Part 20

Paris, frantic with enthusiasm, streets massed with throngs waving the American and French flags, greeted Major-Gen. John J. Pershing and his staff here at 6:30 o'clock this evening. Marshal Joffre, former Premier Viviani, Minister of War Painleve, American Ambassador Sharp and a score of other dignitaries greeted the American commander and his officers at the Gare du Nord.

"The living symbol of America's help in the war for civilization."

"The man who will lead the American armies!"

Such were the tumultuous salutes.

Hundreds of thousands thronged the sidewalks from the railway station, the Gare du Nord, to the Hotel Crillon, where Gen. Pershing made his headquarters. From the moment the automobile, in which he rode with Minister of War Painleve and Gen. Pelletier, designated as his honorary aide, moved slowly into the boulevard outside the railway station, until he arrived at his hotel, the cheering was continuous and, if possible, increased in volume, and the crowds fairly smothered the Americans with flowers.

As Gen. Pershing stepped on the railway platform he found awaiting him M. Viviani, Minister Painleve, Marshal Joffre, Gen. Foch, Gen. Dubail, Military Governor of Paris; M. Mithouard, President of the Municipal Council of Paris, and American Ambassador Sharp. M. Mithouard spoke a few words of welcome. A company of infantry was lined up as a guard of honor, and the Republican Guard Band played "The Star Spangled Banner." Gen. Pershing shook hands in the most cordial fashion with M. Viviani and Marshal Joffre and remarked, with a smile:

"It does not seem long since we saw you in Washington."

Then he was escorted to the Painleve automobile. Ahead of it was that occupied by M. Viviani and Ambassador Sharp, and behind one bearing Marshal Joffre and Rene Besnard who had accompanied Gen. Pershing from Boulogne.

From windows the Stars and Stripes were waved by men, women and children. French girls, with flowers bought from their savings, fought for a chance to hurl their offerings into the laps of the astonished Americans. The ride to the Hotel Crillon, in which suites for the General and his chief officers had been reserved, lay through many of the principal streets, and the motors were driven slowly to afford the crowds a good look at the Americans.

Paris, June 14, 1917.

This was Pershing Day in Paris. The cheers which greeted the American general's entry into the city yesterday were re-echoed wherever he appeared to-day. All gloom which has pervaded the city for months seemed to dissipate wherever the tall figure of the American appeared.

When the General appeared on the Place de la Concorde this morning he was wildly cheered by thousands who lined the streets. He was escorted to the Palace of the Elysée with military honors and was presented to President Poincaré, after which he was entertained at breakfast. Other guests were Premier Ribot, Gen. Painleve, Marshal Joffre, Minister Viviani, Ambassador Sharp and many prominent statesmen.

In the afternoon he was escorted to the Chamber of Deputies by Ambassador Sharp. The unexpected appearance of Gen. Pershing in the diplomatic gallery turned a commonplace meeting of the Deputies into a great ovation for the American General.

Premier Ribot, who had been discussing the Greek situation, recognized Gen. Pershing and switched from his speech, saying:

"We are confronted afresh by beholding the United States coming to the rendezvous of the representatives of a free people."

As the Deputies leaped to their feet in honor of the American General, the Premier continued:

"The people of Paris are so sure of themselves that in their acclamation of Gen. Pershing they are writing the first chapter in the history of the constitution of a society of nations."

The Chamber turned with one accord to where Gen. Pershing stood. He bowed his acknowledgments of the Parliamentary greeting. Following Premier Ribot, Foreign Minister Viviani said that "neither pen nor note could do justice to the reception which he and Gen. Joffre were accorded in the United States."

M. Viviani referred to President Wilson as "that great, calm figure in whose untrembling hands there rests, with Washington and Lincoln, all the grandeur of American history."

A tremendous outburst of applause filled the auditorium when M. Viviani told of how at Chicago, once the center of pro-Germanism, he had been promised that the last American and the last American dollar would be given by the United States that France might restore Alsace-Lorraine.

This morning Gen. Pershing stood with uncovered head at the tomb of Napoleon and paid tribute to one of the world's greatest commanders. With his staff he was received at the Hotel des Invalides by Gen. Niox, the commander, and Gen. Malterre. As the American party entered the spacious grounds leading to the building they encountered a number of veterans. A grizzled soldier of the Crimea saluted. Gen. Pershing stopped and extended his hand, saying:

"It is a great honor for a young soldier like myself to press the hand of an old soldier like yourself who has seen such glorious service."

Gen. Niox conducted the American commander within the vast rotunda, with its walls hung with battle flags, and thence the party proceeded below to the crypt where the sarcophagus of Napoleon reposes. Entrance to the crypt is rigorously limited, and it is seldom that any one is admitted except crowned heads or a former ruler, as in the case of ex-President Roosevelt when he visited Paris.

