w aging w ar to t ransform the w orld 101developments: Congress had denied funding to send observers to
Europe (the administration could have worked around this but decided
not to) and army attachés in foreign embassies sent reports that were
fi led unread by civilian clerks. Further, because some in Congress had
suspected that senior army offi cers wanted to draw the country into the
war, the 1916 National Defense Act had also reduced the size of the
General Staff.
Th at no substantial U.S. Army existed posed a challenge to the pres-
ident as he sought to achieve the objectives he had established in going
to war. Initially, the Allies wanted American money, supplies, and
shipping (especially to combat the submarine menace), rather than
American troops. American fi nancial might would power the Allies to
victory, with American factories churning out weapons to be placed in
the hands of British Tommies and French poilus fi ghting in the trenches.
Th e formidable U.S. Navy would also sail for British waters, its battle-
ships joining those of the Royal Navy to make certain the German
High Seas Fleet did not again venture from port. Toward that end,
Wilson had sent Rear Admiral William S. Sims to arrange cooperation
with the British in March 1917, before war had been declared. Sims,
learning from his hosts the true scale of sinkings to U-boat attacks,
persuaded the reluctant British to adopt the convoy system that quickly
reduced shipping losses. So far as the Allies were concerned, the
United States might assemble a token ground force as a gesture of soli-
darity, but anything more would be a misuse of scarce shipping capacity.
Wilson, however, recognized that unless the United States made its
weight felt on the great battlefi elds of Europe he could not expect to
command the stage at a postwar peace conference. Immediately upon
the declaration of war, he had asked Congress to establish an army of
1.7 million men that would constitute the American Expeditionary
Force (AEF).
Circumstances soon compelled the Allies to recognize the urgent
need for American manpower. Visiting delegations of senior offi cers
from Great Britain and France disclosed the sorry state of their
respective armies after three years of unrelenting combat. Th e latest
major French off ensive failed miserably in spring 1917, precipitating
near mutiny in the ranks; most British units had fallen far below their
paper establishment. From the Allies’ perspective, it would be best if