Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney was chosen to put in concrete form the idealism which the arrival of the first American troops represented. Her selection was a happy one. Already distinguished as the sculptor of the Aztec fountain in the Pan-American building in Washington, and other notable works, in this commission she so far exceeded previous achievements that she was presented with the gold medal of the Society of Fine Arts of New York.
Appropriate diplomatic correspondence followed and the French Government entered at once into the spirit of the movement and agreed to cooperate in making the unveiling a historic and national occasion. The site selected for the monument was in front of the Jardin Publique on the rocky beach (shown on the chart as Le Grande Traict) by the boulevard President Wilson, “named for the late President,” wrote the New York Times correspondent, “when his ideals were universally accepted almost as inspired words.” The ninth anniversary of the landing was selected as the day for the dedication.
The chaste and artistic beauty of the monument is unquestioned. “Surmounting a rugged granite pedestal is a huge bronze eagle which seems to have alighted after winging its way across the Atlantic. It bears the heroic figure of an American infantryman. Into this graven image Mrs. Whitney has breathed the spirit of a crusader; into his hands she has put a crusader’s sword—yet his arms are outstretched in a gesture which tells the world that the American soldier is fighting for peace.” The monument over all is forty feet high. At low water the base is entirely uncovered, as shown in the photograph, but at high tide the base is submerged to a depth of fourteen feet, and then the effect of the design is most effective and impressive.
THE first troops of the American Expeditionary Force were landed at St. Nazaire-sur-Loire, by a naval squadron on June 26, 1917. The landing was referred to editorially at the time by M. Lavedin, the editor of L’Illustration, as “the most solemn event in the present and future history of our two countries.”
After the war the St. Nazaire Association composed of men and women in the Army, Navy, and civil forces of the United States, who were at any time stationed at St. Nazaire or any part of Base Section No. I, was organized, for the purpose of maintaining and perpetuating the friendships and associations formed during the World War.
In 1923 the president of the association, Brigadier General S. D. Rockenbach, the first and practically only commander of the base, from June, 1917, to July, 1919 (except for a short period when he commanded the U. S. Tank Corps in the Argonne), was approached by a number of prominent artists and other patriotic citizens of New York, who suggested that the association lend itself to securing the erection of a proper memorial to commemorate the landing of the first American troops on French soil.
The matter was referred to the President of the United States for his views and approval. He replied: “It is peculiarly fitting that such a memorial should be erected, and your association is unquestionably the proper sponsoring organization. It is good to know that a memorial is to be erected there, for it will be not only a fitting evidence of American remembrance for those who served in the World War, but also a new and lasting token of the fine traditional friendship that has existed between the French and American Republics for so many years.” Thus the scheme was launched.
Subscriptions for $100,000 were solicited and every state in the Union responded.
The inscription is:
Here Landed June 26, 1917 Convoyed by the American Navy the First Troops of the
AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES Crusaders of Right and Freedom With the Soldiers of France and her Allies
Erected by Popular Contributions
from Every State of the American Union to Commemorate a Great Cause and to Honor the Imperishable Ideals of Liberty that Unite the Two Republics
Later a bronze tablet will be placed on the seawall at the entrance to the causeway leading to the memorial, bearing the names of the convoy commander, the ships of the Navy and the organizations of the Army which arrived in the first expedition.
The twenty-sixth day of June, 1926, was a gala day in St. Nazaire. The weather was unusually fine after two weeks of hard rains. At eight o’clock a national salute of twenty- one guns was fired from a shore battery, and soon afterwards crowds began to assemble in the streets, bright with bunting. “There was no question,” wrote the correspondent above quoted, “but that the town of St. Nazaire wished to revive for the period of celebration something of the same feeling the Americans experienced during the war and immediately afterward. It may be truthfully said that there were more American flags displayed in houses and shops than have been seen in any city of France since 1919."
The street parade was made up of veterans of Yser and Dixmunde wearing their red fourrageres and constellations of decorations, a group of resident American war- veterans, sailors from the French ships, children from various schools, and widows of the war. These were followed by delegations from the Grand Army of French Veterans.
