Chapter XIX: The Balance Sheet

What did the war cost America? It may be that an accurate answer to that question will never be given. Certainly it cannot be given now, when the stocks of surplus materials are still being sold and the final settlements of the more difficult claims are still being made. Still, we can arrive at a fair approximation of what the war cost the War Department alone. In doing so we must deal with billions of dollars in our columns, and therefore errors and differences of a few millions, or even of a few hundred millions, have no important effect upon the totals. Even if all costs and credits could be figured out to the penny, the result would not be much unlike the estimates which follow.

As a starting point we can take the appropriations for the Army made by Congress, since all the war costs of the War Department must be included within those appropriations. And we find that for the Army Congress appropriated in all, for every war purpose, the sum of $24,373,274,223.67. But not all these appropriations were expended. Some were made late in the war, and none of the money authorized by these acts to be spent was even obligated before the armistice terminated all proposed new projects. Congress hastened to repeal the untouched appropriations, and the various repeal acts canceled authorizations to the amount of $7,703,448,569.36. Therefore, the net amount made available to the War Department by the war appropriations was $16,669,825,654.31.

This figure still does not represent the gross war cost of maintaining the War Department, but it is close to it. Since final expenditures and reimbursements have not yet been determined, but are still growing, as claims are paid and surplus property is sold, it is necessary that we accept a date somewhere and examine the ledger on that day, and from this examination we may be able to estimate closely the final figures. The date chosen here is April 17, 1920,--a day far enough this side of the armistice to bring the figures fairly close to their ultimate and conclusive form. By that day the Army was almost completely demobilized, the liquidation of the Army’s foreign affairs was virtually complete, the demobilization of the domestic war industry was approaching the end, and the greater part of the surplus war supplies had been sold.

On April 17, 1920, then, we find that the actual expenditures of the War Department had reached the total of $16,276,288,337.19. This was within $400,000,000 of the net war appropriations, the difference, of course, being in the Treasury as unexpended balances available to those paying the final war bills of the War Department. Yet this expenditure cannot be labeled the cash cost of the war to the Army. We must first make several large deductions for money derived from sales of materials and, especially, for the property on hand set aside for the permanent Army and for the military readiness of the United States.

The foreign liquidation, as we have seen, recovered into the Treasury approximately $757,000,000. On April 17, 1920, the sales of military property in the United States had brought in the sum of $641,261,000. Transfers of army property for use by other departments of the Government--a proper credit--involved materials valued at $42,096,000. On the date selected there still remained in the United States surplus, but unsold, army property valued at $600,000,000. The average recovery from the sale of surplus within the United States was about 75 per cent of the cost. Assuming that this ratio would hold throughout the entire liquidation, we can anticipate a cash recovery of $450,000,000 from the surplus still existing on April 17, 1920.[16]

These reimbursements, however, even in the aggregate, constitute a minor credit when compared with the value of the equipment left by the war enterprise to be the inheritance of the permanent establishment and to be insurance of the continued safety of the United States in a world not yet willing to lay down its arms. The property of the War Department at the beginning of the war with Germany was estimated to be worth $500,000,000. At the end of the demobilization the property of the War Department was worth, at a rough estimate, $6,000,000,000. It is evident, therefore, that this increment in value--$5,500,000,000--represents present useful property, and that it must be subtracted from the expenditures in order to arrive at the net cost of the war itself. This valuation of property on hand, incidentally, does not include the value of real estate and buildings acquired during the war and retained in use afterwards, since it has never been fully determined as yet which of these installations will be kept.

The deductions, then, on account of sales and on account of property retained, amount to $7,390,000,000, and this is the gross credit on the war page of the army ledger. To find the net cost of the war proper, we must subtract this from the gross expenditures, and we must do this roughly; because with transactions so large, indefinite, and complicated, it becomes absurd to reduce the figures to cents or even to thousands of dollars. The rough subtraction gives us the figure $8,885,000,000, which is not many millions away from the actual net cost. This, of course, represents cost to the War Department alone. It does not include the Navy’s costs, nor those of the United States Shipping Board, nor of the United States Railroad Administration, nor any costs of other great and expensive war enterprises which properly must be added in to give the full score of the cost of the war to the United States.

This net cost, this sum of $8,885,000,000, represents what the Government paid in transporting the 4,000,000 men of the Army, in feeding them, clothing them, and providing them with all other sorts of expendable supplies which they actually consumed, and in paying the troops their wages. The supply cost, of course, includes the cost of the industrial liquidation after the armistice and the losses from the shrinkages and wastes of war. The whole bill comes out at about $2,200 a man.

This, too, is but the direct cash cost, the cost in money. The intangible costs, which are never brought into a tabulation of this kind, are, after all, the true costs of war. They include the 50,000 American soldiers killed in battle in Europe. They include also the 200,000 Americans who were wounded in the fighting--some of them still, two and a half years after the armistice, in hospitals and thousands of them facing life with permanently impaired bodies. These usually unreckoned costs, too, include the 57,000 who died of disease or accident while in the service.

