TURNING POINT IN THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 15, 12 October 1928, Page 9

TURNING POINT IN THE WAR

TEN YEARS AGO A TALK WITH FOCH HOW VICTORY CAME (By a Correspondent in the London “Tinies.” Through the kindness of some French friends I had the opportunity recently of some conversation ipth Marshal Foch in the suite of the small barrack-rooms at the back of the Invalides which are his headquarters of today. There still hangs on the wall opposite his desk a large map of the whole of the former Allied front, with the day-to-day advances of the last four months of the War marked upon it. I happened, at the time I visited him, to be reading General Callwell’s Life of Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson; and mentioned to Marshal Foch a passage I had just read, showing that almost exactly ten years ago to the day he had struck a first note of confidence that had caused surprise even to his friend. Sir Henry Wilson. Oh July 1,1918, he had told his British colleague that all great anxiety would be over in ten days’ time. His serenity must certainly have seemed to be' premature. The Germans had delivered terrific offensives, lasting two or three weeks each, on March 21, April 9, May 27, and June 9. Each thrust had driven back the Allied line; the troops ' were disheartened; and two more such attacks were being prepared. To some people, in fact, the month that was just beginning appeared to be the most hopeless month of the whole War. How could he feel such confidence? I disked. “I knew that Ludendorff was simultaneously preparing two more attacks,” he answered, “one here” (he took me over to the map, and pointed to the Marne) “and the other up there” (and he pointed to Flanders). “Divergent. I felt he must be losing his head. Haig had told me about the northern plans. I could hardly believe it, But he was right.” “Ce n’est pas possible, je me dis,” added the Marshal, for he seemed to be talking to himself when he got near his map, to be re-living the past; “C’est de la folie.” He showed me how he had decided to take no direct notice of the northern danger. He saw his chance in the south. “It was then that I felt that the direction of the War was passing from him to me.” He collected all the divisions he could lay hands on to concentrate them on either side <?f the forest of VillersCotterets, thus threatening the west flank of the German salient to ChateauThierry. Every Army Commander from whom he took men grumbled. They were still on the defensive, and in the defensive frame of mind. Moreover, Foch had not yet won general confidence. He had been in supreme command for three months, during which no success and two or three disasters had attended the Allied arms. “But I had to have them here,” he exclaimed, putting his finger on . the map at the place indicated, southwest of Soissons. The expected German attack was delivered on July 15, and prospered. Foch let it prosper. Then on the 18th he sent in Mangin and Degoutte (with a sprinkling of American troops) against the enemy’s ?now elongated right- flank. "i.lt was an early morning attack made without artillery preparation. The Allied losses were slight. Twelve thousand German prisoners were taken. Ludendorff sent men south to save a useless salient; and the projected northern attack was dismounted. The Turning-point. This success was no greater than many another that had remained without fruitful consequences, and it did not at first attract the attention it ' deserved; but to Foch it was evidently the final turning-point of the War. Even before it was over he summoned his three Army Commanders— Haig, Petain, and Pershing—to his headquarters at the Chateau of Bombom (about 30k.m. north-west of Melun) On July 24. There he handed them a memorandum, to which he continually referred in the course of his remarks to me. As it is not well known in England it is worth quoting in full : — “It is not the moment yet for a general offensive, but to strike redoubled blows and by separate attacks, varied in time and space, ! succeeding each other by surprise, as rapidly as possible, to increase the disorganisation of the.enemy and to throw the German High Command into disorder, not leavit any respite. “Thereafter, if the attacks succeed, ami if the season be not too advanced, it will be a case of foreseeing for the■ end of summer or the autumn the general and decisive offensive which will make' the whole hostile front crumble.

‘‘The Allied armies are at the turning of the road. The moment has come to leave the attitude of general defensive imposed until now by numerical inferiority and to pass to the offensive.” If Foch was thought unduly optimistic at the time even by a man who trusted Ids judgment so much as Sir Henry Wilson, in the event he actually got ahead of his time-table. Even his own Army Commanders, he mentioned to me, were not convinced during the interview at the Chateau of Bombom; but within two days, he said, they had all three signified their agreement. “Well, M. le Marechai,” I remarked, “they, at any rate, grasped the situation quicker than the people at home. In Sir Henry Wilson’s diary it is recorded that there were meetings on July 31 and August 1 at 10 Downing Street, when the Prime Ministers,' Britisli and Dominions, came to the conclusion that it was not possible to win the war on the Western front. Hughes, the Australian, he says, was an exception, but the others were all for overcoming the enemy in Salonika, Austria, the Trentino.” “Ah, leave aside the politicians,” he exclaimed. And lie went back to his map. “All the same, M. le Marechai,” I ventured to say, .basing myself on Wilson’s diary once more, “You were ready to discuss plans for carrying on the war in 1911). One had to be prepared for anything, I suppose? “Il fallait aussi de I’opportunisme, n’est-ce-pas?” “Il fallait de tout,” he snapped. Pressure. Passing his finger up and down the front line, he showed how he had gone on hitting the enemy practically without intermission from then onwards. Ho reminded me of a piano-player running his fingers over the notes, pressing heavily here, lightly there. “Il fallait converger en temps et en espaee,” he explained; "mais en tappant tout le temps.” Strike all the time, only being careful to create no “poches dangcreuses” and no “llancs vulnerables.” It Was advisable as often as possible to have a river on one flank of an advance. "Jamais lacker les Bodies, je suppose?” “Yes,” he said, “never g-ve them time to take breath; but, more important,” he added, “jamais laisser au com-

