Chapter 11

"Two hundred and fifty yards away, the dark blue men were firing madly in a thin film of light-blue smoke. Their bullets struck the hard gravel into the air, and the troopers, to shield their faces from the stinging dust, bowed their helmets forward, like the Cuirassiers at Waterloo. The pace was fast and the distance short. Yet before it was half covered the whole aspect of the affair changed. A deep crease in the ground--a dry watercourse, a _khor_--appeared where all had seemed smooth, level plain; and from it there sprang, with the suddenness of a pantomime effect and a high-pitched yell, a dense white mass of men nearly as long as our front and about twelve deep. A score of horsemen and a dozen bright flags rose as if by magic from the earth. The Lancers acknowledged the apparition only by an increase of pace."

In such a mêlée as then followed, that trooper was lucky indeed who escaped without a scratch.

As a result of his bravery at Atbara and Khartoum, Haig's name was mentioned in the official despatches. He returned to England wearing the Khedive's medal and the honorary title of Major.

It is probable, however, that little more would have been heard of him, had not the South African War broken out, soon after. It is the lot of military men to vegetate in days of peace. They live upon action. Haig was no exception to this rule. He welcomed new fields. He went to South Africa as aide and right-hand man to Sir John French--the general whom he was to succeed in later years on the battlefields of France.

In this war, Haig is not credited with many personal exploits. His was essentially a thinking part. Yet he served as chief of staff in a series of minor but important operations about Colesburg, which prepared the way for Roberts's advance. As usual Haig pinned his faith upon the cavalry. All his life he had made a close study of this arm of the service, and was of opinion that it was not utilized in modern warfare nearly so much as it should be. He was a warm admirer of the American officer, J. E. B. Stuart, the Confederate General whose dashing tactics turned the scale in so many encounters.

Now he tried the same strategy in the operations around Colesburg--and paved the way for later victory.

Haig somewhat resembled another Southern leader, Stonewall Jackson, in his piety. It was not ostentatious, but simply part and parcel of the man, due to his Presbyterian training. Haig did not swear or gamble or dance all night. He was more apt to be found in his tent, when off duty, either reading or writing.

They tell of him that, one day at the officers' mess, after a particularly lively brush with the Boers, the quartermaster asked him if he had lost anything.

"Yes," replied Haig solemnly, "my Bible!"

Not once did his countenance relax its gravity, as he met the grinning faces across the table.

But despite their chaffing, there was not a man there who did not respect the courage of his convictions, no less than the bravery of the man himself. Almost daily he risked his life in these cavalry operations--until the "Haig luck" became a watchword.

The end of the South African War found Haig promoted to acting Adjutant General of the Cavalry, and soon after his return home he was made Lieutenant Colonel, in command of the Seventeenth Lancers. This was in 1901.

About this time he paid a visit to Germany, then at peace and professing a warm affection for England. One result of this visit was a letter which showed him possessed with wonderful powers of analysis and foresight. He practically predicted the war that was to come. He summed up his observations in a long letter to a friend which, in the light of events of the War, is little short of uncanny. It gave the German plan with a mastery of detail, shrewd prophecy, and earnest warning. The future commander-in-chief of the British armies in France was convinced of the certainty of the conflict and besought the authorities to make better preparation--but his warnings fell upon deaf ears.

It required thirteen years to demonstrate the truth of Haig's predictions, and then the blow fell. The Kaiser viewed his strong hosts and boasted that he would soon wipe out England's "contemptible little army." He very nearly did so, and would certainly have succeeded, had it not been for the fighting spirit of such men as Haig.

During the intervening years since the South African campaign he had risen by fairly rapid stages to Inspector-General of the Cavalry in India--a situation which he handled with great skill for three years--then Major General, and Lieutenant General.

At the outbreak of the World War, he was hurriedly sent to France, under the command of Sir John French, his old leader in Africa. French was generosity itself in his praise of Haig in these early days of disaster.

In the retreat from Mons it was "the skilful manner in which Sir Douglas Haig extricated his corps from an exceptionally difficult position in the darkness of the night," that won his laudation. At the Aisne, on September 14, 1914, "the action of the First Corps on this day, under the direction and command of Sir Douglas Haig, was of so skilful, bold, and decisive a character, that he gained positions which alone have enabled me to maintain my position for more than three weeks of very severe fighting on the north bank of the river."

In the first battle of Ypres, the chief honors of victory were again awarded to him:

"Throughout this trying period, Sir Douglas Haig, aided by his divisional commanders and his brigade commanders, held the line with marvelous tenacity and undaunted courage."

Again and again, the generous French pays tribute to his friend, which while deserved reflects no less honor upon the speaker. He was big enough to share honor.

