is reduced to 75,000 men,
while 12,000 are still in Mexico.

Dec. 27 Carranza asks for revision of the protocol.
This is declined by the U. S.

Early in the following year satisfactory adjustments were made and the
punitive expedition was withdrawn. Villa was not captured, but it is
confidently believed the troubles on the border have been greatly
mitigated.

FOOTNOTE:

[B] Quoted in the _Army and Navy Journal_ from the New York _Times_.

CHAPTER X

CALLED TO COMMAND THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES IN FRANCE

MEANWHILE matters were moving swiftly, the results of which were to
summon General Pershing to other and far higher duties. The attitude of
Germany was steadily becoming too unbearable for any self-respecting
nation to endure. War may be the great evil which it is often called,
and doubtless no words can describe its horrors, but there is one evil
even worse--for a nation to lose its ideals. The time for action by the
United States had come.

In President Wilson's war message after referring to the dastardly deeds
of Germany he wrote, "I was for a little while unable to believe that
such things would be done by any government that had hitherto subscribed
to humane practices of civilized nations," and he refers also to the
wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of noncombatants--men,
women and children--engaged in pursuits "which have always, even in the
darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate."

In spite of the Teutonic claim of a higher "kultur" than other nations
and the loudly expressed desires for the "freedom of the seas,"
Germany's brutal disregard of the rights of neutrals had extended far
beyond the confines of Belgium, which she ruthlessly invaded and
ravaged.

On the sea her former promises were like her treaty with
Belgium--"scraps of paper."

And the President had now behind him not merely the sentiment of his
people, but also specific examples to uphold him. For instance, Admiral
Sampson in the war with Spain, had appeared May 12, 1898, with his fleet
before Santiago, Cuba. There he conducted a reconnaissance in force in
his efforts to locate the Spanish fleet, of which Admiral Cervera was in
command. Sampson, however, did not bombard the city, because, in
accordance with the accepted laws of nations, he would have been
required to give due notice of his intention in order that the sick,
w