MARSHAL FOCH.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 15754, 28 February 1919, Page 5

MARSHAL FOCH.

M. CLEMENCEAU’S TRIBUTE. GREAT CHIEF AND HIS POILUS. A glowing tribute to Marshal Foch was paid at the French Embassy by M. Clemenceau on the occasion of the gathering of the French Colony in London. “We have seen each other in the worst days, and in the finest,” he said. “I saw Marshal Foch one day when, suddenly and without any reason, he had been thanked and placed on the unemployed list. It was a day I shall never forget, when he came and said to me ‘See what has come to me/ ” “He did me the honour to ask my advice. I said to him, ‘Go home. No recriminations. Say nothing, and before many weeks are passed you will be wanted.’ He had no need of my advice. Perhaps he had already guessed what it would be. “He went home without a word of recrimination, and, I believe, not a fortnight had passed before he was Chief of the Staff of the French Army. We had seen him on the Yser, and we had seen him on the St. Gond marches, where we can only say that by the single effort of that valiant soldier the enemy was stopped, and his soldiers, who were not all French soldiers, were constrained when they appeared to hesitate to march to the attack. “It was in these circumstances that he spoke those splendid words when they came and told him, ‘General, we cannot hold on.'—T cannot hold on. Well, then, I attack/ He attacked and conquered. “We are already a long way from that and in the task whiclx was again confided to him, it can be said that his action was marked by a succession of victories such as the history of war has never known. When the Germans hesitated bet wen two ways, throwing themselves first on Amiens, I shall never forget the meeting at that moment at Doullens, with all the Allied generals and heads of Governments, at which General Foch (that was then his title) told us all: I fight before Amiens, I fight in Amiens, I fight behind Amiens, I fight all the time.’ “And he has kept his word. It is true that he had marvellous soldiers, and a good soldier implies good chiefs. The good chief in turn helps to create the good soldier. “You can go and see the poilu in the trenches, you can talk to him of Marshal Foch, and you will see what he has to say about him. And then yon can go and see Marshal Foch in his office at any hour of the day, and talk to him of bis poilus, and you will see in which terms he will sing their praises.” “You all know through what successive vicissitudes the war passed,” said Marshal Foch in the course of his reply. “I will not recall them. You know them as well as I. The sacrifices to which France has consented have been colossal. The dead are counted in millions. We have them in every family; you know a.s well as I do. Fields ravaged, towns destroyed, populations led into slavery-—all the abominations of unchained barbarism. Should all that have been left unpunished? No. We owe it to our dead, we owe it to our populations that onr losses are not made in vain, that they are paid for by proper reparation/’