Resource Center OLLibrary
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our people sent over large supplies of money, food, and
clothing to relieve distress caused by the war.1
442. The San Francisco Fair; the
Telephone. While the awful struggle was going on, the World's
Fair in San Francisco was opened in 1915 to celebrate the
discovery of the Pacific by Balboa (§ 19) and the completion
of the Panama Canal (§ 440). In preparation for that event a
long-distance line of telephone (§ 373) had been carried
across the continent. Over the wires of that line San Francisco
heard, for the first time, the deep tones of the Liberty Bell
struck in Philadelphia (§ 167), and Philadelphia, in like
manner, heard the bugler in San Francisco as he responded with the
"Star-Spangled Banner." All who listened to those wonderful sounds
felt that now the Far East and the Far West were united as they
had never been united before.
443. The Presidential Election (1916).
There were two chief candidates for the presidency. The Republican
party nominated Charles E. Hughes, an Associate justice of the
United States Supreme Court, who had been governor of New York;
and the Democratic party nominated and elected President Wilson
for a second term.
444. We buy Several Islands. Early in
1917 we purchased St. Thomas and two other very small islands from
Denmark. The group is called the Virgin Islands. They are within
sight of Porto Rico, and with that island they form the "American
West Indies." We made the purchase in order to get possession of
the famous harbor of St. Thomas, because it will be of great value
as a gathering place for the fleets of our navy both in peace and
in war. It is also nearer to the Panama Canal (§ 440) than
any similar harbor on our coast. (See Map facing p. 380.)
445. America enters the Great War. The
terrible conflict in Europe (§ 441), which counted its
combatants and its slain by
1 In June, 1914, the
Crown Prince of Austria was assassinated. The Austrian government
held Serbia responsible for the act, and made certain demands on
Serbia, some of which that kingdom felt obliged to refuse. Austria
attacked Serbia, July 29. Russia prepared to protect the Serbians.
This action became the occasion of the Great European War,
involving five of the leading Powers, besides Serbia and
Belgium.
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millions, gave rise to very serious problems in regard to our
free use of the sea -- a use for which we have always
contended.
In the struggle the German submarines, violating
all laws of war, deliberately destroyed American merchant ships
and American lives.1 Our government protested against
this willful destruction, but it did not stop. Finally (April 2,
1917), President Wilson urged Congress to declare war against the
German government.2 Congress declared war3
and directed the President to employ the entire army and navy of
the United States to push the contest "to a successful
termination." America, England, France, and Russia4
agreed to act together. We had two imperative reasons for entering
the war:
1. To protect our rights, as Americans, against
the attacks of Germany.
2. To uphold the rights of other free and
friendly nations which the Kaiser, and his military forces, had
set out to destroy.
Did we as a nation fully realize what we had
determined to do? Yes, we knew that our Regular Army was less than
130,000 men, while the Kaiser's forces seemed to be well-nigh
endless. We knew that the Kaiser's navy was much larger than ours.
Finally, we knew that when we entered the war we must pour out
money in an almost continuous stream. But we had resolved that no
matter what the cost might be we would, if necessary, raise
millions of men, thousands of millions of dollars, and would build
great fleets of ships to carry on the conflict.
1 The German
submarines, instead of endeavoring to capture these merchant ships
and to save the lives of those on board, ruthlessly sent them to
the bottom, as President Wilson declared, "without warning and
without thought of help or mercy."
2 In his address to Congress
President Wilson said: "We have no quarrel with the German people,
We have no feeling toward them but one of sympathy and
friendship."
3 Declaration of War (April 6,
1917). "Whereas, the Imperial German Government has committed
repeated acts of war against the Government and the people of the
United States of America; therefore be it
Resolved, by the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress
assembled, that the state of war between the United States and the
Imperial German Government which has thus been thrust upon the
United States is hereby formally declared." The vote in the Senate
stood 82 for war to 6 against it, and in the House 373 for war to
50 against it.
4 Russia was an ally until put out of
the war by a revolution; later Italy joined the Allies.