But beyond these losses of life there were other profound penalties which the people paid and are still paying. These, too, must be set down to the account of war in any complete reckoning. One of them was the greatly increased cost of almost everything necessary to sustain life and render it pleasant, including particularly an increase of rentals, bringing with it, as a natural consequence, the overcrowding of living quarters, to the detriment of the health of those existing in such conditions. The high costs of living are aggravated by the special war taxes laid everywhere, taxes which, in one form or another, must be imposed for many years to come in order to pay for the losses of the war.

There were, moreover, spiritual losses--an incredible moral slump from the national exaltation of the war to the bickering and bitterness of the demobilization. Governments fell as the war-ridden peoples of the earth blindly and brutishly vented their spleen and irritation for the hardships they had experienced upon those who chanced to be in power. Erstwhile statesmanship lapsed into a narrow, advantage-seeking partizanship that regarded not, it sometimes seemed in this country, even the fate of the world. The United States turned its back upon the League of Nations, which was the most ambitious attempt ever made by the nations of the earth to substitute a rule of reason for the rule of force.

But if we recite these and other intangible and indirect costs that might be named, then we are equally justified in looking for the benefits derived from our participation in the war; and we find these benefits to be great ones. First of all, we gained the victory; and that alone, and especially so because the cause of America was righteous, was worth all it cost in blood and money and burdens shouldered for the future. We gained, moreover, a state of preparedness for war that would have been impossible of attainment under any other circumstances. In the reserves of supplies we have equipment ready to arm 1,000,000 men as rapidly as they can take the field. In the reserves of machinery we have a potential war industry capable of maintaining such an army until industry generally can take up the manufacture of munitions. Not again during the existence of the present generation should we, if the emergency came, have to experience the uncertainties and delays of 1917 in the production of supplies. We have within our war reserves the machinery and the materials for producing all the more difficult sorts of munitions, and we have, moreover, preserved records of how to produce them.

Then, again, the health of the nation has presumably gained a benefit from the experience. Hundreds of thousands of young men were removed from sedentary occupations and placed in the vigorous, ordered, athletic regimen of camp life. Several months of this, on the average, did not fail to have its effect, and the medical records of the Army showed a marked increase in the average weight of soldiers during the war. Akin to this consideration is the fact that men were picked up from farms, villages, and city neighborhoods and transported to distant parts of the earth. This travel broadened thousands of them, quickened their ambition, and strengthened their life purposes. Moreover, the men of the Army were thoroughly mixed in the ranks and services. The boy from Maine fraternized with the one from Arizona, and Illinois and Virginia sent their sons to be comrades. Sectional, national, and even racial lines disappeared in the ranks. This extensive regional interacquaintanceship is to-day a national asset. The infiltration of 4,000,000 men who secured these individual benefits into the civilian life of America is calculated to elevate the physical, mental, and moral tone of the whole nation and to improve America’s homogeneity.

Other benefits might be named. The principle of selective military service has been established by the precedent set in the World War. As long as that experience is remembered there will be no danger that America would ever return, in any serious emergency, to the unscientific volunteer system that takes the brave and the enterprising and leaves behind the indolent and timorous. Above all, we must count as gain from the war the confirmation it gave us in our faith in our ability to continue our existence as a nation. The experience demonstrated that our national resources include not only valor in arms in boundless quantity, but also the ability to organize effectively a nation as great as ours for a purpose as complicated as modern war has come to be. The experience in 1917 and 1918 gave us a firm foundation for national self-confidence.

These are all benefits and gains which may properly be set off against the intangible costs of the war. Among the benefits secured, however, is not yet one which we might, in 1917 and 1918, have expected to find there. The American host which crossed to France went, almost to a man, uplifted and made heroic by the feeling that it was an army of crusaders fighting to end wars forever. No mere instinct of self-preservation, no simple prospect of a victory over a strange, foreign enemy in gray uniforms, could have inspired the morale of the American Expeditionary Forces, nor yet that of the forces in training in the United States, nor that of American industry in its eager, headlong devotion to the national undertaking. This was to be Armageddon, the last of wars, the war to make safe the unwarlike peoples of the world; and no cynical dictum that man is still too near his neolithic savagery to rely on anything other than might in his international contentions, no Chauvinistic picture of new migrations of Asiatic hordes, can change the fundamental fact that America went to war in the belief that its chiefest object was to end war forever. Until we have made some national attempt to secure that benefit, the page will not balance.

FOOTNOTES

[1] In this the system differed from that in use in the United States. Not the Quartermaster Corps but the Embarkation Service in the United States prepared the overseas troops for the voyage and embarked them on the transports. The Embarkation Service also operated many of the transports. After the armistice the Embarkation Service, now merged into the Transportation Service, continued to manage the Army’s ocean shipping facilities, and it also attended to the details of debarking troops at the ports in this country; but its jurisdiction over those troops began only after they had boarded the ships in France.

[2] Deadweight tonnage represents the weight of cargo it takes to sink a vessel in the water from her light-load line to her deep-load line.

