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THE 606th ordinary MEETING, 



HELD IN COMMITTEE ROOM B, THE CENTRAL HALL, 

 WESTMINSTER ON MONDAY, FEBRUARY 17th, 1919, 



AT 4.30 P.M. 



Professor W. P. Ker, M.A., LL.D., in the Chair. 



The Secretary read the Minutes of the previous Meeting which were 

 confirmed and signed, and announced the Election of Mr. E. R. P. Moon, 

 M.A., as a Member. 



THE PERSONAL INFLUENCE OF GREAT COMMANDERS 

 IN THE PAST. By Major-General Sir George K. Scott- 

 MoNCRiEFF, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., CLE. 



MARSHAL FOCH, in one of his lectures at the French 

 Staff College, in the days when he was still a professor 

 at that institution, unknown save in his own circle, 

 and ignorant of the great fame which awaited him, states as 

 follows : — " History does no less than justice, when it gives the 

 praise of victory, the blame of defeat, to the generals who have 

 commanded armies in the field. For it is in the influence of 

 the command, the enthusiasm communicated by it, that we 

 must seek for and find an explanation for the unconscious 

 movements of masses of men when an army in the field, without 

 knowing why, feels itself carried forward, as though it were 

 ghding on an incHned plane." And again, " The great events 

 of history, the disasters which it records in some of its pages, 

 such as the destruction of the French power in 1870, are never 

 accidents, but rather the results of superior and general causes, 

 such as the forgetfulness of the commonest moral and intellectual 

 truths, or the abandonment of the activity of mind and body 

 which constitute the life and health of armies." 



No more striking example of the truth of this can be given 

 than the wonderful series of victories carried out in the months 

 of July to November, 1918, under the great soldier who expressed 



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