Made a general by Roosevelt
After he graduated from West Point, honors and promotions came fast. Roosevelt had passed by eight hundred and sixty-two older officers to make him a brigadier general. At the beginning of the war he was major general, and later Congress promoted him to the full rank of general, a very rare honor, and the highest in its power to give.
Arrival in France
When Pershing, with a few officers and engineers first landed in France the news spread quickly. "The Americans have come." Their arrival meant that the United States would soon take part in the fighting in earnest. New life and fresh resolution came into the hearts of the war-tired veterans of France.
Germany's last great effort
244. The Great Danger in 1918. Russia had fought bravely for the Allies at the beginning of the war, but about the time the United States entered, a revolution drove the Czar from his throne. Russia was so upset by the revolution that after a year it gave up trying to keep its army at the front, and made peace with Germany. Hundreds of thousands of German soldiers were thus left free to attack the Allies in the west. Germany thought that if she could succeed in taking Paris before many Americans arrived in the trenches, the war would be won. It was her last chance to win.
THE CONCLUSION OF THE WAR
Need of a united front
245. Foch the Allied Supreme Commander. Before the spring of 1918 each of the Allied armies had been acting on its own plan. The places where the trenches of two armies came together were, of course, the weakest, and were favorite points for German attacks. It was now decided to have one commander for all the Allied forces. Foch, a French general highly skilled in the science of war, was chosen for this great task.