Chapter III: Part 3

There is no feature of this admirable portrait which does not fit the man. Joffre belongs to the same noble line and recommences, it has been said, the same victory on the same theatre with new forms. The history of Alsace will enshrine the two names, for both captains fought there with skill and courage. Turenne's defence of the province occurred almost two hundred years before its cession to Germany as part of the spoils of the victors. If, like other men, Joffre has faults he has also the qualities of greatness. He possesses strength of soul and knowledge formed by study and reflection, and is yet without pedantry. He does not allow himself to be guided by sudden flashes of inspiration, nor does he invent new methods; he prefers a solid system, founded on poise of mind and body and reinforced by calm and consistent attention. Thus he brings to his task a clear and even temperament and a profound and searching judgment. Possessing, perhaps, more character than personality, he has less imagination than clairvoyance and mental vigour, and the fact is an assurance to those he commands. He has the temper to succeed, and is a constant traveller by that road. Slowly his career has unfolded itself, and, at each stage, his nature has deepened and his love of country assumed a warmer tone.

Not a gay and debonair officer, born with title and fortune, he is the son of a working man, who has planned his own career and risen by merit to the top. I do not propose to catalogue Joffre's virtues, or to offer an estimate of his strategy--that must be left to other pens, equipped with the knowledge that staff histories bring, but his career possesses contours that, in their flowing curves, express the beauty and harmony of his life. A "masterpiece of will power and equilibrium," he has known how to inspire the devotion of his soldiers, and this is not the least of his claims. His ability to extract to the utmost the allegiance of those who serve and to make appeal to their secret sympathies is one of his most precious talents. His character, laborious and unobtrusive, free from ambition, solicitous for the common welfare, has given him an irresistible hold upon hearts, so that men's hands stretch out at the moment of action and he is surrounded and enveloped by an atmosphere of good-will incalculably precious for concerted action. And the women, who Joffre says, are sublime, give him stoically their husbands and sons, rivalling in courage those who lay down their lives. And Joffre, by a mysterious predestination, became the instrument of that sacrifice, limitless during the war. And he never called in vain, for, at his first demand, up rose valiant youth ready and joyous to die for the sweet sake of France. He seems to have the art of communicating that secret vibration of the soul, which moves crowds, without so much as opening his lips. It is a southern gift, belonging to the sunny lands where life runs richly and deeply. And for this reason, perhaps, the south has become the region of great generals. By their inventions and manoeuvres they express that species of brimming talent which turns some into poets and plastic workers, others into men of action, statesmen, or charmers of the public ear upon stage and platform. His even temper that takes no umbrage at rival reputations, that seeks in everything only the good of the cause and its strict utility, is the right armour for the martial figure. His silence, like his calm, has its positive and its negative side. It does not spring from lack of thought, but from seriousness and contemplation, just as the other is a proof not of insensibility, but of a considered system of control. Nor is his unshakable determination the sign of obstinacy or a purblind view, but a bright weapon forged in the recesses of the heart as a defence against adversity and as the ready instrument of achievement. Rarely has a man by such simple means, with no eloquence or artifice, with no advertisement, pose, or pretension, reached such a pinnacle of authority at once subtle and conceded and giving confidence to every one.

When President Poincare presented the Generalissimo with the highest military reward--the Military Medal--he drew a living portrait of the man: "You have shown in the conduct of your armies qualities which were not for an instant belied, a spirit of organisation and order and method, of which the beneficent effects were extended from strategy to tactics; a cold and prudent wisdom, which knows how to guard against the unexpected; strength of mind that nothing can shake; a serenity of which the salutary example spreads abroad confidence and hope."

His popularity is as great a factor in his success as his science and military skill. It is born of acts of consideration which, in the opening phases of the war, came to the common knowledge and gave him an immense hold over his men. This or that journal recorded incidents which showed his kindness and humanity. He stayed awhile on his way to the Front to talk to a wounded "poilu," to ask him about his services, his health, and his family; and a poor woman, who had written to him begging that her son might be placed in a less exposed position, for she had lost three since the war began and this one was her sole support, received from Joffre the reply that she had done enough for the country and could have back the lad. A dozen instances of the sort, repeated here and there, created such an atmosphere of good-will that allegiance was created in advance, and Joffre swayed his army by sheer affection.

The soldier, in the light of Joffre's humanity, understood delay; he became reconciled to the monotony of trench life, for a forward move, he knew, would cost limitless lives. No, it was better for the war to drag on at this slow game of "nibbling" the enemy than to allow a generation of young lives to be offered to the insatiable god. France could not afford to be lavish with the blood of her children, since the future of the race was as paramount as the fortune of the war.

There were some who said that Joffre's cautiousness was overdone; that the war would have been quickened had he shown greater initiative and greater energy in seizing more sharply the occasions for an offensive. The elements for such a judgment are wanting to us all, but at least this parsimony of life earned him the sublime confidence and esteem of his troops, as completely as his fearlessness in disciplining those who failed in the higher command. The fact that he was impartial, that he was ready, if need be, to chastise his friends, produced a feeling of security invaluable in such a case. The whole country felt that here was a man for whom France had been looking, imbued with a sense of justice, who stood fast to principles, and feared not to apply them. And in valour, as Emerson has said, is always safety. When the army heard that a hundred and fifty Generals had been placed _en disponibilite_, because of failure in the field, then it realised that Joffre would brook no obstacle to his success.

