IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE
ON June 8, 1917, General Pershing with his staff arrived (on the White
Star Liner, _Baltic_), at Liverpool. There was keen excitement in the
busy city and a warm welcome for the military representative of the
great republic which now was one of the Allies. Accompanied by a guard
of honor and a military band which was playing the Star Spangled Banner,
a British general was waiting to pay due honor to the arriving military
leader. The British admiral in command at Liverpool was also present to
greet the arriving General, as was also the Lord Mayor of the city. The
docks and shops, the houses and parks were filled with a waiting, eager
throng that was quiet in its deep, tense feeling.
To the British public General Pershing gave out the following message:
"We are very proud and glad to be the standard
bearers of our country in this great war for
civilization and to land on British soil. The
welcome which we have received is magnificent and
deeply appreciated. We hope in time to be playing
our part--and we hope it will be a big part--on
the western front."
As soon as the American Commander had been suitably greeted he started
for London by special train. The official state car had been attached to
the train for the General's benefit. In his swift ride through the many
busy cities which remind one more of American cities than does any other
part of England, through the beautiful and carefully cultivated rural
regions, past Oxford with its crowning towers, many hoary with age, the
party was taken. It is only natural to conjecture what thoughts must
have been in the mind of the General at the time. Was he thinking of
Laclede and the negro school which he had taught? Or of his modestly
brave work in Cuba and the Philippines? Or did the statement he had
made to a friend years before when he started for West Point that "war
was no more and a gun would not be fired in a hundred years," again come
back to him, when, seated in the car of state, he was swept swiftly
toward London on that beautiful and historic day in June?
In London, United States Ambassador Page, Admiral Sims of the United
States Navy, Lord Derby, British Secretary of State for War, General
Lord French and many other leaders of the British Army were waiting to
receive him. Throngs of people on every side were doing their utmost to
show that they too as well as the representatives of their Government,
wanted to manifest their appreciation in every possible way of the
coming of the Commander of the American Expeditionary Force.
The following day General Pershing was presented formally to King George
V at Buckingham Palace. General Lord Brooke, commander of the Twelfth
Canadian Infantry Brigade, as was most fitting, was the spokesman. To
General Pershing the King said:
"It has been the dream of my life to see the two
great English-speaking nations more closely
united. My dreams have been realized. It is with
the utmost pleasure that I welcome you, at the
head of the American contingent, to our shores."
His Majesty conversed informally with each member of the General's staff
and talked with the General a longer time. His intense interest and
enthusiasm as well as his gratitude were manifest not only in his spoken
words but also in the cordial grasp of his hand when they departed. It
was the representative of one great nation trying to express his
appreciation to the representative of another nation.
There were numerous formal calls and entertainments to follow and on
June 11th, when these all had been duly done, General Pershing and
Ambassador Page were entertained at luncheon by King George and Queen
Mary, who personally showed their guests through the historic rooms and
beautiful grounds of the palace. It was not merely a meeting of the
English king and the American soldier--it was the quiet manifestation of
the deep feeling and strong ties that now bound together the two great
peoples they represented.
General Pershing then departed for the War Office where already members
of his staff had been busily conferring with the corresponding members
of the British Army.
In the afternoon of that busy day General Pershing was taken as a
visitor to the House of Commons. In the Distinguished Visitors Gallery
he sat watching the scene before him though he himself in reality was
the observed of all the observers, as perhaps he was made aware a little
later when as a guest of the members he "took tea" on the Terrace.
In the evening he was the guest of Ambassador Page at dinner when among
others he met Premier Lloyd George, Arthur J. Balfour, Lord Derby, Lord
Robert Cecil, Viscount French, Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, Vice-Admiral
William S. Sims, U. S. N., and General Jan Smuts. It may all have been a
part of the formal reception of a welcome visitor, but it also was more,
for in this way England and America were doing their utmost to express
to the world the cordial relations existing between the two great
nations now banded together to fight a common foe.
There are many formalities which have grown to be a part of the
reception of the representative of a foreign power by the country which
receives him. In a democratic land, like the United States these may
appear to be somewhat exaggerated, but they have also become the
expression of the desire to honor the land from which the visitor comes
and consequently cannot be ignored. Shaking hands as an expression of
personal regard is doubtless a somewhat meaningless conventionality, but
the man who refuses to shake hands is looked upon as a boor. Doubtless
General Pershing, whatever his simpler tastes might have dictated, was
well aware that behind all the formal display was the deep-seated desire
to honor the country whose personal representative he was.
After a visit to a training camp to witness the British method of
training for fighting in the trenches, he was the guest at a luncheon
of Lord Derby, the British Secretary of State for War. Although the day
had been strenuous, nevertheless in the evening he and eighteen members
of his staff were the guests of the British Government at a formal
war-dinner. This dinner was served at Lancaster House, a beautiful
building which the Government uses solely for state entertainment of
distinguished visitors from abroad. Eight members of the British Cabinet
were among the thirty present. The dinner was served in the
magnificently furnished dining-hall. The guests were seated at six round
tables, each presided over by one of the distinguished men of Great
Britain, the Prime Minister sitting at the head of the first table and
Lord Curzon, Lord President of the Council; the Right Honorable George
M. Barnes, Pensions Minister; Viscount Milner, member of the War
Cabinet; Earl of Derby, Secretary for War and Sir Alfred Mond, presiding
at the others.
The four days of formal welcome in England were at last ended and
General Pershing and his staff sailed for France where the military
activities of the United States were to be made a part of the common
purpose to turn Germany back from her designs.
In France, too, although she is not a kingdom, there were to be certain
formal ceremonies of recognition. The French people are somewhat more
demonstrative than the English, but behind it all was the common
enthusiasm over the entrance of America into the Great War.
Of General Pershing's reception at Boulogne we have already learned.[C]
Before he departed for Paris, however, he said to the reporters of the
French newspapers, whom he received in the private car which the French
Government had provided for his use: "The reception we have received is
of great significance. It has impressed us greatly. It means that from
the present moment our aims are the same."
To the representatives of the American press, whom he welcomed after he
had received the French, he said: "America has entered this war with the
fullest intention of doing her share, no matter how great or how small
that share may be. Our allies can depend on that."
Great crowds of enthusiastic people from streets, walls, windows and
housetops greeted the American General when the train that was bringing
him entered the Gare du Nord at Paris. Cordons of "blue devils" were on
the platforms of the station and dense lines of troops patrolled the
streets and guarded adjacent blocks as the party was escorted to the
Place de la Concorde, where General Pershing was to make his temporary
headquarters at the Hotel de Crillon.
Bands were playing the Star Spangled Banner and the Marseillaise, the
flag of the United States was waving in thousands of hands and displayed
from almost every building, while a steady shout like the roar of the
ocean, "Vive l'Amerique!" greeted the party as the automobiles in which
they were riding advanced along the densely packed streets. It is said
that General Pershing was "visibly affected" by the ovation into which
his welcome had been turned. What a contrast it all was to the life and
work in the jungles of the Philippines where the young officer had
perhaps feared he had been left and forgotten. And yet it was the
faithful, persistent, honest work done for the little brown Moro people
which helped to make the present occasion possible.
In the evening of that day (June 13th) American Ambassador Sharp gave a
dinner in honor of the coming of General Pershing. At this dinner the
chief officers of the French army and navy were present. Indeed in the
brief time before General Pershing was to assume his active duties it
almost seemed as if the desire of the French Government and the French
people to do honor to the American commander would test his powers of
endurance to the uttermost. There were several events, however, that
stand out in the foreground of those remarkable days.
FOOTNOTE:
[C] See Chapter I.