MARSHAL FOCH

Hokitika Guardian, 13 February 1930, Page 3

MARSHAL FOCH

AN IMPORTANT BOOK. In this book, M. Raymond Reeouly has as he explains, “reproduced with minute fidelity” the words' actually spoken to him by Marshal hocli in a series oil' interviews that were' granted iiim by the great Frenchman in the years following the war. The book’s ( hie! interest at the present time lies in the fact that it was in preparing his reply to it that M. Clemeneau spent his last months-r-cven his last hour. “It is unfair of Foch,” the “Tiger” told interviewers shortly before his death last November. “He is no longer here to receive my reply.”

The perusal of almost any page in M Keeouly’s hook reveals that no love was lost between the two most piominent Frenchmen of the war period. The greatest cause of dispute was, of course, the Versailles Treaty. Foch and Clenienceau could win the war without coming to blows, as the writer in a magazine remarked recently, but not the Peace. Focli’s side of the argument is advanced clearly and emphatically in this book, but it is not an argument that is calculated to appeal.in 1930 to any hut his countrymen. His theory was that France could receive a guarantee of non-aggression on the part of Germany for all time only through the establishment of. strong frontiers'. The only natural barrier between the two countries is the Rhine and bis contention, was .that the, llbinq should become Germany’s western boundary, j M. Clemence.au ignored the Marshal's urgent • ’■TepresentatihhsV to this effect- ancUwith President Wood-: row Wilson and-Mr Lloyd Cleorjg^.,a|D reed on the fixation of tli-e Fniiiegl&cn-!. man ifrontier as it was in' M{Fli;e; Marshal wanted me to aiYiicx.the kind, and wrote me so,” ’ Clemericenu stated before his death. ‘‘l-did not want to have a new Alsace-Lorraine that would send protesting deputies to the French Chamber, as Alsatian deputies were sent to the Reichstag alter 1871.” Marshal Focli’s own observations show very clearly that to / say lie told Clenienceau his views is an under-statement. Rightly or wrongly he saw in Clemenceau’s decision the imperilling of France’s future security and he made tho - assertion*—4t.anight rather he termed an accusation—in as manv- words. • 1

The Rhine is to-day a barrier indisponsible to the safety of Western Europe —indispensible, therefore, to civilisation. . j-..'AJter i) free people' has paid for her independence by more than a million and a-lialf corpses and uhpafallcd devestfition, no principle in the world can force her to live in perpetuah fpar-of her neighbour, and to IViive-htliAnecs as' her sole resourcek'against disaster.

Marshal Koch • believed, up to the time of his death, tliat' 'Great'Britain iad secured all that she demanded in the Treaty, arid that France’ received nothing of substantial worth, ho what extent his' belief is substantial by fact is scarcely w6i'th : considering, with the revolutions of Thm'Hngue Conference on reparations'fresh'in mind, but the man who led the Allies t(V victoi}■ is certainly entitled' to his views. England assured herself of freedom from H, c fear of the-German Navy for "50 vears to conic., lie asserted ; she was successful in her insistence that Germany should relinquish her colonies, and these “colossal” demands were granted without demur. To France, however, the Germans gave none"of the guarantees of safety indispensable to her—“they gave her not realities but phantoms and fakes.” i dii] all that was humanly possible to of Feet a modification (of the Treat vf I addressed three detailed and straighfn award notes to the Government. 1 even demanded, and with a good deal of effort obtained, a hearing by the r ' n uned of Ministers called especially for the purpose. There Fused the 'dearest ef argument; T showed) ■ and proved to, them, how dangerous, how beset, with disaster was the: path on nbioli they were setting foot. They did not listen. They took no heed of piv .••d'doe of mv passionate admonitions. What more could T do. When 1 .was F-bpwii five Peace Treaty, which T considered totally inadequate, T said to M. /'lomeiiconu : u .As it stands. I undei-T-.1.-o to make the Germans accept .it '"U+hnnt a moment’s hesitation. Make : t ton. f won tv or a hundred times" more Gimmes, and T give you my oath that T make them accept it as qnicklv.” Clemenceau’s reply to Foch’s continused representations and protestations was to advise him that lie was merely military adviser to the Government. Sncli an official, he said, was consulted only on technical matters, and the Government was free to act on his advice to reject it, or to modify it in any way. To which, and similar communications from “the Tiger,” Fooh added the terse prostserpt that if victory had not yielded all the results • that the the Allies had a*'right to expect, “the fault lies not with the military, but solely with the politicians.” That remark, in fact, gives the key to the whole of this bitter controversy, which will not be forgotten until Clemeneeau’s book is .published and cannot be settled even then. 1 1 was a clash of opinions between two strong men—one a great soldier and the other a great statesman —each of whom had relied upon the ability of the other to do his own job thoroughly when France was at war, and fighting for her life, but neither of whom was willing to yield an inch of authority to the other when at last peace was assured.

Of Fooh, the man, the render will be able to form some estimate from this

book. He had/ the most likeable qualities- as a companion, and had an alert incisive mind; and he’ could dictrss h-v grievances without rancour and without whining. His greatness of intellect and spirit are demonstarted as convincingly in these reported passages of liis conversations as they were when he commanded the Allied troops in his private life he was still the soldier. When M. Reeouly visited him at his country house in Brittany, and asked how, he spent his time, Foch replied: “I.plan strategems with my trees.” And he proceeded to explain how the strategy of war was applied to tree’planting that would protect his home from the strong winds of Morlaix. M. Reeouly finds that the secret ct his genius as a soldier was in his fundamental principle that, contrary to the general belief, victory can never be achieved by a simple stroke, hut is won in bits and pieces. His supreme art lay in combining these bits and pieces In hi,s energy and his will to conquer lie' was this commentator states, the peer of Napoleon and “in addition to all the forcefulness of his brain and character, his moral powers, nobility, and virtue in the full sense of the term plnved their part.” “Marshal Foch: His Own Words on Many Subjects.” appeared in France a year a"o under the title “Le Memovnl do Foch.” and has been translated hv .Tnven Davis. Tt contains, as its front- ; «mecp. a photographic jortrait of the Marshal.”