Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-07-21
BY FRANK II. SIMONDS.

u
the scat in the French Academy
made vacant by the death of
i Foch has served in France AS
the opportunity for paying
general and brilliant tribute to the de-
fender of Verdun. Inevitably Petain
has suffered by consequence Of the fact
that his greatest achievement came
midway in the war. Joffre, as the victor
of the Marine and commander in chief
of the French armies for the first three
years became an enduring figure. Foch,
as the generalissimo of all the Allied
armies in Europe and as the victor In
the final campaign, earned the con-
Queror's laurels.
Petain has been during the lifetime
OF Foch somewhat in the background.
This fact has been due, too, to the
circumstance that Petain'S most dis
tingu.Shed services were in the east, In
Champagne and Lorraine, that Is. re-
mote from the British frontier, while
Foch from 1914 onward was associated
with British armies and became, even
before his ultimate triumph, almost as
we'll known in Britain as in France.
On the other hand, it was Petain
and not Foch who came in immediate
and intimate contact with the Ameri-
can armies and naturally fills more
considerable place in their recollect1onS.
And. perhaps as another result OF this
propinuuity, the majority of our gen.
erals have always held to the opinion
that Petain was a greater general than
his comrade who was in the end his
commander. w
If this verdict must seem a little
extreme it is not less unmiStakable that,
not merely as the defender of Verdun.
but as the reorganiZer of the. French
army after its heavy defeat and tragic
Iict ofe N SnrlnQ
1917. Petain must be adjudged one OF
the greatest commanders. not alone OF
the World War, but in all military
annals.
Silent and AlOOf.
Unlike Joffre, Petain has nothing of
the personality out of which legends
are made. He was never Papa Petaln.
Nor had he the rough and ready manner
and picturesque phrase which rendered
Foch at once charming and one of the
most articulate of soldiers since the
great Napoleon. BY contrast, Petaln
was silent. cool, aloof.
Yet in the course Of the defense OF
Verdun Petain built up a reputation
that enabled him to save the French
army at desperate moment. Although
under his command some 100000 SOL
diers persisted on both banks OF the
Mouse he impressed his poilus with the
conviction that no lives were wasted in
brilliant and costly adventures. Prodlgal
in ammunition, parsimonious in blood
that was the verdict. In the wartime
phrase, he sold" the enemy parcels OF
French territory only when they had
paid his price and the sum OF his
strategy was the immortal phrase:
"They shall not pass
It followed, then, that when in 1917
Nivelle flung the French army into the
shambles of the AiSne, having fired
their expectations with. the most brill
liant and preposterous promises OF
break-t through in day and vast for
ward sweep, with cavalry in Laon on
the second afternoon, an immense and
menacing pesSimiSm seized the French
army. In the third year of the struggle,
to have been thrown against mistaken
German lines, to have lacked artillery
preparation. to have been held up and
slaughtered in the meshes of the uncut
barbed wire of the first line, that was
too much.
Facts Still Unknown.
Even TODAY the facts of that period
are little known by the general public.
That divisions mutinied that regiments
retired from the line and even started
for Paris, that for certain time the
very front itself was open and vulner-
able. these were details naturally sup
pressed at the moment and left in OBJ
security when victory restored the mo-
mentarily shaken reputation OF the
poilu.
It was at that moment that France
turned to Petain. And in the Summer
of 1917 he wrought miracle. While
he had at the outset to restore discipline
by pitiless severity. to send many men
to the firing squads, to punish rigor-
ously, at the same time he set to work
to abolish the abuses that had under
mined the morale of his men and TO
provide them the comforts and privileges
that were their due. But above all,
with his arrival every soldier knew that
the next offensive would be prepared,
that no attack planned by Petain would
fail through lack of artillery or other
preliminary.
Yet throughout the Summer of 1917
the French army had to be 'nurSed."
Petain had to tell Haig very frankly
that for a period of months the French
army would be incapable of any con-
siderable offensive operation. And the
result of this was the prolonged and
terribly costly fighting before Arras and
subsequently the murderous operation
at Paschendaele. Haig had to keep
pounding to take the weight off Petain,
to give him the necessary time to re-
Autumn, with the battle of Malmaison,
one of the best prepared and most COM
plete of all the smaller attacks of the
war, that evidence was at hand that
the. French army was itself again.
With the coming of Foch, Petain's
star paled slightly. If he had shown
himself beyond doubt the greatest de-
fensive general OF modern warfare ne
seemed to suffer somewhat from the
effects Of his virtues He remained until
nearly the end a little suspicious OF
Foch's strategy of attack. To be sure
he, equally with Haig, displayed su-
preme self abnegation in the critical
hour at Doullens, after the German
break-through of March. 1918, and
made possible the naming OF Foch al
commander in chief.
But over the first great counter.
offensive, that of July 49,. following
the German check in the last battle
of the Marine, Petain was sceptical anc
sought to procrastinatc. He was, too
patiently appalled, by the blood ia,
the war had imposed upon France anc
eager to set limit to further sacrifice
But his armies were Superbly prepared
his operations were conducted not onl!
successfully, but economically. And
the supreme test of generalSh1p-hl:
soldiers and his subordinates were a.
all times conscious of being commanded
He kept in touch not with armies alone
hut with divisions. He knew and dis
closed that he knew precisely what hi
soldiers were thinking. The leav'
trains which took soldiers on vacations
were as well run as the attacks ant
there was an end of that shocking ant
shameful condition that for three year
had well nigh runined the brief respite
of the French soldier, because Of tn
lack of any organization of transport
ikn ESoch Petain Is a great thinker