ciple among the allied armies. While there was
no authority for the general use of appropriations, this was met by
grouping the purchasing representatives of the different departments
under one control, charged with the duty of consolidating requisitions
and purchases. Our efforts to extend the principle have been signally
successful, and all purchases for the allied armies are now on an
equitable and co-operative basis. Indeed, it may be said that the work
of this bureau has been thoroughly efficient and businesslike.

Our entry into the war found us with little of the equipment necessary
for its conduct in the modern sense. Among our most important
deficiencies in material were artillery, aviation, and tanks. In order
to meet our requirements as rapidly as possible, we accepted the offer of
the French Government to provide us with the necessary artillery
equipment of seventy-fives, one fifty-five millimeter howitzer, and one
fifty-five G. P. F. gun, from their own factories for each of the thirty
divisions. The wisdom of this course is fully demonstrated by the fact
that, although we soon began the manufacture of these classes of guns at
home, there were no guns of the calibres mentioned manufactured in
America on our front at the date the armistice was signed. The only guns
of these types produced at home thus far received in France are 109
seventy-five millimeter guns.

In aviation we were in the same situation, and here again the French
Government came to our aid until our own aviation program should be under
way. We obtained from the French the necessary planes for training our
personnel, and they have provided us with a total of 2,676 pursuit,
observation, and bombing planes. The first airplanes received from home
arrived in May, and altogether we have received 1,379. The first
American squadron completely equipped by American production, including
airplanes, crossed the German lines on Aug. 7, 1918. As to tanks, we
were also compelled to rely upon the French. Here, however, we were less
fortunate, for the reason that the French production could barely meet
the requirements of their own armies.

It should be fully realized that the French Government has always taken a
most liberal attitude, and has been most anxious to give us every
possible assistance in meeting our deficiencies in these as well as in
other respects. Our dependence upon France for artillery, aviation, and
tanks was, of course, due