Shoshone journal. [volume] (Shoshone, Idaho) 1884-1931, 1917-01-12

y
In that year the archaic French mill
tary organization started toward re-
form. The army was to have its first
real commander In chief in many
years. Cabinet, army leaders and the
! people alike united In the demand that
this position go 10 General Pau.
But Pau. the patriot, standing In a
great council, declined the honor.
Pointing TO Joffre, he said: There
| stands the only possible man."
SO Joffre was selected, because Pau
wanted him as his superior. The choice
was u disappointment to the public
to whom Joffre was little known.
In many ways Joffre is more Ger
man than Partisan. Sober, simple in
habits. industrious. rising at five and
going to bed at ten. and making no
great public appearance, he was not
the figure TO strike the French mag
ination at first view.
Strong for Efficiency.
His career had already been marked
by several acts of gallantry, but it was
as an efficiency man, an engineer,
systematizer and organizer, who was
not too proud to learn from the kais- |
er's great general staff, that be had |
impressed Pau and Castelnau and 9TH |
ers, who now became his immediate |
instruments in regenerating the French
army.
Joffre is not the Frenchman of Paris.
but the Woodworking peasant type |
which made France great He was
born in Riversaltes, in the East Pyre-
nees. and loves today to talk the Cata-
Ian dialect with his old friends there.
He was the third of eleven children
no race suicide, one may deduct. The
family were additionally coopers, and
none of them had had military careers.
There is some Spanish blood in Joffre's
veins.
AS boy he was modest, gentle and
sweet-tempered. He was even looked
down upon by certain masculine spir-
is In school-thls boy who was to be-
come the man of iron and direct fif- |
zen million soldiers
AT fifteen he astounded his parents
md friends by announcing he intend
"a to compete for the Polytechnic
school in Paris, the great training
place for artillery officers. He passed
ourteenth In his entrance examina-
ions among 1872, and would have :
TODD much higher had his German !
lot been rather weak on points of
failing of his In which
he French people now take a certain
eight.
Before he could finish his course the i,
war began and h
offre became a sub-lieutenant in =
'aris fort. Here he got little chance G
D distinguish himself, but the hor- +,
ors of the Siege left a great impress II
ion on his mind and heightened his
atriotism. h
Directly after the conclusion of I,
eace he was employed in reconstruct n
lg the Paris Notifications. His work f,
, pleased Marshal Mcmahon when II
e came to inspect 1t that he made the
eutenant captain on the spot. s
In 1885 he went to Indo-C China, I
here he built the defenses of Haut-
onkin. He constructed a railroad in Z
enegal and the defenses of Diego
larez in Madagascar. {
In 1887 he became a professor of
In the army school at
and afterward he was
rector of engineering for the minis :
y. As an army corps commander at
lie and Amiens he gained intimate
lowledge of the country where I
,hting is now going on.
Almost his only blast of fame came {
1893. He was commander of a ma
Te column In Africa. Colonel Bon
er, who commanded the main line, 7
d encountered disaster. Thirteen of
5 officers and BONNER himself had 7
EN- killed. Joffre had been ordered
ascend the left bank of the Niger q
I'm Segu to Timbuctoo and take pos
ssion of the land which still re-
lined Independent of France.
He went about the expedition in his SUI
ual methodical fashion, studying the a
nntry aud its method of warfare, 10
d after Bonnlers death he made a loa
Irch of 800 miles under great diff TIL
tiles and planted the tricolor over bu
for the first time. lmu
ri