  Produced by Al Haines. JOFFRE AND HIS ARMY BY CHARLES DAWBARN AUTHOR OF "FRANCE AT BAY," ETC. MILLS & BOON, LIMITED Published 1916 IN MEMORY OF FOREWORD This book is intended as a presentation card to the French army. It is a plain story for plain people, and there has been a deliberate avoidance of any technicalities. In it you will find references to the leading figures in the fighting organisation of France—Joffre and his most brilliant collaborators; and I have tried to render just homage to the "poilu," who is the French common soldier. Perhaps the most touching thought about that man, whose deeds of glory and pure heroism will inspire the poets for many a long year, is that he represents not the soldier of profession, but the soldier drawn from the most peaceful occupations. Practically the first great encounter of the French with the Germans in the battle of Charleroi, and the subsequent retreat, accounted for a large part of the regular army, and more or less placed hors de combat the greater number of its officers. That professional force was replaced by the Reserve and later supplemented by the youngest classes—men culled from the very heart of pacific France. They came to the trenches with all their civilian instincts—it was a peasant and bourgeois army—but in an amazingly short space of time they were vying with the old soldier in the brilliance of their exploits, in their ability to endure supreme hardship with the greatest gallantry, and without complaint: an extraordinary story of adaptability. And it came to pass in the process of time that there was the army at the front and the army in the rear: the army of the field and the army of the munition factory, recruited from different elements, for the men in the trenches were the peasants, the sons of agricultural France; and the army of the factories—the munition workers—was composed of the artisan and typical town dweller. And it is as well to remember, when the question of the future of France, after the war, arises, that the peasant supported to a great extent the physical sufferings of the war, the danger of death and mutilation, the exposure in the trenches, the cold and damp, whilst the townsman was harnessed to the intensive labour of producing shot and shell for infantry and guns. I do not insinuate that the townsman shirked the more bitter task. Each time a demand was made upon him, involving sacrifice of life, he also was ready to rise to any height of abnegation. And in the more mechanical branches of the war, such, for instance, as artillery and aviation, it was often a townsman who was the hero, and who gained, by some glowing deed, the precious symbol of the war cross and even, perhaps, the Legion of Honour. A pure Parisian was Guynemer, the sergeant pilot, who, on a monoplane where he was pilot and combatant, bore down six German machines in as many months, and won thus his stripes as sergeant, the military medal—the highest military award in France—the Legion of Honour and the War Cross with seven palms; and all this at the age of twenty-one. Indeed, in every enterprise that demanded skill and daring the townsman was to the fore. But it is not possible to differentiate in the heroism displayed by the French. The historian will never point to the bravery of one class and the timidity of another, for there has been bravery everywhere—bravery and heroism of the most sublime sort poured out with lavish hand to the eternal glory of France. In these pages I have sought to give a glimpse of the "poilu" at work in the trenches, that one may peep a little through the shutters of his soul. For the mind of the "poilu" is strangely barred and curtained, more strictly than the windows in any English east-coast town. The outsider is not permitted to see the light within. Question him and he will proudly boast his vices; concerning his virtues he is silent, and quaintly ashamed; and to understand the mentality of the "poilu," to discover what manner of man he is, one must rub shoulders with him in everyday life. Upon some of these familiar visits I hope my readers will accompany me, at least in imagination, and will gather some insight into the character of the Soldier of France. I shall, indeed, have ill performed my task if I have failed to show how valiant he is in facing mortal danger, how uncomplaining in the midst of monotonous peril, and in the worst discomforts—waiting the order to attack without the least murmuring, with soldier-like acquiescence in the bitter cold of a winter's night or in the chill of early spring. He has forged in a surprisingly short time the Âme militaire; he has exhibited an amazing adaptability. Some had supposed him ill-disciplined, incapable of the highest military virtues. "Is this a school treat?" exclaimed an outraged Britisher as a detachment of French soldiers slouched, singing and whistling down the road. Yes, a sloppy and disorderly lot they looked, their clothes dirty and ill-fitting, and hung around with their kit like travelling caravans. Surely such men were no soldiers! There was a large section of English opinion convinced that the Frenchmen would not fight; that, probably, was the German idea also. What, then, has effected the transformation? How has the "poilu" become inspired by the highest military courage, and for weeks and weeks, as at Verdun, sustained the most devastating bombardment? Ah! that is the secret of this war, that is the secret of the French temperament, that secluded soul, which is not always what it seems to be. It ever carries in it the seeds and possibilities of greatness: seeds that lay dormant until this war germinated them and they developed into the glorious flower of achievement. In an instant this quick and imaginative people awoke to the necessities of the war; they had every reason to realise its meaning; it was only too plain. There it was, written in blood and carnage in the invaded departments. England, of course, lacked that object-lesson. Merely the Zeppelins reminded her of the "reality" of the war, with their pitiable toll of innocent lives; and moreover, the attitude of the authorities, far from insisting upon the realisation of the war and its horror, tended to starve the imaginative side of the campaign. There were, of course, the scenes at the recruiting meetings, the posters and the rest: but that, after all, was undignified, a little pathetic, and sometimes even rang false; the great diapason of the Country's Call was but rarely sounded. "Your country needs you," said a theatrical-looking poster; but did it really need one? One had to be sure of that. And yet, in spite of these disadvantages, in spite of a despairing and exasperating silence about the achievements and daily heroisms of the army in the field—until one began to think that the only records other than the meagre communiquÉ, were the casualties—in spite, I say, of these drawbacks, in spite of the paucity of the appeal, the response of the young men to this voluntary call was stupefying in its splendour and spontaneity, so that the French were able to say—though they did not always say it with satisfying eloquence—again the fault of those who did not trouble to let them know precisely what the splendid English army and English organisation were doing—that never had the world given such a picture of sacrifice, of absolute, undiluted courage. The men of England were splendid, and only the Government, so ill-adapted to the exceptional, limped painfully, slowly and awkwardly, behind public opinion, instead of springing in front to direct it. I have said that people at home were not always sure that the French would be equal to the enormous strain put upon them by the tragic events of the invasion, by the systematised savagery of a relentless foe. Perhaps they had dipped into history and become inspired by that wonderful picture that Alfred de Musset draws in La Confession d'un Enfant du SiÈcle. A generation pale, nervous and feverish was born during the wars of the Empire. "Conceived between two battles, raised in the colleges to the roll of drums, thousands of children looked about them with sombre eyes and shrinking, quivering muscles. From time to time their fathers, stained with blood, appeared, raised them on their chests shining with decorations, and then, placing them on the ground, remounted their horses. "There was only one man living then in Europe: the rest filled their lungs with the air that he had breathed. Each year France gave three hundred thousand young men to this man; it was the tax paid to CÆsar, and if he had not had that mob behind him, he would not have been able to carry out his plans. Never were there so many nights without sleep as in the time of this man; never has one seen so many desolated mothers, never such silence, the hush around the shadow of death. And yet there was never so much joy, so much life, so much war-like music in hearts. Never was there such pure sunlight as that which dried up all this blood. It was the air of this sky without a cloud, where shone so much glory, where so much steel glittered, that the children were then breathing. They knew well that they were destined to the hecatombs, but they believed Murat to be invulnerable, and one had seen the Emperor pass immune through such a hail of bullets that one doubted whether he could die. Death was so fine then, so great, so magnificent in its smoky purple.... The cradles of France were shields and coffins also. There were no longer any old men, but corpses and demi-gods. Nevertheless, France, widow of CÆsar, felt suddenly her wound. She began to fail and slept with so heavy a sleep that her old kings, believing her dead, wrapped her in a white shroud. The old, grey-haired army returned, worn out with fatigue, and the fires on the hearths of deserted chÂteaux sadly rekindled." The war is over; the children no longer see sabres and cuirasses; CÆsar is dead, the portraits of Wellington and BlÜcher hang in the Consulates. Anxious children sit on the ruins of the world, the children that were born at the breast of war, for the war. They had dreamed during fifteen years of the snows of Moscow and of the sun of the Pyramids. Every one was tired, used up, exhausted. The light of life had gone out. The children, when they spoke of glory, were urged to become priests, priests when one spoke of ambition, love and hope; and, whilst life outside was so pale and shabby, the internal life of society took on an aspect silent and sombre. The habits of students and artists were affected; they became addicted to wine and women. And then De Musset speaks of the influence that Goethe and Byron—the two finest geniuses of the century according to Napoleon—exercised over Europe. "Can't you put a little honey in the fine vases you make?" he asks of Goethe; and of Byron he questions, "Have you no well-beloved near your dear Adriatic?" and adds that though perhaps he, personally, has suffered more than the English poet, he believes yet in hope and blesses God. It is the reign of despair. "The ills of the century come from two causes," he says: "the people who have experienced the Revolution and Waterloo carry two wounds in their hearts. All that was, is no more; all that will be, is not yet. Do not look elsewhere for the secret of our ills." Could he have foreseen the terrific experience through which France was to pass a hundred years from Waterloo, how his tone would have altered into deep commiseration. And yet it is interesting to compare this picture of the years following the Napoleonic wars and the exhaustion which then revealed itself—the utter hopelessness of every one—with the condition to-day when, with the first pale beams of the sun of peace, France is thinking of the future, already discounting the profit that will be obtained by her victorious and long-suffering arms. What great repose has she not merited? What great reward of peace and plenty? This generation has fought, has given its life with unheard-of prodigality that the new generation may not have to fight. It has purchased freedom at the terrible price of blood—freedom from the slavery of Germany. No. De Musset's picture is no longer true, but it is doubtless this portrait of a puny, bloodless, spiritless France which impressed itself, all the more vividly because of the splendour of the word-painting, upon the foreign observer, and it was perhaps these students of French history who moulded English opinion. De Musset's powerful description was photographed upon the brain, and few realised that the conditions of which he spoke were transitory, and that France had emerged triumphant from her darkest hour when the pulse of her being was but a thread. The France of to-day is not bowed down with despair, but is buoyed with invincible hope. Hope in the morrow, hope in the recreative genius of her people—of their marvellous powers of recuperation. It is pleasant, it is comforting, to note the contrast, to observe the salutary change the century has brought; the France of De Musset shuddered, demoralised, over the cold embers of conflict—a conflict gigantic as it then seemed, but small in face of the sacrifices of the Great War. Even the agonies of Napoleon's invasion of Russia cannot compare with the hecatomb, the