Today ten million citizens of the United States are summoned by their country to register as soldiers in the cause of freedom. The Germans have been working hard to prevent them from answering the call. Demonstrations against the law and its enforcement have been organized and financed, but the result has been to fill “real Americans”, who include many millions of German origin, with disgust at the disloyal movement. The Pan-German League laboured with all its strength against the very conception of international relationships which Americans most highly prize, and which is the ideal aim of President Wilson’s foreign policy. The Balfour Mission has helped to open the eyes of many Americans as to the true significance for mankind of a German victory or a German peace, but the Germans themselves have taught the lesson, and continue to teach it best.
Effective military help, it seems, may be expected earlier than was supposed. That will be a bitter disappointment to the Germans who have been assured that American aid could not reach the Allies until the conflict had been decided, just as they were again and again comforted by assurances that in no circumstances could a British conscript army be trained and equipped in time.
It is now probable, our Washington Correspondent tells us, that General Pershing’s Expeditionary Force will be promptly followed by from 100,000 to 120,000 men of the National Guard. They will be called up for Federal service next month, and as they correspond to our Territorials, and many of them have had the training of service on the Mexican border, they will be fit to sail within a relatively short period. An equal number, it is thought, may be dispatched in the winter, so that when the recruits from the first conscription of 500,000 are ready for the field next year they will come to supplement some 250,000 trained troops who have preceded them under the Stars and Stripes.
The presence of American soldiers at the front will undoubtedly quicken the spirit of all the Allies and further depress the enemy, while it will bring home to all citizens of the Republic with a new vividness their direct concern in the great struggle.
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