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LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
LEADERS OF 
 THE GREAT WAR 
 
 BY 
 
 CORA W. ROWELL 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1919 
 
 All lights reserved 
 

 Copyright, 1919, 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and clectrotyped. Published November, 1919. 
 
 NOV 19 ,919 
 
 NortoootJ ^rcgg 
 
 J. S. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
 ©CI.A5y57G9 
 
 -wo 
 
PREFACE 
 
 These biographies are an attempt to present to 
 children in somewhat detailed form the life and work 
 of those men who have been the acknowledged lead- 
 ers of France, England, and America in the Great 
 War. 
 
 Although the main purpose has been to show the 
 human side of each man, and to emphasize through 
 anecdote and stories of early life the development of 
 the personal qualities that have helped him to suc- 
 ceed, there is included a full account of his achieve- 
 ments in the war. Taken all together, the sketches 
 cover the principal battles of the Western Front and 
 the work of the British and American navies. The 
 characters of the political leaders have in them- 
 selves afforded an opportunity to stress the ideals of 
 democracy. 
 
 The book makes no claim to originality. The ma- 
 terial has been taken freely from books, magazines, 
 and newspapers. A complete list of sources will be 
 found at the end of each biography. Quotations 
 have been used wherever it has seemed better to give 
 the exact words of eye witnesses, rather than to at- 
 tempt second hand and necessarily more lifeless 
 
VI PREFACE 
 
 descriptions, and every effort has been made to obtain 
 accuracy. 
 
 I wish especially to express my appreciation for per- 
 mission to reproduce parts of text from the following 
 books and magazines: And They Thought We 
 Wouldn't Fight, Floyd Gibbons; With the Fighting 
 Fleets, Ralph D. Paine; Our Navy in the War, Law- 
 rence Perry; Stirring Deeds of Britain's Sea Dogs in 
 the Great War, Harold F. B. Wheeler; Marshal Fer- 
 dinand Foch, A. Hilliard Atteridge; The Battles of 
 the Somme, Philip Gibbs; Nezv York Times Current 
 History Magamne; World's Work; Atlantic Monthly. 
 
 Cora W. Rowell. 
 Glencoe, Illinois, 
 
 July 17, 1919. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Marshal Joffre 3 
 
 II. Marshal Petain 28 
 
 III. Marshal Foch 55 
 
 IV. Lord Kitchener 85 
 
 V. Marshal Haig 104 
 
 VI. Admiral Beatty 132 
 
 VII. David Lloyd George 165 
 
 VIII. Georges Clemenceau 195 
 
 IX. Admiral Sims 228 
 
 X. General Pershing 256 
 
 XL WooDROw Wilson 298 
 
LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
Marshal Joffre Talking to a Lieutenant of the French 
 Cavalry. General Castlenau on the Right 
 
LEADERS OF THE 
 GREAT WAR 
 
 I. MARSHAL JOFFRE 
 
 From the town of Rivesaltes in the southernmost 
 province of France all the young men went to war. 
 Only the women, the children, and the very old re- 
 mained to gather the grapes for which Rivesaltes is 
 famed. They went about their work with quiet con- 
 fidence. No anxiety for the welfare of France dis- 
 turbed them, " What should we fear ? " they said. 
 "Haven't we Joffre?" 
 
 Rivesaltes is a town of six thousand inhabitants. 
 Its streets are dirty. Its houses are shabby and very 
 old. Way back in the Middle Ages the Moors came 
 over the mountains from Spain, captured Rivesaltes, 
 and built a bridge across its river. This bridge 
 is the only beautiful thing in the town to-day, except 
 the gardens and trees. Magnificent plane trees shade 
 the public square from the hot Mediterranean sun, 
 and back of each house a little garden hides crumbling 
 white walls. 
 
 The Jofifre family lived in a house as plain and 
 shabby as all the rest. It was so old that it lacked the 
 
4 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 comforts of the poorest laborer's cottage in America, 
 yet the Joffres were not poor. By the side of the 
 house stood the father's shop. He was a cooper and 
 made casks and barrels for the wine which was the 
 chief product of this vineyard country. 
 
 He also owned a vineyard which brought him a 
 small income. Without this income there might 
 never have been a General Joffre, for the profits from 
 the business alone were not enough to support, much 
 less to educate, eleven children. 
 
 The third child, a boy, was born on the 12th of 
 January, 1852, and two days later his name was en- 
 tered upon the town hall register as Joseph Jacques 
 Cesaire Joffre. 
 
 As soon as he was old enough he was sent to the 
 elementary school. He did not like school. It was 
 tiresome to sit all day on a hard bench when there were 
 so many interesting things to do out of doors. He 
 preferred to run in the fields and play by the river. 
 His teachers thought him willful and scatter-brained 
 and dull. 
 
 But when he finished the elementary school and en- 
 tered the Lycee, or high school, in the near-by city of 
 Perpignan, a remarkable change took place. All at 
 once he became a brilliant student. A great love for 
 work seized him. He could not read enough. In 
 class he would pile stacks of books between his com- 
 rades and himself, lest someone disturb his study. 
 During vacations, when he returned to Rivesaltes, his 
 old companions scarcely saw him. The battle of peb- 
 
MARSJrAL JOFFRE 5 
 
 bles by the river, which had been a favorite game in his 
 younger days, went on without him while he shut him- 
 self in his room to read. 
 
 As the time drew near when he would take his de- 
 gree at Perpignan, he began to think more and more 
 about his career. What was he going to do? To 
 settle this important question a family council was 
 called, and it was decided that Joseph should go into 
 the army. But first he must go to i^aris to prepare 
 himself to enter the Ecole Polytechnique. 
 
 The Ecole Polytechnique is a training school for 
 military officers. As the requirements are known to 
 be very high, the townspeople shook their heads when 
 they heard of Joseph Joffre's choice of a career. 
 '' It's a long way from Rivesaltes to Paris," they said. 
 ''The boy is altogether too ambitious for a cooper's 
 son." But one day they saw him, a mere lad of fifteen, 
 set out with his father for Paris. The Joffre family 
 had not been influenced by village talk. They were 
 still determined to educate one son for the army. 
 
 The next two years Joseph spent at a private school 
 in Paris preparing for his examinations. France 
 wants only the best of her youth in the nation's serv- 
 ice; that is why the examinations for the training 
 schools are made so very hard. Joseph Joffre passed 
 fourteenth in a class of one hundred thirty-two. His 
 papers, which are still in existence, are said to be 
 models of '' neatness, clear thinking, and precise 
 knowledge." 
 
 He was seventeen now, a tall, slender boy with fair 
 
6 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 hair and blue eyes, quiet and meditative. He rarely 
 spoke. His manner was gentle, almost timid, and 
 this caused him a lot of trouble, for his standing on 
 the lists had given him the rank of sergeant, making 
 him responsible for the conduct of the classroom. As 
 he was also the youngest boy of the class, he found 
 that he had his hands full to keep order. There were 
 some trying days ; then, after a time, things went bet- 
 ter. He had worked out a system of discipline all his 
 own. In order not to seem gentle he went to the 
 opposite extreme. He was very strict, sometimes 
 severe, but no one ever complained that he was not fair. 
 
 The school to which Joseph Joffre had come was 
 very old. It had been founded in 1794. Ten years 
 later the great Napoleon had given it a motto: " Sci- 
 ence and glory, all for country." And in the hundred 
 twenty-five years that had passed since, many boys 
 had come and gone, carrying this motto into many 
 fields of work, until there had grown up in the school 
 a respect for learning that was almost the same thing 
 as love for France. 
 
 " If you would serve your country, educate your- 
 self," these beautiful old buildings seemed to say. 
 
 A boy could hardly fail to be impressed by his sur- 
 roundings, for the Ecole Polytechnique is in that part 
 of Paris w^here, for centuries, there have been schools 
 and universities, where every street and shop and 
 lodging house is associated with men who have made 
 the greatness of France. 
 
 Young Joffre, too, dreamed of one day becoming 
 
MARSHAL JOFFRE 7 
 
 great. In fact he dreamed a great deal about every- 
 thing now, and his dreaming interfered with his 
 studies. During that first year at the Ecole Poly- 
 technique he seemed to be a combination of all the 
 things he had been in his younger years. One day he 
 was all for his books ; the next day he forgot his books 
 in thinking of what he was going to do, if it was only 
 to plan for his next half-holiday. He could easily 
 have held first place in his class had he wished; but 
 at the end of the first year he had dropped from the 
 fourteenth to the thirty-fifth place, and there he 
 remained. His effort was steady and persistent, 
 however, and his marks generally were high. 
 What he accomplished was neither his poorest nor 
 his best. 
 
 It is said that a school day at the Ecole Polytech- 
 nique does not differ greatly to-day from what it was 
 at the time when Joffre was a student there, so that 
 one may think of him as getting up at six o'clock and 
 answering roll call at six-thirty. All morning he 
 would attend classes, that is from nine until two. In 
 order to determine who would recite the boys drew 
 lots. In school language those who drew the short 
 straws were called the '' fated," and there was a still 
 more terrible name for those who failed in their final 
 examinations; they were known ever afterwards as 
 '' withered fruit." 
 
