Chapter IV: Part 4

There was advantage in the fact that he was a man of wide general views and not an expert. Had he been a gunner, he would have thought exclusively of the pointing of his piece; as an engineer he would have reflected on the life-history of the gun from its early inception to its appearance as a finished article of destruction. But being the intelligent amateur, he was able, like an airman, to soar over intercepted space, and think of the problem in its wider aspects: how to obtain the ore and transport it from the other ends of the earth; how to procure the quickest output from the arsenals; how to adjust factory labour to the new law against the shirker; how to provide a sufficiency of food for the monsters he was evolving; how to cultivate the scientific _terrain_ of the war; and finally, how he could deliver his deadly wares into the hands of those who would use them against the enemy. There were a hundred different problems arising out of the great military post which the war had given him, and he managed them all with the ease and optimism that belong to rapid assimilation combined with poise, with _sang-froid_, and decision of character. All these virtues contributed to the success of M. Thomas. He was rewarded by official appointment to the post of Under Secretary of State for Munitions, specially created for him by M. Millerand, the then Minister of War. The honour was unique in the history of the Third Republic, which does not always advantage those who serve it best.

All the departments connected with guns had to be concentrated at the Ministry of Munitions in the Champs Elysees. At the outbreak of war the building was a cosmopolitan hotel on the verge of opening; the Government, needing quarters for its new department of State, acquired it, and there amidst Louis XVI chairs and Empire cabinets were installed M. Thomas and his coadjutors. The Socialist pacifist had become the Grand Armourer of France, the licensed provider of artillery, in a house of luxury built for the wealthy classes.... In his chain of duties, however, was a broken link. He was not given charge of the powder, though it was essential to his full usefulness; and officials in that department corresponded directly with the Minister of War. But Gallieni, when he came to the Rue St. Dominique, saw the faults of the system and immediately invested his titular subordinate with the necessary powers. It was at this moment, when work was piling high upon his willing shoulders, that M. Thomas gave M. Claveille authority over the construction of the guns. And the railway manager's experience proved invaluable in his new post.

France had every reason to be proud of her organisation of Munitions, and for the spirit which the crisis prompted amongst her functionaries and workers. As a University man of distinction, M. Thomas placed his faith in higher education and was surrounded by men who had achieved distinction in science and letters. A Sorbonne professor of Romance languages, M. Roques, acted as his chief secretary; and a scholar of European reputation occupied unremunerated leisure in conducting the correspondence of the Department. Thus the Ministry provided another example of public spirit in France and of Gallic accessibility to new ideas.

Quite apart from the attitude of labour, admirably attuned to the circumstances, there arose the material difficulty of finding men. The Loi Dalbiez was rigorous in its application, and there was a dearth of young and vigorous men, both skilled and unskilled, in the factories. I have spoken of some of the methods adopted by M. Thomas to meet the case: now he went to the colonies and employed Arabs and Kabyles, Annamites, and other friendly nationals from France overseas. This exotic labour worked harmoniously with the dominant race. Wages were on a far less generous scale than in England, and no worker, however skilled, obtained L8 a week or even half that amount. Such prices were unthought of. The common wage for unskilled labour was five francs for a ten-hour day for men and women. Where the operations were perfectly simple and required only adroitness, the wages for female labour were sometimes only 3 frs. a day. Even the trained mechanic earned no more than 15 frs., the highest price being generally 13 frs. 50. Thus, you see, there was a vast difference between the English and the French positions, and it is clear that the cost to the country of shell production was infinitely less in France, even at a moment when the output was infinitely greater. There were no lady workers in the factories--"heureusement non"--said the official, with an expressive shrug, when I asked the question, and the whole scheme of production was worked on carefully considered, economical, and patriotic lines. Certainly, the worker made very little profit out of his labour, and the intensity of it in France, as in England, put a considerable strain upon his health.

A veritable scientific mobilisation was necessary in the Champs Elysees. Highly trained brains were needed for the delicate calculations essential to the manufacture of explosives and to the creation of new types of guns. It meant the installation of eminent specialists at the Ministry and the carrying out of elaborate experiments in laboratories and open-air trial grounds. The syndicates, I repeat, made no difficulty for the Minister by adherence to rules framed for peace; but, of course, the power of these bodies in France over their fellow-workers is less pronounced than across the Straits. But, though it has its stringent rules, it raised no finger of protest against the speeding-up of production, the continuous shifts, the employment of women and children and of coloured labour. The difficulty that existed was entirely due to the fear of creating any suspicion of favouritism amongst those who were fighting the country's battles by any arbitrary selection of men for employment in the factories. None the less, the munitions worker had to be recruited on a large scale, for the consumption of shot and shell exceeded all belief and emphasised the fantastic character of the conflict.

No doubt the physical existence of the Channel was answerable for the difference in attitude of French and English labour. It was difficult for our workers to visualise the situation in France with its invaded departments, its devastated villages, its ruined industries, its strangulated commerce and those other disabilities which weigh upon a nation that has suffered defilement from the foe. But the French soon came to see that the loyalty of the British working man was not in question because of his reluctance to accept a system which, however, both Abraham Lincoln and Cromwell found necessary in the raising of armed forces for the carrying out of national purposes. And yet neither could be accused of being indifferent to the claims of democracy.

