Page:Victory at Sea - William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick.djvu/331

1918] as I have said, to concentrate their U-boats on merchant shipping and leave the American troopships practically alone—at least those bound to Europe. Unfortunately, however, at no time did we have enough destroyers to provide escorts for all of these transports as fast as they were unloaded and ready to return to America, but as time in the "turn around" was the all-important consideration in getting the troops over, the transports were sent back through the submarine zone under the escort of armed yachts, and occasionally not escorted at all. Under these conditions the transports could be attacked with much less risk, as was shown by the fact that five were torpedoed, though of these happily only three were sunk. The position of the German naval chiefs, as is shown by the quotation from General Ludendorff's book, was an extremely unhappy one. They had blatantly promised the German people that their submarines would prevent the transportation of American troops to Europe. At first they had ridiculed the idea that undisciplined, unmilitary America could ever organize an army; after we adopted conscription and began to train our young men by the millions, they just as vehemently proclaimed that this army could never be landed in Europe. In this opinion the German military chieftains were not alone. No such army movement had ever before been attempted. The discouraging forecast made by a brilliant British naval authority in July, 1917, reflected the ideas of too many military people on both sides of the ocean. "I am distressed," he said, "at the fact that it appears to me to be impossible to provide enough shipping to bring the American army over in hundreds of thousands to France, and, after they are brought over, to supply the enormous amount of shipping which will be required to keep them full up with munitions, food, and equipment."

It is thus not surprising that the German people accepted as gospel the promises of their Admiralty; therefore their anger was unbounded when American troops began to arrive. The German newspapers began to ask the most embarrassing questions. What had become of their sub-