Chapter II: Part 2

I have given the discussion at length because it supplies the underlying causes of Germany's military superiority. It explains why the "attaque brusquee" succeeded up to a certain point; it explains, also, why the Chamber, after listening to the most authoritative champion of Three-Years, gave M. Barthou, whose courage throughout the tremendous debate was proof against all assaults, an overwhelming majority, and France an additional 180,000 men, whose presence with the colours was of immense value in the Great Retreat a year later. It is acknowledged by military experts that, had not thoroughly trained troops formed the base of the army, the Generalissimo would not have found to his hand the instrument needed to make the stand on the Marne. The fact is undisputed, and to M. Barthou is due the honour of having refused to disregard the logic of events, for which, alas! he had every precedent.

*CHAPTER III*

*THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATIONAL ARMY*

The national army arose suddenly out of the blood and turmoil of the Revolution. The country was aflame with enthusiasm and informed with the spirit of sacrifice. The urgency of the times was well represented by the law of March 4, 1791, which declared in all the ardour of the First Republic: "The service of the country is a civic and general duty." That fine definition was born of the need of the nation to defend itself against overwhelming odds; and thus, every citizen was called to a place in the army. The King's forces, which existed before the nation in arms, was composed, on the other hand, of French and foreign mercenaries and a militia raised by royal authority. Though, sometimes, these professionals espoused the popular cause and fought for patriotic purposes, they were primarily engaged to defend the King's interest, and the two were not necessarily identical. Not infrequently it happened that the army was on one side of the barricade and the people on the other. The recruiting sergeant had much to do with the presence of men under the King's banner, and certain vigorous methods reinforced his arts of persuasion. To the regular pay of the soldier was added the prospect of unlimited pillage in foreign war. Generally he fought because he was paid for it, and his royal master had no particular need to enlist his sentimental interest in the enterprise.

But another change came when the Republic emerged from the glowing brazier of Revolutionary France. The country was beset with numerous enemies anxious to champion the lost cause of monarchy, though the people of these nations, as the official text-books in France tell us, had no quarrel with the people of France. And then, just as one hundred and twenty years later, the German princes led the hosts against France and the response was the uprising of the nation. Since the Revolution, the nations of Europe have adopted national service in acceptance of the principle laid down on March 4, 1791, that it was a "civic and general duty." The Convention ordered levies _en masse_, and this principle was embodied definitely in the enactment of March 23, 1793, which said that from this moment until the territories of the Republic were free from enemies, all Frenchmen were liable to serve; the 2nd Article decreed that young men should fight, that the married men should forge arms and transport material, the women to make tents and clothing and serve in the hospitals, the children to convert old linen into surgeons' lint, and the old men to be carried to the public squares to encourage the warriors, to excite their hatred against the Kings, and promote unity in the Republic. The annual drafts were fixed by the law of Fructidor 19 An VI, and they were recruited by drawing lots and by enrolment. A later law of the Year VII allowed those drawn to purchase substitutes, and it was under this law that Napoleon raised his armies. The system lasted until 1814, when the fortunes of France were at a low ebb. The country had become tired of a military Imperialism, which had devitalised it and left it with monstrous debts. There was no further taste for arms; voluntary engagements had practically ceased. Thus the abrogation of conscription was tantamount to abolishing the army. The wars of the First Empire had worked out the vein of militarism.

Compulsion, however, had to be re-established, in principle at least, on March 18, 1818, by the Gouvion St. Cyr law. A certain number of men was called up annually and the system existed side by side with voluntary engagements. The annual contingent was fixed at 40,000. There was further legislation on March 21, 1832, due to Marshal Soult. This established that conscription was the normal method and engagements the subsidiary one, but the principle of paying substitutes was admitted. The service was for seven years. The army was divided into two classes: the one performed the full term; the other was _en conge_, and constituted the reserve. The business of finding substitutes rose to such a pitch that agencies were founded to deal with it. It became a crying scandal. Reform was necessary, and it was embodied in a law dated April 26, 1855. By its provisions a fund was formed. Those who wished to buy themselves out were obliged to contribute a certain sum fixed each year by the Minister of War. This money was allocated to bonuses paid to time-expired men to re-engage. The system was not as brilliant as it looked and in practice it worked badly. It lowered the status of the soldier in his own eyes and in those of public opinion, for it gave to national service the character of a punishment or a commercial transaction. Only those remained in the ranks who could not find a substitute or because of a monetary inducement. Again, it was bad because it created a permanent class of under-officer who regarded the army as his perquisite and shut the door of promotion to the common soldier. The plan, none the less, prevailed until 1868, when, like a trumpet blast, startling Europe out of her sleep, came Prussia's victories over Southern Germany.

