Part 7

Of an old Southern family, the General was born (in 1851) at St. Affrique in the Aveyron, the old Rouergue which came to the French Crown under Henri IV. He likes to speak the _patois_ with soldiers from the district, but he is not democratic in the French sense of the word, though familiar in his dealings with the ranks and solicitous for their welfare. But he is exacting where discipline is concerned, and not only gives orders but sees that they are executed. His staff as well as his regimental officers respect his strenuous temper. His family is noted for intellectual distinction. Some of his brothers, as well as his sons, were at the Polytechnique, the famous mathematical school. He, himself, is both classical and mathematical. If he has little English and less German, and his pronunciation of English place-names amuses his Anglo-Saxon friends, he is a brilliant classic, and jokes in Latin, when the mood takes, with his staff. Nevertheless he is thoroughly modern in his appreciation of science and gives a chance to any likely inventor. Manufacturers are numbered amongst his family, and the largest coal-mine in the south belongs to it. His father, however, was a jurist and a friend of the economist, Le Play.

The General's vigour comes from the natural energy of his mind. In his boyhood there were few sports in France, but he likes to tell his intimates that he played a sort of football, with an inflated ball, in his _lycee_ in the mountains. His youngest son is a well-known champion of the Rugby game. Of his six sons, each went to the war. Three were already in the Army, one was at school, another in the Navy, and a third an engineer. The record is a tribute to the patriotism--no uncommon trait--of provincial France. And there are those who, ignorant of the austerity of her Catholic families, declared that France was decadent! Of the General's six daughters--for Providence has blessed him with a full quiver--one has had her arm amputated, having been infected with gangrene whilst nursing in a hospital. Such courage and devotion are well exemplified in the mother, who heard of her son's death whilst attending the little church where it is her habit to go daily. "Which one?" she asked, almost inaudibly of the _cure_, as she saw by his look of tenderness, that he had bad news to communicate. She thought of her husband, and of her sons at the Front, and when the name was pronounced, with a soft sigh of resignation she bowed her silvery head a little lower over the breviary, and proceeded with outward tranquillity, though with a torn heart, to receive the consolation of her religion.

The man whom I have summarily sketched was invested by Joffre with the dignity of his Chief-of-Staff and the title of Major-General. The life-long friend became the chief aid in his deliberations, and the virtual leader on the Western Front, leaving to the highest in command the larger issues of a world-wide campaign. Even in Republican France there is thus place for the _croyant_ and the aristocrat, as the names of Delangle de Gary, de Maud'huy, and D'Urbal show.

*CHAPTER VIII*

*THE ORGANISATION OF MUNITIONS*

One of the many surprises of the war was the vast place given to munitions. Not even the most careful calculator had foreseen the enormous consumption of war _materiel_ that would result from a long continuance of trench warfare. The Germans had reckoned on an expenditure of 35,000 shells a day, and the French on about half that; the actual consumption was often 100,000 shells on each side.

Both French and German had based their figures on a rapid war, and, had the invaders' plans been realised, Paris would have been occupied and the French opposition paralysed in a fortnight. But this was reckoning without Joffre, without England, and without "General Chance," one of the most important factors in any war. Ammunition, by reason of its vast role, became as engrossing and as vitally important as the actual fighting. For it soon became apparent that in this war of _materiel_ he would win who could most quickly assemble the largest quantity of guns and shot and shell. The Germans began with an immense advantage, for they had accumulated secretly a mass of machine-guns estimated at 50,000, leaving the Allies hopelessly in the rear in this respect. But even their perverse intelligence did not fully grasp the logical outcome of their own preparations, or foresee that, their first plan having failed, they would be caught inevitably in their own toils.

To the eternal credit of the French, they realised with great rapidity the character of the war, and set themselves with methodical speed to adapt themselves to its unexpected features. Factories sprang up all over the country, some created out of boards and bricks; others existing, but "controlled" in the English sense, with Army officers assisting the civilian directors; and a vast business of production was ordered and marshalled as if the French had never done anything else in their lives. At one bound, they developed into a manufacturing nation, though the term would have been refused them, in the long yesterday of the war, by England, the United States, and Germany. Their faculty for seeing clearly and acting quickly, so apparent in their history, again came to their aid. It was their distinguishing mark during the Great Revolution. Having seized the essentials of the problem, they acted upon their insight with startling rapidity and resolution. Of course they committed excesses of a dreadful kind, but their excuse was the gigantic character of the evil which they sought to remedy. Much the same spirit of swift determination, happily without its fearful manifestations, came upon the French people, and with all the old Republican ardour they set themselves, with a sort of grim alacrity, to face the crisis. The old stern common sense, which has always lain at the bottom of apparent volatility, again came to their rescue; and in no way did the French show a greater grasp of the situation than in their handling of munitions.