The parade was reviewed from the sidewalk by the American and French officials, at the residence of M. Butterlin, spoken of as notre tres sympathetique Sous-prefet. Assembled at the Sous-Prefcture were the American Ambassador, Mr. Herrick, who was to present the memorial to the French Government, and the Minister of Marine, M. Leygues, who was to make the speech of acceptance. General Gouraud, Military Governor of Paris, the popular idol of the people, accompanied by his aide, General Spire, commanding the Eleventh Corps Area, received a remarkable ovation, as did also General Pershing. Upon their appearance, in the words of Le Phare, “une acclamation s’elcve, une ovation chaleureuse et spontee.” When the procession had passed, the Ambassador and the Minister of Marine led the way to the boulevard, stopping first before the monument to the dead soldiers of St. Nazaire, where the children placed flowers beside those presented earlier in the day1 by General Pershing.
The official guests were escorted to the pavilion facing the memorial, between lines of French and American sailors all under arms. The bands from the fleet and shore stations played the national hymns of America and France, and daylight aerial bombs were exploded over the memorial, scattering in the air a multitude of tiny flags of the allied nations. At the same time carrier pigeons were released from the official lofts and it so happened one of them perched for a moment on the hat of the bronze soldier.
In the pavilion were the Ambassador, Mrs. Whitney and her guests, the members of the French cabinet, General Gouraud, General Pershing, Admiral Gleaves, representing the Navy Department, General Rockenbach, representing the War Department, Captain H. E. Lackey and officers from the U.S.S. Memphis, Captain A. P. Fairfield and officers from the destroyer division, representing Vice-Admiral Roger Welles, Commander-in-Chief in European waters, Admiral Chauvin, Commander of the Channel and North Sea Division, Captain Vallois and officers from the Voltaire, officers from the French destroyers and submarines, the militarv and civil officers and prominent citizens of St. Nazaire, the Prefet Maritime of Brest, Admiral d’Adhemar de Crousac, and Admiral Vavasseur, prefet Maritime of L’Orient, the Consular Corps, the Prefet of the Loire-Inferieur, and the sous-prefet of Ancenis, Chateaubriant, and Paimboeuf. There were also a number of prominent Americans who had made the voyage from America especially to be present or had motored from Paris, among the latter the American sculptor, Andrew O’Conner, under whom Mrs. Whitney studied in Paris, and Jo Davidson, who made the bronze bust of President Wilson.
Mr. Herrick spoke in English, which was afterwards read in French by his aide, Colonel T. Bently Mott, U. S. Army. Mr. Herrick spoke with marked earnestness, and his speech is worth consideration, especially in view of recent misunderstandings and recriminations. He said in part:
We were a few years ago hailed throughout Europe as leaders in the realm of idealism, pioneers in its application to world affairs; we have lately been proclaimed as materialists whose influence in the family of nations rests upon the assumption that we are the greatest present repository of the world’s material power. The thoughtless accept both assertions; the discriminating reserve their judgment. But I often ask myself, and I ask you now, can it be true that if we have acquired the one, we have thereby forfeited all claims to the other? I think not. The essential characteristics of a vigorous nation untouched by any catastrophe do not so quickly change. If we were rash idealists in 1917, have we lost that attribute today? If rank materialists now, is it possible that a few years of praise from without and prosperity within have been able to effect this harsh reversal of our character? I find these exaggerations repulsive intellectually and harmful practically.
As a nation we have always been introspective, constantly critical of our own faults, eager to know the judgments of others. We are keenly sensitive to praise or blame, but we are far less penetrated with an invincible self-satisfaction than might appear from reading the flamboyant pronouncements of syndicated writers earning a profitable popularity with those who don’t reflect.
There are people who have taken advantage of these peculiarities of our psychology to sow doubt in our own as well as in other minds regarding our intentions when we entered the war. Reversing all history and starting with the new assumption that we are forever solely animated by a careful regard for our pocketbooks, they would make it appear that not only now but ten years ago material considerations were the determining factor in the decisions we took at that time. Every American should take pains to scotch this lie. The American’s capacity for willing self- sacrifice in any cause he holds dear was not suddenly bon in 1917; it has been his dominant characteristic for at least two hundred years. It is as much alive in our people today as it was when we declared war, and we all know full well that during the three horrible years which preceded that date it was neither dead nor sleeping.
