Donovan’s quiet reasonableness influenced the German officials. He urged the Germans not to let Britain put them in a bad light. That afternoon the whole thing was thrashed out at a conference, and the Germans agreed to the various British points.
Donovan left for Stockholm, where on June 2 he met Warwick Greene to discuss the availability of supplies from neutral countries for Poland. He also urged Greene to arrange for Ruth to join him in Berlin. He had dined in the German capital with William C. Bullitt, foreign correspondent for the Philadelphia Ledger. Bullitt, who later was to serve the United States as ambassador in France and the Soviet Union, was accompanied by his wife, and Donovan saw no reason why Ruth shouldn’t be at his side during the negotiations with the Germans. Greene agreed and cabled the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, “Heartily approve Donovan’s wife coming. Can you secure same passport.”
On June 4, Donovan returned to Berlin, where he discovered that the Germans were not willing to endanger the shipment of supplies to their own troops and constabulary in Poland in order to ship foodstuffs for the Poles. He reported to Greene, who was back in London, that Lewald was firm in his refusal, “it being evident that in this he was influenced by the military department.” Lewald did agree to obtaining milk from Holland for the Poles. Donovan wired C. A. Young in The Hague to confirm arrangements with the Nutricia Company. He received no reply, but two days later both Young and Herbert Hoover arrived in Berlin and appeared at the Hotel Esplanade. When Young told him that he was too busy to make the arrangements, Donovan left the next night for Holland, where he called upon Hodjes of the Nutricia Company. Just an hour before his arrival, a German agent had seen Hodjes and bought his surplus for the month of 100 tons. Nutricia had only ten tons in stock, which they could send to Poland in July.
To Donovan’s dismay, he learned from the Deutsche Bank that the funds earmarked for the purchase of the milk had not been transferred to Berlin. He had no alternative but to return to Berlin and reason with the German government not to block shipments of milk to Poland simply because their own purchasing agents had managed to force the Nutricia Company to sell to them. He traveled with two German purchasing agents, named Jancquel and Joseph, whom he persuaded to give him the name of another Dutch firm that would be permitted by the German government to furnish milk for Polish relief.
The negotiations in Berlin were repeated in Vienna, where Donovan now traveled. He called upon the Austrian Foreign Office and presented the Rockefeller Foundation proposal. “It was not our purpose to beg to be admitted into the nations under their military control for the purpose of administering relief,” Donovan reported. He told the Austrians “that if their Government was anxious to have such relief administered, we would be glad to cooperate and put up the money.”
The Austrians said they were willing. The greatest need was in Montenegro and Albania. The American Red Cross was providing relief in Serbia, but Macedonia, which had been conquered by the Bulgarians, was greatly in need of relief. The Austrians undertook to make arrangements for Donovan to go into the occupied countries to investigate conditions. They agreed to inform him in Berlin, to which he returned, as to precisely what they would be willing to have done.
Back in Berlin, Dr. Lewald told Donovan of a Jewish committee that had been formed to assist the Jewish hungry in Poland and suggested that he go to see them. Donovan saw Dr. Friedman, the committee head. “I made clear to them the nonsectarian position of the Rockefeller Foundation,” Donovan wrote Greene, “and that its representatives were here not to align themselves with one side or the other in any racial or religious controversies, but simply to feed those who were hungry.” The Jewish committee maintained that the Poles were discriminating against Jews in administering any relief that reached the country. Donovan agreed to have his agent in Holland purchase supplies for the committee; the Jews in turn were to send funds to Holland to pay for the supplies. The Rockefeller representative in Poland would supervise distribution.
The following month saw similar negotiations in Berlin and Vienna. Donovan met Greene again in Switzerland. He outlined proposals for the purchase of foodstuffs in neutral countries and their distribution both in Poland and the Balkans. In Vienna he called upon the Bulgarian queen and the minister of war to discuss arrangements for relief measures in Occupied Serbia. He also conferred with Dr. Harry Plotz, the American virologist with the Red Cross Typhus Commission. Dr. Plotz had just arrived from the Balkan fronts, where he had been delousing the Bulgarian Army as a means of stopping typhus. Plotz had also been in Siberia, and he talked about that barren land, where in a few years Donovan was to carry out his first important intelligence assignment. Bill Donovan was already gathering information, seemingly just for the excitement of learning, but with an eye for what was significant.