[3] In the spring of 1919 the Transportation Service brought back to America from Archangel the American troops, about 4,500 in number, sent to northern Russia in September, 1918, to combat the Bolsheviki. It also, in late 1919 and early 1920, transported from Vladivostok to American Pacific ports about 10,000 American troops who had been sent to Siberia at different times to aid Czecho-Slovak, Japanese, and other Allied forces in operations against German and Austrian troops aiding the hostile native Russians in Siberia. In 1920 the Transportation Service, acting as an independent contractor, undertook to repatriate 30,000 of the Czecho-Slovak Siberian troops cut off from escape to the Balkans by the successes of the Bolsheviki in southern Russia. To the government of Czecho-Slovakia the Service named the price of $12,000,000 for this work, a price criticized in this country as too low. The last of the 30,000 Czecho-Slovaks were landed at Trieste about January 1, 1921, and the whole job had been carried through at a cost of approximately $8,000,000. The Service employed twelve U. S. transports for one or more trips in the movement of the Czech expedition, and two of them--the _America_ and the _President Grant_, both ex-German liners--circumnavigated the globe in the process of the work, proceeding from New York to Vladivostok _via_ Panama and thence to Trieste _via_ the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal, and from Trieste to New York _via_ Gibraltar. The Czechs traveled under American military discipline with what that implies in cleanliness and sanitation, and therefore moved without the epidemics of disease that have usually accompanied the progress of Balkan forces.

[4] The disability discovered in these examinations was surprisingly small, affecting a little more than 5 per cent of the soldiers examined. Since the so-called limited-service men--soldiers suffering from physical disability at the time of their induction and accepted for military duties with the proviso that they should serve in capacities where their physical shortcomings would not impair their value to the Government--since these men also went to the demobilization centers for discharge, it is evident that, to show a true picture of the physical condition of the Army at demobilization, the limited-service troops must be subtracted from the totals. With such subtraction made, it is estimated that less than 5 per cent of the men called to arms and accepted for service incurred physical disability of any sort by reason of their experience.

[5] This work was practically all done after the date of the armistice and before the advent of spring in 1919--in other words, during the time of the year when the days are short and the nights long.

[6] The financing of war factories, and particularly of those which had to make large and expensive plant additions before manufacturing could proceed, was effectively aided by the War Credits Board of the War Department. In the autumn of 1917 Congress authorized the War Department to advance to contractors amounts up to 30 per cent of the total contract obligations. The War Credits Board administered this work. In all, it lent to war department contractors about $250,000,000. On June 1, 1921, it had recouped all but $14,500,000 of these loans. Its total losses were not expected to run over $150,000, while the profits (interest, of which $8,000,000 had been collected) were estimated at $12,000,000.

[7] The A. E. F. importations include all American-made guns shipped to France, these same guns also being included among the 6,663 units noted as built in the United States.

[8] This and other special artillery plants since sold to private buyers are regarded as military assets. In the event of another great war they would undoubtedly be used once more for the work their walls encompassed in 1918.

[9] Includes surplus for sale.

[10] Sufficient to equip engineer troops with army of 825,000 men.

[11] _Chemical Warfare._ By Fries and West; the McGraw-Hill Company.

[12] Abridged from the discussion in _Chemical Warfare_. By Fries and West; the McGraw-Hill Company.

[13] Under the contract France and England must at any time lease this or some other cross-Channel cable to the United States upon the request of this country.

[14] The French Government later converted the plant into a railroad car repair shop.

[15] This sum was much more than offset in our favor by the decline in sterling exchange during the time bills were unpaid.

[16] Due to the slump in business and prices in 1921, this estimate is probably too high.

INDEX

Aberdeen Proving Ground, 176

Abuse of Uniform, 109–110

Agriculture, Department of:
Army supplies transferred to, 43, 275–276
Army surplus nitrate sold by, 274

Aircraft:
Production, 199–203
Storage, 208

Aircraft Board, 204

Aircraft Industrial Demobilization, 204–207

Airplane Engines:
Returned by A. E. F., 210
Sale of surplus, 280
War production, 202–203, 206

Airplane Lumber, 280

Airplane Lumber Claim, 293–294

Airplanes:
Burning of unserviceable, 211–213
Contracts, 199
Production, 202, 206
Returned by A. E. F., 210–211
Sale of surplus, 280

Air Service: Demobilization of, 50, 133, 204, 207, 280–281

Air Service Claims Board, 204

Air Service of A. E. F.:
Demobilization, 210–213
Maintenance cost, 203

Allies: Business settlement with, 287–288, 313–314

Allotments, 71–72

Amatol Arsenal, 188

American Brake Shoe & Foundry Co.: Builders of Erie Howitzer Plant,
171

American Car & Foundry Co.:
Claim of, 156
Post-armistice production by, 179

American Cyanamid Co.: Process of, at Muscle Shoals fixation plant,
184

American Expeditionary Forces:
Identification of dead of, 85, 89–91
Repatriation of, 38–42
Strength of, 1
Welfare activities in, 92–97

American Legion:
And abuse of uniform, 110
And bonus, 69
And disabled veterans, 104

