reproached an impetuous bravery without science or system, and only
possible against an enemy untrained, ill-equipped, and ignorant of
tactics. It was thought that men were unfitted to fight against a
civilised enemy after their contact with the rude warriors of the desert
and jungle; but by a curious coincidence, Joffre, Gallieni, Marchand,
Gouraud, and Bailloud (Sarrail's lieutenant in his retreat through
Macedonia), all learned their business of soldiering in the waste places
of the earth, in overcoming the obstacles of rebellious Nature or the
treachery of tribes. But Joffre has shown, as others have shown, that
this contact with difficulties brings out the man and educates,
strengthens, and vitalises him. Often the faults of others have been
placed on the broad back of the Generalissimo. He has been accused of
ignoring the German intentions to invade France through Belgium. What
was his Intelligence Department doing that they did not know? But
Joffre and his staff were well aware of the plan, and they knew also the
different stages of the march. But what they had not reckoned upon was
the rapid fall of the forts of Liege and Namur before the heavy guns of
the invaders. That the Germans possessed siege artillery was a matter
of common knowledge in France; but alas! to meet it was involved a large
expenditure which Parliament would not sanction. That is the reason of
it. "Cherchez la politique" is the answer to the shortage in heavy
ordnance and in armoured aeroplanes.
It would take too long to tabulate the various attempts to extort money
from Deputies for the national defence. But though the attenuated
credits cannot be laid to the charge of the General Staff, it is true
that experts were divided on the use that could be made of the heavy
siege-pieces which the Germans thrust into battle. Such cumbersome
weapons would prove white elephants said some in authority, and
protested that they could not "hold" the infantry. However that may be,
Joffre was faced with the difficulty that the Germans, instead of
entering France by the eastern gate, where forts and "cover" combined to
make the task supremely difficult, chose the easier road by Belgium and
through the Luxembourg. Yet it was obviously impossible to tell by
which route the enemy would enter. Joffre was forced to watch them all,
to secure contact at each point, to feel the enemy, and then retreat
towards his reserves. This, indeed, was the plan more or less
successfully carried out. But the fact that Belgium was the main path
of the invasion caused a rapid transposition of forces at the last
moment, for the bulk of the army had to swing from the east to the
north, and the process took time. Here, again, the Germans were at an
advantage, for they had systematically built railways to the edge of the
Luxembourg and in Alsace-Lorraine, so that their mobilisation was
startlingly rapid.
Joffre was certainly unprepared for the speed with which the enemy
brought into play his reserves. This was due to the cunning use which he
made of his strategic railways, but also to a perfidious advance in the
date of mobilisation. The army was already on a war footing when France
had begun her work of assembling troops. And so Joffre was handicapped
by many things, by lack of rapid railway transit, of heavy cannon and of
the minute preparation and prevision which extended to the years
preceding his appointment. Germany had prepared for war whilst France
was thinking of peace and dreaming of progress in art and letters and
general culture, anticipating a universal brotherhood, pathetically
chimerical in the face of the armaments across the Rhine. Politics were
greatly responsible for the inferiority of France in the opening weeks
of the war. The troops assembled on the Franco-Belgian frontier had not
at once the value of the invading force. They were wanting in numbers,
in the perfection of their equipment and in the intensity of their
training. Though Joffre had justly condemned incompetence in high
places, it is also true that France was overweighted by the masses of a
highly trained enemy which placed all its reliance upon the strength and
rapidity of the first blow.
The Socialist doctrine would have substituted popular _elan_ and the
fierce revolutionary spirit for what it held to be the sterile stupidity
of a long and intensive military preparation. And again, the Socialist
movement in Germany proved a snare and delusion to many of the faith in
France. Was it possible that war could come when millions of the masses
in each nation were vowed to peace? The nation was deceived--perhaps it
wanted to be deceived. In any case, it was much more interesting to
concentrate upon human progress, to let the mind dwell upon the
delightful prospect of the millennium, when there will be no more war,
and when an era of peace and tranquillity and of mutual co-operation
will have been ushered in, than to linger upon a picture of militarism
bound up with cannon and its human food.