In a famous interview which he gave to the editor of a provincial newspaper--a lifelong friend--Joffre declared that Charleroi was lost largely owing to the failure of the Generals engaged in it. It was not so much a question of effectives, he insisted, as inferiority in the higher command. "Long before the war, I saw that a great number of our Generals were fatigued; certain seemed unfitted for their duty and below its requirements. I had the intention to rejuvenate the higher command, but the war came too soon. And there were others in whom I had confidence who justified it, but imperfectly." Energy must go with knowledge and experience, he insisted. "Some were my best friends; but if I am fond of my friends, I am still fonder of France." The words have become linked with Joffre, and so closely represent him that they deserve to be graven on the monument that must one day be his when he has laid aside his sword.

It was this implacable search for efficiency that gave Joffre such pre-eminence in the army. Yet he is scarcely the type to appeal to the romantic side of popularity. He is rarely represented on horseback, he waves no sword, in figure he looks like a comfortable farmer rather than the traditional soldier; he spends long hours at an office table, and is suspected of moving armies through a telephone. But his appearance--sound, robust, suggestive of common sense--accords with his manner and his methods on campaign. His life in the midst of the terror and tumult of war is as simple as his routine at the Ministry in times of peace. There was no fuss or parade about Headquarters, even in the most acute phases of the conflict. Everything passed as calmly as if a simple game were being played with counters engaged, instead of thousands of human lives. Joffre directed the huge machine from a bare room furnished with a common deal table, a map or two, a black board, and three cane-bottomed chairs. The privileged visitor who saw him for a few moments found himself faced by a man with the dark undress uniform of the Engineers, with no decorations upon the jacket save the three stars on the sleeve which marked his rank. His conversation, unless the moment warranted expansion, was scarcely more than monosyllabic. A simple "yes," or "no," sufficed; why waste time, when moments were precious? And you went from the room conscious of having met a great personage, impressive by silence, masterful by the flash of keen but kindly blue eyes, from beneath protruding eyebrows. In a neighbouring room was a low murmur of voices on the telephone--officers talking to the Front or receiving news therefrom--and above their heads a mast carrying wires stretched into space tingling perpetually with live whispers of battles, and armies in movement.

This was the nerve centre of the army: a plain building, commodious, simple, effective, strictly utilitarian. Here a large force of officers and assistants did the bidding of the chief; here every morning, and again in the late afternoon, conferences were held between the Generalissimo and his staff. The inner council consisted of three brilliant specialists in strategy, gunnery, and transport. With these he concerted the common measures of the day, the preparation to deliver or parry attacks. When large and general problems were afoot others of the Etat-Major were called in; or, it may be that a meeting of representatives of the Allies, over which he presided with great authority, called for his wisdom and perspicacity. But each day passed with great regularity. Joffre lived in an unpretentious villa near his Headquarters, which changed according to the exigencies of his work. After his breakfast, over which he wasted no time, he went afoot to his office, saluted on the way by soldiers and civilians. To the former he would say: "Bon jour, mon brave!" to the latter, he would vary the address to: "Bon jour, mon ami!" Children are attracted by him, and raise their caps or curtsey to gain a smile. Sometimes a little boy preceded him shouting, to Joffre's infinite amusement: "Vive notre General!" Thus greeted as a symbol of united France, as the redeemer of the country, Joffre passed into his Headquarters and was soon plunged in the problem that absorbed him every hour. Whilst he slept that calm sleep of his, wires had flashed with news of victory or defeat or with the common incidents of the Front. "If it is good news, it will keep until the morning," said Joffre when recommending his officers to respect his rest; "if the news is bad, you know what to do; everything has been prepared." In this way he gained a full night's repose, whatever the happenings between the parallel lines of combatants, or in the savage thrust of midnight raids and assaults. And he slept on calmly keeping fresh his energies for the morrow.

And now, when he enters his office, his first duty is to call for the reports of the night. These he studies closely, and they are then classified according to the armies to which they belong, in cardboard covers of different colours. Thereupon takes place the conference to which I have alluded; and then Joffre, having finished his morning's work at a time when most men are beginning it, goes out upon a long and solitary tramp through the countryside. He gives himself freely to his meditations, knowing that none of the inhabitants, whom he crosses on his path, will dare to disturb him. Either he thinks of a knotty question presented by some new move of the enemy, or his mind fashions one of those electrifying Orders of the Day which have become world-famous. "The time for looking back has ceased ... die rather than yield ground." That order, given on the eve of the battle of the Marne, has become as celebrated as Nelson's signal. Like most men who keep their thoughts rigidly to themselves, his occasional utterances are full of a strange force. And Joffre's Orders of the Day have reached a high order of eloquence and exalted passion.

