4: Over When? Plans for Sending an Immediate Expeditionary Force to France, April-June 1917

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The decision for war answered only the first half of a two-part question. The United States now had to address how to fight. Controversies surrounding the depth and nature of US involvement abounded during the weeks following the American declaration of war. The central clashes focused first on whether to amalgamate American soldiers into existing Allied lines or to create an independent US Army, and second on whether to send an immediate expeditionary force to France or to withhold US troops until they could be trained and organized within the country. In resolving these dilemmas, Wilson proved once again that he believed strongly in the authority of the civilian President over the military and that his concerns were noticeably different from those of his military advisors.

The thought of committing an army to the Continent was revolting to some American political figures. While testifying before the Senate Finance Committee on 6 April, Major Palmer R. Pierce, an aide to the Secretary of War and a member of the War College Division, was asked by Committee Chair Thomas S. Martin of Virginia about the Administration's budget proposal. Pierce explained that the budget would cover necessary expenses such as "clothing, cots, camps, food, pay. . . . And we may have to have an army in France." "Good Lord!" Martin thundered, "You're not going to send soldiers over there, are you?"⁽¹⁾

Even after Pershing had departed for France with the seeds of his first division, some politicians sought to prevent any further American expeditionary force. A concurrent resolution submitted to the House of Representatives on 28 June argued that since the nation waged war ostensibly for self-defense, it should send no soldiers beyond its own shores. Warning that "the contemplated service of American freemen in the Army involves being ordered into the zone of modern artillery and machine-gun fire from which few men escape with their lives and almost none without wounds," this resolution declared:

Rule 1. That the land forces or Army of the Republic, in whatever manner raised or recruited, shall be employed only to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions, and other use is declared to be unconstitutional. Under no circumstances shall it be legal to order soldiers to engage in battle in foreign countries.

Rule 2. That in the proper exercise of their inalienable rights as American freemen, and as proclaimed in rule one, soldiers may legally and honorably refuse to go upon any ship or vessel bound or to be ordered to a foreign shore.⁽²⁾

Legislators were not alone in their reluctance to field an expeditionary force. Although he would soon change his mind on the issue, Secretary of War Baker stated as late as a week after the declaration of war that no army would leave the US "until its members have been thoroughly seasoned." Recalling after the war the rationale for the massive American loans to the Allies, Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo explained that at the time he believed that "the dollars that we sent through these loans to Europe were, in effect, substitutes for American soldiers. . . ." Wilson's personal secretary, Joseph Tumulty, noted a consensus among many leading journals that an increase in the strength of the army was needed, but mostly for the purpose of defense of the nation's borders. The Zimmermann Telegram, released by Britain on 24 February, had fueled fears of a Mexican invasion and thus emphasized the importance of domestic security. Colville Barclay, the British Chargé d'Affaires in Washington, also noted this public sentiment toward domestic defense and warned that "there appears to be a strong feeling in the States in favour of limited co-operation for purely American purposes." These media and public opinions did not inherently preclude an expeditionary force, but they did seem to emphasize domestic defense as being of far greater importance.⁽³⁾

Even Wilson himself did not yet seem committed to fielding an expeditionary force. His declaration of war speech had made no mention of the possibility, largely because he assumed that the mere threat of American intervention would suffice to convince Germany of the hopelessness of its situation and motivate it to sue for peace. The request for an immediate, direct, American role in the war, therefore, would have to come from the Allies.⁽⁴⁾

Some Allied political leaders questioned the wisdom of creating an American expeditionary force as well. They feared that if the US focused its energy on mobilizing, training, equipping, and supplying its own force, it would ignore the immediate Allied needs of food, munitions and most importantly money. The Allied armies might starve or their governments go bankrupt before the United States could raise a significant army. Charles A. Repington, military correspondent for the Times of London, argued that "the direct military intervention of the United States in the war is not practicable, even were America to desire it." In a conversation with Colonel Edward M. House, Wilson's longtime friend and intimate advisor, Joseph Allen Baker, a member of the British Parliament, contended that the Allies needed support in the form of food and armaments more than they needed man-power:

No greater service could be rendered to the cause of the Allies than in continuing to supply our requirements in Munitions and Food, and helping us in Finance. We could supply the men and do the fighting if the United States would keep the track across the Ocean clear, and ensure our receiving the full quantity of the necessary supplies.⁽⁵⁾

Thomas Beaumont Hohler, the Secretary of the British legation in Mexico, explained to Colonel House in another conversation that an attempt to arm an American force could jeopardize Allied needs such as munitions, since every bullet given to an American infantryman was one not sent to a British or French soldier in the trenches of Western Europe:

I referred to fears I had heard expressed lest munitions, etc. should be held up from the Allies in order to arm American forces which would be in the process of training: this would materially hamper the cause and so defeat the very aim which the United States would, in the eventuality, be pursuing. He said such a course had been insidiously insinuated to them from German sources, but it would not by any means be the case: heretofore the United States Government had allowed us to obtain munitions, credit and food: once the break came, they would `pump them in.'.⁽⁶⁾

In reality, of course, House was correct; the creation of an American army itself threatened none of the support that the Allied leaders desired. The Americans would have to rely on the Entente powers for most of their weaponry anyway, so the organization of an expeditionary force could not decrease the supply of that which America itself did not have. More potentially worrisome was food production, but the capacity of America's heartland was enormous and capable of feeding both America and the Allies. Money itself was of little concern, since extensions of credit were relatively easy to arrange. These worries alone did not preclude an American expeditionary force. A more formidable obstacle would be time. The most optimistic of American estimates concluded that in addition to the time required to raise and train it, at least ten months would be required to ship a force of 500,000 to Europe. British and French time tables were even less hopeful. The British General Staff concluded that even after a year no more than 250,000 American soldiers could be put into the field. In the face of the German submarine campaign which exacted its largest amount of damage in the month of April -- 881,027 gross tons, over 500,000 tons of which were British -- the Allies might not have that long to wait.⁽⁷⁾

On top of the delay associated with fielding an American army, many Allied commanders had voiced disparaging opinions of the quality of such a force. General Sir William Robertson, the Chief of the British Imperial General Staff, issued a rather pointed evaluation of the capacity of the American military when he wrote to a fellow general, "I do not think that it will make much difference whether America comes in or not. What we want to do is to beat the German Armies, until we do that we shall not win the war. America will not help us much in that respect." In a memorandum to Kuhn, the Chief of the Military Mission in Paris noted that "all of the French are somewhat afraid of the efficiency of our military organization."⁽⁸⁾

To solve both issues of the quality and the speed of American military involvement, the Allies sought to recruit soldiers directly into their armies. It was seriously doubtful that either the American public or their politicians would allow such an approach, however, so the Allies sought an alternative: amalgamation. American soldiers could enlist into the US Army and then, either individually or in small units, be integrated into existing Entente lines and chains of command. These soldiers could receive the experienced training of the British or French in Europe and could therefore play a role in the fighting more quickly than if they were trained at home. From the Allied perspective, amalgamation seemed an almost perfect solution; from the American perspective, both militarily and politically, it was out of the question.

Military commanders were unlikely to give up the very armies which they commanded, and the public would hardly swallow a plan which seemed to use their sons, brothers, fathers and husbands as mere fodder for the English and French war machines. A third option which the Allies could pursue would be to encourage the United States to send a small expeditionary force immediately to Europe. By doing so they could more quickly get the Americans involved in the war and perhaps even wear down some of the opposition to amalgamation. It was this proposal which the Allies eventually pressed.⁽⁹⁾

With the professed reason of discussing the nature of military cooperation between the US and the Entente Powers, Britain asked to send a mission to the US in early April 1917. The President was not eager for such visits; he desired to maintain both the military and the diplomatic detachment implied by his designated status of "Associate Power," and he wrote to Baker that "a great many will look upon the mission as an attempt to in some degree take charge of us as an assistant to Great Britain." Wilson, however, acquiesced to the request and on 13 April a British mission led by Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Arthur J. Balfour and Lieutenant General Tom Bridges left Liverpool. Wanting to make their appeals heard as well, the French sent a mission led by former Premier René Viviani and Marshal Joseph Joffre to coincide with the British visit.⁽¹⁰⁾

From the British perspective, the objective of convincing the Americans to send an immediate expeditionary force to Europe, regardless of its size, was second only to the need for spurring American shipbuilding. The British would argue that an American presence, whatever its form, could achieve two purposes: first, it would boost the sagging morale of the Tommies and poilu , and second, it would provide the US an opportunity to show the flag and demonstrate its commitment to the cause. A third reason offered by some was not to be presented to the Americans: the thought that by getting its nose bloodied in combat with the Germans, the US might dedicate itself even more to the Allies. Robertson had written to Haig, "I am also urging them to send some troops to France at once even if only a brigade. It would be a good thing to get some Americans killed and so get the country to take a real interest in the war."⁽¹¹⁾

Washington "cheered, clapped, honked, tooted and in other noisy ways showed its approval" when the British Mission arrived at Union Station at three o'clock on 22 April. After being greeted by several government officials, including Lansing, and under a canopy of British and French flags flying over houses, the visitors were taken by cavalry escort to the Franklin McVeagh Home on 16th Street.⁽¹²⁾

Bridges lost no time in stepping on toes at the US War Department. Within a week of his arrival in Washington he wrote to Scott and requested that a regular division be sent immediately across the Atlantic. Citing the effect of such a presence on the morale of both the Entente and the Central Powers he wrote, "The sight of the Stars and Stripes on this continent will make a great impression on both sides. . . . To this end I would like to see one of your regular divisions sent to France at once." He also suggested how America's participation should evolve: "If you ask me how your force could most quickly make itself felt in Europe, I would say by sending 500,000 untrained men at once to our depots in England to be trained there, and drafted into our armies in France." Bridges claimed that in only a little more than ten weeks these soldiers could be killing the Hun.

He attempted to soften this proposal by suggesting that these soldiers could eventually be "drafted back into the US Army and would be a good leavening of seasoned men," but his suggestion met with a cool reception from the Chief of Staff. Potentially more worrisome for Bridges, both Baker and Wilson saw this letter. When the British general pressed the issue with Baker, the Secretary of War informed him that recruiting American citizens directly into the British or French army was unacceptable because it would undermine America's war effort. Baker described to Wilson his conversation with Bridges on 2 May:

General Bridges took up with me the question of their being allowed to recruit for British service in this county--first, as to British-born subjects resident here and, second, as to citizens of the United States. I told him that we could in no event allow the opening of recruiting offices here for the recruitment of American citizens as that would take from us the whole power of exempting persons indispensable to the industry of the country, upon which the success of all parties interested depended.⁽¹³⁾

House had already forwarded a similar proposal from Herbert Hoover to Wilson in mid-February. The President had made no comment then and his position had not mellowed by the time of the British visit. The Allies would not receive Wilson's blank check to recruit Americans and thus -- with amalgamation at least temporarily out of the picture as well -- they would have to resort instead to obtaining an immediate American expeditionary force.⁽¹⁴⁾

The French seemed at first no more successful than the British in their discussions with the American military planners. They arrived in Washington on 25 April and their mission was made all the more important by the failure of the Nivelle offensive earlier that same month, a disastrous attack which cost 120,000 casualties (twelve times greater than Nivelle's own estimates) and precipitated mutiny in fifty-four divisions -- half of the entire French army! They did seek to coordinate their effort with the British, and on 26 April they agreed to pursue the goal of the immediate dispatch of a regular division to France, followed as quickly as possible by conscripted reinforcements. On 27 April Joffre spoke to the students at the Army War College. Following the speech he retired to the college president's office to meet with Baker, Scott and Bliss. The Frenchman repeated his appeal for "men, men, men" and requested that an American division be sent to Europe at once, submitting a tentative plan drafted by the French General Staff and the American Military Attaché in Paris two weeks before. He emphasized that the Americans needed to organize and raise an independent army, but reiterated that they should nonetheless send an expeditionary force immediately to the front.⁽¹⁵⁾

The General Staff opposed such a course of action with a strong and unified voice. Even before the declaration of war, American military planners had rejected such an idea. When Baker asked Bliss to voice his opinion concerning Roosevelt's proposed volunteer division, the Assistant Chief of Staff presented an argument that applied equally well in response to recommendations such as the one from Joffre. He saw the immediate dispatch of an untrained force as merely the beginning of a mass butchering of green American recruits. He counseled that any effect on Allied morale gained by "showing the American flag" would quickly wane as that force was decimated on the battlefield. Arguing that "the moral effect . . . must be considered in connection with many other things," Bliss asked: Where is the moral effect to be produced by a small and the only available force. . . ? If the proposed force is sent abroad and put at once into the field . . . it must be accompanied by two or three times its strength in order to promptly meet the excessive losses that an insufficiently trained force will incur. We will have to feed in raw troops to take the place of raw troops.⁽¹⁶⁾

