Pershing, General

J.J. Pershing, Final Report of General John Pershing, US Government Printing Office Washington DC (1920), p. 77. 

In his final report to Congress in the aftermath of the First World War, General John J. Pershing stated Whether or not gas will be employed in future wars is a matter of conjecture, but the effect is so deadly to the unprepared that we can never afford to neglect the question. 8 The First... 

By the fall of 1917, the tactical use of smoke on the Western Front liad become so w ell established that General Pershing cabled the War Department on Nov. 3, 1917, asking that large quantities of phosphorus l>e quickly manufactured for filling smoke ammunition for the American Army. 

When revolution broke out in Mexico in 1910, it was inevitable that the fighting would spill across the Rio Grande. When Pancho Villa attacked the tiny outpost at Columbus, New Mexico, in 1916, the attitude toward the Mexicans worsened considerably. As General Pershing s army crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico in pursuit of the bandit, his soldiers marched to the tune of a song that reflected America s attitude toward all... 

Relations between Americans and Mexicans were not helped very much by the antics of the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. Villa frequently led his bandits on raids against towns on the American side of the Rio Grande and then fled back into Mexico. When finally the Americans had had enough, they sent General "Black Jack" Pershing in pursuit of the elusive bandit. 

Chemical warfare should be abolished among nations, as abhorrent to civilisation. It is a cruel, unfair and improper use of science. It is fraught with the gravest danger to non-combatants and demoralises the better instincts of humanity (General Pershing, US Army, 1970). 

General Pershing, US Army (1970). In Legal Limits on the Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons (A Van W Thomas and AJ Thomas, eds). Dallas Southern Methodist University Press, 1970. Gilbert M (1991). Churchill. A Life, pp. 782-783. London Heinemann. 

The likelihood of such a weapon causing panic among military personnel decreases, however, when the leaders and troops become better educated regarding these agents. As General John J. Pershing wrote after World War I Whether or not... 

Pershing JJ. Final report of General John J. Pershing. Annual Report. Vol 1, Part 1 1919. Quoted by Brown FJ. Chemical Warfare. A Study in Restraints. Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press 1968 623. 

When General John J. Pershing faced the task of organizing the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in France in the summer of 1917, he decided to place responsibility for all phases of gas warfare in a single military service, and he recommended that the War Department at home do likewise. On 3 September 1917, the AEF established a centralized Gas Service under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Amos A. Fries. 25,26 The new organization had many hurdles to overcome. The troops had virtually no chemical warfare equipment of U.S. design and relied on the British and French to supply equipment from gas masks to munitions. 

General John J. Pershing summed up his opinion of the new chemical warfare shortly after the conclusion of World War I ... 

It will be remembered that in the fight for a permanent CWS, General Fries found support in Congress, industry, and civil servants— not in the Army. Generals Pershing and March both opposed the creation of a chemical service. There is no evidence to suggest that top commanders ever acquired much faith in gas warfare. In fact, it is hard to believe that the War Department in the period between the wars would have reduced CWS activities to those of a primarily defensive nature had it had faith in gas warfare. 

Two weeks later General Pershing assigned Lt. Col. Amos A. Fries, an Engineer officer who had served under him in the Philippines in 1905, as... 

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