 In the afternoon came physical and military train- 
 ing. The students formed a battalion, officered from 
 their own ranks. There were about two hundred 
 
8 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 fifty cadets in all and they were very proud of the 
 smartness of their drill. 
 
 The summer of 1870 brought war between France 
 and Germany, and Joseph, who had looked forward to 
 his first long holiday at home, went instead into one 
 of the Paris forts. He was only one of many young 
 boys who left school that summer to answer the call 
 to arms. He did not go to the front, but remained in 
 Paris, helping to defend the capital during the long 
 siege. 
 
 In this war one disaster followed another so swiftly 
 that four weeks saw the armies of France defeated, 
 the monarchy overthrown, a republic created, and the 
 Germans at the very gates of Paris. The people of 
 Paris, however, did not give up. With the establish- 
 ment of the republic, they took heart once more and, 
 gathering immense stores of supplies, endeavored to 
 hold out until the new armies that were being formed 
 could break through the German lines. 
 
 The siege lasted four months, but by the end of the 
 second month many were facing starvation. Only the 
 rich could obtain food and they ate anything they 
 could get. Horse meat sold at two dollars and fifty 
 cents a pound, rats at forty cents each. Many beau- 
 tiful trees of the Paris parks were cut down to build 
 fires for the poor, for there was neither coal nor wood. 
 And all the while the city was being bombarded. 
 Every day shells fell in the streets, killing and wound- 
 ing, yet the people endured as long as there was any 
 hope of being relieved. Finally, when it became 
 
MARSHAL JOFFRE 9 
 
 known that the army was unable to reach the be- 
 sieged city and that nothing at all remained to eat, 
 Paris was obliged to surrender. 
 
 The war over, Joffre went back to his studies, but in 
 six months everything had changed. Most of all he 
 had changed. He knew now what war was, what it 
 could do to people, what it had done to him. France 
 had been defeated, humiliated, forced to buy peace by 
 giving up a part of her soil. He suffered from the 
 thought as from a wound. To relieve his suffering 
 he wrote a poem about the lost provinces, Alsace and 
 Lorraine. Still the hurt did not heal. His common 
 sense told him that mere feeling would not help. One 
 had to do something. In his quiet way he resolved 
 that he would do something. He would learn all there 
 was to know about war, having seen for himself that 
 in time of war knowledge is the thing of which a 
 country has greatest need. And, having been born 
 in the mountains, where people do not change their 
 minds every day, this resolve is the story of all the 
 rest of Joffre's life. 
 
 Two years later he graduated from the Polytech- 
 nique and entered a more advanced military school to 
 finish his studies. He chose the engineering corps, 
 making a specialty of fortifications. Immediately 
 following the Franco-Prussian war France began to 
 build new defenses for Paris and Joffre's first work 
 as a commissioned lieutenant was on these fortifica- 
 tions. He did his work so well that he was made a 
 captain at twenty-four. However, he remained a cap- 
 
lO LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 tain for thirteen years, for he was, after all, only one 
 of many young engineers who were equally efficient. 
 
 Whenever he had a furlough he went home to 
 Rivesaltes. Of an evening old friends and neighbors 
 would drop in for a visit, or if they did not, there was 
 his old father, who never tired of hearing stories of 
 army life. Joffre was always a boy in Rivesaltes. 
 One might see him at any time coming out of a con- 
 fectioner's shop, his pockets stuffed with cakes. 
 
 On the occasion of one of these visits he went to a 
 neighboring town to inspect some new fortifications 
 and was arrested for a spy. As he offered no ex- 
 planation he was taken before the authorities. They 
 desired to know if he was a German. This amused 
 him very much. 
 
 " I am a German of Rivesaltes with three gold 
 bands on my cap," he said. (Three gold bands de- 
 noted the rank of captain.) He spoke in the native 
 dialect of the country, which was half Spanish, half 
 French. The officers were astonished. He had in- 
 tended that they should be; nothing delighted him 
 more than a good joke. 
 
 When he had been building fortifications for thir- 
 teen years he asked for active service in the colonies. 
 He felt that his work had not been teaching him 
 enough about war. After a few years in Indo-China, 
 where the natives of a certain village still remember 
 him as " the man of the eyebrows " who made their 
 village healthy, he returned, decorated with the cross 
 of the Legion of Honor, to be sent into Africa. The 
 
MARSHAL JOFFRE II 
 
 careers of Joffre and Kitchener, at this time, were 
 closely parallel. Kitchener went into the Egyptian 
 Sudan, Joffre into French West Africa. 
 
 For a time Joffre worked at building a railroad 
 across the desert; then he was ordered far into the 
 interior to subdue the Arabs who were destroying the 
 commerce of the country by fighting and robbing. 
 With a little army of a thousand men, he marched five 
 hundred miles across a wilderness of desert and marsh 
 to the Arsh town of Timbuctoo. Before this time 
 but three white men had ever penetrated the desert as 
 far as Timbuctoo. It was a country of lions, of hip- 
 popotami, of fever and thirst. 
 
 On the march Joffre was stung in the eye by a 
 poisonous insect and the doctor ordered him to band- 
 age it, lest he lose his eyesight. 
 
 "How can I direct my troops blindfolded?" he 
 objected. 
 
 " Well then, wear blue spectacles," said the doctor. 
 
 As blue spectacles did not grow on tropical trees, 
 Joffre was obliged to disregard this advice also, but 
 after he reached Timbuctoo, there arrived in the mail 
 one day a pair of blue spectacles. They had been sent 
 to an of^cer who had been killed and they probably 
 saved the eyesight of a future general. 
 
 It was following the march to Timbuctoo that the 
 people at home began to take a little notice of Joffre. 
 His name appeared in the newspapers. Many stories 
 were told of that wilderness journey and from them 
 all one important fact came to light — Joffre had sue- 
 
12 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 ceeded in reaching Timbuctoo because he knew how 
 to plan. He had guarded his troops with the great- 
 est care, doing sentry duty himself through many a 
 lonely night because he could not trust native soldiers 
 to keep awake. Arabs did not fight in the open ; they 
 shot in the back from the shelter of trees and bushes. 
 And Joffre would not be surprised. 
 
 When the desert seemed entirely to have swallowed 
 his little army and when the news reached him that thir- 
 teen of his fellow officers, who had tried to reach Tim- 
 buctoo by a different route, had been killed, he had 
 relentlessly pushed on. Will and method, these were 
 the qualities by which he succeeded when others 
 failed. 
 
 But it was not until 1911, when Joffre was fifty- 
 nine, that he reached a position of prominence in 
 affairs. That year he was appointed chief general 
 of the supreme war council of France. On him rested 
 the responsibility of preparing France for the war that 
 those who had watched the preparations of Germany 
 felt certain would come. The government, at last, 
 had come to value Joffre's knowledge. 
 
 Formerly, any officer who had money or friends 
 among government officials could win a promotion in 
 the French army, with the result that some of the 
 highest officers, on whom the heaviest responsibilities 
 would fall in time of war, were unfit for their work. 
 Joffre changed all this. One general whom he re- 
 tired, following the maneuvers of 1913, came to 
 demand a reason. 
 
MARSHAL JOFFRE 13 
 
 "Why?" he asked. ''I obeyed the orders I re- 
 ceived." 
 
 " You might have done better," was Joffre's answer. 
 
 Not mere obedience but the abiUty to think was the 
 rule by which he measured officers. The soldier, too, 
 was made to feel that he was a thinking, responsible 
 part of the army. If he had suggestions to make he 
 was free to make them. Officers often consulted their 
 men and talked over their plans with them. Joifre 
 believed in a democratic army. 
 
 After war came his officers discovered how much 
 he believed in it. As often as possible he would slip 
 away from his desk and go on a visit to his poilus. 
 Squatting beside a trench fire, he demanded to know 
 all about them. Were they comfortable? Were 
 their blankets warm? Did they have enough to eat? 
 Did they want for anything? Sometimes they did, 
 and he would take out a notebook and write down 
 these things. It might be weeks before there was 
 any change, but one day there were certain to appear 
 the little improvements they had asked for. 
 
 To his men he was always '' Our Joff re " or 
 '' Grandfather Joff re." They would not think of call- 
 ing him by any name that did not express their affec- 
 tion for him. " This thing must be done," said an 
 officer one day. '' It is Grandfather's order." 
 
 It was not alone the army that needed to be com- 
 pletely reorganized during those three years between 
 1911 and 1914, but the civil population as well. 
 
 " The next war," said Joffre, '' is going to be a 
 
14 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 scientific war. It will be fought by the whole nation. 
 To be ready means to have turned all the intelligence, 
 the energy, and the resources of France toward one 
 object, victory." 
 
 The task of mobilizing an entire nation is so big 
 that one can hardly imagine what it meant to think 
 it out. When it came England's turn to unite all her 
 people and industries into one vast war purpose, she 
 had the experience of France upon which to base her 
 plans. America had the experience of both England 
 and France, but Joffre had none. Warfare on such 
 a huge scale was as yet unknown to the world. Who 
 could have said then how many shells would be needed 
 for a single battle? Who would have guessed that 
 the next war would be fought with liquid fire and poi- 
 sonous gases ? To be prepared did not mean actually 
 to have made all these things in advance but to know 
 how and where they could be made in time of war. 
 What factories could be turned into ammunition fac- 
 tories? Where could materials be bought? Where 
 were laborers to be found? 
 
