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Updated: June 12, 2025
Vive Pétain!" Pétain was miles away; but it was the spontaneous recognition of him as the soldiers' champion and friend. Gouraud did not say, what was no doubt the truth, that the army at Châlons were cheering Gouraud no less than Pétain. For one can rarely talk with French officers about General Gouraud without coming across the statement: "He is beloved by his army.
Hal, peering ahead by the glare of the searchlight on the large army car, suddenly slowed down; the car stopped. A group of mounted men rode up. Hal stood up and gave a military salute as one of the group advanced ahead of the others. "I am from General Durand at Marseilles, sir," he said. "I have important dispatches for General Petain." The French officer returned the salute.
Unlike Pétain or Joffre, General Dubois is a little man, possibly a trifle older than either. A white-haired, bright-eyed, vigorous soldier, who made his real fame in Madagascar with Joffre and with Gallieni, and when the storm broke was sent to Verdun by these men, who knew him, to do the difficult work that there was to be performed behind the battle line.
The road was endlessly broken up, sometimes by the traffic, sometimes by shell, and as endlessly repaired by troops specially assigned to the task. And presently we are passing the Moulin des Regrets, where Castelnau and Pétain met on the night of the 25th, and the resolution was taken to counter-attack instead of withdrawing.
"If you won't tell us, I've a notion to tell General Petain what you told us." "I wouldn't if I were you," said Stubbs. "It wouldn't do you any good. He probably would think your wound had affected your mind. That's what I think." "Oh, no you don't," said Hal. "You are just trying to keep the thing to yourself, whatever it is. Maybe you're going to slip it by the censor to the Gazette, eh?"
He gave as a proof of it that on the night of the Armistice, he and his Staff, at Châlons, unable to sit still indoors, went out and mingled with the crowd in the streets of that great military centre, apparently to the astonishment and pleasure of the multitude. "Everywhere along the line," said the General, "the soldiers were cheering Pétain! 'Vive Pétain!
There was a more satisfactory proportion of gains to losses in the more limited operations which characterized Pétain's substitution for Nivelle as French commander-in-chief. After Nivelle's comprehensive disappointment on the Chemin des Dames and Moronvillers heights in April, Pétain restricted the field of his attacks and took ample time to prepare them.
And while Marshal Haig was finding such an exceptional second in General Anthoine, Pétain, now commander-in-chief, was aiding the British offensive by attacking the Germans at other points on the front: on August 20 the Second Army under Guillaumat was victorious on the Meuse, near Verdun, while the Sixth Army under Maistre was preparing for the Malmaison offensive which on October 23 secured for the French the whole length of the Chemin des Dames to the river Ailette.
Even as we spoke there was a stirring in the crowd, general saluting, and I caught a glimpse of the commander-in-chief as he went quickly up the staircase. For the rest we must wait. But not for very long; in a few minutes there came the welcome word that General Pétain would see us, would see the stray American correspondent.
Without knowing it, Joffre, Castelnau, Foch, Pétain, Nivelle and others were the richest men in France. A colonel when the war began, in the sifting by Father Joffre to find real leaders by the criterion of success General Nivelle had risen to command an army. Wherever he was in charge he got the upper hand of the enemy. All that he and his officers said reflected one spirit that of the offensive.
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