A glance at the list of such stations as it stood at the end of the year 1919 shows how much petroleum has done to extend the influence of the United States of America on the sea. Exclusive of the domestic establishments on the Atlantic seaboard and in the Gulf of Mexico, bunkering stations have been established by American initiative at all the chief ports of Canada, whether on the Atlantic or on the Pacific Coast, the Great Lakes, or the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in South America, at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Montevideo, Uruguay; Campana and Buenos Aires, Argentina; at Valparaiso and five other ports on the long coast line of Chile; and at three ports in Peru. Bunkering facilities have also been established at both approaches to the Panama Canal and at many points in the West Indies, including Bermuda. There are nine such stations in Great Britain; three in Norway; two in Sweden and three in Denmark, covering effectively the North Sea and the Baltic. Those on the Mediterranean include five in Italy; one in Tunis (Bizerta) and one in Egypt (Port Said). These stations are designed to promote those peaceful and happy relations which should follow on the development of international trade, and to assure facilities for America’s expanding seaborne commerce. CHAPTER XII PETROLEUM IN THE GREAT WAR No survey of the place that petroleum holds in the social and industrial organization of the world would be complete without some reference of the role it played in the late war. It was inevitable that in a crisis where all the scientific, mechanical and organizing genius of the leading nations was concentrated on instrumentalities to strengthen themselves and weaken or destroy the foe, a product of so many applications should prove a tremendous factor. It would be indeed possible to write a lengthy volume on the influence of petroleum on history, based on actual deductions drawn from the incidents of that greatest of conflicts. It was an indispensable factor in the new methods of warfare that were developed; it influenced the military and diplomatic strategy of all belligerents; it was a stupendous contributor to the victory of the Allied and Associated powers. Earl Curzon of Kedleston, a member of the British War Cabinet, stated the fact tersely when he said, shortly after the signing of the armistice--“The Allies floated to victory on a sea of oil.” This was intended as a direct commentary on the assistance rendered by the United States to that cause and was a just acknowledgment of one phase of this country’s contribution.