Brothers in arms

by E. Alexander Powell

Treason fled before us, for resistance was in vain,

While we were marching through Georgia.”

Swinging around the corner of the Treasury Building, with a distant glimpse of the stately Grecian temple reared by a loving people in memory of their murdered President, the procession passed the White House, rising, pale and lovely, from amid its trees and flowers. At the corner of Madison Place our first French friend, Lafayette, extended a welcoming hand to his countrymen, and awaiting them, a few rods beyond, was Rochambeau, who commanded the French armies at Yorktown. In the center of the square Andrew Jackson, the frontiersman who at New Orleans routed the Peninsular veterans of Wellington, sat on his prancing horse, guarded by captured cannon, and raised his cocked hat in hearty greeting. Then past the statue of Baron von Steuben, the adjutant and friend of Frederick the Great, who exchanged the glitter of the Prussian Court for the misery of Valley Forge, and who, were he alive to-day, would, I fancy, once again be fighting on the side of freedom. A stone’s throw beyond, in front of the house where Dolly Madison once held her republican court, stood Kosciusko, the Polish light-horseman, who, when his sword was no longer needed by America, returned to his own people and lies buried in the Cathedral of Cracow. Then the cortège, with its cloud of clattering troopers in blue and yellow, swerved sharply into Sixteenth Street, the beautiful thoroughfare which should, and some day doubtless will, be dignified by being named “The Avenue of the Presidents,” and was lost to sight amid its foliage and its fluttering flags.

The procession was not as effective as it might have been, first, because it moved so rapidly as to give the impression that those in charge of it were worried and anxious to get it over with, and secondly, because so many generals and admirals and cabinet ministers were crowded into the automobiles that the people on the streets had great difficulty in distinguishing them. In a foreign country there would have been lines of soldiers and police to push the onlookers back and keep the way clear, but here there was nothing of the sort, for the men in the crowd acted as their own police and looked after their guests themselves, which was more democratic and essentially American. But the most memorable feature of the affair, when all is said and done, was the extraordinary warmth and spontaneity of the welcome which the people extended to their visitors. The sidewalks surged with waving hats and upraised hands as the cortège passed and the cheers rose into a roar which drowned the chorus of the motor-horns and the clatter of the cavalry. The women in the windows and on the balconies waved their handkerchiefs and cheered, and the men beat the air with their hats and cheered, and the white-mustached old soldier raised his hand again and again to the visor of his scarlet képi and smiled at the people and winked away the tears in his eyes.

In sending Marshal Joffre to the United States, the French Government did a peculiarly wise and happy thing. Viviani, Chocheprat, de Chambrun—their names held no significance for most Americans. But Joffre! Ah, there was a name to conjure with. The hero of the Marne, the bulwark of civilization, he was the one figure in the whole world the mere sight of whom would instantly fan into flame the slumbering fires of American patriotism. In the first place, he did not come to us as a stranger. We already knew him, you see, through the illustrated papers and the motion-picture screens,—a stoutish, white-mustached, twinkling-eyed, benevolent-looking old gentleman in a great blue coat, walking rather heavily down lanes of motionless troops with their rifles held rigidly toward him, or stooping over a hospital cot to pin to the breast of a wounded soldier a bit of enamel and ribbon,—and seeing him thus, day after day, he became as familiar to us as Colonel Roosevelt and Andrew Carnegie and Billy Sunday. And because we recognized that he was, despite his splendid achievements and his sounding title, a simple, kindly, homely man, our great admiration for him grew into a sort of personal affection. He does not dazzle us with the glamour of Napoleon; he does not pique our curiosity like Kitchener; he does not appeal to our sympathies like King Albert; the appeal that he makes is to our hearts and our imaginations. He is—I must have recourse to a Spanish word to express my meaning—simpatico. We recognize his greatness, but it does not awe us. We feel that he is “home folks,” that in the humblest dwelling he would be at home; we would like to give him the big armchair by the fire and a pair of slippers and a cigar and visit with him. For he is a man of the people, as simple, as friendly, as democratic as Lincoln. We remember the story told about him; that he said that when the Germans had been driven out of France he wanted no triumphal entry into Paris, but that he wanted to go fishing. We understand such a man.

