The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-01-29

HERALD, TUESDAY,
 immediate military object to be accom-
 plised. but I could not get from Great
 Britain the actual number of troops
 they have at the front.
 'It may be that that precaution Is un-
 necessary. and yet that is the precaut!on
 which military men have observed, and
 l have no further point to make in the
 matter of the number of troops there
 than to show, as I was showing when
 read that extract. that our original in-
 tention was to make our military effort
 in 1918, and in August, 1917, a jealous
 advocate of immediate military activity
 laid down as the maximum obtainable
 programme, thing which has been null
 tifoldly exceeded.
 Why did we decide to send some
 troops to France in 1917? It is no secret. When Marshal Joffre came to this coun- try from France, when the British mis- sion came from France, they told us of situation which we had not up to that time fully appreciated. There had been in France recently conducted before that
 an unsuccessful major offensive.
 SUFFERING OF FRANCE 'The French people had suffered Oht
 suffered in a way that not only our lan- guage 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 he had been gnawing for two years and a half at their vitals, and when this unsuccess-
 full offensive in France had gone on
 there was spirit, not of surrender, but
 of fate, about. the French. and this
 mighty military engine which they had
 seen prepared to overcome 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, Tt will cheer us, it will cheer our people if you send over some of your troops
 HAD A CHOICE
 We did send some troops.
 At that time we had a choice We could have sent over, as Great Britain, our regular army and In a very short preparation have put it into action and suffered exactly what Great Britain suf- fered 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 peo- pie 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. stumpng 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 that division was unaccompanied by veteran. America had gone to France and the French peo- pie rose 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. Of course, they well comed 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 in stant and spontaneous fnsistence that these soldiers who came from America should continue to come in an unbroken stream.
 And so we made the selection. We decided not to send tne regular army as whole but to send regular di- visions 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 l it might inocuate with it's spirit and its | training these raw levies which we were 1 training, and one after another these di- visions have gone over until in France there is fighting army, an army trained | in the essentials and in the beginning of military discipline and practice, and 1 trained, seasoned fighters in this kind I of war on the actual battlefield where IL
 WORD FOR JOFFRE "Farly in this war, when Joffre was 1 here and when Balfour was here. they said to us: Tt may take you some time to get over to us a great fight 1 ing army, but you are great indus trial country; our man power Is fully engaged in our industries and in our military enterprises; send over arti- sans, special engineering regiments and troops of a technical character, and although it was not contemplated l at the outset and only phrase, in the emergency military legislation shows that the thing was thought of as a possibility yet in a very short time I've had organized engineering regi- ments of railroad men and sent them over there and were rebuilding be- hind the lines of the British and French the railroads which were be- | ing carried forward with their ad- vance, reconstructing their broken en- zines and cars. building new railroads both back of the French and British lines, and those regiments were of such quality that at the Cambrai as- | sault. carried on by General Byngl when the Germans made their counter attack our engineer regiments threw l down their picks and spades and car. ried their rifles into the battle and distinguished themselves by gallant action in the war itself.
 NURSES AND DOCTORS "very early in this war Great Brit ain. through Balfour and his assist ants, and France, through Joffre, said | to us: Send us nurses and doctors. Why, before we were scarcely in the war American units organized in ad- vance ant' anticipation by the Red 1 Cross, which was taken over into tho 1 service of the United States through the surgeon generals office, were on | the battlefield, and there are tens of | thousands of men in England and l France now who bless the mission of mercy upon which the first Americans appeared in France.
 "Our surgeons have set up hospitals l immediately behind the lines. They | have been made military in every sense of the word. They have not 1 been especially fortunate in escaping