 Such were the problems over which Joffre worked 
 in addition to that task, so big in itself, of training and 
 equipping a great army. 
 
 He worked so quietly that, until the war, he re- 
 mained almost unknown. Few school children could 
 have told the name of their chief general. The French 
 people were indifferent. "Why all this fuss about 
 preparation," they said, "when there will never be 
 another war? " Then came the first of August, 1914. 
 
MARSHAL JOFFRE 15 
 
 On that day France knew that she must fight. She 
 was bound by treaty to Russia, and Germany had de- 
 clared war on Russia. Two days later the Germans 
 crossed the French boundary and there Joffre's sol- 
 diers met them. Then, all at once, it became clear 
 what Joffre had done. France had an army scientif- 
 ically organized and equipped. It lacked Germany's 
 numbers and it lacked Germany's big guns, but it had 
 one weapon which Germany had not. This was some- 
 thing called moral force. The French believed that 
 men fightmg for their homes and families would fight 
 more bravely than the enemy who attacked. But they, 
 and perhaps even Joffre himself, did not know how 
 rapidly Germany could throw the full weight of her 
 armies against them. Before such a weight smaller 
 numbers gave way. Belgians, French, and British, 
 in turn, fought with a courage that will live forever 
 in history, but they could not stem the increasing tide 
 of Germans. 
 
 They poured into France from two main directions 
 according to a long-prepared plan, through Belgium 
 and through Alsace. These divisions made the two 
 jaws of the pincers which, according to the plan, were 
 finally to close, crushing the French army between 
 them. 
 
 At Charleroi, Belgium, they defeated the French 
 armies and forced them to retreat. It was one of the 
 worst defeats of the war. In another sense it was 
 the beginning of the victory of the Marne, for from 
 that moment Joffre's plans began to take shape. 
 
1 6 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 For the French people, however, who did not know 
 Joffre's plans, some dark days followed. Their feel- 
 ing of confidence changed quickly into one of anxiety, 
 even of despair, as the Germans overran their villages, 
 burning their houses and killing civilians. On they 
 came with truly marvelous speed, the French and 
 British armies sometimes escaping with the greatest 
 difficulty. 
 
 The French begged to be allowed to fight. Officers 
 and men alike grew disheartened at seeing city after 
 city given to the Germans. As each day came they 
 thought they surely would be allowed to make a stand. 
 No more than the people themselves did they know 
 JofYre's purpose. Only to the highest officers had 
 he said : '' I mean to deliver the big battle in the most 
 favorable conditions, at my own time, and on the 
 ground I have chosen. If necessary I shall continue 
 to retreat. I shall bide my time. No consideration 
 whatever will make me alter my plans." Therefore, 
 day after day, the order was the same — to retreat 
 further south until the left wing of the Allied army 
 rested on Paris itself. 
 
 Joifre's plans for the coming battle included every 
 department of the service. All over France thou- 
 sands of trains were moving day and night. Troops 
 were shifted from the east, west, north, and south. 
 When the cities of Belgium and northern France fell, 
 Joffre had in waiting several hundred trains with 
 which to rescue the larger part of his armies and sup- 
 plies. A little later his trains met the refugees, 
 
MARSHAL JOFFRE 17 
 
 streaming south by the hundreds of thousands, and 
 carried them to safety. Finally, when Paris became 
 a part of the battle line, Joffre's trains removed the 
 government, a large part of the civil population, the 
 treasures of the art galleries, and the gold of the 
 Paris banks. At the same time he prepared the city 
 for a siege. He knew what a siege meant. He did 
 not intend that the suffering of 1870 should be re- 
 peated. Huge quantities of supplies were purchased, 
 enough to feed and clothe and warm the city's popu- 
 lation if the war should last a long time. All 
 around Paris soldiers were digging trenches as fast 
 as they could and mounting guns. 
 
 While these preparations were being rushed, the 
 enemy steadily advanced. Every day airplanes flew 
 over Paris and dropped leaflets informing the people 
 that the Germans were at their gates. It was true 
 that the largest of the German armies, under General 
 von Kluck, was marching straight toward Paris. This 
 army had fought its way through Belgium. The men 
 were tired, yet the situation demanded that they 
 advance with the greatest speed. In spite of the ex- 
 treme heat of August, they made twenty-five miles a 
 day. A page from the notebook of one of von Kluck's 
 officers tells the story of this advance : 
 
 '' Our soldiers are worn out. For four days they 
 have been marching forty kilos a day. The ground 
 is difficult, the roads are torn up, trees felled, the 
 fields pitted by shells like strainers. The soldiers 
 stagger at every step, their faces are plastered with 
 
l8 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 mud, their uniforms are in rags ; one might call them 
 living rags. They march with closed eyes and sing 
 in chorus to keep from falling asleep as they march. 
 The certainty of victory close at hand and of their 
 triumphal entry into Paris sustains them and whips 
 up their enthusiasm. Without this certainty they 
 would fall exhausted. They would lie down where 
 they are, to sleep at last, no matter where, no matter 
 how. Only the delirium of victory keeps our men 
 going. And to give their bodies a drunkenness like 
 that of their souls they drink enormously. But this 
 drunkenness also helps to keep them up. To-day, after 
 an inspection, the general was furiously angry. He 
 wanted to put a stop to this collective debauch. We 
 have just persuaded him not to give severe orders. 
 It is better not to be too strict; otherwise the army 
 could not go at all. For this abnormal weariness 
 abnormal stimulants are needed. In Paris we shall 
 remedy all this. We shall forbid the drinking of alco- 
 hol there. When our troops are at last able to rest 
 on their laurels order will be restored." 
 
 A day or two later found the Germans actually in 
 the suburbs of Paris. The same officer describes the 
 joy of the men in discovering their nearness to their 
 goal. He says: 
 
 "One of our battalions was marching wearily for- 
 ward. All at once, while passing a cross road, they 
 discovered a signpost on which they read ' Paris, Z7 
 kilos' (23 miles). It was the first sign that had not 
 been erased. On seeing it the battalion was as though 
 
MARSHAL JOFFRE 19 
 
 shaken up by an electric current. The word ' Paris ' 
 which they have just read drives them crazy. Some 
 of them embrace the wretched signpost, others dance 
 round it. Cries, yells of enthusiasm accompany these 
 mad actions. This signpost is the evidence that we 
 are near Paris, that without doubt we shall soon be 
 really there. This notice board has made a mirac- 
 ulous effect. Faces light up, weariness seems to dis- 
 appear, the march is resumed, alert, cadenced, in spite 
 of the abominable ground in this forest. Songs burst 
 louder and no longer the traditional songs, but Pari- 
 sian ditties, stupid enough in all conscience." 
 
 A little way beyond the signpost over which this 
 battalion had rejoiced the officers made a discovery 
 they dared not tell their men; they were no longer 
 marching toward Paris. Leaving Paris at the very 
 moment when it was theirs for the taking, they had 
 suddenly swerved to the south and east and, though 
 they did not know it, they were marching directly into 
 the trap Joff re had prepared for them. 
 
 When the long retreat ended the Allied armies stood 
 on a bow-shaped line, of which the western end was 
 Paris, the eastern end Verdun. This line did not run 
 through the valley of the Marne, although the battle 
 was to take its name from that river. It lay to the 
 south, and it was for this reason that von Kluck had 
 passed Paris. To have taken the city without defeat- 
 ing the Allied armies would not end the war, but, 
 having defeated them, the taking of Paris would be a 
 simple matter. Besides, it would be more fitting if 
 the triumphal entry should follow a final victory. 
 
20 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 Consequently von Kluck turned southeast. This 
 was exactly what Joffre had hoped he would do. Ten 
 days before the battle Joffre's plans were complete. 
 It was only a matter then of waiting until the Ger- 
 mans advanced to a point where he meant to strike. 
 That point was reached on the 6th of September. 
 On the Sth all of the final preparations were made. 
 Joffre had attended to the smallest details and given 
 his instructions. Success or failure depended on the 
 intelligence with which these instructions were car- 
 ried out and on the courage of the men. Joffre him- 
 self was confident and unmoved. He sent President 
 Poincare a telegram to say that, though the fate of 
 France depended on the morrow, the chances of vic- 
 tory were many. 
 
 The next morning, along the whole line, officers 
 gathered their men around them and read them the 
 order of the day. The hour for which they had 
 waited so long had come. 
 
 " At the moment of engaging in a battle on which 
 the fate of the country hangs, it is necessary to remind 
 everyone that the time has passed for looking back- 
 ward. Every effort must be made to attack and 
 drive back the enemy. The hour has come to advance 
 at any cost, and to die where you stand rather than 
 give way. Joffre." 
 
