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Updated: April 30, 2025
One poor fellow came in to the École Joffre while I was there. He was accompanied by three friends of the Mayor's, who hoped that some one of the new occupations might suit his case. He was large and strong and ruddy and he had no hands. Human ingenuity had not yet evolved far enough for him. He was crying quietly as he turned away.
This was a state of affairs well known to General Joffre and none caused him more distress and anxiety. But this was between August and November, 1914, it must be remembered, when France was anything but the magnificent machine she is to-day it was quite impossible for the authorities to devote a cell of their harassed brains to the temporarily inept.
The nucleus fact when I talked to General Joffre he was very insistent upon this point is still as ever the ordinary fighting man, but all the accessories and conditions of his personal encounter with the fighting man of the other side have been revolutionised in a quarter of a century.
It is said that flowers were placed at this figure every day for forty years. When General Joffre and the French army entered Alsace in August, 1914, the joy of the people knew no bounds. How they wept and rejoiced as the bands played the Marseillaise! French flags that had been hidden away for forty-three years were brought out and such scenes of rejoicing have rarely been witnessed.
France followed suit in reorganizing her war council under Premier Briand, also restricting the number of members to five, and General Joffre was succeeded in command of the armies of the north and the northeast by General Nivelle, commander of the French troops at Verdun, where notable victories were gained by the French in December, regaining almost all the ground lost during the previous operations of the year.
Sixty miles an hour to meet General Joffre Joffre somewhat like Grant Two figures which France will remember for all time Joffre and Castelnau Two very old friends At Verdun What Napoleon and Wellington might have thought A staff whose feet and mind never dragged The hero of Douaumont, General Nivelle Simplicity Men who believe in giving blows A true soldier A prized photograph of Joffre The drama of Douaumont General Mangin, corps commander at Verdun An eye that said "Attack!"
The afternoon of that day, when the Zouaves were driving the Germans across the Ourcq with the bayonet and were themselves effectually stopped by the German wall of artillery fire, General Joffre and Sir John French met. At last the British commander received the welcome news from the generalissimo that retreat was over and advance was about to be begun.
The strong and reticent man who is responsible for it broke through the limitations of official expression on two occasions only during the war: in the spring of 1917, in that famous and much criticised interview which he gave to certain French journalists, an incident, by the way, on which this Despatch throws a good deal of light; and in the impassioned Order of last April, when, like Joffre on the Marne, he told his country: that England had her back to the wall.
General Joffre likewise sent to Manoury the Fourth Army Corps, recruited from the Third Army, though an almost entire division of it was called for by the British to safeguard the junction of forces. "The day of September 8 turned out the most arduous for Manoury; the Germans, making attacks of extreme violence, won some success. They occupied Betz, Thury-en-Vallois and Nanteuil-le-Haudouin.
Both in fighting and in scouting they had proven their worth. Following the first Belgian campaign, the two lads had seen service with the British troops on the continent, where they were attached to the staff of General Sir John French, in command of the English forces. Also they had won the respect and admiration of General Joffre, the French commander-in-chief.
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