Foch the Man Part 12

At four in the morning he was at Breteuil, where General Castelnau had the headquarters of his new army, created on September 20 and designated to service on Manoury's left. General Castelnau had not yet heard of the generalissimo's new order. He was sound asleep when the big gray car came to a stop at the door of his headquarters after its one-hundred-and-fifty-mile dash through silent towns and dark, war-invested country.

Six weeks ago Foch had been his subordinate. Then they became equals in command. Now the magnificent hero of Lorraine who, before the war, had done so much on the Superior War Council to aid Joffre in reorganizing the army, rose from his bed in the chill of a fall morning not yet dawned, to greet his superior officer.

Some black coffee was heated for them, and for two hours they discussed the problems of this new front--Castelnau as eager to serve under Foch, for France, as, eight weeks ago, Foch had been to serve under Castelnau. If the sublime unselfishness of such men could have communicated itself to some of the minor figures of this war, how much more inspiring might be the stories of these civilian commanders!

At six o'clock Foch was under way again--to Amiens, Doullens, St. Pol, and then, at nine, to Aubigny, where General Maud'huy had the headquarters of his army, holding the line north of Castelnau's.

The difficulties of Foch's new undertaking were not military alone, but diplomatic. He had to take account of the English and Belgian armies, each under independent command, and each small. It was the fitness of Foch for the diplomacy needed here, as well as his fitness for the great military task of barring the enemy from the Channel ports, that determined Joffre in nominating him to the place.

In 1912 General Foch had been the head of the French military commission sent to witness the British army maneuvers at Cambridge.

He speaks no English; and not many British generals at that time spoke much French. Yet he somehow managed to get on, with the aid of interpreters, so that his relations with the British officers were not only cordial, in a superficial social way, but important in their results of deepened understanding on his part and of respect on theirs.

His study of what seemed to him the military strength and weakness of France's great neighbor and ally was minute and comprehensive.

In his opinion, the soldiers of Britain were excellent; but he was fearful that their commanders lacked seasoned skill to direct them effectively. This lack he laid to that apparent inability to believe in the imminence of war, which was even more prevalent in Britain, with her centuries of inviolate security, than in France.

Two years before the long-suspended sword fell, Foch foresaw clearly what would be the difficulties in the way of England when she should gird herself for land conflict. Doubtless he had resolved in his mind plans for helping her to meet and to overcome them.

Now he was placed where he could render aid--where he _must_ render aid.

After the Battle of the Marne Sir John French wanted his army moved up north, nearer to its channel communications--that is to say, to its source of supplies. And on October 1 Joffre began to facilitate this movement. It was just well under way when Foch arrived in the north.

And on October 9 the gallant Belgian army withdrew from Antwerp and made its way to the Yser under cover of French and British troops.

Foch soon saw that an allied offensive would not be possible then; that the most they could hope to do was to hold back the invading forces.

Until October 24 he remained at Doullens, twenty miles north of Amiens.

Then he removed his headquarters to the ancient town of Ca.s.sel, about eighteen miles west and a little south of Ypres.

From there he was able to reach in a few hours' time any strategic part of the north front and from this actual watch-tower (Ca.s.sel is on an isolated hill more than 500 feet high, and commands views of portions of France, Belgium, and even--on a clear day--of the chalky cliffs of England; St. Omer, Dunkirk, Ypres, and Ostend are all visible from its heights), he was to direct movements affecting the destinies of all three nations.

The Belgians, whose sublime stand had thwarted Germany's murderous plan against an unready world, were a sad little army when they reached the Yser about mid October. It was not what they had endured that contributed most to break their spirit; but what they had been unable to prevent.

To those heroic men who had left their beautiful country to the arch-fiends of destruction, their parents and wives and children to savages who befoul the name of beasts; who no longer had any possessions, nor munitions wherewith to make another stand on Belgian soil; to them Foch took fresh inspiration with his calm and tremendous personality; to them he sent his splendid Forty-second Division to swell their ranks so frightfully depleted in Honor's cause; to them he gave the suggestion of opening their sluices and drowning out of their last little corner of Belgium the enemy they could not otherwise dislodge.