American Red Cross:
Bonus payment aided by, 69
Demobilization camp banks of, 110
Soldier reëmployment campaign aided by, 109

Ammonium Nitrate, 274

Ammunition, Artillery: Disposal of, 188–190

Anglo-American Tank Project, 298–300

Anglo-American Tanks: Purchase of British parts for, 300–301

Animals: _See_ Horses and Mules

Appel, Monte: Claims against French settled by, 295

Appraisers, War Department Board of, 142

Army:
Status of demobilization, February 28, 1919, 50
Strength, 1

Army Retail Stores, 282–285

Army Subsistence School, 247–248

Artillery Carriages: Demobilization of industry producing, 174–175

Artillery, Field:
Production, 164, 175, 176
Reserve manufacturing facilities for, 168, 172
Reserves of, 175, 176

Artillery, Motorization of, 194

Artillery, Railway: Demobilization of industry producing, 176–180

Assistant Secretary of War, The:
As president of War Department Claims Board, 135
Purchase of cantonment sites ordered by, 265

Attorney General: Ruling of, against commission agents, 123

Ayer, Lieut. Col. F. R.: On Ordnance Claims Board, 147

Babcock, Col. Conrad S.: “Pershing’s Own Regiment” trained by, 94

Baggage, Military, 74–75
_See also_ Lost Baggage

Baggage Service, 75–78

Baldridge, Private C. LeRoy: On _Stars and Stripes_, 96

Balloons, 203, 206, 213

Barnes, Lieut. Col. A. V.: Chief of Baltimore ordnance district, 149

Bausch & Lomb Optical Co.: Optical glass produced by, 192–193

Beaune, University of, 93

Belgian Government: Supplies sold to, 189, 216, 241, 252

Belgian Relief Commission, 241

Benson, Admiral William S.: And German passenger vessels, 36

Billy, M. Édouard de: On French Liquidation Commission, 294

Bonus, 51, 69–70

Boosters and Adapters, 186

Bordeaux: As port of embarkation for A. E. F., 11, 12, 16, 19–24, 25,
28

Boston: As port of debarkation, 54

Bound Brook Tetranitroaniline Plant, 182

Boy Scouts: Walnut trees hunted by, 157

Brashear Co., J. A.: Prisms for panoramic sights produced by, 191

Brass, 277

Brest: As port of embarkation for A. E. F., 11, 12, 16, 17, 24–25, 29

Briggs & Turivas: Senter tetryl plant bought by, 182

Briggs, Lieut. Col. M. F.: On Ordnance Claims Board, 147

British Army: Unidentified dead of, 84

British Government:
American claims paid by, 294
American surplus aircraft sold by, 213
Ships of, withdrawn from American service, 31

Britt, Field Clerk James A.: On _Stars and Stripes_, 95

Browns: Number of, in Army, 70

Bryant, Waldo C.: Chief of Bridgeport ordnance district, 148

_Buford_, U. S. A. T.: Conversion of, 35

Bulk Sale of A. E. F. Property, 309–312

Bullard Engineering Works: Demobilization of ordnance work at, 165–167

Burr, Maj. Gen. G. W.:
British claims settled by, 303–304
On War Department Claims Board, 135

Burr-Niemeyer Agreement, 303–304

Bush Terminal Co.: Cartridge cloth sold by, 280

Camphor, 285

Camps, Sale of, 261–264

Candles, Toxic, 223–226

Cantonments: Purchase of sites of, 264–266

_Cape May_, U. S. A. C. T.: Loading record of, 40

Cargo: Quantity of A. E. F., returned, 42–43

Cargo Transports, Conversion of, 32, 34–35

Cartridge Cloth, 278–280

Castor Bean Case, 208–210

Cemeteries, American, in Europe, 86–89

Charleston: As port of debarkation, 54

Châteauroux Tank Plant, 195

Chemical Warfare Service:
Demobilization activities of, 133, 220–227, 282
Nitrogen fixation plant built for, 184–185

Chicago Storage Depot, 187

Claims, Soldiers’, 70–73

Classification Board, 142

Coffin, Howard E.: As chairman of Aircraft Board, 204

Combat Troops, Embarkation of, 13

Commerce, Secretary of: War contract conference called by, 117

Construction Division, 257–266

Construction Division Claims Board, 260

Construction in France, 214, 215

Contract Adjustment, Board of:
Function, 124, 137
Informal contracts settled by, 140–141

Contractors, Ordnance, 159–162

Contract Review, Superior Board of, 122–124

Contracts: _See_ Cost-plus Contracts _and_ War Contracts

Contracts and Adjustments, Board of, 237

Contracts, Class A, 140

Contracts, Class B, 140

Contracts, Informal, 126–128, 139–141

Contracts, Surveyor of, 121

Copper, 274

Cost-plus Contracts, 114–116, 117–121, 124–125

Council of National Defense, 106–107, 248

Cross-Channel Cable, A. E. F., 229

Cupro-nickel, 277–278

Cuthell Board, 288–296

Cuthell, Chester W.: Activities of, in settlement of international
claims, 290–296

