The Germans struck back with brutal thrusts. Picking up the challenge, the Rainbow, which was now moving into the front lines in strength, scheduled three raids for the night of March 9. With Menoher’s blessing, MacArthur decided to join a battalion of Iowans against a section of German trench on the Salient du Feys. As zero hour approached, the enemy, anticipating visitors, opened up with forty batteries of heavy artillery, and American casualties began to mount before the attack had even begun. To steady his men, MacArthur walked the line in his eccentric apparel, now augmented by a sweater bearing the black “A” he had won at the Point. An Iowan said: “I couldn’t figure what a fellow dressed like that could be doing out there. When I found out who he was, you could have knocked me over with a feather.”12
Five minutes before zero, sixty French batteries began their protective barrage, and as the minute hands crept upright, MacArthur mounted a scaling ladder and “went over the top as fast as I could and scrambled forward. The blast was like a fiery furnace. For a dozen terrible seconds I felt they were not following me. But then, without turning around, I knew how wrong I was to have doubted for even an instant. In a moment they were around me, ahead of me, a roaring avalanche of glittering steel and cursing men. We carried the enemy position.” Menoher reported: “He accompanied the assault wave of the American companies engaged with the sole view of lending his presence where it was reassuring to the troops who were then unaccustomed to this manner of endeavor. On this occasion, in the face of the determined and violent resistance of an alert enemy, he lent actual service on the spot to the unit commanders and by his supervision of the operation not only guaranteed his success, but left the division with the knowledge of the constant attention of their leaders to their problems in action and the sense of security which the wise and courageous leadership there impressed on the engaged companies.” This time MacArthur received the Distinguished Service Cross for his “coolness and conspicuous courage.”13
The MacArthur legend was growing. Doughboys called him “the d’Artagnan of the A.E.F.,” “the Beau Brummell of the A.E.F.,” and “the fighting Dude.” He was credited with a sixth sense—what the Germans call Anschauungsvermogen — which gave him a charmed life. This was nonsense, of course. His refusal to carry a gas mask was irresponsible (he severely disciplined subordinates who followed his example), and on March 11 he was gassed. American correspondents reported that he had been “severely wounded.” His mother, who was visiting her daughter-in-law in Santa Barbara at the time, read of it in a California newspaper and sent a frantic cable to Pershing. The general replied that the colonel was convalescing, and she wrote Chaumont: “Only God alone knows how great the comfort your reassuring message was to me, and I thank you right from the core of my heart for your prompt and gracious reply. I pray God bless you—and keep you safe—in this awful crisis our country is now passing through. We know your courage and ability—and realize you are the right man—in the right place.”14
But Pershing would be hearing from his old commander’s wife again. For some time she had been wondering why her thirty-eight-year-old son was only a colonel.
Before the month was out Pinky had fresh evidence of MacArthur’s heroism. Eight days after his gassing he removed a blindfold—the poison vapor had threatened his sight—to accompany Secretary of War Newton Baker on an inspection of the trenches. He presented Baker with a Bavarian helmet he had captured, and the secretary forwarded it to Mrs. Arthur MacArthur, explaining to reporters that he had “decided not to keep it” because it had “greater value to the mother of the colonel.” The Rainbow’s chief of staff, he added, was the AEF’s “greatest fighting front-line” officer. In Chaumont this praise was received with mixed feelings. Lieutenant Colonel Hugh A. Drum of the general staff, who had served as Pershing’s liaison to .the 42nd, believed that MacArthur was “a bright young chap,” “full of life and go,” who would “settle down soon and make his name.” Others in the AEF headquarters thought he had made too much of a name already; they christened him “the show-off.’ 15
General John J. Pershing decorating Colonel MacArthur with the Distinguished Service Gross in France
Colonel MacArthur watching maneuvers
