On Sept. 1, 1919, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, supreme commander of the Allied Forces, extended his hand in farewell to Gen. John J. Pershing as they stood aboard the USS Leviathan — a former German passenger liner turned U.S. battleship — in the harbor of Brest, France.
Collaborators and friends, the pair were instrumental in orchestrating the Allied victory in World War I nearly one year earlier. Foch, a renowned French general and devout Catholic, oversaw the combined military forces mainly from France, Great Britain and the United States, while Pershing served as commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, mobilizing more than 2 million service members after the U.S. entered the war in 1917.
Both Marshal Foch and Gen. Pershing expressed admiration for the Knights of Columbus and gratitude for the Order’s support of Allied troops. Foch would later be named an honorary Knight — and the 1-millionth member — during his triumphant visit to the United States in November 1921.
The parting handshake between two military giants two years earlier, memorialized in a photograph by a U.S. Army sergeant, was recently cast in bronze to commemorate nearly 250 years of military alliance between France and the United States, dating back to the American Revolution. The statue, crafted by artist Luc de Moustier, is the fruit of a project commissioned by the French Army and overseen by Col. Thomas Labouche, liaison officer to the U.S. Department of Defense. Both men are members of the Knights of Columbus in Paris.
During a Feb. 3 ceremony at the residence of the French ambassador in Washington, D.C., Gen. Pierre Schill, the French Army chief of staff, presented two castings of the statue to leaders of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps.
“This gift,” Gen. Schill said, “embodies the spirit of cooperation that has been driving us for 250 years — a spirit of combat readiness, dedication to the mission and willingness to help each other when facing existential challenges.”
WARTIME COLLABORATORS
Soon after the United States entered World War I, Supreme Knight James A. Flaherty wrote to President Woodrow Wilson with an ambitious proposal. With the president’s approval, the Order would establish a network of centers “for the recreation and spiritual comfort” of Allied servicemen across the United States and Europe. The Knights received $30 million from a national fundraising drive and raised more than $14 million on its own for its war efforts.
The K of C recreation centers, or huts, staffed by Knights known as “secretaries” or “KCs,” provided soldiers with access to Mass and the sacraments, entertainment, food and other comforts in the midst of war. Their motto was, famously, “Everybody Welcome, Everything Free,” as visiting soldiers were treated equally and never charged for services — their patriotic service the only cost necessary.
Gen. Pershing later declared, “Of all the organizations that took part in the winning of the war, with the exception of the military itself, there was none so efficiently and ably administered as the Knights of Columbus.”
Marshal Foch shared Pershing’s gratitude for the Knights’ efforts. “I am deeply touched by the attention of the Knights of Columbus,” he wrote to Supreme Knight Flaherty in November 1918, before the city of Metz was returned to France. “It was from Metz that Lafayette went to help your ancestors, and we shall one day see your victorious banner floating over Metz.”
Two years later, in August 1920, Supreme Knight Flaherty led a pilgrimage of more than 200 Knights to Metz, where he unveiled an 18-foot bronze monument of the Marquis of Lafayette — a gift of the Order to France as a sign of unity. Standing before a crowd of thousands, the supreme knight also presented a ceremonial gold baton to Marshal Foch, who responded, “Knights of Columbus, you have performed a service for both France and America of benefit to all future generations, and you have stirred the heart of the French people as they have never been stirred before.”
When Foch later visited the United States and was hosted by the Order in Chicago on Nov. 6, 1921, he was declared an honorary Knight of Columbus by the board of directors. Supreme Knight Flaherty then cabled Foch’s wife: “America may kill your husband with kindness, but we shall do our utmost to preserve his health. He is the millionth Knight of Columbus and the most illustrious of all.”
In a Christmas message published in Columbia that December, Foch stated: “[M]y visit to America and the marvelous demonstrations greeting me everywhere [...] which typified the spirit of the men that constitute the Knights of Columbus, surpasses any ideal I could have derived even in the way of inspiration from the statue of Lafayette, and therefore raises to the utmost my hope that the spirit of Christianity as manifested in this order, to which I belong, will be the moving force of the world.”
He added: “The mission of my life will be to prove worthy of the noble tribute paid me by granting to me the highest degree within the order.”
ALLIES, FRIENDS, BROTHERS
It was not until 2016, nearly a century after Marshal Foch became the first Knight of Columbus in France, that K of C councils were established there. Since then, the Order in France has grown to 1,250-plus members across 50 parishes in 22 dioceses.