Gen. Pershing was then conducted to the Artillery Museum, where precious relics of Napoleon are preserved. He was particularly interested in Napoleon's sword and Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. An hour was spent in the building.

To-night Gen. Painleve gave a dinner in honor of Gen. Pershing. Among the guests were famous French soldiers, Allied diplomats, residents in Paris, and French statesmen.

III--STORY OF ARRIVAL OF FIRST AMERICAN TROOPS IN FRANCE

Paris, July 1, 1917.

Paris was overwhelmed with joy this morning at the first published announcements that all of the first contingent of United States troops had landed safely in France. It was not long, either, until the city got a sight of American sailors, marines and even a few regulars--soldiers assigned to duty with various officers who have come immediately to Paris from the port of landing.

Already the French are stirred to exultation and a realization of the victory which they feel sure to come, now that America has its fighting men so near the front. The fraternization of the Americans with the English, Canadians, Australians and French is remarkable, and the new arrivals are being received everywhere with open arms and open hearts. Last month nearly all the British troops not having near relatives in the British Isles have been coming to Paris on leave, and so the newly landed Americans find plenty of comrades able to speak their common language.

The Yankees warmed up particularly to the Canadians, among whom are many Americans, but the greatest surprise came at the way the French officers and poilus fraternize with their new allies. The appearance of American naval officers in white duck summer uniforms in the smart Paris restaurants causes gasps of astonished delight.

The French press has extended an enthusiastic greeting to the American troops. The _Temps_ dwells upon their youth, vigor, and military aspect, and the completeness of their equipment.

The _Journal des Debats_ says: "The grand democracy of the New World does nothing by halves. It entered this vast conflict in full consciousness of the ends to be attained and with full resolution to neglect nothing in attaining those ends. What we witness to-day in the arrival of the Americans on French soil is magnificent proof of this fact. Two months and a half after the Americans entered the war their hardy troops arrive in solid lines upon the European front, and it is not a modest advance guard. On the contrary, the forces which have just landed on our shore surpass anything which could reasonably have been expected within so short a time. When we recall the length of time it took England to move her forces to South Africa, and, similarly, the length of time it took us to move our troops to Salonica this remarkable accomplishment by the Americans is seen in its full significance. The material they bring is on the same abundant scale as their troops. Those who have been doubtful whether the American concourse would come in time have failed to estimate at its just value the tremendous moral and material American power that German brutality has mobilized against itself. And what we see to-day is only the commencement. Each day henceforth will increase the weight of that formidable sword thrown into the balance by the great Republic of America. Who can, even in Germany, be blind to the inevitable consequences of the events we are now witnessing?"

IV--AMERICAN SOLDIERS CELEBRATE FOURTH OF JULY IN PARIS

Paris, July 4, 1917.

All France celebrated the Fourth of July. Paris turned out a crowd that no American city ever surpassed for size, enthusiasm and profusion of Stars and Stripes. A battalion of the first American expeditionary force about to leave for training behind the battle front had its first official review in France and was the centre of the celebration. Everywhere the American flag was flying from public buildings, hotels and residences and from automobiles, cabs and carts, horses' bridles--even the lapels of pedestrians' coats displayed it.

The crowds began early to gather at vantage points. Rue de Varenne was choked long before 8 o'clock this morning, when the Republican Guards Band carried out a field reveille under Gen. Pershing's windows. All routes toward the Hotel des Invalides were thronged even before Pershing's men turned out. About the Court of Honor where the Americans were drawn up with a detachment of French Territorials, the buildings overflowed with crowded humanity to the roofs. All around the khaki-clad men from the United States were trophies and souvenirs of war--German cannon, airplanes, machine guns and many appliances for burning suffocating gas. Behind them in the chapel separating the Court of Honor from Napoleon's tomb were German battle flags, trophies of the Marne and Alsace, beside Prussian banners of 1870.

In the chapel before the tomb of Napoleon, Gen. Pershing received American flags and banners from the hands of President Poincaré. Almost the entire history of the struggles of the French against the Germans looked down upon the scene from paintings portraying heroic incidents in French battles from Charlemagne to Napoleon. There was a sharp contrast between the khaki and plain wide brimmed hats of Pershing's men and the gay dress of d'Artagnan's plumed musketeers and Napoleon's grenadiers.

The enthusiasm of the vast crowd reached its highest pitch when Gen. Pershing, escorted by President Poincaré, Marshal Joffre and other high French dignitaries, passed along reviewing the lines of the Americans drawn up in square formations. Cheering broke out anew when the American band struck up "The Marseillaise," and again when the French band played "The Star-Spangled Banner" and Pershing received the flags from the President.

"Vive les Americains!" "Vive Pershing!" "Vive les Etats-Unis!" shouted over and over by the crowd greeted the American standard bearers as they advanced.

