; a little story on this............................General Pershing and his Headquarters in France
In June 1917, General Pershing, as commander in chief, accompanied by the nucleus of a staff, went via England to France. General Headquarters was at first established in Paris. Since its first duty was the preparation of basic plans for the organization of the troops which were to follow and for their shelter, supply, training, and ultimate use against the enemy, it was a great convenience to locate our general headquarters in Paris near the French War Ministry whence came most of the information upon which these plans had to be based. But when these broad and fundamental plans had been outlined and a probable sector of the front had been selected for ultimate occupation by the American forces, a location for the headquarters became desirable somewhere behind the center of that sector, away from the enticing diversions of Paris, not so accessible to visiting dignitaries, somewhat removed from the French authorities who early manifested a desire to control every American action, and in some city where adequate office and billeting space for the rapidly expanding sections and departments of the headquarters could be more easily obtained. After reconnaissance and consideration of several suggested cities, Chaumont was selected and headquarters moved there about 1 September 1917.
At first the headquarters was organized into the three general staff sections and the several administrative and technical staffs then contemplated by our Field Service Regulations. As early reorganized and continued to the end, the general staff was divided into five sections whose broad functions were: The First Section for administration, welfare and handling of personnel; the Second Section for intelligence of the enemy, espionage and counter-espionage; the Third Section for the organization of troops and for operations against the enemy; the Fourth Section for supply and construction of all kinds; and the Fifth Section for the schooling of officers and training of troops.
Soon after reaching Chaumont it was realized that the total staff was becoming too large and unwieldy. Decentralization of functions and a smaller staff with the commander in chief had become a necessity. Accordingly, within a few months after the headquarters had been established at Chaumont the drastic step was taken of sending back all of the technical and supply departments from the general headquarters to Tours to report to and to be subordinate to the commanding general of the Service of Supply, the S. O. S. There remained at Chaumont, the General Staff, the order section of the Adjutant General's Office, the Inspector General and the Judge Advocate General. To the S. O. S. went the greater part of the Adjutant General's office, the chiefs of the Quartermaster, Ordnance, Signal, Medical, Engineer, Chemical Warfare and Air Services.
All work at the headquarters was done in the most informal and expeditious manner. There was almost no time-consuming passing of formal memoranda from section to section for concurrence as is the practice in many of our headquarters. Matters of broad policy and the great problems which required the decision of General Pershing had to receive exhaustive preparation and consideration.
The problems requiring solution by the headquarters were many and most pressing. Not only was an army, or armies, to be organized and fought against an enemy whose efficient armies stood out in a continent of nations vastly superior to their own in total numbers; but the American divisions had to be transported, supplied and fed in a foreign country whose language was unfamiliar and whose business and working customs were very different from our own and all had to be accomplished thousands of miles from our base of supplies at home.
In the solution of our problems, the American headquarters had the interested and valuable assistance of the French and the British. Both were glad to tell us of their experiences, of their difficulties and of the manner in which they had met them. In the early stages of the work in France this assistance was invaluable.
But when the American organization became strong enough to stand by itself, our association with the French and British ceased to be a help and became a hindrance because of several fundamental differences of opinion as to how the war should be conducted and as to how our troops should be trained. Our Allies believed that in many respects we were ignoring their experience and were training in directions which would impede the production of suitable troops.
General Staff of the A.E. F. (AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES) on November 01, 1918.
CiC: General Pershing; Chief of Staff: General McAndrew; Deputy Chief of Staff: General Eltinge; G-1: General Andrews; G-2: General Nolan; G-3: General Conner; G-4: General Moseley; G-5: General Fiske; Adjutant General: General Davis.
Source: MAJOR GENERAL H. B. FISKE, U. S. Army, Retired. September, 1940, Quarterly Review of Military Literature Vol. XX, No. 78.
Cheers. Raúl M
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. All the best in your enterprise. Cheers. Raúl M 
