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Peter de Castelnau himself, the most zealous of all, and destined before long to pay for his zeal with his life, wrote to the pope to beg for permission to return to his monastery. Two Spanish priests, Diego Azebes, Bishop of Osma, and his sub-prior Dominic, falling in with the Roman legates at Montpellier, heard them express their disgust.
In the end the politicians had their way and Castelnau, Joffre's second in command, came over to their view and set out for Verdun to organize the defence for the position at the eleventh hour. He had with him Pétain, the man who had commanded the French army in the Battle of Champagne and henceforth commanded the army that was hurried to the Verdun sector.
Castelnau then took the offensive, and by the 12th had driven the Bavarians from before Nancy beyond the Meurthe, and out of Lunéville and St. Dié. The German right had fallen back thirty-five miles and the centre nearly fifty; but the retreat was not a rout, and the losses in guns and prisoners were meagre.
On the same day the French Government issued an official communiqué, which announced that General de Castelnau, together with Generals Sarrail and Mahon, had settled upon the plan of action to be followed by the Allies and that he had assured the French Government that the arrangements which had already been made rendered the safety of the whole expedition absolutely certain.
And, too, there were the surrounding vineyards, and woods, and mountain paths; and beyond, Castelnau, rearing its battlements and towers above the pedestal of chestnuts and oak trees, called me to its ruins! Where should I run first, and how could I ever weary of so beautiful a land! The sea, to which I was now scarcely ever taken, was for the moment completely forgotten.
At first Castelnau seemed to be making rapid and substantial progress; he captured Noyon on 21 September, was pushing on by Lassigny to Roye, and optimistic maps in the English press depicted the German right being bent back to St. Quentin and the French outflanking it as far north-east as Le Catelet. These were not intelligent anticipations.
This was the centre and the most vital point in the Lorraine battle. What Foch's troops had done about La Fêre Champenoise, those of Castelnau had done here. The German wave had been broken, but at what cost? And now, after so many months, the desolation of war remained. But yet it was not to endure.
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.
Castelnau and Foch reviewed the troops, known throughout the army as "the division of iron." A young captain, recently assigned from the School of War to a regiment of Hussars forming part of the Twentieth army corps, wrote to his parents on July 5 an account of the maneuvers in which he had just taken part.
"Do you not know the wide-spreading ash, which stands in the field between the castle of Castelnau and the town of Alais? at no great distance from that is the large, old olive-tree, which, they say, is three, or four hundred years old, but it is so far certain, that both the trees, particularly the ash, may be seen at the distance of many miles from the plain as well as from the mountains."
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