Atlantic Warfare Today : 427 



for many mistakes and delays, this program was undertaken on a 

 vast scale. In these plans standardization of design and prefabrica- 

 tion of parts of the vessels played a part. Thus, plants far from the 

 sea could be utilized in the shipbuilding program. Shipyards were 

 also increased. By 191 9 there were 223 shipyards in the United States 

 with a combined capacity of over 1,000 ways. At peak operation the 

 yards employed 625,000. 



It was not until after the conclusion of the war that the great ship- 

 yard at Hog Island succeeded in regularizing the flow of materials 

 and hit its stride but it was then able to deliver two 7,500-ton ships 

 a week. By 1921, when there was no longer need for such a vast 

 armada, the shipping board had accumulated 1,792 vessels amount- 

 ing to over 10,000,000 tons. The so-called "bridge of ships" to win 

 the war had cost the shipping board and the nation over 

 $3,000,000,000. Lack of foresight and delay accounted in great meas- 

 ure for the large size of the bill and the ineffectiveness of the ex- 

 penditure. 



Even though the cost of an adequate merchant marine to carry a 

 substantial part of the country's trade in times of peace and to serve 

 the armed forces in times of war might have involved considerable 

 expenditures, it would have in the long run proved a great economy 

 in either of the world war periods. Ships that must be acquired rap- 

 idly in order to save the nation's life are always expensive whether 

 they are acquired by lease or by purchase or by a building program. 

 At the close of the war there was no further use of "the bridge of 

 ships" to win the war and many of them were put in moth balls; 

 that is to say, anchored in large fleets in unused coastal waters where 

 they could rust away in idleness. 



By the fall of 1918 the pressure on Germany had built up to such 

 a point that political changes within the country were inevitable. The 

 unlimited submarine campaign had failed and after refusing an ar- 

 mistice Wilson, on October 21st, had secured from Germany a decla- 

 ration that U-boats would no longer attack passenger ships. Germany 

 was losing ground on the western front. The civil population was 

 hungry and war weary and increasingly impressed by Wilson's four- 

 teen-point surrender program. The emperor and a new chancellor, 

 Prince Max von Baden, began making sweeping concessions with 

 the object of winning an armistice before the western front collapsed. 



Then on November 3 the fleet at Kiel, which had waited and 

 fumed in idleness for so long, was shaken by mutiny and many ships 

 scutded and sunk. Ashore, workers went on strike, and the Land- 



