OUR RED CROSS GOES TO WAR
On the day that General John J. Pershing first came to Paris--it was the
thirteenth of June, 1917--the American Red Cross already was there. It
greeted the American commanding general on his arrival at the French
capital, an occasion long to be remembered even in a city of memorable
celebrations. For hours the historic Place de la Concorde was thronged
with patient folk. It was known that General Pershing was to be
quartered at the Hotel Crillon--since come to a new fame as the
headquarters of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace--and it was
in front of the doors of that establishment that the crowd stood
thickest. There were many, many thousands of these waiting folk,
close-packed upon the pavement, and only giving way to a dusty limousine
in which sat the man who was to help bring salvation to France and
freedom to the democracy of the world.
After the doors of the hotel had swallowed General Pershing and his
French hosts, the crowd refused to disperse; also, it became less
patient. A long swinging chant began--the typical chant of the Paris
mob. "_Balcon, balcon, balcon_," it sang in rhythmic monotony, and upon
the balcony of the hotel in a few minutes Pershing appeared, while the
crowd below him went wild in its enthusiasm.
But before the American commanding general had made his appearance upon
the balcony he had been greeted in the parlors of the Crillon, both
formally and informally, by the members of the first American Red Cross
Commission to Europe. By coincidence that Commission had arrived in
Paris that very morning from America, and were the first Americans to
greet their high commanding officer in France. And so also to give him
promise that the organization which they represented would be ready for
the army as soon as it was ready; for back in the United States
widespread plans for the great undertaking so close at hand already were
well under way.
This American Commission had sailed from New York on the steamship
_Lorraine_, of the French Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, on the
second day of June. It consisted of eighteen men, headed by Major
Grayson M.-P. Murphy, a West Point man of some years of active army
training and also a New York banker of wide experience. The other
members of the party were James H. Perkins, afterward Red Cross
Commissioner for France; William Endicott, afterward Red Cross
Commissioner for Great Britain; Frederick S. Hoppin, Rev. Robert Davis,
Rev. E. D. Miel, F. R. King, Philip Goodwin, Ernest McCullough, Ernest
T. Bicknell, C. G. Osborne, R. J. Daly, A. W. Copp, John van Schaick,
and Thomas H. Kenny. They were men who had been hastily recruited and
yet not without some special qualifications for the difficult
preliminary work which they were about to undertake. Until the
preliminary "get-acquainted" luncheon which Major Murphy gave for the
party in New York on the day preceding its sailing, comparatively few of
them knew one another. Yet the great task into which they were entering
was to make them lifelong friends, and to develop for the Red Cross,
both in Europe and in America, many executives whose real abilities had
not really been attained at the time of their appointment to Red Cross
service.
These men were volunteers. With a few exceptions, such as clerical
workers and the like, the early members of the Red Cross served without
pay. At first they had no military rank. Apart from Major Murphy, who
bore the title of Commissioner to Europe--there being at the time no
separate Commissioner to France or to Great Britain--there were merely
deputy commissioners, inspectors, and secretaries. Major Murphy's title
had come to him through his army service. It was not until some time
later that the War Department issued General Orders No. 82 (July 5,
1917), conferring titles and fixing the assimilated rank of Red Cross
personnel. Accordingly commissions and rank were given and the khaki
uniform of the United States Army adopted, with distinctive Red Cross
markings. Though it is not generally understood, American Red Cross
officers have received from the President of the United States, issued
through and over the signature of the Secretary of War, commissions
which appointed them to their rank and held them to the discipline and
the honor of the United States Army.
* * * * *
Before the _Lorraine_ was well out of the upper harbor of New York on
that memorable second day of June, Major Murphy called a meeting of the
Commission. He explained to them in a few words that they were, in
effect, even then, military officers and would be expected to observe
military discipline, and as a beginning would appear at dinner that
evening in their uniforms--the army regulations at that time prevented
relief workers of any sort appearing in the United States in their
overseas uniforms--and thereafter would not appear without their
uniforms until their return to America. The grim business of war
seemingly was close at hand. It began in actuality when one first donned
its accouterments, and was by no means lessened in effect by the stern
war-time rules and discipline of a merchant ship which, each time she
crossed the Atlantic, did so at grave peril.
Yet peril was not the thing that was uppermost in the minds of this
pioneer Red Cross party. It took the many rules of "lights out" and
"life preservers to be donned, _s'il vous plaît_," boat drill, and all
the rest of this particularly grim part of the bigger grim business,
good-humoredly and light-heartedly, yet kept its mind on the grimmer
business on the other side of the Atlantic. And, so that it might
become more efficient in that grimmest business, undertook for itself
the study of French--at one and the same time the most lovable and most
damnable of all languages.
"I shall not consider as efficient any member of the party who does not
acquire enough French to be able to navigate in France under his own
power in three months."
Major Murphy laughed as he said this, but he meant business. And so did
the members of the Commission. As the ship settled down to the routine
of her passage, the members of the Commission settled down to a
life-and-death struggle with French. For two long hours each morning
they went at it. At first they gathered in little groups upon the decks,
each headed by some one capable of giving more or less instruction; then
they found their way to the lounge, where they grouped themselves round
about a young woman from Smith College who had taught French in that
institution for some years. It was this young woman's self-inflicted job
to give conversational lessons to the Red Cross party, and this she did
with both enthusiasm and ability. She chose to give them conversational
French--in the form of certain simple and dramatic little childhood
epics.