Very soon after the great European struggle started our people began to comprehend what was happening on this side of the water. Through the blaze of passion and the clouds of deception the everyday American soon perceived what was at stake upon the battlefields of France; he saw that human liberty and elementary justice were hanging in the balance, and from the very start he had but one fixed idea, and that was to take off his coat in his own good homely fashion and enjoy the satisfaction of striking a blow in defense of common decency. That he would also be coming to the rescue of an old and valued friend added the force of gratitude to indignation. Whether it was to his personal interest or not he little cared; whether his country would be weakened or fortified by it, he bothered not to consider; a fight was on that stirred every fine instinct inherited from his sturdy ancestors, and all his soul was in the conflict.
It is high time then that a fiction which arose through the gratitude of our Allies and became fixed by repetition be cleared from the European mind—I mean the fiction that our unwilling people had to be adroitly inflamed to self-forgetfulness and lashed into action by much repeated insult before they could be made ready to stand behind a government long since anxious to act It is not true; and it is unfair to that American idealism of which my countrymen are sanely proud, unfair to our sturdy sense of right and wrong, a slur upon all the dead who fell in the Revolution and the Civil War as well as those of yesterday, to allow this dangerous theory to go unanswered, undenied.
It is hard enough for any country to understand a near-by neighbor; it is more difficult still for Europeans to comprehend far-off America. We have at various times encountered their cold indifference, suffered from their lack of esteem, appreciated their enthusiasm, been happy in their praise, refused to resent their abuse. We acknowledge many of the mistakes which they lay at our door, but we have a right to inquire whether they were made with the desire to injure or humiliate other nations; we acknowledge that our faults may be numerous, but I find that as yet no one has suffered from them but ourselves.
Americans now ask only that those who wish to judge us, if they cannot come and study us at home, at least take the trouble to search the history of our international conduct in the last hundred and fifty years. If during all that time they find we have been selfish, mean or grasping, a bad neighbor or a lukewarm friend; if we have cringed before the strong or ravished the weak, then confidence in our purposes is misplaced and the faith we demand in our intentions must be refused; then indeed the American soldiers who landed at St Nazaire, at Lorient and Bordeaux had better have stayed at home, and the host which stood ready to follow were wasting their time in wishing to meddle in the family quarrels of another continent.
I do not believe that the verdict of history will be rendered in this sense; I do not believe this verdict will find that our attitude toward other countries since our entry into the family of nations has been marked by humility when we were weak or by arrogance when we were strong. We look all other peoples today squarely and frankly in the face, proud of an unblemished record of fair dealing with all nations in the past, and calmly determined to continue this course in the future. We say to them, as Byron said to Tom Moore:
“Here’s a tear for those that love me,
And a smile for those that hate,
And whatever sky’s above me Here’s a heart for any fate.
M. Leygues, in his eloquent speech of acceptance, said the monument would consecrate the first contact of the soldiers of America with the crushed and bleeding people of France. It was just and appropriate that that date should be perpetuated in stone. “Americans,” he cried, “you came to us because you believed it was your duty to come. You obeyed the call of duty, guided by the star of your idealism. You have kept the faith of your souvenir of France of 1778. When the great international struggle overwhelmed the world, you abandoned your isolation and brought across the ocean to the battlefields of France the inspiration of the Stars and Stripes. You came because justice was overthrown and liberty menaced. Nothing can change our recognition of what your soldiers accomplished, or the complete and perfect sacrifice of your women in aiding the wounded and bringing consolation to the dying.”
The unveiling ceremonies were followed by a banquet. There were sports in the afternoon, and at night an official dinner and an unforgettable ball at La Boule. In minor ways the festivities were continued three days, and were definitely ended by the official luncheon given by Admiral Chauvin on board the Voltaire, which was anchored in the berth occupied by the flagship Seattle in June, 1917.
When the guests had left the ship, Admiral Chauvin broke the American flag at the fore and fired a salute of thirteen guns, a very fine and noteworthy compliment in view of the fact that the recipient was en retraite, and the day was Sunday. It was a beau gestel. Afterwards in reply to a letter of appreciation, Admiral Chauvin wrote: “J’ai rempli en salutant au canon votre depart un devoir qui m’etait tres agreable.”
Thus the ninth anniversary of the landing of the American troops at St. Nazaire is fraught with lessons which, if heeded by those in high places and elsewhere, would go far toward eliminating the propaganda of gossip and calumny which finds all-too-ready listeners on both sides of the Atlantic, and only tends to cloud the friendship between the two nations, an ancient friendship which is symbolized by the Statue of Liberty, the Yorktown Monument, and the St. Nazaire Memorial.