rived in France during the year
1918.[5] This gave time "to build manufacturing capacity on a grand scale
without the necessity of immediate production, time to secure the best in
design, time to attain quality in the enormous outputs to come later as
opposed to early quantities of indifferent class."

[Footnote 5: As a result of the agreement thus made the United States
shipped overseas between the time of the declaration of war and the
signing of the armistice only 815 complete pieces of mobile artillery,
including all produced for France and Great Britain as well as for
American troops. Of the 75's only 181 complete units were shipped abroad,
the American Expeditionary Force securing 1828 from the French. Of the
155 millimeter howitzers none of American manufacture reached the front.
French deliveries amounted to 747.--_America's Munitions_, 1917-1918
(Report of Benedict Crowell, Assistant Secretary of War), p. 90.]

The lack of preparation in the matter of machine guns has received wide
publicity. In this, as in artillery, the deficiency was made good by the
Allies up to the final weeks of the war. In April, 1917, the army
possessed only a small number of machine guns entirely inadequate even
for the training of the new troops and half of which would not take
American service cartridges. Less than seven hundred machine rifles were
on hand. Manufacturing facilities for machine guns were limited; there
were only two factories in the United States actually producing in
quantity. Orders for four thousand Vickers had been placed the preceding
December, but deliveries had not been made by the beginning of April.
Either because of jealousy in the department, or because of justifiable
technical reasons, various experts demanded a better machine gun than any
used by the Allies, and Secretary Baker took the responsibility of
delaying matters so as to hold the competition recommended by a board of
investigation. This competition was planned for May 1, 1917, with the
result that we entered the war without having decided upon any type of
machine gun, and it was not until some weeks later that the Browning was
approved.

First deliveries of this gun could not be made until April, 1918, a year
after the declaration of war. In the meantime, the War Department
utilized existing facilities to the limit, and placed large orders for
Colt, Lewis, and Vickers machine guns. But the heavy machine guns and
automatic rifles used by our tro