Donovan was in Berlin on June 21 when cables arrived from Washington that abruptly brought his work for the Rockefeller Foundation to an end. He wrote to Greene in London:
Word came in to the Embassy today that the entire National Guard has been mobilized and there is imminent danger of war with Mexico. I am well aware that you and I agreed long ago that in an event such as this it was my obligation to return home.
I want to take this opportunity of telling you that this news has not stampeded me and that I am keeping my mind on the job. It does seem to me, however, that as soon as I can line up this work for someone else to take over, I should return. I have cabled to the General that I will be back as soon as I can have matters adjusted here.
Donovan already had in mind a replacement, someone who was taking an active role in the relief work for both Poland and the Balkans. On June 27, he received a cable from Warwick Greene, who hoped Donovan could remain until July 8.
Donovan, representing the Rockefeller Foundation, endeavored to extend relief not just to women and children but to the 4 million prisoners of war held by the warring powers under often brutal conditions. Caught between Allied and Central Powers policies, both of which placed the relief for conquered civilian populations well beneath the demands of war, neither Donovan nor any other Rockefeller official was able to achieve what he had hoped.
Bill Donovan had participated in relief measures that meant not only the shipment of powdered milk from the Netherlands to Poland but also the movement of cocoa from Berlin to Warsaw, and the provision of used clothing from Paris for refugees. Several other times in the decades to come he was to take a personal role in alleviating the misery of refugees from wars and political persecution. He also had met Herbert Hoover and made him his friend. That friendship would have great importance to both men.
Although he had fully intended to preserve the neutrality that the spirit of the War Relief Commission intended, Donovan, a competent army officer, could not help but make observations about the armed forces of the warring powers. He had been given the opportunity to observe the German government at work. When after a brief stay in London he boarded a ship for the voyage home to New York, he carried with him the terrible certainty that the United States would be drawn into the European war.
Donovan had badly mixed up his expense accounts, something that he was to do all his life. It took the Rockefeller Foundation several months of correspondence and investigation to straighten them out. Characteristically, Donovan had drawn far less money than he was entitled to. And, as was also to happen repeatedly over the years, by the time Ruth Donovan was prepared to join her husband in Europe, he was already on his way home.
4
Joining Up with the Fighting 69th
ON JUNE 18, 1916, Newton D. Baker, secretary of war, issued a proclamation calling up the National Guard:
In view of the disturbed conditions on the Mexican border, and in order to assure complete protection for all Americans, the President has called out substantially all the State militias, and will send them to the border wherever and as fully as General Funston determines them to be needed for the purpose stated.
If all are not needed, an effor
t will be made to relieve those on duty from time to time so as to distribute the duty.
This call for militia is wholly unrelated to General Pershing’s expedition and contemplates no additional entry into Mexico, except as may be necessary to pursue bandits who attempt outrages on American soil.
Pancho Villa, the Mexican revolutionary, had become embittered against Americans because the United States had recognized the government of his rival, Gen. Venustiano Carranza. In January 1916, his men captured a train in Chihuahua, hauled 19 U.S. citizens from it, and peremptorily shot them. Villa led 1,500 of his soldiers across the border on March 9 and attacked Columbus, New Mexico. The attack killed nine citizens of the town before U.S. troopers arrived and drove off the raiders. President Wilson sent Gen. John J. Pershing with 4,000 Regular Army soldiers into Mexico to pursue Villa. Carranza protested the American pursuit and threatened war. At the same time, U.S. intelligence had proof of the extensive activity of German agents in Mexico, and it seemed a sensible precaution to send the National Guard to the border in support of Pershing’s expedition. About 110,000 National Guardsmen took up positions along 1,200 miles of border reaching from Brownsville, Texas, to Yuma, Arizona.
