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Ambitions and falterings—they belong to humanity in every age.

My relations with General Foch go back to a period long before the war that brought us together, different as we were, in common action in our country’s service. The newspapers have told how I appointed him Commandant of the École de Guerre, looking to his known capabilities without taking any notice of his relations with the Society of Jesus. As it chanced, matters really happened pretty much as the popular tale relates. Which is not usual. So I confirm the story of the two speeches we exchanged.

“I have a brother a Jesuit.”

“I don’t give a ——.”

I might have chosen a politer expression. But I was speaking to a soldier, and I meant to be understood. If it had no other merit my phrase had the advantage of being clear. Which might be taken as sufficient. General Picquart, the Minister of War, had very warmly recommended General Foch to me, to start a course in strategy, which the Minister, with the General specifically in mind, wished to set up. I asked nothing further. In similar circumstances I am not at all certain that some of my opponents would have been capable of following my example.^[1]

Naturally I claim no particular merit for such a simple act of French patriotism. I belonged to the generation that saw the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, and never could I be consoled for that loss. And I here recall, with pardonable pride, that in 1908 I stood up against Germany in the Casablanca crisis, and that the Government of William II, after demanding apologies from us, was forced by my calm resistance to be satisfied with mere arbitration, as in any other dispute. We had not yet come to the days of the humiliating cession of an arbitrary slice of our Congo to Germany by M. Caillaux and his successor, M. Poincaré.

I will not try to hide the fact that I had one or two nights of uneasy slumbers. I was running a very formidable risk. The weak, who are usually the majority, were already quite prepared to repudiate me. Nevertheless, my country’s honour remained safe and intact in my hands.

If I had any relations with General Foch between those far-off days and the War I have kept no memory of them. He was not in politics, and had no need of me.

At Bordeaux, after the battle of the Marne, I received a letter from my brother Albert, who had enlisted, telling me that General Foch, who had never met him, had sent for him to whisper confidentially in his ear, “The War is now virtually ended.” That was perhaps going a little fast. No one assuredly felt that better than the General himself when once he had the military responsibility in his own hands. But the happy forecast was none the less justified by the event. It did honour to the soldier’s swift intuition.

It was impossible for me to feel better disposed toward the military chief who already held that the tide had definitely turned in the direction of victory. And so I was not surprised in evil days—at the close of 1914, when my thankless task kept me in severe opposition to the authorities—to receive a request from General Foch, again through my brother, for a private interview in the prefecture of Beauvais, then occupied by my friend M. Raux, who was later Prefect of Police.

In my simplicity I had thought that some important revelation would prove the justification for this unlooked-for step. So I came to the interview warm and expectant, to be chilled by the discovery that it was merely that I might be questioned, in war-time, by the head of an army, as to the more or less favourable attitude of the political world toward a recasting of the High Command, which interested my interlocutor in direct personal fashion.^[2]

My general attitude was friendly but reserved. I was most certainly willing to trust the professional capabilities of the former Professor of Strategy at the École Supérieure de Guerre, but none the less I regretted his preoccupation with his purely personal interests. Thus I came away rather disappointed, and so ended this mysterious colloquy, without really beginning.

Later on, in 1916, another surprise was in store for me. For one day there arrived my Parliamentary colleague, M. Meunier-Surcouf, orderly officer to General Foch, bringing me a bust (in imitation terra-cotta) of his chief, with the latter’s compliments. I was astounded. What was I supposed to do in return? Questioned on this point, M. Meunier-Surcouf told me that a sculptor had been summoned to headquarters and given a commission to produce from a larger model fifteen copies of reduced size meant for various persons supposed to be influential. This was doing things in a big way. The whole affair may give rise to a smile. Still, the fact remains that such a proceeding might seem strange at the height of a war in which the very life of France was at stake. I had heard that kings used to send photographs to visitors with whom they were pleased. General Foch went as far as a bust, and I can aver that, for a man who never intrigues either with soldiers or civilians, it was a very embarrassing article.