The events of the day may call Joffre to the Front, whither he goes in a fast motor-car. On the way he will lunch at a village _auberge_ and scandalises the proprietor, who has prepared, perhaps, a royal feast--if he knew in advance the honour to be done him--by the plainness of his fare. A simple omelette, a little fruit and cheese for a Generalissimo! Boniface is _bouleverse_! It is incredible! With pious industry a journalist compiled Joffre's menus during the battle of the Marne. They were the simple meals of any bourgeois; a plate of roast meat, preceded by soup or _hors d'oeuvre_ and followed by vegetables and fruit, constituted the repast. Notwithstanding this sobriety, the General does not disdain the pleasures of the table; like every good Southerner, he is something of a _gourmet_, but on campaign he exercises a rigid self-restraint.

The same disregard for personal discomfort pervades all his arrangements. When the battle of the Marne raged, the proprietor of a chateau at Bar-le-Duc, whence Joffre directed operations, placed his house at the Commander-in-Chief's disposal. Joffre gave the finest rooms of the house, overlooking a calm and beautiful garden, to the officers of his suite; he himself, took a front room facing the Boulevard, and subject, of course, to the street noises; he thinks nothing of these things. His dinner at eight o'clock, after the day's work--for he resumes touch with the details of Headquarters towards the end of the afternoon--is just as simple as the lunch, and Joffre never varies from this strict _regime_. Thanks to its regularity, he is able to sustain, without physical change or faltering, the heavy burden of his role.

Joffre belongs to the African school of soldier, against whom is reproached an impetuous bravery without science or system, and only possible against an enemy untrained, ill-equipped, and ignorant of tactics. It was thought that men were unfitted to fight against a civilised enemy after their contact with the rude warriors of the desert and jungle; but by a curious coincidence, Joffre, Gallieni, Marchand, Gouraud, and Bailloud (Sarrail's lieutenant in his retreat through Macedonia), all learned their business of soldiering in the waste places of the earth, in overcoming the obstacles of rebellious Nature or the treachery of tribes. But Joffre has shown, as others have shown, that this contact with difficulties brings out the man and educates, strengthens, and vitalises him. Often the faults of others have been placed on the broad back of the Generalissimo. He has been accused of ignoring the German intentions to invade France through Belgium. What was his Intelligence Department doing that they did not know? But Joffre and his staff were well aware of the plan, and they knew also the different stages of the march. But what they had not reckoned upon was the rapid fall of the forts of Liege and Namur before the heavy guns of the invaders. That the Germans possessed siege artillery was a matter of common knowledge in France; but alas! to meet it was involved a large expenditure which Parliament would not sanction. That is the reason of it. "Cherchez la politique" is the answer to the shortage in heavy ordnance and in armoured aeroplanes.

It would take too long to tabulate the various attempts to extort money from Deputies for the national defence. But though the attenuated credits cannot be laid to the charge of the General Staff, it is true that experts were divided on the use that could be made of the heavy siege-pieces which the Germans thrust into battle. Such cumbersome weapons would prove white elephants said some in authority, and protested that they could not "hold" the infantry. However that may be, Joffre was faced with the difficulty that the Germans, instead of entering France by the eastern gate, where forts and "cover" combined to make the task supremely difficult, chose the easier road by Belgium and through the Luxembourg. Yet it was obviously impossible to tell by which route the enemy would enter. Joffre was forced to watch them all, to secure contact at each point, to feel the enemy, and then retreat towards his reserves. This, indeed, was the plan more or less successfully carried out. But the fact that Belgium was the main path of the invasion caused a rapid transposition of forces at the last moment, for the bulk of the army had to swing from the east to the north, and the process took time. Here, again, the Germans were at an advantage, for they had systematically built railways to the edge of the Luxembourg and in Alsace-Lorraine, so that their mobilisation was startlingly rapid.

Joffre was certainly unprepared for the speed with which the enemy brought into play his reserves. This was due to the cunning use which he made of his strategic railways, but also to a perfidious advance in the date of mobilisation. The army was already on a war footing when France had begun her work of assembling troops. And so Joffre was handicapped by many things, by lack of rapid railway transit, of heavy cannon and of the minute preparation and prevision which extended to the years preceding his appointment. Germany had prepared for war whilst France was thinking of peace and dreaming of progress in art and letters and general culture, anticipating a universal brotherhood, pathetically chimerical in the face of the armaments across the Rhine. Politics were greatly responsible for the inferiority of France in the opening weeks of the war. The troops assembled on the Franco-Belgian frontier had not at once the value of the invading force. They were wanting in numbers, in the perfection of their equipment and in the intensity of their training. Though Joffre had justly condemned incompetence in high places, it is also true that France was overweighted by the masses of a highly trained enemy which placed all its reliance upon the strength and rapidity of the first blow.

The Socialist doctrine would have substituted popular _elan_ and the fierce revolutionary spirit for what it held to be the sterile stupidity of a long and intensive military preparation. And again, the Socialist movement in Germany proved a snare and delusion to many of the faith in France. Was it possible that war could come when millions of the masses in each nation were vowed to peace? The nation was deceived--perhaps it wanted to be deceived. In any case, it was much more interesting to concentrate upon human progress, to let the mind dwell upon the delightful prospect of the millennium, when there will be no more war, and when an era of peace and tranquillity and of mutual co-operation will have been ushered in, than to linger upon a picture of militarism bound up with cannon and its human food.

