"Not long ago the Germans laughed at 'the contemptible English army' and we hear now that they regard the American army as too ridiculous for words. Well, the British have taught even Hindenburg himself what virile force can do toward filling gaps in organization. Now the arrival of Pershing brings Hindenburg news that the Americans are setting to work in their turn—those Americans whose performance in the war of secession showed them capable of such 'improvisation' of war as the world has never seen—and I think the Kaiser must be beginning to wonder whether he has not trusted rather blindly in his 'German tribal god.' He has loosed the lion from its cage, and now finds that the lion has teeth and claws to rend him.
"The Kaiser had given us but a few weeks in which to realize that the success of his submarine campaign would impose the silence of terror on the human conscience throughout the world. Well, painful as he must find it, Pershing's arrival in Paris, with its consequent military action, cannot fail to prove to him that, after all, the moral forces he ignored must always be taken into consideration in forecasting human probabilities. Those learned Boches have yet to understand that in the course of his intellectual evolution man has achieved the setting of moral right above brute force; that might is taking its stand beside right to accomplish the greatest revolution in the history of mankind.
"That is the lesson Pershing's coming has taught us, and that is why we rejoice."
Another graceful tribute was that of Maurice de Waleffe who wrote:
"'There is no longer any Pyrenees,' said Louis XIV when he married a Spanish princess. 'There is no longer an ocean,' Pershing might say with greater justice as he is about to mingle with ours the democratic blood of his soldiers. The fusion of Europe and America is the enormous fact to note. Henceforth there is but one human race, in the Old World as in the New, and we can repeat the words of Goethe at the battle of Valmy: 'From to-day a new order of things begins.'"
In the evening after his first day of work, at the opera the enthusiasm of Paris found one more outlet for its admiration of the American General whose physical strength and bearing, whose poise and kindly appreciation of his welcome again found expression. The General arrived at the close of the first act. It was now the turn for the society of Paris to express itself. The wildest enthusiasm instantly seized upon the audience as soon as his arrival became known. As he entered his box, which was draped with the American colors, the orchestra quickly struck up the national anthem, for the moment drowning even the wild cheering of the crowded house. The curtain rose and Mme. Richardson, holding aloft a large American flag as she advanced to the front of the stage, began in English to sing the Star Spangled Banner. After each stanza the wild cheering seemed to increase in volume and enthusiasm. Then Mlle. Marthe Chenal followed and began to sing La Marseillaise. It was now the turn of the American officers and soldiers present to cheer for France; and cheer they did. A chorus of soldiers and sailors accompanied each singer. When General Pershing departed from the opera house the throngs assembled on the streets joined in another outburst. By this time even the slowest of Americans must have been fully aware that the French were glad that the commander of the Army of the United States was in Paris.
The new problem confronting the American General was stupendous. His recommendations were to be final at Washington. In his duties he was to have the assistance of Marshal Joffre, whose ability as a soldier and whose position as the official representative of France would mean much to General Pershing. The British War Office (May 28, 1917) had said that including those already serving in French or British armies there shortly would be 100,000 American soldiers on French soil. Within a year the number was to exceed 1,000,000 and hundreds of thousands more were to follow. No such numbers or speed in transporting troops 3,500 miles had ever been known before. And in France plans must be formed, organizations made, great buildings must be erected, military measures must be adopted—and General John Joseph Pershing must be the directing power. What a task! Small cause for surprise is it that he solemnly said to a prominent clergyman before his departure from America that he "felt the need of all the help that could be given him,—human and divine."
Already in France Americans were drilling in preparation for active fighting. Among these were detachments of college students from Harvard, Princeton, Yale, University of Chicago, Williams, University of California, and many other American colleges, but a vast concourse of men from every class and condition in life in the United States was making ready to join their fellow soldiers across the sea. From no man in all the world was more expected than from General Pershing. And the expectations were resting on strong foundations if the manner in which he carried himself in the four trying days in London and in the three days of formal ceremonies in France and then in the beginnings of his heavy labors in preparing for the demands of Americans who were yet to come, were indications. By many he was declared to be the personification of the best type West Point could produce.