Everett T. Tomlinson

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:

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.