The French General Staff apparently thought that the German attack would come from the two frontiers and would seek to envelop the French Army in its tentacles, and thus conclude with one swift, tremendous blow a campaign more disastrous than that of 1870. It seems clear, also, that M. Barthou's success in carrying the Three-Years Law was an important factor in the resolution of Germany to invade France by Belgium rather than by the East. The new legislation had given great strength to the "cover," and thus there was little chance of passing that way. Probably had Germany attacked France by the East, England would never have been brought in and her role would have been confined to protecting the French coasts by her fleet. Thus, M. Barthou might properly contend that the mere fact that the Three-Years Law was voted determined the action of Germany and enlisted the support of England.

We have shown that Joffre by his system of making war and his qualities of heart and head is the ideal democratic chief. Obviously, there is little of the Napoleonic temper in his strategy, which is made up of prudent vigour and discernment rather than of brilliancy or spontaneity. Some urge that Joffre should have made his stand upon the Aisne rather than upon the Marne, since the latter line was better defended by Nature, but his reserves were not sufficiently accessible. In any case, conditions have altered since Napoleon's day, and even the Corsican's great faculty of improvisation scarcely would have found scope in twentieth-century conditions. None the less, Joffre's dispositions at the battle of the Marne, when he drew the enemy to his own battle-ground and supported his line at each end with the forts of Paris and of the East were strictly in the style of the Master. And by his very victory he proved the martial qualities of the French, since with the aid of the English they administered a sharp repulse to an enemy flushed with success and organised and equipped in a manner superior to the Home forces. Until the story is disproved, I shall continue to think that the battle of the Marne would have been definitive and the enemy driven from the soil of France had Joffre possessed an adequate supply of munitions.

We have taken the Generalissimo to the edge of the great battle: let us now give a few particulars of his chief collaborator.

*CHAPTER VII*

*THE SECOND IN COMMAND*

If ever Nancy is minded to raise a statue in its beautiful Place Stanislas to a battle-hero it will be surely to Noel-Marie Edouard Curieres de Castelnau, for to him is due the existence of the city. During three tremendous weeks its fate hung in the balance--weeks in which Joffre was developing the final phases of his retreat and then delivering battle on the Marne. With flank and rear defended from the immense army that de Castelnau and Dubail prevented from passing the gap of Nancy, the master strategist was enabled to win. Nancy lies in the plain; it can be never defended, people said, and, therefore, it was to be left an open town. Did not the Treaty of Frankfort forbid the placing of cannon which would command German soil? Be that as it may, the doubters had forgotten le Grand Couronne, a series of wooded heights and steep plateaux, which marked the junction of Meurthe with Moselle and interposed a rugged barrier between the old Lorraine capital and the frontier. Here, with a forethought unusual in a country where so little had been prepared, trenches had been dug; and when de Castelnau was forced to retreat from the annexed province before an impassable barrier of artillery, he raised earthworks, installed barbed wire entanglements and brought heavy guns from Toul. It was the turn of the Germans to be surprised. With three attenuated army corps and four or five divisions of reserve, de Castelnau kept at bay an immense force of the enemy which battered savagely at the gates.

How gaily the army marched out to the reconquest of annexed Lorraine and to occupy the Germans whilst the English landed in Belgium. It was a force thoroughly representative of France, for it was recruited from all parts. There were reservists from Bordeaux, from Marseilles, from Montpellier and from the West, but the heart of the crusade was the famous 20th Army Corps from Nancy--Lorrainers to a man--who had inherited the memory of the _annee terrible_. With a gesture that expressed eloquently their spirit, they knocked over the frontier posts as they sang the _Marseillaise_ with the strenuous accent of the soldier engaging in a holy war. Great was their first enthusiasm, but great, also, their disappointment, for none met them in the streets; no hand flung flowers to them; no voice cried in gladness: "Vive l'Armee! Vive la France!" The silence was sinister, scarcely broken by the dull reverberation of distant cannon bombarding Pont-a-Mousson. It took them a little time to realise that the masters of the soil, fearing a demonstration, had threatened the inhabitants with its consequences. The silence and the gloom were fully explained.

For two days the army marched into the old land of France without meeting serious opposition. Then the presence of strong outposts betokened the enemy. Dubail's army operating to the south strove to enter more deeply into German territory through Sarreburg; de Castelnau took the northern route through Delme and Morhange. Both were met by a tremendous opposition. The battle line stretched in rough crescent form through the three places I have named, Dubail's left wing being in contact with de Castelnau's right. The Germans had secretly organised a vast system of defence in which gun positions were established and distances marked. The trenches existed for miles and had been furnished with innumerable machine-guns and heavy mortars, the possession of which was now revealed for the first time. The battle was joined, therefore, in disadvantageous conditions for the French. Every ruse known in warfare was employed by the foe. It decked the trenches with dummies and led on the assailants to their doom, for mitrailleuses were posted behind the lay figures. Regiments lost more than half their effectives. An early victim was Lieutenant Xavier de Castelnau, one of the General's sons, who fell whilst leading his men of the 4th Battalion of Chasseurs to a counter-attack. He was mentioned for gallantry in the Orders of the Day.