*CHAPTER IX*

*FRENCH DISCIPLINE AND LEADERSHIP*

A certain number of political students had come to the discouraging conclusion that discipline could not exist side by side with a pure democracy. The two things, they said, were incompatible. Trade Union leaders in England were for a long time apparently under the same illusion. Joffre, whom I have tried to show as the perfect democrat, will not accept any such view. In a frank and engaging mood of communicability, he explained to an American writer, Mr. Owen Johnson, who visited him at Headquarters, that democracy was by no means the uneasy bedfellow of discipline; the two could exist in the most perfect harmony. "Where a nation is truly Republican, I do not think there is any danger to the spirit of democracy in military preparation," said Joffre, in reply to the suggestions that the existence of a large army was a constant incitement to war, and opposed, therefore, to those pacific principles upon which a modern republic must be founded. Military discipline does not undermine democracy: that is his argument. "In a republic where the need of individual liberty is always strong, military service gives the citizen a quality of self-discipline which he needs, perhaps, to respect the rights of others, as well as to act in organised bodies." And then he added that if America--and the remark applies, of course, to England--dreaded military service, it was because the citizen had his eyes fixed on the German ideal rather than on the French. The distinction between the French Army and the German was a difference in the conception of the role of the soldier. The German system made a man into a machine. It was based on fear, and robbed him of his initiative. It explained the attack in close formation, the stupendous throwing away of life, and an officer class, a veritable Brahmin caste, that did not transmit orders directly, but through sergeants and corporals. The French spirit, on the other hand, implied fraternity. The officer was interested in the welfare of his men and regarded them as his children. Nothing was indifferent to him which affected them morally or materially. The German system was the revolver at the head, the French the word of encouragement, the smile, the _bonne camaraderie_.

General Joffre's distinction happily expresses the fundamental character of the two systems; it goes to the root of army psychology. The French method requires a knowledge of the temperament of the men; for, though you may drive the dull and high-spirited in much the same way, provided you are brutal enough, to lead successfully requires knowledge of mental characteristics and a certain power of appeal which elicits the best efforts in your men. French officers, therefore, have to be psychologists, understanding the character of those they lead and the subtle differences that divide the townsman from the peasant. They must vary indefinably the address when they talk to one or the other. These two broad classes are moved by different springs of action, and the commander has to find out the best way of firing the lethargic and attracting the fiery nature.

A French friend, who commanded a battalion of engineers, gave me some explanation of the methods he employed in dealing with a difficult class, the town-bred mechanic. His battalion was composed of men from provincial centres, with a sprinkling of skilled workmen from Paris. He played off one against the other. When the Parisian was inclined to show slackness or insubordination he remonstrated with him in a tone of raillery and mock commiseration. It was certainly regrettable that he could not attain to the same level of conduct or efficiency as those excellent fellows from the provinces, who, after all, had not enjoyed the same advantages. Rarely had he to speak twice to the same delinquent; the man's _amour propre_ was aroused; from that moment, he commenced to mend his ways. To the provincial he said that he was surprised that a man of his energy and parts should allow himself to take second place to the Parisian. Then it was true that the countryman could not hold his own with workers from the capital? This, again, proved admirably adapted to the particular mentality of his hearer; his pride was piqued; he gave no more trouble. Thus, to command under the French system requires considerable adroitness and intelligence.

The secret, my friend said, of keeping order and discipline in a regiment without getting oneself disliked was to refrain from exerting more authority than was strictly necessary. One must not be always on the look-out for faults. Officers made a mistake in seeing everything at all times; there are moments when, as Nelson found, the blind eye was convenient. A Frenchman is not naturally inclined towards discipline; the quicker his intelligence, the more likely he is to feel resentment at clumsy authority. The peasant, slower to think and to take offence, is more amenable. He gives up his will and individuality with greater readiness to the leader, and even courts direction. But in the veins of every Frenchman is some trace of the _frondeur_ and revolutionary. His mind is impatient of restraint and leaps readily to conclusions and, sometimes, to tragic resolutions. Mere authority, as authority, chafes him; he dislikes it in the abstract. To render it acceptable, there must be an idea behind it. If you want to lead him, you must be prepared to undertake gladly the same risks as he, to go out and meet them with a gay insouciance. You must show him that you do not count your life more valuable than his, or shelter yourself behind your position. You must lead him by going in front, not by driving him from behind. It is an age of miracles; astounding things may happen; notwithstanding his nonchalance and objection to play the hero, at the moment of action he becomes transformed. You have only to know how to draw him out, to find the formula which unlocks his heart, to discover the hidden springs of his emotion. For an idea, it has been said, he is ever ready to shoulder a rifle behind a barricade. And when that idea is the country, with patriotism leaping high, his _frondeur_ spirit is capable of all. Centuries have not dimmed its ardent inflammability, and each successive phase in history renews his high susceptibility, until one feels that the Great War, instead of exhausting the fruitful soil of France, has enriched it with new virtues and a new potentiality. Rifles have spoken again from the barricades, but this time the nation is ranged on one side of it and the invader on the other. Patriotism and ideality flow perennially from the mountains of Latin youth, ready to be diverted to any holy cause.

