ed States
more than they needed anything else. London and Paris officials
publicly stated that this was the kind of aid the Allies really needed.
It became evident, too, that the Allies not only needed the food but
that they needed ships to carry supplies across the Atlantic. One of
the first things President Wilson did was to approve plans for the
construction of a fleet of 3,000 wooden ships practically to bridge the
Atlantic.

During the first three months of 1917 submarine warfare was a success
in that it so decreased the ship tonnage and the importations of the
Allies that they needed American co-operation and assistance. _So the
United States really enters the war at the critical and decisive
stage_. Germany believes she can continue to sink ships faster than
they can be built, but Germany did not calculate upon a fleet of wooden
bottom vessels being built in the United States to make up for the
losses. Germany did not expect the United States to enter the war with
all the vigour and energy of the American people. Germany calculated
upon internal troubles, upon opposition to the war and upon the
pacifists to have America make as many mistakes as England did during
the first two years of the war. But the United States has learned and
profited by careful observation in Europe. Just as England's
declaration of war on Germany in support of Belgium and France was a
surprise to Germany; just as the shipment of war supplies by American
firms to the Allies astonished Germany, so will the construction of
3,000 wooden vessels upset the calculations of the German General Staff.

While American financial assistance will be a great help to the Allies
that will not affect the German calculations because when the Kaiser
and his Generals decided on the 27th of January to damn all neutrals,
German financiers were not consulted.

Neither did the German General Staff count upon the Russian Revolution
going against them. Germany had expected a revolution there, but
Germany bet upon the Czar and the Czar's German wife. As Lieutenant
Colonel von Haeften, Chief Military Censor in Berlin, told the
correspondents, Germany calculated upon the internal troubles in Russia
aiding her. But the Allies and the people won the Russian Revolution.
Germany's hopes that the Czar might again return to power or that the
people might overthrow their present democratic leaders will come to
naught now that America has declared war and thrown