A FAMOUS GESTURE
When America had put the power of all her eloquence into the growing
demand among the Allies for a unified command, and when, as a result of
this pressure, General Foch, chief of staff of the French Army and hero
of the battle of the Marne, had been made generalissimo, General
Pershing put into words in what the French called a "superb gesture" the
final sacrifice his country was prepared to make.
The first of the great German drives of 1918 had halted, but the battle
was nowhere near its end. General Foch was sparing every possible energy
on the battle-front and heaping up every atom of force for his reserve.
And on the morning of March 28 General Pershing went to headquarters and
offered the American Army in full to General Foch, to put where he
pleased, without any regard whatever for America's earlier wish to fight
with her army intact.
It was the final sacrifice to the idealistic point of view. It had
indisputably the heroic quality. And as such it was rewarded in the
countries of the Allies with appreciation beyond measure.
"I have come," said General Pershing to General Foch that morning, "to
say to you that the American people would hold it a great honor for our
troops if they were engaged in the present battle. I ask it of you in my
name and in that of the American people.
"There is at this moment no other question than that of fighting.
Infantry, artillery, aviation--all that we have are yours, to dispose of
them as you will. Others are coming, which are as numerous as will be
necessary. I have come to say to you that the American people would be
proud to be engaged in the greatest battle in history."
This offer was placed immediately by General Foch before the French
war-council at the front, a council including Premier Clemenceau,
Commander-in-Chief Petain, and Louis Loucheur, Minister of Munitions,
and was immediately accepted. American Army orders went forth in French
from that day. And on those orders the army was presently scattered
through the vast reserve army, from Flanders with the British to Verdun
with the Italians and the French. They were not to go into actual
battle, except near their own sectors, till the third monster drive, in
July, for General Foch makes a religion of the reserve army and Fabian
tactics. But they spread through the battle-line from Switzerland to the
sea, as General Pershing had suggested, and "all we have" was at work.
Paris acclaimed the move royally. _La Liberte_ wrote: "General Pershing
yesterday took, in the name of his country, action which was grand in
its simplicity and of moving beauty. In a few words, without adornment,
but in which vibrated an accent of chivalrous passion, General Pershing
made to France the offer of an entire people. 'Take all,' he said; 'all
is yours.' The honor Pershing claims is shared by us, and it is with the
sentiment of real pride that our soldiers will greet into their ranks
those of the New World who come to them as brothers."
Secretary Baker, from American General Headquarters, gave out a
statement. "I am delighted at General Pershing's prompt and effective
action," he said, "in placing all the American troops and facilities at
the disposal of the Allies in the present situation.
"It will be met with hearty approval in the United States, where the
people desire their expeditionary force to be of the utmost service in
the common cause. I have visited all the American troops in France, some
of them recently, and had an opportunity to observe the enthusiasm with
which officers and men received the announcement that they would be used
in the present conflict. One regiment to which the announcement was made
spontaneously broke into cheers."
The British Government issued an official statement on the night of
April 1: "As a result of communications which have passed between the
Prime Minister and President Wilson; of deliberations between Secretary
Baker, who visited London a few days ago, and the Prime Minister, Mr.
Balfour, and Lord Derby, and consultations in France in which General
Pershing and General Bliss participated, important decisions have been
come to by which large forces of trained men in the American Army can be
brought to the assistance of the Allies in the present struggle.
"The government of our great Western ally is not only sending large
numbers of American battalions to Europe during the coming critical
months, but has agreed to such of its regiments as cannot be used in
divisions of their own being brigaded with French and British units so
long as the necessity lasts.
"By this means troops which are not sufficiently trained to fight as
divisions and army corps will form part of seasoned divisions, until
such time as they have completed their training and General Pershing
wishes to withdraw them in order to build up the American Army.
"Throughout these discussions President Wilson has shown the greatest
anxiety to do everything possible to assist the Allies, and has left
nothing undone which could contribute thereto.
"This decision, however of vital importance it will be to the
maintenance of the Allied strength in the next few months, will in no
way diminish the need for those further measures for raising fresh
troops at home to which reference has already been made.
"It is announced at once, because the Prime Minister feels that the
singleness of purpose with which the United States have made this
immediate and, indeed, indispensable contribution toward the triumph of
the Allied cause should be clearly recognized by the British people."
Lord Reading, the British Ambassador at Washington, conveyed to
President Wilson a message of thanks from the British Government, for
"the instant and comprehensive measures" which the President took in
response to the request that American troops be used to reinforce the
Allied armies in France. The Embassy then gave out a statement that "the
knowledge that, owing to the President's prompt co-operation, the Allies
will receive the strong reinforcement necessary during the next few
months is most welcome to the British Government and people."
