A Bad Prophet
The All-Highest: “Only a sham war with Uncle
Sam? Oh, Hollweg, you are a bad prophet!”
ONE of the delusions the German Government and its General Staff have been laboring under for many years is that the United States could not create an army that was worth consideration as a foe. That Government and its General Staff are tasting the quality of our troops in the field, and the flavor is bitter on their tongues. One hundred and twenty-six years ago there was fought a battle in France (at Valmy, within the zone of war today) on the date that France first called herself a republic. Kellermann won that battle against the Prussians and Austrians with levies of new troops from the lower and middle classes of France, who “found that they could face cannon balls, pull triggers, and cross bayonets without having been drilled into military machines, and without being officered by scions of noble houses.” They had, it seems, the same spirit we like to think animates our army, which the Germans abroad and some critics at home denied our men: “they awoke to the consciousness of instinctive soldiership.”
The Army and Navy Journal.