The French soon discovered that the forces opposing them were no mere "cover" troops, but the Bavarian Army under its Crown Prince, an army under Von Heeringen and a strong detachment from Von Deimling's command. Forced to retreat, de Castelnau fell back ten miles to the Grand Couronne, which he fortified in the way I have described. Dubail, who had begun well with successes in the Vosges, was unable to maintain his position on the Sarre and fell back, also. His troops, especially the 21st Corps, behaved with great gallantry and only left Sarreburg under express orders, and then with colours flying and the band playing the _Marche Lorraine_. Though he delivered many attacks upon the enemy, he was forced to reform behind the Meurthe, and finally took up a position at Luneville and in the fork between the stream just mentioned and the Mortaigne.

The attack on the Grand Couronne was particularly severe. Wave after wave of the enemy threw itself against the works held by de Castelnau's troops, who, though exhausted by a week's continuous marching and fighting, showed an unbreakable spirit. And there were brought to the attack, besides the armies I have mentioned, four new Corps composed of seventeen brigades of Ersatz, so that the hostile forces numbered nearly half-a-million men. The assailants were encouraged not merely by their numerical superiority--Dubail's army was about 150,000--but by their success in Lorraine, which had been hailed by their countrymen as a great victory. Furthermore, they were under the eye of the Emperor and a brilliant staff, who were watching them from the hill of Eply, to the north of the Couronne. The Kaiser's dramatic sense had been awakened by the thought of a triumphal entry into Nancy, the ancient capital of Lorraine. He realised what it would mean in the Fatherland, and that, from a military point, it would signify that a breach had been made in the defences of France. Alas, for human hopes! The walls of Jericho refused to fall to the trumpet's brazen call; and the Kaiser, after waiting in vain for a victory, departed sombre and silent for other fields.

The Germans tried every imaginable means to break through, and bloody were the struggles on hill-tops and in the woods of the region. A regiment, suddenly debouching from a forest, was mown down within a few yards of the French trenches, and a division, marching to the attack with drums and fifes playing, met with a similar fate. The Forest of Vitremont, near Luneville, was filled with the bodies of Germans, computed to number 4500. Vigorous counter-attacks by de Castelnau from north to south, and by Dubail from west to east, finally held the enemy in check, and this uneasy equilibrium lasted for a fortnight--the tremendous fortnight in which Joffre saved Paris and sent the Germans flying to the north. At that moment, the eastern frontier from Nancy to the Vosges was free of the enemy; but at what a cost! Thousands had been lost on either side and villages had been burned and civilians assassinated by the Germans in pursuance of their studied policy of terrorisation.

De Castelnau's brilliant tactics brought him renown and the direction of the 2nd Army on the Compiegne-Arras line. Along this Front rising rectangularly from the Aisne to the north, occurred those terrific battles, which marked the historic "race to the sea." Smarting from their defeat on the Marne, the Germans sought to turn the Allies' left; Joffre had a similar idea in wishing to envelop the enemy's right. The resultant contest was the _course a la mer_. But the forces given to de Castelnau were inadequate for the purpose, and de Maud'huy's army was added to the line now creeping forward like a gigantic snake to the sea. But before the Germans tried to pierce at Lens and Arras, they assailed the lower line held by de Castelnau, and the angle formed by Aisne and Oise proved a particularly warm corner. In that late September and early October, de Castelnau lost as many men as in Lorraine, and the battles, if less renowned, were as fiercely fought as those to the north of Arras on the Yser and at Ypres.

The Germans in extending their lines realised that if they could reach Dunkirk and Calais they would not only cut England's communications, but point a pistol at her heart. And so they brought up army after army until the line stretched in a solid trunk of trenches with branches towards the sea, and 800,000 Germans (eighteen Army Corps and four Cavalry Corps) made persistent efforts to break through the Allies or envelop them. To defeat this plan, Joffre formed three new armies, of which de Castelnau's was one, and brought up the English from the Aisne, and the Belgians from Antwerp. The situation was often critical, for de Castelnau, like the other commanders, lacked ammunition. But his gift of prevision and his infinite resource saved the day. Eventually, the chief fighting was transferred to the northern part of the line, but de Castelnau's early resistance had rendered the greatest service. And so Joffre thought, for de Castelnau was given dominion over four armies from Soissons to Verdun, the longest front in the possession of a single commander, though Foch and Dubail were also given groups of armies. His tenure of the line was distinguished for the great offensive in Champagne, whereby 23,000 prisoners and 120 guns were captured by the French, and 3,000 prisoners and 25 guns by the English in Artois. That latter feat will be ever remembered for the house-to-house fighting in Loos and for the brilliant capture of Hill 70.