awful onslaught that Joffre had to meet and defeat. Glory to the "poilu," to his courage and constancy. He has saved France; he has gained for her the sweet and fruitful repose of a century wherein her inventive industry and creative genius may be revived; wherein she may excel in the arts, in the most splendid works of peace; wherein she may prove to be the torch-bearer of advanced civilisation, the pioneer—only a prudent and alert pioneer—no longer the dupe to illusions, of that beatific time when there shall be no more war. Nor in this picture of fighting France must one forget the wife and daughter of the "poilu"; their work has been splendid. In no direction has the national spirit been more finely emphasised. I recall a visit to a typical factory in the east of France, some twenty miles behind the lines, where the workers were women. I was struck by their positive fanaticism. Upon the walls hung mottoes, just as in pious English homes one sees texts of Scripture. One in particular caught the eye by its terse and vivid eloquence: "Bad work may kill your brother!" And I can well believe that there was no bad work in that factory. There was no question of wages; they were never discussed; no one thought of them; they were of no importance. Wages, disputes, strikes! when the men were fighting a life and death struggle a few miles away, and when you could hear plainly the hoarse rattle of the guns when the wind lay in the right direction? Impossible! Instead of striking, women worked themselves to death and often were carried fainting from their tasks after a twelve and fifteen hours' day. And what an example the masters set of untiring devotion. Addressing the Creusot workers in the twenty-first month of the war, M. Albert Thomas, head of the Ministry of Munitions, spoke of chiefs who had kept to their duties for eighteen hours at a stretch. For them, at least, there were no restorative week-ends and pleasant breaks in public fetes—nothing but a continuous, back-aching and brain-wearying round. First to realise the shortage of the shells, some six months before the English, the French displayed astounding energy in remedying the defect. Their ant-like industry and powers of organisation, rivalling even the vast enterprises of America, attracted a world-wide admiration as great as for their heroism in the field. And if it awakened an equal homage, its presence was even less suspected than those martial qualities for which, after all, history gives credit and the brilliant proof though we had forgotten it in this talk of perpetual peace, in an atmosphere of material prosperity and a super-civilisation bordering on decadence. These things are faintly reflected in my pages together with some appreciation of the English. Sometimes it is a little pale, that praise for the gallant ally: the cause of it I have shown already in a rudderless Governmental policy and a Press starved into undue reticence by the Censor. The harm of it was seen in querulous articles from Boulevard pens. "France has borne the brunt, France has bled, let others now do their share." That was during Verdun, when the trumpets had blown the fame of France over the wide earth and there was no note resonating for England—in spite of her casualty list. Had the chroniclers, then, forgotten the glorious stand of the English in the Great Retreat, how they had saved the French army from being crumpled up by Von Kluck's furious attacks on the left wing, and how they had shown unparalleled resistance against overwhelming odds? No; the French have not forgotten, it is engraved eternally in their hearts. Those who seem to forget adopt a political pose; yet it is necessary to reassert the facts, not to diminish the "poilu," but rather that we may "realise" him the more, that we may regard him as a brother for whom we have laboured and fought, for whom we have shed our blood. England, by her early heroism in the war, contributed to the full development and glory of the French soldier. It is not the least of our satisfactions that we have helped to build the proud monument whereon is emblazoned the imperishable record of his victories. Thus may we cry with greater fervour, "Vive la France! vive son armÉe!" If we know that army and know its chiefs, we shall be the readier to protest our faith. CONTENTS CHAP. I JOFFRE AND HIS ARMY CHAPTER I THE AWAKENING "Rather than submit to the slavery of the Germans, the whole French nation would perish." These words of General de Castelnau are no idle boast—the coloured eloquence of a General who wishes to hearten his troops: they are a simple statement of fact. France has left behind eloquence and embroidered phrases: her commerce, her agriculture, her arts are gone. She has only one business, that of fighting: her men are all mobilised. And behind them stand the old, the young, the women and children, waiting their turn, should that turn come. And if France ever lies under the German heel, at least of the French people there will be none left to weep. That is the spirit animating the army of Joffre, that army whose exploits must have impressed even the most unimpressionable by their continued splendour. Never was finer heroism displayed than theirs. And they recognised from the very first the desperate character of the enterprise. It was not a war of chivalry. There has been no incident as at Fontenoy when Lord Hay, addressing the French guards, invited them to fire first. The Germans carried no sentiment of any kind into the battlefield, where their sole endeavour was to overcome the adversary, and any means were considered legitimate. To them the doubtful honour of the most diabolical inventions for destroying life. This is not the atmosphere—the atmosphere of asphyxiating gas—where chivalry thrives, and the French character, legends, and traditions of fighting, are utterly opposed to such scientific barbarities. "These civilised savages inspire me with more horror than cannibals," said Flaubert. But far from being overcome and dismayed by German barbarism, the French showed an instant spirit of adaptation; the hideous conceptions of the Hun brain were hurled back to them across the trenches. And horror begets horror. Officers, from the most accomplished generals down to the subalterns, learned with astounding speed the new art of war—this terrible, unscrupulous, brutal combat which, after fearful carnage in the open, as at Verdun, constantly ran itself to earth, settling down into trench war of the most monstrous description. Protracted trench warfare, it has been said a thousand times, is quite contrary to the French disposition, which is all