Typed draft of a speech written in honor of Commander John J. Pershing and the efforts of his American Expeditionary Forces in protecting France during World War I, three pages, 6 x 8, no date, signed on the reverse of the last page in ink, “John J. Pershing.” The speech, which bears several handwritten edits and was drafted by an unidentified French officer or dignitary, reads, in full: “It is the most agreeable duty just at the moment you and your valourous legionaries step on the Land of France to wish you in the name of the ‘Gouvernement de la Republique’ and also in the name of the Department which I have the honour to administer, the most respectful and heartily welcome. The whole Nation, I can assure you, has devoted to the United States and to all the heroic war brothers of our soldiers a gratitude which shall not die. She remembers particularly the manly words that, in the saddest days of nineteen eighteen, General Pershing addressed to Marechal Foch, Commander of the Allied Armies:
‘DISPOSE ENTIRELY OF US, WE ARE HERE TO GET KILLED’
You are here in Normandy: this country welcomes you with joy, and has the privilege of being the first to acclaim you. This evening Paris will receive you with open arms. In a few days it will be given to you to contemplate at work our Land the ‘Great Wounded of the War.’ You will make the pilgrimage to Flanders, to Champagne, to the battlefields of 'La Marne’ and to Verdun, where sleep, side by side with our beloved dead, those of your compatriots, who fell for the holiest of causes, for the Right and for the World's Liberty.
Such recollections cannot vanish from the memory of men. How as Frenchmen, could we forget the so valuable help of the United States? and myself, General, how could I forget it? From my native house, from my little garden, may be seen, on its mournful calcareous hillock, Vauquois, or rather what used to be Vauquois, for, not even one stone remains, remains; and when the atmosphere is clear, one can see, from the Ball Tower of my village; that ‘Eagle Nest,’ that ‘Mont faucon of Argonne’ of which the German Pioneers had made a fortress considered as inexpugnable, but which your valourous soldiers, after having reconquered Saint Mihiel and, La Woevre, recovered in October 1918 in their Victorious march.
Solemn moments, noble time now and for ever graved in history, Oh! how fast could then beat our hearts!! Ten years after, the same emotion makes them palpitate. To honour their beloved guests, the Normans will raise enthusiastics cheers, which will be repeated tomorrow and the following days by all the Frenchmen joined in an unlimited gratitude.” In very good to fine condition, with folds, handling wear, and some dampstaining affecting the signature. Given its content, this speech appears to have been drafted following shortly after the close of the First World War. Before Pershing’s return to the United States, where he was promoted to General of the Armies of the United States, he was feted by the people of France on several occasions, one of which was when he was bestowed with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor in Paris, France, on July 4, 1919.
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