to the fact that our industries had not been
exclusively devoted to military production. All credit is due our own
manufacturers for their efforts to meet our requirements, as at the time
the armistice was signed we were able to look forward to the early supply
of practically all our necessities from our own factories. The welfare
of the troops touches my responsibility as Commander-in-Chief to the
mothers and fathers and kindred of the men who came to France in the
impressionable period of youth. They could not have the privilege
accorded European soldiers during their periods of leave of visiting
their families and renewing their home ties. Fully realizing that the
standard of conduct that should be established for them must have a
permanent influence in their lives and on the character of their future
citizenship, the Red Cross, the Young Men's Christian Association,
Knights of Columbus, the Salvation Army, and the Jewish Welfare Board, as
aids in this work, were encouraged in every possible way. The fact that
our soldiers, in a land of different customs and language, have borne
themselves in a manner in keeping with the cause for which they fought,
is due not only to the efforts in their behalf, but much more to their
high ideals, their discipline, and their innate sense of self-respect.
It should be recorded, however, that the members of these welfare
societies have been untiring in their desire to be of real service to our
officers and men. The patriotic devotion of these representative men and
women has given a new significance to the Golden Rule, and we owe to them
a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid.

During our period of training in the trenches some of our divisions had
engaged the enemy in local combats, the most important of which was
Seicheprey by the 26th on April 20, in the Toul sector, but none had
taken part in action as a unit. The 1st Division, which had passed
through the preliminary stages of training, had gone to the trenches for
its first period of instruction at the end of October, and by March 21,
when the German offensive in Picardy began, we had four divisions with
experience in the trenches, all of which were equal to any demands of
battle action. The crisis which this offensive developed was such that
our occupation of an American sector must be postponed.

On March 28 I placed at the disposal of Marshal Foch, who had been agreed
upon as Commander-in-Chief o the Allied Arm