Rarely,
indeed, has such a gathering of world famous men occurred as
this assembled on the platform of the National Convention of
the American Legion at Kansas City in 1921. Probably
never again, will be brought together such a group of the
great leaders of the World War. At this annual
convention of America's most powerful veteran organization
these men gathered from half a dozen nations to do honor to
the United States for her mighty aid in bringing the most
tremendous war in history to a victorious conclusion.
Here is General Jacques, the leader, under King
Albert, of the doughty little Belgian army which dared first
to throw itself across the path of Germany's invading
hosts. Here is the sagacious General Armando Diaz, who
brought the Italian armies back to order and power of the
resistance after the disaster of Caporetto in the fall of
1917, and finally, 11 months later, hurled them forth like a
thunderbolt and overwhelmed
Austria in the |
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most
stupendous military disaster of all history, taking more than
300,000 prisoners and 5,000 guns in ten days of
fighting. Here Vice-President Coolidge; Admiral Sir
David Beatty; General Pershing, wearing on his breast the
Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, the highest distinction
which France could bestow upon him who in the Republic's
darkest hours led America's eager armies to the battlefields
where the tide of war was turned to victory for the Allied
cause; and here, kindly of face stands Ferdinand Foch,
Commander-in-Chief of the armies of the Allies; he whose
patient firmness held those vast forces to their hard
task through the terrible spring and early summer of 1918 and
whose intuition of genius correctly gauged the moment for the
mighty counterstroke and the unceasing hammer blows which
followed it until the enemy was brought to abject surrender. |