ate. He was then attached to the Department of War
in Washington, D.C., and in September 1898 he was
named chief of insular affairs in the War Department.
The following year, after the United States had defeated
Spain, Pershing was sent to the Philippines to fight the
so-called Moro campaign in Mindanao in the northern
part of that country. In 1905, he served as a military
attaché in Japan, closely watching the Russo-Japanese
War (1905–06). The following year, on 20 September
1906, President Theodore Roosevelt promoted Pershing
to brigadier general, passing him over 862 more senior
officers. Pershing was named as the brigade commander
at Fort McKinley in the Philippines in 1908, and he
remained in that country until 1913, when he returned
to the United States.
In 1914, Pershing was named as commander of the
8th Infantry Brigade headquartered at the Presidio in
San Francisco, California. Tragically, his wife and daugh-
ter were killed in a terrible fire, leaving him with no fam-
ily. In 1916, he was appointed commander of the force
to hunt down the Mexican outlaw Pancho Villa, who
had crossed into the United States and murdered several
innocent Americans in Columbus, New Mexico. Persh-
ing’s force invaded Mexican territory but never caught
Villa, who remained at large until his assassination in
- On 25 September 1916, despite his failure to cap-
ture Villa, Pershing was promoted to major general, and
then to general on 6 October 1917.
In April 1917, the United States declared war
on Germany and her allies, beginning American par-
ticipation in the First World War. President Woodrow
Wilson named Pershing to command the American
Expeditionary Force (AEF), the first U.S. troops to
land in France and fight for the Allies. In June 1917,
Pershing went to France to determine the course the
Americans should take. When he returned, he pre-
sented the president and the Department of War with
a “general organization report,” which advocated send-
ing 1 million American troops to Europe by the end
of 1918, and a total of 3 million by the end of 1919
if the war was still being fought. Pershing realized that
such a force was needed to win the war and overcome
three years of a conflict that had cost millions of troops
their lives. Britain and France had been, in the words
of one historian, “bled white.” Germany was barely
keeping afloat, although the victory against Russia on
the eastern front had allowed it to concentrate all of
its firepower against the Allies on the western front,
which had turned into a military stalemate. While the
Allies had not counted on such an American response,
huge losses during 1917 made it clear they needed U.S.
support. Pershing had been told by Wilson that Ameri-
can forces must not be under any foreign command.
Although the Supreme War Council of Britain and
France asked to have American forces put under Brit-
ish-French command, Pershing held his ground and
refused, except when circumstances made it necessary,
and he allowed his troops to fight under the command
of French marshal Ferdinand foch during the Ger-
man offensives of March and June 1918.
In September 1918, Pershing launched the St.-
Mihiel offensive, continuing through what became the
Meuse-Argonne offensive in late 1918. It proved slower
and costlier than Pershing had thought, but, combined
with the British and French advance, it played an impor-
tant part in the final offensive that led to the armistice
ending the conflict on 11 November 1918. Pershing re-
turned to the United States a hero, and on 3 September
1919 he was given the rank of General of the Armies, a
position that had been created for George Washington
in the American armed forces but never held by the first
president.
Although he was now the leading figure in the
country, Pershing turned down any political reward
and instead decided to remain with the army. On 1 July
1921, he was named chief of staff of the army, an of-
fice he held until he formally retired in 1924. During
his tenure as chief of staff, he established the War Plans
Board, called for a strict program of national prepared-
ness outside of wartime, supported the institution of
a course of officer schooling and training throughout
the country, and endorsed the full funding of National
Guard units in the states. Following his retirement, Per-
shing wrote his memoirs, which were published as My
Experiences in the World War in 1931 and won the Pulit-
zer Prize for history.
Pershing was stricken with a serious illness in 1941,
and he moved into Walter Reed Hospital in Maryland,
where he spent the last years of his life. He died there
in his sleep on 15 July 1948 at the age of 87. He was
laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia,
buried among the men he had fought with. His marble
tombstone bears no special marks and is no larger than
those of men of lower rank. This emphasizes what is per-
haps most important about John Pershing: Not only was
he an important military commander during the First0 peRShing, John JoSeph