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446. How we got the Men, the Money, and
the Ships. To begin with, a considerable number of young men
volunteered to fight; later we made out a list of the names of all
the men in the United States between the ages of twenty-one and
thirty inclusive -- about ten millions. Then we drafted four
millions of these by drawing lots and sent them to training camps
for six months. These camps, constructed by the government,
consisted of wooden buildings. On an average each camp would
accommodate forty-seven thousand men.
There, day after day, the young soldiers were
drilled in military exercises and maneuvers. It was hard, stern
work, but with opportunity for rest and recreation.1
There a great deal of time was spent in marching and counter
marching; and in learning to understand and obey orders. Much time
was also given to teaching the men how to handle guns and how to
fire accurately at targets. These targets were about the size of a
man and were generally constructed so that they would fall when
hit. In this way every member of a firing squad knew at once when
his bullet struck the mark, for he saw the target drop, just as an
enemy would drop if he was shot through the heart.
Furthermore, there were sham fights with
bayonets far more exciting than football; there were fierce
attacks on trenches bristling with barbed wire; there were wild
combats with hand bombs, and sharp duels with artillery. In short,
every means was taken to have the men learn in their camps what
they would soon have to undertake in dead earnest when they
reached the battlefields of Europe.
But let no one suppose that this arduous system
of drilling converted our new army into mere machine-made troops
who could do nothing but what they were told. On the contrary,
"our boys" gave abundant proof that they could think and plan in
any emergency and that if left to themselves they could fight
their way through.
1 Realizing that "all
work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," our boys in camp had
their athletic games and sports, and their rousing concerts, where
a multitude of strong, manly voices joined in singing patriotic
songs; and they had, besides, their moving pictures and other
entertainments.
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There were thirty-two of these great camps in
different parts of the country, besides special camps for aviators
and other branches of the army. If all these camps had been built
together in one place they would have made a city over twenty
miles square, with a total population of at least four millions
intent on the single thought of how to do their part in winning
the war. Eventually we sent more than half of this number to
France, and we should have sent the rest had not the conflict
ended before they were called for.
As fast as the men finished their training --
and sometimes before they had completed it -- they were crowded on
board transports where they were often packed so tight that they
jokingly said they thought they should have to breathe each
other's breath. When they started on their voyage of three
thousand miles across the Atlantic they knew, as we all did, that
German submarines would be waiting to destroy them. But they also
knew that our warships, or, when necessary, those of Britain or
France, would accompany them and protect them. So thoroughly was
this convoy work done that out of more than two millions of troops
who left our shores, all but a very small number arrived in
safety.
Next, Congress asked the people of our country
for twelve thousand millions of dollars to pay the expenses of the
first year in the war.1
This enormous amount, the largest that our
government had ever asked for since the United States came into
existence, was raised in two ways: first, by taxing, in some form,
the entire population of the country; secondly, by the national
government's issuing Liberty Bonds and War-Savings Stamps, which
were
1 In order that we
may get some idea of what such a demand meant, let us reckon up
the amount in gold (§ 425). A hundred and twenty-eight
20-dollar pieces, worth $2560, will weigh ten pounds, and a ton
will be worth $512,000 Now suppose we load some three ton coal
trucks, each fifteen feet in length, with such gold pieces. One
truck could carry $1,536,000; while a thousand trucks could carry
$1,536,000,000. At that rate it would take between seven and eight
thousand trucks, extending in a straight line over twenty miles,
to deliver the whole sum which Congress called for, namely,
$12,000,000,000. The subsequent expenses of the war more than
doubled the amount mentioned above, and the payment of the
interest on our national debt must increase it further
still.
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bought by multitudes of citizens and by many young people. They
felt that as loyal Americans they ought to use their money to push
the war forward, and they knew that they would receive every
dollar back, with interest, after a certain number of years.