dash and go and impulse. But to-day we shall have to revise our views, no doubt, and find that the French have mixed with their audacity, with their natural quickness of thought and action and their high receptivity, some of that resistance and tenacity which are characteristically British. Confirmed Anglophiles in France attribute this phenomenon to the moral influence of ourselves—a flattering and satisfying doctrine to our own self-esteem. But the appearance of this "new" virtue extended to all parts of the population, and was so universal that we cannot credit this grand attribute of the French in the hour of their great adversity to anything but their own innate qualities. It was exhibited by mayors of communes, even the most remote, who have been exposed to the brutalities of the invaders; by the clergy to a conspicuous degree—nothing was more touching and remarkable than their absolute devotion in the most nerve-racking conditions. It was shown, indeed, by the whole of the civil population, young and old, and especially by women. How splendid they were! They did their work with extreme quietude, with a positive genius for adaptability, and no illustrated paper published photographs of their uniforms—for they had none. On the first day of the mobilisation the French women turned into the fields to gather the harvest the men had left on the ground. They had no time to choose a suitable costume; no need of exhortations from the Board of Agriculture. They were left to do the work, and they did it without fuss and without parade. Such examples of determination, tenacity, sheer self-sacrifice, courage and abnegation existed in all directions, diffusing a golden light over the country, just as the coloured windows at the Invalides bathe the tomb of Napoleon in a splendid effulgence. In the army itself the adaptability of its leaders is a thousand times exemplified by the manner in which erudite soldiers who have taught tactics and strategy in the War School, along certain lines, suddenly confronted with the problems of actual war, have seen that they were quite other than those laid down in the text-books, and thereafter have speedily adapted themselves to the new conditions. Some failed, and there arose the rumour of many enforced retirements from active command. But the inference to be drawn from this was not always correctly stated. The generals in most cases were not incompetent; they correctly applied the old war rules to the situations as they arose; but they were not sufficiently supple; they did not adapt themselves to the new conditions. The officers who proved the most successful were, for the most part, the colonels and majors, who in a few months obtained important commands. The classic instance of this is General PÉtain, who, when the war broke out, was a colonel, and rose with breathless rapidity to take supreme command of the armies at Verdun during that terrific fight which occupied many weeks of the Spring of 1916. Romantic as such a rise may seem to be, it is as well to remember that the new commander was eminently qualified by reason of his long preparation to occupy such a position. He possesses one of the finest brains in the army—which in France for long has been an intellectual profession—and had so trained it that he was able at once to take advantage of the new conditions of warfare which have so materially changed since the area of war was charted for the guidance of commanders. When the war broke out, France was not ready. We in England have been often accused of our lack of foresight; but the fact that France, living under the shadow of war, at least since the Agadir incident, was unprepared seems to have been incredible folly. How is it to be explained? The explanation is politics, and the pleasant, but alas! entirely false, atmosphere created by the dreams of pacifists. Whilst Germany planned war and prepared for it in the most cold-blooded manner, France was dreaming of peace and behaving as if war were a thing of the past. All her preoccupations were pacific; to her purblind politicians, the real danger was either a struggle between Capital and Labour—and there were not wanting signs that this was probable—or else a largely imaginary conflict between the dispossessed Church and the State. And, again, there was a large party in the nation led by the persuasive eloquence of JaurÈs which urged that universal peace was a practical reality. France herself did not want to fight, England showed no bellicosity; Germany, it was true, through her governing classes, displayed a disquieting tendency to bully, but the heart of the people—was not that pacific? Had not Socialism, and the doctrine of the brotherhood of man, taken firm root? The French Socialists were convinced that it had. And so they argued war was a practical impossibility; for, certainly, this great mass of German opinion, penetrated with Socialism and with the ultra-pacific doctrines which go with it, would never permit the nation to be drawn into war for the benefit of the fire-eaters and directors of the great war machine. The wish was father to the thought, and these misguided but well-meaning people were always seeing across the Vosges evidence of the same beneficent principles that manifested themselves at home. The French Socialists were, indeed, to a great extent anti-militarist: did it not take two to make a quarrel? Was it likely that they would be wantonly attacked when they had not the least intention of attacking anybody? Very naturally, I think, they argued in that strain—and the great fault was that the directors of opinion in France, as in England, made no effort to explore the dark waters of political probability. It was pleasant to walk ruminatingly along the banks and to dream that the good time would always continue. The bomb-shell of the invasion brought the awakening. In a certain sense English politicians were more to blame than the French, chiefly because no one of them with their hard practical Anglo-Saxon sense really believed in universal brotherhood—there was no JaurÈs to capture the public imagination by the witchery of words. England realised clearly enough that war between France and Germany was, sooner or later, inevitable, and the high failure of these self-same politicians was that they did not bring home to the public conscience the no less inevitable intervention by England. "But we are not scaremongers! There was too much talk already about the sword and keeping one's powder dry," say the apologists. But it is precisely in a pacific interest that the so-called leaders of the nation ought to have spoken. Mathematics