Col. Thomas Labouche, a husband and father of seven, currently resides in northern Virginia due to his work as a liaison officer. He said he was moved to join the Knights of Columbus in 2015, during a previous assignment in Washington, after hearing the story of Blessed Michael McGivney and learning of the Order’s mission. He later transferred his membership to Paris, where he is a member of St. José Luis Sanchez del Rio Council 18407.
“When we started our council in France, the Knights to me were a kind of Christian ‘A-Team,’” Labouche said. “They are men who are full of ingenuity and ideas ready to serve, and it’s a very good social mix.”
It was the colonel’s desire to honor the longstanding patriotic and fraternal bonds between his homeland and the United States that eventually drove him to propose a project to memorialize the alliance between France and America. The inspiration came in 2016, during his first post at the U.S. Department of Defense headquarters.
“I entered the Pentagon, and when I looked around me, I saw a bust of Winston Churchill but no figures or statues or artifacts representing the France-United States relationship,” Labouche recalled. “I thought to myself, ‘Something is lacking here.’”
For nearly a decade, Labouche considered a number of possible ways to represent this missing military alliance, dating back to the Marquis de Lafayette’s arrival in the United States and support of the Continental Army in 1777 and to the Franco-American Treaty signed Feb. 6, 1778.
Finally settling on a depiction of Marshal Foch, Labouche contacted Luc de Moustier, a professional artist and member of St. Martin Council 16910 in Paris. In 2017, de Moustier created a statue of St. Joseph and the Christ Child that has been carried by Knights during walking pilgrimages throughout France. The initial proposal for the new project was to sculpt a bust of Foch, but de Moustier suggested the artwork should depict the “meeting” between Foch and Pershing.
“I was immediately captivated by this photo of Marshal Foch bidding farewell to Gen. Pershing before his return to the United States, his mission accomplished,” de Moustier explained. “The two men pay no attention to their surroundings; they are simply looking at each other.”
For de Moustier, this exchange revealed more than just a deep sense of respect as comrades-in-arms.
“If the people who see the sculpture are able to sense this friendship, then my goal has been partly achieved,” the artist affirmed. “Since I became a sculptor in 2012, I found that only the statues created as the result of a friendship have lived, and I sincerely believe that the Foch-Pershing statue is indeed the result of this fertile friendship.”
THE ORDER & THE ‘OLDEST ALLIANCE’
Together with the visible elements depicted in the sculpture, de Moustier also forged tangible historical elements into the two bronze casts. Specifically, Col. Labouche asked him to incorporate soil or sand from several key locations key to the alliance. Each statue was made incorporating soil from Yorktown, Virginia, site of the decisive, final battle for American independence in 1781. For the Marine Corps statue, coated in blue, de Moustier also included soil from Bois Belleau, a French forest where a seminal battle for the Marine Corps took place in 1918; and for the Army’s statue, coated in green, sand from Normandy’s Omaha Beach, where Allied forces landed on D-Day in 1944.
The artist’s own family history is marked by the bond between France and the United States. Two of his ancestors served as the last diplomats sent by King Louis XVI before the French Revolution, and his maternal grandfather was part of Operation Torch in November 1942, which contributed to the victory of the Allied Forces during World War II.
Given the multi-layered history shared between the Knights of Columbus and the two countries, the Order co-sponsored the Foch-Pershing sculpture project, together with other organizations, at Labouche’s invitation. Supreme Master Michael McCusker represented the Supreme Council at the Feb. 3 event, during which several dignitaries, a descendant of Marshal Foch, and Luc de Moustier delivered remarks.
“Friendship between two countries is a fine word, but friendship between two people is a reality — this is what is fruitful,” de Moustier said. “It’s the friendship of Lafayette, Rochambeau and de Grasse with Washington, of Foch and Pershing — and, above all, that of the anonymous people who, for almost 250 years, have given flesh and meaning to the relationship of the ‘oldest alliance.’”
When the 125th anniversary of the Fourth Degree was celebrated several weeks later at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, Feb. 22, Col. Labouche and Territorial Deputy Arnaud Bouthéon of France were among several French Knights in attendance. Both men are currently involved in developing a Fourth Degree exemplification specifically for France.
“What I’ve observed between the Knights and the military, being a military member myself, is the will to serve — that a good Knight not only stands for the principles of unity, charity and fraternity, but also patriotism,” Labouche explained. “It’s quite logical,” he added, noting that love of neighbor and love of country go hand in hand.
“It starts with your family first, and then your neighbors and community,” Labouche said. “This extends to your country in gratitude to God and in service of his love for all.”