It had been supposed that they were wanting in order and method, and that their dramatic achievements were due to the impulse of the moment. But, even if this were ever wholly true, it was certainly not true of the second great struggle with Germany. The magnificent effort of France was the outcome, not of improvisation, but of the will to conquer and to adopt the proper means to secure that end. Nor was a Press campaign necessary, as in England, to bring home to the people the peculiar importance of war-work in the factories. It is true that M. Albert Thomas, who took charge of Munitions in the circumstances which I shall describe, made speeches to factory workers in his visits of inspection, but it was never necessary to wrestle with labour and cause it to abrogate its proud pretensions, months after the war had broken out. Conscription would have settled that question even if a vivid sense of realities had not rendered unnecessary any exhortation from Ministerial lips. The vital character of the war had penetrated to every intelligence; it had not stopped half-way through the social strata, as appeared to be the case in England. And the disposition of the working man in England towards conscription was only intelligible on the assumption that he did not understand. In France, the war was too deadly real, too close at hand for any to affect an attitude of light-hearted detachment.

The fact that men in the factories like those on the railways, were mobilised, simplified matters a great deal. A man could not desist from his labour on the pretext of claiming higher pay without running the risk of being treated as a deserter--a thing unthinkable in time of war. His duty, then was the soldier's--to remain where he was until relieved by order. "We have had no strike since the war began." How well I recall the pride with which those words were uttered by a functionary at the Ministry of Munitions. If it spoke well for the patriotism of the working-class, it spoke equally well for conscription as a scientific basis for waging war. For it had cast its net over the whole nation, and by its means the munitions worker took his place in the factory as did the combatant in the trench. But there were certain complications which arose, none the less, in practice. If there was no disturbance of the labour market to exercise the conciliatory powers of the Minister, production did not yet reach its maximum until long after the war had broken out. This was due to the unexampled demand made on munitions and to the logical completeness of conscription. It required many months to adjust a plan whereby the skilled worker was placed in his rightful position in the factory, whilst those who had wrongly usurped his name and functions were sent to the trenches. The most unlikely people had described themselves as mechanics; and one found lawyers, sculptors, school-teachers, painters, writers and a host of semi-professional people masquerading as munition-workers. On the other hand, numbers of highly trained specialists, some distinguished chemists and engineers, had to be extricated from the trenches to take up their natural positions in the factories, in the interests of national defence. This _chasse-croisse_, inevitable in such a country as France, where Government must be based upon equality, took some time to effect. Indeed, the chief duty of the publicist during the second year of the war seemed to be to urge an equitable and intelligent application of the Dalbiez law, which was aimed expressly at the shirker.

Nor did private patronage and political "pull" wholly disappear, even in the stringent atmosphere of a national crisis. This was, perhaps, to expect too much of human nature. And so the Minister of Munitions constantly received recommendations for factory employment from persons whose intervention it was hard to resist. On the one hand, the Minister was asked by important deputies to bring back this or that worker from the Front; on the other, he was warned by groups of Republican zealots of the danger to democracy of showing partiality and conniving at the existence of the shirker. In a laudable effort to strike the happy medium, M. Thomas decided to receive no more nominations to the factory, and decreed that only the indispensable man was to be kept in the rear. Even the good workman, if of military age, must become a combatant; his place in the factory would be taken by an older man. But there remained, naturally, a certain rivalry between the trench and the workshop, not unconnected with the fact that assiduous munition-workers also received their _Croix de Guerre_--a decoration that, assuredly, should have been reserved for deeds of gallantry on the battle-field. But these various difficulties, which M. Thomas settled with habitual celerity and _savoir faire_, were, after all, only questions of detail, and in no way affected the broad principle of conscription or the working of the new Act against the _embusques_. There was no quarrel with compulsion, for each worker recognised the right of the nation to ask him to suspend his individual rights at such a moment. "We are at war; the vital interests of the country are at stake." This was a sufficient argument. And so all energies were directed to increasing the output. In connection with the establishment of factories, the "white coal" or water-falls of the mountains were harnessed to the work, and engineer shops were set up under the falls themselves to employ the power directly. Inventors were given _carte blanche_ to work out their ideas and valuable improvements resulted in the opportunity given to scientific brains to simplify processes, and thus effect economies in manufacture. For the first time France had begun to explore and develop her own scientific estate, which she had left, hitherto, largely to the Germans. For, if the latter were foremost in chemistry, they had learned not a little from the researches of Berthelot and Pasteur. The great bacteriologist's study of ferments contributed sensibly to the growth of the German brewing industry. Under the direction of scientific soldiers and officials, production rose to immense heights, and it soon reached more than 100,000 shells a day, at a time when, according to Mr. Lloyd George, the English output was scarcely more than 15,000 a day. M. Charles Humbert, Senator for the Meuse and editor of the _Journal_, preached in his columns the need of more guns and shells, and his gospel was enforced by other writers; but the root argument laid in the comprehension of the people themselves and in their instinctive realisation of what there was to be done and how to do it. Latin brains and Latin culture triumphed in an absolutely new field.

