Did he fear that President Wilson's tentative move early in 1914 toward a League of Nations for world peace would be successful? Was the Kaiser convinced that he must strike in that year, or surrender his mad ambition for world domination? As these lines are written a conference of five nations, called by President Harding, is in session at Washington, where the discussion of reduction of naval armament was given first place in a proposal to scrap all pre-dreadnaughts and also the incompleted great dreadnaughts, and not to build or complete the battle-cruisers under construction. The plan presented by the American representatives is to adopt the ratio of capital ships for the United States, Great Britain, and Japan at five for the United States, five for Great Britain, and three for Japan. Such a program, if followed by scrapping all submarines and placing them in the category of outlaws, would, with reduction of land armament and regulation of aircraft, carry out the hopes of those responsible for the naval program authorized in 1916. CHAPTER XXIX MAKING SAILORS OUT OF LANDSMEN HALF A MILLION RECRUITED AND TRAINED IN EIGHTEEN MONTHS--"ONE OF THE MOST STRIKING ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE WAR," SIR ERIC GEDDES DECLARED--NAVY'S EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM PAVED THE WAY--EVERY OFFICER A TEACHER--NAVAL ACADEMY GREATLY ENLARGED--NO SHIP KEPT WAITING FOR OFFICERS OR MEN. Half a million men and thirty thousand officers were enlisted and trained by the United States Navy in eighteen months. No navy in the world ever had as large a personnel, or ever attempted to raise and train as large a sea-force in so brief a time. Sir Eric Geddes, First Lord of the British Admiralty, said: The dauntless determination which the United States has displayed in creating a large, trained body of seamen out of landsmen is one of the most striking accomplishments of the war. Had it not been so effectively done, one would have thought it impossible. When the Archbishop of York, Honorary Chaplain-in-Chief of the British Navy, visited Great Lakes, Ill., he was amazed quite as much by the spirit of the personnel as he was by the vast extent of the establishment, the largest naval training station in the world. The Archbishop reviewed the cadets in the administration drill hall, a structure large enough for three entire regiments to maneuver. Thirty thousand blue-jackets were assembled in the hall, with three full regiments, nine thousand men, and a band of three hundred pieces in light marching order. After the preliminary ceremony "to the colors," they passed in review before the Archbishop, playing and singing "Over There." The thousands massed in the center of the hall, sang "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean." Profoundly moved, the Archbishop turned and said to Captain W. A. Moffett, the commandant, "Captain, now I know that we are going to win the war."