120 EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



establishing its own kingdom, some day will be the richest nation on 

 the earth. 



Well, we did not get killed and we did not get wounded, but the 

 Bulgarian aeroplanes were very curious to find out what we were 

 doing. They used to come down, the first three weeks, when we were 

 unloading our machinery, they came at ten o'clock in the morning 

 and about two o'clock in the afternoon, I suppose to get a picture 

 from the two angles of the sun, and their photographs must not have 

 turned out well because they could not make out what kind of war 

 machines we had, they were not cannon, they were nothing else that 

 they could determine, so one morning they came at five o'clock in the 

 morning, just when the sun rose, flying on, 300 feet above our heads. 

 We heard them come, we woke up. The French had anti-aircraft 

 guns every three or four miles, or two or three miles apart. They 

 started to shoot them, and there was a bombardment, and the shoot- 

 ing came nearer and nearer, and we all jumped up — we slept in tents, 

 we had nothing to sleep in but tents there — and looked at those. 

 They came right straight over our heads, and a couple of them dropped 

 down, one next to the tent of our prisoners, one next to our mess tent, 

 and they never came again after that, because they saw the American 

 flag and they saw our machinery. Since America was not a war with 

 Bulgaria, when they saw the American flag they supposed probably 

 that it was to put some fright and terror into their minds, and they 

 carefully kept away from us after that. 



Well, perhaps, gentlemen, I could tell you lots about the offensive, 

 tell you how the Serbian governijient invited me to go with the Serbian 

 army into Serbia on the 14th of September, when all nations were 

 represented except America; there was no American there. The 

 general staff invited me to go with the Serbian army during the offen- 

 sive, and I accepted the invitation, and I unofficially represented the 

 whole American government in my uniform there, although I had no 

 permission to do so. Of course down there we never asked for per- 

 mission until after we did a thing, which is probably the right thing 

 to do under almost any conditions, if you do the right thing. And 

 how we went in, and how the Bulgarians and Austrians were driven 

 down, and how the battle went over and thousands and thousands 

 were killed, and how they had no nurses down there and no doctors, 

 and the wounded and dying were perishing for lack of attention — oh, 

 those terrible days of the last three weeks of the offensive will ever 

 remain impressed on my mind as' the most terrible cruelty I ever saw 

 in my life. 



Any way, I am satisfied of one thing, that when in October the 

 Serbs and AUies, 150 miles inside of Serbia, where they got driven to 

 bay, just to see the Austrians and the Bulgarians go down to their 

 knees and say, "It is enough, have mercy and spare us, we surrender," 

 just to see that one thing, Bulgaria and Austria surrender and lay down 

 their arms, which later caused Germany to surrender, just to have seen 

 this one thing is certainly one of the proudest things that I have to 

 remember, and that I will always remember with pleasure, the bringing 

 down of the enemy and finishing of the war. You should have seen the 

 cheering and joy, and the thousands of soldiers, after carrying on for 