The spirit is manifest even in the midst of the battle. At the critical moment, when officers have fallen in the hurricane of iron, a man emerges from the ranks to lead on his comrades to the attack. From his knapsack, the legendary baton has slipped into his strong, tenacious hand. He has shown qualities of leadership in the supreme hour. General Sir Robert Baden-Powell recognised this genius of the race for instant adaptation when he visited the French Front and heard stories of improvisation; the native initiative of the soldier comes ever to his aid in the tightest corners, where German mechanism inevitably fails. Years ago, De Vigny, in a celebrated phrase, proclaimed the inherent power of a Frenchman to become a man of war. Time and again he has proved his martial qualities--a sheer instance of atavism. A sergeant leads a battalion into the jaws of death with such fire and courage that each man is electrified, loses his constitutional timidity and becomes a lion in the fight. Under this magic influence he is irresistible, like Cromwell's Ironsides, whom, strange to say, he physically resembles. The low steel bonnet crowns the same sort of ruddy visage and brown beard which marked the East Anglian in the seventeenth century. There is something of the Englishman in him, something of the Berserker employing his "irresistible fury" in a national cause. His spirit of adventure has been translated into terms of patriotic achievement.

And the officers themselves know how to acquire rapidly the science of the trench. Many in the regular army fell in the early days of the war; the professional leader trained and set apart for the career scarcely existed any more. Then up sprang the officer of reserve, until then engaged in civilian pursuits; nine-tenths were in that condition. But, taught in the hard school of war, they developed into the most accomplished chiefs.

Though the French _pioupiou_ is readily accessible to daring, and glories in a passionate achievement, he is not hypnotised by names, but demands a real aristocracy. It is an error to suppose that he resents superiority. On the contrary, he is constantly looking for it and is eager to recognise it when found. He is equally impressed by it, whether he finds it in the plain, plebeian features of Dupont or in the aristocratic mien of a De Rochefoucauld. The name matters nothing; the qualities are everything. But if he disregards family, he is insistent on a real distinction. Dupont must not shelter his mediocrity under democracy, or can the patrician hope to win devotion by a mere show of elegance. The accent is not of much account in the trenches; there, as elsewhere, must be a real superiority. If it is wanting, if the officer is mediocre and vulgar in his taste and habits, shows the same deficiencies and the same lack of control as the lower ranks, then his supremacy will be short-lived, whatever his grade. And it does happen that old soldiers, promoted from the ranks, sometimes fail to inspire the respect that should be theirs, because they cling to the old habits, the old _laisser-aller_, and know not how to assume the new virtues that should go with the new position. For commissioned rank in the French as in the other armies of the world must mark a real ascendancy, moral, mental, and even physical, to be effective in the best sense. It is part of the panoply of power.

None the less, the adaptability of the nation is never better shown than in the speed with which the officer, newly risen from the ranks, for bravery and coolness on the field, puts on the whole armour of leadership. Yet his speech, probably, will remain homely, and he will adopt no airs which jar with his humble origin and native simplicity. Perhaps the least successful of these leaders are those who have longest served in some capacity, such as _adjudant_ (a rank above sergeant), because they are rooted fast in their old associations and have not those natural qualities of authority which should be inseparable from commissioned rank. The essential is that a man shall show the temper of a chief, and for this reason the sportsman often proves more successful in handling his men than the more intellectual type of soldier, who is better able, no doubt, to perceive the purpose of a movement. Yet the rank and file will certainly expect high attainments from their ultimate leaders, and are intelligent enough to know that no amount of practical experience is a real substitute for sound military culture. Obviously, a knowledge of military history and of the principles of strategy are not required of the subaltern who leads an attack on a village; but it is equally true that only to the student are accessible those solutions of the past which are of such importance in understanding the present. The sportsman, then, rather than the office soldier, inspires the affection of his men. The type is more often found, no doubt, amongst the aristocracy and the higher _bourgeoisie_ than amongst the artisan class, for in France at least the last-named has rarely the chance of playing games and of acquiring dexterity in manly sports. Again, the men know that those who have risen from the ranks are harder to serve than the "gentleman" class, just as the works' foreman is a severer taskmaster than the employer; thus of all the officers the type that best succeeds in drawing out the qualities of his men is he who has had the broadest education and is the best example of finished manhood. The birth and social advantage are merely the make-weight, not the ground-work, for his command; the contrary is alien to the Republican instinct and would be resented. But if the men are touched with the feeling that Jack is as good as his master, they like that master to be a fine, upstanding fellow, recommending himself as much by his handsome physical appearance as by his urbanity and _savoir-faire_. If to this can be added a lively temperament, disdain of danger and an evident liking for bodily exercise, his dominion will be complete. But these things do not come from books, or are they handed down from generation to generation like a Roman nose or a Bourbon chin. And thus is exposed, no doubt, the weakness of the hereditary principle. Alas! man cannot transmit, like a letter in the post, his courage and adroitness to his descendants. Meeting cross currents by the way, the atavic message becomes hopelessly confused.