Troop I had moved into the new armory at 1015 West Delavan Avenue in Buffalo in May, and it was still getting settled when, on June 19, orders were received by Western Union telegram. The Buffalo cavalrymen mobilized and headed down to the Mexican border, where they set up their tents near the border town of McAllen, Texas. The tents were ranked in a trim military row with the officers’ tents followed by the men’s tents. The mess shed was to the left, and picket lines extended to the corrals.
As soon as Donovan’s ship reached New York, he hurried to see his wife and son, and then caught the first train he could for Texas. When he reached McAllen, he took command of Troop I. He strode down Buffalo Street and the men set up a loud shout of welcome. Galloping Bill, as some of the troopers called him, had arrived, and soon the troop would be up to snuff.
For most of the National Guard units called to the border, the entire experience was tedious at best, for scarcely a shot was fired in anger. The men rolled craps, tossed each other aloft in blankets, and built sandbag forts along the Rio Grande just in case the Mexicans decided to carry out another raid. But for Troop I, the border experience was a different matter altogether. Galloping Bill led his men on 25-mile dismounted hikes. With their broad-brimmed campaign hats keeping off the desert sun and their tight puttees chafing their calves, they hiked and hiked some more. Troop I also took long rides, some of 250 miles, and participated in maneuvers with other units.
“After snaking their way through a two-mile cloud of dust for 170 miles across the southern tip of the United States, the New York Cavalry returned to camp at McAllen after an eleven-day hike, full of dust, sand, salt water, and sympathy for Mr. Pershing,” wrote Edward Streeter in the Rio Grande Rattler, which the National Guardsmen published at Hidalgo, Texas.
The men practiced at the rifle range, and they drilled. While the morale of other units with less zealous commanders plummeted, Troop I’s morale soared. Carl Dickey of the New York Times wrote in the Rio Grande Rattler how Donovan’s men were “picking cactus out of their hides, while they are telling lies about how much they enjoyed sleeping with rattlesnakes, how much they revelled in these Texas once-in-a-century rains, how good Texas gumbo mud felt in a fellow’s ears, how much fun it was to see just how much space there was between the front of a person’s commissary department and his backbone by going without rations for a couple of days.”
Milton Klein of the Buffalo Cavalry Association was only 16 years old when he was with Bill Donovan on the Mexican border. In 1980, sitting with Gen. Ed Hogan, another old Donovan friend, in their room at the Connecticut Street Armory in Buffalo, beneath the Troop I guidons that had been carried on the border, he remembered what it was like.
“The elite of Buffalo belonged to Troop I,” he recalled. “It was a silk stocking troop, but this didn’t keep Bill Donovan from giving the boys a hell of a working over. If anybody complained, he gave him a glance, which while both mild and sympathetic, expressed such incredulity that anybody might possibly malinger, that every man of us shaped up. He drove us hard because he figured America’s entry into war in Europe was inevitable and that not only our effectiveness as a military unit was at stake, but whether or not each of us would ever return from battle depended upon our training.”
Off duty, Donovan and his men rode into McAllen and walked along its dusty main street, two blocks long, where they could take a bath and get a shave in a bathhouse, dine in a restaurant or lunchroom, purchase trinkets in souvenir shops, and take aim at the targets in a shooting gallery. Donovan took a certain satisfaction in hitting the targets with greater accuracy than most of the men he commanded.
One by one, as the troubles with Mexico quieted down, the National Guard units were withdrawn from the border. Troop I stayed on and Donovan, writing to Warwick Greene on October 20 about his still snarled War Relief Commission expense account, commented, “Here we have no ideas of our release. Everything points to preparation for departure. Yet, Secret Service men say that conditions in the interior are as bad as they have ever been. As captain, acting major, judge advocate and regimental athletic director, I manage to keep very much engaged.”
Back in Buffalo, A. Conger Goodyear, a brother of Donovan’s law partner, had been placed in command of a custodial troop at the Delavan Street Armory. Donovan wrote to him to urge that Buffalo raise a squadron of cavalry as part of a division that Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., was assembling. War with Germany might break out at any time. In previous wars patriotic Americans had raised and equipped military units at their own expense to go to the support of their government. There was some talk in 1916 about a possible draft if America went to war, but to men like Donovan, Goodyear, and Roosevelt, a true patriot did not wait to be asked to serve.
