INTERVIEW WITH FOCH.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1837, 8 June 1918, Page 3

INTERVIEW WITH FOCH.

CONFIDENCE IN VICTORY,

MAN OF REVERE SIMPLICITY.

The following interview with General Foch, now allied generalissimo, was not passed by the French military authorities because of a rule, then strictly enforced, against the mem ion of any general except Joffre. The interview was granted to the New York Tribune after the French offensive in Champagne and Artois, but now that the spotlight of events has turned dramatically upon General Foch, it is more timely than when .written. I have seen brigade headquarters where there was far more display. There was no fuss and feathers hero. No orderlies galloped up on smoking steeds. No mud-splashed despatch-riders came on snorting motor-cycles. A single sentry stood at the gate. Thirty foot of gravelled drive led to a plain oaken door in an unornamented red brick wall. If it had not been for the sentry, the very obvious silence would have led one to expect a “To Let” sign on the door.

Our guide rang the bell beside the door, and we were admitted to an oak-panelled reception hall about 20ft. square. In the centre was a billiard table covered with brown linen, while at one side was an unpainted yellow pine table, on which lay a copy of Kipling’s “Jungle Book” in French. Evidently it was an orderly’s desk. On the opposite side of the hall were two doors on one of which was pinned a piece of 'Cardboard on which was printed, “Le Bureau du General.”

The sign was our first hint that we had arrived “somewhere.” AVo laid our overcoats and hats on tho billiard table, and I asked where we were. Our guide put his finger to his lips —I had spoken too loud — and whispered: — “General Foeh’s headquarters.”

That little sign fascinated me after that, but I knew r we would not see inside of the room. AA T e would be received by the chief of staff. Our guide disappeared. There was some hurried going back and forth by half a dozen officers. One went into the general’s bureau. AA 7 e waited in silence. Five minutes later our guide opened the door of the general’s bureau and said; — “Gentlemen, the general is ready to receive you.” THE GENERAL’S SETTING.

And we did the perfectly unexpected tiling’ of filing into the Inirenu of General Koch. Except for ourselves, our caphiin from the great general stall', and our guide from his own staff, who made Ihe introductions, General Koch was the only person in the room —another very unusual thing in being received at headquarters. Indeed, severe simplicity was the most pronounced characteristic of everything connected with General Koch. His bureau was a long room furnished with one large flat-topped table covered with maps, and one small flat-topped desk on which were a plain glass inkwell and one red-handled penholder. Kour stra-ight-backed chairs stood against the walls besides the one at the desk. There was a wall-telephone, and all the walls were covered with large scale maps, in some of which small flagged pins were stuck. We only got just insjde the door, where wo stood in a close-drawn semicircle, while the general stood at the near end of the long table, with his back to the windows, and : eyod us.

'lie is nol tall —511. din in height hut yon do not see that until afterwards. What you sec first .is. his eye. He has .a large, wellrshapod head, rather thin, iron-grey hair, and a broad, high forehead. His grey eyes, set wide apart, bore through you and burn you up-and sniile on yon, all at the same time. His nose is large, his month wide and straight, and his fireely benevolent iron-grey moustache first coines down over the corners of his mouth and then points straight up at his eyes. His chin is massive from any point of view. FROM THE PYRENEES.

When he received us he wore a plain black tunic with gold stripes on the shoulders, red breeches with broad black braid on the sideseams, and black boots. He is entitled to have three stars on bis cuffs, but I did not see them. A, long band of the ribons of many decorations was pinned op his left breast, and under it was the great star of the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour. He.stood for the most part with his left hand in his breeches pocket and his right foot slightly advanced. There was a noticeable absence of gesticulation.. General Eoch, like General Joffre, comes from, the Pyrenees. He, is gallant, picturesque and picaresque, extraordinary, fascinating —■ D’Artagnau and Turenne,

There were in our party four Americans, one of whom-'had recently been in Russia; one Spaniard,. and one from Holland. General Foclfs usual greeting to generals, sous-lieutenants, and civilians is this: “Good morning. It is a line day. Good-bye.” When we were presented to him he surveyed us briefly, inquired where we were from, studied us again, and for some reason of which I have been able to get no satisfactory explanation, decided to talk. To us Americans he expressed bis pleasure that all true American opinion was with the allies. To the Spaniard he spoke of the beauty of Madrid. But Holland interested him most. MAKES WAR TERRIBLE.

“If France should be defeated,” he said, “Holland will be wiped out,

but if Franco wins, Holland will bo saved, Holland has built up a colossal commercial marine, and Germany wants Holland's commerce and her position on the sea. If Germany wins, she will kick Holland aside as a man kicks a stone oat of his way in the road. Germany and Holland arc in the position of the big fish and the little tish. The big' fish eat the little fish, and’Germany would find Holland a very delicate morsel indeed.” Touching on the military situation, General Foch said: —“The recent battles of Artois and tho Champagne have shown that we can cut the German lines, go through them, and drive them hack as we please, when the time comes that our plans have fixed.” The circumstances compel me to make only a very small selection from what General Foch had to say, but there was a matter-of-fact definiteness about the last statement and the line of reasoning that accompanied it that put it outside the realm of discussion, and when I recall this meeting with General Foch the picture my mind most dwells upon is of him at that moment. He stood facing us in that so characteristic attitude, with his right foot a little in advance, his life hand in his pocket, and his right hand dragging upward the point of his grey moustache, and there was in his expression a mixture of pleased recollection, happy anticipation and grim determination.

One must think of D’Artagnan when one thinks of General Foch; but one thinks, also, of Thomas at Chickamauga and Grant in the AA’ilderness. There is something in him that is steadfast and something more than is relentless. But his relentlessness is for the Germans. For his own men he is a father.

“Foch is the Kaiser kind,” I heard an officer say in Paris. “He believes that a battle cannot be won without sacrificing men.” I repeated the remark to a member of General Foeh’s stall, ami asked him if it were true.

“Sacrificing Germans,” the officer replied. “General Foch does not sacrifice his own men. He makes war a formidable thing for the enemy, but his men know that he never sacrifices them needlessly.”