April 19, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
i^ 
time wa^; ripe to exchange the nibbUnR process for one of 
tooth and nail. A perfect liaison between Kun«, and in- 
fantry is the condition precedent to a faithful offensive. 
Go-operation of Guns and Infantry. 
Preparation is revealed in a dozen different directions. 
To these indispensable preliminaries must be placed years of 
study devoted by each predestined leader of French arms. 
Joffre's relief expedition to the once mysterious and always 
thrilling Timbuctoo need not be retold. It furnished early 
proof of his courage, order and method and organi.smg ability. 
The Marshal also served in Indo-China and in Mada- 
gascar where he was under (lallieni, one of the masters of 
French Colonial science, and himself a standing example of 
long and patient preparation. 
The former War Minister was the most brilliant of French 
pioneers and his colonial experience outstands in range and 
variety that of any other commander. In Central Africa, 
in Tonking. in Madagascar, jvhere he was (Governor-General, 
he displayed a fine temper of mind, an enlightened system 
as well as firmness and decision. He built up a big Colonial 
Empire, fighting one day that he might on the morrow construct 
roads and bridges, markets, schools and technical institutes. 
General Lyautey is proud to call himself a pupil of Gallieni. 
He has been as active and as successful in Morocco as 
Gallieni in Madagascar. He has gone a similar way to work; 
first breaking his adversaries with the sword, then attaching 
them to him with the silken cords of civilisation. The ad- 
vantage of his rule was so apparent ; order and profit and 
pacification arose so visibly from his dispositions, that none 
could gainsay them,[least of all the one-time turbulent chieis, 
and presently they "became his most devoted adminislres. 
Lyautey has been as successful in administration as in 
military operations. So well is the French rule established 
in Morocco that insurrection has practically ceased to exist 
and, saving quite local affairs, the country has been tranquil 
since the war broke out, though German intrigue raised its 
head, and the Governor-General was solemnly advised to 
withdraw his forces from the interior and estabhsh himself 
in a coast town, thus abandoning the work to which he has 
given some of the best years of his fife and the mature result 
of his experience and natural tact. So far from following this 
covmsel, Lyautey raised a larger contingent than was offici- 
ally considered possible, and sent it to France, whilst the 
colony was garrisoned with Territorials and black troops. 
General Gouraud is a man of much the same temperament, 
if wanting, perhaps, the high culture of Gallieni and Lyautey, 
who arc especially intellectual soldiers. Galheni believed in 
going direct to his authorities, were they Enghsh, German or 
Italian, and he was equally at home in all -three languages. 
General Lyautey is poet as well as philosopher, and many 
a charming verse he has turned in his tent under starry skies. 
Gouraud's extraordinary prestige comes from Jiis lion-like 
bravery and indifference to danger. He captured Samory 
twenty years ago. The notorious African chieftain stood 
at bay in a primaeval forest, whither he had been hunted by 
converging columns, and Gouraud, a young captain then, 
brought him to his knees. In 1912. he drove. the rebels from 
Fez with a brilliantly led column. Crossing to France in 
the great war, as soon as the Moorish insurgents had been dealt 
with, he won, by force of arms, the proud soubriquet of " The 
Lion of the Argonne." At the head of the French army in 
Gallipoli he lost his arm, the result of an explosion from a 
Turkish shell whilst watching the transfer of wounded soldiers 
to a hospital ship. His knowledge and science of fighting 
come from contact with the natives. It is against dusky 
warriors that he has learned that dash in the offensive that 
is so typically French and has gained for him a reputation for 
impulsive bravery. 
Mangin is another who breathes the very spirit of traditional 
France. His name is for ever associated with the battles 
of October 24t!i and December 15th fought before Verdun. 
" No one can any longer doubt that it is possible to conquer 
the enemy who is superior in numbers and disposes of for- 
midable artillery, by means of careful preparation, good 
artillery, a sxiitable disposition of the ground . • . ." 
This is one of the characteristic phrases of a striking Order 
of the Day which the victorious general addressed to tiis troops. 
It shows his own appreciation of preparation, the word in 
this sense, of course, having a definite military meaning. 
He incarnates, just as Nivelle does, the spirit of the Danton 
cry : " De I'atidacc, encore de I'audace, toujniirs de I'audace." 