The French General Staff apparently thought that the German attack would
come from the two frontiers and would seek to envelop the French Army in
its tentacles, and thus conclude with one swift, tremendous blow a
campaign more disastrous than that of 1870. It seems clear, also, that
M. Barthou's success in carrying the Three-Years Law was an important
factor in the resolution of Germany to invade France by Belgium rather
than by the East. The new legislation had given great strength to the
"cover," and thus there was little chance of passing that way. Probably
had Germany attacked France by the East, England would never have been
brought in and her role would have been confined to protecting the
French coasts by her fleet. Thus, M. Barthou might properly contend
that the mere fact that the Three-Years Law was voted determined the
action of Germany and enlisted the support of England.
We have shown that Joffre by his system of making war and his qualities
of heart and head is the ideal democratic chief. Obviously, there is
little of the Napoleonic temper in his strategy, which is made up of
prudent vigour and discernment rather than of brilliancy or spontaneity.
Some urge that Joffre should have made his stand upon the Aisne rather
than upon the Marne, since the latter line was better defended by
Nature, but his reserves were not sufficiently accessible. In any case,
conditions have altered since Napoleon's day, and even the Corsican's
great faculty of improvisation scarcely would have found scope in
twentieth-century conditions. None the less, Joffre's dispositions at
the battle of the Marne, when he drew the enemy to his own battle-ground
and supported his line at each end with the forts of Paris and of the
East were strictly in the style of the Master. And by his very victory
he proved the martial qualities of the French, since with the aid of the
English they administered a sharp repulse to an enemy flushed with
success and organised and equipped in a manner superior to the Home
forces. Until the story is disproved, I shall continue to think that
the battle of the Marne would have been definitive and the enemy driven
from the soil of France had Joffre possessed an adequate supply of
munitions.
We have taken the Generalissimo to the edge of the great battle: let us
now give a few particulars of his chief collaborator.
*CHAPTER VII*
*THE SECOND IN COMMAND*
If ever Nancy is minded to raise a statue in its beautiful Place
Stanislas to a battle-hero it will be surely to Noel-Marie Edouard
Curieres de Castelnau, for to him is due the existence of the city.
During three tremendous weeks its fate hung in the balance--weeks in
which Joffre was developing the final phases of his retreat and then
delivering battle on the Marne. With flank and rear defended from the
immense army that de Castelnau and Dubail prevented from passing the gap
of Nancy, the master strategist was enabled to win. Nancy lies in the
plain; it can be never defended, people said, and, therefore, it was to
be left an open town. Did not the Treaty of Frankfort forbid the
placing of cannon which would command German soil? Be that as it may,
the doubters had forgotten le Grand Couronne, a series of wooded heights
and steep plateaux, which marked the junction of Meurthe with Moselle
and interposed a rugged barrier between the old Lorraine capital and the
frontier. Here, with a forethought unusual in a country where so little
had been prepared, trenches had been dug; and when de Castelnau was
forced to retreat from the annexed province before an impassable barrier
of artillery, he raised earthworks, installed barbed wire entanglements
and brought heavy guns from Toul. It was the turn of the Germans to be
surprised. With three attenuated army corps and four or five divisions
of reserve, de Castelnau kept at bay an immense force of the enemy which
battered savagely at the gates.
How gaily the army marched out to the reconquest of annexed Lorraine and
to occupy the Germans whilst the English landed in Belgium. It was a
force thoroughly representative of France, for it was recruited from all
parts. There were reservists from Bordeaux, from Marseilles, from
Montpellier and from the West, but the heart of the crusade was the
famous 20th Army Corps from Nancy--Lorrainers to a man--who had
inherited the memory of the _annee terrible_. With a gesture that
expressed eloquently their spirit, they knocked over the frontier posts
as they sang the _Marseillaise_ with the strenuous accent of the soldier
engaging in a holy war. Great was their first enthusiasm, but great,
also, their disappointment, for none met them in the streets; no hand
flung flowers to them; no voice cried in gladness: "Vive l'Armee! Vive
la France!" The silence was sinister, scarcely broken by the dull
reverberation of distant cannon bombarding Pont-a-Mousson. It took them
a little time to realise that the masters of the soil, fearing a
demonstration, had threatened the inhabitants with its consequences. The
silence and the gloom were fully explained.
For two days the army marched into the old land of France without
meeting serious opposition. Then the presence of strong outposts
betokened the enemy. Dubail's army operating to the south strove to
enter more deeply into German territory through Sarreburg; de Castelnau
took the northern route through Delme and Morhange. Both were met by a
tremendous opposition. The battle line stretched in rough crescent form
through the three places I have named, Dubail's left wing being in
contact with de Castelnau's right. The Germans had secretly organised a
vast system of defence in which gun positions were established and
distances marked. The trenches existed for miles and had been furnished
with innumerable machine-guns and heavy mortars, the possession of which
was now revealed for the first time. The battle was joined, therefore,
in disadvantageous conditions for the French. Every ruse known in
warfare was employed by the foe. It decked the trenches with dummies
and led on the assailants to their doom, for mitrailleuses were posted
behind the lay figures. Regiments lost more than half their effectives.
An early victim was Lieutenant Xavier de Castelnau, one of the General's
sons, who fell whilst leading his men of the 4th Battalion of Chasseurs
to a counter-attack. He was mentioned for gallantry in the Orders of
the Day.
The French soon discovered that the forces opposing them were no mere
"cover" troops, but the Bavarian Army under its Crown Prince, an army
under Von Heeringen and a strong detachment from Von Deimling's command.
Forced to retreat, de Castelnau fell back ten miles to the Grand
Couronne, which he fortified in the way I have described. Dubail, who
had begun well with successes in the Vosges, was unable to maintain his
position on the Sarre and fell back, also. His troops, especially the
21st Corps, behaved with great gallantry and only left Sarreburg under
express orders, and then with colours flying and the band playing the
_Marche Lorraine_. Though he delivered many attacks upon the enemy, he
was forced to reform behind the Meurthe, and finally took up a position
at Luneville and in the fork between the stream just mentioned and the
Mortaigne.
The attack on the Grand Couronne was particularly severe. Wave after
wave of the enemy threw itself against the works held by de Castelnau's
troops, who, though exhausted by a week's continuous marching and
fighting, showed an unbreakable spirit. And there were brought to the
attack, besides the armies I have mentioned, four new Corps composed of
seventeen brigades of Ersatz, so that the hostile forces numbered nearly
half-a-million men. The assailants were encouraged not merely by their
numerical superiority--Dubail's army was about 150,000--but by their
success in Lorraine, which had been hailed by their countrymen as a
great victory. Furthermore, they were under the eye of the Emperor and a
brilliant staff, who were watching them from the hill of Eply, to the
north of the Couronne. The Kaiser's dramatic sense had been awakened by
the thought of a triumphal entry into Nancy, the ancient capital of
Lorraine. He realised what it would mean in the Fatherland, and that,
from a military point, it would signify that a breach had been made in
the defences of France. Alas, for human hopes! The walls of Jericho
refused to fall to the trumpet's brazen call; and the Kaiser, after
waiting in vain for a victory, departed sombre and silent for other
fields.
The Germans tried every imaginable means to break through, and bloody
were the struggles on hill-tops and in the woods of the region. A
regiment, suddenly debouching from a forest, was mown down within a few
yards of the French trenches, and a division, marching to the attack
with drums and fifes playing, met with a similar fate. The Forest of
Vitremont, near Luneville, was filled with the bodies of Germans,
computed to number 4500. Vigorous counter-attacks by de Castelnau from
north to south, and by Dubail from west to east, finally held the enemy
in check, and this uneasy equilibrium lasted for a fortnight--the
tremendous fortnight in which Joffre saved Paris and sent the Germans
flying to the north. At that moment, the eastern frontier from Nancy to
the Vosges was free of the enemy; but at what a cost! Thousands had
been lost on either side and villages had been burned and civilians
assassinated by the Germans in pursuance of their studied policy of
terrorisation.
De Castelnau's brilliant tactics brought him renown and the direction of
the 2nd Army on the Compiegne-Arras line. Along this Front rising
rectangularly from the Aisne to the north, occurred those terrific
battles, which marked the historic "race to the sea." Smarting from
their defeat on the Marne, the Germans sought to turn the Allies' left;
Joffre had a similar idea in wishing to envelop the enemy's right. The
resultant contest was the _course a la mer_. But the forces given to de
Castelnau were inadequate for the purpose, and de Maud'huy's army was
added to the line now creeping forward like a gigantic snake to the sea.
