THE COMMANDER OF AMERICA'S ARMY IN' FRANCE.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LX, Issue 17077, 3 September 1917, Page 6

THE COMMANDER OF AMERICA'S ARMY IN' FRANCE.

GENERAL PERSHING'S NOTABLE

CAREER

I Major-General John J. Pershing, the faiunos "Black Jack" of the regulars, will go. down in history as the first American army officer to command ■ troops on the battlefields of Europe. Hg (Peiohing) is .one of the officers who were picked by Colonel Roosevelt, when tho colonel was President, for rapid j promotion to the highest of army commands.

General Pershing was Hist a'dashing, 1 much loved captain of cavalry, when in | 1906 Colonel Roosevelt startled the ' country by sending his name to the Senate for confirmation as a brigadier-gen-eral. The other officers advanced by 'Jolonel Roosevelt were Major-General Leonard Wood and Major-General J. Franklin Bell, the latter of whom recently succeeded General Wood as commanding officer of the Eastern Department, on Governors Island.

Pershing is a West Pointer of the West Pointers, as a classmate of his expressed it not so very long ago. He was graduated into the regular service as a second lieutenant of cavalry in 1886, and he began to make himself heard of before he had been in the saddle a year. It was to the 6th United States Cavalry that Pershing was assigned .shortly after he received his diploma from the Military Academy.

In the first few years of.his service Pershing fought in the fierce border campaigns against .the Apache'lndians of Arizona, and he was again heard of when in 1890 he led his sturdy troopers in the turbulent Sioux wars'.of the early nineties. He was in the thick of the fighting that marked the brief war-

fare that was waged by the regulars against tlie Spaniards in Cuba in 1898, and shortly after the Treaty of Paris was sigued and the Philippines came under the American flag lie was. among the first to be'ordered- to duty in the new possessions. ,; • Arriving in the Philippines,' General Pershing, then a captain, was promptly ordered into the Moro country,; where as one of the leaders against the then fierce and intensely anti-American Moros he was soon to gain fame ajid honour and win t-he single star of a brigadier. At the time of bis .nomination for that rank in 1906 he was the youngest West Pointer ever named as a general of the regular army in a time of peace. In order to reward Pershing President Roosevelt jumped him over 862 officers who were his seniors* in rank,. ?

Eleven years ago the big problem in the ..Philippines was still the pacification 'of the Moros. Those splendid warriors, hundreds of -whom are nowserving in the crack organisation known ?.s the Philippine Scouts, fought inch by inch: the Americans, and refused to take word of Governors .nnd oommanders sent to mollify them that the United States was their friend. .

Pershing was ordered to finisih the Moro campaign, and war? named Governor of Minaanr.o and commander of the troops operating in that part of the province where the Monro opposi-tion-was still a problem of the hrst magnitude.. Froun a distance of several thousands of miles the job did not sound big at the time, but a more difficult task ha,s seldom, if ever, been placed on the shoulders of an officer of the regular army. , He gritted hh teeth, .ivnd.undertook the work with hb famous smile. He had a picked lot of regulars under him, every man of whom he knew and trusted, and every one of whom knew and loved "Black Jack." The Moros that Pershing was called upon to bring to terms had mobilised in the crater of an extinct volcano called Bud Dajo, on the islasd of ijolo. To drive them out had been a task with which the army had contended since 1906. Pershing announced to his1 men that the Moros were coming out of the crater if it took him ten years to accomplish the job. There were 600 Moros —every one a Mahometan fanatic —in the crater fortification when Pershing ,started "to clean out the mountain hole." Without Bud Dajo safely and securely'in American control the Moro problem could never be solved. , With a thousand men, half of them his own trusted troopers, and the others picked Filipino scouts, the campaign for Bud Dajo began. The Americans^ and the scouts had to proceed through miles and miles of dense jungles, opposed every yard of the way bjy the fierce Moros. But Pershing kept on, ; and finally he fought his way to the foot of the mountain. - ' Pershing's jnngle fighters, cut a trail around the mountain, and,; fortifying themselves from attack from above) began the siege. "The soldiers formfed a complete cordon around the mountain and calmly instituted a campaign of watching for the first sign of the Moros leaving the crater, and waiting a chance to get them when they tried to cut the cordon. \ In their retreat to the crater the Moros had been so hotly pursued that for'once they had-been unable to take with them the supplies that would make possible a long stand. At last 'the "iron ring" began to make itself felt, and in small detachments the Moros tried to gain the open jungle by dash*s through the American cordon. Every dash was frustrated, -the fanatics rushing forth to certain death. Finally, on Christmas day, 1911, the 400 Moros still in the crater did something a Moro seldom does—they marched down the mountain side and surrendered. A few reached, the jungle, but the regulars pursued, beat the brush, and in the end these desperadoes paid the penalty of their daring. ; With Bud Dajo captured, Pershing set about to finish hi? job. On 11th January, 1912, there followed on Lake Seit a stiff engagement, which resulted in the death of eighteen Moros and the serious wounding of two Americans, one of the latter Lieutennnt H. H. M' Gee, U.S.A. For nearly eighteen months more the campaign lasted. Every day or two there was a skirmish of some sort, but Pershing kent on. determined never to stop until the Moro?. had been completely subdued and American authority recognised. .

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