New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1922-09-03
ssIhe Ponlp Of Power
By Lester Markell

since 1880, when rife carried only
200 paeesi
Hut Plan XVII was Jotfre's story
and he was determined to stick TO it.
i The results were dire, There were
Il mad charges without artillery prepara-
tion; Veraun, il was discovered, was
1 not fortified; there was the battle of
4 Charleroi, after which, according to
our chronicler, Joffre began his re-
treat before notifying the British that
he was falling back.
The battle of the Marne made the
| French people forget these earlier
! mistakes, even though the credit for
this victory is given to Gailieni, who
fought the battle of the Ourcq, with
/ out which the battle OF the Marine
/ would not have been possible. But the
Politicians read the writing on the
trenches; Joifre was named Marshal
OF France and from that time took no
further part in the conduct of the
bwar.
1 Yet Papa Joffre had his virtues eff
] his primary errors and subsequent
1 strategy were responsible fer disas-
4 tiers which affected the whole course
\ of the war, yet his mperturbabie CAIN
ness was effective in preventing a diff
cult and dangerous retreat from de-
4 veloping into something more. calami-
4 tous.'
Then came another Hero Nivelle,
who prepared another great offensive.
Throughout the French armies it was
whispered that this was to be lie dern-
Ter COUP. But it proved to be an APP
palling failure 117,0O0 men were lost
! and, what was far worse, the hopes of
the French armies were shattered.
when these hundreds of thousands
Of men saw all these promises of a
\ speedy end of the war vanish, there
ensued a decentralization such as the
French army has probably never seen.
Battaiions, regiments, even a whole
/ division mutinled.
Then the Politicians decided that The
time had come to turn from the Heroes
to the Prophets. In France they called
in Foch, who had seen the fatal de-
fects in Plan XVII, and who held that
the only way to beat the Germans was
to annoy them until the favorable mo-
ment came to crush them. They
4 planned to give him an army of man
euver, ready to strike whenever and
1 wherever an attack was made.
But England was not yet done with
her Heroes. There was Robertson,
Chief of Staff, who believed with Jof-
FIRE in the "guerre d'usine," the wear
ing down of the Germans, slaughter
on both sides until finally the Ger
mans had no men left and the Allies
a remainder who would be the victors.
And there was Haig, the Commander
inChief, who stood with Robertson
Haig refused to contribute any troops
to the army of maneuyer and Foch's
command ceased to exist, except on
paper. But meanwhile. the English,
too, had become uneasy and had begun
to seek out their Prophets. They found
Sir Henry Wilson, of whom it was
related that lecturing one day at the
staff college he pointed to town on
the map and said: There, or just
about there, gentlemen, is where the
British Expeditionary Force will run
q great risk of being defeated or sur
rounded" The place was Mons.
Wilson, being Prophet, believed
, with Foch that the only way of win
ming the war was in unique command.
But it took another disaster to de-
throne the Heroes and give the Proph-
cts the upper hand. The Germans at
.. tackled in March, the Fifth Army was
defeated, because there was no army
, OF maneuver to come to it's aid, and
Haig it seemed would be driven to
the coast With his back to the wall
Haig yielded, Foch was made general
issimo of the Allied forces and the
victory followed
, There is the main plot. There are
Incidental plots concerned with the
schemings and the vanities of the
Politicians and the tangled threads of
: the peace.
There is the story of Asquith, "a man
: of great intellect but with none of the
/ | nal nf q -. Of I Low
: George, dominated sometimes by high
| ideals and sometimes actuated by
mean motives, who had withal many
; of the parts of a great man and still
more of the qualities of great lead
) err; of BRAND, "the only French poll
tician except Poincare, who can hold
) his own against Lloyd Georges" of CAL
laux, who has the unfortunate faculty
either of surrounding himself with or
J allowing himself to be made the center
of people who range from plain I'M
desirables to dangerous adventures; ="
. OF Northcliffe, who made "The Thun-
derer' .'the voice of one man"
Then there is the story of the peace,
r summarized in this manner: upon the
, whole it may be said that Clemenceau
! got what he could, Lloyd George got
practically all he wanted, while Wilson
sacrificed everything including the
immediate future of Europe to his
obstinate resolution to have the Cove
nant of the League of Nations ncor-
porated as part of the treaty.
But the absorbing passages are the
accounts of the conflict between the
I Heroes and the Prophets. In war or
peace that conflict will always be the
; main plot, until that distant day ar
/ riyes when the people make Heroes
: of their prophets.