Cuthell Board organized by, 288

Cuthell-Inverforth Agreement, 291, 293

Czecho-Slovakia: Supplies bought by, 242

Czecho-Slovak Siberian Troops, 46 (footnote)

_Daily Mail_, London: _Stars and Stripes_ printed in plant of, 95

Dawes, Brig. Gen. Charles G.: On United States Liquidation
Commission, 296, 297

Debarkation Camps, 55–57

Deceased Soldiers’ Effects, 80–83

Delano, Col. F. A.: French railroad transportation claim settled by,
308

Delousing, 17–19, 57

Demobilization Centers, 49

Demobilization Problems, 3, 4–8

Dent Act, 128, 140

Diphenolchlorarsine, 223–226

Disability in Service, 63 (footnote)

Dodge Brothers:
Recuperator plant of, 172–174
Truck contracts with, 232

Dorr, G. H.:
On War Department Claims Board, 135

Dravo, Ralph M.: Chief of Pittsburg ordnance district, 150

Du Pont Powder Co.:
Claim of, 156
Dyes manufactured by, 182

Early, Capt. Stephen T.: On _Stars and Stripes_, 96

Eddystone Rifle Plant, 196

Effects Bureau, 80–83

Embarkation Camps, A. E. F., 16–17

Embarkation Service:
Merged in Transportation Service, 57
Employment Service, United States, 106–108

Engineer Claims Board, 219

Engineer Department, 50, 213–219, 281–282

Engineering Supplies, 216–218

Equipment, Soldier’s, 21

Erie Howitzer Plant, 167, 171

Erie Proving Ground, 176

Eustis, Camp Abraham, 177

Expeditionary Bases, Disposal of, 45–46, 258

Final-payment rolls, 66

Finance, Director of:
And final payment to officers, 67–69
And wounded soldiers, 65–66

Finance Service, 64–69, 133, 266

First Censor and Press Company, 96

First Division, 29, 59–62

Fisher, Harry A.: On Cuthell Board, 294

Fisher, William: On Cuthell Board, 294

Fixed Nitrogen Commission, 183, 185

Food Administration, United States: Contract settlements of, 141

Ford Motor Co.:
Tank contracts with, 195
Truck contracts with, 232

Forest Service: Supplies turned over to, 228

_Forward to the Farm! Why Not?_: In reëmployment campaign, 110

Frankford Arsenal: Machinery concentrated at, 181, 187, 191, 192, 198

French Claims, 306–308

French Government:
American supplies purchased by, 190, 213, 216, 229, 230, 238–240,
242, 245, 252, 281, 311–313
Claims negotiations with, 217, 295, 306–309

French Liquidation Commission, 294

Gas Defense Division, 220

Gas, Toxic, 220–222, 226–227

General Sales Agent and Board, 240, 241

General Vehicle Co.: French contract with, settled, 295

Genicart, Camp, 23

German Passenger Ships, 35–36

Goethals, Maj. Gen. G. W.: Purchase, Storage, and Traffic Division
built around, 234

Graham, Col. J. H.:
A. E. F. property inventoried by, 309–310
Grand Central Palace Debarkation Hospital, 99

Graves Registration Service, 85–91

_Great Northern_, U. S. A. T., 39

Greenhut Building Debarkation Hospital, 99

Greenwood, Levi H.: Chief of Boston ordnance district, 148

Gun Plants, 167–168

Gwinn, Ralph W.: Work of, on Cuthell Board, 291, 292

Harness, 286

Harrisburg Manufacturing & Boiler Co.: Railway artillery produced
after armistice by, 178, 179

Harrison, C. L.: Chief of Cincinnati ordnance district, 150

Hawley, Private Hudson: On _Stars and Stripes_, 95

Hidden-loss Claim, British, 302–303

Hill, Camp, 55

Hines, Brig. Gen. Frank T.:
As chief of Transportation Service, 57
Foreign passenger vessels secured by, 36
Plan of, for repatriation of A. E. F., 30–32