It is not strange, therefore, when French was superseded, for strategic reasons, that Haig should have been given the chief command. The appointment, however, left most of the world frankly amazed. Haig had come forward so quietly that few save those in official circles knew anything about him. It was nevertheless but a matter of weeks, possibly days, before a quiet confidence born of the man himself was manifest everywhere.

One war correspondent who visited headquarters in the midst of the War's turmoil, thus describes his visit:

"The environment of the Commander-in-chief is strongly suggestive of his conduct of the war. Before war became a thing of precise science, the headquarters of an army head seethed with all the picturesque details so common to pictures of martial life. Couriers mounted on foam-flecked horses dashed to and fro. The air was vibrant with action; the fate of battle showed on the face of the humblest orderly. But today 'G. H. Q.'--as headquarters are familiarly known--are totally different. Although army units have risen from thousands to millions of men, and fields of operations stretch from sea to sea, and more ammunition is expended in a single engagement than was employed in entire wars of other days, absolute serenity prevails. It is only when your imagination conjures up the picture of flame and fury that lies beyond the horizon line that you get a thrill.

"An occasional motorcar driven by a soldier-chauffeur chugs up the gravel road to the chateau and from it emerge earnest-faced officers whose visits are usually brief. Neither time nor words are wasted when myriad lives hang in the balance and an empire is at stake. Inside and out there is an atmosphere of quiet confidence, born of unobtrusive efficiency."

The same writer on meeting Haig says: "I found myself in a presence that, even without the slightest clue to its profession, would have unconsciously impressed itself as military. Dignity, distinction, and a gracious reserve mingle in his bearing. I have rarely seen a masculine face so handsome and yet so strong. His hair and mustache are fair, and his clear, almost steely-blue eyes search you, but not unkindly. His chest is broad and deep, yet scarcely broad enough for the rows of service and order ribbons that plant a mass of color against the background of khaki. . . .

"Into every detail of daily life at General Headquarters the Commander's character is impressed. After lunch, for example, he spends an hour alone, and in this period of meditation the whole fateful panorama of the war passes before him. When it is over the wires splutter and the fierce life of the coming night--the Army does not begin to fight until most people go to sleep--is ordained.

"This finished, the brief period of respite begins. Rain or shine, his favorite horse is brought up to the door, and he goes for a ride, usually accompanied by one or two young staff-officers. I have seen Sir Douglas Haig galloping along those smooth French roads, head up, eyes ahead--a memorable figure of grace and motion. He rides like those latter-day centaurs--the Australian ranger and the American cowboy. He seems part of his horse."

Such was the man who did his full share in turning the German tide. Throughout the four long years of war, he faced the enemy with a calm courage which if it ever wavered gave no outward sign. And that is one reason why the Little Contemptibles grew and grew until they became a mighty barrier stretching across the pathway of the invader from sea to sea, and saying with their Allies:

"You shall not pass!"

IMPORTANT DATES IN HAIG'S LIFE

1861. June 19. Douglas Haig born. 1880. Entered Brasenose College, Oxford. 1885. Joined 7th Hussars, British army. 1898. Served in Soudan, mentioned in despatches, and brevetted major. 1899. Served in South Africa. D. A. A. G. for cavalry; then staff officer to General French. 1901. Lieutenant-colonel commanding 17th Lancers. 1903. Inspector-general, cavalry, India. 1904. Major-general. 1910. Lieutenant-general. 1914. General, commanding First Army in France. 1915. Commander-in-chief of British forces. 1917. Field marshal. 1919. Created an earl. 1928. January 30. Died in England.

JOFFRE

THE COOPER'S SON WHO REMADE THE ARMIES OF FRANCE

"Let's name him Joseph," said Gilles Joffre to his wife, as they viewed their first child with much pride.

"That doesn't seem to be enough," responded Mme. Joffre. So unusual a baby deserved better treatment, she thought.

"Then how about Joseph Jacques? That's a good, sensible sounding name."

"That sounds well," she admitted, "but still it lacks something. I'll tell you. Let's call him Joseph Jacques Césaire."

"Sounds like a soldier," said the father.

"Well, who knows? Perhaps he will be a general some day," Mme. Joffre replied.

So the infant who lay quietly blinking on his natal day, January 12, 1852, was to be known as Joseph to his friends; but tucked away in his name for future reference was Césaire--as the French folk pronounced the name of the great Roman conqueror.

Truly there was nothing very auspicious in the start of Joseph Joffre. His father was merely a cooper in a straggling hillside town of the Pyrenees in Southern France, Rivesaltas--but he was a good cooper. His neighbors had a saying that is preserved to this day: "Barrels as good as those made by old Gilles Joffre."

