The Bamberg herald. (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, January 31, 1918, Page 6, Image 6
GREAT AMERICAN ARMV
WILL RE SENT TO FRANCE. !
(Continued from page 1, column 3.) j
so that an immediate plan should be
made in the United States for conducting
war against its adversary,
but we were coming into a war which
had been going 011 for two and onehalf
years, in which the greatest military
experts, all the inventive genius,
all of the industrial capacity
of those greatest countries in the
world had for two and one half years
boen solving the problem of what
hind of war it was to be and where
it was 10 be waged.
'"It was not a thing for us to denirln
where rmr thpatrft of war Should
be. The theatre of war was France.
. It was not for us to decide our line
of communications. Our line of communications
was across 3,000 miles
of ocean. It was not for us to decide
whether we would have the manoeuvreing
of large bodies of troops
in the open. There lay the antagonists
on opposite sides of No Man's
Land in the trenches at death grapple .
with one another. Our antagonist 1
was on the other side of that line 1
and our problem was to get over and ,
get him.
"It was not the problem of doing ,
it our way and letting everybody else j
take care of himself. In the first ,
place wre were going to fight in France
not on our own soil and not on our
adversaries' soil and therefore at the vprv
ho^inninp- it was obvious that i
the thing we had to do was not to
map out an ideal plan of campaign,
not to have the war college with its
speculative studies of Napoleon and
everybody else map out the theoretically
best way to get at some other
country, but it was the problem of
studying the then existing situation
and bringing the financial, the industrial
and the military strength of
the United States into cooperation
with that of Great Britain and France
in the most immediate and effective
way. That problem could not be decided
here. I fancy in this audienec
there are men who have been in the
trenches. The altogether unprecedented
character of that problem is the
thing which every returning visitor
tells us can not be described in words, ^
cannot be put down m reports; it is t
a thing so different from everything t
else that ever went on in the world, f
so vast in its desolation, so extraor- (
dinary in its uniqueness that it must t
* Be seen and studied on the ground
in order to be comprehended at all. ?
Study From Beginning. t
"So that from the very beginning e
it was not a question of abstract spec- I
ulation here but a question of study t
there to find out where our shoulders
to the wheel could best be put. s
"They realized that. And so great t
Britain sent over to us Mr. Balfour 1
and General Bridges and a staff of 1
experts. They came over here and s
saw Mr. Balfour in the house of con- a
gress and at the white house and at v
public meetings, but the group of ex- i
< perts whom they brought over with c
them you did not see much of and
yet they distributed themselves t
through the war department and t
their ordnance experts sat down with s
General Crowder, their supply experts
with General Sharpe and his c
assistants; their strategists sat down r
with the army war college and all ov- a
er this city there were these confiden- r
til groups exchanging information, i
telling how the thing was over there, i
what we could do, what they advised fc
us to dc, what experience they had 1
had in developing this, that and the t
other implement of supply, how cer- t
tain plans which one might naturally i;
have evolved out of the past experi- i
ences of the world had been tried
there and found not to work at all. I
"They were exchanging informa- \
tion, giving us all that they thought (
was helpful. And then came Joffre, f
with his wonderful reputation and
his great and charming personality a
and he made a great figure here and i
we welcomed him. It was a tremen- \
dous inspiration to see the hero of s
the Marne; but with him came his s
were constantlv beina changed so that i
men fresh from the front could be t
here to advise with us, and in addition
to that every one of them had 1
to be a university professor, going t
out into the life of the community t
and selecting men who had mechan- (
ical experience and knowledge and 1
trying and adding to his original 1
equipment the scientific training, that ]
finishing touch which made him avail- ;
able for use as a military scientist, j
Trained Ordnance Officers. 1
"As a consequence this little group i
which stayed here have built up the ;
greatest special departments of the ;
army. The ordnance department, ;
starting, I think, with 93 or 90 officers
has now grown as I recall the
figures, to something like 3,000 officers.
They have had to be trained,
they have had to be specialized and
that has had to go on contemporaneously
with this tremendous response
to the changing conditions on
the other side.
"In the meantime when we started
into this war I think it was commonly
thought throughout the country
that our contribution at the outset
might well be financial and industrial.
The industries of the country
were largely devoted at that time,
the appropriate industries were largely
devoted to the manufacture of war
materials for our allies.
"As I suggested this morning when
we went into that market we found
it largely occupied, so that our problem
was not going to a shoe factory
and saying 'make shoes for us,' but
it was going to a factory which never
made shoes because all the shoe
factories are busy making shoes for
people from whom we could not take
them, and saying Team how to make
shoes in order tnai you may mahe
them for us.'
