If you talk with the American soldiers, as I did both in their rest billets and their camps, you will find they have the clearest and most definite understanding as to their business in Europe. It is to win the war. I never met a man who had the slightest doubt or hesitation about it. They know it will happen. They say to you: “Why, the general himself says so. ‘Germany can and must be beaten.’ The general himself said that.” “The general himself,” of course, means General Pershing. He is to the American soldier what Foch is to the French _poilu_, the supreme authority who can not be mistaken. And to the French _poilu_, and to the French public at large, General Pershing, perhaps next to General Foch, is the commanding figure of the war. This in spite of the fact that they know nothing whatever of him as a fighting man. They believe in him, and in my opinion their faith is going to be justified. “Character,” said General Pershing, “other things being equal, will decide the last battle.” The basis of my confidence in General Pershing is that he has character, strong, original, dynamic. Every word and gesture reveals personality. He is absolutely straightforward and sincere, and his manner is simple and natural. Yet underneath that quiet simplicity you can easily perceive a will of steel and a capacity for great sternness. His first appearance won Paris completely, and before he has had time to fight a battle he has become a military hero in the eyes of the French. I saw General Pershing first in the reception room of the beautiful Louis XVI mansion in the Rue de Varennes which has been loaned him for a town house when he goes to Paris. That is seldom. Most of the time he lives in a picturesque town in eastern France, which is the general headquarters of our army. The name of the town is almost never spoken. It is simply alluded to as G. H. Q. (General headquarters.) Since the advent of the American forces in France there has been a much closer co-operation among the allies, a co-operation which reached its natural climax in the appointment of General Foch as generalissimo of the allied armies. France has long desired this arrangement, President Wilson desired it and so did Premier Lloyd George. General Pershing, in his swift, clear-minded judgment, declared it inevitable. But difficulties stood in the way of its accomplishment, and it was not until after several meetings of the allied war council at Versailles that the thing began to seem remotely possible. In the interest of stronger co-operation and as commander-in-chief of the American army, General Pershing has been a constant attendant of the allied war councils. In a ten-minute interval between luncheon and departure for an afternoon session of the council, I had my first conversation with him. As he came into the room it occurred to me instantly that here was the very embodiment of the American army. The composite, the perfect type. No wonder the French like him. He _looks_ right.