is the base of war—and of its prevention; and in this case the sum was easy: merely two and two make four. If England had displayed the precaution that she adopts in other affairs—the caution of the typical citizen safe-guarding his own personal interests—then Germany would have thought a long while before crossing the frontier and would still have been thinking about it. Knowing what we do of the Teuton temperament, revealed more particularly in the report of the camp at Wittenberg, we are convinced that Germany would have hesitated long had she not had the quasi conviction of an easy victory. Everything points to that: the rapid defeat of France, and then a swift turning upon Russia, whose mobilisation is proverbially slow and whose armament was known to be ludicrously inadequate. Undoubtedly a little plain speaking as well as definite and resolute preparations for eventualities would have done much to prevent war. Forces are blind and superior to man, but war was made by man, and man sets the current that renders it inevitable; then, the same human energy directed at the right time and right place could have prevented it. Nor was there in England the same anti-militarism which prevailed in France amongst a large section hypnotised by the engaging doctrine of high-minded theorists. There was no anti-militarism, for the reason that there was no militarism; England was not a military power. And thoughtful Frenchmen have been immensely impressed by the speed with which she became one. The unchanging England had become changed out of all recognition. I remember that when Rodin went first to England, he was struck by the eighteenth-century aspect of the people and their institutions. In the houses and in the streets he met types such as Gainsborough and Lawrence painted. Their clothes even had not changed, for though English women nominally wear French fashions, they individualise them and adapt them to their own tastes. And this friendly observer was constantly meeting in the unchanging women evidences of the eternal England in their classic features and fresh complexions, their dignified carriage, splendid shoulders and fine open countenances. Even the clothes—the broad hat and the use of scarfs and trinkets for the adornment of the person—signified the same thing. And in military matters this faithfulness to the past was every whit as pronounced. The English Army was unchanging in its traditions, habits and customs, in its equipment and even in its names. As M. Germain Bapst, the French battle historian, has pointed out, the names of commanders remained unaltered from the Peninsular War and Waterloo to the Crimea. Men purchased commissions in the British Army until after the Franco-German War, and only a quarter of a century has elapsed since soldiers were whipped. In 1894 there were forty-six sentences of this sort carried out. There was little or no change in the army from the Crimea to the Boer War. Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener were the two magicians who awakened England from her lethargy. And then consider the continuity of tradition in the English regiments: they bear on their standards the names of the old victories, and their history and achievements can be traced for hundreds of years. Not so with the French regiments. Their identity has been lost in the shifting sands of the Revolution. To quote one instance: the Regiment of Piedmont, which existed in the time of Henry VIII, became a departmental regiment, then the Third of the Line, and then the Seventh—it is impossible to keep pace with its changes. Practically the history of regiments in France stops at the Revolution. That was the moment of great changes when everything was swept away and new principles established. England the immutable, France the fluid, enthusiastic, passionate, artistic, wildly given over to new ideas what singular destiny has brought the two together as comrades and allies on the field of battle in a union much closer than in the Crimea, where, however, Canrobert came to the same conclusion as Foch, who repeated the eulogium, at an interval of sixty years, to General Delannes, a former chief of staff: "Once the British Army has agreed to do something, the thing is done." The unchanging spirit, then, the bull-dog tenacity, that tremendous grip that never lets go—these British qualities blend and render powerful the Latin temperament, with its quickness of comprehension and adaptability. Slow to see a new fact, still slower to excite himself, John Bull is the ideal character to play the waiting game, that game of exhaustion of the war. The more wonderful, then, in the eyes of the French that he should have made so prodigious a military effort. Eminent French military critics have dealt with all the phases of the movement for raising men, first by the old traditional system of voluntaryism, then by graduated processes of compulsion. The result was an army whose peer the world had never seen, either for the high training of the men or the quality of the equipment. Already in the Spring of 1916 the English artillery was more numerous than the French, especially in heavy guns. It is true that the shooting of those pieces was not as good as that of our Allies, and that the French sent instructors to coach the English in their own methods; but one need not be surprised that we had not immediately acquired the full science of artillery usage upon which the French have specialised for many years. In the strict co-operation of two armies of differing nationalities working together in the field there must be necessarily certain difficulties and differences, and it is certain that the French did not always comprehend our methods of fighting. The English "stick it out" is often opposed to their own notion of a judicious retreat. For instance, the "marmites" are falling fast upon the front-line trench; there is a danger of the trench caving in and burying its occupants. Realising the situation, the French withdraw their men to the second line—perhaps three hundred yards behind the other. The British, however, will not countenance this strategic move; they remain; their own flank is exposed. Two rival principles are here in play. Say the British: "Better remain in the trench, because, on the morrow, you must win it back again by a counter-attack which is a wasteful process." "No," say the French, "retreat in time and save your men; you can get it back at a less cost than if you stayed and ran the risk of being decimated by the big shells." You may see, no doubt, much of the same spirit in the question of guarding or abandoning sections of the