The meaning was clear. It meant that, since Napoleon's amazing successes, Prussia had adopted a military _regime_ which gave her superiority over her neighbours. It was based on universal service. If France realised how great were her own military shortcomings, she had not the strength of mind necessary to institute a system involving serious sacrifice. Even Marshal Niel, who presented a project to the Imperial Legislature, did not prevail against a conspiracy of optimism based on a total disregard of the facts. The Marshal, indeed, played the ungrateful part of a Lord Roberts in warning his nation against an illusory peace. His was the _vox clamantis in deserto_ calling in vain for a real national service. His prophetic eyes had seen the storm, which others preferred not to see. However, the law was altered in a half-hearted effort to obtain reform, but the old facilities for substitution remained. It was then decided to create a national Garde Mobile composed of men excused from active service. Unfortunately, there was no time to organise it before war with Germany broke out. Though it lacked training and experience and was comparatively ill-disciplined, it was not wanting in courage, and proved of utility in the campaign. Lord Kitchener joined it as a young volunteer.

When the _debacle_ came, the whole of Europe was able to read the lesson in the lurid light it flung to heaven. German dominance had been built up on a conscripted army, against which a volunteer and partially conscripted army struggled in vain. It was overborne by sheer weight of numbers. England felt herself guarded by the inviolate sea, but the other Powers of the Continent adopted the principle of national service. In France itself, the law of 1872 was the logical outcome of the dread experience of the _annee terrible_. The subsequent legislation, which is dated 1889, 1905, and 1913 aimed at rendering military service more complete and more in accord with Republican equality. The last law, just before the war, imposed the same burden upon each citizen. But an immense amount of discussion was necessary before reaching this simple result, for alas! political interests in various specious guises had interfered with the pure working out of national defence. As a consequence, exemptions were always considerable. The broadest interpretation was given to "higher education," and examinations, useless from a national point of view or as a test of learning, existed for the sole purpose of allowing the son of the bourgeois to curtail his military service. It was obvious that a knowledge of some out-of-the-way tongue could not be held to compensate, in a national sense, for the loss of a man's service in the army.

A large number of exemptions arose through the laudable desire to lighten the burden for widows and families dependent upon an only son. But, as a result of it, two different categories of reservists were created, those whom the _baccalaureat_ had excused after a year's service, and that much larger class of comparatively unlettered lads who escaped with the minimum term because of being only sons. In their case the year's service was not as efficacious as in the other, where education had made possible a more intensive process of training. And two theories, affecting the use of reserves, see-sawed through the Parliamentary debates for many years. One school held that it was sufficient to season the mass of reservists with long-service soldiers, whose influence and training would be strong enough to lead them to victory on the day of battle; the other side maintained that salvation lay in giving training to as large a proportion as possible, so that units could act independently, and this theory eventually prevailed. The Three-Years Law was the outcome of it.

The law of July 27, 1872, had reaffirmed the old Revolutionary principle that every Frenchman was liable to serve. The military period was fixed at twenty years--from twenty to forty. Thus considerable advance had been made over the earlier legislation. There was no longer any question of a limited contingent or of substitution by money payment, yet, as is clear from my earlier paragraphs, the law did not establish equality. The yearly contingent was divided into two parts; the one served for five years, the other for one year or six months only. The drawing of lots decided to which category a man belonged. Only sons, who supported widowed mothers, the clergy, and members of the teaching profession were excused; also, there existed a one-year service for young men who volunteered before the yearly drawings, who had passed their matriculation and had paid sixty pounds. I have touched already upon the defects of this system and its doubtful advantage to education.

Then came the law of July 15, 1889, which established a Three-Years service on a basis of absolute equality. It represented the principle of training for everybody, whereas the earlier enactments had created a nucleus of professionals to act as motor to the military machine. No one served for five years under this new system, but then no one served only for six months. The weakness of the measure resided in the wide facilities given for "dispenses." After a year's effective service, exemption could be obtained either for bread-winners or for the theological and general student. Thus the real advantage of the Act was whittled down to a partial instead of a total exemption. The old _voluntariat d'un an_ was superseded by a special dispensation for students, but there was no money payment. Yet the law of 1889 caused heartburnings because of its invidious character. Examinations designed to fulfil the letter but not the spirit of the enactment sprang up with the express object of shortening military service. Even art workers and students in commercial colleges were included in the dispensation.

And now comes the statute of March 21, 1905, which purported to promote homogeneity of the reserves and to suppress exemptions so favourable to the _fils a papa_. But its primary object was to reduce the period of service to two years. It was a Revolutionary measure, daring and insensate in its contempt for the danger involved by an obvious reduction in the effectives. This danger was to be conjured in various ways: by employing "auxiliaries" (or the medically unfit) in clerical work; by suppressing exemptions, and limiting furloughs, and by giving special advantages to re-engaged men.

One of the main objections to the change was that it prejudicially affected the staff of army instructors, who were exposed to a dangerous fluctuation. Just when greater intensity in the training was needed, the quality and quantity of the instructors declined. It was the exact opposite of the condition created by earlier legislation, which rendered the corps of drill sergeants practically inaccessible to new blood. The Bill offered special inducements to _sous-officiers_ to remain with the colours, and gave to likely young men in the ranks an opportunity to rise--the class, who, under the earlier laws, would have benefited by the voluntariat. These previous efforts at army-making had created masses of imperfectly trained reserves. The _soutiens de famille_ (supports of widows and poor families) represented, for instance, 60,000, which made 600,000 in a decade. Each man in this vast army had had only a year's training, which, though adequate in some cases, was inadequate in the mass. The two-years law sought to remedy this by requiring a minimum of two years from every one. Another important provision allowed grants to be paid to poor families deprived of their sons, which shows that Parliament was solicitous for the weakest in the community, even in such a matter as the national defence.