"Now, of course, that is not true
of shoes, but it is true of machine
guns, it is true of other arms, it is
true of ammunition, it is true of forging
capacity, whch was the greatest
defect in the country and all of this
time we had not merely not to disturb
the programme of allied manufacture
in this country but we had to
shut off the supplies of raw material
to our allies and we had not to dusturb
the industry of the country to
such an extent that products upon
which they depended for the success
of their military operations would be
interfered with both agricultural and
commercial and industrial products.
"At the outset the idea was that
we would be a financial and industrial
assistance to our allies during the
rear, 1918, and I think I can probably
read from the Metropolitan Mag"inp
for Anerust a suggestion which
svill show what the current expecta;ion
of the country was. The editor
pf the Metropolitan Magazine was
protesting against what he believed
;o be the intention of the governnent
at that time. This magazine
;ame out in August 1917, and this edtorial
says: "Since it is our war,
ve want to put everything into it
;o as to finish it in the shortest possible
time; so that the world may
)e restored. To our mind jthe whole
plan of the war department has been
lavored with a desire to hold off un;il
the allies finish the war for us.'
Met Expectations.
"You see the editor was dealing
vith what he supposed to be the in;ention
of the war department at that
,ime: that we were holding off so
:ar as actual military operations were
'AnnornoH and let.tine the allies do
;he fighting.
"What he says we should have done
in^I ask your particular attention
o it, is this: 'We should have strainid
every energy to have gotten from
>0,000 to 100,000 men to France
his year.'
"That is, the year, 1917. I tell no
lecret but it is perfectly well known
o everybody in this group that we
lave far exceeded what in August,
.917, was regarded as a programme
o ideal that the editor of this magizine
refers to it as a thing which
re ought to have strained every nerve
n a vain but hopeless effort to acomplish.
"And then the editor goes on. 'And
>y next year, 1918, we could have
tad 500,000 men which we could
end.'
"Now, instead of having 50,000
>r 100,000 men in France, we have
uany more men than that in France
,nd instead of having a half million
nen whom we could ship to France
f we could find any way to do it
u 191S, we will have more than onetalf
million men in France early in
.918 and we have available if the
ransportation facilities are availaile
to us (the prospect is not unpromsing)
one and one-half million who
n 1918 can be shipped to France.
"I have here a statement from
'Meld Marshal von Hindenberg in
rhich he is quoted as saying in a
lerman newspaper in contemptuous
ashion of us that we have advertisid
our preparations for this war in
in unworthy manner. If I may rely
ipon the confidential information
vhich we get from confidential
sources, the German government is
still mystified as to the number of
nen we have in France or have had
here at any time.
"I am saying this now because you
lave asked me why I have held back
;hese facts until now. I am saying
so you that you could not get from
Jreat Britain at this minute?I don't
enow whether I could get the number
of soldiers Great Britain has in
Prance or at home. I could get an
ipproximation; I could get whatever
information might be deemed helpful
to the immediate military object
to be accomplished, but I could not
get from Great Britain or France the
actual number of troops they have
at the front.
"Tt may be that that precaution is
unnecessary and yet that is the precaution
which military men have observed,
and 1 have no further point
to make in the matter of the number
of troops there than to show, as 1
was showing when 1 read that extract,
that our original intention was to
make our military effert in 1918; and
in August, 1917, a zealous advocate
of immediate activity laid down as
the maximum obtainable programme
a thins? which lias been multifold ex-'
; ceeded.
| "Why did we decide to send so;
many troops to France in 1917 is no j
i secret. When Marshal J off re came
I
j to this country from France, when j
| the British mission came they told
jus of the situation which we had not
up to that time fully appreciated.
| There had been in France recently
conducted before that an unsuccessful
major offensive. The French people
had suffered, oh, suffered in a
way that not only our language is
not adapted to describe, but our imagination
cannot conceive. The war
is in their country. This wolf
has not only been at their door
but lie has been gnawing for
two years and a half at their vitals,
and when this unsuccessful offensive
in France had been met there
was a spirit not of surrender but of
fate about the French people, and
this mighty military engine which
they had seen prepared to overthrow
them for 40 years was at them, and
their attitude was that no matter
whether every Frenchman died in his
tracks, as they were willing to do, or
not, that it was an irresistible thing,
and so they said to us, 'Frankly, it
will cheer us; it will cheer our people
if you send over some of your
troops.'
"We did send some troops.
Division Was Sent.