But to MacArthur showing off was essential to charismatic leadership. He remarked that having a high-ranking officer “bumped off” would be a great boost for doughboy morale, and when Frazier Hunt of the Chicago Tribune, noting that the left sleeve of his West Point sweater had been clipped by a machine-gun bullet, asked how he justified his risks, MacArthur replied, “Well, there are times when even general officers have to be expendable.” To him the ideal commander was France’s Henri Gouraud: “With one arm gone, and half a leg missing, with his red beard glittering in the sunlight, the jaunty rake of his cocked hat and the oratorical brilliance of his resonant voice, his impact was overwhelming. He seemed almost to be the reincarnation of that legendary figure of battle and romance, Henry of Navarre.” Gouraud reciprocated his admiration. Later he called MacArthur “one of the finest and bravest officers I have ever served with.”16
Certainly he was one of the worst life-insurance risks on the western front, and his life expectancy dropped sharply two days after Baker’s tour, when Ludendorff opened his great drive to overwhelm the Allies before the Americans arrived in force. The first German blow fell on the weak seam between the French and British armies in the Somme valley. Its immediate objective was Amiens, through which ran the only line of communications linking the two. After a tremendous cannonade, the enemy lunged out of a heavy fog with five times his Verdun strength. By night the line had been broken in several places. During the second day the British, weakened by Passchendaele, fell back ten miles. The bulge grew deeper each hour; Krupp cannon were shelling Paris. On the sixth day one of the railways between Amiens and the capital was cut. On the eighth day, in response to entreaties from Marshal Ferdinand Foch, Pershing sent the Rainbow into the Baccarat sector, where they relieved three French divisions who raced to defend their threatened capital.17
“For eighty-two days,” MacArthur wrote, “the division was in almost constant combat. When we were relieved on June 21, French General Pierre-Georges Duport, under whose corps command we had served, cited the 42nd for its ‘offensive ardor, the spirit of method, the discipline shown by all its officers and men.’ “ Duport also cited the staff “so brilliantly directed by Colonel MacArthur.” Menoher described MacArthur as “a most brilliant officer,” and Father Duffy wrote in his diary: “Our chief of staff chafes at his own task of directing instead of fighting, and he had pushed himself into raids and forays in which, some older heads think, he had no business to be. His admirers say that his personal boldness has a very valuable result in helping to give confidence to the men.”18
By mid-June the Germans were at Château-Thierry and within sight of Paris. Chaumont ordered the 42nd into Champagne, east of Reims, where it would join Gouraud’s Fourth Army. On June 21, when MacArthur was supervising the loading of troops and gear at the Charmes depot, he was unexpectedly visited by General Pershing and an entourage of staff officers. The call could hardly have come at a worse time. The railhead was seething with confusion. And the general, unknown to the colonel, had adopted a practice of upbraiding field-grade officers on the theory that it kept them on their toes. Surrounded by Rainbow men, the incredulous MacArthur heard Pershing shout at him: “This division is a disgrace. The men are poorly disciplined and they are not properly trained. The whole outfit is just about the worst I have ever seen. They’re a filthy rabble.” Shocked, MacArthur stammered, “General, these men have just come off the line.” Pershing roared, “Young man, I do not like your attitude!” “My humble apologies, sir,” the colonel replied, “but I only speak the truth.” The general snapped, “MacArthur, I’m going to hold you personally responsible for getting discipline and order into this division—or God help the whole pack of you.”19
“Yes, sir,” MacArthur gasped. After his distinguished visitor had
departed, he left the depot, accompanied by Captain Wolf, and walked slowly to the village square, where he sank wordlessly onto a bench. He felt persecuted, and the feeling deepened during the next several days, as officers from GHQ descended upon the Rainbow to note minor divisional flaws in little black notebooks and report them to Chaumont. Exasperated, the 42nd’s chief of staff finally threatened to shoot the next emissary to arrive from the inspector general’s office. He had enemies in GHQ, he grimly told Wolf; the clique around Pershing was out to get him.20
The thought that Pershing himself might be hostile to him does not appear to have crossed his mind. In later years he liked to tell how the general, on one visit to the front, said to him, “We old first captains, Douglas, must never flinch,” and in his memoirs he writes that when other officers in Chaumont were critical of him, Pershing said: “Stop all this nonsense. MacArthur is the greatest leader of troops we have, and I intend to make him a division commander.” The best evidence to support this is that five days after tearing a strip off MacArthur, Pershing promoted him. But it is not conclusive. Civilians in the War Department may have been the talented young colonel’s real patrons, with the general in Chaumont going along with them grudgingly. Certainly the civilians were far readier to endorse MacArthur’s schemes and publicly praise him.21