 Fortunately the German High Command did not 
 discover Joffre's maneuver until it had been accom- 
 plished. Their purpose having been to strike the 
 French-British line at the center, von Kluck hurried on 
 
MARSHAL JOFFRE 21 
 
 to give more weight to the blow and left his right flank 
 insufficiently protected. Against this Joffre flung a 
 new army. To the Germans it must have seemed a 
 phantom army. They knew that some French troops 
 guarded the region upon their right, but they did not 
 know that an army w^as there. From various other 
 parts of the front Joffre had taken men and sent them 
 with all possible speed to the north of Paris. Some 
 he had taken from Paris itself, right under the eyes 
 of the Germans, had stolen them out in the night in 
 automobiles and busses. At the moment the French- 
 British forces attacked from the south, the new army 
 w^ould strike from the north. So Joffre had planned, 
 and so it happened that Sunday morning, the 6th of 
 September. Von Kluck, caught between them, was 
 forced to retreat ; only by great skill did he succeed in 
 saving his army. 
 
 The German officer's description of the utter weari- 
 ness of his soldiers would have been equally true had 
 he been writing of the French. For fourteen days 
 the French had been falling back, fighting every day 
 to hold the Germans until the new line was reached 
 and the army prepared for battle. Crowded in cattle 
 cars or in trucks, or marching, there was no rest by 
 day and often none at night. 
 
 " They had marched," says a French writer, " under 
 a torrid sky, on scorching roads, parched and suffo- 
 cated with dust. In reality they moved with their 
 hearts rather than with their legs. . . . But when, 
 worn out with fatigue, faces black with powder, 
 
22 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 blinded by the chalk dust of Champag-ne, almost dying, 
 they learned Joffre's order announcing the offensive, 
 then the faces of our troops beamed with joy. They 
 fought with tired limbs and yet no army ever showed 
 such strength, for their hearts were filled with faith 
 and hope/' 
 
 Von Kluck's army was retreating, but von Kluck's 
 army had held only the western end of the two hun- 
 dred fifty mile battle line. The six remaining Ger- 
 man armies were still engaged in trying to break 
 through. Learning that von Kluck had been de- 
 feated, they drove furiously upon the French center, 
 caring little how many lives were spent so long as 
 they gained their purpose. It was General Foch who 
 held the French center. 
 
 " A battle won," says General Foch, " is a battle in 
 which one refuses to believe one's self beaten." And 
 that was what happened at the Marne. At the very 
 moment of defeat, Foch flung the Germans back by a 
 skillful maneuver and turned defeat into victory. 
 '' Our men hold the heights," wrote a German officer, 
 " but the French have become demons ; they charge in 
 the face of machine gun fire, joyfully letting them- 
 selves be killed. Their valor is superhuman." 
 
 On the 9th of September, three days after Joffre 
 had struck his blow, the Kaiser signed the order for 
 the retreat of all the German armies. Back now 
 across the country that had afforded them so many 
 victories, back from Paris, back fifty miles to the 
 river Aisne before they could again make a stand, 
 
MARSHAL JOFFRE 23 
 
 men, weary with fighting, ran until they dropped from 
 exhaustion, throwing away their guns and equipment 
 as they ran. Thousands, too weary to run at all, were 
 made prisoners by the advancing French. Officers, 
 billeted back of the lines, rushed from their rooms 
 with the cry of " The French are here," and jumped 
 into waiting automobiles to escape capture. Peas- 
 ants living in villages along the line of retreat tell of 
 German soldiers, ragged, dirty, foot-sore, with 
 tongues swollen from thirst, rushing through the 
 streets, the French literally on their heels. 
 
 To the people of Paris the news of the victory came 
 tardily. There had been anxious days and long, wake- 
 ful nights, through which there sounded a far-off reg- 
 ular booming that seemed never to end. A great 
 battle was going on, that much they knew. But how 
 was it going to end ? Would the French win ? Could 
 they win? 
 
 " Of course ! There are no fighters like the 
 French," said those who looked hopefully upon these 
 dark days. 
 
 " But you do not know how the Germans are pre- 
 pared," said others. " They have everything. Their 
 equipment is the last word in science. Trains of am- 
 munition are crossing the border day and night. And 
 the men ! Now, at this minute, they are pouring into 
 France by the hundreds of thousands. They are 
 going to wipe us out." 
 
 Rumxors came and went. Now it was far to the 
 north that a battle was being fought, now it was near 
 
24 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 by, not thirty miles away. Was it not clear enough 
 that the authorities were getting ready to defend 
 Paris? 
 
 It was true that the streets, which had been more 
 or less deserted after the first days of mobilization, 
 were filled with troops again. Automobiles, busses, 
 and vehicles of all sorts went rumbling by, crowded 
 to the limit with soldiers. 
 
 The railway stations swarmed with people, soldiers 
 bidding good-bye to their families, regiments of the 
 reserves, men who had been kept for the time when 
 France would stake everything in some big battle, to 
 win or lose. 
 
 Then came the news of victory. The Germans were 
 retreating. Joffre had hit them a terrible blow. 
 Joffre! That name was on everybody's lips. The 
 news spread .quickly. One could almost trace its 
 progress by the flags that appeared suddenly every- 
 where. Finally it reached the home of Joffre in the 
 suburb of Auteuil. 
 
 Parisians did not know Joffre until the war came, 
 but the people of Auteuil knew him well. They saw 
 him early in the morning, as early as six o'clock, riding 
 in the Bois with his two daughters. They saw him 
 in the evening taking his walk. 
 
 '' The general does not want to get too stout," they 
 would say, laughing. '' He is very particular about 
 that." 
 
 Passing the home of Joffre of an evening, they 
 nearly always heard music, for the man who made of 
 
MARSHAL JOFFRE 25 
 
 war a science likes music better than anything else. 
 Madame Joffre plays the piano. The daughters sing. 
 JoiTre himself sings, as all the army knows. 
 
 '' We always knew Joffre would do it," people called 
 to each other when the news reached Auteuil. Then 
 they remembered their gardens and the flowers grow- 
 ing in them, for no other purpose, surely, than to make 
 memorable the day of victory. They cut them and 
 carried them, an offering, to the home of Joffre. They 
 tied them to the gate posts, to the iron railings of the 
 fence ; they made a carpet of blossoms that led to the 
 door. It was in this way that those who had not yet 
 heard the news learned that there had been a victory 
 on the Marne. 
 
 One morning in the spring of 1917 a French liner 
 appeared off Hampton Roads, Virginia, and Joffre — 
 Marshal JofTre now, highest officer of the French 
 army — had his first sight of iVmerica. It was a 
 clear, bright morning of May, and the sun shone over 
 a smooth sea, stretching away to green shores. 
 
 ''What a wonderful scene," said Joffre. "I love 
 this sunshine. It reminds me of my own country, the 
 south of France." 
 
 A month before, America had entered the war, and 
 Joffre, with several other French of^cers and states- 
 men, had come to put before our government the ur-^ 
 gent need of France for men. America had planned 
 for large armies, but it would be months before these 
 armies were sufficiently trained to take over a part of 
 the battle line in France. 
 
26 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 '' Do not wait," was what Joffre had come to say. 
 " Do not wait until the American armies are ready to 
 take the field, but send us as many men as you can 
 spare now. The French people are growing tired of 
 the war. They cannot believe it will ever end. There 
 remains but one hope — America. Nothing would 
 hearten the French people so much as seeing Amer- 
 ican soldiers in France. Let them finish their train- 
 ing there. Our camps, our schools, our experience 
 — all are at your disposal. Only send us your men 
 as quickly as possible that the people may understand 
 America's promise to end the war." 
 
 From the moment Jofifre landed, American hearts 
 went out to him. He was greeted with an enthusiasm 
 that knew no bounds. French flags waved gaily in 
 every city he visited; thousands of school children, 
 singing the Marseillaise, threw flowers before him; 
 crowds that did not usually give way to their emotions 
 broke wildly into cheers as he passed through the 
 streets. 
 
 It was a tumult of welcome to a great man, but, 
 more than that, it meant that Americans, after three 
 and a half years, understood that the battle of the 
 Marne had been something greater than a struggle 
 between nations. It had been a struggle for ideals 
 as well. Military power or freedom — which was to 
 rule the world? Freedom had won the battle but it 
 had not yet won the final victory. Through all the 
 months of war there had been the doubt as to whether 
 it could win the final victory. Now America was the 
 
MARSHAL JOFFRE 27 
 
 answer to that doubt. The flag of freedom had be- 
 come the symbol of freedom for all the world, and 
 Joffre was confident. In presenting a flag to one of 
 our regiments he ended with these words : 
 
 '' Perhaps it will go to France, there to wave side 
 by side with the flag of France, which for three years 
 has led the onset against our foes. And when our 
 soldiers see the Star Spangled Banner, their souls will 
 thrill. And I am assured it is to the final victory both 
 will go." 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 Le General Joffre, Alphonse Seche. 
 
 Makers of Nezv France, Charles Dawbarn. 
 
 Life of General Joffre, Alexander Kahn. 
 
 My March to T imbue too, Joseph J. Joffre. 
 
 Balfour, Viviani, and Joffre, Their Speeches in America, Fran- 
 cis Whiting Halsey. 
 
 Foch the Man, Clara E. Laughlin. 
 
 War Leaders of France, Charles Johnston, Review of Reviews, 
 April, 1915. 
 
 Joffre and the Nezv France, James Middleton, World's Work, 
 May, 1915. 
 
