The Americans set up their headquarters in two small hôtels at the end of the Rue de Constantine, opposite the Invalides. Immediately the boys of the headquarters detachment marked out a diamond on the Esplanade des Invalides, and passers-by had to learn to dodge base-balls. The police did not interfere. Nothing was too good for the Americans. All Paris flocked to see for themselves the khaki uniforms and to learn the mysteries of our national game. There was always a crowd around the door of General Pershing's home in the Rue de Varenne.
The events of the next few weeks will always seem like a dream to me. The scene of the drama that has influenced so profoundly the history of the world was shifted from Paris. I went to Saint-Nazaire to see our boys land and later to their first training-camp in the country of Jeanne d'Arc. Many of them did not see Paris. Their idea of France was a long journey of days and nights in freight-cars, with interminable stops, and ending in small villages where they met rain and mud. But a fortunate battalion of the First Division had the honor of being the vanguard of the A. E. F. in Paris.
They were lodged in the Caserne de Reuilly. On the Fourth of July, declared a national holiday by grateful France, they paraded through the streets of our city. We were to become accustomed to American soldiers in Paris. But these first boys made a unique impression. The moment of their coming was psychological. Paris never needed encouragement more.
After this excitement we had another long and anxious wait of eight months. The Americans came each week, but in dribbles. Between Gondrecourt and the three ports of Saint-Nazaire, Bordeaux and Brest, it was necessary to construct the lines of communication while a great army in America was being gathered and trained. The defeatist propaganda started up again, the word was spread that the Americans were coming too slowly and that in France they were to be seen everywhere but at the front. Were not the French still holding the lines against odds and giving their lives, while the Americans were in safety? Despite the fact that General Pershing moved G. H. Q. from Paris to Chaumont in the Haute-Marne, the number of American soldiers in Paris, through the necessities of the S. O. S. increased rapidly. The Hotel Mediterranée, near the Gare de Lyon, was the first large building taken over. Then the Elysée-Palace Hotel on the Avenue des Champs-Elysées was chartered. The American flag soon appeared over barracks, garages and other buildings in all parts of the city. You could go nowhere without seeing the American uniform, and our automobiles learned to drive as rapidly as the French. We got accustomed to hearing English spoken on the streets. The Red Cross, the Y.M.C.A., the Knights of Columbus, and the Jewish Welfare Board, established hotels and restaurants and reading-rooms and leased theatres. Our American Ambulance at Neuilly, taken over by the army, became only one of a number of hospitals.
Not until the spring offensive of the next year were the Americans able to come in large numbers. Then suddenly a single month brought as many as the nine preceding months. We had our half million, our million, our two millions.
The faith of the French in us revived with Cantigny and Château-Thierry. I am ahead of my chronology. But the men who first fell under the American flag were those who marched through the streets of Paris, on July Fourth, 1917. On parade they gave us hope. Fighting they gave us certitude of victory.