But I wish to render special tribute in this case to the work of the British army in the final battle. Defeated as they were and disorganized in the March and April battles, the British pluck never failed. They came back, and it was the British army in my opinion that was the major factor in the three and one-half months' battles that finally won the war. (Applause.) They were the first to break the Hindenburg line on the advance. Of the 405,000 prisoners that were taken in that three and one-half months, the British army took more than half. American divisions fought in all of those armies with the British, with the Belgians and some with the French.

The American Soldier

Now, there has been quite a lot of question as to the character of the American soldier; and why that thing should ever come up is a mystery to me. The men who went over were some of the picked men of America. I never knew, outside of the minor infractions of military law, of any particular cases where the Americans should be criticized. Of course, there were crimes. You cannot take 2,000,000 men and not have some crime. We have a city of 500,000 people in San Francisco and I imagine we have quite a police force and a lot of criminal courts taking care of what goes on here. My opinion is that the American soldier as a rule carried himself well and was a credit to the country that he represented on the other side. (Applause.)

I had a lot of other things to talk about, but the President has warned me that my time is strictly limited. So just one other point to follow up the idea expressed above.

Remember when you hear the accounts of individual cases of mismanagement, much of it justified; of disorganization, in some cases of bad orders, or of futile sacrifices-in all of those cases which come to your attention, either from the point of view of the sensational newspaper or as a part of valid criticism of certain things, remember what I mentioned at the beginning, that it is the major thing that must always be borne in mind. There never was a battle in which any fairsized American unit was engaged that was not a success for our side. It started from small beginnings; the fight at Cantigny; on to the battle at Chateau Thierry; to the taking of the Marne salient; the capture of the St. Mihiel salient, and the battle of the Meuse-Argonne-one of the greatest of the war, certainly the greatest battle in which American forces had ever engaged, and finished with the war won. We never lost a battle. Our efforts on that side were completely successful. We were not the major factor in the campaign, but we were the determining factor which brought victory to the allied cause.

We passed some mighty anxious moments-I would say hours and days-in Chaumont, when things were going entirely against us. The morale of the French was slacking down; the British had repeatedly been defeated; but when our men turned the scale at Chateau Thierry it was then that hopes began to come up.

There were a lot of us who never smelled powder; I never heard the guns except at a distance; but each one played his part. I wish to say, however, that one must always bear in mind, that is, every one who thinks of the achievements of the Americans, that it was the common American soldier, the non-commissioned officers and the officers of the companies, the lieutenants and the captains, all those who died fighting, or who were wounded, who actually won the war. To those men render your thanks, for to them much is due. (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: The next speaker, as you know, was seriously wounded in the Battle of the Argonne. We were fearful that he was not coming back, but he is here tonight to tell us of his experiences.— Captain Graupner. (Standing applause.)

Address by Captain Adolphus E. Graupner

CAPTAIN GRAUPNER: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: On Sunday, the 19th of January, the U. S. Steamer Wilhelmina, on which I returned from France, sailed into the harbor of New York. Just as the boat of the mayor's reception committee came alongside and its band struck up the tune "Home Sweet Home," the haze that covered. the waters of the harbor of New York bay lifted and we had our first glimpse of the old Statue of Liberty. I never knew what "Home Sweet Home" meant until that Sunday; and I have realized its meaning still more since I came back to San Francisco and have had the exhibitions of friendship that have been shown me here. And I want to take this opportunity of thanking you, those of you who know me, for your graciousness and kindness in welcoming me home; because home means much after you have stared at nothing but the four bare walls of a hospital for three long months.

When I asked what I was to talk about tonight I was told to tell about the battle of the Argonne. I did not see much of it. I lasted only three days. But I will tell what I can concerning it so that, if possible, you may have from a personal witness some idea of what that battle was like.

The battle front of what is officially known as the Meuse-Argonne offensive extended from the Meuse river, at a point approximately seven miles north of Verdun, due west through the Argonne forest to a point slightly outside of that forest. Those twenty miles of front were covered by American troops on the 26th of September, 1918; nine divisions in the front line; six divisions in reserve. Approximately 400,000 Americans were there to show what they could do. Many of those divisions were like the 91st division; they had never known the sound of guns; they had had no experience in the trenches; but they were there to show what they could do as American lads.