 General Joffre's Personality, Charles Johnston, Outlook, July 
 14, 1915. 
 
 Joffre's War, Literary Digest, Feb. 20, 1915. 
 
 Allies versus Germany, the Strategy of the Campaign, Frank 
 Simonds, Review of Reviews, Oct., 1914. 
 
 Hozv Joffre and Foch Saved the French Army, E. V. Stoddard, 
 World's Work, June, 1915. 
 
 French Railroads and the Battle of the Marne, W. S. Hiatt, 
 Engineering Magazine, Oct., 1915. 
 
 The German Version of the Marne, J. Reinach, Current His- 
 tory Magazine, Sept., 1917. 
 
 The March on Paris, H. Van Loon, Century, June, 1915. 
 
11. MARSHAL PETAIN 
 
 In February of 1916 General Joffre, the com- 
 mander-in-chief of the French armies, observed that 
 the Germans were preparing to attack near the city of 
 Verdun. Trains of ammunition were moving day 
 and night from the factories to the German Hues. 
 Great armies were being massed and so many big guns 
 were brought up that, when placed, they literally 
 stood wheel to wheel. 
 
 But General Joffre could not tell whether these 
 preparations indicated a battle for Verdun itself or 
 whether the Germans meant to attack at that point 
 merely to draw reserves from some other point of the 
 French line, where the real battle would take place. 
 Until he knew the enemy's purpose he could only wait. 
 Meanwhile he prepared his defenses as best he could. 
 
 Had Joffre been able to see all that was taking place 
 behind the German lines he would have known. Some 
 200,000 men had been massed for a single attack on a 
 front of less than ten miles; that is, there were ten 
 Germans to every yard of ground. The strongest 
 men and the best fighters had been organized into 
 companies of shock troops, whose special work it was 
 to break the enemy's line. Shock troops were used 
 for the first time at Verdun. The Germans had 
 
 28 
 
MARSHAL PETAIN 29 
 
 80,000 such troops for this one battle and they had 
 been drilhng for four months. Every detail contrib- 
 uting to the success of a great battle had been care- 
 fully planned. For instance, each soldier carried a 
 small map of the Verdun fortifications; he knew ex- 
 actly where he was to go and what he was to do. 
 Finally, when the hour for action had been set, there 
 was a dress rehearsal for the entire army. The 
 Kaiser himself had come to direct this rehearsal and 
 to cheer his men as they went into battle. So con- 
 fident was he of victory that he also rehearsed the 
 scene of surrender. It was to take place in the most 
 historic spot in the city, a square called the Place 
 d'Armes. There he was to review the victorious 
 armies of his son, for the Crown Prince was to have 
 the honor of capturing Verdun. 
 
 The situation of Verdun is in the center of a plain, 
 watered by the Meuse river and closed in by more or 
 less distant hills. On the left bank of the river the 
 Old or High Town clings to a huge rocky mound, from 
 which it looks down some fifty or sixty feet upon the 
 modern city. From the crest of the mound rise the 
 cathedral and the citadel. This citadel, with its great 
 circle of forty-five forts situated on the surrounding 
 hills, has, since the eighteenth century, been known as 
 the most famous stronghold of France. Before 1914 
 it was thought impossible to take Verdun, but early in 
 the war it was proved that modern large shells could 
 destroy the strongest fortifications, so the French re- 
 moved the guns from the citadel and turned it into a 
 
30 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 bakery. The real defenses of the city were the 
 trenches. These lay far to the north among the hills 
 and along the Meuse river. 
 
 At first the French were puzzled to know why the 
 Germans wanted Verdun. It could not be for any 
 military reason, for they knew as well as anyone that 
 the guns had been removed from all the forts. It 
 proved to be for a reason much more subtle. The 
 Germans knew that Verdun, with its great circle of 
 forts, w^as still a stronghold in the minds of the French 
 people, and they believed that its loss would so under- 
 mine the courage of the nation that France would be 
 compelled to withdraw from the war. When the 
 French understood this they decided to defend Ver- 
 dun at whatever cost. 
 
 Early one morning, while the inhabitants of the city 
 still slept, there came the sharp, unmistakable sound 
 of airplane guns, followed by the signal to seek shel- 
 ter. Instead, people rushed from their houses into 
 the streets to watch the attack. Over the city and 
 far to the north the dim sky was filled with planes of 
 every description. They were engaged in dropping 
 bombs on bridges and fortifications and in destroying 
 French observation balloons. Before the air bom- 
 bardment ended there came a tremendous roar from 
 the hills and the earth shook as, all at once, two thou- 
 sand guns opened fire. 
 
 All day the bombardment continued, increasing in 
 intensity hour by hour. From the ceaseless flashing 
 of the guns the surrounding woods appeared to be on 
 
MARSHAL PETAIN 31 
 
 fire. Overhead the clouds had turned red and gold. 
 Bursting shells sent up great columns of smoke and 
 left huge black patches in the white snow. There was 
 a smell of burning wood, of hot metals and chemicals 
 in the air. Trees crashed and fell. Trenches and 
 shelters collapsed like cardboard. 
 
 It seemed impossible that in the midst of such de- 
 struction any human being could survive. It was the 
 purpose of the bombardment that no one should sur- 
 vive. "The artillery," said a German infantry offi- 
 cer, " wall destroy everything and we have only to 
 advance as on parade." So they came, marching with 
 the goose step, shoulder to shoulder, " as on parade." 
 Whole companies, including the famous shock troops, 
 were hurled in wave after wave at a single point in 
 the French line. This point was on the right bank 
 of the Meuse, and the Germans meant to drive the 
 French army into the river. 
 
 With their backs to the stream, the French faced 
 the terrific gunfire, knowing that they must die and 
 determined to make the enemy pay the utmost for 
 their lives. Throughout the night the battle raged 
 and, when morning came, it brought still more terrible 
 things to be endured. At dawn the Germans poured 
 quantities of high explosives, tear shells, and liquid 
 fire into the French lines. With only shell holes for 
 shelter, without food, water, or sleep, the French 
 fought on, day after day and night after night. 
 
 The heaviest attack of all fell on the afternoon of 
 the fourth day. " The German waves came on," says 
 
32 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 a French writer, " as though driven by a tempestuous 
 wind." The Emperor was on the ground and the Ger- 
 man High Command wished to end the battle then. 
 
 The French, outnumbered three to one, clung des- 
 perately to their positions, but, little by little, they were 
 driven back. In four days they retreated four miles. 
 The situation was critical for each mile brought them 
 nearer to the river. 
 
 Joffre, who had followed the battle hour by hour 
 at General Headquarters, determined to prepare for 
 any event by forming a new army under General 
 Petain, commander of the Second Army, then in 
 reserve. 
 
 As the anxiety was so very great, General Castle- 
 nau, chief of staff, proposed to go himself to the battle 
 front to give an exact account of the situation. 
 
 It was a sad spectacle that met his eyes as he ap- 
 proached Verdun in the gray dawn of the next morn- 
 ing. The Meuse had overflowed all the valley and 
 was as large as an arm of the sea. Along the road 
 poured a stream of civilians, each with his bundle of 
 personal belongings. They had remained in the city 
 in spite of an order of evacuation and were fleeing 
 now before the bombardment. With them came the 
 wounded, those who could walk, their bandages show- 
 ing white against their ragged and mud-stained uni- 
 forms. In the opposite direction an endless line of 
 troops was going toward the battle. Verdun, bom- 
 barded without mercy, was partly demolished. Shells 
 had fallen upon the beautiful cathedral, but the citadel 
 was as yet unharmed. 
 
MARSHAL PETAIN 33 
 
 Meanwhile General Petain, with the Second Army, 
 was also hurrying toward Verdun. He arrived that 
 night at headquarters and conferred with General 
 Castlenau, who had by that time returned from the 
 battlefield. Seeing him enter, Castlenau said : " Ah, 
 you are here, Petain. You are to take command. I 
 leave everything to you. You will take command at 
 midnight." 
 
 The day before. General Joffre had ordered that the 
 Germans must be held at the right bank of the river 
 at zvhatever cost. General Castlenau now confirmed 
 this order. 
 
 " They must not pass," he said. It was the final 
 judgment on the situation. 
 
 " They shall not pass," the new commander an- 
 swered. 
 
 It was not long until these words had reached the 
 line. They became the battle cry of the fresh divi- 
 sions going into the trenches. They gave new cour- 
 age to the men who had been fighting for days. The 
 French resistance grew stronger. Each brave act 
 meant " They shall not pass the Meuse." 
 
 As yet the army had not seen General Petain. The 
 night he arrived at headquarters in the little village 
 of Souilly, just back of Verdun, he took a severe cold 
 and was obliged to remain in his room for several 
 days. The time had passed, however, when it was 
 necessary for a general to be at the front. Imme- 
 diately upon arriving. General Petain telegraphed all 
 the corps commanders that he had taken command. 
 
