Flusser, Preston, Reid, Smith and Lamson. Four days before the flotilla arrived, Berlin, in some mysterious way, had learned that destroyers were on their way and to what port they were going. In fact the day before they steamed into Queenstown, German submarines had appeared about the harbor entrance. Rear Admiral Sims, who commanded the flotilla, was made Vice-Admiral by the President on May 24. This was regarded as signifying, not only recognition of past services, but a likelihood that American naval operations in the war zone would take on a far-reaching character and that with the rank of Vice-Admiral Sims would have a place among ranking British officers. Admiral· Sims, before a state of war was declared, had been summoned to point out to the House Naval Committee some of the limitations of the submarine, concerning which he was an acknowledged authority.

On May 18 the first contingent of United States Army Medical units arrived in England. Its members were described as "crazy to get into action," anxious to reach the French battle-front. This contingent was the first arm of a United States land-force that had ever sailed from these shores for the purpose of serving in a European conflict. Decatur had sailed to attack Barbary pirates in 1804, but his operations were naval and their scene was Africa. So secret had the departure of the unit been kept that few knew what ship the men had sailed on, or the date of their sailing. The unit had been recruited at Lakeside Hospital, Cleveland, Ohio, and had won the honor of being the first to sail and so to carry the American flag to France by the skill it had shown at a practise mobilization in Philadelphia in 1916. Just before the unit departed, it was found that the men had no band, and yet they were expected to parade in England. A hasty canvass of the personnel showed that about a dozen of the rien could play musical instruments, and so a messenger was sent ashore to purchase fifes and drums.

With the departure in the third week of May of three units of the American Red Cross for service abroad and preparations for the early sailing of three more, the seriousness of the casualties that had been suffered by the

Medical Corps of the Allied armies was deeply imprest upon the public. These Americans were not to be sent to the front, but were going to war-hospitals to relieve staffs that would be moved up behind the lines and replace the severe losses suffered by the British and French Medical Corps. The British now had only one member of its Medical Corps available for each 1,000 men, instead of the needed ten per 1,000. The scarcity of physicians was so great that it was feared the health of the inhabitants of cities in Great Britain had been jeopardized. The Medical Corps had lost a greater percentage of its enrolment than any other branch of the British service-more than the infantry, which always bears the brunt in a battle. In the Battle of the Somme alone 600 doctors were reported killed. The gravity of the situation was increased by the fact that such losses are far more difficult to replace than losses in any other arm. A line officer can be made in three months of intensive training, but it requires years to educate a competent physician or surgeon, and additional time before the latter can perform good work on a battlefield.

Meanwhile, 600 members of three other units in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and Philadelphia were looking forward to sailing. Some were quartered in forts, others in hotels. Sixty-five at this time were in the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. Eventually it was said that the United States would have to make good a large part of the losses borne by the medical corps of the Allies. Besides three Red Cross units in New York, 420 men, or seven units, were soon to leave "some American port"-two from California, and one each from Harvard, Yale, and Williams College, one from St. Louis, and one from Illinois. On May 31 an American Engineering Commission, which had conferred at length with officials at the War Office, announced that it was ready to leave.

Not until May 18 was it definitely known that regular American troops would be the first to go to France and that some thousands of volunteers who within a few weeks had been raised as Roosevelt's volunteers, were not to go. A division of regulars led by Major-General Pershing were to leave "at as early a date as practicable." General Pershing and

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his Staff would precede them to France. This announcement came with news of the signing of a Selective Conscription Bill by the President, which in two years could give the United States an army of at least 2,000,000 men, and did give us many more. At the same time that he signed this bill the President gave his decision against the raising of volunteer divisions by Colonel Roosevelt, assign

THE FLAG OF AMERICANS WHO SERVED IN THE FOREIGN LEGION At the Invalides this flag, on July 4, 1917, was presented to France and deposited in the Musée de l'Armée, men who had served in the Foreign Legion now joining bodies of American troops who were coming to France

ing as his chief reason that it "would interfere with the contemplated system of raising troops and would contribute practically nothing to the effective strength of the armies now engaged against Germany." He also issued a formal proclamation naming June 5, 1917, as the date for the registration of all male citizens of the United States between the ages of 21 and 30 years, from whom would be selected the