The General's vigour of body is as remarkable as his vigour of mind. He seems never to tire. In the Great War he took no particular care of his health, going to bed late and rising early with apparent impunity. Nor did he follow any system of diet, eating heartily with a Southerner's appreciation of a good table. An excellent horseman, the Great War left him little time for equestrian exercise. When commanding on the Somme he had horses at headquarters at Amiens, but he rode only once in seven or eight months. Like his chief he walked a good deal, not merely for exercise, but to get into direct touch with the troops. He believes in the closest relations between the leader and the led. He likes to recall the names and records of his officers and to ascertain the thoughts and sentiments of the men. His inspections behind the lines were no perfunctory affairs, but real examinations into moral and _materiel_. No detail of the kits escaped him, and he questioned soldiers as if searching consciences. Officers in his command have told me that his parades lasted a couple of hours or more. He never lost an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the elements of his armies. As he journeyed to the Front he would spring from his car to compliment a colonel on the appearance of his regiment, or turn aside to visit a hospital and comfort the inmates with cheery words. He is a believer in moral suasion and the uplift of words. Men going into battle look to him for encouragement, and never in vain. Officers in charge of them interrogate his personal staff: "What does the General say? Does he think we can win?" And upon the answer, which is certain to be positive and stimulating, depends their demeanour in the fight. There is something in the look of this soldier of the old school, courteous and chivalrous, with character, resolution, and intelligence, written in the high-coloured features, framed by the white hair that bespeak courage, health and confidence, and instil in others the bravery and sacrifice that are dominant in himself. This influence is heightened by the knowledge that he has himself suffered in his intimate affections. When the death of Gerald, his second son, occurred on the Marne--he was buried at Vitry-le-Francois--de Castelnau was engaged in a Council of War on the Eastern Front. The news was brought to him as he deliberated with his commanders on the plan of battle. After a painful moment he said with stoic calm, "Gentlemen, let us continue." And he bore with equal fortitude the news that another son had been wounded and taken prisoner at Arras.

Such calmness and composure spring from the deep conviction that all is for the best. Doubtless, there was something of predestination in the fact that he was baptized Noel-Marie, in allusion to the date of his birth, Christmas Eve. To his Catholic parents it was a sign and a symbol. His early training at a Jesuit College, before he entered St. Cyr, confirmed him in his principles, and he is of those who have practised always their faith. He attends Mass everyday, and when going to the Front at night he arouses a priest to take the Sacrament. He was the first to insist upon the attendance of chaplains with the forces. To his credit he has never concealed his faith, though there were times in the history of the Third Republic when it might have been politic to do so. Perhaps this sturdiness in his profession accounts for the slowness of his promotion. It began, however, with a rush--Captain at nineteen, in charge of a company in the Loire Army under General Davout, a grandson of Napoleon's famous Marshal; but he stayed long years working steadily but inconspicuously on the staff. The tide turned rapidly when he again commanded troops, and his quality was seen at once. For six years he was Colonel of the 37th Regiment of Infantry at Nancy (Turenne's old command), and here he obtained that deep knowledge of the country which stood him in such stead ten years later. He did not get his General's stars until 1906, and then commanded troops at Soissons, Sedan, and Chambrun. He distinguished himself in grand manoeuvres in the Bourbonnais, under the eye of General Tremeau, president of the War Council and the designated Commander-in-Chief under the old system. The new system, inaugurated by Joffre, brought him into close contact with the Generalissimo, whose Chief-of-Staff he became and collaborator in framing the Three-Years Law, then being passed by the Legislature. The same year he went to England to attend the Manoeuvres and afterwards conferred with the military chiefs; and a mission took him to Russia, where he discussed the lines of eventual co-operation.

Of an old Southern family, the General was born (in 1851) at St. Affrique in the Aveyron, the old Rouergue which came to the French Crown under Henri IV. He likes to speak the _patois_ with soldiers from the district, but he is not democratic in the French sense of the word, though familiar in his dealings with the ranks and solicitous for their welfare. But he is exacting where discipline is concerned, and not only gives orders but sees that they are executed. His staff as well as his regimental officers respect his strenuous temper. His family is noted for intellectual distinction. Some of his brothers, as well as his sons, were at the Polytechnique, the famous mathematical school. He, himself, is both classical and mathematical. If he has little English and less German, and his pronunciation of English place-names amuses his Anglo-Saxon friends, he is a brilliant classic, and jokes in Latin, when the mood takes, with his staff. Nevertheless he is thoroughly modern in his appreciation of science and gives a chance to any likely inventor. Manufacturers are numbered amongst his family, and the largest coal-mine in the south belongs to it. His father, however, was a jurist and a friend of the economist, Le Play.

The General's vigour comes from the natural energy of his mind. In his boyhood there were few sports in France, but he likes to tell his intimates that he played a sort of football, with an inflated ball, in his _lycee_ in the mountains. His youngest son is a well-known champion of the Rugby game. Of his six sons, each went to the war. Three were already in the Army, one was at school, another in the Navy, and a third an engineer. The record is a tribute to the patriotism--no uncommon trait--of provincial France. And there are those who, ignorant of the austerity of her Catholic families, declared that France was decadent! Of the General's six daughters--for Providence has blessed him with a full quiver--one has had her arm amputated, having been infected with gangrene whilst nursing in a hospital. Such courage and devotion are well exemplified in the mother, who heard of her son's death whilst attending the little church where it is her habit to go daily. "Which one?" she asked, almost inaudibly of the _cure_, as she saw by his look of tenderness, that he had bad news to communicate. She thought of her husband, and of her sons at the Front, and when the name was pronounced, with a soft sigh of resignation she bowed her silvery head a little lower over the breviary, and proceeded with outward tranquillity, though with a torn heart, to receive the consolation of her religion.

