The only American comparison for the Meuse-Argonne Battle was the Appomattox campaign which lasted much longer and consisted of a series of separate actions with nothing like the concentration and continuous fighting which the Americans of another generation were to endure. Grant had no lack of supplies, he had more guns than he could use and was fighting on his own soil with ample resources in reserve within easy reach. Pershing's army was not relatively as ready for the task that it was to undertake as McClellan had been for his Peninsula campaign. From the time of the attack of Saint Mihiel on September 12, 1918, until September 25, 1918, we had thirteen days to prepare for an offensive which, as it was made by a new army, could be likened to the great Somme offensive of the British in 1916. Then the British had taken five months in which to build roads, dig assembly trenches, prepare ammunition dumps, and bring up necessary engineering material. But it must be borne in mind that at this time the enemy was in the prime of his numbers and confidence. Moreover, such elaborate arrangements were then considered necessary in order to take powerfully intrenched lines. They had the fault of warning the enemy in ample time of any concentration which enabled him to mass men and material for defense. Later, the French had developed a system of limited objectives of brief artillery preparations, followed by the rolling barrage which preceded the advance of the infantry, while the enemy's strong points and gun positions were smothered with shells. The Germans, however, in their great offensive against the British in March, 1918, had taken ample time for preparation while they made the innovation of driving through for sufficiently great depth to become masters of all the trench defenses and of the opposing artillery. In the counteroffensive toward Soissons on July 18, 1918, and again in the Anglo-French-Canadian offensive of August 8, 1918, and the succeeding offensives, the Allies had depended on either a very brief artillery preparation or upon not opening fire until the moment of the infantry's advance while they followed through in the German fashion. In our Meuse-Argonne offensive, we had all these precedents and the experience of the officers in directing them for our guidance. But very veteran and skilled armies had carried out the later style of offensive, and they had the advantage which comes from long experience that the units, used to keeping their uniformity in battle action, did not become dispersed after they had made a certain advance as was supposed to be the case in any extensive offensive where new divisions were engaged.