| Chapter 1: | The Struggle For World Order |
|
|
They had not. As Simonds wrote in 1919, “the fact is that neither the President, nor any public men of prominence, nor any newspaper of influence, conceived of American intervention [following the German invasion of France] or for long months thereafter. America as a nation remained neutral, not only in word, but in thought, for many, many months.” American neutrality had been strongly supported by a large majority of the citizens, reiterated by leading politicians of all stripes, and consistent with longstanding practice.
An expeditionary force composed of one division and two Marine brigades was to be sent immediately; and a larger force readied for battle. Volunteers flooded recruiting offices. On May 18, President Wilson signed a bill establishing a national draft, for the conscription of an army of citizen soldiers. The draft process was to be administered by local draft boards, and at first there were doubts over whether the local boards could manage the complex task. (The nation’s last draft, during the Civil War, had been ineffectual.) This concern quickly subsided because by the end of 1917, the local boards were providing more recruits than the War Department could equip and train. Ultimately, twenty-four million men would be registered for the draft, and 2.8 million conscripted.27 More than 25,000 American women volunteered to serve overseas in support of the troops—most of them in the Red Cross and Army Nurse Corps.
Long before the first American troops were making their impact felt on the battlefield, though, American economic resources—a variable the German generals had neglected to consider in their calculations of U.S. potency as a potential enemy—were bolstering the Allied capacity to carry on. Pre-war military strategists on all sides had predicted that modern war would be prodigiously expensive. In that, at least, they were right. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace estimated that the fighting cost about $123 million (US currency rate in 1920) a day before 1918, and about $224 million a day after that.