The man whom I have summarily sketched was invested by Joffre with the dignity of his Chief-of-Staff and the title of Major-General. The life-long friend became the chief aid in his deliberations, and the virtual leader on the Western Front, leaving to the highest in command the larger issues of a world-wide campaign. Even in Republican France there is thus place for the _croyant_ and the aristocrat, as the names of Delangle de Gary, de Maud'huy, and D'Urbal show.

*CHAPTER VIII*

*THE ORGANISATION OF MUNITIONS*

One of the many surprises of the war was the vast place given to munitions. Not even the most careful calculator had foreseen the enormous consumption of war _materiel_ that would result from a long continuance of trench warfare. The Germans had reckoned on an expenditure of 35,000 shells a day, and the French on about half that; the actual consumption was often 100,000 shells on each side.

Both French and German had based their figures on a rapid war, and, had the invaders' plans been realised, Paris would have been occupied and the French opposition paralysed in a fortnight. But this was reckoning without Joffre, without England, and without "General Chance," one of the most important factors in any war. Ammunition, by reason of its vast role, became as engrossing and as vitally important as the actual fighting. For it soon became apparent that in this war of _materiel_ he would win who could most quickly assemble the largest quantity of guns and shot and shell. The Germans began with an immense advantage, for they had accumulated secretly a mass of machine-guns estimated at 50,000, leaving the Allies hopelessly in the rear in this respect. But even their perverse intelligence did not fully grasp the logical outcome of their own preparations, or foresee that, their first plan having failed, they would be caught inevitably in their own toils.

To the eternal credit of the French, they realised with great rapidity the character of the war, and set themselves with methodical speed to adapt themselves to its unexpected features. Factories sprang up all over the country, some created out of boards and bricks; others existing, but "controlled" in the English sense, with Army officers assisting the civilian directors; and a vast business of production was ordered and marshalled as if the French had never done anything else in their lives. At one bound, they developed into a manufacturing nation, though the term would have been refused them, in the long yesterday of the war, by England, the United States, and Germany. Their faculty for seeing clearly and acting quickly, so apparent in their history, again came to their aid. It was their distinguishing mark during the Great Revolution. Having seized the essentials of the problem, they acted upon their insight with startling rapidity and resolution. Of course they committed excesses of a dreadful kind, but their excuse was the gigantic character of the evil which they sought to remedy. Much the same spirit of swift determination, happily without its fearful manifestations, came upon the French people, and with all the old Republican ardour they set themselves, with a sort of grim alacrity, to face the crisis. The old stern common sense, which has always lain at the bottom of apparent volatility, again came to their rescue; and in no way did the French show a greater grasp of the situation than in their handling of munitions.

It had been supposed that they were wanting in order and method, and that their dramatic achievements were due to the impulse of the moment. But, even if this were ever wholly true, it was certainly not true of the second great struggle with Germany. The magnificent effort of France was the outcome, not of improvisation, but of the will to conquer and to adopt the proper means to secure that end. Nor was a Press campaign necessary, as in England, to bring home to the people the peculiar importance of war-work in the factories. It is true that M. Albert Thomas, who took charge of Munitions in the circumstances which I shall describe, made speeches to factory workers in his visits of inspection, but it was never necessary to wrestle with labour and cause it to abrogate its proud pretensions, months after the war had broken out. Conscription would have settled that question even if a vivid sense of realities had not rendered unnecessary any exhortation from Ministerial lips. The vital character of the war had penetrated to every intelligence; it had not stopped half-way through the social strata, as appeared to be the case in England. And the disposition of the working man in England towards conscription was only intelligible on the assumption that he did not understand. In France, the war was too deadly real, too close at hand for any to affect an attitude of light-hearted detachment.

The fact that men in the factories like those on the railways, were mobilised, simplified matters a great deal. A man could not desist from his labour on the pretext of claiming higher pay without running the risk of being treated as a deserter--a thing unthinkable in time of war. His duty, then was the soldier's--to remain where he was until relieved by order. "We have had no strike since the war began." How well I recall the pride with which those words were uttered by a functionary at the Ministry of Munitions. If it spoke well for the patriotism of the working-class, it spoke equally well for conscription as a scientific basis for waging war. For it had cast its net over the whole nation, and by its means the munitions worker took his place in the factory as did the combatant in the trench. But there were certain complications which arose, none the less, in practice. If there was no disturbance of the labour market to exercise the conciliatory powers of the Minister, production did not yet reach its maximum until long after the war had broken out. This was due to the unexampled demand made on munitions and to the logical completeness of conscription. It required many months to adjust a plan whereby the skilled worker was placed in his rightful position in the factory, whilst those who had wrongly usurped his name and functions were sent to the trenches. The most unlikely people had described themselves as mechanics; and one found lawyers, sculptors, school-teachers, painters, writers and a host of semi-professional people masquerading as munition-workers. On the other hand, numbers of highly trained specialists, some distinguished chemists and engineers, had to be extricated from the trenches to take up their natural positions in the factories, in the interests of national defence. This _chasse-croisse_, inevitable in such a country as France, where Government must be based upon equality, took some time to effect. Indeed, the chief duty of the publicist during the second year of the war seemed to be to urge an equitable and intelligent application of the Dalbiez law, which was aimed expressly at the shirker.

