General Joffre is popular because he is trusted. Yet he
dislikes and avoids the ordinary methods of winning popularity :—
"Junior officers sometimes take up the cudgels for him in a newspaper—for Joffre has made enemies like most strong men—but he disregards their good offices just as he disregards criticism. None can say that he owes his promotion to having defended Joffre. Military merit is the only quality recognized by the generalissimo. . . . His readiness to accept suggestion has fos- tered the belief that he is an adapter and organizer rather than strategist. He is both. His campaigns show the soldier as well as the engineer and organizer."
One of his great merits is that he has banished politics from the Army—a feat that seemed at one time impossible. Him- self a Republican and Freemason, he is served by officers on his Staff who are Roman Catholics and anti-Republicans.
At the Marne he knew that the moment had come to deinand of the French soldier everything of which he was capable. Weakness," he was not afraid to say in his Order, "will not
be tolerated." His quiet and modest ways entirely fit in with the Republican prejudice against the notoriety of Generals. In this connexion the writer of the article tells us the enlightening fact that General Joffre's praise of General de Castelnau was suppressed in the Bordeaux papers by the Censor.
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