The Road to France Part 1: The Transportation of Troops and Military Supplies 1917-1918 (How America Went to War)
The weight of American manpower proved to be a decisive factor in the defeat of Germany and her allies. Every American expected this result ultimately, but few expected it in 1918. Hence, even while the ships were carrying the conquering host of American troops to France, the military transportation organization was already preparing for the effort which was to freight across the ocean in 1919, according to inter allied plan, an irresistible weight of American guns, ammunition, and other war materials. To this goal was directed our whole war industry. Had the war continued for another six months, it is probable-nay, certain-that the Atlantic would have buoyed up an eastward movement of American munitions every bit as astonishing as that transatlantic procession of Y ankec troopships in the spring, summer, and early autumn of 1918. When the guns and the ammunition, the airplanes, the motor trucks, the general equipment, and the food and clothing of the American Army in the World War stood ready on the loading platforms of American factories and filled the army warehouses, the problem of sup plying the American Expeditionary Forces with their necessities was as yet by no means solved. Those materials had still to travel a route the sources of which touched every producing point within the United States, and of which the main artery crossed the Atlantic. This was a military supply situation of unprecedented difficulty. No nation had ever attempted to maintain a great army over such a distance, nor was a line of supply ever so beset with peril.
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