The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1918-01-29

| in his tracks, as they were willing tx
do, or not, that it was an irresistible
thing, and SO they said to MS, Frankly,
it will cheer us; it will cheer ou
people if you send over some OF YOU
troops.
Troops Were Sent
1--WE did send him troops At thai
place we had choice We could have
sent over, as Great Britain our reg
ular army and in very short prepar-
alton have put it into acton and suf-
fered exactly what Great Britain sui
fered with her Contemplate. little
army as it was called by their adj
versaries. Our army would have CIV
en- 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 little later, and it
was deemed wiser to send over a reg
ular division, but not to send over our
whole regular army at that time.
Election is Made.
"And so we made the election We
decided not to send the regular army
as whole, but to send regular divis-
ions and national guard divisions, sell
ected according to the state of their
preparation and keep back here some
part of our trained force in order that
it might innoculate with its spirit and
it's training these raw levies which we
wer training and one after another
these divisions have gone over until
in the beginnings of military discip-
line and practice, and trained season
ed fighters in this kind OF war on
the actual batlefelds where it is talk
ing place.
Early in War
'"Early in this war, when Joffre was
here and when BalfOur was here, they
said to us, 1T may take you some time
to get over to us fighting army, but
you are a great industrial country,
cur man power is fully engaged on
our industries and in our military en-
terprises; send over artisans, special
engineering regiments and troops OF
technical character, and although
it was not contemplated at the outset
and only appears in emergency in the
military shows that the thing was
thought of as a possibility, yet in
very short time we had organized en-
neering regiments of railroad men and
sent them over there and were re-,
building behind the lines of the Brit
ish. and French the railroads which
were being carried forward with their
advance, reconstructingl their broken
engines and cars, building new rail-
roads, both back of the French and
British lines and those regiments were
lon such quality that at the Cambria
assault, carried on by General Byng,
when the Germans made their counter
attack our engineers regiments threw
down their picks and spades and car
ried their rifles into the battle and
distinguished themselves by gallant
action in the war ITSELF e..
Channel Ports
"The channel ports have been re-
served for the British, when we came
in it was necessary for us to have in
dependent ports of entry in order that
there might not be confusion and ;ad-
mixture OF our supplies going through
these ports of Decentralization with
those of other nations. We were CIV
en- several ports. AS you perhaps re-
call the ports of France are tidal ports
ports with deep water and tidal basins
at high tides with insufficient water
for landing at the docks when the
tide is out
a."As consequence, the communities
ton of docks and wharves in ports OF
that kind is very much more difficult
than where you have deep sea har-
Dor, and all you need to do is to erect
pile wharf. We have had to build
docks, we have had to fabricate in this
country, and send of, dock handling