The First Advance

The offensive, as Major Galloway has said, was a stroke to break the backbone of the German railway communications.

The 91st division contained two infantry regiments from California, the 363rd, which is your regiment-the regiment containing men from the bay counties of San Francisco; and the 364th, which represented Southern California. It was my privilege to command a company in the 364th infantry and I was glad to have California boys to lead.

My company was not with the regiment at the hour of the “jumpoff," but I will try and take you with my company from the moment we got behind the lines up to the time I was wounded.

We traveled all the night of September 25th from the prison camp at Pagny sur Meuse toward the front. From midnight on we heard the steady roar of big guns. We tried to hurry, so that we could be in time for the "jump-off." But, after doing our best, we were about three kilometers behind the front of the line at dawn. From that time on, until I reported to division headquarters three kilometers ahead, we were among artillery-gun upon gun. Every caliber was represented in that array; all sending their shells across to destroy what they could of the German defenses. At division headquarters my company was ordered to report to the regiment. I was given a map and we started on our way.

The American Artillery

We took no part in the first day's fight. I can simply tell you concerning the conditions of the field. Suffice it to say that, almost hub to hub, along that twenty-mile front, for a depth ranging from two to three kilometers, was artillery. They had as their preliminary duty the smashing of the front line German defenses, and they did it. They did it so effectively that no human tongue nor pen nor photograph can describe it. It was simply a devastation of earth, wire and concrete. That is what we had to go through; sliding down into one shell hole to climb out and fall into another, and climb out of that and fall into another. That was the way we advanced across into the woods behind the German first line. In those woods we came in contact with a few wounded Americans and saw many dead Germans. That first day we avoided shell fire wherever we met it, and when darkness came I was back of the line where the regiment was. By morning I had joined it, and at dawn my company was in position on the right flank of the 182nd brigade, and we were ready to go over the top to make our fight. (Applause.)

I want to add to what Major Galloway has said about our American soldiers. We had drilled our men at Camp Lewis; we had drilled them in the fields in France; and it remained to be seen how effective our training had been. The instant we went out of that steep ravine we were greeted with such a hail of machine-gun bullets and shells as I had never thought possible. There was our baptism and our test. We had never been under fire before, and yet out of the company of one hundred and eighty-three men that I led into that fight, not one flinched, and every man acted as though he were on maneuver. (Applause.) That was the American boy with almost a minimum of training. Some of them had had the training of the full period at Camp Lewis, but others had had less than three months training.

They had been told what to expect. We had not deceived them. The policy of this army had been to educate our men and tell them what to expect; and to my knowledge it was done in every camp where the drafted men were taken for training; and those men went over there, did their duty, and did not flinch.

Over the Hindenburg Line

We encountered the organized Hindenburg line. We had to fight our way through it. A battery had succeeded in getting through over this torn area by taking the horses and leading them over one by one through that shell-torn area, fastening long ropes to the trailers of the guns and dragging them over, then dragging the caissons after them. They had only the supply of ammunition contained in those caissons. No more ammunition was to be had until the roads were pushed through. Those guns helped us take the village of Eclis Fontaine and the village of Epinonville the second morning. But from that time on, for the next three days, our army went ahead without artillery. I am relating that fact so that you will understand it. The first thing I heard when I reached America was criticism; criticism that we had been led and driven forward to slaughter; that we had no artillery. We had it, but so well had it done its work that it could not follow the infantry. (Applause.) It took four days for the engineers to build roads through that devastated section in order that food and ammunition and artillery could be brought up to our support.

To use the expression over there, we were "riding on Jerry's tail"Jerry being the familiar name we applied to the Germans. We had him running pretty well, and we stuck on his coat tail. It was easy riding. We had to pay a certain price to do it. But had we stayed snugly down and waited for the artillery to come up, the armistice would not have been signed on November 11th, if my opinion is worth anything. We gave the German no chance to settle down; we kept after him. We nagged him right along and we rode him during the daytime for those first three days.

Ahead of the Guns

The first day's gain was nine kilometers; a kilometer is six-tenths of a mile. The next day we made seven kilometers, and the next day we made nine again. Those three days marked the days of greatest gain in the whole offensive. On the morning of the fourth day, the morning that I was wounded, we were confronted with this situationthe Germans had been driven back in concentration on their supplies and we were going away from ours. We had had but little small arms