"At that time we had a choice. We
could send over as Great Britain did,
our regular army and in a very short
preparation have put it into action,
and suffered exactly what Great
Britain suffered with her 'contemptible
little army,' as it was called by
their adversaries. Our army would
have given as good an account of itself
as the British army did, but it
would have been destroyed like the
British army, and there would have
been no nucleus on which to build
this new army that was to come over
a little later, and it was deemed wiser
to send over a regular division, but
not to send over our whole regular
army at that time. *
"Then what happened was that the
regular division went over and the
people of France kissed the hems of
their garments as they marched up
the streets of Paris; the old veterans
wounded in this war, legless or armless,
stumping along on crutches, perhaps,
as they went up the streets of
Paris with their arms around the
necks of American soldiers. Not a
single man in the division was unaccompanied
by a veteran. American
had gone to France and the French
npnnip rosp with a sense of gratitude
- - _
and hopefulness that had never been
in them before.
"Of course, they welcomed the
British but their need was not so
great when the British went. They
welcomed the British but there were
ties between them and us which there
had not been between them and the
British and so when our troops went
there was an instant and spontaneous
rise in the morale of the French, but
an equally instant and spontaneous
insistence that these soldiers who
came from America should continue
to come in an unbroken stream.
"And, so we made the election. We
decided not to send the regular army
as a whole, but to send regular, divisions
and National Guard divisions
selected according to the state of
their preparation and keep back here
some part of our trained force in
order that it might inoculate with
its spirit and its training these raw
levies which we were training, and
one after another these divisions have
gone ovej* until in France there is a
fighting army, an army trained in the
essentials and in the beginning of
military discipline and practice, and
trained seasoned fighters in this kind
of a war on the actual battlefields
where it is taking place.
Army J behind Lines.
"Early in this war, when Joffre
was here aid when Balfour was here,
they said to us 'it may take you some
time to get over to us a great fighting
army, but you are a great industrial
country; our man power is fully
engaged in our industries and military
enterprises, send over armies
and special engineering regiments
and troops of technical character' and
although it was not contemplated at
the outset, and only a phrase in the
emergency military legislation shows
that the thing was thought of as a
possibility, yet in a very short time
we had organized engineering regiments
of railroad men and sent them
qi tiiopo a n rj ivprp rehii i 1 d in fir the
V UUU '? V. V - u v
lines of the British and French, the
railways which were being carried
forward with their advance, reconstructing
their broken engines and
cars, building new railroads, both
back of the French and British lines
and those regiments were of such
quality that at the Canibrai assault,
carried on by General Byng, when
1? ^ ~ ~ ?* <- ^ '1
lilt? UCI IJlUXlib mauc LiiKJii u;uiuti-m
tack, our engineer regiments threw
down their picks and shovels and
carried their rifles into the battle and
distinguished themselves by gallant
action in the war itself.
"Very early in this war Great Britain
through Balfour and his assist
ants and France, through .J off re. said
to us: 'Send us nurses and doctors.'
Why, when we were scarcely in the
war, Americans organized in advance
and anticipation by the Red Cross,
which was taken over into the service
of the United States through the
surgeon general's office, were on the
battlefields, and there are tens of
thousands of men in England and
France now who bless the mission of
mercy upon which the first American
appeared in France.
uur surgeons nave sei up uuspitals
immediately behind the lines.
They have been made military in every
sense of the word. They have
been espcially fortunate in escaping
attack from the air, and our early
losses in this war, the losses of Red
Cross nurses and doctors and orderlies
and attendants in hospitals and
ambulance drivers who were sent over
to assist our allies in these necessary
services, thus not only rendering
assistance but acquiring skill and
knowledge of the circumstances and
surroundings, so that when our own
troops came in large numbers they
could render like service to our own
forces."
75,000 Colored Men Called to Army.
Eight per cent, of the 9,586,508
men registered under the selective
service law are colored. Of these
nearly 209,000 have been called and
more than 75,000 have been certified
for service.
Out of every 100 colored men
called, 36 were certified for service
and 64 were rejected, exempted, or
discharged, while out of every 100
white citizens called, 2o were certified
for service.
Slates and slate pencils at The
Herald Book Store. Save paper by
using a slate.
FRUIT TREES
I am offering Peach trees, one year
old, at $10.00 per hundred; two year
old, at $16.00 per hundred. Deliveries
made on short notice.
S. A. HAND
BAMBERG, S. C.
Representing the J. Van Lindley Nursery
Co., Pomona, N. C.
RILEY & COPELAND
Successors to W. P. Riley.
Fire, Life
A J J J
Acumens
INSURANCE
Office in J. D. Copeland's Store
BAMBERG, S. 0.
Free Flower Seed
Hastings' Catalogue
Tells You About It
No matter whether you farm on a
large scale or only plant vegetables
or flowers in a s nail way, you need
Hastings' 1918 Seed Catalogue. It's
ready now and we have a copy for
you absolutely free, if you write for it,
mentioning the ncme of this paper.
In addition to showing you about all
the varieties of vegetables, farm
grass, clover and flower seeds, our
catalogue tells how you can get free
five splendid varieties of easily grown,
yet beautiful flowers, with which to
beautify your home surroundings.
