November 10, 1918

Here is Colonel Boyd’s version as to what really happened, and he ought to know because he is Pershing’s brilliant military secretary and interprets for him in all his contacts with French officials. Of course, Black Jack [Pershing] wanted to push on to Berlin, as did every soldier in the army, but at the Senlis Conference on October 25 he agreed with Haig and Petain and Bliss that if the Germans asked for an armistice the terms we had agreed upon must be submitted to them. They were, none of them, enthusiastic for the terms that Foch had drawn up, but as they were convinced that the Germans would not accept them, they agreed that it was just as well to let the Generalissimo get the idea out of his system and go on with the war. Pershing was confident, and said so quite frankly, that in view of the defense the Germans were putting up on his, the Sedan, front, it was absurd and worse to think that Ludendorff would accept any terms that we would feel inclined to offer. Haig and Petain were in full agreement that the negotiations had not been opened in good faith, that Ludendorff was simply sparring for time.

“I think it fair to say,” concluded Boyd, “that all the generals bowed to Foch’s wishes because they were confident his terms would be rejected—that a rotund ‘no’ would be the answer from the German lines.”

However, the generals were mistaken, and soon the impression, the very unwelcome impression, grew that the Germans would accept. It was then that Pershing went back to what was undoubtedly his original thought and tried to block the Armistice, although he knew at the time that the prime ministers, who had been as skeptical as he in the beginning, were now behind the Foch terms if the Germans asked for them.

It was in a letter which reached House on October 30 that Pershing explained his new position and why he had reverted to his original thought on the vital matter. On the twenty-fifth he had agreed with Foch out of courtesy to the Commander in Chief and also because he had been convinced that the Germans would not consider the Allied terms. He again asserted that the Germans were not acting in good faith, that they were hoping by securing a breathing spell of a few days to extricate themselves from their present unfortunate positions.

House cabled the letter and the memorandum on to Washington and also some of the explanatory remarks that Boyd had been authorized to make to me. Not a word was said about continuing the march to Berlin, but of course that was implicit in the Pershing attitude. House also discussed the memo with Clemenceau and with Lloyd

George, but the discussion did not detain them long because the evidence was mounting every hour that whether in good faith or in bad the Germans were preparing to accept the Foch terms.

As a matter of fact, all the civilian leaders were pleased with this conclusion to the long debate. Foch had convinced them all that while the march to Berlin was practicable it would take at least two months’ time and would be costly in casualties, and that once on the [River] Spree the Allies would not be able to demand, or at least would not be justified in demanding, terms more exacting than those that had been drawn up at Senlis—terms approved by men who, however, regarded them as more of a gesture than as the historic instrument that would bring the war to an end.

The changes of thought among the generals and the civilian chiefs are difficult to follow and out of them legends will grow; but I believe that these are the facts, although I am not at all certain they will find their place in the official histories.