Hoboken Casual Companies, 56

Hollis, Hon. Henry F.: On United States Liquidation Commission, 296,
297

Hoover, Herbert: Surplus food purchased by, 241

Horses and Mules, 244–246, 253–255

Horse Shows in A. E. F., 94

Hospital Trains, 99–100

Howe, Richard F.: On Aircraft Board, 204

Humphreys, Camp, 268

_Imperator_, S. S., 36

Imperial Munitions Board: American contracts in Canada settled by,
140, 142, 148

Informal Contracts: _See_ Contracts, Informal

Inland Traffic Service, 57

Interallied Maritime Transport Council, 36

Interdepartmental Conference, 117–121

Interior, Secretary of: Army lands sold by, 267

Invalid Contracts: _See_ Contracts, Informal

Inventory and Appraisal of A. E. F. Property, 309–311

Inverforth, Lord: Empowered to deal with Cuthell Board, 290–291

Italian Government: American claims paid by, 295

Jackling, D. C.: Nitro powder plant contracts adjusted by, 142–143

Jadwin, Brig. Gen. Edgar: A. E. F. installations appraised by, 310

Jadwin Report, 310

Japan Paper Co.: Ordnance claim of, 158

Johnson, Homer H.: On United States Liquidation Commission, 296, 297

Jones, John C.: Chief of Philadelphia Ordnance district, 149

Keuffel & Esser: Optical glass produced by, 192–193

Labor, Department of: War industry terminated on advice of, 131, 132

Lamont, Col. R. P.: On Ordnance Claims Board, 147

La Pallice, 12

Layton, W. T.: On Inverforth Commission, 291

League of Nations, 318

Leather, 286

Le Havre, 12

Le Mans: Embarkation area at, 13–15, 23, 24, 28, 53–54

Lewis, Capt. W. Lee: Lewisite invented by, 223

Lewisite, 223, 226

Liberty Engine Claim, 292, 293

Liquidation Commission, United States:
Claims settled by, 217, 298–303, 304–305, 306–309
Creation, function, and policies of, 288–290, 296
Property sold by, 210, 240, 309–313

Loading Plants, 188

Lost Baggage, 72, 75–77, 79–80

Lost Baggage Bureau, 75, 76–77, 78–79

Loucheur, M. Louis: Refusal of, to pay Anglo-American tank claim, 300

Lumber, 273

Mahogany, 280

Marion Steam Shovel Co.: Railway artillery produced after armistice
by, 178

Marlin-Rockwell Corp.: Ordnance claim of, 156

Marseilles, 12

Marshall, Waldo H.: On Ordnance Claims Board, 147

_Maui_, U. S. A. C. T., 39–40

Maxwell-Chalmers Co.: Tractors produced by, 194

Mayor’s Committee of Welcome, 55

_McClellan_, U. S. A. T., 25

McLane Silk Co.: Cartridge cloth sold by, 280

Meade, Camp, 62

Medical Department: Demobilization activities of, 49, 61–64, 97–101

Medical Supplies, 232, 233

Meigs, Camp, 66

Meloney, Major William Brown: Reëmployment pamphlet written by, 108

Merritt, Camp, 55–56

Midvale Steel & Ordnance Co.:
Howitzer plant of, 179–180
Rifle plant of, 196

“Mill” at Bordeaux, 19–23

Mills, Camp, 55, 56

Mines, Bureau of: Nitrogen fixation plant built by, 184–185

Mobile Repair Shops, 195

Morel, M. Paul: A. E. F. property purchased for France by, 311–312

Morgan Engineering Co.: Post-armistice production of railway
artillery by, 178–179

Motor Transport Corps, 49, 230–232

Motor Vehicles, 230–232

Mules: _See_ Horses and Mules

Muscle Shoals Nitrogen Plant, 183, 184, 185

National Defense Act, 114

National Defense, Council of, 106–107, 248

Navy Department:
Army property turned over to, 180, 275
Operation of troopships relinquished by, 33
U. S. A. T. _Northern Pacific_ repaired by, 42
Warships used as troopships by, 36

Nebraska Aircraft Corp.: Army airplanes bought by, 280

Nervous and Mental Cases in Army, 102

Neuve, Camp, 23

Neville Island Gun Plant, 180

New York: As port of debarkation, 54

New York Air Brake Co.: Ordnance claims of, 156

Newport News: Debarkation at, 54, 99

Newport News Shipbuilding Co.: Use of, by Transportation Service, 34

Nitrate of Soda, 274

Nitrogen Fixation Plants, 183–185

Nitro Powder Plant, 142–143, 182, 262, 276

Noble, Frank S.: Chief of Rochester ordnance district, 149

_Northern Pacific_, U. S. A. T., 42

Northwestern Ordnance Co.: Machinery of, transferred to Erie Howitzer
Plant, 171

Officers:
Final payments to, 67–69
Transportation of, from France, 41–42

Old Hickory Powder Plant, 181

Operations Division, 259

Optical Glass, 192–194

Optical Instruments, 192

Ordnance Claims Board, 146–147

Ordnance Contractors, 159–162

Ordnance Department: Demobilization activities of, 133, 146, 147–159,
163, 164–165

Ordnance Industry, 145–146

Ordnance Plants, 276

Ordnance Salvage Board, 275–280

Otis Elevator Co.: Recuperator plant of, 173, 174

Parker, Edwin B.: Chairman of United States Liquidation Commission,
296, 297

Peirce, Brig. Gen. W. S.: Chief of Ordnance Claims Board, 147

Perryville Ammonium Nitrate Plant, 182

Pershing, Gen. J. J.:
A. E. F. disbanded by, 12, 37
Armistice announced by, 1
Departure of, from France, 29
Parades with First Division, 59–61
_Stars and Stripes_ supported by, 95, 96–97

“Pershing’s Own Regiment,” 94

Pershing Stadium, 94, 215

Physiotherapy, 100–101

Picatinny Arsenal: Machinery concentrated at, 181, 187, 188

Picric Acid Plants, 182

Pittsburg Plate Glass Co.: Optical glass produced by, 192–193

Platinum, 277

Polish Relief Corp., 242

Pontanezen, Camp, 16–17

Ports of Embarkation, A. E. F., 10–11, 12, 39

Portugal: A. E. F. supplies bought by, 242

Post Office Department: Supplies turned over to, 228

Powder Plants, 181, 182

Preparedness: American post-armistice state of, 319

Public Health Service, 101–102, 103–104, 252, 275

Pullman Car Co.: Post-armistice production of railway artillery
_matériel_ by, 179

Purchase Claims Board, 247

Purchase, Director of, 133, 235, 246–248, 252–253

Purchase, Storage, and Traffic, Division of:
Industrial demobilization controlled by, 134–135
Purchasing functions of, 219, 234–235
War contracts controlled by, 121

Quartermaster Department, 50, 234–235

Quartermaster Supplies:
Demobilization of industry producing, 246–247
Purchases of, in Europe, 235–236
Sales of:
To French Government, 238–240
To other purchasers, 240–243
Storage of, 251–252
Termination of European contracts for, 237
Value of A. E. F. surplus of, 243

Racine trinitrotoluol Plant, 142

Railroad Administration, United States: Cut rates to discharged
soldiers granted by, 51–52

Railroad Claim, French, 217

Railway Passenger Equipment, Army, 57–58

Raritan Arsenal, 176

Raw Materials Division, 248

Ray, John H., Jr.: On Cuthell Board, 294

Real Estate Service, 267–268

Recording & Computing Machines Co.: Optical instruments produced by,
192

Recuperators, 172

Reeves, Col. Ira L.: President of Beaune University, 93

Remount Service, 244–246, 253–255

Reo Motor Co.: Tractors produced by, 194

Ritchey, Dr. G. W.: Optical workers trained by, 191

Roads, Bureau of Public: Supplies furnished to, 217, 252, 282

Roberts, George J.: Chief of New York ordnance district, 149

Robinson, Fred J.: Chief of Detroit ordnance district, 149

Rochester Gun Plant, 167, 170–171

Rock Island Arsenal:
Artillery stored at, 176
Machinery concentrated at, 172, 174–175, 197
Post-armistice production:
Recuperators, 173
36-ton tanks, 195

Roosevelt, Theodore: Attitude of, toward burial of soldiers in
France, 84

Ross, Private Harold W.: As editor of _Stars and Stripes_, 96

Roumania: Supplies bought by, 242

Russell, E. A.: Chief of Chicago ordnance district, 149

Russell, Fort D. A.: Artillery stored at, 176

Sales Branch, 269, 271–275

Sales, Director of, 269–270, 276

Salvage, 24, 243–244

Savanna Proving Ground, 176

School System of A. E. F., 92–93

Scovil, Samuel:
Chief of Cleveland ordnance district, 149
Selective Service Men, Entrainment of, 1, 47–48

Senter Tetryl Plant, 182

Seventy-seventh Division, 59, 67

Sheffield Nitrogen Plant, 183–184, 185

Shell:
Demobilization of Industry producing, 185–187
Disposal of A. E. F. stocks of, 188–190

Shell, Gas, 222–223

Shelton, Charles B.: On Cuthell Board, 294

Sights and Fire-control Instruments, 190–193

Signal Corps, 227–229

Singer Manufacturing Co.: Post-armistice production of recuperators
by, 172, 173

Singleton, Marvin E.: Chief of St. Louis ordnance district, 150

Small Arms: Demobilization of industry producing, 195–197

Small-arms Ammunition, 197–198

Smith, Dan: Reëmployment poster painted by, 109

Smith, Sergeant John W. Rixey: On _Stars and Stripes_, 96

Smiths: Number of, in Army, 70

Smoke, Toxic, 223–226

Soldier Dead: Place of burial of remains of, 83–84, 91

Spencer Lens Co.: Optical glass made by, 192

Springfield Armory: Machinery stored at, 197

Spruce Production Corp., 143, 281

Standard B Trucks, 231

Standard Contract Provisions, 122–124

Standards, Bureau of: Optical glass manufacture by, 192, 193–194

_Stars and Stripes_, 9–10, 94–97

Steel, 277

Steever, Miller D.: Work of, on Cuthell Board, 291, 292–293

Stettinius, Edward R.: Activities of, in settling foreign industrial
claims, 297, 298, 305–306

Stewart, Col. G. H.: On Ordnance Claims Board, 147

St. Nazaire: As port of embarkation for A. E. F., 11, 12, 16, 25, 28

Storage, Director of, 251

Storage Service, 250–252

Stuart, Camp, 55

Sulphur, 274

Surplus Army Supplies, 270–271

Surplus Property Division, 285–286

Symington-Anderson Co.:
Chicago shell factory of, retained as stand-by plant, 187
Rochester Gun Plant built by, 170

Tank Claim, British, 301

Tanks, 195

Tardieu, M. André: In negotiations leading to bulk purchase of
A. E. F. stocks, 311