The genius of Munitions was M. Albert Thomas, who sprang into prominence from the unlikely beginnings of a schoolmaster and parliamentarian with Socialistic leanings. His assets were youth and vigour and a large stock of learning. He had graduated from the "Higher Normal School," the training ground for secondary teachers, with an _agregation_ in history--equivalent to a Fellowship Examination in England--and then became tutor to a grandson of Victor Hugo. In the family were steelworks situated in the Loire, and the tutor's active mind became interested in the fascinating processes which turned the unwrought metal into shining implements of labour. This knowledge, strengthened by many visits, stood him in good stead when he became a deputy, and thereafter Reporter to the State Railways Committee. His constituency was Sceaux, on the outskirts of the capital, and therein was his native commune, Champigny, where he was born of humble shopkeepers and continued to reside. In the Chamber his connection with the railways brought him into contact with M. Claveille, then coming into fame as administrator of the Ouest-Etat line. M. Thomas must be impressed by the catenation of events, for, on arriving at the Ministry of Munitions, he bethought him of the railway manager and installed him first as his master of contracts and, then, at the head of manufacture. So that the guns began to arrive at their appointed place with the same punctuality with which the trains on the State Railway, under the reforming zeal of M. Claveille, began to steam into the Gare St. Lazare.

At the outbreak of the war, M. Thomas, torn from peaceful Socialistic propaganda in _L'Humanite_, where he supported M. Jean Jaures in his opposition to Three-Years, went to the Front as a lieutenant of reserve. After a few weeks in the trenches, he joined his General's Staff and then was summoned to Bordeaux, whither the Government had retired from threatened Paris. "Will you organise Munitions?" he was asked. The battle of the Marne had revealed not only their primordial necessity, but the grievous shortage of France, and it was said that had she been better provided, the Germans would have had no chance of re-establishing themselves on the line of the Aisne. So M. Thomas, faced with the crude need of the hour, undertook the post and flung himself into it with his accustomed energy. His acquaintance with steel, both in the works he had studied and the railway he had controlled, fortified his resolution to undertake the responsibility. Day and night he passed rapidly, from point to point, in his motor-car, organising munition work and exhorting and advising the engineers of the country engaged in it, until, gradually, the production was screwed up to a point where, with the shells made in England, it equalled the output of the German factories. Here was a strange destiny for a man whose reading and reflection had induced him to believe that the tide of humanity was set towards universal brotherhood. Looking as little like a professor of war as could be possibly imagined--a little plethoric, a little heavy in face and figure, and glancing out upon the world through kindly spectacles--this new embodiment of Mars accepted his position with a frank and systematised zeal that led directly to success. In a short time, the tree brought forth prodigious fruit. He worked ceaselessly, turning Sundays into days of labour; his only relaxation from exhausting office was to undertake further journeys of inspection.

There was advantage in the fact that he was a man of wide general views and not an expert. Had he been a gunner, he would have thought exclusively of the pointing of his piece; as an engineer he would have reflected on the life-history of the gun from its early inception to its appearance as a finished article of destruction. But being the intelligent amateur, he was able, like an airman, to soar over intercepted space, and think of the problem in its wider aspects: how to obtain the ore and transport it from the other ends of the earth; how to procure the quickest output from the arsenals; how to adjust factory labour to the new law against the shirker; how to provide a sufficiency of food for the monsters he was evolving; how to cultivate the scientific _terrain_ of the war; and finally, how he could deliver his deadly wares into the hands of those who would use them against the enemy. There were a hundred different problems arising out of the great military post which the war had given him, and he managed them all with the ease and optimism that belong to rapid assimilation combined with poise, with _sang-froid_, and decision of character. All these virtues contributed to the success of M. Thomas. He was rewarded by official appointment to the post of Under Secretary of State for Munitions, specially created for him by M. Millerand, the then Minister of War. The honour was unique in the history of the Third Republic, which does not always advantage those who serve it best.

