AMERICANS AT WAR.*
NEARLY a hundred years ago Tocqueville prophesied that the citizens of the United States would distinguish themselves in
war under the stress of any great national emergency.
" There exists between the military habit and democratic customs a secret link which only war can make apparent. The men who dwell in a democracy have a natural desire to acquire rapidly the material benefits for which they strive, and when they are acquired, it is natural for these men to enjoy them easily. Audacious, they love to take risks, but most of them fear death less than penury and suffering. In this spirit, which directs their industry and commerce and which they carry with them on the battlefield, they are moved readily to expose their lives, to assure by doing so the fruits of victory. There is no success which is so striking to the imagination of a democratic people as military success, for it is achieved rapidly with brief and concentrated effort and with no risk but of life. Thus while their ordinary tastes and customs incline the citizens of a republic to avoid the military career, their manner of thought prepares them to wage war well. And once uprooted from their business habits and their comfortable ways they readily make excellent fighters."
The truth of this passage is illustrated by the excellent account which two distinguished French officers have written of The American Army in the European Conflict.' Colonel de Chambrun and Captain de Marenehes were attached to General Pershing's staff as liaison officers from his arrival in France in June, 1917, to the Armistice, so that they have seen with their own eyes all that they describe in this interesting book. It may be added that the English version is their own unaided work, and it is remarkably well written, with very few mistakes— though we may call the authors' attention to the remarkable statement on p. 344 that the normal ration of the American soldier includes 200 ounces of meat, increased to 240 ounces in the winter. We can hardly swallow this, whatever the American soldier, who is " the heaviest meat consumer in the world," may have done. Probably a zero too many has crept into the text. The authors give a full and valuable account of the elaborate organization of the American forces in France and of the services of supply by means of which a force more than two millions strong at the end of the war was kept in touch with a
• (1) The American Army in the European Conflict. By Colonel de Chambrun and Captain de Marenches. [18s. net.]—(2) The American Red Cross in the Great War. By Henry P. Davison. 116s. net.]—(3) The War with Mexico. By Justin H. Smith. 2 vols. [628. 6d. net.] London Macmillan and Co. —(4) Beavniarchaie and the War of American Independence. By Elizabeth S. Kite. 2 vole. Boston : Richard 4. Badger. London : Stanley 45 Brondesbury Road, N.W . 6. [80s. net.)
base three thousand miles away. • They also describe the active operations in which the American forces participated during 1918. It is interesting to be told that the operations for the capture of the St. Mihiel salient were discussed during one of the first interviews between General Pershing and General Main in the middle of 1917, though it was more than a year before the situation permitted this plan to be effectively carried out. Its rapid and brilliant success was due not merely to careful preparation and the admirable fighting quality of the American troops, but to the demoralization which had then begun to sap the determination of the German armies. We may also note the authors' comment on the well-known fact that the Americans were unwilling to take advice from more experienced fighters, and thereby exposed themselves—and in some cases their allies—to needless casualties. " With the mentality of this new army, each individual chief, to gain and maintain ascendency over his men, was obliged to show an unflinching confidence in his own personal ability. The men also were eager to show their commander what they could do unaided. Both had the desire, perhaps unacknowledged, of owing to themselves above all that consciousness which the good soldier must ever possess—his superiority over the foe. Fine and martial spirit of a people that has never known defeat ! " The case could hardly have been put better or more politely.
The work of The American Red Cross in the Great War2 has been lucidly described by Mr. Henry P. Davison, who was appointed Chairman of its War Council in May, 1917, and within a month showed his capacity for such a post by raising 115 million dollars in a week's campaign at a cost of a little over one half of one per cent. Before the war came to an end he had enrolled over thirty million Americans in the Red Cross organization. The majority of these, of course, were " the spinsters and the knitters in the sun," who gave their spare moments to producing m dies,' necessaries and comforts for the troops: "every month they put a five-and-three-quarter inch girdle of gauze around the globe ; they used two and a half million pounds of wool." The first half of Mr. Davison's book describes the work done at home in the organization of supply, and the second half deals with the admirable self-devotion of American Red Cross workers in the various European theatres of war. It is a worthy record of a gigantic piece of philanthropy.
Mr. Justin H. Smith's learned history of The War with Mexico deserves a fuller appreciation than the demands on our space permit. He is so well known, however, as one of the ablest of American historians that we need do little more than announce this completion of the labours of twenty years. These handsome volumes, together with the author's previous account of The Annexation of Texas, form a trustworthy narrative of an episode in the history of the United States on which her own citizens have hitherto looked back with little pride. In this country the Mexican war is chiefly remembered in connection with the brilliant satire of Hosea Biglow, and the general im- pression is that Mexico was deliberately provoked into war for the sake of large tracts of territory in which slavery might be extended. Mr. Smith claims that he has been able to put a more favourable complexion on " an episode that has been regarded both in the United States and abroad as discreditable to us," though he did not begin his work with any idea of reaching such a conclusion. As the history of the British Empire should teach us, the truth is that many wars which look, when studied on a small scale and in a distant perspective, like unabashed land-grabbing expeditions, prove to have a much less simple origin when they are closely examined. Mr. Smith has made a thorough examination of the available material, and has built it into a monumental work which supersedes all previous his- tories of the subject. His treatment of the military part is admirable, and entitles him to rank with those civilians who have seen most clearly through the fog of war. His book is fully documented, and in every way a credit to the American school of history.
Miss Kite's book4 is really a life of Beaumarchais, and creditable to her industry, though we think she exaggerates the popular ignorance of his contribution to the War of Independence.
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