This war has been singularly barren of heroic figures, perhaps because its very magnitude has produced such a multitude of heroes that no one can be placed before the rest, yet, when this greatest phase of history comes to be written down with historic perspective, it is probable that Joseph Joffre will stand forth as its most imposing figure. As Charles Martel, “the Hammer of God,” saved Europe from Arab conquest at Tours, and John Sobieski, by turning back the Turks from the gates of Vienna, saved the cause of Christianity, so Joffre broke the wave of German invasion at the Marne and saved mankind from subjection to a no less barbarous despotism. In this elderly man in the scarlet képi we see one of the world’s great captains. His fame is immortal; his place in history is secure. Future generations will point to his visit to these shores as one of the great events of our history. But I like to think that the delirious enthusiasm which he everywhere aroused was something more than a tribute to the greatness of the man and the magnitude of his achievements. I like to think that the cheers which greeted him meant, rather, that we welcomed his presence on American soil as a tangible sign that we had at last returned to the traditions of our fathers, that we had regained our self-respect, that we had offered the sacrifice which will save the nation’s soul.

Though the coming of Joffre had in most quarters the effect of a great spiritual awakening, it was only to be expected that there should be some who would question the motives which brought him. These mean-souled little men went about whispering in their mean and furtive way that the Marshal and his companions were by no means as disinterested as they would have liked us to believe. When we hear such cynical intimations, it might be well for us to bear in mind, however, that in their day the motives of Washington and Lincoln were repeatedly impugned. But their critics have long since passed into the limbus of oblivion, while the men they criticized will live forever in the hearts of their countrymen. That the French hoped and prayed for our aid they would, I imagine, be the last to deny. Certainly their need of it was desperate. But the fact that we have afforded them financial assistance does not justify us in assuming the airs of philanthropists, for we are nothing of the sort. The money that we have furnished France is not given, but loaned, just as a bank loans money to an individual of known responsibility, and, moreover, every dollar of it is to be expended in the United States, thus providing employment for millions of our people. That we, who sent Franklin to implore the aid of the French king, we who accepted from France a loan which we have never repaid, we who owe our very existence as a nation to French soldiers, French ships, and French money, should presume to criticize France for eagerly accepting what we freely offered, is but to show a lack of gratitude and of good taste. Nor let us forget that France, the grip of the invader at her throat and her resources in men and money drained all but dry, has never, by word or hint, reminded us of our long-standing obligation.

The purposes which prompted the sending of the French Mission are set forth by M. Viviani with a grace and beauty of expression which are peculiarly French. No true American can read his words and not be thrilled by the sincerity and unselfishness breathed in every line:—

“We have come to this land to salute the American people and its government, to call to fresh vigor our life-long friendship, sweet and cordial in the ordinary course of our lives, but which these tragic hours have raised to all the ardor of a brotherly love—a brotherly love which, in these last years of suffering, has multiplied its most touching expressions. You have given help, not only in treasure, in every act of kindness and good-will; but for us your children have shed their blood, and the names of your sacred dead are inscribed forever in our hearts.”

One feels, upon reading these words, that the glowing tribute is undeserved. It has taken us three years—three long and bitter years of agony for France—to recognize what she has known from the beginning: that the cause for which she is fighting is our cause, that not merely the future of France but our own future, the future of democracy, is at stake. We are late in acting, and some historians of the future will probably be unkind enough to say that we were almost too late; but let us resolve that we will make up for the tardiness with which we enter the struggle by the fullness of the strength which we put into it; that we will spend, if need be, our last dollar and our last man; and that we will not relax our efforts by a whit until this Prussian horror is no more.