GASOLENE 25 



oil fields of her own, was forced to seek a supply in 

 Poland and Roumania and so turned her attention 

 from France and Belgium to the eastern front. 



Thanks to the supply of American petroleum the 

 steady line of camions was kept going into Verdun and 

 so the enemy did not pass the cornerstone of the French 

 frontier. But in December, 1917, the French petroleum 

 trust notified their government that their stock would 

 be exhausted by the following March and that they 

 could not supply the army in time to meet the German 

 spring attack. The monthly consumption of gasolene 

 was 30,000 tons and the stock had fallen to 28,000 and 

 soon would be reduced to nothing. Then Premier 

 Clemenceau sent an urgent cablegram to President 

 Wilson, personally requesting him to use his authority 

 to bring the 100,000 tons of tankers from the Pacific to 

 the Atlantic where they might replace those that the 

 Germans had sunk. M. Clemenceau closed his appeal 

 with the words: "If the Allies do not want to lose the 

 war it is necessary that fighting France, in the hour of 

 the supreme German shock, should possess the gasolene 

 which is as necessary as blood in to-morrow's battle/' 



President Wilson complied, and the Petroleum War 

 Board supplied the ships used to bring the motor fuel 

 to France. Thanks to this prompt action Foch was able 

 to send an auto army to fill the gaps next spring when 

 the British gave way before the German drive toward 

 Amiens. 



It is not necessary for me to speak of the gasolene- 

 driven submarines, for what they did and what they 

 nearly did is all too fresh in the memory of us all. But 