More outspokenly candid than his chief, the orderly officer did not conceal from me that he was of the opinion that General Foch should be placed at the head of the French armies. I was far from being opposed to this. M. Meunier-Surcouf visited me again and again to confirm me in his views. He has been kind enough to make up from his notes a report from which I shall quote a few passages:

At 10 A.M. on April 15, 1916, I presented myself at M. Clemenceau’s house in the Rue Franklin; I had never had occasion to approach him previously.

What was it prompted me to pay him this visit?

It was because underneath the often violent polemics of the Homme Enchaîné there could be discerned in him an unmistakable love of France and an uncompromising desire for victory.

“I am old,” he said, “I don’t set much value on life, but I have sworn that my old carcase should hold out until victory is complete, for we shall have the victory, Monsieur Charles Meunier, we shall.”

In turn I put my interlocutor in possession of the military situation as it appeared to me from an examination of the facts....

“I have seen around me,” I told him, “only one general who believes wholly and absolutely in our military victory, and that is General Foch: since to this indispensable belief he adds the qualities that make him one of the highest in his profession, he seems to me marked out to lead our armies, and the Government will find in him the firmest prop, and the most loyal too, in the difficult months that are approaching.

“I do not want you to believe merely that I am speaking of him as a devoted officer of his, a friend who has become attached to him during the eighteen months he has been by his side. I wish to base myself on facts.”

And I gave him my own account of the handling of the battle of the Marne, when Foch was in command of the Ninth Army, to which I was attached as officer in an artillery group of the 60th Reserve Division, and of the race to the sea that ended in the arrest of the German offensive in the north on November 15, 1914.

In these two actions there were revealed such qualities of the offensive spirit, for using and economizing reserves, of moral energy, and even of diplomacy, that it might be confidently affirmed that, while many of our generals had excellent qualities, General Foch seemed to stand in a superior category.

“In any case,” I added, “come and see him. You came twice close to us—I saw you—without stopping at our headquarters. I am of the firm belief that if you are working together, you at home and he in the Army, we shall be in the best position for achieving success in the end.

“The General’s talents for attack make him capable of gaining the victory, but he might lose a battle; it is indispensable that he should have by him some one able to shield him, to uphold him in such a contingency before the Chambers of Parliament,^[3] before the country, of whose sensitiveness you are fully aware, and I think you are the very man needed for this purpose. It is time for you two to come to an understanding.”

I confess that the distribution of those busts gave me certain misgivings about the candidate for the post of Commander-in-Chief. A reminiscence of General Boulanger?

As he left me General Foch’s orderly said:

“It’s a promise, isn’t it?”

“I make no promises to anyone whatever,” I replied. “But I am well disposed. In any case, I shall not be consulted.”

Time goes on. A fresh surprise! One morning, at the end of 1916, I see General Foch himself enter my house in a state of great excitement.

“I have come straight from my headquarters,” he said, “where I have just had a visit from General Joffre. This is what he said to me:

“ ‘I am a most unhappy man. I am coming to entreat you to forgive a meanness I have just been guilty of. M. Poincaré sent for me, and gave me an order to relieve you of your command; I ought never to have consented. I gave way. I have come to beg your pardon.’ ”

And General Foch wound up with:

“And now I have come to ask your advice. What do you think I ought to do?”

Not a word of the cause of the calamity. That was a bad sign. I refrained from asking questions. Yet that was the real vital point of the business. But I thought I must spare the nerves of the general torn away from his soldiers.

“My dear friend,” I replied, “your duty is all clearly marked out for you. Rivalries that I know nothing about may have caused this momentary reverse. They cannot do without you. No fuss. Obey without arguing or recrimination. Go back quietly to your own home. Lie low. Perhaps you will be called back inside a fortnight.”

My forecast was a long way out, for the General remained limogé for several months.

Several months kicking his heels in meditation is a great deal for a gallant soldier who sees his comrades falling on the battlefield. Foch endured this trial without uttering a word. That was a feat which I appreciate at its full value.

In later years I told this story to Poincaré, who shrugged up his shoulders laughing, with the sole comment, “These generals! They are always the same.”

I was not greatly enlightened by that.