Thayer, Harry B.: On Aircraft Board, 204

Theatrical Performances, Soldiers’, 94

Thirty-third Division, 59

Tires, Automobile, 286

Toluol Plants, 182–183

Training Camps:
Demobilization of troops in, 48–50
Use of, as debarkation camps, 55

Transportation Service:
Air service squadrons in England repatriated by, 38
Cargo transports redelivered by, 43–45
Conversion of cargo transports by, 34–35
Creation of, 57
First Division transported by, 59–60
German passenger vessels secured by, 36
Military passengers carried by, after armistice, 59
Morale of, 32–33, 38–39
News bureau of, 55
_Personnel_ adjutants of, 41
Port facilities disposed of by, 45–46
Pre-armistice stoppage of embarkation by, 37
Reserve of troopships created by, 45
Russian and Siberian expeditionary troops repatriated by, 46
(footnote)
Sick and wounded transported by, 58–59
Troopships diverted by, 54
Troopships operated by, 33

Transports, 43 _See also_ Cargo Transports _and_ Troopships

Travel Allowance, 51

Treasury, Comptroller of: Decision of, invalidating informal
contracts, 127

Trinitrotoluol Plants, 183

Troop-movement Section, 47–48

Troopships, 31, 34, 36–37, 45

Trucks, Motor, 199, 286

Tuberculosis, 102

Tullytown Bag-loading Plant, 188

_Tuscania_, S. S.: Identification of effects of soldiers lost in
sinking of, 82–83

Twenty-eighth Division, 59

Twenty-seventh Division, 59

United States Aëronautical Engine Plant, 207

Universities, Foreign: A. E. F. soldiers in, 93–94

Upton, Camp, 55, 56

Vessel owners: Demand of, for redelivery of chartered tonnage, 33–34

Veterans:
Employment campaign for, 104–111
Generosity of Government to, 104

Victory Parades, 59

Vocational Education, Federal Board for, 101, 102–104

Wah Chang Trading Corp.: Ordnance claim of, 158

Wallgren, Private A. B.: On _Stars and Stripes_, 96

Walnut Timber, 156–157

War Camp Community Service: Reëmployment campaign of, 109

War Contracts:
Extent of, 112–113, 128–129
Standardization of, 122–124
Termination and liquidation of, 129–132, 138
_See also_ Cost-plus Contracts

War Credits Board, 119–120 (footnote)

War Department:
Contract liquidation system of, 135–136, 138
Contractors paid in advance by, 137–138, 141
Contractual obligations of, 112–113, 128–129
Cost of war to, 315–318
Effect of 1917 organization of, upon contracts, 116–117
Expansion of plant of, 256–257
Policies of:
In burying soldier dead, 83–84
In discharging troops, 49–51, 52–53, 105–106
Real Estate Service of, 266–267
Reëmployment campaign of, 104–105
Reorganization of, in 1918, 121
War contracting powers of, 114

War Department Claims Board:
Castor bean case settled by, 208–210
Creation and _personnel_ of, 135
Growth of, 141
Informal contracts settled by, 140
Record of, 143–144

War Industries Board:
Australasian wool purchased by, 248
Contracts made by, 141
Function of, 248
Termination of war industry aided by, 131, 132

War Industry:
Extent of, 2–4
Liquidation of, 132, 133–137

Warner & Swasey: Panoramic sights produced by, 191

War Risk Insurance, Bureau of:
Amalgamation of, with other veterans’ bureaus, 103–104
Disability compensation paid by, 63
Function of, 101

War, Secretary of:
Order of, as to post-armistice production, 131
Powers under Dent Act delegated by, 140
War Department Claims Board created by, 135

Watertown Arsenal:
Expansion of, 168, 169–170, 174, 180
Machinery concentrated at, 178, 179, 180

Watervliet Arsenal:
Expansion of, 168–170, 174
Machinery concentrated at, 180

Watson, Major Mark: On _Stars and Stripes_, 96

Weems, F. C.: On Cuthell Board, 291

West Indian Laborers, 257

_Where Do We Go from Here?_: Booklet used in reëmployment campaign,
108–109

White & Co., J. G.: Settlement of French contract with, 295

Willys-Overland, Inc.: 75-mm. gun carriages produced by, 173

Wilson, Woodrow, President of the United States: And Italian
delegates to Peace Conference, 290

Winterich, Corporal John T.: On _Stars and Stripes_, 95

Woods, Col. Arthur: Reëmployment campaign conducted by, 107

Wool Administrator, 248

Wool Pool, Liquidation of, 248–250

Woollcott, Sergeant Alexander: On _Stars and Stripes_, 96

World War: Costs and benefits of, 315–321

Wounded Soldiers:
Payment of, 65–66
Transportation of, 58–59

Wright-Martin Aircraft Corp.: Engine plant of, retained, 207

Young Men’s Christian Association: Schools of, in A. E. F., 93

Zinc, 277

Zone Finance Officer at Washington: Bonus paid by, 69

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.

Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to the corresponding illustrations.

Footnotes, originally at the bottoms of pages, have been sequentially renumbered and moved to just before the Index.

The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page references.