34 
 
 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 Marshal Petain 
 
MARSHAL PETAIN 35 
 
 One of them replied, "Oh, it's you, Petain. Then 
 everything will be all right ! " 
 
 Sitting at his desk with all his maps and plans be- 
 fore him, Petain began that very night the difficult 
 task of straightening out the confusion which the ter- 
 rible fighting had left. The problems he faced could 
 hardly have been more discouraging. The army was 
 in a position of extreme peril between the Germans 
 and the Meuse river. There was barely enough am- 
 munition to last ten days and the only railroad over 
 which supplies and ammunition could be brought was 
 commanded by German guns. 
 
 In such a situation General Petain's now famous 
 words, " They shall not pass," however fine a courage 
 they expressed, would have availed little had he not 
 known what to do. 
 
 But immediately he began to issue orders. One of 
 the first things to be done was to unite the forts along 
 the battle front by a continuous line of trenches. His 
 order was that the trenches should be prepared while 
 the battle zvas going on. At the same time an order 
 went out for many bridges across the Meuse, all this 
 between midnight and morning of the next day. 
 
 Then Petain began his great work of construction, 
 the building of railroad lines, wagon roads, canals, 
 reservoirs, stations, cantonments, dugouts, trenches. 
 He has always been a great road-builder. Wherever 
 he has gone, he has constructed new roads or repaired 
 old ones. 
 
 In two days' time order had been created out of con- 
 
36 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 fusion. The machinery of war was running smoothly 
 once more, and Petain ordered a counter-attack. 
 
 To this the Germans repHed with another attack. 
 So the fighting went on, certain positions changing 
 hands many times. During the first ten days of the 
 battle the Germans launched twenty-six infantry at- 
 tacks. On the 4th of March they took one of the 
 outlying forts, called Douaumont. The fort was 
 without men or guns, but bells rang for an hour 
 throughout Germany over its '' fall." With this 
 fortress lost, the Germans said, the French could not 
 hope to hold out much longer and Verdun itself was 
 only a matter of days. On the 9th of March they 
 captured another fort, called Fort Vaux. It was no 
 more important than Douaumont, except that it 
 brought them one step nearer Verdun. 
 
 After three weeks, this first great battle for the 
 possession of Verdun came to an end, but no one sup- 
 posed that the Germans would stop there. Joifre 
 wrote to the Verdun armies in an order of the day: 
 '' The struggle is not yet at an end, for the Germans 
 require a victory. You will succeed in wresting it 
 from them. We have munitions and reserves in 
 abundance, but above all you have indomitable cour- 
 age and faith in the destinies of the Republic. The 
 eyes of the country are upon you. You will be among 
 those of whom it will be said they barred the road 
 to Verdun to the Germans." 
 
 Until then the war had offered no parallel to the 
 battle of Verdun. The soldier, going into the 
 
MARSHAL PETAIN 37 
 
 trenches, was certain to be wounded or stifled by 
 gases; he was almost as certain to die. If he Hved 
 through the artillery bombardment, he lived only to 
 meet the enemy in hand to hand fighting of the most 
 desperate kind, in deep woods, at the bottom of 
 ravines, in the dark underground passages of the 
 forts. On both sides soldiers fought with a courage 
 that made the word " Verdun " a new measure of 
 things men could endure. 
 
 The months of February, March, and April of 1916 
 were months of continued terrible fighting. The Ger- 
 mans, having failed in their first plan to take Verdun 
 in " a battle such as the world had never seen before," 
 now tried another. This was to lay siege to the city 
 while they attacked alternately on the left and right 
 banks of the Meuse, sometimes on both. For, having 
 once undertaken to capture V^erdun, they could not 
 very well give it up. The eyes of all the world were 
 on them. In Berlin people talked of nothing else. 
 
 In June they reached a fort of the inner circle of 
 fortifications, three miles from the city; this was as 
 near to the city as they ever got, for then the British 
 began the battle of the Somme, which forced the Ger- 
 mans to withdraw men from the Verdun front. 
 Then, little by little, the French began to thrust them 
 back, but not until August of 1917 did they regain the 
 last of their original positions. 
 
 The battle had lasted a year and six months. The 
 losses on both sides were enormous. The cost to 
 Germany was fully 500,000 men, and she had failed 
 
38 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 to achieve her purpose. At the end, France was 
 stronger than before. Her great sacrifice had only 
 strengthened her determination to go on with the war. 
 The spirit of the army had upheld the nation, for the 
 men who went into the trenches of Verdun knew what 
 it was for which they fought. They wanted to end 
 all wars that their children might not have to endure 
 the things they endured. And France meant to fight 
 until she had won the victory. 
 
 There was one feature of this battle that made it 
 different from all other battles of the war. That was 
 General Petain's motor transport system. With Ger- 
 man guns commanding the only railroad into Verdun, 
 the French, at first, faced the very serious problem of 
 supplies and ammunition. How were they ever 
 going to feed the men and guns of such huge armies ? 
 A single wagon road was left to them, of which only 
 the extreme northern end, the end leading directly 
 into Verdun, was endangered by German fire. It 
 ran southward, in and out among the hills, for thirty 
 miles, to the town of Bar-le-Duc. General Petain 
 saw at once that the battle depended almost entirely 
 on the use that could be made of this road, and he 
 telephoned to Paris for all the trucks, busses, and 
 motor cars that could be spared. Soon 1700 vehicles 
 were on the way to Verdun. They were the first unit 
 of one of the most remarkable organizations of the 
 war. 
 
 Traveling at all times was exceedingly difBcult. In 
 
MARSHAL PETAIN 39 
 
 the first days of the battle, the road was covered with 
 snow and ice. Later it was all but lost in mud, and 
 the heavy trucks, crawling slowly up and down the 
 hills, avoided overturning only with the greatest care. 
 Not all of them did. Wrecks frequently occurred, 
 for to the difficulties of the road were added the hard- 
 ships endured by the drivers, who sometimes traveled 
 for days without sleep or rest. 
 
 Soon the road began to give way under the heavy 
 and incessant traffic. General Petain saw that it 
 would be necessary to rebuild it entirely. More 
 trucks were sent for. They brought stone from the 
 battlefield of the Marne, and ten thousand men began 
 the work of converting an old country road into a 
 broad, smooth highway. 
 
 Meanwhile the train of vehicles never stopped. As 
 the months passed, the numbers grew into the thou- 
 sands. At night their lights resembled those of a 
 long, curving, city street, so endlessly did one truck 
 replace another. Usually they traveled in sections. 
 Each section had its distinctive mark, such as a dia- 
 mond or a four-leafed clover or the tri-color, and 
 competed with the others for the honor of giving the 
 best service. Going to Verdun, they carried troops, 
 ammunition, bread, and meat ; returning, they brought 
 the wounded. Day and night, for month after month, 
 the rumble of their wheels could be heard all along- 
 the road. It drowned the noise of even the most vio- 
 lent bombardment. 
 
40 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 Another feature of the Verdun battle was the work 
 of the airplanes. Until then airplanes had not been 
 used very much for fighting; their work had been 
 chiefly observation. What fighting there had been 
 was of the '' single combat " kind. Now the battle 
 squadron came into being — a formation of ten to 
 twenty planes which fought as a single unit. 
 
 Before the battle opened, the Germans sent all their 
 best aviators to Verdun, and for the first ten days they 
 hung over the French lines from daylight to dark, 
 making observations and directing the fire of the ar- 
 tillery. The French, lacking planes, were unable to 
 stop them. 
 
 When General Petain came he sent an immediate 
 call for aviators. His call was answered by a group 
 of young men, many of whom were afterwards num- 
 bered among the most famous aviators of France. 
 Their work was to destroy enemy observation bal- 
 loons, to drive off German airmen from the Verdun 
 road, to bomb German supply depots, and to keep con- 
 stant watch over the roads along which German 
 supply trains must travel. Here, too, for the first 
 time in the war, they took part in the infantry fight- 
 ing; that is, they swooped down over the enemy lines 
 and dropped bombs directly on the troops. The re- 
 sulting panic and disorder often checked an attack. 
 
 Among these Verdun aviators was a small group 
 of Americans. They had formed through their own 
 efforts an aviation unit, called the '' Lafayette Esca- 
 drille." It was in return for the aid Lafayette had 
 
MARSHAL PETAIN 41 
 
 given America that they had come to offer their serv- 
 ices to France. The task which fell to them was not 
 easy. It was to guard the Verdun road. Day and 
 night they were in the air. Combats were frequent. 
 The fighting was severe and many gave their lives 
 before the work they had undertaken was accom- 
 plished. 
 
 Some miles behind the lines at Verdun was a village 
 called Souilly, a tiny hamlet of stone houses, built for 
 the most part along a single street, which was no other 
 than the Verdun road. From the muddy courtyard 
 of the Town Hall, motor cars came and went all day, 
 and a sentry stood guard at the door. Upstairs, in 
 a bare room, were General Petain's headquarters. 
 That is, here was his office, but the place where he 
 thought out his problems was a peasant's cottage near 
 by, in which he lived. It was not a palace, this home 
 of General Petain. His room was small and wholly 
 lacking in comforts. He wrote by an oil lamp, which 
 also provided the only heat. For furniture there were 
 a bed, a table, and a few chairs. But, plain and bare 
 as it was, it suited the general, for he believed that 
 discomforts and hardships were a necessary part of 
 one's training. If they were lacking in the conditions 
 of his life, he usually invented them. Once, it is said, 
 he stood for hours in the rain, bareheaded and without 
 a coat, to give his soldiers a lesson in endurance and 
 keeping cheerful. 
 
