Joffre and His Army

by Charles Dawbarn

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.