Lieutenant Colonel W.H. Johnston concurred and later, after Wilson had decided to send an immediate expeditionary force to France, argued that sending untrained troops into battle could lead to a vicious circle whereby more and more of the nation's efforts would go toward replacing the "casualties of a small force instead of training an adequate force for later participation in the war."⁽¹⁷⁾ Bliss also correctly surmised the unstated British hope that a few American casualties might stimulate the US fighting spirit. He cautioned against this tactic, however, and further asked:

What about the moral effect of this at home? It is conceivable that from the English or French point of view these very losses, unnecessarily severe, will produce the moral effect that they desire. They may think that this will still further our fighting blood. But for what purpose and to what effect? Will they want to so stir us that we will insist on rushing great armies of ill-trained men into the field? They certainly will not want this; therefore, if they as well as the Central Powers know that the vast bulk of our forces must be held for prolonged training, what is the valuable moral effect that will result? Will not the moral effect turn into depression when they find that a rapidly dwindling small force will not be followed by others for a good many months?⁽¹⁸⁾

Kuhn and the War College Division equally opposed such a plan. In late January Kuhn had requested information from the Director of Naval Intelligence on the numbers of men, animals and vehicles comprising the current belligerent forces and the tonnage needed to transport them, but his query cannot be viewed as the prelude to endorsement of an immediate expeditionary force. In reality, he was attempting to create an embarkation problem for a War College course and no one in the General Staff seemed to have any information on the subject. When Scott had ordered the study from the General Staff on possible lines of action in the event of war with Germany at the beginning of February, the military planners counseled against sending any troops abroad before a complete American army was raised. In his initial report on 3 February, Kuhn wrote:

The War College Division earnestly recommends that no American troops be employed in active service in any European theatre until after an adequate period of training, and that during this period all available trained officers and men in the Regular Army and the National Guard be employed in training the new levies called into service. It should, therefore, be our policy at first to devote all of our energies to raising troops in sufficient numbers to exert a substantial influence in a later stage of the war.⁽¹⁹⁾

In its memorandum to Scott on 29 March the War College Division reiterated the argument that a small force could exert no influence on the front and could only bring harm to an American effort to create an independent army. Trained soldiers and officers were scarce in America, and forming most of them into a single division would undermine future American mobilization:

There have been indications in the press . . . that there might be a popular demand for sending a smaller expedition [than those of 500,000 proposed] composed of one or more divisions of our existing regular establishment. It is the opinion of the War College Division that such an enterprise would be a serious mistake, and should be promptly rejected as part of our plans in this emergency. The effect of such an arrangement would be to send a large part of our trained personnel on an expedition that could not exert any important influence on the war, with the result that we would be seriously embarrassed in finding trained officers for such larger forces as may be required either for offensive or defensive purposes.⁽²⁰⁾

Even more than a month after the US declaration of war, Kuhn and the War College Division again counseled against the immediate dispatch of troops. Even when Baker ordered them to draft plans for a possible expeditionary force on 10 May, the military planners restated their misgivings about this idea. Once more they warned, "The War College Division is of the opinion from a purely military point of view, that the early dispatch of any expeditionary force to France is inadvisable because of lack of organization and training, and because the trained personnel contained therein will be needed for the expansion and training of the national forces."⁽²¹⁾

The military planners, then, had made their position clear: the immediate dispatch of an expeditionary force to Europe would not, in their opinion, be in the best interest of the American war effort. Just such an expeditionary force, however, departed in June 1917 under the command of General John J. Pershing. The British and French missions seem to have persuaded Wilson, and during the President's four o'clock private meeting with the French Field Marshal on 2 May he had "allowed General Joffre to take it for granted that such a force would be sent just as soon as we could send it." In his sixty-five minute audience with Wilson the French commander successfully elicited what the American military planners had opposed so passionately ever since war had appeared likely. It is noteworthy that the President was informing Baker of this commitment after he had already made it; it does not seem that Wilson directly consulted his Secretary of War. Similarly, the President appears to have reached his decision independently of the advice being issued from the nation's military planners.⁽²²⁾