mandement le temps de se..redresser. I eould see that to the Marshal it was not so much a war between nations and nations as a match between high command and high command. When he first took me to the map he started by precisely indicating the respective positions of his own headquarters, those of Haig, and those of Ludendorff. He thought in terms of strategy. lie seemed always, indeed, to be taking a million factors into consideration, but to be able marvellously to reduce them to a simple issue. I noticed that when first one addressed Marshal Foch he seemed most inclined to listen. His manner was courteous and quiet, his look grave; his mind seemed patient, receptive, unresponsive—but this at* least -was misleading, for in fact every question received its answer. Sometimes an interval elapsed; sometimes the retort was instantaneous. Instinct seemed to be at work as much as intellect, and when lie spoke one occasionally had the feeling that a power outside and greater than himself was working through him. He seemed just to allow his thoughts to condense; then the words came epigrammatically, in clear, concise sentences, which one had no difficulty in remembering. But his quiet manner left him when he was beside his map, re-living the past —after 'all he is a Southerner, born at the foot of the Pyrenees. His whole being became animated and his talk was liberally accompanied by gestures. Both arms moved up and down; a forefinger was laid on the side of his nose occasionally he brought the tip of his thumb between his teeth. The last German attack, that of July 15, was “bicn montee,” he said —as well prepared and as well delivered as those which preceded it. But numbers were turning against Germany, with hundreds of thousands of lYmeritans arriving every month. And numbers were what Foch wanted. “You were very hard on us,” I said to the Marshal, “you kept on extorting men from Lloyd-George and Wilson. “Mais, oui.’ he said, “the British Army was running down. Fifty-nine divisions, 57. 55, 53, 52, 51; that couldn’t go on.” “We were rather exhausted at that time,” I said. “Remnrquez bien que I’on ne gagne les batailles qu’avec des armees epuisces,” he answered; and added after a pause, “C’est a qui sera epuise le dernier.” (“You’ve got to be the last to be exhausted.”) ‘ Belief in Victory.

His remark reminded one rather forcibly of the weary condition in which one went in to battle —the trudge tip to the front line the night before, the miserable, sleepless night huddled in a trench, the clamber out over the parapet to the front of one’s barbed wire before dawn, then at zero hour the staggering forward over broken ground, loaded rvith ammunition, entrenching tools, iron rations, gas masks, and rifle, to fight for one’s life. “But one had confidence,” I said to the Marshal, “when you had taken over. The deterrent had been not so much the fear of death, as the fear that the sacrifice might be uselessly made. Now it was less difficult.” “Yes, I knew there was i that feeling,” he said, “and I exploited it.” I suppose I showed some surprise at this rejoinder, and he added slowly: “Yes, I exploited it. One had to do everything to encourage the sense of victory.”

When, we got to the end of this re-lived advance, I could not help remarking that it seemed a pity that he stopped when apparently he was on the eve of the most tremendous military victory in liistory. But he had his reasons for wanting the war to end that year. “And why should we go on fighting?” he added. “I wanted to get to the Rhine. It would have taken me three months to fight my jvay over encumbered and broken roads against an enemy who still knew how to defend itself. By the terms of the Armistice, I got there without further effort, and without losses, at a bound, so to speak, in three weeks." And in order to make as sure as he could of getting the severe terms of capitulation accepted, Marshal Foch, at the same time as the Armistice pourparlers began, sent out an order to his Army Commanders to maintain, and even precipitate their actions. “I appeal,” the order ran, “to the energy and initiative of the Commanders-in-Chicf and of their armies, to render decisive the results obtained.” As a French military historian has well said, the spirit of Foch “energised” the whole of the Allied armies.

The Rhine, I could see. loomed large in all the Marshal’s thoughts and calculations. He quoted words that Moltke had used about it, and he evidently regarded it as the key of the military situation between France and Germany. “Remember, too,” he said, “that the German armies could have defended themselves there obstinately.” “Is a river, then, such an obstacle still?” I asked. “Tlmt river is,” he retorted. “What about aeroplanes and long-range guns?” I inquired. “11 fnut transporter la masse de I’annce,” he said.

“Your premeditated sayings, M. le Marechal,” I pleaded, “have been enormously interesting, and I should immensely like, if possible, to be allowed to make known something of what you have told me to a wider public.” The kindly smile that flickers frequently over his soldierly features, only to be. swiftly repressed. made one of its fleeting appearances. “Go ahead,” be eaid; “I have nothing to hide.”