Nor did private patronage and political "pull" wholly disappear, even in the stringent atmosphere of a national crisis. This was, perhaps, to expect too much of human nature. And so the Minister of Munitions constantly received recommendations for factory employment from persons whose intervention it was hard to resist. On the one hand, the Minister was asked by important deputies to bring back this or that worker from the Front; on the other, he was warned by groups of Republican zealots of the danger to democracy of showing partiality and conniving at the existence of the shirker. In a laudable effort to strike the happy medium, M. Thomas decided to receive no more nominations to the factory, and decreed that only the indispensable man was to be kept in the rear. Even the good workman, if of military age, must become a combatant; his place in the factory would be taken by an older man. But there remained, naturally, a certain rivalry between the trench and the workshop, not unconnected with the fact that assiduous munition-workers also received their _Croix de Guerre_--a decoration that, assuredly, should have been reserved for deeds of gallantry on the battle-field. But these various difficulties, which M. Thomas settled with habitual celerity and _savoir faire_, were, after all, only questions of detail, and in no way affected the broad principle of conscription or the working of the new Act against the _embusques_. There was no quarrel with compulsion, for each worker recognised the right of the nation to ask him to suspend his individual rights at such a moment. "We are at war; the vital interests of the country are at stake." This was a sufficient argument. And so all energies were directed to increasing the output. In connection with the establishment of factories, the "white coal" or water-falls of the mountains were harnessed to the work, and engineer shops were set up under the falls themselves to employ the power directly. Inventors were given _carte blanche_ to work out their ideas and valuable improvements resulted in the opportunity given to scientific brains to simplify processes, and thus effect economies in manufacture. For the first time France had begun to explore and develop her own scientific estate, which she had left, hitherto, largely to the Germans. For, if the latter were foremost in chemistry, they had learned not a little from the researches of Berthelot and Pasteur. The great bacteriologist's study of ferments contributed sensibly to the growth of the German brewing industry. Under the direction of scientific soldiers and officials, production rose to immense heights, and it soon reached more than 100,000 shells a day, at a time when, according to Mr. Lloyd George, the English output was scarcely more than 15,000 a day. M. Charles Humbert, Senator for the Meuse and editor of the _Journal_, preached in his columns the need of more guns and shells, and his gospel was enforced by other writers; but the root argument laid in the comprehension of the people themselves and in their instinctive realisation of what there was to be done and how to do it. Latin brains and Latin culture triumphed in an absolutely new field.

The genius of Munitions was M. Albert Thomas, who sprang into prominence from the unlikely beginnings of a schoolmaster and parliamentarian with Socialistic leanings. His assets were youth and vigour and a large stock of learning. He had graduated from the "Higher Normal School," the training ground for secondary teachers, with an _agregation_ in history--equivalent to a Fellowship Examination in England--and then became tutor to a grandson of Victor Hugo. In the family were steelworks situated in the Loire, and the tutor's active mind became interested in the fascinating processes which turned the unwrought metal into shining implements of labour. This knowledge, strengthened by many visits, stood him in good stead when he became a deputy, and thereafter Reporter to the State Railways Committee. His constituency was Sceaux, on the outskirts of the capital, and therein was his native commune, Champigny, where he was born of humble shopkeepers and continued to reside. In the Chamber his connection with the railways brought him into contact with M. Claveille, then coming into fame as administrator of the Ouest-Etat line. M. Thomas must be impressed by the catenation of events, for, on arriving at the Ministry of Munitions, he bethought him of the railway manager and installed him first as his master of contracts and, then, at the head of manufacture. So that the guns began to arrive at their appointed place with the same punctuality with which the trains on the State Railway, under the reforming zeal of M. Claveille, began to steam into the Gare St. Lazare.

At the outbreak of the war, M. Thomas, torn from peaceful Socialistic propaganda in _L'Humanite_, where he supported M. Jean Jaures in his opposition to Three-Years, went to the Front as a lieutenant of reserve. After a few weeks in the trenches, he joined his General's Staff and then was summoned to Bordeaux, whither the Government had retired from threatened Paris. "Will you organise Munitions?" he was asked. The battle of the Marne had revealed not only their primordial necessity, but the grievous shortage of France, and it was said that had she been better provided, the Germans would have had no chance of re-establishing themselves on the line of the Aisne. So M. Thomas, faced with the crude need of the hour, undertook the post and flung himself into it with his accustomed energy. His acquaintance with steel, both in the works he had studied and the railway he had controlled, fortified his resolution to undertake the responsibility. Day and night he passed rapidly, from point to point, in his motor-car, organising munition work and exhorting and advising the engineers of the country engaged in it, until, gradually, the production was screwed up to a point where, with the shells made in England, it equalled the output of the German factories. Here was a strange destiny for a man whose reading and reflection had induced him to believe that the tide of humanity was set towards universal brotherhood. Looking as little like a professor of war as could be possibly imagined--a little plethoric, a little heavy in face and figure, and glancing out upon the world through kindly spectacles--this new embodiment of Mars accepted his position with a frank and systematised zeal that led directly to success. In a short time, the tree brought forth prodigious fruit. He worked ceaselessly, turning Sundays into days of labour; his only relaxation from exhausting office was to undertake further journeys of inspection.