[Sidenote:  Responsibility for the welfare of the troops.]

[Sidenote:  Welfare organizations and their valuable 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.

[Sidenote:  The Twenty-sixth fights at Seicheprey.]

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.

[Sidenote:  Pershing offers forces to 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 request the first division was transferred from the Toul sector to a position in reserve at Chaumont en Vexin.  As German superiority in numbers required prompt action, an agreement was reached at the Abbeville conference of the Allied premiers and commanders and myself on May 2 by which British shipping was to transport 10 American divisions to the British Army area, where they were to be trained and equipped, and additional British shipping was to be provided for as many divisions as possible for use elsewhere.