line which are difficult to keep. For instance, the French probably would have given up long ago the salient at Ypres, which the English maintained at a considerable cost, mainly for sentimental, at least, for moral reasons, whereas the French would have urged that there was a line behind that would have given a better and easier frontier to defend. None, however, can estimate the moral value to the French of the mere presence at their side of their old rivals and antagonists; and the effect of contingents arriving in France from far-off Canada and Australia, New Zealand and the Cape, has been quite extraordinary. Almost inconceivable, also, has been the material help that Britain has extended to her Allies. To France alone we have advanced £500,000,000, a wonderful achievement in itself, and we have also supplied unending stores of coals, steel, boots, clothing—material of all sorts. Of the "poilu," too, I shall often speak, but you will never realise how big he is—this sometimes unlikely-looking man, hung about with pots and pans and cumbered with all sorts of strange impedimenta. And he is often a poet as well as a hero. I wish you could read the letters from him I have been privileged to see, written under the hail of bullets and in the thunder of the big guns. His courage and undying spirit shine through these tender communications which lose so much in the translation, which are untranslatable, in fact—for one cannot translate a perfume or a colour, nor can you put upon cold paper the complexion of a kiss. The "poilu" is peculiarly French in the mood and manner of his life, in his apparent slackness, in the speed with which he braces up at the proper moment, his disgust and objection to mere unintelligent parade, his amused disdain of the "panache," his admiration for and whole-hearted devotion to a man capable of understanding and drawing him out, able to appeal to the particular form of his patriotism, and to fire him with a holy zeal for a holy cause—to a man, in fact, who combines a species of apostolic fervour, a winsomeness and appeal, with the sterling qualities of a real leader of men. Of such men I shall presently speak—men who inspire devotion like Mahomet over his followers, men who bring out the spirituality of war—if so be that one is allowed to speak of its spiritual side. For amidst the awful wreck of war—the sufferings it entails, its thousand miseries, the break-up of the home, the desolation of hearths, and the abominations practised upon civilians by the drunken or cynical soldiers of the Kaiser—there are incidents, as great and as sublime as ever immortalised the saints and martyrs dying for their religion, suffering nameless tortures that, in their quivering flesh, they might represent, for ever, the sustaining power of God. Of such heroism, of such priceless sacrifice this war is full—so full, that one knows not where to begin, and certainly would not know where to end, in a recital of deeds of valour and of splendour, irradiating poor human nature with a glow of glory whose beams will reach Eternity. Yet this war, despite its horror, despite the fact that it has filled the streets of every big town in France with a melancholy line of cripples, of men hopelessly maimed, who must go through the remainder of their existence on this earth with diminished vigour, has taught lessons and inculcated warnings which must continue through the years to bear their fruit and point the way to the right road as well as constituting a danger-signal to national shortcomings. "Quit yourselves like men." The war will not have been in vain if this lesson is laid to heart. Let us have no more cant; no more false sentiment; no more idle dreams and castles built upon the foundations of a civilisation that does not exist. If, after nearly 2000 years of Christianity, we have not learnt to love one another, let us not, at least, pretend we do—until we are awakened by a Hymn of Hate. The Peace of the future is to the strong, to the country that is alive to the menace of war, to the nation constantly vigilant, to a people standing to arms. France, with her woman's soul, clung to a belief in civilisation that should make war unthinkable. But the nations that emerge from this war will have lost their illusions; they will have grown old and wise, and perhaps a little hard. Yet, at least, they will have learnt to face facts; they will not cry Peace when there is no peace. No, the policy of the nations will be directed by hard facts; the horrors of the camp of Wittenberg are seared into our souls. Dreams and idealism must have no place in our national affairs; such pleasant pastimes bring too rude an awakening. CHAPTER II THE THREE-YEARS LAW During the Summer of 1913, it became evident that France had to change her military law to enable her to cope with the new forces Germany had arrayed against her. The growth of the Imperial effectives was quite remarkable. They had been increased by new legislation to 876,000; the cover troops, that is, those placed along the frontier in readiness for immediate service, were reinforced by 60,000 men and 500 pieces of artillery. To these numbers must be added the enormous total of the reserve: 4,370,000. Such masses were quite unknown to Europe and inspired legitimate alarm, not only in France, but amongst the other nations. The French Army numbered 567,000 of the active, and 3,980,000 of the reserve, namely, 700,000 fewer than the Germans. Again, of this number, 50,000 were employed in Northern Africa, and the infantry mass was further depleted by the creation of artillery regiments, machine-gun sections and aerial squadrons. It was time, therefore, to act. When the German Emperor went to Tangiers in 1905, few French people ignored the significance of the step. And when, in 1911, the Panther anchored off Agadir, each one realised that it was a new menace, a new challenge to the right of France to Morocco, notwithstanding that "scrap of paper," the Algeciras Conference. The presence of the cruiser was a protest against the settlement by France of the Moroccan Railway question and against the march of French columns on Fez, which was the symbol of French possession. On both occasions, Parliament went hurriedly to work to vote extra credits, realising the state of unpreparedness, and then sank into its habitual indifference to these matters. But now it was no longer possible to postpone the question of effectives. The German advance was so real that France was forced to take note of it on pain of being relegated, definitely, to an inferior position. It was soon apparent that if the discussion revealed some