Among the confidential bits of work worthy of note that Foch has done for the War Department is the report he made upon the larger guns of the French field artillery, which have done such execution in the present war. For many weeks Foch went around the great Creusot gun works in the blouse of a workman, testing, watching, experimenting, analyzing.
Foch was one of the high officers in France who was not in the least surprised by the war and who had personally been holding himself in readiness for it for years. He felt, and often said, that a great war was inevitable; so much used he to dwell upon the certainty of war that some persons regarded him as an alarmist when he kept declaring that French officers should take every step within their power to get themselves and the troops ready for active service at an instant's notice. He also held that France as a nation should prepare to the utmost of her power for the assured conflict.
In a recent issue of The London Times there was a description of Foch by a Times correspondent who had been at Foch's headquarters in the north of France. The correspondent's remarks are prefaced by the statement that in a late dispatch General French mentions General Foch as one of those whose help he has "once more gratefully to acknowledge." The correspondent writes in part:
What Ernest Lavisse has clone for civilian New France in his direction of the Ecole Normale General Foch has done in a large measure for the officers of New France by his teaching of strategy and tactics at the Ecole de Guerre. He left his mark upon the whole teaching of general tactics.
I had the honor of being received recently by General Foch at his headquarters in the north of France—a house built for very different purposes many years ago, when Flemish civil architecture was in its flower. The quiet atmosphere of Flemish ease and burgomaster comfort has completely vanished. The building hums with activity, as does the whole town. A fleet of motor cars is ready for instant action. Officers and orderlies hurry constantly to and fro. There is an occasional British uniform, a naval airman's armored car, and above all the noise of this bustle, though lower in tone, the sound of guns in the distance from Ypres.
The director of all this activity is General Foch. There in the north he is putting his theories of war to the test with as much success as he did at the outbreak of hostilities in Lorraine and later in the centre during the battle of the Marne. Although born with the brain of a mathematician, General Foch's ideas upon war are by no means purely scientific. He refuses, indeed, to regard war, and more especially modern war, as an exact science. The developments of science have, indeed, but increased the mental and moral effort required of each participant, and it is only in the passions aroused in each man by the conflict of conception of life that the combatant finds the strength of will to withstand the horrors of modern warfare.
General Foch is a philosopher as well as a fighter. He is one of the rare philosophers who have proved the accuracy of their ideas in the fire of battle. A typical instance of this is given by "Miles" in a recent number of the Correspondant. During the battle of the Marne the Germans made repeated efforts to cut through the centre where General Foch commanded between Sézanne and Mailly. On three consecutive days General Foch was forced to retire. Every morning he resumed the offensive, with the result that his obstinacy won the day. He was able to profit by a false step by the enemy to take him in the flank and defeat him.
General Foch's whole life and teaching were proved true in those days. He has resolved the art of war into three fundamental ideas—preparation, the formation of a mass, and the multiplication of this mass in its use. In order to derive the full benefit of the mass created it is necessary to have freedom of action, and that is only obtained by intellectual discipline. General Foch has written:
"Discipline for a leader does not mean the execution of orders received in so far as they seem suitable, just reasonable, or even possible. It means that you have entirely grasped the ideas of the leader who has given the order and that you take every possible means of satisfying him. Discipline does not mean silence, abstention, only doing what appears to you possible without compromising yourself; it is not the practice of the art of avoiding responsibilities. On the contrary, it is action in the sense of orders received."
Fifteen years ago at the Ecole de Guerre General Foch was fond of quoting Joseph de Maistre's remark, "A battle lost is a battle which one believes to have lost, for battles are not lost materially," and of adding, "Battles are therefore lost morally, and it is therefore morally that they are won." The aphorism can be extended by this one: "A battle won is a battle in which one will not admit one's self vanquished." As "Miles" remarks, "He did as he had said."