As they sat down to table Clemenceau and Foch, who never agreed for more than a few minutes at a time, couldn’t help a slight falling out. “Well,” growled the Tiger glaring at Foch as he tucked his napkin under his chin, “you’ve got the position you wanted so much.”
Foch snapped back, “You give me a lost battle and ask me to win it … I consent and you think you are making me a present. I am disregarding my own interest when I accept.”
The others intervened. Like good Frenchmen they turned their attention to the food and the wine. According to Mordacq they were in as much of a glow as if they had won a victory over the Germans. He remembered the luncheon as being distinctly gay.
Newton D. Baker, mouselike as usual under a derby hat that looked too large for him, was in Europe during these days of tension. He had come, he explained modestly to Pershing and Bliss, to get the feel of the war. He was getting it. Long faces in London. Long faces in Paris. Refugees in the railroad stations. Airraid sirens wailing every moonlight night. The crunch of bombs in the distance. In Paris, during the Good Friday service, a shell from Big Bertha exploded in the church of St. Gervais. The Gothic vault fell. A hundred and fifty people, mostly women and children, were killed or badly hurt.
Wherever the Secretary of War went he was besieged with requests for American troops. The Italians wanted them. The French wanted them. The British wanted them so badly they were at last willing to forego a certain amount of lucrative commercial trade and to allot more shipping to overseas transport; but only for infantry and machinegunners, they insisted. None of the Allies wanted an independent American army; what they wanted was American cannonfodder.
Baker’s report to Pershing was that the President was wavering on the question. Wilson had become convinced that everything must be sacrificed for unity of command. His cables strongly backed the appointment of Foch. Well and good, said Pershing, he was willing to serve under Foch, but they must never give up the plan for a separate American army.
Out of a total strength of just under three hundred and twenty thousand men under his command in the A.E.F. Pershing had already offered his 1st Division to Pétain. Now the 2nd, 26th and 42nd divisions were ready for service. Another soon would be.
After a long discussion at his Paris office with General Bliss and Secretary Baker on the bearing of the decision at Doullens, which they all applauded, on American plans, Pershing decided that the moment had come formally to put his troops at Foch’s disposition. After lunch he set out with General Bliss to find Foch, who was reputed to be setting headquarters up in a little hillside town between Compiègne and Beauvais, called Clermont de l’Oise.
It was encouraging to the Americans to find the roads west of Paris encumbered by motor trucks loaded with supplies and troops heading towards the front. This confirmed the report that Foch was already filling the gap east of Amiens with French divisions. When they reached Clermont they drove around the town for a while before they could find anybody who would admit any knowledge of General Foch’s whereabouts. At last Pershing’s interpreter, Captain de Marenches, uncovered a friend at French Third Army Headquarters who detailed a poilu to guide them. He directed Pershing’s chauffeur out through the truckgardens on the edges of town and down an avenue of tall poplars to a small picturesque farmhouse.
While they waited in the walled garden to be admitted, they admired the flowering shrubs. The place had a delicious air of quiet and seclusion. There was some pale spring sunshine. Leaving Bliss to admire a cherry-tree in bloom in the middle of the lawn Pershing was ushered into the house. He had announced he wanted a private interview.
Pershing found Clemenceau, Loucheur and Generals Pétain and Foch deep in the study of a map laid out on the diningroom table. The French were counterattacking near Montdidier. Since the house was small, when Pershing repeated that he wanted to speak with Foch alone, the others went outside to admire the cherrytree.
“I have come to offer our American troops for the present battle,” Pershing said. “… Artillery, infantry, aviation. Everything we have is yours. Dispose of it as you will … I have come especially to tell you that the American people will be proud to take part in the greatest battle in history.”
Feeling that the occasion merited the effort, General Pershing addressed General Foch in French.
No man to underplay a dramatic moment, Foch seized Pershing’s arm and rushed him out of the house to where the others were standing by the cherrytree. “Repeat what you said.” Foch was radiant.
General Pershing repeated his carefully rehearsed speech with even greater emphasis. His aide, General Boyd, told him afterwards that his French gushed out with unaccustomed fluency under the pressure of the great moment.
“We are here to be killed,” blurted out General Bliss in English. “How do you want to use us?”
Pétain remarked dryly that he had already decided that with General Pershing. A spot had been picked where the American troops should go into the lines. Later Foch took credit for this decision. “I could only reply to their perfect comradeship,” he wrote, “by at once placing the First American Division facing Montdidier in the very center of the German attack.”
Pershing’s chivalrous gesture was made much of in the French press. He was invited to accompany Bliss to the next meeting of the Supreme War Council, hurriedly called for April 3 at the town hall at Beauvais. The British were late again, so the American generals and their aides had leisure to admire the huge old cathedral left unfinished so many centuries ago. When they entered the town hall they found a certain assurance among the delegates. The German drive was petering out. Amiens was no longer in danger. The boche had outrun his supply. Foch’s selfconfidence was catching. In the conference room Lloyd George, with his mane of white hair and his queasy smile, was very much in evidence.
As soon as Clemenceau called the meeting to order Foch rose to explain that now that the front was stabilized his instructions to coordinate the movements of the armies had been complied with. He wanted more specific powers. Lloyd George pointed out that after three years of war nothing had been accomplished … What had just happened, he added nervously, had stirred the British people very much and it mustn’t be allowed to happen again or the people would start asking questions and somebody would be called to account. He threw the ball to the Americans.
General Bliss read out the Doullens resolution and said that Foch should be given broader powers. Pershing came out flatfootedly for a supreme commander and declared that commander should be Foch.
Lloyd George strode across the room to where Pershing was sitting and grabbed him by the hand. “I agree fully with General Pershing.”
When Haig’s turn came to speak he said that there had been unity of command right along. He saw no need for anything more.
It was decided to draft a resolution. Pershing pointed out when the draft was submitted to him that there was no mention of an American army.
Pétain said there wasn’t such a thing. The American units were either in training or amalgamated with the British or the French.
Pershing stood his ground. He was not an eloquent man. He tended to start with “er er er” when he spoke. He managed to get across his message that if there wasn’t an American army yet there damn soon would be. The resolution he subsequently approved granted Foch complete strategic direction of the Allied armies, but left tactical direction of the British, French and American forces in the hands of their national commanders. To mollify Haig a clause was added allowing these commanders to appeal to their home governments if in their opinion Foch’s instructions placed their armies in danger.