Yet the French system in its elasticity is admirably adapted to the genius of the race, for it gives free play to improvisation. No account is taken of social status, but I have shown that social rank, coupled with mental and moral attributes, do aid a man even in Republican France. Valour is no respecter of persons--the poor man may be as brave as the most favoured of the gods. Thus there is ever in the breast of the soldier the splendid hope that to-morrow he may begin his ascent to the temple of Fame. Cases of promotion are so numerous that they have ceased to be exceptional, and represented, at least during the Great War, half the number of commissioned officers. The _garcon de bureau_, earning his five francs a day at the Hotel de Ville, is a lieutenant of reserve. In time of war he rejoins his regiment and becomes a captain. He is mentioned for bravery and is rewarded by the red ribbon of the Legion. No one finds it strange that this young man, son of a roadmaker in municipal employ, should be on the high road to honours whilst his father works on the low road of obscurity.

And the man--an amiable functionary of the Ville de Paris--from whom I had this instance of Republican grandeur and simplicity recalled his own military service and the _adjudant_ studying to be an officer, who on wet days instructed young conscripts in the elementary lessons of the great battles. He remembers particularly his description of Fontenoy and his vivid presentation of the forces in contact and the different dispositions of the generals, which ended in our undoing and the victory of the French. The lecturer had kept the rugged speech of his class, but his obvious enthusiasm and knowledge of his subject found a quick road to the hearts and comprehension of his young hearers. That simple, rough fellow with a taste for study is a Brigadier-General to-day. The Great War gave him his chance to show his mettle. It is a common enough story in the French Army, particularly in the first eighteen months of the war, when the Great Retreat and several sharp offensives had inflicted immense loss on the corps of officers.

The material of the French Army, then, is pretty fine stuff, but it has to be treated with a delicate discrimination and with that peculiar French quality known as _doigte_. We have seen that town and country, side by side in the same unit, must be dealt with perspicaciously by the officer. Anything that looks like mere routine and a mere waste of time and energy is particularly obnoxious to the sharp fellow from the large centres of population. "A quoi bon tout ca?" he asks, with a scarcely concealed irritation. He is difficult to lead unless he comprehends the military utility of the order. Once his sympathetic intelligence has been gained, he puts his soul into the work. The peasant farmer, on the other hand, accepts everything with the stolid passivity of those who work upon the land. He does not suffer moral torture from the feeling that he is wasting his time. Is he not out in the open? And the food is good. His intelligence does not rebel against red tape, which is so distasteful to his lively contemporary from the town workshops. And so the commander has to show discretion in his manner of utilising the human material to his hand. The mechanic probably will prove an excellent scout and give a vivid account of the country through which he passes and the enemy whom he has sighted. His interest has been excited, and all his qualities of resourcefulness and ready adaptability come to the surface. He feels that he is being worthily employed, and is happy in the knowledge that he has been of service to his superior. But put him to guard a haystack and he is much less happy. That is a peasant's job, he feels. And the peasant, indeed, is perfectly at home in front of the hay; his nostrils dilate with pleasure at the sweet scent of it; it makes him think of his own bit of grass growing there in Brittany on one of those shining slopes where the gorse flames.

As a general rule, mechanical drill is irksome to the Latin mind; it fetters his individuality. The idea of turning perpetually in a barrack square to attain perfection in movements in mass is by no means to his liking. He has never been attracted to it, nor to the cult of buttons and straps and military tailoring. He cares little for such things. On the march, he considers only the question of covering the ground in the quickest manner with the least expenditure of force. He is largely indifferent to his appearance. Perhaps his artistic instinct tells him that sweat-covered, with the dust of the road upon him, he is vastly more picturesque, more like the real, traditional "poilu," than immaculate in a new uniform of celestial blue. He is proud of the general's praise of his fitness and stamina after his march of fifty kilometres with a heavy pack on his back; he would consider it intolerable if he were reproached for some slackness in his dress, for buttons that had been displaced, for a belt that had slipped. These things are of no consequence, he says, impatiently. He does not understand that attention to minutiae which is the bee in the bonnet of the old-style disciplinarian. And yet tradition counts in this nation of soldiers in a manner surprising to those who associate indifference with an outward air of insouciance. It is as if each man were a Fregoli capable of a dozen roles. Certainly, at the end of a long march he will pull himself together with a brave air if he has to pass before the eyes of foreign officers or through a village street with the inhabitants lined up to receive him. There is pride at the bottom of his character as readily aroused as those instinctive martial qualities which he inherits from the great-grandfather of the Napoleonic Wars.

*CHAPTER X*

*GALLIENI AND HIS POPULARITY*

General Gallieni[1] came to his task of defending Paris with a reputation gained in Madagascar. Nine years of successful government had transformed the island, torn with conflict, into a peaceful possession. Already credited with great organising powers, he was suspected of being a good strategist, and he was soon to prove it. His very appearance, energetic, thin, with large, osseous face looking like an eagle in spite of the _pince-nez_, gave Paris a wonderful impression of youth and energy. He was a man who would make things happen, conjectured the citizens--and, certainly, he looked like it. His stride was masterly, and his orderly officers grew thin in his service; there was a story of a plump private secretary who visibly dwindled in an effort to keep pace with the "patron's" energetic gait.

