10 JANUARY 1931, Page 3

It was a marvellous redemption of the utter failure of

his original plan for outflanking the German armies of the North. Although he was a Southerner and a man of the people, he had none of the popular expansiveness and volubility of the provencal. Never- theless, his benevolence penetrated his silence, and his nickname " Papa " expressed the affection in which he was held. Nothing seems more certain than that his name will endure as one of the greatest names of the War. When he halted the Germans on the Marne he had not indeed delivered a decisive stroke, but he had prevented them from winning the War. Their plans worked like clockwork or fell into disarray. With perfect composure and confidence and at the right moment he disorganized the inside of the clock.