Robert Bacon — Life And Letters [Illustrated Edition]

Numerous portraits, prints and photographs throughout.
Robert Bacon stands as one of the pivotal figures in the United States around the turn of the Twentieth Century. A native of Massachusetts, he graduated from Harvard before becoming a senior figure at J.P. Morgan & Co, instrumental in brokering the deals that formed the U.S. Steel Corporation and the Northern Securities Company. Following a brief period of inactivity, he was named Assistant Secretary of State in 1905, a position he held until 1909. He was even acting Secretary of State in the absence of Elihu Root (who wrote the introduction to this book). After this, he was posted to the vital role of Ambassador to France in Paris as the storm clouds of the First World War started to appear, and, following a brief spell back in America, returned to work with the American Ambulance Service in France in 1914.
Once America had committed to military involvement in the First World War, Bacon held various senior positions on General Pershing's staff. His post as Chief of the American Military Mission at British General Headquarters brought him into contact with Field Marshal Haig (who wrote a foreword to this book) and many of the other British generals.