The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1918-06-07
Genius of Forrest and FOch.


Forrest has been introduced into dis
cussion of the war by Gen. Maurice,
who quotes, apropos of the present
task of the Allies, Gen. Forests oft
quoted reply to a woman who asked
him what was the secret of his sue
cess. Gen. Maurice reproduces the
epigram as he has heard it and OBJ
serves that although Napoleon did
not utter it he acted upon it.
Napoleon did say, unless the words
have been put in his mouth across
his grave, that great generalship
consisted in recognizing the value Of
five minutes. That, if there is Sc
cret of generalship which can be ex-
pressed in words-a secret in the
form of a plan of action and aside
from the magic of the genius of
leadership of men, and personal in
piration-expressed the policy of
Forrest better than the ungrammati-
cal epigram which tradition has at
tributed to him.
Gen. Maurice's version of Gen.
Forests utterance is II got there
firstest with the mostest men," The
New York Times sensibly interposes
the objection that this is baby talk
rather than the speech of an i'll edu-
Gated Tennessean and ventures the
assertion that what Forrest said
was: II got thar fust with the most
men,"
A fact of history which both Gen.
Maurice and the New York Times
overlook; fact which should not be
overlooked because, as it applies to
Gen. Forrest-at McMinnville and at
Murfreesboro and Tishamingo Creek
for example-and to Gen. Foch in
the glorious Battle of the Marine in
1914, is that getting there first with
the most men is not the secret of
generalship. If it were, war would
be robbed of it's only really romantic
aspect and reduced to utter sordid-
ness. The Germans would have
reached Paris in 1914 if superiority
of numbers, plus superiority of equip
ment, plus being first in the field al
ways insured victory. The German
Crown Prince, and not Gen. Nivelle,
would have been the hero of Verdun
if so simple formula as that at
r'buted to Forrest were the first and
last rule of success.
If Gen. Forrest ever said anything
like what has been attributed to him
popularity he must have said it to
woman and said it jestingly or in
modest depreciation of his leader
ship, in the spirit in which Gen.
Nivelle told the correspondents at
Verdun, when they asked about his.
strategy, that the only military sci
ence he knew was fight"
Gen. Forrest proved his ability first
by supporting widowed mother and
her brood upon small and poor hill
farm in Mississippi and expanding
his operations until he became one
of the wealthiest planters in Tennes-
see, and next by entering the Con-
federate army as private and rising
to the rank of Lieutenant General
and proving himself, as Sherman
said, and as the New York Times
quotes him as having said, zone of
the most remarkable men our Civil
War produced on either side" Had
he depended upon numbers he never
would have won fame and the re-
spect of the foe. His triumph over
difficulties, mainly the difficulty of
inferior numbers, which made his
war record consistent with his peace
record, triumph over the obstacles
of poverty and the handicap of the
necessity for supporting his fathers
family, made him a brilliantly sue
cessful leader despite the failure of
the cause in which his services were
enlisted. Ia.l.ttui. ~ l4xa
The plan of German preparedness
contemplated smashing thru by sheer
weight of numbers and superiority of
equipment before the ill-prepared
French and the British with their
contemplate little army" could stop
the Kaisers millions For four
years the Germans have maintained
superiority of numbers on their west
ern front, but they have not yet
reached the objective which they be-
lieved they could reach in September
or October, 1914. The Allies have
had to depend upon military plan
exactly opposite from that popularity
attributed to Gen. Forrest. The
final defeat of the Germans may re-
suit from the assembling of superior
forces by the Allies, but even if that
is true the glory of the victory will
belong largely to the thin line of