"This morning we will have the story of Little Red Riding Hood," she
would say, "and after I am done telling it to you in French, you
gentlemen, one by one, will tell it back to me--in French."
In order that the effect of the lesson should not be too quickly lost
Major Murphy ruled that French, and no other language, should be both
official and unofficial for luncheon each day. This order quickly
converted an ordinarily genial meal into a Quaker meeting. For when one
of mademoiselle's more enthusiastic pupils would start an audacious
request for "_Encore le pain, s'il vous plaît_," he was almost sure to
be greeted either with groans or grins from his fellows. Yet the lessons
of those short ten days were invaluable. Many of the men of that party
who since have attained more than a "navigating" knowledge of French
have to thank the lady from Smith College for their opportunity to
acquire it. The "bit" that she did for the Red Cross was perhaps small,
but it was exceedingly valuable.
Afternoons, sometimes evenings, too, were given to business conferences
wherein ways and means for meeting the big problem so close ahead were
given attention. It matters not that many of the plans so carefully
developed upon the _Lorraine_ were, of necessity, abandoned after the
party reached France. The very men who were making these plans realized
as they were making them that field service--actual practice, if you
please--is far different from theory, and as they planned, felt that the
very labor they were undergoing might yet have to be thrown away,
although not completely wasted. For the members of that pioneer Red
Cross Commission were gaining one thing of which no situation whatsoever
might deprive them; they were gaining an experience in teamwork that was
to be invaluable in the busy weeks and months that were to follow.
* * * * *
Very early in the morning of the twelfth of June the _Lorraine_ slipped
into the mouth of the Gironde river; for the Compagnie Générale
Transatlantique, driven from Havre by the submarine menace and the
necessity of giving up the Seine embouchure to the great transport
necessities of the British, had been forced to concentrate its
activities at Bordeaux, the ancient port of the Gascogne country. The
ship crossed the bar at the uncomfortable hour of three in the morning,
and the Red Cross party first realized the fact that in army life night
hours and day hours are all the same, when it was ordered to arise at
once and face the customs and the passport inspectors. That inspection
was slow work, yet not delaying. For the Gironde runs to the sea many
miles after it passes the curving quay and the two great bridges of
Bordeaux. The fact that the _Lorraine_ was able to reach the quay well
before noon was due not only to her being a good ship but to the fact
that she had both wind and tide in her favor.
At fifteen minutes before twelve she docked and the Red Cross party
faced the city of Bordeaux, flat yet not unimpressive, with the same
graceful quay, the trees, and the old houses lining it, and in the
distance the lofty spires of the lovely cathedral, with the even loftier
spire of St. Michel in the farther distance. Even the uninitiated might
see upon this last the complications of a wireless station and
understand that here was one of the posts from which France spake far
overseas.
It is but a night's ride from Bordeaux to Paris, even though it is close
to four hundred miles between the two cities. That very evening Major
Murphy and his party boarded the night train of the Orléans Railway for
the capital, and had their first real touch of war's hardships. The
night train was very crowded. It is nearly always crowded. It was then
running a solitary sleeping car, but two or three of the older members
of the party were able to get reservations. Still other fortunate ones
were able to obtain seats. The rest of the party stood throughout the
tiresome journey of twelve long hours. Major Murphy himself stood the
entire night, akimbo over the prostrate body of a groaning, snoring
_poilu_, yet was the first to be ready at the Gare d'Orsay on the
morrow; to be here, there, and everywhere seeing that all were provided
with proper hotel accommodations. After which he forged through the
crowd to the Crillon, there to meet the hero of the day coming to Paris
with "Papa Joffre"--and, like himself, every inch an American. After
which again it was in order to repair to the American Relief Clearing
House in the Rue François Premier to prepare directly for the big job
now so close at hand.
* * * * *
I have described the voyage of this first Red Cross party overseas, not
only because it was the first, but also because it was so very typical
of many others to follow. Many and many a Red Cross man and Red Cross
woman, to say nothing of veritable hosts of doughboys and their
officers, had their first glimpse of lovely France as they sailed up the
broad Gironde and into that lovely port of Bordeaux. The curving quay,
the spires of the lovely cathedral, and the more distant but higher
spire of St. Michel was the picture that greeted thousands of them. At
least hundreds of them rode in the night train of the Orléans Railway to
Paris, and in all probability stood the entire distance. For traveling
in France in the days of the Great War was hard whether by train or by
automobile.
Before I am done with this book I am going to describe the Atlantic
crossing of one of the final Red Cross parties. I belonged to one of
those parties myself and so am able to write from first-hand knowledge.
But between the original expedition and the one in which I sailed were
many others; others of far greater import. For our Uncle Samuel was
aroused, and, once aroused, and having resolved that having entered the
great fight he would give his all, if necessary, toward its winning, he
began pouring overseas not only his fighting legions but his armies of
relief, of which the Red Cross is part and parcel.