Good seeds of almost every kind
are scarce this season, and you can't
afford to take chances in your seed
supply. Hastings' Seeds are dependable
seeds, the kind you can always
depend on having "good luck" with.
You are going to garden or farm
this spring. Why not insure success
so far as possible by starting with the
right seed? Don't take chances that
you do not have to in seeds.
Write today for Hastings 1918
1 ~ T+'r. fr-na OT>r7 vill iinMl in
villiliuguc;. 11 O 1J uuu >1
terest and help you to succeed in 1918.
?H. G. HASTINGS CO., Seedsmen,
Atlanta, Ga.?Advt. ^
^rdollars to you.
H9| markable success
with soluble and availal
HH of the crop. If you are
see how
IPUNTEf
FT DOUBU
tiV! Planters Fertilizer has
ilfli mlllS ^ou cannot a^orci tc
mm brands, when you can $
rajgw Trade-Mark, stamped
town for free advice, i
rect. But don't dela\
certainty of deliver
a< freight and trai
lor Indigestion, Constipation or
Biliousness A I> IITQFY
! Just try one 50-cent bottle of LAX-FOS /* U 1 iJLi 1
( WITH PEPSIN. A Liquid Digestive
Laxative pleasant to take. Made and LIFE INSURANCE
recommended to the public by Paris Medicine
Co., manufacturers of Laxative Bromo Bamberg, South Carolina
; Quinine and Grove's Tasteless chill Tonic. ; .
Read The Herald, $1.50 per year. Read The Herald $1.50 the year.
, M
I J
\f- - i; 4
| i Economize Wisely 1
;! ?A Maxwell Car Will Help
1 ' Waste is often committed when the in- r
tention is to economize. \\
A Maxwell car, famous for its economy,
| will cost you only a few dollars a month to 1
operate and maintain. [
' ?1
Which is the real economy:
(1) To use the car and J
save time, strength, and j
mental vigor?
(2) To do without the \
, 4 car, lose time in your business,
lose the health gained :
from motoring, and worry
yourself into illness? \
Use of a Maxwell car will give yon self r
confidence. 1 !
Your neighbors and associates will get \
mental inspiration from you. . P
As wave'circles widen when a pebble hits \
11 the water, so will your good example bene- ! I
fit your entire community. ! m
Save?yes; but do it sensibly, and let the
Maxwell help. [ 4
' ri
\; Touring Car $745; Roadster $745; Coupe $1095 \
Berhne $1095; Sedan with Wire Wheels $1195 i
: F. Q. B. Detroit ^ v*-' ^
I, BAMBERG AUTO CO. j
Q. Frank Bambergi President
D 1 o A
oamoerg, o. ^
Southern Railway System
PREMIER CARRIER OF THE SOUTH.
PASSENGER TRAINS SCHEDULES
EFFECEIVE SEPT. 17, 1910.
All Trains Run Daily.
No. Arrive Bamberg From No. Leave Bamberg Fop
24 Augusta and intermedi- 24 Branchville, Charlestoa
ate stations 5:05 a. m. and intermediate sta- ^
---- - - - tione 5:05a.m.
25 Charleston, tfrancnvins
and intermediate sta- 25 Augusta and interme- |
tions 6:25 a. m. diate stations 6:25 a. m. J
18 Augusta and intermedi- 18 Branchville,' Charleston
ate stations 8:43 a. m. , and intermediate sta35
Charleston and inter- ^ m'
mediate stations ...,10:57 a.m. 33 Augusta and intermed ate
stations 10:57 a.m.
22 Augusta and intermedi- 22 Branchville, Charleston
ate stations 6:37 p. m. an(j intermediate sta7
Charleston, Branchville, tions. .... 6:37p.m.
and intermediate sta- 17 Augusta and intermeditions
8:17 p. m. ate stations 8:17 p. m.
Trains Nos. 17 and 24?Through sleeping car service between Bamberg
> and Atlanta.
N. B.?Schedules published as information only. Not guaranteed.
For information, tickets, etc., call on
I
j S. C. HOLLIFIELD, Agent,
THE SOUTHERN SERVES THE SOUTH. {
Z demand for cotton is urgent. What price it may eventually ^^^B
ing is problematical. But it is vitally necessary that every B^^K
ower make an extra effort to increase production?it means
For many years, Planters Fertilizer has been used with re- ^^^B
throughout the South. It enriches the soil, furnishes the plant
ble food until maturity and improves the quality and quantity ^^^B
i getting less than one to two bales to the acre?try Planters? fl i
is romVlEii " I
proven its worth, over and over again. 1 SB J
) experiment with unknown, untried j
jet the genuine, with the Giant Lizard feTrf-rfP^. ^adb^gr^ ??^jgM i
on each bag. See our agent in your rj