CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS.

Waikato Times, Volume 103, Issue 17411, 25 May 1928, Page 5

CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS.

❖ ♦> ❖ The records of great men are always under examination and revision b y urilliaut iconoclasts. The latest operator is Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, who in “Reputations” examines the War services of ten great soldiers in the light of the knowledge we have gained since the Armistice. The results are occasionally startling. W T e are not surprised to find Captain Hart classing Ludendorff, Pctain, and Galhcni together as three of the outstandingly successful leaders of 1914-18, but it is rather a shock to conventional notions to find him making positive fun of Joffre and refusing to accept Foch as the Master Warrior we have all believed him to be. “Papa” Joffre. The chapter on Joffre is at once the most startling and amusing of the lot. The old man, according to our author, was foisted into his high position by a military clique in pre-War Franco which required a pliable figurehead to represent its strategical policy: Which was, tiiat the essence of true defence against invasion is to attack, always to attack. This policy, as >ve knov, was pursued by the French at the very beginning of the War and with disastrous results. But Joffre remained calm. It is the im plication of Captain Liddell Hart’s ironic sketch that the old man was too stupid, too credulous of tho infallibility of his Staff’s doctrine to understand that he was battering at this air in Lorraine while the '.Germans were calmly walking round his left flank. He shrewd in a bourgeois fashion, but he was dull; lie vv.-.s important to France only as a symbol:—

His universal nickname “Pape” Joffre was not only witness to his hold on +he affection of the people, but symbolical of tlie picture he presented in the popular imagination. Simple in manner and tastes, he kept a strict check on his household accounts but relished his meals with ah the true gusto of a true French rentier, and valued his sleep. His Staff learned that it was bettir to sacrifice duty than to bo late for meals, and only in emergency would they dare to rap on his locked door after he had retired to bed—at ten o’clock. 4 s * or J°ff re as the architect of the miracle of ihe Marne,” our author merely laughs. A Farewell Scene. Altogether we get a queer picture ol JolTre as a lazy, self-sufficient and rather vain old gentleman : He left all military details to his staff and only gave the big decisions. His office table was unencumbered by notes or papers, his walls bare of maps—except when, on the visit of a photographer, a supply was hastily brought to lestoon the walls and provide a background approprito to the popular conception. But yet one feels that Joffre, if stolid, had a cynical senso of humour. He was discreetly retired, and Pierrefeu has exquistely painted the final scene—how Joffre summoned his Staff to cay farewell, and asked who would ac-

♦J* ♦}► «£♦ Captain Liddell Hart’s Examination of Sundry Reputations.

company him as the three orderly officers to which his new rank entitled him. Only one, the much-abused but ever-faithful Commandant Thouzeher, raised his hand. Joffre made no complaint, but, when all had gone, turned to the loyal one and, giving him a friendly pat, uttered his favourite exclamation: “Pauvre Joffre! Sacre Thouzelier!” The Philosopher, The case of Marshal Foch is obviously much subtler. Like Joffre he believed in the principle of “l’attaque, toujours l’attaque,” but ho was a much mere clever man, and had refined the simple strategical idea into a sort of mystic philosophy. He had written a treatise on the subject, lectured officers, and delivered himself on cryptic apophitegms on tho subject. Foch was the perfect theorist, thinking always of large-scale infantry operations. Aeroplanes were demonstrated before him in 1910, and ho said: “That is good sport, but for the army the aeroplane is naught. Again:— Always a deep rather than a clear thinker, his philosop’ncal treatment of war tended to become mystical as be became more senior, and he spoke in parables which often took days for his officers to fathom. Once, at a conference after an exercise, his summing-up consisted simply of one vehement sentence hurled, at a commander: “If you arrive at the station two or three minutes after the train has gone, you miss it.” He rarely stooped to explain, and allowed no deviation from his own views.

It is, in short. Captain Liddell Hart’s thesis that Foch’s ultimate triumph came not because he mastered difficult circumstances, but because the circumstances in 1918 worked out. favourably for him and his predilections. What place will Foch take in the roll of the Great. Captains ? In the heated enthusiasm of victory he was hailed as the peer almost of Napoleon. A decade later, in the cool light of history, we

can see that, as a strategist, the comparison is far-fetched. Ip will, perhaps, out in art, no. No Napoleons. Well, we all realise that the War did not throw up a Napoleon. Lndendorff was perhaps the nearest—and how far away! (Captain Liddell Hart calls him the “Robot Napoleon,” and hints at a vast independence on a brilliant staff). Perhaps it was not a war for Napoleons, but it is interesting to speculate whether a Napoleon, appearing in the field in August, 19i4, would eve? have allowed it to degenerate into the long stalement of trench-warfare. This, at all events, we must remember in favour of Captain Liddell Hart’s victims: It became such a war as no text-book or professor had ever invisaged, and every leader approached his task as an apprentice. That there should bo failures was inevitable. To say that among the successes there was none to rank with Napolean is to proceed irom a false analogy to a useless generalisation. Captain Liddell Hart sensibly avoids setting uj such an arbitrary standard. j