The Wilsonian Persuasion in American Foreign Policy By Matthew C ...

The strategists had been wrong, however, in concluding that the prohibitive cost would foreclose the possibility of a prolonged conflict. Taxes were raised in all belligerent nations. Governments borrowed, both from their own citizens, and allies. Britain’s national debt, for example, rose from 625 million pounds before the war to 7.8 billion pounds by the end.²⁸

Upon entering the war, the United States infused the Allied cause with ships to fight the submarine war—the United States Navy, in sharp contrast to the Army, was relatively well equipped, and after the British, the second largest in the world with ready monetary sources of 9.5 billion dollars. It was like air to a slowly suffocating patient. “The immediate availability of credit may have been even more important to the Allies early in 1917 than was dealing with the submarine problem,” writes the war historian James Stokesbury, “for at that time the British were as close to bankruptcy as they were to starvation.”

Supplying the basic needs of three million fighting men would prove a formidable task. Three hundred thousand horses and mules, still vital components of military transport, were procured. Wagon factories were contracted. Clothing manufacturers were engaged. By war’s end, the Quartermaster Corps had purchased some 17 million woolen pants, 22 million shirts, and 26 million pairs of shoes. More than 2.5 million rifles were produced, as well as machine guns (including the reliable Browning, which in field testing could fire 39,500 rounds before needing repairs), helmets, pistols, artillery, and all the implements of war.²⁹ More than a billion pounds of powder and high explosives were produced by American munitions manufacturers. In addition to equipping American forces, U.S. wartime production would provide Britain with over a million rifles, a billion rounds of ammunition, 866 aircraft, and 3,400 aircraft engines.

On the morning of June 13, 1917, the first contingent of 177 American soldiers came ashore in France, after crossing the English Channel under heavy escort and protection against German U-boats. That first group, mainly officers, included Major General John Pershing, Commander of the American Expeditionary Force. Two weeks later, fourteen thousand more soldiers arrived.