The Germans neared Paris by early September 1914 and the sense of crisis grew. On September 2, U.S. Ambassador to France Myron T. Herrick visited French President Raymond Poincaré at the Elysée Palace as the Government of France prepared to remove its seat to the safety of Bordeaux. Poincaré recalled that Herrick “arrived strongly moved, his face decomposed under his jolly crown of curly hair.” 1 Herrick informed the French President of his intent to remain in Paris—pending, of course, the government’s approval.
French President Raymond Poincaré
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
At 10:50pm that evening, the diplomatic corps departed for Bordeaux. The Herricks went to the Gare d’Orsay to see the 11-carriage-long diplomatic train off.2 The trip, normally a 10-11 hour jaunt, was a slow slog, according to British Ambassador to France Sir Francis Bertie, who was on the train in one of the three first-class compartments reserved for the British Diplomatic Service. Bertie wrote Herrick that though the trip had “many long stops,” it was “not uncomfortable.”3
One man’s assessment of “not uncomfortable” was another man’s terror. Long after the diplomatic train arrived in Bordeaux after lunchtime on September 3, The Times reported,
“Terrible stories were told of Excellencies sitting five a-side, and fighting with third secretaries at wayside refreshment rooms for a scrap of something to eat.”4
Herrick dispatched John Work Garrett to Bordeaux to represent U.S., German, and Austro-Hungarian interests to the Government of France.
The United States was now responsible for the interests of eight countries in Paris (the United States, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Great Britain, Japan, Serbia, Guatemala, and Nicaragua). Parisians warmly embraced the U.S. diplomatic corps for its decision to remain behind when most other diplomats moved to Bordeaux. Herrick maintained an aura of calm that blanketed the capital’s population. Embassy attaché Eric Fisher Wood wrote that Herrick’s picture “is in all the newspapers and shop windows, and even the most humble member of the Embassy shines by reflected glory.”5
For further information on the role of U.S. diplomats in France in 1914, visit U.S. Embassy France’s World War I Centenary page.
Raymond Poincaré, preface. T. Betley Mott, Souvenirs de Myron T. Herrick (Paris: Plon, 1930), vii–viii. ↩︎
Myron T. Herrick. Chapter Two of Myron T. Herrick Remembrances, 1920s but undated, unpublished, 21. (Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio, Myron T. Herrick Papers, MS 2925, Container 3, Folder 3). ↩︎
Letter from Sir Francis Bertie (Bordeaux) to Herrick (Paris), September 4, 1914. (Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio, Myron T. Herrick Papers, MS 2925). ↩︎
“Paris Under the German Menace,” The Times History of the War, Volume II (London: 1915), 469. ↩︎
Eric Fisher Wood, The Note-Book of an Attaché: Seven Months in the War Zone (New York: The Century Co., 1915), 47. ↩︎
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