Joseph Tumulty claimed that Wilson was extremely up-to-date on military matters. In reference to the President's meeting with Joffre, Tumulty wrote: When Marshal Joffre visited the President in the spring of 1917, he was surprised, as he afterward said to Secretary Daniels, to find that President Wilson had such a perfect mastery of the military situation. He had expected to meet a scholar, a statesman, and an idealist; he had not expected to meet a practical strategist fully conversant with all the military movements.⁽²³⁾

In spite of Tumulty's claim that Wilson had a complete grasp of the military situation when he met with Joffre, it is doubtful that Wilson was cognizant of the opinions of the military planners. Sir Tom Bridges of the British delegation certainly did not concur with Tumulty's assessment. Bridges wrote of his personal interview with the President that "he would talk to me of American labour problems, railways and even golf, but of war, not a word, and the hundred and one questions to which I had prepared answers remained unasked." During his actual conversation with Joffre, the President referred to none of the concerns which they had enunciated about an immediate expeditionary force. There is no record that Baker had briefed the President on the General Staff's opinion of this recommendation. Even after the President had made the decision and the General Staff had resigned itself to Wilson's wishes, Baker made no mention of the prior reservations which the War College Division had expressed. In a letter to the President on 8 May, he wrote:

The General Staff here believe that the despatch of this force will for a while satisfy the sentimental desire of the French people to see American soldiers on the front, and that it will have an enormously stimulating effect in France. They believe, however, that very constant pressure will be brought to bear from France for further forces, and that the offers of England and France to place their training camps at our disposal to complete the training of partially trained bodies of men will be pressed upon us, so that they urge me to keep in mind the possibility of this sort of insistence from the French and British military authorities.⁽²⁴⁾

While the Secretary of War did refer to the worries of the General Staff that this expeditionary force might motivate the Allies to seek additional, untrained soldiers from the US and therefore undermine the creation of an independent American army, he expressed none of the fears that the military planners had so emotionally voiced about the potential slaughter of US soldiers. Therefore, it is unlikely that the President directly overruled the War College Division and it seems quite certain that Wilson arrived at his decision independently of any military counsel other than that offered by his Secretary of War. Wilson most likely acted on his own with a diplomatic goal in mind when he promised Joffre an immediate expeditionary force. To this extent, Colonel W.H. Johnston was correct in his dissent on 11 May: "If the expedition must be sent it is assumed that diplomatic rather than military reasons suggest such [a] course." Wilson had decided by 2 April that "right was more precious than the peace," and he had sought a role as a mediator of the conflict for quite some time before the US entered the fray.⁽²⁵⁾

Although some historians discount this desire for mediation as a motive for entering the war, few contend that such desires did not move the President once he had committed the US to the struggle.⁽²⁶⁾ It was to be this desire for a seat at the peace conference that would guide Wilson's decisions, and while such harmony between policy and objectives is admirable, the President was to make this resolution -- as he had before and would again -- with no direct consultation with his military planners.

In order to claim Wilson's desired role in the eventual negotiations, America would certainly have to endure a large share of the fighting and dying. If the United States waged war tardily or from a distance, the Allies would never recognize Wilson's ideas for the postwar world. Contributions such as munitions, food and money were too easily discounted; it would matter little that bullets were manufactured in the United States if it were only French and British soldiers who fired them. Only if America influenced the outcome of the war, and only if the US had a sizable army on the battlefield under its own flag to demonstrate this influence, could Wilson mold the shape of the peace.⁽²⁷⁾

Wilson's notion of influencing the peace settlement was certainly not lost on some military planners. Even before the resumption of the German U-boat campaign, Captain Davis (the Military Attaché in Athens and the author of the proposed American campaign through Macedonia) argued that American involvement would yield a "voice in the councils of settlement that would be beneficial and welcome because it would be a voice that had attained authority, in the only possible way, viz: by effective participation in the affairs to be settled -- a participation which would be recognized as free from territorial greed." Secretary Baker seems to have shared Wilson's postwar goals. He certainly had not voiced any of the General Staff's concern to the President, and he had even expressed privately that "to my mind the war, the settlement, and the reconstruction are the same thing, one and inseparable."⁽²⁸⁾

