le unless we remember that
the President was constantly working to overcome the forces of
decentralization, and also that the military programme was always on an
emergency basis, shifting almost from week to week in accordance with
developments in Europe.

The original programme did not provide for an expeditionary force in
France. During the early days of participation in the war it was generally
believed that the chief contributions of the United States to Allied
victory would not be directly upon the fighting front. If the United
States concentrated its efforts upon financing the Allies, furnishing them
with food, shipping, and the munitions which had been promised--so many
persons argued--it would be doing far better than if it weakened
assistance of that sort by attempting to set up and maintain a large
fighting force of its own. The impression was unfortunately prevalent in
civilian circles that Germany was on her last legs, and that the outcome
of the war would be favorably settled before the United States could put
an effective army in the field. Military experts, on the other hand, more
thoroughly convinced of German strength, believed that the final campaigns
could not come before the summer of 1919, and did not expect to provide a
great expeditionary force previous to the spring of that year if indeed it
were ever sent. Thus from opposite points of view the amateur and the
professional deprecated haste in dispatching an army to France. From the
moment the United States entered the war, President Wilson certainly
seems to have resolved upon the preparation of an effective fighting
force, if we may judge from his insistence upon the selective draft,
although he did not expect that it would be used abroad. But it may be
asked whether he did not hope for the arrangement of a negotiated peace,
which if not "without victory" would at least leave Germany uncrushed. It
is probable that he did not yet perceive that "force to the utmost" would
be necessary before peace could be secured; that realization was to come
only in the dark days of 1918.

A few weeks after America's declaration of war, however, France and Great
Britain dispatched missions led by Balfour, Viviani, and Joffre, to
request earnestly that at least a small American force be sent overseas
at once for the moral effect upon dispirited France. The plea determined
the President to send General Pershing immediately with a force of about
two thousand, who