The Delta of the Triple Elevens | Page 3

"Delta," a word which civilization later adopted as a coinage of adequate description.
Fine silt, brought down in suspension by a muddy river and deposited to form the Delta when the river reaches the sea, accumulates from many sources.
In similar light the silt of circumstances that resulted in the formation of the Delta of the Triple Elevens, accumulated from many sources, the very nucleus transpiring on June 28, 1914, when the heir to the Austrian throne, the archduke of Austria, and his wife, were assassinated at Sarajevo, in the Austrian province of Bosnia, by a Serbian student.
Austria immediately demanded reparation from Serbia. Serbia declared herself willing to accede to all of Austria's demands, but refused to sacrifice her national honor. Austria thereby took the pretext to renew a quarrel that had been going on for centuries.
Long diplomatic discussions resulted--culminating on July 28, 1914, with a declaration of war by Austria against Serbia. This, so to speak, opened the flood-gates, letting loose the mighty river of blood and slaughter that flowed over all Europe.
The days that followed added new sensations and thrills to every life. The river of war flowed nearer our own peaceful shores as the days passed and the news dispatches brought us the intelligence of Germany's declaration of relentless submarine warfare and the subsequent announcement of the United States' diplomatic break with Germany.
Momentum was gained as reports of disaster and wilful acts followed with increasing rapidity. The sinking of American vessels disclosed a ruthlessness of method that was gravely condemned in President Wilson's message of armed-neutrality, only to be followed by acts of more wilful import--finally evoking the proclamation, April 6, 1917, declaring a state of war in existence between the United States and the Imperial German government.
Clear and loud war's alarm rang throughout the United States. All activity centered in the selection of a vast army to aid in the great fight for democracy. Plans were promulgated with decision and preciseness. On June 5th, 1917, ten millions of Americans between the ages of 21 and 31 years, among the number being several hundred who were later to become associated with Battery D, of the 311th F.?A., registered for military service.
The war department issued an order, July 13, 1917, calling into military service 678,000 men, to be selected from the number who registered on June 5th. Days of conjecture followed. Who would be called first?
July 20th brought forth the greatest lottery of all time. The drawing of number 258 by Secretary of War Newton D. Baker started the list of selective drawings to determine the order of eligibility of the young men in the 4,557 selective districts in the United States.
War's preparations moved rapidly. Selective service boards, with due deliberation, made ready for the organization of the selective contingents. While the boards toiled and the eligible young men went through the process of examination, resulting in acceptance or rejection, officials of the war department were planning the camps.
Battery D and the 311th Field Artillery were in the stages of organization but plans of military housing had to mature before the young men who were to form the organization, could be inducted into service, thereby bringing to official light The Delta of the Triple Elevens.
CHAPTER II.
A CAMP BELCHED FORTH.
On that eventful day in 1914, when the war clouds broke over Europe, the farmers of Anne Arundel county, Maryland, in the then peaceful land of the United States, toiled with their ploughshares under the glisten of the bright sun; content with their lot of producing more than half of the tomato crop of the country; content to harvest their abundant crops of strawberries and cucumbers and corn, to say nothing of the wonderful orchards of apples and pears, and not forgetting the wild vegetation of sweet potatoes.
The peaceful, pastoral life in the heart of Maryland, however, was destined to be disturbed. A vast American army was needed and the vast army, then in the process of organization, needed an abode for training. Battery D and the 311th Field Artillery was organized on paper soon after the call for 678,000 selected service men was decided upon. The personnel of the new organization was being determined by the selective service boards. Officers to command the organization were under intensive instruction at Fort Niagara, New York. All that was needed to bring the organization into official military being was a point of concentration.
The task of locating sites for the sixteen army cantonments, decreed to birth throughout the United States, presented many difficulties. What could be more natural, however, than the fertile farm lands of Anne Arundel county, almost within shadow of the National Capital, to be selected as the site of a cantonment to be named after General George Gordon Meade?
Territory in the immediate vicinity of Admiral and Disney was the ideal selection: ideal