GENERAL EMBARRASSED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19860, 2 February 1928, Page 11

GENERAL EMBARRASSED

UNABLE TO MEET RENT. MARSHAL JOFFRE OF FRANCE. A. and N.Z.-Sun. PARIS, Jan. 81. It is announced that Marshall Joffre will be obliged to give up his apartment because the rent is about to be doubled. This has caused a storm of protest, in spite of the offer of a generous Spaniard, who says he would be honoured to provide the marshal • with adequate premises. Marshal Joffre, being over the age of 70, could legally claim the right to remain and the landlord would be powerless, but he prefers to leave. An indignant newspaper says that while the nation provides a place in the Pantheon for great men, no attempt is made to house them in a worthy manner before their death. Marshal Joffre's name for all time will be associated with the brilliance with which he saved Franco on the Marne and xhe Yser, and with the genius by which tie delivered blow after blow to the Germans in Artois and Champagne, on tho Somme and at V.erdun. Ho will be pai'ticularly associated, however, with the battle of the Marne. In spite of the splendid assist, nee rendered to him by the men under his command,- he had to bear almost alone the . terrible responsibility of seeing the steady invasion of France, and had to select the decisive moment when the French troops should turn on the advancing enemy and throw them back. It was a hazardous operation, but when the time came to turn he was able to strike hard. - Then began the long war of entrenchments, which Joffre directed up to his retirement at the end of 1916.