1918 OR 1919?

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 48, 20 August 1917, Page 2

1918 OR 1919?

AMERICA'S MILITARY

EFFORT

TREMENDOUS DIFFICULTIES

AHEAD

The writer of this article, in Land and Water (Frank H. Symonds, Associate Editor of the New York Tribune), is America's most eminent military critic. He has recently returned to- New York from an extended tour along fto Western Front. The military difficulties that con-

front America are stated here plainly.

j It is with great hesitation that any | American will speak to a British audience upon America's prospective military effort in the war. because he is conscious of the fact that what America has to do to-day, Britain has done, and that the method by which the great work of arming a democracy is accomplished is known to the British nation and as yet remains unknown to the American people. The military situation of the United SUtes to-day is comparable with that which Great Britain's would have been in August, 1914, had there been no Expeditionary Army and had England had no Boer 'War in her relatively recent years. While we have a regular army which numbered about one hundred thousand before the present recruiting began, and a militia, force theoretically of about equal strength, the utmost that could at' the present moment be drawn ;from the regular army for foreign service would be a division and a half. The balance is necessarily occupied in coast defence, garrisons, and in the garrisoning of overseas possessions. The militia is not comparable in efficiency or organisation with the British Territorials of the before-tiie-wa-r period. In the matter of artillery, the United States Army has not enough three-inch guns to equip an army corps for foreign 1 service. It has no guns available comparable with the German 5.9 pieces. In the matter of aviation, we have only a few, slow aeroplanes, and we have none armed and no present system of arming them.

If one.is to face the question of American participation in the war, it is .necessary to recognise that, allowance being made for a division and a half of tho regular army which may be soon sent to France, all American preparation must start at (-.he beginning of things. We have available many millions of yood material, almost none of it with any military' instruction. We have no reserves of officers comparable even to that of British reserves drawn out of overseas garrisons and from the Indian Army.

Such general officers as we have are without any training in the handling of men larger than a regiment, or at most a brigade. No fully equipped division ha* been used in the American Army since the Civil War. The training of the American Army in the Philippines and in the Spanish War has not been of .1 sort to give even .'that degree of familiarity with military operations .which British officers acquired in the South African Wai'.

On the other hand, it is a hopeful sign that at the outset of the war. the United States has adopted conscription. This assures us, without Jong delay, of a very large immediate supply of manpower, but the question of how this manpower will be organised is one that is at the present moment open to the widest discussion. There is a very considerable element, particularly in the General Staff, which desires to see the training done in the United States and to delay the transport of these troops to Europe until at the end of such training. The theory is that in that fashion an American blow can be delivered effectively by an American Army.

Thanks to Marshal Joffre, this idea, which seems to wholly fallacious, has been rudely shaken. There is a growing appreciation that not in one year, and perhaps not in two, would it be possible to train men in this country and give them the instruction that would make thenl available for effective service on the Western- front. There is a growing appreciation that only through the assistance of British and French officers aJid by the use of training schools under Hie direction of French and British officers, can the American Army be properly prepared with sufficient promptness to enable them to take part in a campaign of 1918.

Oar Allies in Britain and in France can do no more useful thing to farther the common cause and to accelerate the speed of American preparation than by contributing to the knowledge oi the American people about the actual conditions under which men are trained, and by supplying illustrations from the mistakes jof both France and England which will break down the prejudices against sending untrained troops to European training camps.

It would be impossible to exaggerate the readiness and the willingness of the mass of the American people to contribute their share, not alone in money, ships, and food, but also in man-power, in so far as they know that the men are needed. More than. anybody in Europe can realise, the war has been misunderstood aiid disregarded in America, even by professional soldiers. America's ultimate effort will be in pro-- 1 portion to her resources and her wealth, but whether America participates in the campaign of 1918 or not must depend upon the degree to which tjje American people are educated to understand that American participation is essential, and what the training of a civilian population means, and how impossible it is to train such a population with none of the instruments and none of the conditions at hand.

It seems to me that if the. facts can be put before the- American people in time, it will be possible to send not less than six or seven divisions to Europe between now and next April, if transport can be found. ,It will be impossible to provide these divisions her© with artillery and with many of the other necessary adjuncts to modern war. It will be impossible to train them here in anything but the merest preliminaries. Such things as bomb practice, trenchdigging, and wave-attacks are out of the question, and it seems to me inevitable that at least six months of additional training in Europe will be necessary before any of these troops, with a- possible exception of one division of the regular army, could be put at the front, although I know that the French accomplished miracles with the Russian division at Camp de Mailly. The English people must recognise at the outset that no matter how earnestly America tries, her military progress will be .slow, and' the same sympathetic understanding which the French had for Britain's difficulties in training her armies will have to be extended to the American Army. The American people have adopted conscription with a readiness which has surprised those of us who have most earnestly advocated it. The American people are to-day ta-lriug up the question of sending armies to Europe iv a fashion that no ono would have suspected a. year ago. There is an earnestness. there is a desire that America, shall do her full duty in the matter of supplying mfin, which is quite the most hopeful iign of vetant -yaarn. But, there ii ,"Q I machinery in existence for accomplishing

that -which the nation wishes to have accomplished. We have some millions of men and a bare handful of officers, without the smallest experience in the handling, not of army corps, not of divisions,- not of brigades, but for the most not even of regiments, and we have no considerable amount of information supplied since the war began. It is useless to speak now of American military effort in the- terms of armies that will bs effective in 1918. Such, troops as wo may be able to send to the front before 1919 will bo only a sign of our determination to send armies, and will be a moral rather than a material contribution.

This great American democracy means to transform itself into an effective military machine for the common cause. Its failures will be exactly the failures that the British people have known in their own caee, larger perhaps because of a, far less considerable military establishment or undertaking at the outset. America is in the war, and America feels herself in the war with a determination and an eagerness to do a proportionate part, but it depends very considerably on the help, sympathy, and advice of our British and French Allies how soon and how great America's part will be.

There is one other point that "I mention with some hesitation, but it seems to me that considerable harm will be done in America if each minor success of the Allies, however valuable and promising, is magnified into a sure sign of German collapse. It is the view of most military observers -in America that the war will go another year at least. It is, on that basis that we are trying to bring home to the American people the necessity of organising for a considerable effort. If the American people are convinced that Germany is at the point of collapse, or that a victory is the prelude to a German surrender, it will be very difficult to keep military preparations going. We have be«n constantly handicapped in this country by. the optimism in certain quarters in England and in France.

On the other hand, frank statements, such as Mr. Balfour and his associates and Marshal Joffre and his colleagues are giving as as to the probable need of American troops and American effort, have proved a wholesome stimulus,, and have already produced a striking change in the American point of -view. If we can only keep before the American •people the gravity of the situation and the nece6sity for American action, there need be no" limit to the American con-, tribution, but for reasons that may be ouite comprehensible in England, it is difficult' to keep a popular interest and energy going when there is a general ■notion that the end of tho war will come the day after to-morrow.