A Journey Through France in War Time

by Joseph G. Butler

ERHAPS no other man in France is so talked of so much as General Joffre. Certainly he is the idol of the French people. They look on him as their hero and savior, and his name is mentioned among them with a sort of half-worship. No other people have ever depended on their leaders as have the French. They believe with the right sort of leadership they can do anything. This is the impression you get in talking to them. They say that since the Franco-Prussian War they have looked forward to the time when they might have a general with Napoleon's genius and some other name—for even the name Napoleon now prevents a man from fighting for France, at least if he is of the royal line.

You may be certain that we all looked forward to meeting this great man. We did not meet him after all at close range, having to content ourselves with a view of the busiest man in France as he rode by in an automobile at top speed.

General Joffre, as we learned, has been at the head of the French Army for two years before the war. He first came into notice when, at the last grand maneuvers, he jarred military circles and greatly pleased the people by unceremoniously dismissing from their command five gold-laced generals whose methods did not meet with his approval.

But Joffre first showed what sort of stuff was in him when he met the Germans at the Marne. It will be recalled that the French, never suspecting that Germany would invade Belgium and having all their military plans laid for mobilizing on the German frontier, were more or less demoralized when they found an entirely new line of defense necessary. They had no railroads built to help reform their line, and the moving of a vast army is a perplexing task. Without a leader in whom the whole army had supreme confidence, and with the German host sweeping across Belgium and hurling back the English, it would have been a hopeless situation.

But while what the Kaiser called "Sir John French's contemptible little army" was holding back for a few days the German onrush at terrific cost, Joffre was busy realigning his forces between the invaders and his beloved Paris, which seemed doomed to all but him. He had studied the situation carefully and detected the fact that the long flank of Von Kluck's army left an opening. This opening was found by the Army of Paris, augmented in every possible way and finally reinforced by every available soldier, rushed from Paris in every kind of automobile to be found. The Germans were stopped at the Marne—twenty miles from Paris. Not only was the capital of France saved, but the invaders were steadily driven back until they were sixty miles away before they could make a successful stand.

[Illustration: Portrait in Tapestry—General Joffre.]

It was then that France found Joffre, so the people say. Up to that time they had heard little of him and nobody knew who he was or where he had come from. At once they began to inquire. Few of the soldiers had ever seen him, and there had been nothing much in the newspapers about the man who had managed all this.

After the Germans had been forced across the Aisne and there was time to breathe, the French decided to have a review of that part of the army that could be spared. It was here that everybody watched for Joffre. The French tell it in their own way and it is interesting to hear one of them explaining, with the usual gestures, just how the hero looked on the day of that review.

It was not much of a display of military style. The troops reviewed had been in the thick of the fight and there was an enormous amount of mud. There was no reviewing stand except a muddy elevation, on which the commander was to stand. Nobody seemed to know where he was or where he would come from, but it was passed around that he was to be there and the soldiers watched for him eagerly. Most of them thought that he was a little, fat man. They had unconsciously absorbed this idea from pictures of Napoleon, and, forgetting the terrible stress of the past weeks in the temporary flush of victory, they expected to see their general come to the stand with a blaze of glory. They looked for silken flags and gaudy uniforms and a regular French military parade. This was as little as they thought would do proper honor to the victorious commander of the Allied armies, and they were right, because General Joffre is at the head of the greatest force of men ever gathered together.

As you are told about this in France, the day came and at the spot selected for the review, an open field somewhat back of the lines, with plenty of freshly planted crosses in sight and evidence all around that the peace and quiet had not always been there, a few generals and officers gathered. Finally, a regimental band, playing the first martial music heard since before the battle of the Marne, swung out of the woods at the head of a body of troops.