But before the Germans tried to pierce at Lens and Arras, they assailed
the lower line held by de Castelnau, and the angle formed by Aisne and
Oise proved a particularly warm corner. In that late September and
early October, de Castelnau lost as many men as in Lorraine, and the
battles, if less renowned, were as fiercely fought as those to the north
of Arras on the Yser and at Ypres.
The Germans in extending their lines realised that if they could reach
Dunkirk and Calais they would not only cut England's communications, but
point a pistol at her heart. And so they brought up army after army
until the line stretched in a solid trunk of trenches with branches
towards the sea, and 800,000 Germans (eighteen Army Corps and four
Cavalry Corps) made persistent efforts to break through the Allies or
envelop them. To defeat this plan, Joffre formed three new armies, of
which de Castelnau's was one, and brought up the English from the Aisne,
and the Belgians from Antwerp. The situation was often critical, for de
Castelnau, like the other commanders, lacked ammunition. But his gift
of prevision and his infinite resource saved the day. Eventually, the
chief fighting was transferred to the northern part of the line, but de
Castelnau's early resistance had rendered the greatest service. And so
Joffre thought, for de Castelnau was given dominion over four armies
from Soissons to Verdun, the longest front in the possession of a single
commander, though Foch and Dubail were also given groups of armies. His
tenure of the line was distinguished for the great offensive in
Champagne, whereby 23,000 prisoners and 120 guns were captured by the
French, and 3,000 prisoners and 25 guns by the English in Artois. That
latter feat will be ever remembered for the house-to-house fighting in
Loos and for the brilliant capture of Hill 70.
The General's vigour of body is as remarkable as his vigour of mind. He
seems never to tire. In the Great War he took no particular care of his
health, going to bed late and rising early with apparent impunity. Nor
did he follow any system of diet, eating heartily with a Southerner's
appreciation of a good table. An excellent horseman, the Great War left
him little time for equestrian exercise. When commanding on the Somme
he had horses at headquarters at Amiens, but he rode only once in seven
or eight months. Like his chief he walked a good deal, not merely for
exercise, but to get into direct touch with the troops. He believes in
the closest relations between the leader and the led. He likes to
recall the names and records of his officers and to ascertain the
thoughts and sentiments of the men. His inspections behind the lines
were no perfunctory affairs, but real examinations into moral and
_materiel_. No detail of the kits escaped him, and he questioned
soldiers as if searching consciences. Officers in his command have told
me that his parades lasted a couple of hours or more. He never lost an
opportunity of becoming acquainted with the elements of his armies. As
he journeyed to the Front he would spring from his car to compliment a
colonel on the appearance of his regiment, or turn aside to visit a
hospital and comfort the inmates with cheery words. He is a believer in
moral suasion and the uplift of words. Men going into battle look to him
for encouragement, and never in vain. Officers in charge of them
interrogate his personal staff: "What does the General say? Does he
think we can win?" And upon the answer, which is certain to be positive
and stimulating, depends their demeanour in the fight. There is
something in the look of this soldier of the old school, courteous and
chivalrous, with character, resolution, and intelligence, written in the
high-coloured features, framed by the white hair that bespeak courage,
health and confidence, and instil in others the bravery and sacrifice
that are dominant in himself. This influence is heightened by the
knowledge that he has himself suffered in his intimate affections. When
the death of Gerald, his second son, occurred on the Marne--he was
buried at Vitry-le-Francois--de Castelnau was engaged in a Council of
War on the Eastern Front. The news was brought to him as he deliberated
with his commanders on the plan of battle. After a painful moment he
said with stoic calm, "Gentlemen, let us continue." And he bore with
equal fortitude the news that another son had been wounded and taken
prisoner at Arras.
Such calmness and composure spring from the deep conviction that all is
for the best. Doubtless, there was something of predestination in the
fact that he was baptized Noel-Marie, in allusion to the date of his
birth, Christmas Eve. To his Catholic parents it was a sign and a
symbol. His early training at a Jesuit College, before he entered St.
Cyr, confirmed him in his principles, and he is of those who have
practised always their faith. He attends Mass everyday, and when going
to the Front at night he arouses a priest to take the Sacrament. He was
the first to insist upon the attendance of chaplains with the forces.
To his credit he has never concealed his faith, though there were times
in the history of the Third Republic when it might have been politic to
do so. Perhaps this sturdiness in his profession accounts for the
slowness of his promotion. It began, however, with a rush--Captain at
nineteen, in charge of a company in the Loire Army under General Davout,
a grandson of Napoleon's famous Marshal; but he stayed long years
working steadily but inconspicuously on the staff. The tide turned
rapidly when he again commanded troops, and his quality was seen at
once. For six years he was Colonel of the 37th Regiment of Infantry at
Nancy (Turenne's old command), and here he obtained that deep knowledge
of the country which stood him in such stead ten years later. He did
not get his General's stars until 1906, and then commanded troops at
Soissons, Sedan, and Chambrun. He distinguished himself in grand
manoeuvres in the Bourbonnais, under the eye of General Tremeau,
president of the War Council and the designated Commander-in-Chief under
the old system. The new system, inaugurated by Joffre, brought him into
close contact with the Generalissimo, whose Chief-of-Staff he became and
collaborator in framing the Three-Years Law, then being passed by the
Legislature. The same year he went to England to attend the Manoeuvres
and afterwards conferred with the military chiefs; and a mission took
him to Russia, where he discussed the lines of eventual co-operation.
Of an old Southern family, the General was born (in 1851) at St.
Affrique in the Aveyron, the old Rouergue which came to the French Crown
under Henri IV. He likes to speak the _patois_ with soldiers from the
district, but he is not democratic in the French sense of the word,
though familiar in his dealings with the ranks and solicitous for their
welfare. But he is exacting where discipline is concerned, and not only
gives orders but sees that they are executed. His staff as well as his
regimental officers respect his strenuous temper. His family is noted
for intellectual distinction. Some of his brothers, as well as his
sons, were at the Polytechnique, the famous mathematical school. He,
himself, is both classical and mathematical. If he has little English
and less German, and his pronunciation of English place-names amuses his
Anglo-Saxon friends, he is a brilliant classic, and jokes in Latin, when
the mood takes, with his staff. Nevertheless he is thoroughly modern in
his appreciation of science and gives a chance to any likely inventor.
Manufacturers are numbered amongst his family, and the largest coal-mine
in the south belongs to it. His father, however, was a jurist and a
friend of the economist, Le Play.
The General's vigour comes from the natural energy of his mind. In his
boyhood there were few sports in France, but he likes to tell his
intimates that he played a sort of football, with an inflated ball, in
his _lycee_ in the mountains. His youngest son is a well-known champion
of the Rugby game. Of his six sons, each went to the war. Three were
already in the Army, one was at school, another in the Navy, and a third
an engineer. The record is a tribute to the patriotism--no uncommon
trait--of provincial France. And there are those who, ignorant of the
austerity of her Catholic families, declared that France was decadent!
Of the General's six daughters--for Providence has blessed him with a
full quiver--one has had her arm amputated, having been infected with
gangrene whilst nursing in a hospital. Such courage and devotion are
well exemplified in the mother, who heard of her son's death whilst
attending the little church where it is her habit to go daily. "Which
one?" she asked, almost inaudibly of the _cure_, as she saw by his look
of tenderness, that he had bad news to communicate. She thought of her
husband, and of her sons at the Front, and when the name was pronounced,
with a soft sigh of resignation she bowed her silvery head a little
lower over the breviary, and proceeded with outward tranquillity, though
with a torn heart, to receive the consolation of her religion.
The man whom I have summarily sketched was invested by Joffre with the
dignity of his Chief-of-Staff and the title of Major-General. The
life-long friend became the chief aid in his deliberations, and the
virtual leader on the Western Front, leaving to the highest in command
the larger issues of a world-wide campaign. Even in Republican France
there is thus place for the _croyant_ and the aristocrat, as the names
of Delangle de Gary, de Maud'huy, and D'Urbal show.
*CHAPTER VIII*
*THE ORGANISATION OF MUNITIONS*
One of the many surprises of the war was the vast place given to
munitions. Not even the most careful calculator had foreseen the
enormous consumption of war _materiel_ that would result from a long
continuance of trench warfare. The Germans had reckoned on an
expenditure of 35,000 shells a day, and the French on about half that;
the actual consumption was often 100,000 shells on each side.