ere employed,
including lively sham battles with grenades, bayonets, and trench
mortars. For bayonet practice dummies were constructed and the men
were taught the six most vital points of attack. The troops were
entertained by stories telling how the French decorated and painted
their dummies to resemble the kaiser, Von Hindenburg, and other enemy
notables, and each company searched its ranks for artists who could
paint similar effigies.

Practice in trench warfare did not displace route marching. The
hardening process in that direction continued as part of the
operations. The men's packs increased in weight until they neared
fifty pounds. Duly the men would be equipped with steel helmets and an
extra kit, when their packs would weigh eighty pounds, like the burden
carried by the British troops. Accordingly the Americans were drilled
to bear this burden without undue fatigue. This was the stage American
operations in France had reached by the beginning of August, 1917.

Little was disclosed regarding naval movements--beyond the activities
of American destroyers, which were not only occupied in convoying
transports and passenger liners through the submarine zone, but
cooperated with British patrols in checking submarine destruction in
other lanes of travel. The British recognized them as a formidable
part of the grand Allied fleet.

As to the navy itself, its personnel was increased to 150,000 men.
Where the main American fleet was--whether with the British fleet at
the Orkneys, or stationed in some other zone--no event transpired to
give any clue. But patrol of the South Atlantic, as well as of the
American coast, was assumed by the Pacific coast fleet under Admiral
Caperton, the remaining French and British warships in those waters
acting under his authority.

Sea warfare conditions, outside the useful work of the American
destroyers provided by the German submarines, gave little scope for
naval operations, and it was assumed that the main American fleet,
like the British, was lying quiescent, with its finger on the trigger,
awaiting its opportunity. The Navy Department meantime busied itself
arming scores of American merchant vessels to brave the submarines,
and in carrying out an extensive building program, which included the
construction of hundreds of submarine chasers--a new type of swift,
powerfully armed small craft--as well as of many new destroyers.

PART IX--THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

CHAPTER