[1] General Gallieni died May 28, 1916, while this book was in the press.

Paris had never faltered in its attitude of pure valour even when news lacked and rumour stalked, gaunt-eyed, and unfettered by the least fact, along the Boulevards. Gallieni's appointment to the governorship of the city put fire into hesitating pulses and new courage into hearts. To see him crossing the street in his uniform of cerulean blue, that attractive colour of the French Army, was to receive a lesson in youth and virility. He had the look of the fighter grateful to Parisians, who, recalling their past, did not like the notion of being handed over tamely to the enemy as an "open" city. An open city, forsooth! What ignominy for the capital of all the talents! When the Governor was formally invested on August 26, 1914, the muscles of his _administres_ grew tense with resolution. Then there would be resistance, resistance to the point of street fighting. Inch by inch the town would be disputed. The Eiffel Tower would be blown up, so that the enemy could not use its apparatus and antennae to transmit or receive messages; bridges would be destroyed and the Underground would be rendered useless. The two million inhabitants who remained faithful to the city would be evacuated to the communes south and west of the metropolitan area. This was the plan as revealed later, and was apparently authentic. That the Governor thought the measures would be necessary I do not believe; but it was well to be prepared.

In his military eye the enemy could not enter the city until the home army had been destroyed; that was an elementary principle of warfare. But how much did the Germans know, definitely, of the condition of the Allies? One had to be quite sure of that before one could forecast with accuracy their line of action. Did they consider the Allies were definitely crushed? It seems almost certain that they did. Such a state of mind is revealed in the despatches they sent from the front, each more affirmative than the other. They told of the utter rout of the French, of their inability to withstand the advance. Thus, as Colonel Feyler points out, the Germans were in much the frame of mind of Napoleon at Waterloo. History was repeating itself in new conditions. Napoleon disdained Wellington, whom he considered a mediocre general, and Bluecher, a brave but blundering hussar, and so, without sufficient preparation, sent his legions against the British lines. If the German commanders had not the sublime arithmetic of Napoleon: "One hundred and twenty thousand men _and I_ make two hundred thousand," that was the spirit of their calculations. They were impressed with their own invincibility. And there was some excuse for their belief that the English had been annihilated and the French demoralised. The British Army was only saved by bull-dog tenacity and a constitutional inability to accept defeat; the French showed a new quality of resistance because of the presence of their Three-Year soldiers--the three "Regular" classes with the colours--wherewith the reserves were stiffened into homogeneity. In any case, the Germans exaggerated the effect of their successes. The wish was father to the thought. The apparent direction of the retreat induced them to believe that the fruit was ripe and ready to fall into their expectant mouths. Surely, they argued, Joffre is going to repeat the mistake of Bazaine in 1870 and shut himself up in Paris as his predecessor did in Metz. He is anxious, certainly, they said, to seek the protection of the Paris forts, and yet he must know their shortcomings, for, forty years before, he had helped to build them.

But the cold fact remained that Joffre did not enter Paris, but flung down the gage of battle on the Marne, leaving Paris on his left as a protection to that flank and the eastern forts on his right to prevent his line from being turned in that direction. Gallieni was quick to realise the situation, to see its possibilities and its dangers and the necessity for swift decision. If Paris had to be fought, the best defence was a forward move outside the city, an offensive-defensive. But a bare week remained before the Germans approached within striking distance. In those feverish days, the Governor of the city mobilised thousands of labourers and set them to work digging trenches. It was obviously impossible to do more than erect a temporary barrier against the tide, but the Parisians were caught and fascinated by the energy of their chief, who instilled into them his own confidence and his own combativeness. Gallieni knew his public with the divination of a psychologist, and he built barriers at the narrow city entrances with felled trees and stones torn from the roads. Obviously such fortifications could not stand a moment against artillery, but their purpose was as much moral as military. If they prevented Uhlans from capturing the gates by a forward rush, they were equally operative in inspiring Parisians with the reality of war, which some were in danger of forgetting, and at the same time gave them the assurance that they were being protected. The temperament of _la ville lumiere_ has something of the child in it: a curiosity and interest in everything, a thoughtless courage, and the need of constant assurance that it is being cared for.

And when the hosts advanced, sweeping from the north of Paris to the east, it was Gallieni who saw the fault and determined to profit by it. Von Kluck had disregarded the Paris army either through ignorance or temerity, and he was to pay the price. The Governor collected an army from here, there and everywhere, placed it under a superb tactician, General Maunoury, and at the critical moment carried it to the field of battle. Our "intellectual general," as Gabriele d'Annunzio calls him, combined activity with perception. There was something Napoleonic and something Parisian, too, in his notion of utilising taximeters to carry soldiers to the German right wing, which, threatened, had reinforced itself with a _corps d'armee_ and now seemed likely to envelop the French left. Up aloft Von Kluck's airmen decided that the Parisians were leaving their city by the thousand in taxicabs. It was Gallieni's army of Zouaves and Territorials hurrying out to strike a rapid and decisive blow at the invaders.