It is said that he was convinced that he could have broken 
through much earlier in the year, if he had been allowed 
a free hand. -To-day he has " made good." Like so many 
others, he is a colonial fighter and learned practirally warfare 
in the wilds of Africa. To him is largely due the employment 
of the Senegalese and other kindred races in the present 
war, and he wrote and preadied in popular and technical 
magazines, years before the present crisis, that France had 
an inexhaustible reservoir of men in her tropical African 
< possessions, lender his auspices the first contingent of black 
troops appeared at the annual review at Longchamps and 
exf)erts were impressed with their soldier-like qualities. 
With the generosity that belongs to him, Ni\'elle, pre- 
sented Mangin, recently, to President Poincare in these 
words : " This, M. le President, is the General who has won 
eleven victories in a fortnight." 
One need hardly say tliat General Marchand, who has 
been brilliantly successful on the Western front, owes his 
practice and experience to colonial warfare. He is a splendid 
type of a soldier pioneer, and his name is for ever associated 
with the little expedition to Fashoda, a name that lias been 
now converted into Kodok,- in satisfaction of the liappy 
change in international feeling. The colonial fighter was 
amusingly portrayed as a dare-devil, rash and utterly un- 
scientific. That was an opinion formed of him by a former 
generation mindful of the old dashing tactics which led to the 
conquest of Algeria. But the colonial fighter, none the less, 
is the germ-plasm of the present Army Chief, who organises 
and carries to success that brilliant sort of offensive which is 
peculiarly adapted to the French temperament. 
Method in Attack 
There is, of course, a great difference between the im- 
pulsive kind of courage and that reasoned audacity which is 
the child of confidence in calculation. An Eastern story tells 
of two travellers who went out to seek Fortune. They des- 
cried the capricious goddess on the other side of the swamp, 
amidst pleasant fiekls and fores.t glades. The thoughtless 
of the two plunged in to take the shortest course. Speedily he 
liecame engulfed, and was lost for ever. The remaining 
traveller threw branches upon the treacherous bog and, passing 
over rapidly, seized the goddess before she could disappear. 
This illustrates the difference between the prudent courage 
of a Nivelle and the ill-considered actions of a swashbuckler. 
In one case a man looks for a miracle to save him ; in the other, 
he depends upon his own bold yet prudent preparation. " There 
is safety in valour," said Emerson ; it is the doctrine of the 
school of the present Commander-in-Chief. 
To know how to attack demands the highest skill and 
that mathematical equipment with which the best officers 
in France are liberally endowed. In nearly every case the 
men who have emerged from war unscathed and glorified by 
the fire, are men of great intellectual calibre.' Foch, who so 
long neighboured us in the north, and de Castlenau, Joffre's 
Chief of Staff, who accompanied Lord Milner to Russia, are 
good examples of the intellectual soldier. Foch has written 
a remarkable treatise on tactics, and de Castlenau by 1 is 
large experience of arms and diplomacy, has had just the 
training for a wide comprehension of European problems, 
such as this war has raised. And he himself is a Polytech- 
nician, as are several of his sons serving France at home 
and abroad. Maunoury, who won so brilliantly on the 
Ourcq, with the improvised army of Paris, in which, -by 
the way, Nivelle commanded a regiment of artillery when 
he advanced the guns in front of the infantry, took a great 
part in the controversies on artillery after 1870, when Fraripe 
began to set her house in order. 
Even when her soldiers gain experience abroad, they keep 
in touch with the mother country by constantly attending 
grand manoeuveres. In this way they are made aware of 
the latest developments in military science. War has now 
become so complicated that those who excel in it must have 
the widest and at the same time the most expert education. 
Howds' a man to read intelligently the maps unless he knows 
that'Dn a certain occasion, in similar circumstances. Napoleon, 
or one of the great commanders of the past, extricated himself 
from! a 'formidable pass and snatched a startling victory ? 
The pait is always offering solutions to the present. 
Science and the Nalion (Cambridge University Press, 5s.), i' 
onp qi the most fascinating books the war has called forth. 1* 
is a (fpl|e,ction of essays by distinguished Cambridge graduate^ 
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democracies are waging a self-sacrificing war. This light-blue 
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fiction. It is extraordinary how simply and straightforwardly 
a Modem Professor is able to put forth his exceptional know- 
ledge. The majority of the essays are as a matter of fact quite 
Uehtreading, for air their great scholarship. 