The General Staff's opposition to this expeditionary force was not, on the surface, antithetical to the idea of a significant American role after the war. Their concern had been that an impetuous decision now might jeopardize the strength of any American involvement and therefore threaten not only the success of an independent American army but also the triumph of American postwar diplomacy. In reality, of course, had the United States delayed it would have found itself with almost no military presence on the Continent at the close of the war. Judging from Wilson's inability to convert the Allied leaders to his way of thinking even in light of the degree of American participation, it is likely that the President would have had little or no diplomatic influence whatsoever at the postwar negotiations. Therefore, Wilson's decision was sound in the final analysis. It is still impossible to ignore, however, that the President's choice was made with no direct consultation with the military planners in the War Department General Staff.

On 14 May Baker and Joffre drew up a detailed plan for American cooperation with the French. Four days later, the same day on which Wilson signed the Selective Service Act, Baker announced publicly that Major General John J. Pershing would lead a force of about one division to France. The dense fog which engulfed Pershing and his staff as they departed New York on the Baltic symbolically enshrouded America's military planning. The nature of American involvement was beginning to take shape, but the complete foundation of America's wartime policy had not yet been laid. Even as late as 1 July the Secretary of War mentioned to Hugh Scott, then in Russia with the Root Mission, that "no definite plan has yet been made about the dispatch of further troops abroad. . . ." Baker had either forgotten about the General Staff plan issued on 7 June to begin shipping 120,000 American troops per month beginning in August, or -- more likely -- he had realized that such a rate of dispatch was absurd. Regardless, this letter to Scott demonstrates that fundamental questions regarding America's war effort remained to be determined. Additional issues such as where best to apply American military might would also come to the fore only after the American First Army had deployed in France. Even more than two months after its declaration of war, the US was gaining only a vague hint of the degree of commitment which awaited it.⁽²⁹⁾

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1. Palmer, Newton D. Baker: America at War, 1:120.

2. House Concurrent Resolution 15, 65th Congress, 1st Session, Submitted by Mr. Hilliard, 28 June 1917. The seeming redundancy of Rule 2 was designed to allow soldiers a legal escape clause so that they would not be bound under military law to any orders declared illegal in Rule 1. See also Baker's letter to the Chair of the House Committee on Military Affairs, in which the Secretary of War offers three arguments in rebuttal to the resolution: (1) that defensive measures often require a nation to "strike when opportunity affords," (2) that the US has sent troops into foreign lands on numerous occasions "in defense of our honor and our legal rights. . . ," and (3) that while the Constitution restricts the power to raise and support an army and navy and the power to declare war to Congress, it gives the President sole authority as Commander-in-Chief. Baker to S. Hubert Dent, Jr., Chair, House Committee on Military Affairs, 13 August 1917, RG 165/10050-88, NA.

3. Baker to Theodore Roosevelt, 13 April 1917, Box 3, Document 63, Baker Papers, LOC; William G. McAdoo, Crowded Years (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931), 376-77; Tumulty to Wilson, 24 March 1917, PWW, 41:462-64; Colville Barclay, "The Assistance Which the United States Might Render to the Entente Powers in the Event of Their Intervention in the War," 7 February 1917, WO 106/467, Public Records Office (hereafter, PRO), Great Britain, cited in David R. Woodward, At War with the Kaiser (forthcoming), Chapter 3; Barbara Tuchman, The Zimmermann Telegram, 168-200.

4. Kathleen Burk, "Great Britain in the United States, 1917-1918: The Turning Point," International History Review 1 (2 April 1979): 234.

5. Charles A. Repington, reprinted in "Our State of Preparedness for War," Literary Digest54 (17 February 1917): 385-87; Conversation between J. A. Baker and House, 22 February 1917, related in letter from J. A. Baker to Arthur James, 2 April 1917, PWW, 41:532-36.

6. Thomas Beaumont Hohler to Lord Charles Hardinge, Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, including text of conversation with House, 23 March 1917, PWW, 41:458-60. In this same letter Beaumont Hohler had referred to Wilson as "the most agile pussy-footer ever made." The President's own opinion of Beaumont Hohler upon their first meeting in February 1914 was also less than complimentary: "Not having my surgical instruments with me, I found it impossible to get an idea into his head." Wilson to Walter Hines Page, 24 February 1914, ibid., 29:283-84.

