BOOKS.
BEHIND THE LINES IN FRANCE.*
Mn. GEOUGhi Anise, the Paris correspondent of the Times, has not attempted here any coherent chronicle of events, but law given ns a series of impressions, agreeably written, appre- ciative, and, so far as we can judge, just. We always sup- posed that the disclosures in the French Senate on July 11th, 1914, about the military defects of France were one of the important considerations which caused Germany to spring war upon the world. Mr. Adam has no doubt on the matter. Certainly the disclosures were like a bait to a ravenous fish. France, it was stated, had only 2,504 guns against the German 3,370. There was a plentiful lack of engineering material, and for bridging requirements no money bad been voted for three years. There was a shortage of shells, and two million pairs of boots were wanting. Some of the frontier fortresses were out of date, and even the more modern ones were not linked ap by telegraph. The French frontier wire- less stations worked only by sufferance of the powerful German apparatus at Metz. The two hundred 115 mm. guns which were to replace eighty-four obsolete guns would be ready at the end of 1915, and by the same date the stock of shells was to be three times what it had been in 1906. By the end of 1917 two hundred howitzers were to be added to the artillery. All this was not only a revelation of present weak- ness, but an earnest that as time passed France would become stronger. It was thus a powerful incitement to Germany to strike at once if she meant to strike at all. Mr. Adam says "Two days before they [the disclosures] were made, on July 11, 1914, the French Consul-General at Budapest reported a distinct improvement in the tone of the Hungarian Press. The official newspapers in particular were adopting a more reasonable atti- tude, and, as the Consul remarked, 'Officially for a quarter of an hour everything is for peace.' The debate in the Senate on French army defences took place on July 13 and 14, and on the following day the French Ambassador in Vienna informed hie Government that the Anatro-Hungarian Press, which is perhaps the most rigorously controlled Press of the world in foreign affairs, repre- sented France and Russia es being unable to have their say in European affairs owing to their military disorganization. One important newspaper, indeed, stated boldly ' The moment is still favourable for ns. If we do not decide upon war now, the war we shall have to make in two or three years at the latest will be begun in much loss propitious circumstances. Now the initiative belongs to no. The coincidence of all these arguments in favour of a German attack only appeared after the blow had been struck." Had the guilt of Germany not been so clear, there would not have been such a splendid unanimity of emotion and purpose as moved all France. We always thought that anti-militarism in France would disappear as a whole if war came, for the Frenchman is a fighting man and cannot resist the bugle and drum ; but even the irreconcilable!, who might have been expected to oppose the Government whatever happened, remembered only one thing—that they were Frenchmen. Thus immediately mobilization had been ordered the best known of all anti-militaristic papers, X. Gustav Herres La Guerra &dale, appeared with nothing in it but the letters of members of the staff who were off to join their regiments. Without exception the lettere showed these anti-mliitariste to be burning to help their country in arms. M. Berth himself volunteered for military service.
Mr. Adam in describing the principal failure of the French in the field at the beginning of the campaign indicates a state of affairs from which some armies would never have recovered. We should do the French much leas than justice if we did not recognize that the Army which daily adds to its reputation for dash and science is not the Army which opened the cam- paign. If the first mistakes had not been redeemed by drastically removing the causes of them, the history of 1870 might easily have been repeated. As it hi, the French Army • Behind 5.1. Semes at eh. Prost. By George Adam, Paris Conwpcmdeat of the Tenn. London 1 Marro and Wind.. Os. net.]
of to-day is one of the most perfect instruments of war the world has seen. Its construction—for its virtues have been acquired under fire during the war—was begun and continued in circumstances in which it had been said that the French military spirit could not thrive :—
" On August 20 the modified concentration of the French armies was effected, and the French centre, consisting of two armies, sod the left, consisting of a third army strengthened by two army corps, a corps of cavalry, reserve divisions, and the British and Belgian armies, were ordered to take the offensive, with a view to preventing the seven or eight German army corps and four cavalry divisions from extending to the west The attack was made in circumstances which warranted the French General-in-Chief in hoping for victory. He launched ton army corps upon the centre, but, owing to factors which only the test of war can reveal, what ought to have been a victory was turned into a defeat. The blame for the failure of the Allies is to bo dis- tributed among all ranks. The men exposed themselves in most foolhardy manner to flee; the Reservist officers showed by their company-leading that they had forgotten many of the lessons of their training ; battalions were launched across fire-swept fields to attack impregnable positions ; there were premature advances and premature retreats. Many of the general officers showed themselves incapable of holding their commands. The attempt to crush the centre having failed, there remained only tho hope that on the left matters would go better ; but as the French plan had been to omaah the German centre, and then to fling every available man upon the German left., with the first object unaccomplished there was not much hope of achieving the second."
