THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



213 



ings the spirit of mutual helpfulness is 

 evident. Sometimes the French Mission 

 has been able to secure better prices than 

 the American officers have found, and 

 sometimes they have revealed stocks of 

 material the Americans had been unable 

 to find. When the consent of the French 

 Mission is obtained the purchase is made. 

 In the first days of the American ex- 

 pedition in France purchases were made 

 in a scattering fashion. Then it became 

 obvious that if only a few tents were 

 needed at the moment, the day would 

 come when tents by the thousand would 

 be necessary. Therefore the man who 

 found tents for sale — or anything else — 

 bought all he could find if the price was 

 right. Nowadays system has come into 

 its own. The list of requirements for the 

 army is made up now for three months 

 ahead, on the basis of requisitions fur- 

 nished by the officers commanding the 

 active units. That is known as the "uni- 

 form" equipment. It is apparent that a 

 unit of 25,000 men will always need cer- 

 tain things. It is equally apparent that 

 there is no close relation between 25,000 

 railroad ties and 25,000 men. Sometimes 

 the "exceptional" equipment comes into 

 play. 



RAILROADS PLAYING A MAJOR ROLE 



"We must build railroads," the Pur- 

 chasing Board was told by headquarters. 

 "Get the material." 



In the good old days railroads were not 

 of the major importance in warfare that 

 they are today. The Germans upset the 

 old rules of transportation. Early in the 

 war they began to string little quarry 

 roads behind the western front. The 

 French followed suit. When the British 

 began their Somme offensive, in 1916, 

 they had laid more than 3,000 miles of 

 road, standard and narrow gauge, behind 

 their comparatively narrow front. The 

 American army's railroad needs will also 

 be great. The existing roads from the 

 water bases must be reconstructed to take 

 care of the heavy traffic anticipated. 

 Preparations must be made for the feeder 

 lines behind the front, when that front 

 becomes an actuality. 



The American army cannot take cars 

 and engines and cross-ties from its allies. 



"Scout for them" was the order of the 

 purchasing officer. 



It is at this point that the American 

 business men who have become officers 

 in the American army began to show 

 themselves particularly useful. The chief 

 purchasing officer once said a pertinent 

 thing: "Put a captain of industry," said 

 he, "in a uniform of a captain of the 

 army and you have a combination that 

 gets results." These men are familiar 

 with all phases of American and Euro- 

 pean business. They know where things 

 may be found and how to find them and 

 how to buy them. They are used to do- 

 ing big things in a big way. 



PREDICAMENTS OF SPAIN AND 

 SWITZERLAND 



So the scouting for railroad material 

 was done by experts. Little jags of steel 

 rails were found that had been forgotten. 

 There were disused patches of railroads 

 and sidings that furnished a handful each. 

 Wanderers in the back blocks of Switzer- 

 land and Spain and Portugal found rail- 

 road ties. Portugal was ready enough to 

 sell — at a price — for she is an ally, but at 

 this point the Purchasing Board entered 

 the realms of diplomacy. Switzerland 

 and Spain were likewise willing to sell — 

 but for a consideration over and above 

 the purchase price. 



These countries had an "internal" situa- 

 tion to consider. Senor Garcia Price,. 

 Prime Minister of Spain, in a recently 

 quoted interview, declared that if the 

 United States did not furnish cotton to 

 the Barcelona mills hundreds of thou- 

 sands of persons would be thrown out of 

 work. A crisis cloud is forever banking 

 up on the edge of the Spanish horizon. 

 There has not been the least concealment 

 of a revolutionary party in Spain, or that 

 an enforced stoppage of work would 

 naturally strengthen the forces of discon- 

 tent. 



In similar fashion Switzerland is set 

 between a very ravenous devil and a par- 

 ticularly blue sea. 



On the one side she must buy coal and 

 iron ore from Germany, or her people 

 would freeze in the winter and her in- 

 dustries would wither and blow away. 

 Before Germany will deliver these and 