7. Kuhn to Scott, "Memorandum for the Chief of Staff," 29 March 1917, RG 165/9433-6, NA; [British] General Staff, "Note on the Military Forces of the United States," 5 February 1917, WO 106/467, PRO, cited in Woodward, At War with the Kaiser, Chapter 3; Herwig and Trask, "The Failure of Germany's Undersea Offensive Against World Shipping," 619.

8. Robertson to General Sir A. J. Murray, 13 February 1917, in The Military Correspondence of Field-Marshal Sir William Robertson, Chief, Imperial General Staff, December 1915 - February 1918 , ed. David R. Woodward, Publications of the Army Records Society 5 (London: The Bodley Head, for the Army Records Society, 1989), 149; Logan, Chief of Military Mission, Paris, to Chief of Army War College, War College Division, General Staff, 13 April 1917, RG 165/10050-2, NA.

9. See Thomas Clement Lonergan, It Might Have Been Lost!: A Chronicle from Alien Sources of the Struggle to Preserve the National Identity of the A.E.F. (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1929).

10. Wilson to Baker, 11 April 1917, Box 4, Baker Papers, LOC. David M. Esposito argues that Wilson's reluctance to receive the missions also stemmed from the fear that the Allies would attempt to limit America's role in the war and thereby to decrease the President's influence at the peace settlement. See David M. Esposito, "Force Without Stint or Limit: Woodrow Wilson and the Origins of the American Expeditionary Force" (Ph.D. dissertation, Penn State University, 1988), 165-66.

11. War Cabinet (116), 10 April 1917, Cab. 23/2, PRO, and War Cabinet Office to Oliphant, 12 April 1917, FO 800/208, PRO, cited in Kathleen Burk, Britain, America and the Sinews of War, 1914-1918 (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1985), 102; Robertson to Haig, 10 April 1917, Woodward, Military Correspondence of Robertson , 169.

12. Diary of Thomas W. Brahany, 22 April 1917, PWW, 42:121.

13. Bridges to Scott, 30 April 1917, WO 106/467, PRO, cited in Woodward, At War with the Kaiser , Chapter 3; Burk, Britain, America and the Sinews of War , 123; Baker to Wilson, 2 May 1917, Box 4, Documents 109 and 110, Baker Papers, LOC. Baker did mention, however, that the War Department would not necessarily try to stop any American who wished to volunteer for service under the Union Jack, since such numbers would undoubtedly be too small to have an adverse effect on American mobilization.

14. House to Wilson, 14 February 1917, with enclosure, Hoover to House, 13 February 1917, PWW, 41:226-29. Wilson did send a copy of Hoover's letter to Baker with the comment, "Here is a letter so pertinent to the inquiries being made by the Council on National Defense that I am taking the liberty of sending it to you for consideration. It comes from a very experienced man." Wilson was more interested, however, in Hoover's insights on shipping and food distribution than he was in his suggestions for allowing Allied recruitment in the US. See Wilson to Baker, with enclosures, 14 February 1917, Box 4, Documents 3 and 37-2, Baker Papers, LOC.

15. Alistair Horne, The Price of Glory: Verdun,1916 (London: Penguin Books, 1987 [1962]), 319-25; Bridgesto Chief of Imperial General Staff Sir William Robertson,29 April 1917, Cab. 21/53, cited in Burk, Britain,America and the Sinews of War , 123; Major James A. Logan, Jr.,Chief of Military Mission, Paris, to Kuhn, 13 April 1917, Subj: Military Studies on possible Participation of American Troops in Operations in France, RG 165/10050-2;Coffman, The War to End All Wars , 8-9.

16. Bliss to Baker, undated but probably March 1917, Box 1, Document 60, Baker Papers, LOC.

17. Lt. Col. W.H. Johnston to Chief of Staff, Memorandum of dissent, 11 May 1917, RG 165/10050-8.

18. Bliss to Baker, undated but probably March 1917, Box 1, Document 60, Baker Papers, LOC.

19. Kuhn to Director of Naval Intelligence, 30 January 1917, RG 165/6291-12, NA, cited in Esposito, "Force Without Stint or Limit, 135; Memorandum from War College Division to Chief of Staff, 3 February 1917, Subj: Preparation for possible hostilities with Germany, RG 165/9433-4, NA.