The crowd that had waited three hours to witness the ceremony that was over in fifteen minutes, surged toward the exit cheering frantically after the departing Americans and trying to break through a cordon of police troops. Outside a greater crowd that covered the entire Esplanade des Invalides took up the cheers as Pershing's men marched away. The crowd in the Court of Honor tried to follow the soldiers, but the throng outside was so dense, and the exits so small that it was half an hour before the people could get out. The Cours de la Reine from Alexander Bridge to the Place de la Concorde was black with people all of whom seemed to want to rush up to the men and embrace them as they marched by. When the last man had passed great crowds surged from both sides to the middle of the street, breaking through the police military guards and blocking traffic for a long time behind the marching column.

More people were massed in the Tuileries Gardens than on the Esplanade des Invalides. Few of them could get a glimpse of the parade but all joined in a tremendous outburst of cheering when music from the Republican Guard Band announced the approach of the troops, and the cheering did not diminish in volume until the last man in the line had disappeared from view of the Gardens down the Rue de Rivoli.

WITH THE SERBIAN STOICS IN EXILE--UNDER THE GERMAN YOKE

_Experiences in the Flight to Albania_

_Told by Gordon Gordon-Smith, with the Serbian Army_

Gordon-Smith was with the armies of King Peter in the flight into Albania. He stood beside the forlorn king as he fled with his people before the German-Austrian-Bulgarian hordes. His accounts of the hardships and heroism of the Serbs is the first to reach the world. He tells about the tragic exodus through the mountain passes--men, women and children; the babes and the feeble on the procession of bullock carts; the wolves howling through the night and gnawing at the bodies of the dead along the road. A few of these stories are told here by permission of the _New York Tribune_, for whom he acted as special correspondent in the Balkans.

I--HOW I FLED WITH KING PETER'S TROOPS

The headquarters of the Serbian Army left Krusevatz for Rashka, as the German advance menaced its retreat from the former town if longer delayed. With my colleague of the _Petit Parisien_ I determined to push forward to join the Second Army, which was opposing the enemy's advance in the valley of the Morava.

The roads were in a frightful condition. They were, for the most part, mere cart tracks and perfect seas of mud. The carriage half the time was ploughing through two feet of tenacious clay. Twice it stuck fast up to the axles in mud, and was only extricated with the friendly aid of a passing bullock team. Good horses are no longer to be had in Serbia; they have all been requisitioned for the army.

One of our horses, a giraffe-like chestnut, is an ex-cavalry horse of the Austrian army and bears the mark of a wound from a shell splinter. It is named Julius. Its partner (which I have named Cæsar) is a flea-bitten gray, somewhat short in the wind. Both regard Serbian mud and the effort it entails on them with profound disapproval.

Just at the point where the road from Krusevatz joins the main road running to Stalatz I came across half a dozen British soldiers belonging to the heavy battery which defended Belgrade. They were seated at the roadside preparing the inevitable pot of tea without which Tommy Atkins's happiness is not complete.

They told me their battery was en route for Nish and that the guns had already been entrained at Stalatz. They were covering the intervening sixty kilometres in a couple of bullock carts. They were profoundly ignorant of what was happening in Serbia or the outside world, but were correspondingly cheerful.

They insisted on us sharing their tea, and produced a pot of the equally inevitable marmalade, which they proudly declared was one of the few objects which had survived the bombardment of Belgrade. I left them loading up their wagon and giving orders to their drivers in weird but apparently effective Serbian.

It was dark when we reached Chichivatz, the first stage on our journey. The problem was to find quarters and food. Every village behind the front is filled to overflowing with the fugitive population from the country held by the Germans. Every public edifice is crammed; people sleep on straw, twenty in a room, in every available house. At the village inn the food supply resolved itself into the inevitable "Schnitzel," which in the present instance was a badly burnt piece of pork. We were, however, fortunate enough to find the local station-master at the inn, who hospitably offered us a bedroom in the railway station.

When we got there we noticed that he had already begun to pack up ready to leave. With him was a young official of the Ministry of Commerce, who had been sent to destroy the stores and rolling stock....

As fast as the Germans advance in the north and the Bulgarians in the south the locomotives and rolling stock are accumulated on the only section of the line now in Serbian hands; that is the 80 kilometres between Chichivatz and Nish.

When everything is lost on this section the Serbian authorities fill the whole track with rolling stock from one end to the other and blow up all the bridges, so as to render the line unworkable. The new American engines, which were only delivered this year, have been placed in a long tunnel on a side line, and each end of the tunnel blown up, so as to entomb them undamaged....

Seven Serbian divisions opposing eighteen German divisions were odds that not even the bravery of King Peter's army could withstand. Train after train rolled through the station loaded with military stores and packed with fleeing peasants.