In November 1917 I found General Foch in Paris, as Chief of the General Staff; in a word, not in any active command. From Picquart’s report of him I had expected some dazzling display of military talents. Perhaps the last word had not been spoken.

M. Poincaré and Marshal Joffre certainly know all the details of this affair. There has been talk of an intrigue carried on by a politician general who put himself forward openly as a competitor of Foch, and who was at that time a frequent visitor to the Élysée. M. Painlevé has written that Foch was relieved of his command by Joffre for purely military reasons. And for his part Commandant Bugnet declares expressly that it was a question of the Somme offensive, a marked failure that it was later tried to pass off as a mere attempt to “ease Verdun.”

Unprovided with transport adequate for exploiting the break-through, the Somme offensive presents itself as an operation that failed. Certain leaders, when everything is over, too often have an explanation all cut and dried to justify a failure. In this way it is easy to get out of an awkward situation cheaply. There is nothing to be astonished at in those who pretended to have relieved Verdun none the less thinking themselves bound to ‘limoger’ Foch “for the sake of example.” Some day or other the affair will be cleared up. But it may be believed that there must have been very serious reasons to make M. Poincaré, who was very careful about questions of responsibility, withdraw the soldier of the Marne and the Yser from the fighting. In the end the two men understood each other, at which history will not be astonished.

For my part, as soon as I came to the Ministry, I naturally resumed my good relations with the new Chief of the General Staff. I still counted upon the effect of his strategic talents. As for him, with or without a bust, he had succeeded his old rival in the intimacy of the head of the State. Each henceforth played his part on the card of mutual confidence that he thought safest.

Before going further I make a point of expressly declaring that this book is not to be regarded as a series of memoirs. I have been called upon to reply upon certain points. I am replying, but without losing sight of the broad considerations that are essentially imposed in such a subject. During more than ten years I have preserved silence at all costs, despite the attacks that were never spared me, and it was most certainly not any fear of the fray that held me back.

I had simply considered that, in the anxious and dangerous situation into which our country had been brought, the utmost restraint and reserve was laid upon me—and to the last word of this book I shall regret departing from it. After the terrible loss of blood France has suffered it appears that she has reacted less virilely in peace than in the great days of her military trial. Her ‘rulers’ seem to have forgotten, all nearly in the same degree, that no less resolution is needed to live through peace than war. Perhaps even more, at certain moments. Some know as much who talk of action instead of acting. Whether in the Government, in Parliament, or in public opinion, I see everywhere nothing but faltering and flinching.

Our allies, dis-allied, have contributed largely to this result, and we have never done anything to deter them. England in various guises has gone back to her old policy of strife on the Continent, and America, prodigiously enriched by the War, is presenting us with a tradesman’s account that does more honour to her greed than to her self-respect.

Engrossed in her endeavours for economic reconstruction—alas! all too sorely needed—France is seeking in the graveyards of politics for human left-overs to make a pale shadow of what used to be. The vital spark is gone. An old, done man myself, here I find myself at grips with a soldier of the bygone days, who brings against me arguments within the comprehension of simple minds—now, when I had changed my workshop and meant to end my days in philosophy.

With far less wisdom, after ten years of reflection he chooses to hurl at me the ancient shell of a long-delayed attack, sparing himself, by deliberately and intentionally keeping under cover, all anxiety as to the inevitable reply. Thus, like a good strategist, he secured his rear before giving free vent to old grievances of the most virulent nature against me. To one who now seeks only rest this is of no great importance, but for a leader in war to let his battle lie dormant for ten years and then give a casual passer-by the task of stirring it into life, that is not the mark of a spirit sure of itself, nor of a magnanimous heart.

[1] In the case of a university appointment, in circumstances less serious, though still delicate enough, I fixed my choice in the same way on M. Brunetière, because he seemed to me the best-qualified candidate, although he was in declared opposition to my ideas. I take pride in this kind of behaviour, which is due to entire and perfect confidence in the ultimate emergence of truth through the free play of the human mind.

[2] A string of commonplaces about the War—our chances of success, what might be done. My interlocutor seemed to me short of ideas.

[3] My italics. M. Meunier-Surcouf had a premonition of the Chemin des Dames.