The directive follows deadly clashes between the two sides since March 25 at various training and cantonment centers in Juba, Upper Nile State and Western Equatoria State.
Although the army did not have enough men to spare for a division, Wilson decided to send Pershing ahead with his staff and officers while the men were trained in cantonments stateside before being shipped out to France.
In mid-July came rumors, and then orders, that concerned a change of camp. The brigade was to move to an empty cantonment, a hundred miles farther south, there to be expanded into a division.