II--"WE SADDLED OUR HORSES TO RIDE TO THE FRONT"

Next morning the station master roused me at 7:30 o'clock with the words, "The Germans are coming!" From his tone one could have supposed the cavalry were at the outskirts.

The real reason, I soon discovered, was his desire that I should evacuate my sleeping quarters, as an ox wagon was already at the door to transport the furniture to a place of safety.

We determined to leave the carriage to ride to the front, as a carriage, in a sudden retreat, is apt to be cumbersome. We accordingly saddled the horses and rode to Parachine, twenty kilometers distant.

Parachine we found in a state of considerable excitement. The thunder of the guns drawing nearer and nearer gave evidence of the approach of the enemy. The battle was raging about four miles outside the town. The Second Army held the heights on both sides of the valley, opposed to a force of nearly double its strength....

As the staff of the Second Army was expected to arrive in the town that evening we determined to remain over night at Parachine. With thirty thousand refugees in a town of twelve thousand inhabitants it was no easy matter to find a room, but the Mayor kindly had a deserted house broken open for us, and also, which was even more important, found food and stabling for our horses. Next morning the people of the next-door house awakened us with the news that the Germans were attacking the town, and that infantry fire was clearly audible.

When we got out we found the Serbian baggage train pouring through the town--a clear sign that the retreat had begun. The town was in wild excitement for two reasons--firstly, on account of the approach of the Germans, and, secondly, because orders had been given to distribute to the inhabitants everything in the military stores to prevent them falling into the hands of the enemy. As a result I saw hundreds of people going about carrying a dozen pairs of boots, uniforms, under-clothing, bread, biscuits, etc.

At midday the provision and munition columns, having safely cleared the town, General Stephanovitch and his staff, after placing a strong rear guard to delay the German advance as long as possible, left for Rajan, a town about twenty miles distant.

The wildest reports were current. But it is no use arguing with panic-stricken people. In spite of my assurances, they went on loading carts and wagons in feverish haste and, in spite of the pouring rain, went off in the darkness. The curious thing is that not one in ten knew where they were going. The Germans were coming from the north, therefore they fled south.

III--"I MET HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF REFUGEES"

For a month past I have met hundreds of thousands of such refugees, who wander on aimlessly from town to town, driving flocks and herds before them, always trying to keep a couple of days march in advance of the invader.

It goes without saying that they add enormously to the difficulties of the military situation. They block the roads and overcrowd towns and villages. When their food supplies run down they are face to face with starvation. And when one remembers that a similar exodus is going on from the south before the Bulgarian invader the horror of the situation may be imagined....

The whole of Old Serbia, the Serbia of King Milan, is in the hands of the Germans, while the Bulgarians are masters of nearly the whole of Serbian Macedonia.

* * * * *

I had hardly been asleep half an hour when I was aroused by a tremendous explosion, followed a quarter of an hour later by a succession of minor explosions. These were caused by the blowing up of the ammunition wagons. The crimson glare announced that the scores of cars on the railway siding were ablaze.

At the same time an engine just opposite my windows began whistling stridently. Downstairs in the courtyard I found the whole population, male and female, old and young, busy looting the carriages and trucks not yet a prey to the flames.

Half a dozen wagons filled with boots for the Rumanian army, which had been lying in the siding for three months, were being plundered. Two other wagons filled with 50,000 francs' worth of cigarette papers, wagons filled with Serbian wine, French champagne, liqueurs and perfumery, were also given over to plunder. Thousands of bags of flour, boxes of biscuits, tinned meats and sardines covered the ground on all sides, while the inhabitants of the village were loading carts and handbarrows.

These people were not worrying much about the approach of the Germans. As they had determined to be taken prisoners, they regarded the advance of the invaders philosophically.

My chief worry was Varvarian, which I could see only four miles away. It had been occupied at dawn by the German cavalry, and, of course, they might risk a sudden dash for Chichivatz, and perhaps even Salatz, down the line.

We therefore determined to return at once for Krusevatz. The press of vehicles on the road was so great that we saw we could proceed quicker on foot, so we left the carriage to follow and started to cover the intervening twenty kilometres.

When we reached Krusevatz, late in the afternoon, we found the town apparently in high festival. Everybody seemed in the best of humor and gaiety reigned everywhere.

We soon discovered the cause. The whole town, men, women and children, had been drinking unlimited quantities of French champagne, a trainful of which was lying in the station. When the capture of the town was seen to be inevitable orders were given there, as elsewhere, to let the population plunder everything in sight, and the order had been faithfully obeyed.

I doubt, however, if this had the effect of preventing the goods falling into the hands of the Germans. The latter would not be long in hearing of what had happened. They would simply post up a notice to the inhabitants telling them to bring back all the plunder to the "Kommandatur," twelve bullets being provided for any one who should fail to do so. This, plus the threat of a house-to-house search to discover those who had failed to obey, would probably rake in nine-tenths of the goods.