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.

CAMP WELFARE WORK.

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 auxiliaries 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 other 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.

COMBAT OPERATIONS.

During our periods 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 Twenty-sixth on April 20, in the Toul sector, but none
had participated in action as a unit. The First 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.

TROOPS PLACED UNDER MARSHAL FOCH.

On March 28 I placed at the disposal of Marshal Foch who had been agreed
upon as Commander-in-Chief of the Allied armies, all of our forces to
be used as he might decide. At his