 At the time of the Verdun battle General Petain 
 
42 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 was fifty-eight years old. He is not so tall as Gen- 
 eral Pershing but above medium height, straight- 
 shouldered, in appearance entirely the soldier. It is 
 said that he forgets to count the number of times he 
 tries to do a thing, and his blue eyes express this 
 resoluteness. He wears the plain blue-gray uniform 
 of the French army, with three silver stars on the 
 sleeve and cap. At Verdun it was a stained and faded 
 uniform, from having been worn as much out of doors 
 in all kinds of weather as in his office at General Head- 
 quarters. 
 
 When it became known that it was General Petain 
 who had saved Verdun, people demanded to know who 
 he was and why he had not been heard of before. 
 
 There was not much to be learned for asking, only 
 a few brief stories connected with his career. Gen- 
 eral Petain, it seems, did not enjoy being a hero. He 
 was quite bored by the attention he received. When 
 the newspapers sent photographers to take his picture, 
 he refused to see them. He asked the censor to omit 
 all mention of his name. He never talked of himself, 
 and he would not permit others to do so. Neverthe- 
 less, the story of his career, uneventful in itself, helped 
 people to understand the man whose personality, like 
 that of General Joff re in 1914 and that of General Foch 
 in 1918, met the crisis of the hour. His full name is 
 Henri Philippe Petain. He was born in 1858 near 
 St. Omer, in the extreme north of France, and edu- 
 cated in the military school of St. Cyr. 
 
 France has several national military schools, which 
 
MARSHAL PETAIN 43 
 
 are very much alike, save that each specializes in cer- 
 tain branches of the service. St. Cyr is a training 
 school for infantry, cavalry, and marine officers. It 
 is near the city of Versailles, not far from Paris. 
 
 A student may not enter St. Cyr before he is sev- 
 enteen nor after he is twenty-two, unless he is an en- 
 listed man in the army. Examinations are held pub- 
 licly, like those of the Ecole Polytechnique. They 
 cover many of the same subjects and some that are 
 more advanced. As at the Ecole Polytechnique, also, 
 students are divided into companies, which form a 
 battalion. The battalion of St. Cyr, from the per- 
 fection of its drill, has become the first battalion of 
 France and marches at the head in army reviews. 
 
 Discipline at St. Cyr is very strict. Officers have 
 the authority of police and punishments range from 
 the loss of one's holidays to imprisonment in the mil- 
 itary prison at Paris. This discipline, together with 
 the military training, had a pronounced effect on the 
 mind of Henri Petain. He seems to have set himself 
 deliberately the task of self-mastery. Day after day 
 he persevered in gymnastic exercises that he might 
 develop a strong physique. He spent much time out 
 of doors. He rigorously excluded from his personal 
 habits anything that endangered his health. He also 
 studied hard and read widely. In fact, his chief in- 
 terest in maintaining his health was that it might con- 
 tribute to the use he meant to make of his mind. 
 
 The habits acquired at St. Cyr he never relaxed. 
 At sixty he set aside a half hour every morning for 
 
44 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 physical exercises, as he had done at seventeen. He 
 took long walks. Sometimes he ran for miles. He 
 fenced as well as any of his young officers. He even 
 leaped parapets, to the' great admiration of his men. 
 
 In the same way he was able to control the energies 
 of his mind. Once, during the operations at Verdun, 
 when the situation was particularly serious, he worked 
 at his desk continuously for five days and nights, with 
 hardly a sign of fatigue. 
 
 When he had finished at St. Cyr, he was assigned as 
 a lieutenant to a famous regiment of the army. At 
 thirty-two he became a captain and soon after this he 
 entered the Superior War School at Paris to prepare 
 himself to become a general staff officer. His work 
 in the Superior War School revealed that he had a 
 mind of his own, that he was, in fact, developing a 
 system of tactics quite different from any taught in 
 the school or used in the French army. There is a 
 story that he usually studied subjects in which no ex- 
 aminations were held. 
 
 Later, when Petain himself became an instructor 
 at the Superior War School, his theories began to at- 
 tract attention. One of them was that a battle is 
 nothing more than an expression of the commanding 
 general's mind. If one understands how such a mind 
 habitually acts, one can know approximately what will 
 take place on the battlefield. 
 
 In support of this theory Petain prepared a course 
 of lectures which were scientific studies of the minds 
 of great generals. They were masterly lectures and 
 
MARSHAL PETAIN 45 
 
 they brought his name to the notice of military men all 
 over Europe. The King of Bulgaria conferred a dec- 
 oration of merit on him for these same lectures, but 
 Petain did not enjoy being famous then any more than 
 he did after Verdun. He courteously thanked the 
 king and slipped the medal into his pocket. 
 
 In 1914 he commanded the Fourth Brigade at St. 
 Omer, near the place of his birth. He was about to 
 retire as a colonel, when the war called him into active 
 service. At Charleroi, Belgium, he flung his brigade 
 against superior German forces and covered the re- 
 treat of the Fifth French Army. In the latter part 
 of August he was promoted to the command of the 
 Sixth Infantry Division. Although he was now a 
 major-general, he still wore on his cap the five stripes 
 denoting the rank of colonel. He had not had time to 
 replace them with stars. 
 
 The Sixth Division had been fighting and retreat- 
 ing all the way from the Belgian frontier to the Marne. 
 It had suffered heavy losses. Most of the officers had 
 been killed. The men were disheartened and bewil- 
 dered. Disorder prevailed everywhere and no one 
 seemed to know what to do. Then Petain came, and 
 a few days later this broken and disheartened division 
 was fighting splendidly in the battle of the Marne. 
 
 At Montceau-les-Provins he conducted an attack 
 which was one of the first of this great battle. Al- 
 ways careful of his men, he insisted that the first part 
 of the battle be fought with shells. Then, after a 
 long and heavy bombardment, he ordered the advance. 
 
46 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 The infantry was to move forward to the little village 
 of Saint-Bon and occupy the hills beyond. But the 
 Germans, aware of the coming attack, were covering 
 the crest of these hills with a barrage of large shells 
 such as Petain's men had never experienced before. 
 They hesitated. Petain saw that they were afraid. 
 Quickly taking the lead, he marched ahead of them, 
 across the fields, with an even, unhurried step, until he 
 reached the village of Saint-Bon. This was to be his 
 post of command and here he remained all day, direct- 
 ing and instructing while shells fell everywhere 
 around him. To see him there, cool and fearless, 
 though he presented so clearly a target for German 
 gunners, restored the confidence of the men. They 
 took the heights of Saint-Bon. 
 
 One of his officers, writing of this incident, tells of 
 the efifect it had upon the troops : 
 
 *To us who had just passed through the terrible 
 days since the 22d of August, who had retreated 
 with hearts of anguish and without rest, day or night, 
 and who felt that on this day we fought for the des- 
 tiny of the country, this march in advance of troops, 
 cool, resolute, straight toward the objective, seemed to 
 have in it something symbolic of greatness, and we 
 felt in our hearts hope and the certainty of victory." 
 
 In May, 1915, Petain, now in command of the 33d 
 Corps, was given the task of breaking the German line 
 near the town of Carency in Artois. He was given 
 three days in which to do it. Some thought it could 
 not be done at all. Petain, however, was not of that 
 
MARSHAL PETAIN 47 
 
 Opinion. He went about it in his usual systematic 
 way, instructing each officer what he was to do, per- 
 sonally inspecting all preparations. He always took 
 plenty of time to prepare for an attack, but, when the 
 moment came, he struck like lightning. 
 
 It was the morning of the 9th of May that he struck 
 at Carency. The 33d Corps, a perfect piece of mech- 
 anism, all parts working together, pierced the German 
 line, and took Carency in three hours instead of three 
 days. Petain sent back word to headquarters to send 
 reserves, that he had broken through. The answer 
 came back that he must be mistaken; no one could 
 have broken through in that time. And so, for lack 
 of reserves, this attack, w^hich was to have begun an 
 offensive movement along the whole line, resulted 
 merely in a local victory. The 33d Corps, however, 
 had taken 10,000 prisoners and 30 cannon. It was 
 this success that brought Petain the command of the 
 Second Army. 
 
 His promotion was, perhaps, the most rapid of any 
 in the French army. In less than three years he rose 
 from the rank of colonel to that of commander-in- 
 chief. How had it happened, people asked? If he 
 possessed unusual qualities, why had he remained an 
 obscure colonel until the Great War ? The answer was 
 in the character of Petain himself. '' He has a hard 
 tooth," the French say, meaning that, if he believes 
 himself right, he goes on his way regardless of conse- 
 quences. And one thing he believed before all others 
 was that politics should have nothing to do with the 
 army. 
 
48 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 Until 1911 politics had a great deal to do with the 
 French army. Consequently the opportunity for 
 which Petain was so well prepared with his scientific 
 knowledge and his exceptional qualities of leadership 
 did not come until Verdun. 
 