“As we look at the matter here,” Goodyear wrote to Donovan on February 12, “there seems to be very little prospect of this country sending over any large force; in fact, most people think it is very doubtful if we send any force at all. If a regiment were organized here, I think that it would have practically no chance to see any active service. In other words, it would not be ready for service until the spring of 1918. I do not believe that the war will last until that time.”
Donovan pointed out that the necessary steps to raise the regiment might be speeded up if Roosevelt, who knew Army Chief of Staff Gen. Leonard Wood well, would only talk to the general and enlist his support. In such a regiment, Donovan was to be a major and Goodyear was to command a squadron. The total cost of arming and equipping the regiment was to be about $750,000. Another $250,000 would be spent to purchase horses. The gentlemen soldiers of Buffalo corresponded among themselves and with Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., but nothing came of the proposal. The War Department politely refused their aid. Things had changed, and if the United States went to war, the battles were to be fought in the main with conscripts.
Finally Troop I was ordered home. Donovan wired to Goodyear a few days before their departure: “We leave March 5th, entire Regiment destined Buffalo. Transhipped there. If Regiment in town that evening will entertain officers personally Buffalo Club. Will want you there and such as you can select. Can you suggest entertainment enlisted men. Regiment can’t parade. Will wire later. Our men do not wish tickets of admission nor standing luncheon nor Billy Sunday”
The troop reached Buffalo on March 12. Lieutenant Charles Pearson could boast with some satisfaction, “So well were its papers prepared that it was inspected and mustered out of service of the United States the following day, March 13, 1917, after serving nine long months.”
Mayor Louis P. Fuhrmann ordered a civic celebration to honor the return of the Buffalo troop from the Mexican border. Donovan and his men mounted their horses and, despite his previous dismissal of the idea, paraded down Main Street while crowds cheered. Afterward he entertain
ed his fellow officers at the Buffalo Club. As he sat among the “silk stocking” troopers in one of the city’s most prestigious clubs, he must have been pleased at the progress of events that had carried him from the rough waterfront of his city to such public esteem.
More important for his future, Bill Donovan had observed the 69th Infantry, New York, in service on the Mexican border, and he now intended to join the “Fighting 69th” if America found itself at war in Europe. The Fighting 69th had had an opportunity to observe him as well. Father Francis P. Duffy, the regimental chaplain, noted that “on the Border when he was Captain of Troop I of the 1st Cavalry, he was the best known man of his rank in the New York Division.” For a few months Bill Donovan settled down in Buffalo with his wife and child. He practiced law, and he drilled Troop I at the Delavan Street Armory. He also studied French and German. There was no doubt in his mind that war with Germany was at hand.
It was Douglas MacArthur who suggested that the new 42nd Division formed from National Guard units from many states be called the Rainbow because, as he put it, it was “spreading like a rainbow across the country.” MacArthur was pleased to serve in the division headquarters since from the start the Rainbow Division was intended to be the first National Guard unit to see action in France.
War was declared on Germany on April 6, 1917. On July 15, the Fighting 69th Regiment of the New York National Guard, made up mainly of Irish-Americans, was incorporated into the division, as Father Francis Duffy said, “to put a green in the rainbow.” Regular Army numbering required that the regiment now be called the 165th, but the men still referred to their historic outfit as the Old 69th, and the regimental flag of the Fighting Harps continued to fly 11 streamers as proof that it had fought in 11 Civil War battles, including Bull Run, Antietam, Bloody Ford, and Marye’s Heights. Its history reached back through the Mexican War and the War of 1812 to the Revolution. A total of 50 furls, representing 50 engagements, flew from its flag. Most recently the regiment had seen service on the Mexican border. With the outbreak of war, the 69th had started a recruiting campaign in New York City with the slogan “Don’t join the 69th unless you want to be among the first to go to France.”
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