The London papers reflected this sentiment in even stronger terms. Said
the _Westminster Gazette_: "It seals the unity of the Allied forces in
France, and so far from weakening the determination to provide all
possible reinforcements from this country, it will, we are confident,
give it fresh energy. All the big loans America has made to Great
Britain and France, her heavy contributions of food, her princely gifts
through the Red Cross, and the high, stimulating utterances of President
Wilson, have done much to strengthen the Allied morale and lend material
assistance to the war against autocracy, but none of these counts so
heavily with the masses, because there are few families here or in
France who have not a personal and intimate interest in the soldiers
battling on the plains of Picardy."
The _Evening Star_ wrote: "In a true spirit of soldierly comradeship
they will march to the sound of guns, and will merge their national
pride in a common stock of courage for the common good. It is a
chivalrous decision, and President Wilson, Mr. Baker, and General Bliss
have done a very great thing in a very great way. The British and French
people are moved by this splendid proof of America's fellowship in the
fight for world freedom."
If this gift was so significant in spirit, it was also bravely helpful
in round numbers. At the end of March, 1918, General Pershing had
366,142 soldiers in his command in France, and of these, after nine
months of training and adjustment, he could put about 100,000 in the
line.
And within three months after this time he had more than 1,000,000
soldiers in France, the Navy Department having accomplished the
astounding feat of transporting 637,929 in April, May, and June. The
month that the reinforcement of the French and British Armies was
planned and accepted the transport figures jumped from forty-eight
thousand odd to eighty-three thousand odd. The month of its first
practical operation the figures jumped again to one hundred and
seventeen thousand odd, and in the month of June, the month of the
anniversary of the first debarkation, there was a transportation of
276,372 men.
The last few days of March, 1918, saw the first large troop movements
from the American zone--that is, saw them strictly in the mind's eye.
Actually, the rain came down in such drenching downpours that the
French villagers whom the motor-trucks passed did not so much see as
hear the doughboys. Throughout the whole zone the activity was
prodigious. Along the muddy roads two great processions of motor-trucks
crossed each other day and night, the one taking the soldiers to one
front, the other to another. Sometimes the camions slithered in the mud
till they came to a stop in the gutter. Then the boisterous, jubilant
soldiers would tumble out and set their shoulders under wheels and
mud-guards, and hoist the car into the road again. The singing was
incessant. The mood of the songs swung from "The Battle Hymn of the
Republic" to "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-night."
The exuberance of the soldiers knew no bounds. They were about to answer
"present" to the roll-call of the big guns, the call they had been
hearing for so many months, that had seemed to them so persistently and
personally compelling. They were going to become a part of that living
wall which for three years and a half had held the enemy out of Paris.
Those who were going to the British front were particularly exultant
because they expected to find open fighting there, the kind they called
"our specialty."
To all the units going into the French and British Armies a general
order was read, jacking up discipline to the topmost notch.
"The character of the service this command is now about to undertake,"
read the order, "demands the enforcement of stricter discipline and the
maintenance of higher standards of efficiency than any heretofore
required.
"In future the troops of this command will be held at all times to the
strictest observance of that rigid discipline in camp and on the march
which is essential to their maximum efficiency on the day of battle."
The first of the fighting troops arrived on the British front on the
morning of April 10, after an all-night march. They were grimed and
mud-spattered, hungry, and tired, and cold. But the cheering that rose
from the Tommies when they recognized the American uniforms at the head
of the column would have revived more exhausted men than they.
The first comers were infantry, a battalion of them. Others came up
during the day, with artillerymen and machine-gunners. The celebration
of their coming lasted far into the next night, and the commanders of
the British front exchanged telegrams of congratulation with the
commanders of the French front that they were to be so welcomely
refreshed.
But Generalissimo Foch, with his stanch determination not to be done out
of his reserve, held the Americans back, and they were destined to
remain behind the main battle-line for three and a half months longer.
Meanwhile the American strength was piling steadily up in the reserve,
and in mid-May a large contingent of the National Army, said to be the
first of them to land in Europe, reached the Flanders front and began to
train at once behind the British lines, without preliminary work in
American camps in France.
These men had what was probably the most exhilarating welcome of the
war. The Tommies, many of them wounded and sick, poured out into the
roadways as the new American Army arrived, and threw their caps into the
air and split their throats with cheers. The British had been
terrifically hard pressed in the German offensive. They had given ground
only after incredible fighting. They were, in the phrase of General
Haig, at last "with their backs to the wall." They held their line
magnificently, but they could not have been less than filled with
thanksgiving that they were now to have the help of the least war-worn
of all their allies.