And as for journalists in that forbidden zone of operations—well—has not enough been written already concerning journalists going to jail? But even to journalists Joffre is entirely fair—only journalists must play the game according to Joffre's rules.
I happen to know that Joffre has a thoroughly organized press clipping bureau at the Ministry of War and every week marked papers—particularly those of neutral nations—are presented to him. One of my proud possessions is a letter that I received from an officer of this bureau stating that one of my cables to the New York Times had been favorably commented on by the Commander-in-Chief.
"Is this man a great military genius?" is still a question often asked—despite the fact that he has a hold on the army such as no man has had since Napoleon Bonaparte. The war is not over. The Germans are still in France. Nevertheless all military observers and critics with whom I have talked agree on one point. That is that the two weeks' retreat which culminated in the battle of the Marne showed Joffre to be a strategist of the very highest order. And any man who could direct the retreat of an army, especially a French army, for two weeks and so preserve that army's morale that he could then turn it around to victory, must have great qualities of genius.
Ever since, Joffre has given ample evidence of his quality as a master in the art of war, but he has forsaken the code of war known as the Napoleonic strategy which was in brief: "Go where your enemy does not expect you to go." Joffre knows perfectly well that in modern war, over such a vast front, such tactics are impossible; he knows that ninety-nine times out of one hundred your enemy, through his aeroplanes and spies, will know where you are going.
Joffre indicated his idea of modern strategy some months after the war began when he said, "I am nibbling at them." The nibbles have gradually become mouthfuls.
Joffre thinks all war is too useless for unnecessary sacrifice of men. He saves them all he can. That is why he would not send reenforcements when the Germans attacked in front of Soissons, in the presence of the Kaiser. The Germans were vastly superior in numbers at that point. The weather was frightful. Joffre figured that the French losses would be too heavy in a general battle there. He knew too that the swollen river Aisne would quite as effectively prevent a German advance. And it did. Joffre did not send reenforcements to Soissons in face of both appeals and public opinion.
Nothing moves him, when he is convinced that he is right. And a general of a combination of armies who doggedly does what he wants to do, whatever any one else thinks about it—who dismisses all opposition with a very quiet wave of the hand, as Joffre does, undoubtedly possesses an overpowering personality.
Joffre is the last man on earth to hold his enemy lightly. No man knows better than he how strong the Germans are. But he will keep up that steady hammering, first at this point—then at that point—then simultaneously all along the line, pressing them back one mile here and two miles there, until the German army is beaten and out of France. That is what has been going on now, although a large scale map is necessary to note just how steadily and how gradually the Germans have been pressed back everywhere by the advancing French wall of steel.
Let us go back a moment to that sunny August dawn of the beginning of the war. I said to my friend as we stood looking at the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte: "I wonder what that man would do if he could come out of that block of granite and command this army?"
My friend replied: