells. ”

“ In many ways, large and small, their assistance must have proved invaluable. How to interpret orders from above and how to issue them to those below, how to draw stores and how to distribute them, how to organize the signal [246] service and how to ensure a flow of information—these ranked among the greater matters. In quite small things also, help was needed, such as the way to detonate mortar bombs, to equip the infantryman for battle, to organize and use the messenger (i.e., runner) service, and to keep battle stations clear of people who had no urgent business there. ”

“ THE 151st BRIGADE
I. CAMP DEVENS
In April, 1917, the United States declared war against Germany. It was no surprise, but what did it mean? For it is one thing to declare war and another to wage it. We had no army and no ships and three thousand miles of ocean lay between the Yankee and the Hun. We would of course lend money to our allies. Would we give them our men? The answer, thank God, was the draft law which put into being the greatest democratic institution of our country,—the National Army. ”

“ This year on Veterans Day, we celebrate the 80th anniversary of the armistice that finally silenced the guns of World War I. Millions of brave Americans marched into Europe and into the brutality of trench warfare to fight that war. ”

“ In the army and navy no reductions can, with reason, be required. At a moment like this, when all Europe is in arms; when, from the farthest borders of Poland, to the extremities of the Spanish Peninsula, the war-shout has gone forth; when not merely monarchs are at enmity, but nations are in arms! ”

“ Most of us who were at close grips with the Great War will remember the habit of speculation about life on the far side of the front. Somewhere beyond the frontier of trenches, we realized, were our opposite numbers—infantrymen, gunners, aviators, staff officers, mess orderlies, generals, captains, lance-corporals—each according to character, rank, and duties, and to the position he occupied by reason of ability, courage, initiative, old age, self-advertisement, or wire-pulling. ”

“ In the event of invasion by Germany in great force, with a thoroughly equipped army provided with the full complement of field-guns, howitzers, and other necessary equipment, the first contingent of which expeditionary force might readily amount to 150,000 veterans of the late war, where should we stand? ”

“ But the British navy being superior to the German, held Germany in siege.
THE SECOND SUMMER'S CAMPAIGN
Germany must make the best possible use of her comprehensive industrial organization and of her preparedness for war and throw the greatest possible number of men into the fighting line at the earliest possible moment. She was practically in a race against time; and time was with the Allies. While (p. 049) they retained command of the sea the United States and other neutral nations overseas, once their plants for manufacture were completed, could pour out supplies of munitions. ”

“ Infantry, artillery, engineers, the supply services, tanks, the air service, medical service, the high command and the staff, all were American. It was a proud day for the doughboys when showers of leaflets dropped from a squadron of airplanes flying over one day and they read on the printed pages a pledge from American airmen to co-operate with the American fighting men on the ground to the limit of their ability and asked similar co-operation from the foot soldiers. ”

“ Mail, military, aerial and railway services are assigned. The commissary lines are laid and transportation provided for. With marvelous efficiency the full fighting strength, in front and rear, is made ready and co-ordinated.
The psychological effect of mobilization is tremendous. In every household home-ties are broken. The fields are stripped of men. Industry stops. Artillery rolls through the streets, bands play. An atmosphere of apprehension settles down on the country. ”

“ While the making of the army, the building of cantonments, the development of flying fields, the creation of an industry for the supplying of munitions, the building of shipyards and ships, the expansion of the navy, and all the multitude of wartime tasks to which the nation at once turned its energies were being pushed breathlessly forward, a vast development of facilities had to be begun and carried on in France before our army and its supplies could even be landed upon French shores and transported to the front. ”

“ The armies in the East and West acted independently and without concert, like a balky team, no two ever pulling together; enabling the enemy to use to a great advantage his interior lines of communication for transporting troops from East to West, re-enforcing the army most vigorously pressed, and to furlough large numbers, during seasons of inactivity on our part, to go to their homes and do the work of producing for the support of their armies. ”

“ It was not truer that Germany would strike so soon as her rulers were of opinion that the propitious hour had struck, than it was that, when the British Government came to take stock of their resources at the outbreak of war, they would find the Territorial Army to be lacking in the numbers, equipment, training, and discipline, which alone could have fitted it for its appointed task—the defence of our shores against invasion. ”

“ But as years went on the apprehensions to which his early career and expressions gave rise were quieted, and the fear that he would plunge Europe into war vanished. The army and navy began to appear rather a costly plaything of the active young man than an engine of destruction, while it tended in considerable measure to the preservation of peace by rendering Germany a power dangerous to go to war with. ”

“ And then, of course, in addition to the admirals who wanted war, and the professors who glorified war, and the editors, pamphleteers, Navy and Army League leaders and paid agitators who wrote and talked war, there was the German Army, represented by its corps of fifty thousand or sixty thousand officers, which was the living, ineradicable incarnation of war and with every breath it drew sighed impatiently for its coming. ”

“ And to the United States marines, fighting side by side with equally brave and equally courageous men in the American army, to that faithful sea and land force of the navy, fell the honor of taking over the lines where the blow of the Prussian would strike the hardest, the line that was nearest Paris, and where, should a breach occur, all would be lost. ”

“ ORGANIZED BOY POWER VS. MILITARY DRILL
The war has already brought about drastic economic changes in Europe. The recall of men from the trenches to perform a more useful professional and industrial service behind the lines has demonstrated the importance of the supporting civilian army. From the viewpoint of the individual, nothing can equal the supreme sacrifice of a life. "What good," wailed a Yiddish woman on the East Side of New York City, "is a free country to me if my Abie is killed?" ”