JOFFRE
"Give the French a leader and they can do anything." Before the war and since I have heard this thought more than any other expressed in cafés, homes and political assemblies.
Forty-four years before the present war, almost to a day, France discovered that her last Napoleon had only the name of his great ancestor, and none of his genius. During all that time she had prayed for a new leader—not of the name, for Bonaparte princes may not even fight for France—but for genius sufficient to restore her former military prestige among the nations.
General Joffre, at the beginning of the war, had been head of the army for only three years. He had received his supreme command as a compromise between political parties. No one knew anything about him—he had a good military record and was considered "safe." But at the last grand maneuvers he had given the nation a sudden jar by unceremoniously and without comment dismissing five gold-laced generals.
On one of the first days of the war, at four in the morning, I was walking home—all taxis were mobilized—after a night passed in writing cable copy for my newspaper concerning the momentous tragedy that faced the world.
I was accompanied by a journalistic confrère; our route led along the Quai d'Orsay, past the Foreign Office, where the Cabinet of France had been sitting all night in war council. It was just daybreak. The sun was beginning to glint on the waters of the Seine. We walked up the Boulevard des Invalides and halted, without speaking, but in common thought, before the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte. The sun suddenly broke in splendor over the golden dome.
"It seems like a good omen," I said to my friend.