UNITED STATES.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 April 1918, Page 5

UNITED STATES.

BUILDING AN ARMY. AMERICA'S WAR EFFORTS. HALF-A-MILLION IN FRANCE. The task involved in placing the American Army in the field was described by the Secretary for War, Mr. Newton D Baker, in a statement recently before the Senate Committee on Military Affairs. Searching criticism of his Department led Mr. Baker to make a frank statement of exactly how much had been accomplished and how much it was intended to achieve during this year. Dealing first with questions raised by critics of his administration, Mr. Baker defended the decision of the War Department to adopt a modified Enfield rifle. Despite the delay, he said, every soldier now in France or ready to go is supplied with a new model rifle, interchangeable in all essentia! parts. Regarding the machine-gun shortage. Mr. Baker declared that tho army in France has ail of the type it heeds. The French Government is supplying it with Chauchat guns. The troops in the training camps at home have some machine-guns, hut he admitted that the supply was not adequate. General Pershing's army is getting all the artillery it needs from the French Government. Both the British and French Governments have so increased the production of artillery that they actually have a surplus to hand over to the American Army, without drawing upon their own supplies. The proposal to supply the American Army with cannon, he said, came originally from tha French Government, and was accepted only after investigation showed the French could furnish artillery without weakening their own effectiveness. At the same time, he declared, production of artillery in the United States was increasing steadily.

EVER CHANGING CONDITIONS. Mr. Baker said that one of the greatest difficulties was to co-ordinate American preparations with actual war conditions, which were changing from day to day. He paid a tribute to the assistance dered by the technical staffs which ao companied Mr. Balfour, Marshal J off re and other allied missions to the United States. In order that the AVar Department might establish intimate communieiilion wtih the battlefront "we sent over to France General Pershing and the major part of the trained expert personnel of the army The official corps of the regular array in this country when the war broke out was a pitiful handful ol trained men, and yet it was necessary to divide them up and send over to France officers of the highest quality, so that they would be at the front and see the thing with their own eyes and sena us back the details by cable every day of the changing character of this war." ■ i £«.■,*>■

Proceeding to deal with the despatch of troops to France, Mr. Baker said that the'current expectation of the country last year was that America would be a financial and industrial assistance to the Allies during 1918, and it was suggested in August that by straining everv energy between 50,000 and 100,000 might be got to France by the end of the year. "Now instead of having 50,(JU0 or 100.000 men in France in 1917," Mr. Baker continued, "we have many more men than that in France, and instead of having 500,000 men whom we could ship to France if we could find any way to do it in 1918, we will have more than 500,000 men in Franco early in 1918, and we have available if the transportation lacuities are available to us, and the prospect is not unpromising, 1,500,000 who in 1»18 can be shipping to France," NEW HOPEFULNESS IN FRANCE. The principal reason why troops were sent in 1917, Mr. Baker stated, was .because France made an appeal for men, s."d the result of the arrival of American divisions was that a new sense of gratitude and hopefulness was created in the French people.

America was also asked to send artisans and technical troops, doctors, muses, and hospitals, In a very short time we had organised engineering regiments of railroad men and sent them there and were rebuilding behind the lines of the British and French the railroads which were being carried forward with their advance, reconstructing their broken engines and cars, building new railroads behind both the French and British lines, Before we were scarcely in the war American units organised in advance by tho Red Cross were on the battlefield, and there are tens of thousands of men in England and in France now who bless the mission of mercy upon which the first Americans appeared in France. Our surgeons hava set up hospitals immediately behind tho lines. They have not been especially fortunate in escaping attack from the air, and our early losses in this,war were the losses of Red Cross nurses and doctors and orderlies and attendants in hospitals.

HARBORS AND RAILWAYS. "We began to see that we were going to be over there in large force, and the question that then had to be answered was, how will we maintain an army in France? The railroads and the facilities of France were used to the maximum to take care of the needs of the French and the British themselves. In other words, France was a white sheet of paper so far as we were concerned, and on that we had not only to write an army, but we had to write the means of maintain, ing that army. For instance, the French had naturally reserved the best ports in France for their own supply. The Channel ports have been reserved for the British. When we came in it was necessary for ua to have independent porta of entry. We were given several ports. We have had to build docks, wo have had to fabricate in this country, and send dock-handling machinery. We have had to send from this coulntry even the piles to build the docks. Wo have had to have cranes,, manufactured in this eoamtry, sent over to be erected on these docks; we have had to erect over there warehouses at the ports of disembarkation in order that these vast accumulations of stores and supplies which go over can be properly housed and cared for, until they can be distributed into the interior.

"We have had to take over, and are in process, of rebuilding and amplifying, a railroad 600 miles long, in order to carry our products from our ports of dis* embarkation to our general bases of operation largely with material shipped from America. MATERIALS SENT FROM AMERICA "We have had to build ordnance depots and repair shops and great magazines ol supply in the interior. The plant for a

single ordnance repair shop, which I saw some time ago, covered acres and acres iof ground, designed over here, the iron work fabricated over here, built here, disassembled, put in ships and carried abroad to -be reassembled over there. We have had> to build barracks over there for our soldiers, and in the meantime to build them around in the French villages. When we talk about building barracks in France, it means to organise regiments of foresters and sending them over into the forests of France, setting up sawmills, making the lumber of various sizes, transporting it to the places where it is to be used, and then finally using it."

Mr. Baker concluded by saying that more had been done perhaps than 'the country expected—more than the wisest country thought it was possible to do Reference to the strength of the American forces was made on' February 7, in a public speech by M. Andre Tardieu, French High Commissioner to the United States. "In April, 1917," he said, "you had 9324 officers and 202,510 men. You now have 110,000 officers and 1.500,000 men, and the number of your men in France at the present moment is notably in excess of your entire army nine months ago." He also declared that France will be able to manufacture be< fore July 1 enough artillery to supply 20 American divisions, or approximately 500,000 troops, if the United States adheres to the understanding by which France will receive the necessary raw materials.