When Von Kluck marched straight upon Paris as if to devour it and turned aside to the south-east, he gave Gallieni, as we have said, the opportunity he sought. It is, of course, wrong to assume that the Germans suddenly changed their plan; this was not so, unless they wished to fly in the face of all accepted rules of war. It is highly dangerous to neglect one's main objective, the crushing of an enemy, for a subsidiary one. And if the Germans had entered Paris without defeating the Allies, they would have committed a heavy blunder. Heaven-born commanders like Napoleon could afford to take the risks and by their genius escape; lesser men have to abide by the rules of the game. Yet the Germans, proud in their superiority of numbers and equipment, might have supposed that they could detach part of their forces to finish off the Allies and with the remainder occupy the city. After all, strategy is a matter of common sense, and the plain man can see the danger to a general of entering a city whilst his enemy is at large, powerful enough to imprison him within the walls and to cut his communications. To a strategist of Gallieni's calibre the problem was perfectly clear.

What he could not know, however, was the exact intentions of the Germans: whether they were going to attack the Home Army and simultaneously enter the city, or whether they would relinquish occupation until they had made certain of the destruction of the Allies. To meet the alternative he employed his habitual energy and resource; he was prepared for the two events. Even after the battle he took unlimited precautions, accumulating vast stocks of fodder and cattle in the Bois de Boulogne, until the famous playing-ground looked like a western cattle-ranch; he took, also, a careful census of the city, so that food might be apportioned to the population. As a military precaution he continued to construct trenches and defences of all sorts. Why did he pursue this mole-like activity of throwing up earth, since the danger was past? Gallieni had a double purpose: to reassure Parisians against the return of the Germans and to train the young soldier in the art of modern war. And so he built endless lines of trenches, until the country round Paris from Beauvais in the north to Fontainebleau in the south was scored and ribbed with excavations. In their depths he hid monstrous black cannon, ready to belch flame and disappear again into their pits. He left nothing to chance.

A year after his appointment to the Governorship, he rose to the higher plane of Minister of War. The Viviani Cabinet had quietly given way to the Briand Administration, and, with that thoroughness of which the French are capable in great crises, they began to reconstruct their military organisation. His new post gave Gallieni a vast role, in which his lively temper and insatiable capacity for work found full employment. His part in the battle of the Marne had become known, and enhanced his reputation. It was realised that he had acted with immense decision. Thus he became newly popular with the Parisians, and his singular features--the eyes gleaming behind the glasses as if they were unsleeping in vigilance--were reproduced everywhere. His popularity threatened to rival that of Joffre, except that Joffre appealed more subtly and invariably to the army. The new Minister, however, was more Parisian than the Generalissimo, more distinctly Latin--Parisian, also, in a certain truculence more affected than real, for Gallieni is a tender-hearted man, a little diffident outside the strict orbit of his duty. He was particularly strenuous in his dealings with the _embusque_. That furtive creature, who shelters behind the flag, was brought forth from his snug post in the rear. Several hundreds found employment at the Ministry of War; thousands more were scattered up and down the country in depots, in stores and factories, in headquarters of commanders. Gallieni routed them out mercilessly, and sent one hundred and fifty thousand of them to their regiments. From his own ministry in the Rue St. Dominique, one chilly November morning, there emerged a melancholy column of five hundred military clerks, who wended their way to the grey lines of the trenches, abominably wet and dismal, in contrast with those comfortable Ministerial quarters. The Minister's implacability pleased both Paris and the country. Both were ready to do their duty, but needed to be told that there was perfect equality in everything and no preferential treatment. Gallieni struck pitilessly at abuses. A Territorial officer who drove his superior's car was punished as firmly as a _medecin major_ who showed undue favour to certain of his patients and retarded their return to the Front. At times, no doubt, the Minister was guilty of exaggeration; but even this was typically French and was better than inactivity. In calling up auxiliaries (men exempted from military service because of physical defects) he overlooked the economic needs of the country; but these matters were soon put right.

He proved the foe of red tape and routine. He opened windows in his Ministry, which had been closed for years, and let in fresh air. He broke down the methods of the Circumlocution Office, doing away with useless labour, installing typewriters and feminine secretaries, the wives and daughters of those who had fallen in the field, and thus relieving many men for purely military duties. "Simpler methods," he cried to all who would hear; "I want results"; and, of course, he obtained them. Then he suppressed recommendations. To Parliament, a little dubious and jealous of its privileges, he explained that, whilst open to proper representations from every soldier, he could not listen to interested recommendations. He re-established the sovereign power of discipline, but at the same time constituted himself a court for the correction of abuse of authority. In the Chamber he conquered sympathies, though obviously uncomfortable in the atmosphere. I saw him the day after his maiden speech as Minister and congratulated him on his success. "Ah, if you only knew how much this sort of thing costs me," he said, "you would not talk of my success," and he shrugged his shoulders with a gesture half-humorous, half-ironical. The soldier pleased in the tribune because of his directness and vibrant patriotism; but when Socialists interrupted him it was plain that he chafed at the restrictions of time and place which prevented him from making suitable reply! On one occasion he was about to leave the House because of the behaviour of the Socialists, and was induced with difficulty by M. Viviani to return to his place on the Front Bench. Unconsciously he had repeated the protest of General Pau a few years before. It was unfortunate that it was not more effective, for the opposition of the Socialists arose over a question of regulating the hours of cafes in Marseilles--palpitating subject in time of a national war! The Minister was happiest when dealing with the incorporation of the 1917 class--lads of eighteen who were going to the Front. The Senate before whom he spoke appreciated his patriotic quality, and the fact that, though a disciplinarian and an energetic commander, he yet kept in his heart the sense of sacrifice of young lives given to the country.