20. Army War College Division to Chief of Staff Scott, 29 March 1917, RG 165/9433-6.

21. Kuhn to the Chief of Staff, 10 May 1917, Subj: Plans for a possible expeditionary force to France, RG165/10050-8, NA. It was this memo from which Johnston dissented, not because he disagreed with his colleagues' opinions, but rather because he did not feel that they had stated their opposition strongly enough.

22. Wilson to Baker, 3 May 1917, Box 4, Document 109, Baker Papers, LOC.

23. Tumulty, Woodrow Wilson As I Know Him , 298-300. Tumulty's attribution of this claim to Joffre probably reflects a good bit of embellishment.

24. Sir Tom Bridges, Alarms and Excursions: Reminiscenses of a Soldier (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1938), 175; "A Conversation with Josef-Jacques-Cesaire Joffre," 2 May 1917, PWW, 42:186-91; Baker to Wilson, 8 May 1917, Box 4, Document 123, Baker Papers, LOC.

25. W.H. Johnston, Memorandum of dissent, 11 May 1917, RG 165/10050-8; "Address to a Joint Session of Congress,"2 April 1917, PWW, 41:519-27.

26. Those historians who view the desire to mediate as a prime reason for his decision for war include Patrick Devlin, who argues that by April 1917, "It would be idle for Wilson to go to the Peace Conference without a seat in the Cabinet of Nations. The price of that seat was now war. Wilson himself had no doubt of that." See Devlin, Too Proud to Fight: Woodrow Wilson's Neutrality (London: 1974), 678-81; and Trask, "Woodrow Wilson and World War I," 1-6. Opponents of this interpretation include J. A. Thompson, who contends that the weakness of Devlin's position is the slim likelihood of American intervention in the absence of the German submarine campaign. He claims that without such a direct challenge to the United States, it is hard to believe that Wilson would have gone to war for the prospects of American participation in the eventual peace settlement, since the driving force behind his previous attempts at mediation had been to avoid war altogether. Is was only after the battle had been joined that the desire for an American hand in the settlement became an over-arching theme of Wilson's policy. See Thompson, "Woodrow Wilson and World War I: A Reappraisal," Journal of American Studies 19 (December 1985): 338-47. A middle ground is struck by Arthur Link, who claims that although Wilson's decision for war was governed in great part by an eye to the diplomatic resolution of the conflict, the President was more concerned with preventing a peace on Germany's terms than on assuring a peace on those of the United States. His policies once committed to belligerency, however, were governed by his desire for participation in the settlement. See Link, Wilson, the Diplomatist , 88-90.

27. David F. Trask, The United States in the Supreme War Council: American War Aims and Inter-Allied Strategy, 1917- 1918 (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961), 5- 7; Trask, "Woodrow Wilson and World War I," 6-11.

28. Davis, Subj: Macedonian Expeditionary Force, 17 November 1916, RG 165/9910-1, NA; Baker to Guy Mason, 29 July 1917, Box 2, Document 51, Baker Papers, LOC. This letter is misfiled; since the opening of the letter is addressed only to "Guy" and since Mason's last name is buried in the text of the letter, the note itself appears in the "G" folder.

29. "Minutes of a conference of May 14 with the Secretary of War" and "Relations between French Authorities and American Command," editorial translation, in Department of the Army, Historical Section, The United States Army in the World War, 1917-1919 , vol 2. Policy-forming Documents of the American Expeditionary Forces (Washington: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1989), 5-10; Foran account of Pershing's trip across the Atlantic see Donald Smythe, "Pershing Goes 'Over There': The Baltic Trip." American Neptune 34 (1974): 262-77; Smythe, Pershing: General of the Armies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 13-19; Baker to Scott, Petrograd, Russia, 1 July 1917, Box 3, Document 113, Baker Papers, LOC. Kuhn to Bliss, 7 June 1917, Subj: Tactical reorganization required to meet requirements in the European theatre of war and program for the progressive dispatch of troops to France, RG 165/10050-30, NA. See also Chapter 5 of this thesis.

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