Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1918-12-08
AMERICAN ARMY
MOVED At CRAVE
RISK BY BRITISH
Lloyd George Tells of Great
Sacrifices Made to Provide
Ships for Transport
ingU Troops.

Leeds, England, Dec. II shall
never forget that morning when |
sent cable message to President
Wilson telling him what the facts
were and how essential it was that
we should get American help at the
speediest possible rate and inviting
him to send 10000 infantry and
machine gunners to Europe,v said
Premier Lloyd George in the course
of speech to 5000 persons today.
"The following day." continued
the premier, there came a cable
gram from President Wilson:
Send your ships across and we
will send the 10000 men,
Then | invited Sir Bishop Nc
Klay, the shipping controller, to
Downing street and said:
Send every ship you can
Ran Risks With Food.
They were all engaged in essen
tial trades because we were cut
down right to the bones. There was
nothing that was not essential. We
said: This is the time for taking
risks
I'VE ran risks with our food and
we ran risks with essential raw
materials. We said:
The thing to do is to get these
men across at all hazard
America sent 100000 men
across, and out of that number
100000 were carried by the Brit
ish mercantile marine. The good
old ships of Britain have saved the
liberty of the world many times.
They saved it in the days of Queen
Elizabeth; saved it in the days of
Louis XIV; saved it in the days of
Napoleon, and have saved it in the
days of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
1T is change from December,
1916; a change from the days when,
at the end of the year, we made our
balance sheet and found Germany
had acquired more allied territory
than she had before; that a new
ally had fallen and that another ally
was tottering to the fall and that
Germany was advancing ruthlessly
along from conquest to conquest.
That was the story up to the
end of December, 1916. What is the
story today? Every German sub
marine is in British port today.
The best battleships and cruisers
and torpedo boats of Germany are
now with lowered flags, under sur
veillance of British seamen in
British harbors.
and the British army, which has
fought SO gallantly-which has
fought with a heroism which the
world has never matched-that
army, after months Of fighting and
of suffering, is today, at this hour,
across the Rhine into
Germany and into one of the most
famous cities of Germany"
Statement by Controller.
Regarding British aid in the
transport of American troops the
controller today made the
following statement to the Associ-
ated Press:
"The real effort to accelerate the
of American troops be-
gan at the end of March, when we
realized that it was necessary to do
what we could with British bottoms
to supplement the American effort.
We sent a mission to the United
States with the object of seeing the
htting-out facilities there. SO far
as they were not required for
American troop ships they were
utilized to the maximum in fitting
out British troop ships.
Ships were gathered from every
source with the result that in the
six months between April and Sep
TENDER $4,000 troops, or 90 per cent
of the total number carried within
that period, were transported in
British bottoms. In all of the 2,000,-
900 odd American troops transport
ed to France we'll over a million
were carried in British ships. The
whole of this million were escorted
to the United Kingdom zone by
ships of the royal navy. British
shipping at that time was in a peril
Gus situation, but in order to fur
Their the movement of American
troops we were prepared to make
every sacrifice.
How Ships Were Secured.
The following steps were taken:
"Eronl South Africa ure remoued