June 7, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
«? 
America's Military Effort 
By Frank H. Symonds (Associate Editor of the V^ew York Tribune) 
The ivriter of this article is America's most eminent military 
critic. He has recently returned to New York from an 
extended tour along the Western Front. The military 
difficulties that confront America are stated here plainly. 
JT is with great hesitation that any American will speak 
to a British audience upon America's prospective 
mihtary effort in the war, because he is conscious of 
the fact that what America has to do to-day, Britain has 
done, and that the method by which the great work of arming 
a democracy is accompHshed is known to the British nation 
and as yet remains unknown to the American people. • ^ , 
The mihtary situation of the United States to-day is com- 
parable with that which Great Biitain's would have been in • 
August, 1914. had there been no Expeditionary Army and ■ 
had England had no Boer War in her relatively recent years. , 
While we have a regular army which numbered about one 
hundred thousand before the present recruiting began, and a , 
militia force theoretically of about equal strength, the utmost, 
that could at the present moment be drawn from the regular 
army for foreign service would be a division and a half. , The; 
balance is necessarily occupied in coast defence, garrisons, 
and in the garrisoning of over-seas possessions. The militia ^ 
is not comparable in efficiency or organization with the British 
Territorials of the before-the-war period. 
In the matter of artillery, the United States Army has not 
enough three-inch guns to equip an army corps for foreign . 
sti vice. It has no guns available comparable with the German 
5.f) pieces. In the matter of aviation, we have only a few 
slow aeroplanes, and we have none arlned and no present ' 
system of arming them " ' • '. ►. 
If one is to face the question of American participation . 
in the war, it is necessary to recognise that, allowance being . 
made for a division and a half of the regular army which may 
be soon sent to France, all American preparation must start at , 
the beginning of things. We have available many milUons of 
good material, almost none of it with any military instruction. 
We have no reserves of officers comparable even to that of 
British reserves drawn out of over-seas garrisons and from' 
the Indian Army. ... 
Such general officers as we have are without any training ' 
in the handling of men larger than a regiment, or at most a 
brigade. ' No fully equipped division has been used iti the 
American Army since the Civil War. The training of the 
American Army in the Philippines and in the Spanish War' 
has not been of a sort to give even that degree of farnilfarity- 
with military operations which British officers acquired in the. 
South African War. , . ^ 
On the other hand, it is a hopeful sign that at the outset of ' 
the war, the United States has adopted conscription. This 
assures us, without long delay, of a very large immediate 
supply of man-power, but the question of how this man- 
power will be organised is one that is at the present moment 
open to the widest discussion. There is a very considerable 
element, particularly in the General Staff, which desires to 
see the training done in the United States and to delay the' 
transport of these troops to Europe until atthe end of such' 
training.' The theory is that in- that 'fashion an American 
blow can be delivered effectively by 'an Anierican Army. 
Thanks to Marshal Joffre, this idea, ' which' seems' to be 
wholly fallacious, has been rudely shaken. • There is a growing' 
appreciation that not in one year, and perhaps not in two,' 
would it be, possible to train men in this country and give 
tliem the instruction that would make them available for 
clfective service on the Western front. There is a growing' 
appreciation that only through the assistance of British and 
French officers and by the use of training schools under the 
direction of French and British officers,- can the American- 
army be properly prepared with sufficient promptness to 
enable them- to take part in a campaign of 1918. 
Out Allies in Britain and in France can do no more useful 
thing to further the common cause and to accelerate the 
speed of American preparation than by contributing to the- 
knowledge' of the American people about the actual con- 
ditions under which men' are trained, and by supplying illus- 
trations from the mistakes of both France and England 
which will break down the prejudices against sending un- 
trained troops to European training camps. 
It would be impossible to exaggerate the readiness and the 
willingness of the mass of the American people to contribute 
their share, not alone in money, ships and food, but also in 
man-power, in so far as they know that men are needed. 
