Requisitions

As soon as they arrived, American forces began to requisition French property of all kinds to serve the war effort. Both French officials and civilians showed themselves remarkably accommodating to American demands—so long as they perceived them as reasonable, which was not always the case. The mechanism for requisitions left the French government to handle payments, which became the largest irritant to civilians caught between the Americans and their own government. Requisitions by the French themselves proved just as exasperating as those of the Americans.