Norwich bulletin., 1918-01-29

Washington, Jan. 2s.-America will have an army of half million men in Franceseariy this year, with million fnoer trained and equipped ready to follow as quickly as ships can be pro- vided to carry them-and the outlook | for ships is not unpromising. Secretary Baker gave this informa- | tion to the nation and to the world today in statement before the senate | military committee, barring much that | until now has been carefully guarded | with the army's military secrets, in answering charges that the govern ment has broken down preparing for war. From early morning until late aft ernoon the secretary addressed the committee and crowd including many members of both houses of congress gathered in a big hearing room of the senate office building. He spoke extemporaneously, beginning with de- tails of the mammoth task of build ing an army of a million and half, answering such complaints of ineffi- riency as were cited by Senator Cham berlain in his recent speech and de-
 
 lated and not general. Some ques- lions were asked and Mir. Baker from time to time had assistants go to the telephone for reports on specific ques- tions.
 Then, toward the close of the day, the secretary delivered a dramatic general statement of the American war plan. telling of the coming of the allied missions, of the day and night
 
 of battle in which the plans now be- ing executed were adopted, and of success beyond expectations in build ing the army, and its industrial SUD- ports at home, transporting men across the ocean, constructing railroads in France and preparing to strike the en- nmv with every resource at the coun- try's command
 When MT Baker closed 1t was ap- parent he had created a profound i'm precision. Chairman Chamberlain said so before he left the stand. There was no attempt at cross examination.
 MT. Bakers statement follows:
 Secretary Bakers Explanation.
 Now, gentlemen, about the plan of The war. It will be remembered that this war broke out in August 1914 We went into it in April, 1917, so that for two and one half years, or more than two and one half years, the war had been going on. It was not as though war had broken out between the United States and some country, each of them prior to that time hav- ing been at peace with one another and with everybody else; so that an immfdiate plan should be made in the United States for conducting war against it's adversary, but we were coming into a war which had been going on for two and one-half years, in which the greatest military experts, all the inventive genius, all of the in- dustrial capacity of those greatest countries in the world had for two and one-half years been solving the prob lens of what kind of war it was to be and where it was to be waged.
 Problem How to Reach Enemy.
 Tt was not a thing for us to decide where our theatre of war should be. Tho theatre of war was France It was not for us to decide our line of communications. Our line of com munications was across three thous- and miles of ocean, one end of it in- Tested with submarines It was not for us to decide whether we would have the maneouvering of large bodies of troops in the open. There lay the Antagonists on opposite sides of No Mans Land in the trenches at a death grapple with one another. Our antagonist was on the other side of that line. and our problem was and is 10 get over there and get him.
 Had to Study the Situation.
 Tt was not the problem of doing it cur way and letting everybody else take care of himself. In the first place, we were going to fight in France, not on our own soil, and not on our adversary's soil, and therefore At the very beginning it was obvious that 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 out the theo- fectically best way to get at some ether country, but it was the problem of studying the then existing situa- ton and bringing the financial, the in dustrial and 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 audience there are men who have been in the trench es. The altogether unprecedented character of that problem is the thing which every returning visitor tells us cannot be described ;n words, cannot be put down in reports; it is thing so different from anything else that ever went on in the world. so vas fin it's desolation. so extraordinary il its uniqueness that it must be seer and studied on the ground in order to be comprehended at all.
 Question of Abstract Speculation.
 Tt is easily imagined that we nigh have perfected an army over here ana carried it across the ocean and found wholly unadapted to its task ant n might well. have been that the army that we sent over was just one thins that they did not need, and that some fther thing which-we might have sup.