So it happened that the little band of regulars did not go out to sacrifice in a body. They were scattered through the training camps as instructors, and they directed the expansion of our army organization. The officers of our General Staff in Washington had followed the strategy of the war on the maps, and studied its larger tactical problems in the light of such reports as were received. Their own precepts and training led them to admire the German rather than the French army system; a majority, thinking at first that Germany would win, were accordingly impressed with the seriousness of our undertaking when we entered the war. They hardly realized that the Canadians and Australians, who were people of something the same character as ourselves, had developed from raw recruits divisions and corps which were without superiors. We had formed no plan for operating an army in Europe. We seemed to be unfamiliar with the static details of trench warfare, with the clothing and equipment required; otherwise all this information would not have had to be sent back by the officers of our pioneer force in France three months after our entry into the war. The training camps being established, and munition plants under way at home, we must prepare to command our forces when they were ready to take the field. "Staff work" was supposed the most expert of all the branches. In my first book I have already gone into the organization of our staff in France, formed on the plan of European staffs. What I have to add now comes in the light of later events, after the staff had been tried in battle, and in the light of the days of peace, when discrimination will not be misunderstood. In the early days in France a progressive officer said to me: "We must not go too fast in elimination of the unfit and promotion of the fit. It will upset the equilibrium. We must wait on evolution." It was General Pershing who had to maintain the equilibrium. He was a regular; and regulars regarded him as their general. He had to depend upon the men who had rank; and upon trained soldiers who knew the army system, in order to start his machine. One day, someone remarked to him, "But this officer is in a rut, and a winding rut, that does not permit him to see ahead, let alone over the walls." The General replied: "But he's one of my broad-minded ones. What do you think I do with my narrow-minded ones?"