In every department Gallieni laboured to promote efficiency and to perfect the great machine in his hands. By some he was reproached for living voluntarily in the great white light of publicity, but Gallieni knew that unless he had the public emphatically on his side his reforms could be crushed by politics. When once he had established his right to freedom of action, then no political cabal, thinking of its influence at the polls, could pull him down. It was for this reason that he took the public into his confidence, so that it might know that the best was being done that could be done. If Gallieni showed no mercy to the shirker, it was because he wished to encourage the peasant in the trenches and the mechanic in the factory by the thought that there was justice for all and favouritism for none. Much of his work was accomplished without the least blare of trumpets or the smallest paragraph in the Press. He reorganised the medical service of the army in the sense of bringing hospitals into line with authority, and suppressed the _laisser-aller_ of the amateur and philanthropic institution.

Though not in the ordinary sense a social figure--indeed, he is the despair of hostesses--Gallieni has social graces and an artistic side to his character wanting from the more burly figure of General Joffre. Though he keeps his counsel in all professional matters, he is not naturally silent; he has a dozen interests, not exclusively military, and touches life at all points. As a young man, following his studies in the military school, he consorted with a literary set in the Latin Quarter, and the friends of his youth were Ernest Daudet and Jean Richepin. He reads and speaks several languages, believing that one should go direct to one's authorities, and his conversation is informed with study, reflection and travel. He is the type of the modern soldier: savant, philosopher and metaphysician. A wide experience and intellectual tastes have given him toleration, but he has none for incapacity and dereliction of duty. Though accused of overweening ambition, he is ambitious only to serve the country. "For an old man like myself, death on the battlefield would be a recompense," he said on a recent occasion. "I should die in defending Paris with the enthusiasm of a young lieutenant." This is the spirit which flamed from the historic poster on the walls of Paris at the moment when the Government departed to Bordeaux: "I have received a mandate to defend Paris, and I intend to fulfil it to the end...."

It was patriotism which induced him to accept the heavy succession of the Ministry of War from M. Millerand. Years before he had been offered the post, but declined it "because it meant presence in the Chamber." But the war changed everything; it was impossible to urge personal reasons when the country was at stake. But he knows so little of political labels that he makes his friends laugh in confusing one kind of Republican with another. To him they are all the same, provided they have the national interests at heart. For this reason he was equally friendly with men of such divergent tendencies as Gambetta, Jules Simon, Waldeck-Rousseau and Albert de Mun. It is because of his many-sided appeal that he inspires collaborators with peculiar devotion. Two qualities outstand: his perennial youth, represented by a figure which might be that of a young cavalry officer, though he has passed the age limit, and a scientific precision of thought which means that in everything he is clear, precise, and piercing, like a sword-blade.

Illness caused him, unfortunately, to relinquish his post at the Ministry of War in the spring of 1916, after a few months of strenuous work, but his influence remains as that of a good patriot inexorable in his country's service.

*CHAPTER XI*

*GALLIENI AND HIS COLONIAL EXPERIENCE*

If General Gallieni allowed his mind to take a retrospective turn in the intervals of his intensive work at the Ministry of War, there must have opened to him a dazzling prospect of colonial enterprise and adventure. And in the picture would appear a gallery of celebrities, brown, black and yellow, as well as white. The man who made the profoundest impression on his character was certainly Faidherbe, type of the serious Frenchman, whose spectacles added to the natural gravity of his face. His work as pioneer had ceased before Gallieni's had commenced, but his influence remained, powerful for good, and vitalising in its effect on the young mind. He realised that when you beat back barbarism you must attach the native to the flag and give him new objects for devotion. Before the War of 1870, he was engaged in conquering the Niger Basin. Gallieni was destined to complete that work. Like his master, as he called Faidherbe, he was inspired by the great English explorers, Mungo Park and Livingstone. The latter was discovering Lake Ngami when Gallieni was born.

Faidherbe fought in the War of 1870 as commander of the Northern Army, and won two rare successes against the Germans at Bapaume and Pont Noyelles. Then he retired to senatorial and academic honours, and Briere de L'Isle reigned in his stead as Governor of Senegal. Gallieni joined him from his peaceful garrison of the Ile Reunion. There he could have lazed and luxuriated to his heart's content, for there was nothing to do, but that was not his nature. He preferred to give himself to professional studies and to fit himself for the colonial career, for which he felt already a vocation, if not a positive predestination. In Senegal the opportunity came early to display his talents both as soldier and organiser. Ahmadou, son of El Hadj Oumar, founder of a Mussulman empire in Central Africa, was endeavouring to maintain his position by terrorism. An English expedition from Gambia looked like barring the way to French expansion in the Hinterland, and the Senegal Government felt there was no time to be lost. Gallieni, now a captain, fitted out his expedition, which started from Bakel in 1880. He took with him presents to placate Ahmadou, for the object of the mission was more political than military. We have a picturesque account of it, with geographical and ethnological details and amusing sketches of negro chieftains from the pen of Gallieni himself. He showed as much erudition as enthusiasm for his work, and did credit to La Fleche, the military school where he passed his boyhood, and St. Cyr, whence he graduated, as sub-lieutenant, on the very day--July 15, 1870--when war broke out with Germany. He was a real "son of a cartridge pouch," as the phrase is, for his father, of an old Italian family, was the last commandant of a French garrison on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees.