Finally, there was the law of 1913, passed by M. Barthou, the then Premier, in the teeth of great opposition, and as a reply to the formidable preparations of Germany. This we must leave to the next chapter. Suffice it to say here that the Act provided for a three-years service in the Active Army, eleven years in the First Class Reserve, seven years in the Territorial Army, and seven in the Reserve of the Territorial. Thus the citizen could be mobilised up to the age of forty-eight. After that, he was no longer liable to be called up.

*CHAPTER IV*

*JOFFRE, HIS ORIGIN AND RECORD*

There is this satisfactory about a Frenchman--that rarely he disdains his origin. He is not the sort of man who spurns the ladder by which he mounted; rather does he contemplate with pleasure every rung of the way. Joffre, in that sense, is typically French. He rejoices in the modest origin which has given him the privilege of building his own fortune. But his pride and his independence come, I think, from his racial attributes. They are indigenous to the soil, to that fruitful soil of the Roussillon, the old province of France which came under the French crown in the reign of Louis XIV, in the middle of the seventeenth century, and as a result of the Treaty of the Pyrenees. Known to-day as the Eastern Pyrenees, and become one of the regular departments of France, it has preserved much of its old Spanish character. It has maintained a particular flavour, like the wine which grows in its smiling vineyards and the peaches that stretch for twenty kilometres, a vast and fertile garden, round Perpignan. The local capital is peculiarly Southern: sunny, wide-spaced, prosperous, embowered in handsome planes. The inhabitants wear the easy grace and captivating manner of people who, under a blue sky, do not find life too hard. Joffre's town of Rivesaltes is close by, connected by tram and rail. It is less agreeable of aspect than Perpignan, there is less pride in appearances; indeed, it is thoroughly Spanish in style, even if French in the temper of its politics. The inhabitants speak Catalan like their brethren on the further side of the Pyrenees, where newspapers are produced in the tongue, but their sympathies are as wholly French as those of their famous townsman. And what a cult of him there is! Every cafe and most of the shops have a portrait of him on the large scale, as if a small reproduction would not suffice for his reputation. The album of a local tobacconist is a gallery of the great man in various stages of his development. Old inhabitants contribute anecdotes more or less authentic of his studious yet sturdy youth, of his kindness and modesty, of his astonishing simplicity.

"Yes, he came here years ago and played _manille_ with his father and his father's friends, and he would not allow his old acquaintances to change their manner of speaking to him; they were to say 'thee' and 'thou' as in the old days. His father's bit of land had become flooded. 'You must cut trenches to drain off the water,' he said to Joffre pere, 'I know something about that; it is my metier.'..." When war broke out, the inhabitants had no doubt about anything. The country was safe. What was an invasion when Joffre was in command?

The future Generalissimo was a flaxen-haired boy, with a light complexion and a firm, straightforward and kindly expression. There was certainly little of the Southerner either in his face or in the square-cut vigorous figure, but he had the independence of the Catalan in his character. Though an excellent comrade and full of fun, he did not like to be interfered with in his work, and was ready to fight his tormentors to secure quiet. Later, the kind blue eyes, wide set beneath the bushy eyebrows, grew steel-like in their expression when an acquaintance tried to take advantage of his amiability to advance a protege. Joffre has a horror of the recommendation. "Let the young man make his own way as I have made mine," he would say; "that is the only sound method." All his life he has been opposed to patronage; it annoys him, he feels it to be unfair--a mean advantage. When he was appointed Chief-of-Staff, and eventually Commander-in-Chief, in 1911, he received visitors only once a fortnight at his office in the Invalides, because he wished to avoid, as much as possible, bores and protectors of interesting young men. Merit is the only channel which he recognises for advancement. The knowledge of his utter impartiality has robbed his decisions, often sternly disciplinary, of all personal sting. The army felt that in him they had a final court of appeal, pure and fearless.

Boyhood's days at Rivesaltes were unaccompanied by a luxury, which might have dulled the edge of fine ambitions. The little house in the narrow Rue des Grangers where he was born, remains the symbol of his simplicity. The humble bedroom, flanked by dining-room and kitchen, where he first saw the light, the store-room above served by an outside pulley for the raising of winter's stores--all this speaks of a laborious and thrifty life such as the peasantry live hereabouts. The future General was one of eleven children of a working cooper. According to Joffre's sister, the family, of Spanish origin and called Gouffre, is of noble descent; but its fortune had dwindled when Grandfather Joffre, leaving his native country for political reasons, started as a tradesman at Rivesaltes. He left no particular heritage to his son Joseph, the offspring of middle age, whom he seems utterly to have neglected. Joseph was little more than a working man with a patch of vineyard close to the town. But for a friendly uncle, struck by his intelligence, Joseph Jacques Cesar Joffre--our Joffre--would not have enjoyed the education which was his at the _lycee_ at Perpignan and at the Polytechnique in Paris.

