egiment de
Fusiliers marins qui attaquait un bois, a ete tres grievement
atteint de trois balles de mitrailleuses en se portant au secours
d'un officier americain blesse a ses cotes, faisant ainsi preuve,
en cette circonstance, du plus beau devouement. Releve plusieurs
heures apres et transporte au poste de secours, a demande a ne
pas etre soigne avant les blesses arrives avant lui."

Au Grand Quartier General, le 2 Aout 1918.
LE GENERAL COMMANDANT EN CHEF.

Petain

* * * * *

FOREWORD

Marshal Foch, the commander of eleven million bayonets, has written that
no man is more qualified than Gibbons to tell the true story of the
Western Front. General Pershing, Commander-in-Chief of the American
Expeditionary Forces, has said that it was Gibbons' great opportunity to
give the people in America a life-like picture of the work of the
American soldier in France.

The key to the book is the man.

Back in the red days on the Rio Grande, word came from Pancho Villa that
any "Gringos" found in Mexico would be killed on sight. The American
people were interested in the Revolution at the border. Gibbons went
into the Mexican hills alone and called Villa's bluff. He did more. He
fitted out a box car, attached it to the revolutionary bandits' train
and was in the thick of three of Villa's biggest battles. Gibbons
brought out of Mexico the first authoritative information on the Mexican
situation. The following year the War Department accredited him to
General Pershing's punitive expedition and he rode with the flying
column led by General Pershing when it crossed the border.

In 1917, the then Imperial German Government announced to the world that
on and after February 1st its submarines would sink without warning any
ship that ventured to enter a zone it had drawn in the waters of the
North Atlantic.

Gibbons sensed the meaning of this impudent challenge. He saw ahead the
overt act that was bound to come and be the cause of the United States
entering the war. In these days the cry of "Preparedness" was echoing
the land. England had paid dearly for her lack of preparedness. The
inefficient volunteer system had cost her priceless blood. The _Chicago
Tribune_ sought the most available newspaper man to send to London and
write the story of England's costly mistakes for the profit of the
American pe