When the war traffic ended, the Transportation Service found itself in possession of enormous port facilities. Prior to the armistice the Government had seized or leased over seventy steamship piers at various Atlantic and Gulf ports; but even such facilities being entirely inadequate to the vast amount of shipping contemplated, the Government began the construction of seven great port bases located at Boston, Brooklyn, Port Newark, Philadelphia, Norfolk, Charleston, and New Orleans. Not one of these projects was complete on November 11. One of the early demobilization questions to be settled was what to do with these installations. Should the Government abandon them and set down as loss the millions spent, or go ahead with their erection and perhaps make the whole enterprise profitable by leasing the facilities to American commerce? The latter course was chosen. The contractors completed the construction at a total cost of $143,000,000. As the new piers became ready for use the Transportation Service turned back its leased piers to their owners. Then, as the military traffic dwindled, the space in the base terminals was leased to private ship operators. These terminals, among the largest and finest in the United States, are now rendering an important service to our foreign trade, but on terms ensuring their instant availability to the Government in the event of a future emergency.[3] CHAPTER IV EBB TIDE Before the American Expeditionary Forces could be disbanded in this country it was necessary for the training camps, most of which were to become demobilization centers after the armistice, to be evacuated by the home forces occupying them. The fluvial system leading into that sea of humanity which we knew as the A. E. F.--main river crossing the ocean, chief tributaries leading up to the ports in this country, beyond them their branch creeks and brooks, and the rills at the sources--was running bank-full on the day of the armistice. Demobilization, which inverted many of the processes of war and changed familiar names into their antonyms, abruptly reversed the direction of troop-flow, as if some tremendous power had uplifted the reservoir and the mouth of the main stream in France above the ultimate sources in this country. Before the expeditionary sea could drain out, the home channels of troop supply had to discharge their contents into the nimbus of civilian life.