General Joffre.

Huntly Press and District Gazette, Volume 3, 25 December 1914, Page 3

General Joffre.

ic STUDY OF THE SCIENTIFIC ■s’ SOLDIER. w ;r CHANGED ART OF WARis FARE. it y . Someone declared that Joffjie is of the school of Napoleon, it f) is a generalisation no more aecurate than other generalisaa Cons. Nothing could be further e from the wars of Napoleoil than the great battles on the Marne, s on the Aisne, and now in the e North. In themselves they do e not present anything like the 3 . tactical interest of those e.xamg pies of military skill of a hundred years ago. And the fteroplane is responsible. It sees j everything from its elevated vantage point,; from it nothing . is hidden. It looks behind the screen of cavalry masking the ’ enemy’s fromt; it sees troops on , the march or being carried in j trains; it notes the numbers of . Army Corps, the proportion of the different arms, and all the details of vast machine. 1 bus the art of war lias been . robbed of that element of surprise which afforded Napoleon , dramatic opportunity for the display of his genius. His object was to discover the weak spot in the enemy’s lines, and, having discovered it, to hurl upon it all the forces at his command. Mis success depended upon the speed and sureness with which the great blow could he struck. A premature revelation would have spoiled all. But a coup of this sort is no longer possible, for a manoeuvre on the one side is met, instantly by a manoeuvre on the other. War now consists in a series of parallel movements ; its art is changed, it would he scarcely an exaggeration to say that it does not exist. The two armies turn about each j other like boxers in the preliminary phases of a fight. They pivot clumsily to catch each °therat a disadvantage, and that is practically all the art of it. The rest is ;i ding-dung battle » of resistance, of marching and ■ countsr-marohing. Anything t less like Napoleon’s way of ; making war would be difficult to imagine. It is like playing bridge with your opponent look- ' ing % over your shoulder. He \ knows when you are finessing J and when you are playing for 1 ail opening. In those conditions ' bow is it possible to gain a bril- c liant victory by great crushing i blows, having calculated the t “ psychological moment ”? This i is as far from present realities l as Napoleon’s canter on his e white horse along the line on t the eve of battle on a visit to the t outposts. You could not ima- 1 gine Joffre cantering from Dun- r kirk to Belfort l fore break fast l at the moment of beginning the e battle which lasts weeks and a not merely a single day. p Thus all the conditions of war- J c fare have changed, and with them the mentality and methods t of commanders. Joff re is rarely n seen on horseback ; hut he has r< much the figure of a Corsican — e short and stout, and giving the s impression of power. He spends c a part of each day in a long, low, v\ rapid motor car visiting the fi lines. It is impossible to visit n all the points—much must be ii left to the corps commander after f; the general p’au is settled; this w robs a generalissimo of personal s< contact wifcji his troops ; lie is ei more or less unknown to them, it and Joff re probably has to show n papers to his sentries. He v\ wears out two chaffeurs a day b in his rush from point to s; point. HORROR OF “ RECLAME.” But beyond that Joffre must hold the wires in this tremendous system. You have to f, i m agine him passing long hours j, in an unpretentious room with a e . receiver to his ear. His assis- jq taut generals bend over maps a , and examine attentively the lie f c of the country ; but Joffre lias no ~ need of that : rivers, mountains* valleys are engraved deeply i-f; |, bis brain. His chief character- } c , istic is calmness. ITe is as calm ]; in war as in peaee. And that w quality has bred confidence. 11 1 c ] lias confidence in himself, and has given confi fence to others. | )( His staff never foi- a moment v doubts liis cap icity to win, ad that conviction has percolated y, through to the musses (if the troops. It made him popular, though he has "done nothing to c , engender that ; on the contrary, he esc,hews popularity. He pi lives apart from Press “reclame;” VI he does not like il and he does rn not seek it. To those who at- ti tack him and to those who de- ai fend hint he shows an equal in- tl difference. Junior officers sometimes take ur> the tl cudgels for him in a newspaper— si for Joffre has made enemies like w most strong men —but he dis- di regards their good offices just u as he disregards criticism. None pi aan say that he owes his pro- gi motion to having defended Joffre. Military merit is the rnly quality recognised by the t! generalissimo. pi Bat if he appears to take n<> d notice of attacks, particularly h. n the popular Press, he is none - the less very open to ideas, and listens attentively when a likely plan is presented to him. He a ls modes! as he is unassuming. 1 H : “ readiness to accept sugees- i j tion has fostered this belief that. q be is an ad ;>tor and org'nisev j f ralegist. He is i„ ootb. Hi, ciimpaig-s s.l;. w thu ... It ns l!m i tflHj can^H

| p:- 3 para • ion has gone to each i success. He succods because he (takes the infinite trouble ne- ! cossary to secure it. ! Hi.s achievement is the forma- ! tion of the General staff. He I has brought together the best I military brains in France and I c. -ordinated and controlled their I efforts. He has excorcised poli- ! tics, that bane of the French Army. It is the more to his credit, for his own political opinions are opposed to those of his chief coadjutors. A Republican and Freemason, he is surrounded by men who are Catholic and disposed to cavil a the present Constitution ; hut i makes no difference to his appreciation of them. His chief confidence is given to Generals Pau ane de Castelmau, neither of whom belongs to his school of politics ; and when he arrived at power—on Pan’s recommendation to the War Council —he soon showed that politics meant nothing to him ; his advent as Commander-in-Chief was followed by tlie departure of the ,l Parliamentary soldiers,” who should never have been drawn from their natural obscurity. The result of his firmness and singleness of purpose is that he :ommauds the greatest fighting machine in the world. from .vhieh every other consideration ban that of efficiency has been >'>lit'ralel. When it was necessary to break the careers of ive Generals who had shown veakness in manoeuvres, he did lot hesitate. His own carreer lad been one of great rapidity, le was a Bachelor of Science at 6 and entered the Polyteclmicpie the French Woolwich) at 17. 1 .’hen came the war of 1870, in diich he distinguised himself as econd lieutenant, and the work n fortifications. He managed I hose of Paris so well that I ■TacMahon made him captain at 2. He became such an expert i constructing defences in arious parts of the world that e feared to be doing that and -•tiling else for the rest of his fe. “ 1 want to command 1 oops,” he said, and the chance t line in Cochin China and the n ndan, whore he avenged the assacre of the Bonnier column id planted the Tricolor on imhuctoo the mysterious. Joffre was not known to the J odd at large when, in 19.11, he * as placed in command of the rench Army. Few had heard 1 s name. He had worked j

j silently all these years, and he I continues to work as silently as ! is compatible with his high position. In this he is aided, it must be said, by the Republican prejudice against the notoriety of generals. J off re’s Order of ; the Day giving praise to de Casi tel nail, on his elevation in the Legion of Honour, was supla- ■cd in the Bordeaux papers by the Censor, apparently because it was considered to I e against the interests of the Republic that a general should become popular. That is better than the practice in 1870, when general’s names were bandied in drawing rooms and attached to imaginary exploits. To day it is a war of silence and anonimity. It accords with the genius of Joffre, which flourishes best removed from publicity. And the very nature of the fighting favours inarticulate war. It is a war of fatigue and resistance ; he who wears the longer, wins. It is a soldiers’ war in which qu; Tty and equipment play the leading role ; it is "scientific” war —German ma ie— as opposed to “artistic ” war of Napoleon, and Joffre has become a master of the new system, which lie did not invent.