Cover to the sheet music for 'Good-bye Broadway, Hello France,' the 'big song hit of 'Passing Show of 1917' at N.Y. Winter Garden,' lyrics by C. Francis Reisner and Benny Davis, music by Billy Baskette. Standing in New York, General John J. Pershing shakes hands over the Atlantic with a Ferdinand-Foch-like French general.
Big song hit of 'Passing Show of 1917' at N.Y. Winter GardenGood-bye Broadway, Hello FranceWords by C. Francis Reisner and Benny DavisMusic by Billy Baskette
". . . the following day, October 13, [Foch and Pershing] met. After an extensive discussion Pershing agreed to form the U.S. Second Army, and Foch agreed to elevate him to the same status as Pétain and Haig. Foch's order explained that the Americans had created the U.S. Second Army and that Pershing was now an army-group commander. In his memoirs Foch said nothing about sending Weygand to Pershing's headquarters, but he did observe, 'Having a more complete appreciation of the difficulties faced by the Americans, I could not support the radical solution envisaged by Mr. Clemenceau.' Whatever Foch's 'solution' may have been, he forced Pershing to reorganize American forces and pressed him to get the Meuse Argonne offensive moving."
French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau was increasingly furious with what he saw as the incompetence and intransigence of American Commander in Chief John Pershing and the defense of him by Allied Commander in Chief Ferdinand Foch. In the first phase of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive launched on September 26, 1918, American forces, with divisions twice as large as their European counterparts, were in chaos and gridlock behind the front, struggling to move food, materiel, and reserves forward, and casualties back. Clemenceau, who was accustomed to visiting the front, could not, and saw Pershing as responsible for holding up not only the American advance but that of the French army on his left. Generals Henri Philippe Pétain and Douglas Haig were, respectively, commanders of the French and British armies. General Maxime Weygand was the French military representative to the Supreme War Council.
Pyrrhic Victory; French Strategy and Operations in the Great War by Robert A. Doughty, page 495, copyright © 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2005
1918-10-13, 1918, October, Georges Clemenceau, Clemenceau, John J. Pershing, John Pershing, Pershing, Ferdinand Foch, Foch, Henri Philippe Pétain, Henri Philippe Petain, Pétain, Petain, Douglas Haig
