The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-07-14

Vicente Blasco in the New York World. l @ ENERAL MANGIN has been the l tt 1 hero of heroes. However NJ brave and self sacrificing all the French generals of this war may have been there was one who stooo | out among them like Achilles among | the other warriors of the Had. Ihls man was Mangin Wherever there was | need of forcing a passage, winning ground and driving back the enemy. they called for Mangin. He has been 1 the specialist of attack, of the forward march at all cost.
 It would be mistake to think or him as a brave soldier, but one of little | judgment as a machine of war that knew only how to obey Mangin is an intelligent general, but he is at the same time a man in the most vTlle sense of the word.
 Short of stature ugly as devil (but a good natured friendly devil), he was
 born to command men and to inspire them with the heroic madness that ends in victory or death. Peace never eX- isted for him. He has made war ever since he left the military school, in Asia. in Africa in all the colonies and lands conquered by France. He has fought with men of all colors under the
 difficulties that virgin forests and un- explored rivers offer He has fought with the deadly diseases that lie in wait for the white man in tropical lands. And he has always come out a victor.
 In this war the troops commanded by Mangin were the hardest, the most reckless of life,~~and the most defiant of death The other divisions of the army were made up of men," of citi- zens who fulfilled their duty to their country, and were ready to die if neces- sary. The troops of Mangin were com posed of warriors" of men who in- stinctively loved danger and adventure. the glory of arms, the rude charm or action and struggle. To the satisfac- tion of serving a noble cause was ad- ded the harsh voluptuousness of grati- lying their personal tastes They were French regiments picked by Death, in which remained only the bravest and maddest; Algerian and Moroccan troops, i Spanish and African halfhreeds; the irresistible battalions of the FererSn Legion, of legendary fame; the Sene- | galese sharpsh ooters, who with the childishness of the bellicose negro con sidered war the only occupation worthy 1 of a man. And they all adored Mangin' 1 the invulnerable general. who, when l the hour of attack arrived. advanced at the head of his soldiers, and in the moments of rest fraternized with them. Those who held the same humani- tartan ideas in war as Tn peace were his enemies and called him "Mangln le boucher" (Mangin the Butcher) be- c.use the readiness with which he | sacrificed human lives to win an ob- iective. not stopping until he had sue l ceeded.
 | For a little while, at his own wish, he remained quietly in the background. General Niveile, during his brief period of command, began an offensive against
 the German lines, ordering Mangin to :, break through whatever it might cost. l And he would have done so but there was a commission of senators at the
 front then. men ofpeace, who knew war i only by hearsay. and who were terri l fled at the reality of it. At seeing l how the hospitals filled up; how the I fields were heaped with the slain, they
 protested against this way of making
 war of "Mangin the Butcher" Painleve,
 !, the head of the government at that
 time, could not afford to gonize
 these senators. and so, they say, he
 made Mangin suspend this costly opera
 tion, and made failure out of what
 1 would have been a certain. though a
 bloody victory.
 The chief victims, the soldiers, have
 been the generals stoutest supporters Men instinctively love 9 hero who leads