The town itself had some six thousand inhabitants, and was situated on the River Agly, about nine miles from the city of Perpignan. The Joffre home was a very plain and humble dwelling set alongside of the cooper shop, and neither better nor worse than its neighbors--but the well-to-do workman of today would turn up his nose at it. Nevertheless in this home were born eleven children, the oldest of whom was the future Marshal of France. And the father continued to live there for thirty years or more.

It is related of him that even as a baby Joseph never cried, but endured his various troubles with silent stoicism. As he grew older, this trait of silence became ingrown; it was alluded to as "Joffre's taciturnity." But as a matter of fact the gift of silence in him as both boy and man did not indicate a sullen or unfriendly disposition. It was merely that he had his head in the clouds. He made a life job of _thinking_--like the seated statue by Rodin.

As one result of this trait, little is reported concerning his childhood. No anecdotes are related of him at all, except one doubtful story about a fight which he had with a schoolmate. The latter wanted him to stop and take part in some game. Joffre replied that he didn't have time. The other fellow came back with a taunt--and then Joseph "waded in."

He did not have any chums for the same reason, lack of time, and doubtless he missed a great deal out of boyhood from this fact. It is said that in the study hall he would erect a great pile of books between himself and the next boy, so as not to be disturbed. Yet he didn't shine particularly as a student. He was simply busy--thinking.

It was not until he was sent to college at Perpignan, that he really began to take an interest in books, and his favorites were the more solid studies--algebra, descriptive geometry, surveying, and draftsmanship. His bent even at this early day seemed to be civil engineering.

The ambition of every middle-class French home, in those days, was to send a son to the army--have him study to become an officer. Mamma Joffre had not forgotten the Caesar in her oldest son's name; and in a family conclave it was decided that he should be sent to Paris, to try for the entrance examinations in the École Polytechnique.

Gilles Joffre accompanied his son to the capital, and left him in a private school. Like his son, the cooper was a man of few words; but what he must have done at parting was to clap the boy on the shoulder, and say: "Now, go to it!"

Joseph Joffre did. When he returned to his boyhood's home, only four years later, he was wearing the shoulder straps of a lieutenant, and had seen active service. But this is getting ahead of our story.

There was really nothing else for him to do but to "go to it" here in Paris. He was a big, hulking lad of fifteen, with a bullet head set upon a thick neck and broad shoulders--an awkward figure dressed in ill-fitting clothes. All his life Joffre paid little attention to dress. Here at the awkward age he looked out of place with the well-dressed city boys. They tried to have fun at his expense, but he withdrew into his shell more than ever, and they soon learned to let him alone.

It must have been a lonely life that young Joffre led--but we have no direct evidence that he ever felt lonely. His books and his day dreams seem always to have made up for a lack of human companionship. The other fellows contented themselves with saying of him: "He is too slow, and methodical to amount to much."

He did not, indeed, make a specially brilliant record in his entrance examinations to the Polytechnique; but his stumbling block was not mathematics or science, it was--German! He never could abide the language!

Joseph Joffre entered this famous military training school in 1869, at the age of seventeen. Within a few months the school course was broken up by the German invasion, and Joffre with other cadets promptly volunteered for service. Much to the delight of his family, he was made a second lieutenant, attached to the Engineering Corps. His first practical field work was in throwing up fortifications in defence of Paris. But the Germans were not to be stopped by Joffre in their march on the French capital at this time. That was reserved for a later day and another war.

The short but terrible conflict of 1870 over, Joffre returned to college, and graduated therefrom in 1872, with the rank of full lieutenant. One of his classmates of this time was Ferdinand Foch, but if the two future Marshals there became acquainted no story of their meeting has come down to us.

Joffre's first work at fort building had been so well done that immediately upon graduation the government set him to work. The memory of the stinging German defeat was with them stirring them to action. They wanted defenses everywhere. Joffre was employed upon them at Paris, Versailles, Montpellier, and even in faraway Brittany--until he was disposed to grumble at his fate.

"This is all very fine," he said; "but I don't want to spend the rest of my days building forts. I want to command troops and see some real fighting."

It was the Caesar cropping up in him again.

Without question he was a born builder of fortifications. One day the great Marshal MacMahon came by on a tour of inspection, and was much delighted with a series of defenses he had built near Paris.

"I congratulate you, Monsieur le Capitaine!" he said.

By one sentence he had promoted the young lieutenant to a captaincy.

It was about this time that a fall from his horse very nearly cut short his military career. He was so severely injured that the doctors feared that his mind was affected, and he was sent home for a complete rest.

At home he did not complain--that was not his nature--but he spent several days pacing back and forth in his little upper room. Then came a day when he burst in to the downstairs room where sat his parents, his face beaming--showing the strain which he had overcome.

"It's all right, mon père!" he cried joyfully. "I have solved it. I will get well!"

What he had been doing was to set himself an abstruse and difficult problem in mathematics, in order to see if his brain would respond. It did so, he solved it and thus had no more fears as to his own ultimate recovery.

