GENERALS OF FRANCE

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2406, 11 March 1915, Page 6

GENERALS OF FRANCE

JOFFRE'S MEN

THEIR RAPID RISE

MERIT THE ONLY CONSIDERATION

N Commenting upon the French generals fiwlio have sprung rapidly to the fore tSince tlie campaign began, M. Ernest I'DimneV in the "Saturday Review," 'pays: — '••••"Four or five months ago the lieutenE&ntsof'Joffrowere his personal friends, •• fPau : and de Castelnau. 'Behind the.se ''three men there wero others, but what ' they were and even wlio they were was -b problem 'or a mystery. The only f'tone whose past might foreshadow the rfuture was General d'Amade, and his f fexpenence of war was colonial. On •the whole . there was ■ a great deal of f.kttxiety mixed up. with the general iifciiriosity concerning the French staff. _ (IfS-Wo-day the alter ego of Joffre is s'beither General Pau, who at nearly 70 I found himself unequal to the. physical [ wear- and tear of the war; it is not fGenoral; de Castelnau either/ though ! Ithis general is still in command of one Eiof the;' principal armies;]. it_ is a man ! .name at the. beginning of the campaign was only familiar to the f'ppecialist—General Foch. .• The history ffbfr.'the war—everybody must realise it— "' as still a blank, "or at best a chronology ito dry- as to be meaningless. Yet in-Ksti-uctiye parentheses, in the,"Bulletin B'ilas'■ Armees" ' tell us that half of . the f arlhies ( at- least have changed names— j'that is to say, hands—since the beginning of the campaign. ... The staff of ;• JoSe and Foch consists at present of '(.Generals' de' Castelnau, Maunoury,' de 1 Btoud-huy, d'Urbal, de Langle de Gary, iDubail, and Sarrail. S, What do we know about these chiefs? i : Merely that they have been successful fovfiere others "happened to be less so, land th 6 inference is that tho Generalissimo,: without : any of. the bombast or rfiruelty of the' Revolutionary military iaiithorities, applies, however, the same ''.'principles, and thinks that tho republic I Ead.better, entrust her defence to those yMo prove equal to it. . It is remarki Ulilo .that the '• resolute application of ' tt-liis method coincided with: the reinstatement of M. Millerand at the War [.''pffice.towards the end: of .August. ; No (trices of . political considerations will he ffoithd 'in,;the,"action of Joffre nor in vthat of 'Mi.'Millerand., feAll:.the generals...l have ' mentioned jiibove seem to have been constantly f&orthy'V -of-, their fortunes, but two'of ijthem'have special rights to the public tlnterest on account of the exceptional Ifepidity .of their rise.. It is certainly }'remarkable, that'-at the . end or July general Foch, ; who to-day relieves the I'teeneralissimo of the greater part. of his responsibility in the north of France, 'twas merely the commandant of an army ; »orps—one of twenty—while General de ii(Maud ! huy was a plain brigadier, one of [jisi'vt or seven hundred, whose elevation i jiat-i had .no parallel since the Napoleonio 'Rv»;rs. ■ . • , - It ought not to be inferred that Foch, • and' even' General de jian'd'huy,. were obscure-; :it is .only the anditference of the modern man to military specialists that is to be blamed for 'jthe'ignorance of their merit, .in which "ipractioally'all of, us. lived until a very 'recent date:' GeneJral Foch and General Sde Mat'd'huy had both, been, professors \jf strategy at the Ecole do Guerre, and jjoth had been continued in this oapacity tor,: a longer period than any of their ijjredecessors. Foch, after retaining this during five years, even came back to the Ecole as commandant or director, eo that-it may he said that most of the whose military training was com■ploted since the beginning of tho twen-Hiptfr-centtiry bear the mark of either or de Maud'huy, and not .unfre- ':; quentJy of: -both." But of : all this out- ? Eiders were entirely unaware, and their /.curiosity:is the keener. ; ' i. ?. General Foch is; 63, like Joffre, but he ' is..' 1 tall,: slender,' and/flexible, and al- ( together much younger-looking than the Generalissimo. Though ho was born at JMetz, his'family comes from the Basque [ country, -and is not Alsatian, as some |people -will imagine. They were ardent p'Gatholics, and ' one ofy the general's f' ibrothers -.died a Jesuit only a few years yVgv,.- Foch, like Joffre, received his pnfiitary training at the Ecole Polytechlidiqiie, 'enlisted during the war of 1870, flahdj,' like Joffre again, he has lived ever fisincp in patient expectation of and perIfeeyering Qualification for the revanche. feuring l his two terms of service at the Ecole de Guerre he produced two con(stderable' Wrks, "Principes de la 'JGuerre" and "De la Conduite de la whioh give a high idea of their jfiuthor's, character and talent. There is Mothing in them that ought to scare away the averags reader. War has Seen'the constant meditation of this powerful brain. In "La Conduite de la ■JG-aerre" this meditation. is the minute historical examination of the battles of jthe First Empire and 1870.' "Nothing ijaia ' replace the experience of -war," Iwrijtes the author, • "except the history ij'of war," and it is clear, that he understands, the .word "history" as all-those j 'iwho go tff the' past for a lesson in j greatness understand it. "Les Principes ; ®>;la Guerre" is more'immediately techliicalj .yet jit strikes one as being less a i (speculation than a visualising of what' ['modem- war was sure to be. If. the ! irea.der did not feel that he lacks the \ /background which only the contempla- [ Won. a, million times repeated of concrete • "details can create, he would be tempted [ '4b marvel at • the extraordinary sim['plieity. of. these views. But a good | audge. l ' wlio' was very near the general ' ■OTitil a wound removed him for a ; while '[from' the —tp him fascinating scene ifitells me that this simplicity and directiness—which marked the action of Foch [at. the battle of the Harne as they J formerly marked his teaching—are the ''■perfection to which only a few can I aspire. Everybody can be told that [I,the whole secret of strategy is-to place forces before.the enemy's.weak l.poiht,' bus to see as Foch did on Spep&fisber 9 that there must be a gap dbgtween the -Prussian Guard and the

paxon .Army, and .to be able to bring {from all the .country round artillery, [enough to crusli tho Guard as it was [crushed in'the Saint-Gond marshes, is pio action of a'.genius. V : As .to .General ..de .Maud'huy, originally a Breton and a Boyalist, ho belongs .to the Chasseurs, and he has pspoiifc much of his life in the garrison f towns near the eastern, frontier, xunintiing like the true hunter: all along phe Vosges in quest of his prey. As femost of the officers in the same sorItfce he strikes at first sight by his military, appearance. He is a dark, agile f-i'little nian, wonderfully able-bodied, and I'always ready for a quick, long march. i/Tho men worship him. If he were not liilvariably ready. also for a technical |.'#rßument, at'which he has no rival for fcbrilliance and resourcefulness, there E .ifould seem to be more of the magnetic P atib-lioutenant than of the general in Ihiin. Even those who have admired jiiJiis. teaching at theEoole do Guerre the ['most cannot help winding-up their rel.fflarks with the refrain, "Oh! a man tof indomitable energy!" But Maudfi'Jiuy's'energy, like that of tho slowerj going JofEre, is made of professional mfetelligence as well as of vitality, and {'.nobody wondered at his unprecedented