An 1886 West Point graduate, John J. Pershing served with the 6th Cavalry in campaigns against the Apaches and Lakota; during the Spanish-American War, he fought in Cuba with the 10th Cavalry, a regiment of African American “Buffalo Soldiers,” which earned him the nickname “Black Jack”; he fought Moro insurgents in the southern Philippines and served as an observer in Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese War before commanding the American expedition into Mexico in 1916. On May 12, 1917, Wilson appointed Pershing as commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in Europe. The President issued Pershing one main directive, with which the general wholeheartedly agreed: the AEF should maintain its national identity and fight as an independent army, not be broken up and “amalgamated” into the existing French and British armies. The U.S. 1st Division had arrived in France in June 1917 and spent the nine months either training behind the lines or holding quiet sectors of the front in Lorraine. On April 16, 1918, Pershing addressed the officers of the division at Chaumont-en-Vexin before their departure to the front in Picardy. There the division would win the first American offensive battle of the war when it captured the village of Cantigny on May 28.
General Bullard and Officers of the 1st Division:
It has not been convenient for me to meet the assembled officers of the 1st Division before, but I did not want you to enter into real participation in this war without my having said a word to you as a body.
You have now been on French soil ten months, and you have carried out a progressive system of instruction under varied circumstances. You have lived in billets according to the custom of European armies; you have served in different sections of the trenches as a part of your training and have taken on a military complexion akin to that of our Allies. Officers of the Allies, in passing judgment upon your work, have expressed themselves as completely satisfied. I, myself, having witnessed your maneuvers, and closely followed the progress of your work in the trenches and elsewhere, now express myself as well satisfied. I believe that you are well prepared to take your place along with the seasoned troops of our Allies.
But let us not for a moment forget that, while study and preparation are necessary, war itself is the real school where the art of war is learned. Whatever your previous instruction may have been, you must learn, in the actual experience of war, the practical application of the tactical principles that you have been taught during your preliminary training. Those principles are as absolute as they are immutable. Whatever may be the changing conditions of this war, those principles remain practically the same, and you should constantly bear them in mind. Now that you are going to take a place in the line of battle, you will be called upon to meet conditions that have never been presented to you before. When confronted with a new situation, do not try to recall examples given in any particular book on the subject; do not try to remember what your instructor has said in discussing some special problem; do not try to carry in your minds patterns of particular exercises or battles, thinking they will fit new cases, because no two sets of circumstances are alike; but bear in mind constantly, revolve in your thoughts frequently, and review at every opportunity, those well-established general principles, so that you may apply them when the time comes.
While it is necessary to know how to apply the general principles of military tactics to the problems of actual battle, yet the main reliance after all must be upon your own determination, upon the aggressiveness of your men, upon their stamina, upon their character and upon their will to win. It is this will to win, more than anything else, that will carry you over the trying periods that you are soon to meet.
You should always have the interests of the individual soldier at heart, for he is the principal part of the machine upon which you are to rely to carry you to success. His morale must be kept up to the highest pitch. That morale is affected by his confidence in his officers, by a realizing sense that they are his example. They should really be an example in everything that personifies the true soldier, in dress, in military bearing, in general conduct, and especially an example on the battlefield.
To get the best out of your men they must feel that you are their real leader and must know that they can depend upon you. They must have confidence in you. Do not hold yourself aloof from your men, but keep in close touch with them. Let them feel that you are doing the very best you can for them under all circumstances, not only in providing their personal wants, in looking forward to a regular supply of food, and clothing, but that, as their leader, you are directing them wisely in the trying conditions of battle. On the other hand, you should always endeavor to make them realize their own responsibility and that you, in turn, rely fully upon them, and that when the occasion demands it they must make the supreme sacrifice.
I did not come here to make a speech, I am not given to speech-making, so only a word more. I have every confidence in the 1st Division. You are about to enter this great battle of the greatest war in history, and in that battle you will represent the mightiest nation engaged. That thought itself must be to you a very appealing thought and one that should call forth the best and the noblest that is in you. Centuries of military tradition and of military and civil history are now looking toward this first contingent of the American Army as it enters this great battle. You have behind you your own national traditions that should make you the finest soldiers in Europe to-day. We come from a young and aggressive nation. We come from a nation that for one hundred and fifty years has stood before the world as the champion of the sacred principles of human liberty. We now return to Europe, the home of our ancestors, to help defend those same principles upon European soil. Could there be a more stimulating sentiment as you go from here to your commands, and from there to the battlefield?
Our people to-day are hanging expectant upon your deeds. Our future part in this conflict depends upon your action. You are going forward and your conduct will be an example for succeeding units of our army. I hope the standard you set will be high—I know it will be high. You are taking with you the sincerest good wishes and the highest hopes of the President and all of our people at home. I assure you in their behalf and in my own of our strong belief in your success and of our confidence in your courage and in your loyalty, with a feeling of certainty in our hearts that you are going to make a record of which your country will be proud.