The start of the Great War in Europe caused many people in the United States to take a serious look at the country's defense capability. The preparedness debate began in late 1914 after Representative A. P. Gardner of Massachusetts returned from a tour of European battlefields and called for a Congressional Commission to examine the readiness of the armed services. Gardner's assertion that "the United States is totally unprepared for war, defensive or offensive, against a real Power" ("Our Unreadiness," 1914, p. 835) started an intense national discussion. In less than a year the preparedness controversy had escalated into a partisan debate which created a widespread movement. The passionate arguments of the war preparedness movement form the central themes of H. Irving Hancock's Conquest of the United States Series.