It was to his stay in that admirable school for civil and military engineers that he owes the groundwork upon which he has so successfully built. It gave him an immense advantage at the start. Though he passed into the school with the high number of fourteen and became, because of it, a sergeant in his dormitory, charged with keeping order amongst older lads--rather trying to his silent and unassertive character--he did not consistently show the brilliancy that was expected of him. On leaving, his number had fallen to thirty-five, which did not entitle him to high civil employment under Government. Whether as a consequence of it, or because of a pronounced vocation, he joined the Corps of Engineers as lieutenant. Already he had had a taste of the life, sufficiently discouraging, one would think, in the War of 1870, which broke in upon his school career. He served for some months as a junior subaltern in a fort round Paris. Even at that age, he was known for his silent seriousness, and the memory of the national defeat seemed to have sunk deeply into his soul. It made him a patriot, eager to work for France and for her re-establishment. That, more than anything else, fired his ambition, for he was not one to crouch at the feet of chance, waiting, as an _arriviste_ waits, for his own advancement. Not until the moment of his Soudan expedition, in early middle life, did he expand to the full limit of his capacity, and then the call of country and the consciousness of duty done for France were responsible. Before that, he had not shown, I think, any great desire to progress beyond the common mark. But when he saw that he could be useful to his time and generation, a holy zeal possessed him to press on to the great achievement. And his tranquil courage and perseverance were rewarded to an extent that seemed incredible in his early years. But, even so, he would not regard his position as head of the army with complacency or self-satisfaction. "The war found me," he said to a lifelong friend; "I did not seek it." That is the note of the man.

His Soudan campaign, which came when he was a Commandant at the age of forty-three, gave him deserved renown, for it was a masterpiece of organisation. Before that, he had done more or less humdrum work on defences, gaining his captaincy that way, when working on the forts round Paris; he continued in the provinces and in Upper Tonking, where his constructions were aimed at the predatory Chinese. He fought them from Formosa, whither he had gone as a change from spade and trowel work, but partly, I suspect, to forget in change of scene the loss of a beloved young wife. Admiral Courbet, most famous of pioneers in the French Colonial domain, was then concluding the Tonking campaign, and employed him to the general satisfaction. The future Generalissimo was in fighting and fort building showing an equal talent. Finally, he exhibited a new side to his character by organising an artistic and industrial exhibition at Hanoi. Though wrapped up in his profession and seeming, daily, to take a greater pleasure in it, he showed adaptability and could turn his hand to anything.

His celebrated march to Timbuctoo again showed him as the all-round man, for there he had to think of everything. He had gone out into the wilds for a pacific object, for the building of the Soudan railway, destined to link the Senegal to the Niger river. His new post did not, strictly speaking, appeal to him. It interrupted his course of lectures on fortifications at the School at Fontainebleau, which succeeded to his command of the Railway Battalion of Engineers. It seemed to him like his own first-class interment. Surely there was no glory in building a railway in the desert; yet he was to find it there. At that moment France had become conscious of her colonial possessions, and with it had become the desire for development. A haphazard policy had been amended into a settled plan of pacific penetration by means of the Niger. The railway was to be the great instrument of civilisation, linking the two great waterways and making the desert blossom as a rose. It had begun at Kayes, the capital, under Colonel Gallieni, then commanding in Upper Senegal, and had been pushed to the hundred and sixteenth kilometre. Then yellow fever and a lack of credits from home brought it to an abrupt stop. Commandant Joffre, with his habitual vigour, added kilometre to kilometre until the hundred and fifty-ninth mark was reached.

Thereafter came orders to undertake an expedition to Timbuctoo. The mysterious city had been entered, just before, by Commandant Boiteaux, who had gone up the river Niger in a flotilla of boats as far as Cabara and there gained the city on foot. It was resolved to extend the French dominion over it and over the loop of the river as it sweeps downward to its ocean outlet. Joffre's duty was to support his superior, Colonel Bonnier, who had given him a rendezvous outside the city's walls. The Colonel was to go by river; Joffre followed the left bank with a force of one thousand, three parts of which were bearers and servants. He started from Segou, two days after Christmas 1893. The rendezvous never took place. The Colonel having made quicker progress, turned back to meet the Commandant, but failed to arrive; the column was assassinated. Only one white officer, Captain Nigotte, escaped to tell the tale in Timbuctoo, where fears were expressed for Joffre's safety. But the latter had acted with great vigour and yet caution in his dealings with the natives. He went quickly to the rescue of the few survivors of the column, chastised the murderers, and then, on February 12, entered the city without further fighting, carrying with him the bodies of the white officers. At the moment when the news reached him, he was engaged in crossing the river, in face of a hostile band of Tuaregs, who had burned his boats at the habitual crossing-place.