of the vices of the French Parliamentary system, it also demonstrated that Parliament could rise, on occasion, above party and give an example of enlightened patriotism. The Government of the Republic, indeed, was more alive to its duty than the Imperial Government, which, forty-five years before, had not had the courage to support Marshal Niel's motion for universal service. It was on the eve of the elections and it had its own policy to pursue. It was again the eve of the elections in 1913, but the spirit of the country had changed; temporisation was no longer possible. "Let the Chamber tell me the sum it will place at my disposal and I will say in what measure I can organise the National Mobile Guard," cried Marshal Leboeuf, in the discussion under the Second Empire. It was a preposterous attitude to adopt, quite in consonance, however, with the lack of seriousness of the period. On the very brink of the war, the Government actually proposed to reduce the annual contingent! The discussion in 1913 was remarkable for several things. One was its great length: it lasted three months; another was the prolixity and poverty of the speeches; hardly one contained the germ of a great idea. The striking contributions in this mad welter of talk could be counted on the fingers of one hand. The majority of deputies, until convinced of the error of their ways, persisted in treating the question as if it were political rather than patriotic. Day by day they mounted to the tribune and delivered orations as empty as air. An exception was the great speech of M. AndrÉ LefÈvre, who had been Under Secretary of State for Finance, some years before, and had resigned "because he had not enough to do." This novel reason proved his originality; nor was it belied by his methods in the rostrum. He was not eloquent in an ordinary sense; there was no attempt at phrase-making; his facts spoke for themselves. His rather homely appearance gave instinctive force to his unadorned style, but his manifestly deep concern for his subject obviated all need of rhetoric. Thus his sentences were sharp and telling, and free from all pose or attempts at persuasion; and, perhaps, because of that, they carried a double conviction. Facts and figures were so downright in their character that none could dispute them. He showed that Germany had spent a colossal sum upon her military preparations, and had been indefatigable in their continuance. He showed that, during the preceding thirty years, France had spent £110,000,000 as against £188,000,000 on the part of Germany. Who was responsible for this disparity of such danger to the country? M. LefÈvre showed that no party in the State could escape from censure. In 1868, each section of the body politic was united—to do nothing: the Republicans, because they would not "turn France into a barracks"; the Bonapartists, because they feared the effect of any action upon their popularity at the elections; and the Government, because it had not the energy to stand against a cry of "reaction." But if M. LefÈvre's speech represented the sound view of the situation, the contribution of M. Jean JaurÈs presented features of brilliant generalisation, expressed in lofty language, which always appeals to Frenchmen. His counter proposition had but one defect: it would not have worked. None the less, it was attractive in the abstract and had much to recommend it. Its weaknesses were in the details, which were too fantastic and shadowy for a people who knew what war was and had drunk deep of the bitter cup of defeat. The Socialist leader based his argumentation on the principle of: "la nation armÉe." The only way to meet the situation was to utilise, fully, the reserve, he insisted. And in this he was right, as the Great War has shown. Germany's initial advantage, apart from heavy cannon, machine-guns and a more intensive training of her troops, was due to her rapid mobilisation of reserves. But the Socialist leader failed, notwithstanding his talents, when it came to working out his scheme. And yet the House, fascinated and half-convinced, cheered him repeatedly—but it voted the other way. This is a common attitude in assemblies which distinguish between personal success and political expediency. The deputies, indeed, could not withhold their support from General Pau, who, with General Joffre, was the special commissioner of the Government. Yet so much was admirable in the scheme of M. JaurÈs that, had he not been known for his anti-militarism—and therefore suspect—he would have fared much better. What was the matter with France in a military sense? It was a question, was it not, of effectives? But the birth-rate must be arraigned for that. Whatever was done, declared JaurÈs, that primary fact could not be disavowed. The Germans were more prolific than the French and, consequently, had more soldiers. "The Three-Years Law is mere plagiarism of the Germans," he said, with an impassioned gesture such as Jean Weber has so happily caricatured. "You are beaten in advance!" he shouted. "Notwithstanding the Three-Years Law you will have an inferiority, at the outset, of 200,000. Thus the sacrifice demanded will aggravate the malaise. The equilibrium, already disturbed, will be further accentuated to the extent of 20,000 a year." The population of France was only 43,000,000 and that of Germany 70,000,000. In face of this inequality it was essential that every citizen should be trained to arms. But when he came to this part of the subject, the Socialist orator fell short of his first flights. He was pathetically inadequate. He proposed a military service of eighteen months, then of a year, and finally, from 1918, onwards, of six months. Before their embodiment, the young men were to train for one day a month, and, after their liberation as reservists, one day every quarter. The war has shown the possibility of training the young soldier in less than six months; but when M. JaurÈs presented his scheme none foresaw the fantastic character that the fighting would assume. If it had presented its habitual physiognomy of massed movements in the open, soldiers of six months' training would have been inadequate to the first shock of battle. Though, as we have shown, there were points in the speech that revealed acute observation and an accurate reading of the times, the treatment of details was deplorable. Here and there his inspiration failed him, as if his mentor, who was known to be Captain Girard, a writer on military topics, had ceased to jog his elbow. One of the least happy of his inventions was his proposal in regard to the "cover." He considered that it was quite