General Joffre, with a self-possession which can seldom have been equalled, determined-to taker time to pull his Army together. He had to remove incompetents, and to choose a place for giving battle again which satisfied him in all respects. But saving time and choosing a perfect field meant a retreat carried- a good deal beyond the point that the military exigencies actually required. Moreover, a long retreat meant a tremendous draft upon the mom/ of his troops. Fortunately he had enough courage to do the large and bold thing. Mr. Adam emphasizes the voluntary character of the retreat. During it the French fought several encouraging actions, and one of them was so strikingly successful that the General who bad planned it asked leave to undertake the offensive forthwith. General Joffre's answer wag that the General was to hold his ground for six hours, and then continue the retreat. This order when published will certainly prove that General Joffro was not retreating under compulsion at that moment. General Joffre's purge during the retreat was wholesale. No less than forty-three Generals were removed from poste they bad held at Charleroi. In six months of war the average age of Generals in command was reduced by ten years :— "There have been one or two cases in which the sufferers have not suffered gladly. There has been the case of General Perrin, to whom the defence of Lille was for a moment entreated. General Parciirhas been shot for treason • he has been imprisoned for life in a fortress; he has a German wife who forged an order in his name,•. he forgot an urgent order he received, and left it lying unheeded in his pocket for eight hours, during which time Sir John French found no support for his flank; his wife purloined the order while he was drunk or while he was asleep. All these stories, as I can personally testify, have no foundation, save in the fact that Lille was not defended. History will determine if any one was at fault"
As every one knows, the surprise of the battle of the Marne —apart, of coarse, from the brilliant recovery of the whole French Army, which was in itself a smashing surprise to the Germans—was the appearance of the 6th French Army. The Germans did not suspect its existence :—
" For the command of this new army General Toffre went, not to youth, but to age. General Mannonry, who received this all- important appointment, was a man who might have expected that his fighting dayi were over. After a steady career, distinguished by no particularly brilliant service, he had reached the post of Military Governor of Paris, usually given to soldiers before their retirement, years before war broke out, and in due course retired. He was brought from that retirement to play a leading part in the battle which in all probability has changed the face of Europe. The possibility of his appearance could not have entered into German calculations ; and even had they known of it, there was nothing to show them that General Mummery would be capable of putting up the superb and dogged fighting of the Oureq. His action and that of General Foch gave the British Army its chance, for by their vigour the Germans were forced to bring heavy reinforcements from thst. south to the north, and in doing so the enemy exposed his left to the attach of the British Army, which immediately faced northward., together with the French armies which extended beyond the English lines to the right."
The chief object of Mr. Adam's admiration, however, next to General Joffre, is General Foch, who commands the group of armies in the North. It is in conjunction with General Foch that the British Army has been fighting in Flanders. For five years General Foch taught strategy at the Ecole de Guerre, and his lectures stimulated military thought throughout France :—
"Ho has the calm face of the thinker, and the slim carriage of the well-exercised man. His eyes are the most significant feature of his face, and, were it not for the firmness of his chin and the decisive clip of his thin lips, he might be taken for the pure type of the thinker, the man with the brain to plan vast strategic move- ments, to co-ordinate effort along the western front in synchroniza- tion with events in the east, to hurl armies about the map ; but not for the fighter, the man with the obstinacy and decision, the strength of character, necessary for the actual translation of strategy into action. Before the outbreak of the war there were many of his closest friends and greatest admirers who wondered how he would acquit himself in command of the Marches of the East at Nancy, where the troops are the pick of the French Army, and each fresh batch of conscripts which goes there has to be disciplined and drilled as no others on the soil of France. It was a post requiring the exercise of qualities not usually to be found in the thinker, in the student and professor of tactics and strategy. The excellence of General Foch's work at Nancy exceeded the best hopes of his friends. The saving of the Lorraine capital from the invader was one of the finest feats of the opening period of the war; just as assuredly it was one of the greatest disappointments suffered by the Emperor William."
This good work at Nancy caused General Foch to be chosen to bar the road to Calais.
The general confidence inspired by the French officers seems to us certain to have important after-effects. For many years it was the political fashion in France to speak of the Army as half filled with reactionaries .and ecclesiastical bigots who were no great a danger to the Republic that an odious system of spying upon their movements was indispensable. Those Prejudices cannot survive the war. The Army has saved France instead of forcing on her, as was so vainly feared, monarchism or a clerical tyranny. In future, honest French Radicals will refuse to believe in the existence of plots which even Motion could nob prove. Under the arid guidance of M. Combes and his school, Frenchmen who could see nothing visibly wrong with the bearing of the Army had still come to regard it as having the sort of character that Pope attributed to Chloe
" She speaks, behaves, and acts just as she ought,
But never, never reach'd one generous thought."
"Handsome is as handsome does" is more likely to be the new opinion about the French Army.
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