More than 500 miles separated Segou from Timbuctoo, and the journey had been beset with peril and difficulty, how difficult and how perilous is admirably told in Joffre's own report of the expedition. He showed good generalship by keeping his men in close order and by throwing out scouts to protect his flanks and rear. At night a careful watch was set over the camp, and the young Commander went the rounds to see that his black sentinels did not sleep at their posts. Water was a great difficulty, for there was either too much of it or not enough. Great flooded areas, where the river had overflowed, left swamps which could only be passed by circuitous marches in an unknown country. By contrast there was a stark and staring need of wells in a burning desert, where bearers dropped by the way for want of the precious liquid, and communications were endangered because posts left in the rear could not obtain the necessary water. In consequence, the young Commander had to scatter his column through the villages, where existed a species of boycott, for the natives had fled before the advance and had carried off all foodstuffs. Joffre kept a stout heart and a cool head in these trying circumstances. There was a good deal of fighting, especially in the later stages, but Joffre took the offensive, as the safer way, and did not allow himself to be attacked by the enemy. He fought to clear a path for his column.

His initiative and sense of responsibility shone in this crisis. When he entered the city the engineer in him reappeared, and he planned and plotted for the safety of the citizens. Strategic positions were seized and upon them were placed forts and blockhouses. Then, in his turn, he acted as political officer and received the submission of the tribesmen. In the midst of these high occupations he received orders from the Governor of the region to rejoin his railway at Kayes. For once in his life he disobeyed and sent his reasons, which, of course, were accepted. When, finally, he left Timbuctoo, he had made an excellent job of it. He had established his reputation as an organiser and soldier-colonist, and his reward was the red rosette which decorated his tunic of Lieutenant-Colonel. His first grade in the Order had been gained in Formosa. Timbuctoo closed the second colonial phase in Joffre's career.

The third was to open two years later when, as full Colonel, he was given fortification work to do in Madagascar. It was at the moment of British reverses in the Boer War. Certain memories, connected with Fashoda and Dreyfus, rankled in French breasts. The Paris Government felt it was as well to be prepared against possible enterprise on the part of the British fleet in the Indian Ocean; and so the defences of the big island were set hastily on foot. Diego Suarez, the naval base to the north, was fortified by Joffre under the eye of the Governor, General Gallieni, who was then gaining renown for his administration of the island. It was there that the two met and fraternised, as expatriated Frenchmen will, and learned to respect each other's qualities.

Therewith closed the final chapter in Joffre's colonial life. Henceforth he was to work in France, in the immediate path of the great office to which destiny was hastening him. Successively he commanded the 19th brigade of Artillery at Vincennes, and the 6th division of Infantry at Lille, of which town he was the military governor; at Amiens, he was head of the Second Army Corps. Between the stages of Brigadier and General of Division, he was director of Artillery at the Ministry of War. And so he performed the whole cycle of the military art, before arriving at the Superior Council of War where he was to receive the crown of the chief command. He had served in just the capacities, colonial and metropolitan, which equipped him for his great responsibility. No point in his experience could be considered useless from the building of forts to the construction of railways; from the organisation of a self-contained force on the Niger, to the command of troops in France; from his lectures to military students, to his direction of the artillery.

The supreme honour came to him on July 29, 1911. The _Panther_ had dropped a noisy and menacing anchor in the quiet waters of Agadir. In spite of assurances of peace from Germany and the fixity of the pacifist idea in France, clear-sighted people saw the cloud of danger in the sky. Joffre had no misgivings on the subject. One of the earliest questions to occupy him was that of effectives. None but he and his charming wife, whom he had married on returning to France, will ever realise how hard he worked during the three years that intervened before the outbreak of the war. Sundays and weekdays--it was an incessant round. He was deeply convinced that the hour was approaching for the trial of the French military institutions, to which he was called to supply not merely the finishing touch, but, alas! a great deal of the foundation work. That was the tragedy of it, the tragedy of an optimism, which had ignored all German preparations. It had ignored the vast accumulations of engines of war on the frontiers of Lorraine and Belgium, it had ignored the meaning of the caves and subterranean passages prepared in advance in the Champagne and the Soissons district, just as it ignored the other phases of German activity, the systematic corruption, the spying, and the rest.

Thus Joffre came to the post which his persistent work had made a just, if onerous, reward. He was Generalissimo in new conditions. The old duality, which allowed one man to lead in war and another to prepare for it, was swept away. Parliament at last had awakened to its dangers, and MM. Caillaux and Messimy, Premier and Minister of War, had submitted to President Fallieres a new decree designating Joffre the Supreme Commander in time of war and the Chief-of-Staff in peace.