adequate with the protection of the Eastern Forts. Again, the frontier departments, being rich and highly industrialised, could organise their own defence. "If you have confidence in the people, if you organise them in unities constituted locally and ready to march at the first sound of the war tocsin, if you launch all these living forces towards the frontier, this, indeed, is the real cover." From this passage you may judge the character of his pleading: the appeal to national sentiment and spontaneous enthusiasm, as opposed to the laboured and essentially mechanical preparation of the Germans. He went to military history to prove that, in 1813, Germany was saved not by her generals formed in the school of Frederick the Great, but by her landwehr, which constituted 60 per cent. of the army—peasants hastily armed to defend the soil. Evidently he thought that the old revolutionary spirit would flame forth again in France and suffice against any wanton attack. He was admirable in his description of the German plan to invade France abruptly and to bring her to her knees by forced marches, by a rapid succession of blows, and the occupation of her capital, and then to turn swiftly towards Russia. JaurÈs found consolation—alas! unwarranted—in the thought that Germany under Prussian domination would never make full use of her reserves. She was afraid, he said, of a democratic army, afraid of that spirit which had enabled France, amidst all her difficulties and lack of preparation, to resist for seven months, in '70, and had given Bismarck and Von Moltke a certain anxiety even after Sedan. Better build strategic railways than barracks, he said, so that an avalanche of men might be poured on the frontier to meet the German mass—a conclusion which was wise enough. Then there was M. Clementel, a former Minister of Colonies, with some experience of army affairs, who had likewise his little plan to propose. He wished to divide the reserve into eleven classes which would train alternately, for a month at a time, during the year. Parliament rejected it, not because it was fanciful, but because the transportation of 200,000 men a month to their training camps would disarrange the railway systems. M. Messimy—who was Minister of War, during the early days of the Great Invasion, and, like Mr. Winston Churchill, resigned his Cabinet functions to join the army—devised a method whereby the youth of the country would be trained for twenty-six months. How he proposed to bridge the gap between the departure of the time-expired men and the arrival of the new recruits was never made clear. In the light of his subsequent experience as a Colonel of troops, and wounded in action, he probably thought better of his own plan. General Pau clinched the matter by a series of irrefutable figures. His style differed utterly from that of any other speaker. He showed the quick temperament of a leader of the old school, who believed in a brisk offensive. Taking umbrage, one day, at the remarks of a deputy, he gathered up his papers and walked out of the House, to the consternation of the Government. Wounded in the 1870 conflict and bearing the token of it in an amputated arm, he looked and spoke with the abruptness of the traditional soldier. As a leader of men he was impetuous and brusque in his methods, rather than a cool calculator like the Generalissimo. He told the House, with a certain impetuousness, that the troops available for national defence were scarcely more than half the German effectives. For, abstraction made of the number serving overseas, France had only 480,000 in her active army, whilst Germany had 830,000. First-class reserve, territorials, and the reserve of the territorials amounted to 3,978.000, of which a part had performed only twelve months' service in accordance with the terms of the 1889 law. In Germany, the reserve amounted to 4,370,000, giving an advantage to that country of 400,000 men. The effectives were constantly growing in the one country, with the advance in population, but remained stationary in the other. Whilst France called up every available man for service, Germany was in the happier position of being able to dispense with a certain portion of her resources. Thus, automatically, an increase in her peace establishment meant an increase in the reserve. The German law of 1913 gave 63,000 more men to the active army and increased the effectives to 5,400,000. The speaker was even more impressive when, looking forward to 1937—in twenty-four years from that date—he anticipated that the adverse balance in the reserve would amount to one million and a half. "Since our numerical weakness is undeniable, we must increase the value of our troops," declared the veteran in the thunder of the House. And he added, that military value was dependent upon cohesion and training. Those two advantages could be obtained by increasing the effectives and prolonging the period under arms. What had the law of 1913 given to Germany? It had given to her a better quality of troops and permitted greater rapidity of mobilisation. The cover troops represented, henceforth, about half the total effective of the German Army. In a few hours, then, half the German Army could enter the field. Out of twenty-three German army corps, eleven were up to war strength and ready for instant service. Finally, this unconsciously eloquent advocate of the momentous change in French armament said that by incorporating a class and a half of their youngest reserve, the German troops of the interior would reach their full strength whilst the French had to receive four or five classes of reserves—a fact which retarded, notably, the mobilisation. I have given the discussion at length because it supplies the underlying causes of Germany's military superiority. It explains why the "attaque brusquÉe" succeeded up to a certain point; it explains, also, why the Chamber, after listening to the most authoritative champion of Three-Years, gave M. Barthou, whose courage throughout the tremendous debate was proof against all assaults, an overwhelming majority, and France an additional 180,000 men, whose presence with the colours was of immense value in the Great Retreat a year later. It is acknowledged by military experts that, had not thoroughly trained troops formed the base of the army, the Generalissimo would not have found to his hand the instrument needed to make the stand on the Marne. The fact is undisputed, and to M. Barthou is due the honour of having refused to disregard the logic of events, for which, alas! he had every precedent. |
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