is to say in the war, in
August, 1918--16 months after the declaration of war by the United
States and four years after the beginning of the war itself. During
the entire time that the United States was in the war, a little over
19 months, not one single American field gun was fired at the enemy
and only 109 had been received in Europe at all. No American tank was
ever used against the enemy in the whole war. Yet a month or six weeks
after the declaration of war troops began to go to Europe and at its
close in November, 1918, the army {216} consisted of 3,700,000 men, of
whom more than 203,000 were newly made officers. Half of this force at
least got over to the other side of the Atlantic and at least half of
them took part in the fighting at one time or another of the 19
months.

One would have said at the outset that a commercial nation like the
United States, filled with factories, mechanics and mechanically
inclined brains, could and would have made guns and aeroplanes and
uniforms far quicker than it made soldiers and officers. Yet such was
not the case.

A French officer here in America at that time studying American
mobilization said:

"I knew you recruited over 3,500,000 men in 19 months. That is very
good, but not so difficult. But I am told also that although you had
no officers reserve to start with you somehow found 200,000 new
officers, most of them competent. That is what is astonishing and what
was impossible. Tell me how that was done." [Footnote: _National
Magazine_]

There is only the one answer, that the officers' training camps
started in 1918 by Leonard Wood and fostered by him and the people of
this nation {217} who then and later agreed with him made the
impossible possible and made the new, raw army effective and in time.
It was what came to be known as the "Plattsburg Idea;" which, getting
really going first in May 16, 1917, as a regular part of the United
States mobilization, did its work before arms and ammunition were
ready, before uniforms could be had, before camps had been even laid
out and before the first draft had been taken. At that time 40,000
selected men were in training for officers' positions in sixteen
camps. That is to say, in 40 days 150,000 applications had been
received, 100,000 men examined and 40,000 passed as fit and ready for
training.

It was the work in 1913, 1914, 1915 and 1916. It was the Plattsburg
idea adapted to war conditions. Without it the situation rega