The next question is, How did we get so many
fighting ships and transport ships for carrying on the
war?1 The answer is, We built a very large number of
them, we hired some, we borrowed others from England or France. We
also constructed a fleet of merchant ships. Last of all, we seized
over a hundred German steamships -- several of immense size --
which had taken refuge in our ports before we began the war, in
order to escape capture by British cruisers. These last-mentioned
vessels proved of great use to us; so too did a multitude of small
vessels which we got together early in the war to look out for the
coming of the enemy along the Atlantic coast. This "Mosquito
Fleet" went up and down from Maine to Texas to ward off hostile
submarines or raiders. Watch was also kept, when necessary, on the
Pacific coast. In addition we protected many of our outgoing
transports and merchant vessels by smoke screens, or by disguising
them by painting them with strange stripes and zigzag patterns in
bright colors. These would puzzle the enemy in his efforts to see
whether the ships were armed or not; for if they were armed he
knew he had better not show himself.
All of these measures were effective in some
degree and so proved helpful in checking hostile activities. But
of course our chief reliance was on "our boys in blue" who fought
on board our regular warships. They not only hunted down German
submarines everywhere, but they were always hoping that the day
would come when they might have a pitched battle with the German
fleet. But that fleet wisely preferred to stay quietly in its snug
harbor most of the time, so that we had small chance of meeting
it.
I The government
report states that we had but 344 war vessels when we entered the
contest with Germany, and that when it ended on November 11, 1918,
we had 2003 vessels in our navy, 702 of which were warships of
different kinds.
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Meanwhile our sailors began laying more than
forty thousand mines1 in the North Sea between Norway
and Scotland, a distance of over two hundred miles. This immense
task was in the highest degree difficult and dangerous. The
enemy's submarines were constantly prowling about, trying to
prevent the work. One of them sunk a mine-layer with all its crew.
In like manner a single torpedo could have caused terrible havoc
in any other of our vessels that were heavily loaded with these
mines. All of the men on board knew, while they were laying them,
that they might be hurled into the air by an explosion at any
moment, but none flinched, for, as Captain Belknap, the commander
of the expedition, tells us, their motto was: "Stick to your job
and go up with it!"
447. Our Men reach Europe and
do their Part in the Great War. Our first real act of war was
to send Admiral Sims with a squadron of vessels to join the
British navy in their battle with the German submarines. Next we
sent General Pershing with a part of our Regular Army to Europe --
a thing we had never done before. Pershing's troops landed in
France late in June, 1917. Later we began to send over more men,
including many of our new National Army that we had drafted and
trained at home.
Before it was possible for any considerable
number of our troops to reach Europe very important changes had
taken place there. Russia had risen in revolution and had made
peace with Germany. That act released more than a million German
soldiers who had been engaged in combat with the Russians. They
were at once transferred, as rapidly as the railways could carry
them, to add new strength to the powerful German armies which held
in their grip nearly all Belgium and much of northeastern
France.
The main German forces were at that time
intrenched on the famous Hindenburg Line. (See Map, p. 419.) There
were signs
I Mines. In its
simplest form a submarine mine consisted of a large globe-shaped
iron shell which contained an explosive which would destroy any
vessel that chanced to hit it. The shell floated near the surface
of the water, but was not in sight, and was kept from drifting by
being attached to a rope fastened to a weight which rested on the
sea-bottom.
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that many of the people of Germany were getting restless and
impatient because the war had dragged on so long.
The Kaiser consulted his two chief military
advisers1 and then resolved to begin a number of great
drives against the British
GERMAN BATTLE LINES (MARCH 21 TO JULY 15, 1918)
The so-called Hindenburg Line was a broad
belt of defense, which extended from the North Sea across Belgium
and France to Switzerland, or nearly 470 miles. Its width varied
from 3 to 12 miles. It consisted of an immense number of trenches,
dugouts, tunnels and underground rooms, defended by machine guns,
artillery, and great masses of barbed-wire entanglements and
French forces before any large body of Pershing's soldiers could
hope to reach Europe and come to their assistance.
1 Field Marshal Von
Hindenburg (hin'den-boorg) and General Von Ludendorff
(loo'den-dorf). The admirers of the Field Marshal set up a
gigantic statue of him in wood and then made an "Iron Hindenburg"
of it by driving it full of nails. Hindenburg is a man of iron,
who has always believed that the greatest and most successful
warrior is he who inspires the most abject and widespread terror.
His friend Ludendorff is credited with having planned the five
noted drives which he declared would secure the triumph of the
Kaiser.