It was an admirable choice. If it meant little to the public which had forgotten all about the march on the Niger, it meant a great deal to the army which felt comforted and relieved at the appointment of a sound and thorough administrator. For Joffre, by long contact, knew every cog in the military machine, which he was now called upon to direct. As _divisionnaires_ went, he was the youngest of his rank in the army and had still some years before him which he could count his own. Thus he joined experience to a comparative youth, which was all in his favour. Probably the defects rather than the qualities of the organisation engaged his attention and stimulated his amazing energy to even greater efforts. At the age of fifty-nine he was faced with a task to try the strongest head, the steadiest nerves, the most robust health. Happily he possessed all three and placed them unreservedly at the service of the State. France was fortunate in her General-in-Chief. How he succeeded in the colossal burden of the Great War may be left for consideration to a future chapter.

*CHAPTER V*

*PREPARATION*

We have seen Joffre in the various stages of his career acquiring that many-sided experience, which was to serve him in excellent stead when, finally, he came to supreme power. Sometimes the engineer officer was uppermost, sometimes the combatant. Though in the latter years, when qualifying for the Council of War, he commanded troops over the very ground where French and English were to oppose the invaders in incredible battles, it is yet true that his experience, with the exception of operations against the Chinese and the Tuaregs on the Niger in his march to Timbuctoo, consisted in the main of engineering exploits with a military aim. Thus he coaxed the desert into a railway track, and thus he cast up mounds of earth and built defensive masonry around Paris and in the provinces and at various strategic points in France overseas. This contact with a larger _patrie_ and with the wider aspects of his profession proved of immense service when, in the process of time, he came to his great estate. It was in reviewing the work of his early years, the period of his maturity and then of his later life that he fully comprehended the character of his task. He realised all the elements that make up France, all the elements that must be flung into the crucible of a national army. "Vive la France" had a new meaning for him, for it meant the France of Asia and Africa as well as the France of metropolitan frontiers.

None the less, for all the pleasure of the prospect, he was sensible of the weaknesses that lay underneath. None better. Had he not himself said in his now famous speech to the Polytechnicians, that you could improvise nothing in war? As a soldier, tried in the service of his country, he was penetrated with that truth. There must be preparation in war--that was the implacable verity. He was emphatic on the point in a speech which must be regarded as one of the documents of the war. For he was speaking to officers, past members of the famous school of which he is a distinguished _alumnus_, and declared with that sense of reality joined to idealism, which is as pleasing to the plain man as to those in search of lofty generalisation, that preparation implied many things. His auditors, at this Old Boys' gathering, strained their ears in the expectation of hearing something removed from the banalities of the usual chairman's utterance. And they were not disappointed. The speech fitted the occasion like a glove; it was no common one, for the Balkan War had broken out. The eventual Commander-in-Chief could not ignore a subject fraught with such consequence to himself and to his hearers (for the most part officers) and quietly aware, no doubt, of the curiosity he had excited, dealt broadly, yet sufficiently, with the situation.

He began by arraying the forces one against the other in the theatre of war. On the one side he said were numbers and on the other preparation. You could tell by the way in which he insisted on the latter word how much it meant to him. And yet the subject must have been painful, for none realised better than this impressive-looking man, with brow rimmed with white hair and the white of massive eyebrows, that France was not prepared. In elaborating his theme, he told what preparation meant. The whole of national life must co-operate in it. And what were the factors of success? They were of three kinds: material, intellectual, and moral. Under the first came the number and equipment of the troops, under the second and third the capacity of leaders and the patriotism of the people. It was clear that he felt the deep significance of the last quality. Numbers and equipment were certainly important, but patriotism was the soul of the army. "To be ready in our epoch," he insisted, "implies a significance of which those who prepared and conducted war in the past can realise only with difficulty. It would be illusory to count upon the popular _elan_ though it exceeded that of the volunteers of the Revolution, if it were not supported by a previous organisation. 'To be ready' to-day, one must have directed, in advance, all the resources of the country and all its moral energy towards the unique end, 'Victory.'" And then he proceeded to utter the phrases which have become classical. They are a synthesis of Joffre's system, the exposition of his inward faith. "One must have organised everything, foreseen everything. Once hostilities are commenced, no improvisation will be valid. What lacks then, will be definitely lacking. The least omission may cause a disaster."

And he proceeds to particularise. The call to arms must reach those for whom it is intended. Each man must know where to go and how to get there and he must meet there his officers, his arms, and his effects. And over this army which has been organised, equipped, and assembled must be chiefs, military and administrative, imbued with the national theory of the war. "But neither the material organisation of this army nor its training would suffice to assure victory if to this intelligent and strong body a soul were lacking. This soul is Patriotism." That he should lay stress upon the word showed how deeply he had realised how even elaborate schemes of mobilisation could come to naught without this saving grace, without the faith which moves mountains. He seemed to say: "We can save France, even if there are flaws in our preparations, provided we possess Patriotism--the sacred flame." By this alone could soldier and civilian summon the courage to resist reverses.

That Joffre himself accepted the heavy burden of office, showed that he, too, was inspired by a strong love of country and faith in the unlimited powers of French adaptability. He knew that his countrymen were capable of heroic resistance and a persistent and yet strenuous effort, which would astonish the world, because he had read in the heart of the _piou-piou_ undying love for country, and because he had watched silently the growth of that national spirit evoked by the brutal provocation of Germany. He knew, also, the delicacy of fitting discipline to democracy and a fierce national spirit of independence and justice to the exigencies of a European War. Intuition and experience told him that only by the finer emotions could the mass be moved, that it would rebel against mechanical methods and harsh domination and yield only to the influence of enlightened chiefs. Thus he was the man destined to lead and to become the interpreter of the racial spirit of France.

Joffre had established between himself and the soldier in the trenches an irresistible current of sympathy. How, nobody knows, but, at the very commencement, his benevolent activity for the common welfare was a common saying endearing him to the legions under his control, and many were the incidents quoted of his tenderness of heart. He had found a swift way to the understanding and implicit obedience of his troops. By his acts of kindness and consideration he had accumulated a stock of allegiance from which to draw in the supreme hour, when he should say, as on the eve of the battle of the Marne: "Now is the time to conquer or to die." Had he learned these secret arts of sympathy in the wilds of Africa or in the cloistered life he led, like the Pope in the Vatican, when harnessed to his work of preparation at the Ministry of War? I do not know, but I suspect that this trait, like the others, was inborn and developed by urgent circumstance. However we explain it, he became the most popular man in France, a god and a hero, a name to conjure with. "Notre Joffre" was a symbol of success, and of popular confidence. The "magnificent rumour" which had preceded him on the day of mobilisation was crystallised into a solid renown when the public saw with what calm and celerity he assembled troops and with what mastery he played upon the railway keyboard. Napoleon had won his battles with the legs of his soldiers, Joffre was going to win them with his railways.

It is not possible, of course, to repair defects of forty years in two or three years even of unremitting labour; but knowing, as he did, the tone and temper of the men he had to command and the miraculous capacities of their nervous energy he did not doubt for a moment the final triumph, and a species of sublime confidence radiated from him whether at the Ministry or in the field. It was with his friend and companion-in-arms, General Pau, that he began to work at the problems belonging to his position, and the first of them was the effectives. When the intentions of Germany could be no longer disguised, Joffre resolved upon the only course compatible with his responsibilities. He urged the Government to augment the army _pari passu_ with the increased numbers on the other side of the Vosges, and, happily, he found in M. Barthou, the Premier, a political leader as strongly impressed as he with the high necessity of action. This admirable statesman became, therefore, one of his collaborators in the national defence. A Deputy at twenty-seven and a Minister at thirty-three, this lawyer and journalist found full scope for his activities only in the wide region of national politics. His quickness of comprehension astonished the experts, and perhaps confirmed their uneasy suspicions that a lawyer knows everything; but M. Barthou's enthusiasm and deep conviction were beyond all question. Some reproached him for being a man of letters, guilty of writing an excellent history of Mirabeau, but he sacrificed ruthlessly his intellectual leisure and his love of reading on the altar of duty. It would seem as if the figure of the Revolutionary aristocrat, which glows from the pages of his book, had communicated his fire to his accomplished and versatile biographer. So M. Barthou rose grandly to the situation and became, with Generals Joffre and Pau, organiser of the new military plan to save France from her disparity with the German Army.

Joffre occupied himself with his accustomed method to the work of preparing the Government victory. Some one has recalled a conversation which he had with Joffre at this time. The General sits in an armchair looking steadily into space. His visitor insists on the impossibility of increasing the annual contingents to the French Army. But, he says persuasively, you can supplement the number by enrolling the black man. "The black man," repeats Joffre, and his mind goes back, no doubt, to his colonial days. He is again building the railway from Kayes to Bafoulabe, he is again on the Niger at Goundam, where they brought him news of Bonnier's massacre with his eleven officers and sixty-four _tirailleurs_. And he asks suddenly: "But what sacred fire will animate them? Will they ever equal our own soldiers defending, field by field, their own soil?" Joffre, indeed, had realised the impotency of numbers unless animated by the spirit of a great cause. He would not hear of reinforcing the French regiments by those newly acquired citizens of France in Central Africa. "No, no," he said; "the Three-Years Law is a vital question; do not give the enemies of the measure the pretext they seek."

The Generalissimo went to the Chamber, to act, with General Pau, as Government Commissioner during the progress of the great debate. I imagine that the experience was more painful to him than first facing fire in a Paris fort in 1870. For the Socialist opponents of the Bill heckled the Commissioners, challenging not merely their arguments but also their figures. The temptation was strong upon Joffre at times to retort angrily upon the obstructionists, but he kept his temper and a cold, even tone of courtesy. In his rare interventions he spoke briefly and directly to the point, figures in hand. He maintained throughout an impassive attitude, and looked a formidable figure as he stood resolutely to his guns dominating the wilderness of talk. Even in the lobbies of the Chamber, in the _entr'actes_ of the debate, he did not unbend from his attitude of reserve, which, though it angered the obstructionists, impressed them in spite of themselves. Here was the man who could keep his head--the _tete froide_ demanded by Napoleon as the first essential of a battle-chief. Pau, on the other hand, was much less calm and was visibly vexed at the shameless opposition. The fingers of his whole arm (for he had lost the other in the War of '70) clinched and unclinched as if anxious to meet the foe at close quarters.

