History of the Great War, 1914-1918 by Carlton J. H. Hayes

Author:Carlton J. H. Hayes [Hayes, Carlton J. H.]
Language: eng
Format: azw, epub
Publisher: Lecturable
Published: 2013-01-18T16:00:00+00:00

THE PROBLEM: PREPAREDNESS

Germany had staked everything on the success of her submarine warfare, and the intervention of the United States did not swerve her from her purpose. She realized that the United States was ill prepared for immediate active participation in the struggle in Europe. No matter how energetic the American Government might be, it would certainly take the whole year 1917 for the United States to raise, train, equip, and transport to Europe an army large enough to have any appreciable effect upon the fortunes of the war. Food, munitions, and shipping, in addition to men, would have to be supplied in enormous quantities not only for an American Expeditionary Force but for the Allies also, and as yet America was not ready to fulfill these obligations. It would be the spring of 1981, at the earliest, before Germany need reckon seriously with the United States.

In the meantime Germany would vigorously prosecute her submarine warfare against Great Britain. Ruthlessly would she seek to destroy every merchant vessel endeavoring to enter or leave a British port, and in this way she would destroy Allied shipping, put a practical embargo on British industry and trade, deprive the Allied armies of munitions and supplies, and starve out the civilian population of the United Kingdom. If all went well for the Germans, Great Britain would be brought to terms; and once Great Britain submitted, France and Italy and Russia would have to sue for peace. And with Allied shipping destroyed and with the Allies submitting to the inevitable, there would be neither means nor purpose of transporting an American Expeditionary Force to Europe. American intervention, Germany thought, could not be effective before the spring of 1918, and then it would be too late. Perhaps Germany was again over-optimistic, but at any rate the Allies themselves were worried. They trembled when they tried to face the question. Could the United States complete preparedness before Germany had succeeded in her unrestricted submarine warfare? No sooner had the United States declared war against Germany than special missions visited America from England and France – the British mission headed by Foreign Secretary Balfour, and the French by Ex-Premier Viviani and Marshal Joffre. These missions explained the dire situation confronting the Allies and the urgent need for the United States not only to dispatch supplies of all sorts to their countries and to assist in averting the submarine danger but to rush large armies to France, if not immediately to engage in the actual fighting, at least to reassure the Allied troops that the United States was really in the war and thus to strengthen their morale. The response was sympathetic and enthusiastic.

It is perhaps regrettable that the American Government did not take advantage of the exigencies of the Allies and the visit of the foreign missions to make full participation of the United States in the war conditional upon the formal repudiation by the Entente of all existing "secret treaties." If this had been done, most probably

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