Another story told by his sister, of these early army days, shows further his power of mental abstraction.

"My brother was always lost in thought," says Mme. Artus. "No matter what he did, his thoughts never left him. Once they caused his arrest as a spy."

It seems that at Vauban, not far away from his home town of Rivesaltas, they were constructing a fort. Joffre sauntered over to inspect it. He was clad in civilian dress and he evinced so much interest in what was going on that the commanding officer promptly seized him for a suspicious character.

"Did my brother protest? Not he. But when they brought him before the military court, his Catalonian brogue was enough to convince anybody as to where he was born.

"'Why didn't you tell them who you were?' I asked him.

"'Too busy thinking about the fort,' was his reply."

One other anecdote of this time has come down to us and is worth repeating. His father had bought a piece of farm land that was badly in need of ditching, in order to drain it properly during the wet season, and irrigate it during the dry. The son sketched out a scheme of cross trenches, but his father demurred--then Joseph exploded:

"Trenches! What the devil! I know all about trenches; trenches are my specialty."

The Great War of later years was to show whether or not this confidence in his own abilities was misplaced.

By the year 1884, his reputation as a builder of trenches and forts was firmly established, although official promotion had come slowly. When Admiral Courbet telegraphed to the Home Office from the Isle of Formosa for a reliable officer to place in charge of this work, Joffre was sent. He spent nearly a year there and it was a year of the hardest kind of work. He could get only indifferent help, so he worked early and late to make up the deficit.

From there he was sent on similar work to the province of Tonkin, Indo-China. Here he practically rebuilt the town of Hanoi, clearing and guttering the streets, draining the neighboring marshes which had made the settlement a pest-hole, and building permanent roads. The town of Vietri was similarly cleaned up.

For these important labors he received the first recognition in nearly ten years. He was given official thanks, and decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honor.

A fellow officer who knew him at this time says: "Captain Joffre was a solidly-built Pyrenean, calm and clear-headed, with a firm walk and a hard blue eye. He seldom smiled and he spoke still more rarely. He never punished except in extreme cases, and then hard. Natives feared him for his silence, but loved him for his justice."

This portrait of him about a quarter of a century before the Great War is easily recognizable in the commander of the later day.

In 1891 he paralleled the career of General Foch somewhat by taking a professor's chair. He was appointed instructor in fortifications at the Military School at Fontainebleau, where he remained for two years. The work did not appeal to him particularly and he is spoken of there as a thorough teacher, but not popular. He had not mingled enough with others to get their point of view.

A welcome change from this was a summons from headquarters to go to Timbuctoo, and help suppress a native rebellion. It was all the more welcome as here, for the first time, he was promised a chance to do some real fighting.

Timbuctoo was then being overrun by the Tuaregs, a tribe of terrible brigands called "the veiled men" of Western Soudan. They had massacred the European settlers, and ended by killing two French officers, Colonel Bonnier and Lieutenant Boiteux, who had recently headed expeditions against them. It was a wild and treacherous land, and the relief expedition would scarcely have child's play of it.

Joffre went at it without the slightest misgiving. Like many another soldier he was a firm believer in "Luck," and here certainly the fates were propitious. He set forth on his journey from Segou, on Christmas Day, 1893, commanding a force of thirty French and three hundred natives. They crossed deadly swamps and dry, trackless deserts. There were some deaths by the wayside, but Joffre pushed on. His progress was slow, as he stopped to make friends with native chiefs, and enlist their aid where possible.

At last they reached Timbuctoo, only to find orders awaiting them to "prepare for evacuation," in the face of a threatening Tuareg army. Joffre for once disobeyed orders, and decided, instead, to attack. He did so, and administered a crushing defeat to the brigands. He followed this up so thoroughly, that the whole district was restored to peace.

Then the soldier gave place to the engineer. He cleaned up the town (in another sense) and returned home.

"Luck was on my side," he said briefly after receiving official congratulations, and the rank of lieutenant colonel. "I might have met the fate of Bonnier and Boiteux, had the Goddess of Good Fortune not attended me."

But those who knew him believed that it was something more than luck.

That Joffre was a fatalist is evinced by another incident of this march in Soudan. An insect's sting had poisoned his left eye so severely that the sight was threatened. The doctor of the force advised him to wear a bandage. Joffre would not agree.

"I could not command my troops if I were blindfolded," he said.

"Then it must be blue glasses," said the doctor.

But eyeglass shops are not found in the desert, and Joffre went on without protection. A few days later a soldier received a packet from home and brought it to him. It was a pair of blue glasses!

"I told you that I was in luck," said Joffre.

However, he narrowly escaped blindness, and ever afterward a thin veil-like film covered the injured eye.