The Engineers in France found considerable constructive work to do after the armistice. There were camps to be built at the American ports of embarkation in France, nearly 10,000 miles of roads to be repaired, and schools, theatres, and athletic fields, including the Pershing Stadium near Paris, to be constructed. These, and the installations put in before the armistice, constituted for the A. E. F. a physical equipment on which the American Government had spent hundreds of millions of dollars; yet after the return of the Expeditionary Forces, the physical installation in France, taken as a whole, was more of an embarrassment to the United States than an asset. Some of the railroads, docks, and other great pieces of construction work undoubtedly possessed great inherent future value to the French, and we could expect to be well paid for turning them over to the French Government; but as an offset there were scores of installations of no peace-time value at all--roads, military railroads, and vast camps of flimsy construction built upon fertile farm lands. The obligation was upon the A. E. F. to restore these occupied French lands to their original condition; but there were approximately 50,000 acres of French farms so occupied, and to have restored this land would have taken the time of 30,000 men for several years. The great reserves of engineering supplies in France, as contrasted with permanent installations, were indeed an asset, but not so much of an asset as one would think. In the first place, to sell them to private buyers in the European markets would have been a work of several years, during which time the American Government would have had to maintain in France a force of perhaps 5,000 men. Moreover, all that time the engineering stores would have been constantly deteriorating, so that their average value would not have been nearly so great as their value at the time of the armistice.