More than anybody in Europe can realise, the war has been 
misunderstood and disregarded in America, even by pro- 
fessional soldiers. America's ultimate effort will be in pro- 
portion to her resources and her wealth, but whether America 
participates in the campaign of 1918 or not must depend 
upon the degree to which the American people are educated 
to understand that American participation is essential, and 
what' the training of a civilian population means, and how 
impossible it is to train such a population with none of the 
instruments and none of the conditions at hand. 
It' seems to me that if the facts can be put before the 
American people in time, it will be possible to send not less 
than six or seven divisions to Europe between now and next 
April, if transport can be found. It will be impossible to 
provide these divisions here with artillery and with many 
'oi the other necessary adjuncts to modern war. It will be 
'impossible to train them here in anything but the merest 
preliminaries. . Siich things a^ bomb practice, trench-digging 
ah(i wave-attacks are out of the question, and it seems to me 
inevitable that at least six months, of additional training in 
Europe will be necessary before any of these troops, with a 
possible exception of one division of the regular army, could 
be, put at the front, although Iknow that the French accom- 
plished miracles with the Russian. division at Camp de Mailly. 
The Enghsh people. must recognise at the outset that no 
matter how earnestly America tries, her . mrlitarv pro -ress 
will be slow, and the same sympathetic understanding which 
the French had for Britain's difficulties in training her armies 
will have to be extended to the .^jjierican Army. , 
'The American people have adopted conscription with a 
readiness which has surprised those' of us who have most 
earnestly advocated it. The American people are to-day 
taking up the question ot^sending armies to Europe in a 
fashion that no one would have suspected a-year ago. There 
is an earnestness, there is a desire that America shall'do her 
full dutyin tlie'matter of supplying men, which is quite the 
most hopeful sign of recent years. , But there is no machinery 
in existence for a!ccomplishmg that which the nation wishes 
to have accomplished. -We have some millions of men and 
a- bare' handful of* officers without the smallest experience in 
the handling, not of army corps, not of divisions,' not of 
brigades, but for the most not even of regiments, and we have 
lio' considerable amount of information supplied since the 
war began. -It is useless to speak now of American military 
effort' in- the terms of armies that will be effective in 1918. 
Such troops!as we may be able to send to the front before 
1919 will be only a sign of our determination to send armies 
and will be a moral rather than a material contribution. 
' This great American 'democracy means to transform itself 
into an effective military machine for the common cause. Its 
failures will be exactly th* failures that the British people 
have known, in their owfli case, larger perhaps because of a 
far less considerable milkary estabUshment or undertaking 
at the outset. America is in the war, and America feels her- 
self in the, wir with a determination and an eagerness to do a 
proportionate part, but it depends very considerably on tiie 
help, sympathy and advicq of our British and French Allies 
how soon and how great A) ti erica's part will be. 
■ There is one other point that I mention with some hesita- 
tion, butit seems to me tha4t considerable' harm will be done 
in America if each minor success of the Allies, however 
valuable ■ arid promising, is magnified into a sure sign of 
German collapse. It is the view of most military observers 
in America that the war will go another year at least. It 
is -on that basis that we an 2 trying to bring home to the 
American people the jiecessity of organising for a considerable 
effort. If the American people are convinced that Germany 
is at the point of collapse, or that a victory, like the recent 
British success at Arras, is the prelude to a German surrender, 
it will be very difficult to ke(?p military preparations going. 
We have been constantly handicapped in this country by the 
optimism in certain quarters in England and in France. 
On the other hand, frank statements, such as Mr. Balfour 
and his associates and Marshal Joffre and his colleagues are 
giving us as to the probable need of American troops and 
American effort, have proved a wholesome stimulus and have 
already produced a striking c hange in the American point 
of view. If we can only keej > before the American people 
the gravity of the situation and the necessity for American 
action, there need be no limit t.o the American contribution, 
but for reasons that may be quite comprehensible in luigland' 
it is difficult to keep a popular ii iterest and energy going when 
there is a general notion tihat the end of the war will come 
the day after to-morrow. 