In any event, Pinky was her son’s most ardent supporter. She had begun her campaign for his further promotion on October 6,1917, two weeks before he had even left the United States. Writing Secretary of War Baker from the Garden City Hotel on Long Island, where she had been supervising MacArthur’s supervision of the Rainbow, she went straight to the point: “I am taking the liberty of addressing you on a matter very close to my heart, and in behalf of my son—Douglas . . . . I am deeply anxious to have Colonel MacArthur considered for the rank of Brigadier General, and it is only through you that he can ever hope to get advancement of any kind. All men—even the most able—must first get the opportunity in order to achieve success, and it is this opportunity I am seeking from you—for him.” After summarizing his career in five paragraphs (“He is today the soul and body of the 42nd Division”) she concluded: “This officer is an instrument ready to hand for large things if you see fit to use him . . . . He is a loyal and devoted officer and I present his name for your consideration, as I believe his advancement will serve—not only to benefit his own interest, but on a much broader scale, the interest of our beloved country in this great hour of her trial. With great esteem, Very cordially yours, Mrs. Arthur MacArthur.”
Baker didn’t reply, but she was undiscouraged. More letters from her followed. Returning from Santa Barbara eight months later, she wrote him again from the Brighton Hotel Apartments on Washington’s California Avenue: “I am taking the liberty of sending you a few lines in continuation of the little heart-to-heart pen and ink chat I had with you by mail from California, with reference to my son, Douglas—and my heart’s great wish that you might see your way clear to bestow upon him a Star. . . . Considering the fine work he has done with so much pride and enthusiasm, and the prominence he has gained in actual fighting, I believe the entire Army, with few exceptions, would applaud your selecting him as one of your Generals. I have returned to Washington and am making ‘The Brighton’ my home, and hope to meet you and dear Mrs. Baker in the near future. ”
With Pinky almost on his doorstep, Baker swiftly took evasive action. The following day he wrote her: “In the matter of recommendations for promotions of all kinds in the American Expeditionary Force I am relying upon General Pershing. Indeed, I do not know what discord and lack of harmony I might cause if I were to interfere with a personal selection among those officers under his direction and control.” Because of his “personal affection” for her son, he assured her, there could be no question of “where the dictates of my heart would lead me if I were free to follow them.” As it was, “when his promotion does come, and I have not the least doubt it will, he will have the satisfaction of knowing that it was the result of his achievements, and came upon the recommendation of those who being close have had an opportunity to observe and appreciate his performances.”
That gave the colonel’s mother a new objective, and that same afternoon—two weeks before MacArthur’s elevation actually came through—she wrote Pershing that she was “taking the liberty of writing you a little heart-to-heart letter emboldened by the thought of old friendship for you and yours, and the knowledge of my late husbands great admiration for you.” Assuring Pershing that her son knew “absolutely nothing of this letter and its purport,” she explained that she understood “there will be made, in the near future, approximately 100 new appointments to general officers’ based on his recommendation. “I am,” she said, “most anxious that my son should be fortunate enough to receive one of these appointments, as he is a most capable officer and a hardworking man.”22
Nor did she stop there. Placing a singular interpretation upon her correspondence with Baker, she told Pershing: “I know the Secretary of War and his family quite intimately, and the Secretary is very deeply attached to Colonel MacArthur and knows him quite well . . . . I am told by the best authority that if my son’s name is on your list for a recommendation to a Brigadier General that he will get the promotion. As much as my heart and ambition is involved in an advancement, neither my son or I would care to have a Star without your approval and recommendation, as we both feel so loyal to you and the cause you are defending . . . . I trust you can see your way clear, dear General Pershing, to give him the recommendation necessary to advance him to the grade of Brigadier General. ” This extraordinary missive was signed: “With best wishes for yourself, I remain with great esteem, very cordially yours, Mary P. MacArthur.”