The Captain underwent many perils in his search for Ahmadou. His column was ambushed and half its effectives killed. The remainder took refuge in a valley, and the exultant enemy crowned the heights. Captain Gallieni, with the decision that always has distinguished him, advanced with a single interpreter to parley with the foe. The latter was so impressed with his valour that it let him continue his journey. But Ahmadou was coy, and hid himself in his capital of Segou, which he did not allow the mission to approach. For seven or eight months Gallieni and his companions were practically prisoners of the irascible Sultan, who sent each morning to tell them that they would be executed that day--news that affected them less than the deprivation of salt, to which they were subjected. Finally, by much patience, Gallieni wrung a treaty from his captor, giving France access to and commercial rights over the river from its source to Timbuctoo. It was a great stroke, and bore witness to the soldier-diplomat's courage and persistence.

Whilst waiting for the good pleasure of the negro Sultan, Gallieni was not wasting time. He was taking stock of the country, of its resources and its inhabitants, particularly in view of the extension of the railway from Kayes (the capital of Senegal), which was at the basis of French policy in the Soudan. The young officer's account of his travels brought him fame in France, the Gold Medal of the Geographical Society, the red ribbon of the Legion, and the rank of Major in the army. Though Ahmadou's trickery had somewhat compromised the success of the mission, important results had been attained, notably in knowledge of the country, and in providing facilities for the line. He was to see Ahmadou again.

He had returned to Paris for a few months' repose, and then had gone to the Antilles. Yet the Soudan called him irresistibly. His work there was not complete. He was now Lieutenant-Colonel and Governor of French Soudan. Ahmadou was at his old tricks; he menaced the colony from the north, whilst new adversaries arose in Mahmadou-Lamine, who had excited the fanaticism of his followers, and had put a small community in Senegal to fire and sword; in his son Soybou, who operated on the right bank of the Senegal; and Samory, a rather famous chief, who was suspiciously active in the south. It took Colonel Gallieni two campaigns to settle the agitation. The first campaign was both military and diplomatic. In its former character it had Mahmadou and his depredations as its punitive purpose; in its latter capacity it carried proposals to Samory to grant access to the Niger over his territory. Against Mahmadou, Gallieni proceeded with great vigour. On Christmas Day, 1880, two columns converged under the walls of his stronghold Diamou, about 125 miles from Bakel. The town was taken, but the chief had flown. However, the expedition was a fine piece of organisation, and no French column had ventured hitherto as far from its base; Gallieni had sown his rear with a succession of posts.

He parleyed more than he fought. It was his principle to conciliate rather than arouse opposition by strong measures. He founded a school for hostages, and sent the sons of the chiefs there as an excellent way of extending French influence, and established "villages of liberty," where freed slaves could live in peace and till the soil, thus promoting economic development and the repopulation of devastated areas.

The second campaign, undertaken in 1887-8, was just as active as the first and just as fruitful in results. In the interval, numerous missions of a politico-geographical character were organised. Swamps were drained, bridges thrown over streams, roads traced, and posts founded. Negotiations were resumed with Ahmadou. Soybou, who had continued his violence, was captured and given a soldier's death, out of respect for his youth and personal courage, and thus, like a good Mussulman, he entered into the Paradise of Mahomet, with the indispensable tuft of hair. It was a chivalrous concession that gained for the Governor new suffrages amongst the tribesmen. Nor did the young chieftain long precede his father to the bourne of defeated rebels, for Mahmadou-Lamine, was presently trapped to his last hiding-place and killed. Gallieni completed his military measures by building a large fort to dominate the district, and then pushed the railway up to Bafoulabe, a considerable performance in a bare, desert country. Remarkable changes took place in the character of the people in a very few years. The Colonel gained more territory by persuasion and negotiation than with the sword. He added 900,000 square kilometres to the French colonial domain, and 2,600,000 to its inhabitants. He was the real creator of the French Soudanese Empire, and laid the foundations of its political and administrative organisation. The results of his experience were embodied in a brilliant book: _Two Campaigns in the French Soudan_.

Now he was again in France, a full Colonel, commanding a regiment in the colonial army which he joined on leaving St. Cyr in the War of 1870. With that gallant force, popularly known as the "Porpoises," he was present at the heroic defence of Bazeilles, a hamlet near Sedan, by the famous Blue Division. The Division burnt its last cartridges before yielding to the overwhelming numbers of the Germans, who made prisoners of the survivors. Amongst them was Gallieni. He was interned in Germany, just long enough to enable him to learn the language of the conquerors. It was an early proof of his intellectual alertness.