This done, the next problem of Foch was to establish relations with Sir John French whereby the most cordial and complete cooperation might be insured between the British Field Marshal and the French commander of the armies in the north.

There are several graphic accounts of interviews which took place between these generals.

It was on October 28 that Foch saw the success of the opened sluices and the consequent salvation to the heroic Belgians of a corner of their own earth whereon to maintain their sovereignty.

On the 30th the English suffered severe reverses in spite of the aid lent them by eight battalions of French soldiers and artillery reinforcements. In consequence, they had had to cede considerable ground, their line was pierced, and the flank of General Dubois' army, adjoining theirs, was menaced.

When word of this disaster reached Foch that night he at once set out from Ca.s.sel for French's headquarters at Saint Omer.

It was 1 A.M. when he arrived. Marshal French was asleep. He was waked to receive his visitor.

"Marshal," said Foch, "your line is cracked?"

"Yes."

"Have you any resources?"

"I have none."

"Then I give you mine; the gap must be stopped at once; if we allow our lines to be pierced at a single point we are lost, because of the ma.s.ses our enemy has to pour through it. I have eight battalions of the Thirty-second Division that General Joffre has sent me. Take them and go forward!"

The offer was most gratefully received. At two o'clock the orders were given; the gap was stopped.

Nevertheless, the British despaired of their ability to hold. Marshal French had no reserves, and decided to fall back.

A liaison officer hastened to notify General Dubois that the British were about to retire, and General Dubois betook himself in all speed to Vlamertinghe, the Belgian headquarters, to notify their commanding general. Foch happened to be with the Belgian general. And while these three were conferring, the liaison officer (Jamet) saw the automobile of Marshal French pa.s.s by.

Realizing the importance of the British commander's presence at that interview, Jamet ventured to stop him and suggest his attendance.

Foch implored French to prevent retreat. French declared there was nothing else for him to do--his men were exhausted, he had no reserves.

Foch pointed out to him the incalculable consequences of yielding.

"It is necessary to hold in spite of everything!" he cried; "to hold until death. What you propose would mean a catastrophe. Hold on!

I'll help you."

And as he talked he wrote his suggestions on a piece of paper he found on the table before him, and pa.s.sed it to the British commander.

Marshal French read what was written, at once added to it, "execute the order of General Foch," signed it, and gave it to one of his staff officers.

And the Channel ports were saved.

But a greater thing even than that was foreshadowed: Foch had begun to demonstrate what was in him before which not only the men of his command must bow but the generals of other nations also.

One of the staff officers of General Foch who was closely a.s.sociated with him there in the north in that time of great anxiety, has given us a pen-picture of the chief as his aides often saw him then. Doubtless it is a good picture also, except for differences in trifling details, of the great commander as he has been on many and many a night since, while the destinies of millions hung in the balance of his decisions.

"All is silence. The little town of Ca.s.sel is early asleep. On the rough pavement of the Grande Place, occasional footsteps break the stillness. Now they are those of a staff officer on his way to his billet. Now it is the sentry moving about to warm himself up a bit.

Then silence again.

"In a little office of the Hotel de Ville, a man is seated at a table.

His elbows are on a big military map. A telephone is at his hand. He waits--to hear the results of orders he has given. And while he waits he chews an unlighted cigar and divides his attention between the map and the clock--an old Louis XVI timepiece with marble columns, which ticks off the minutes almost soundlessly. How slowly its hands go round! How interminable seems the wait for news!

"Someone knocks, and Colonel Weygand, chief of staff, enters; he has a paper in his hand: 'Telephoned from the Ninth army at 1.15 A.M.' . . .

"The general has raised his head; his eyes are shining.

"'Good! good!'

"His plans are working out successfully; the reinforcements he sent for have arrived in time. There is nothing more he can do now; so he will go to bed.

"A last look at the map. Then his eye-gla.s.ses, at the end of their string, are tucked away in the upper pocket of his coat. The general puts on his black topcoat and his cap.