After announcing the promotion, Pershing wrote Pinky: “With reference to your son, I am pleased to extend my sincere congratulations upon his advancement to the grade of Brigadier General. With best wishes for your continued good health, believe me as always, cordially yours, John J. Pershing.” Reading of the appointment in the New York Times — which quoted Baker’s office to the effect that the new brigadier was “by many of his seniors considered the most brilliant young officer in the army”—Pinky had already written the AEF commanding general: “I am sending in return, a heart full, pressed down, and overflowing with grateful thanks and appreciation. . . . You will not find our Boy wanting! . . . I am most cordially yours, Mary P. MacArthur / Mrs. Arthur MacArthur.” Her son sent Pershing a holograph acknowledging his new rank and expressing the thought that “the warm admiration and affection that both my Father and Mother have always expressed for you, and their confidence in the greatness of your future, have only served to make my own service in your command during the fruition of their prediction the more agreeable. May you go on and up to the mighty destiny a grateful country owes you.”23
All the least attractive traits of mother and son were in these exchanges: the servility, the self-seeking, the flattery, the naked threat of intercession by higher authority. General Pershing would be courted by his old commander’s widow as long as he could be useful—and ignored once he had passed from power. Yet it is possible to read too much into this. Such crude politicking was far more prevalent in that day than this; as we shall see, the first Mrs. Douglas MacArthur, who had almost nothing else in common with her mother-in-law, was equally ruthless in her exploitation of influence. And both women were acting without Douglas’s knowledge. Although he himself was a consummate military politician, employing artifices he had learned from his father and his grandfather, he was always scrupulous in his use of them. He would resort to flattery; never to blackmail. He acted in the belief that he was a courageous and gifted officer, that he was entitled to more responsibility, and that bestowing it upon him would be a service to the country. As the campaigns which lay ahead in France were to demonstrate, he was absolutely right.
MacArthur as a brigadier general
Brigadier General MacArthur in his smashed-down cap
; Having failed to break the Allied line at Amiens and in Flanders, Ludendorff had sprung at the Chemin des Dames ridge, north of the Aisne River, behind a tornado of gas and shrapnel. Stopped by American marines in Belleau Wood, he readied a crushing blow which he christened the Siegessturm, the stroke of victory. A tall wooden tower was constructed behind the lines so the kaiser could watch. The drive was to be launched on July 15. Anticipating it, Gouraud warned his Fourth Army: “We may be attacked at any moment . . . . In your breasts beat the brave and strong hearts of free men. None shall look back to the rear; none shall yield a step. Each shall have but one thought: to kill, to kill, until they have had their fill.”24
On the day after the Fourth of July, the Rainbow had filed into trenches sculptured from the pervious chalk plain. Its men were charged with holding the Espérance and Souain sectors, twenty-five miles east of Reims. Brigadier General MacArthur had established his headquarters near Vadenay Farm, far in the rear, but he himself was in dugouts with his men, supervising the strategy—leaving front-line entrenchments to the Germans to give them the delusion of triumph—when, in his words, at 12:15 A.M. on the morning after Bastille Day Ludendorff’s “guns opened with a concentration of power such as the world had never known. The artillery fire could be heard in Paris, nearly 100 miles away. France was again in peril. I was watching from our main line of defense and at exactly 4:15 A.M. the warning rockets of our isolated lookouts exploded in the red skies of the breaking dawn. As the enemy stormed our now abandoned trenches, our own barrage descended like an avalanche on his troops. The ease with which their infantry had crossed this line of alert, so thinly occupied by our suicide squads, had given them the illusion of a successful advance. But when they met the dikes of our real line, they were exhausted, uncoordinated, and scattered, incapable of going further without being reorganized and reinforced.”25
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