Heartily glad to be allowed to return to his labours, Joffre gave himself more thoroughly than ever to the task of preparation. He occupied himself more particularly with the question of transports, and the perfection of the system that he worked out was revealed at the outbreak of the war, when the Commissariat proved an instant success. The trenches were well furnished with food. But alas! the medical service, which depended not upon the General Staff but upon the Ministry of War, proved in those early days a lamentable failure, for the war had caught it in a state of transition. The mobilisation, itself, impressed every observer by its order and regularity; Joffre revealed himself a master organiser. He was as prepared as man could be with the time and "material" to his hand. He had trained his body as well as his mind by a just balance between work and rest and physical exercise. He had the true soldier's horror of growing soft. As a captain he was out riding one day when he fell, owing to his horse stumbling, and was carried to bed with injuries to his head. He spent a few weeks of his convalescence at Rivesaltes. Fearing that his mental powers were affected by his accident, he set himself a hard problem in mathematics to test his brain. At the end of three days' silent work, he cried suddenly in broad Catalan from his bed to his brother, who was sharing the room with him, _Soun geuri_ ("I am cured"). The anecdote shows his strenuous character and detestation of self-indulgence, and also that he is not quite as reserved by nature as his proud title of _Le Taciturne_ would imply. Joffre's taciturnity, in fact, is self-imposed--part of his vigorous system of preparation. It comes, also, from the fact that he is not, naturally, an orator and knows it. Serious and meditative, his temper is not as severe as some suppose; his sternness in all questions of discipline has been forced upon him by duty. On the contrary, it pains him considerably to punish any one, and he suffers as much as his victims when he has to pass judgment upon serious faults and incapacity.

His daily habits made him physically hard, just as his studies equipped him for continuous intellectual labour. The morning gallop in the Bois on a strong horse, such as would have carried Du Guesclin in his wars against the English in the moving Middle Ages, and his walk to the Invalides or the Ministry of War from his distant home in Auteuil gave him the training he needed. On campaign, the motor-car replaced the healthier exercise, but even then he managed to take long solitary walks which reposed his mind and recreated his body. Even the most pressing matters are not allowed to interfere with his regular rest. To bed at nine and up at six is a rule maintained even in the heat of battle. He feels it to be necessary for the equipoise of his constitution. Joffre has the great Corsican's faculty of suspending his intellectual powers by a mere effort of the will and thus obtains complete repose of the cerebral system. His slumbers were childlike even after Charleroi; on his motor journeys, to points along the Front, he slept profoundly. This recuperative power is inestimable in a commander upon whom is cast a vast responsibility. He was often to be seen in his car behind the lines sunk in restorative sleep, his head inclined to an angle like some tired Atlas, worn with supporting the world upon his broad shoulders.

This man, eminently French in heart and mind, has consistently trained for his great position. Nothing has been too great a sacrifice to secure the victory. To railwaymen, who came to thank him for his praise of them in the mobilisation, he said: "I work for the salvation of France and then I shall disappear." Just as he knows the character of the men under him, he knows the value of his own services to France and throws both into the balance at moments when every gramme of weight is of consequence. He seems able to communicate his own confidence and calm to others--he, so uncommunicative with his low voice, his gentle and pensive manner. Evidently, in this preparation of the soul for combat he must shut out the distressing sights and sounds of battle. He must not think of devastated homesteads and ruined villages, he must not think of widowed women and weeping children, nor, as he goes along the line of yesterday's battle, must he think of what lies there, of the ghostly army that is still presenting arms to him. All these things he must banish from his mind, in the hardening processes of a great decision--this man who has never given a contrary order. And yet _Joffre l'humain_ is as just a title as any which honour him, for it expresses his natural kindness and desire to save life. And a Socialist professor wrote, in an organ of his political faith, that if, after the war, a monument was erected to the great General, no mother need turn her head away from it. Joffre was touched when he read the phrase, for he is as proud of his humanity as of those purely military virtues, which have gone to his preparation.

*CHAPTER VI*

*JOFFRE IN ACTION*

Flechier's panegyric of Turenne might have been written for Joffre, for it expresses his traits with a curious exactitude. Said the eloquent Bishop of Nimes of the Marshal: "He was accustomed to fight without anger, to conquer without ambition, to triumph without vanity.... Bolder to act than speak, resolute and determined within when apparently embarrassed, there was never a man wiser or more prudent, who conducted war with greater order and judgment, who had more precautions and more resources, who was more active and more reserved, who better managed things for his ends and who showed more patience in allowing his enterprises to mature. He took measures that were almost infallible, divining not only what the enemy had done, but what he planned to do; he could be unsuccessful but he was never surprised. And, finally, this system was the source of many successful gains. It kept alive that union of the soldiers with their chief which renders an army invincible; and it spread amongst the troops a spirit of energy, of courage and confidence, which enables them to suffer everything."