All the departments connected with guns had to be concentrated at the Ministry of Munitions in the Champs Elysees. At the outbreak of war the building was a cosmopolitan hotel on the verge of opening; the Government, needing quarters for its new department of State, acquired it, and there amidst Louis XVI chairs and Empire cabinets were installed M. Thomas and his coadjutors. The Socialist pacifist had become the Grand Armourer of France, the licensed provider of artillery, in a house of luxury built for the wealthy classes.... In his chain of duties, however, was a broken link. He was not given charge of the powder, though it was essential to his full usefulness; and officials in that department corresponded directly with the Minister of War. But Gallieni, when he came to the Rue St. Dominique, saw the faults of the system and immediately invested his titular subordinate with the necessary powers. It was at this moment, when work was piling high upon his willing shoulders, that M. Thomas gave M. Claveille authority over the construction of the guns. And the railway manager's experience proved invaluable in his new post.

France had every reason to be proud of her organisation of Munitions, and for the spirit which the crisis prompted amongst her functionaries and workers. As a University man of distinction, M. Thomas placed his faith in higher education and was surrounded by men who had achieved distinction in science and letters. A Sorbonne professor of Romance languages, M. Roques, acted as his chief secretary; and a scholar of European reputation occupied unremunerated leisure in conducting the correspondence of the Department. Thus the Ministry provided another example of public spirit in France and of Gallic accessibility to new ideas.

Quite apart from the attitude of labour, admirably attuned to the circumstances, there arose the material difficulty of finding men. The Loi Dalbiez was rigorous in its application, and there was a dearth of young and vigorous men, both skilled and unskilled, in the factories. I have spoken of some of the methods adopted by M. Thomas to meet the case: now he went to the colonies and employed Arabs and Kabyles, Annamites, and other friendly nationals from France overseas. This exotic labour worked harmoniously with the dominant race. Wages were on a far less generous scale than in England, and no worker, however skilled, obtained L8 a week or even half that amount. Such prices were unthought of. The common wage for unskilled labour was five francs for a ten-hour day for men and women. Where the operations were perfectly simple and required only adroitness, the wages for female labour were sometimes only 3 frs. a day. Even the trained mechanic earned no more than 15 frs., the highest price being generally 13 frs. 50. Thus, you see, there was a vast difference between the English and the French positions, and it is clear that the cost to the country of shell production was infinitely less in France, even at a moment when the output was infinitely greater. There were no lady workers in the factories--"heureusement non"--said the official, with an expressive shrug, when I asked the question, and the whole scheme of production was worked on carefully considered, economical, and patriotic lines. Certainly, the worker made very little profit out of his labour, and the intensity of it in France, as in England, put a considerable strain upon his health.

A veritable scientific mobilisation was necessary in the Champs Elysees. Highly trained brains were needed for the delicate calculations essential to the manufacture of explosives and to the creation of new types of guns. It meant the installation of eminent specialists at the Ministry and the carrying out of elaborate experiments in laboratories and open-air trial grounds. The syndicates, I repeat, made no difficulty for the Minister by adherence to rules framed for peace; but, of course, the power of these bodies in France over their fellow-workers is less pronounced than across the Straits. But, though it has its stringent rules, it raised no finger of protest against the speeding-up of production, the continuous shifts, the employment of women and children and of coloured labour. The difficulty that existed was entirely due to the fear of creating any suspicion of favouritism amongst those who were fighting the country's battles by any arbitrary selection of men for employment in the factories. None the less, the munitions worker had to be recruited on a large scale, for the consumption of shot and shell exceeded all belief and emphasised the fantastic character of the conflict.

No doubt the physical existence of the Channel was answerable for the difference in attitude of French and English labour. It was difficult for our workers to visualise the situation in France with its invaded departments, its devastated villages, its ruined industries, its strangulated commerce and those other disabilities which weigh upon a nation that has suffered defilement from the foe. But the French soon came to see that the loyalty of the British working man was not in question because of his reluctance to accept a system which, however, both Abraham Lincoln and Cromwell found necessary in the raising of armed forces for the carrying out of national purposes. And yet neither could be accused of being indifferent to the claims of democracy.

*CHAPTER IX*

*FRENCH DISCIPLINE AND LEADERSHIP*