 It was Verdun that made Petain — a battle based 
 on science and marvelously thought out. He left 
 nothing to chance. No detail was too small to be 
 overlooked by him. Not only did he instruct his of- 
 ficers what to do in the first, the second, even the third 
 instance, but he had a way of dropping in unexpect- 
 edly to see how his instructions were being carried 
 out. He often paid visits to his officers in the front 
 line trenches, recklessly exposing himself to the enemy 
 fire. 
 
 He would rush to and fro from the trenches in an 
 automobile at breakneck speed, for speed was one of 
 the things he particularly believed in. During one 
 part of the battle he is reported to have used up twelve 
 chauffeurs in as many weeks. One of them said: '' I 
 don't mind taking my chances of being killed in the 
 trenches, but to drive for General Petain is to ask for 
 death." 
 
 He is not a comrade with his men, as is General 
 Joffre, but "they trust him," as an officer once said, 
 ''because he sees so clearly." 
 
 Like many great generals, he is plain. To meet 
 him walking in the street of some cantonment, dressed 
 in a soldier's top-coat, one might easily mistake him 
 for one of his own poilus, except that he is nearly 
 
MARSHAL PETAIN 49 
 
 always alone. He goes silently about his work with 
 never a trace of emotion. He is careful. That is 
 why his men trust him so much. And he is daring. 
 That is why they admire him so greatly. 
 
 Picture a body of troops on the march. They have 
 just come from the trenches of Verdun and are on 
 their way to their rest billets. But it is a long way, 
 they are tired, their packs are heavy, and they march 
 with dry throats. In the distance they see an auto- 
 mobile approaching at full speed. 
 
 " A general staff car," someone remarks. " It is 
 going to bury us in dust." And all eyes look resent- 
 fully toward it. Suddenly it slows down, almost to 
 the pace of the marching column, and the men just 
 have time to recognize its occupant, when it turns 
 around and rapidly disappears down the road over 
 which it came. Petain, having cast a brief glance at 
 these troops, for what purpose no one knows, is re- 
 turning to his maps. But they, tired as they are, 
 straighten up to the last man and stand at salute. It 
 is a mere incident, but it shows the relation between 
 Petain and his men. 
 
 When the battle of Verdun at last came to an end 
 in August of 1917 and the armies of the Crown Prince 
 had been driven far to the north, a simple ceremony 
 to commemorate the victory took place in the Place 
 d'Armes, the same square which was to have been the 
 scene of surrender. The people of Verdun now came 
 back to pay their respects to the man '* who had 
 wrested the victorv from the Germans," and to the 
 
50 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 army whose heroism had upheld the courage of the 
 nation. 
 
 On May 15th General Petain had been made com- 
 mander-in-chief of the French armies, but now the 
 government conferred on him and on the troops which 
 had won the final advance its highest gift, the cross 
 of the Legion of Honor. 
 
 Before President Poincare and General Petain all 
 the regiments of that last victory passed in review. 
 Rain fell in torrents, but it only served to make the 
 ceremony more impressive. With the band playing 
 the Marseillaise, and the tattered regimental flags 
 caught up by the wind and borne proudly unfurled 
 above the heads of the mud-covered men, it seemed 
 not the army alone but the spirit of France that passed 
 in review. France had endured. France would en- 
 dure until the end. That was the message she sent 
 through President Poincare to General Petain and to 
 his officers and men. 
 
 ''Count on me," she said, ''as I count on you and 
 on your soldiers. Together we shall fight to the final 
 victory. Together we shall work to establish on in- 
 destructible foundations the reign of peace and the 
 sovereignty of God." 
 
 This ceremony marked the end of a great chapter 
 of the war; the occasion itself was to mark the begin- 
 ning of another. Standing beside General Petain, 
 President Poincare, and the government officials was 
 a group of American officers. The French people 
 greeted them with a cry of " Long live America " 
 
MARSHAL P^TAIN 51 
 
 when they recognized General Pershing and his staff. 
 Four months before, America had come into the war, 
 but it was not merely because she was now the ally 
 of France that General Pershing had been invited to 
 be present at this ceremony, but because America had 
 shared in the battle of Verdun itself. 
 
 At the outbreak of the war many American boys 
 had left their homes and colleges to offer their serv- 
 ices to France. They had driven ambulances and 
 trucks for nve cents a day. They had fought with 
 the Foreign Legion in some of the most severe engage- 
 ments. They had formed and maintained the Lafay- 
 ette Escadrille. Some had been killed, many had 
 been wounded, and many stood now in the ranks of 
 the regiments honored for bravery. Compared with 
 the vast armies engaged in this great battle, their 
 number was very small, but it is a fact of which Amer- 
 ica must always be proud that Americans were among 
 those who ''barred the road to Verdun to the Ger- 
 mans." 
 
 The withdrawal of Russia from the war in 1916 
 had released the German armies of the eastern 
 front, and General Petain saw clearly the numbers 
 the Allies some day would have to face. His fore- 
 sight was again to save France. For fifteen months 
 he worked constantly at building up his reserves. In 
 the spring of 1918, when the German drive came, it 
 was Petain's reserves that held the line, and it was 
 with Petain's reserves that Foch struck back in July. 
 
52 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 Though Marshal Foch commanded the AlHed 
 armies, Petain remained commander-in-chief of the 
 French armies until the end of the war. 
 
 On the 11th of November, 1918, an armistice, or 
 temporary truce, was signed. Among other things, 
 it provided that the French should occupy Alsace and 
 Lorraine. Probably no other condition of peace was 
 so dear to the hearts of the French people as this, that 
 the lost provinces should be returned to them. And 
 as for the people of Alsace and Lorraine, since 1871, 
 they had never ceased to hope for the day when they 
 would be French again. During the war they had 
 suffered cruelly for their sympathy with the cause of 
 France. Fined, imprisoned, tortured, many of them 
 killed, they had borne their trials with courage and 
 patience, never doubting the final victory. And now 
 the French army under General Petain was marching 
 toward Metz, the capital city of Lorraine. 
 
 It was the afternoon of the 19th of November. 
 For days Metz had been in a tumult of excitement and 
 preparation. The French flag, resurrected from its 
 long concealment, flew again over the houses and the 
 public buildings. The signs of shops and even some 
 of the names of the proprietors had changed almost 
 over night from German to French. French news- 
 papers and magazines appeared suddenly on the news- 
 stands as if by magic. Ever3^one wore the tricolor, 
 everyone smiled. It was the happiest day Metz had 
 known in nearly fifty years. 
 
 The streets and squares were crowded with people. 
 
MARSHAL PETAIN 53 
 
 They had waited since morning, eagerly expectant, 
 talking of nothing but of what the day was to bring. 
 Airplanes circling overhead, swooped down now and 
 then and dropped hundreds of tiny French flags. 
 Then, above the noisy droning of the planes, there 
 came from the distance the sound of trumpets and — 
 people could hardly believe their ears — the Marche 
 Lorraine ! 
 
 In a few minutes the army was in sight, long lines 
 of men in strange uniforms of gray-blue, first the cav- 
 alry, then General Petain with his officers, then the 
 infantry and artillery with their battle pennants. 
 
 General Petain rode a white horse. He had, on 
 that very day, been made a Marshal of France. With 
 General Joif re and General Foch he now ranked high- 
 est in the army. As he rode into the square before 
 the cathedral, a shout went up that drowned even the 
 noise of the airplanes and the sound of the marching 
 army. ''Vive Petain! Vive la France!" It came 
 from the heart, this welcome of Lorraine. Before a 
 statue of Marshal Ney, a French general under Napo- 
 leon, Petain reviewed his troops, surrounded by his 
 officers. The crowds surged forward, breaking the 
 lines. Everyone wanted to see Petain. 
 
 Then, as the troops marched by, each regiment with 
 its battle flags, the people forgot Petain for the mo- 
 ment to cheer the men who had won back their liber- 
 ties. For two hours the lines moved endlessly on, 
 through the cathedral square, up the street to the bar- 
 racks which the Germans had so recently left. 
 
54 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 Nor did the celebration end when the city had been 
 occupied by the army. At night fireworks and star 
 shells, sent up from the French lines, continually 
 flashed the message of victory against the dark sky, 
 while processions of young people paraded the streets, 
 singing French songs and pausing now and then to 
 shout again the words which had given them the cour- 
 age to endure, ''Vive la France!" Joyousness had 
 returned to the old city of Metz, for Lorraine was 
 French again. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 UAnnee de Verdun, Joseph Reinach. 
 
 General Petain, U Illustration, May 12, 1917. 
 
 Petain, Current Opinion, June, 1917. 
 
 Defender of Verdun, Alden Brooks, Collier's, April 22, 1916. 
 
 Some French Fighters, Charles Dawbarn, Fortnightly, June, 
 1916. 
 
 La Bataille de Verdun, Henry Bidou, Revue de Deux Mondes, 
 May, 1916. 
 
 Battle for Verdun as France Saw It, Frank Simonds, Review 
 of Reviews, May, 1916. 
 
 Battle of Verdun, L'lllustration, May 11, 1916. 
 
 Second Week at Verdun, Independent, March 13, 1916. 
 
 Great German Attack on Verdun, Current History Magazine, 
 Oct., 1917. 
 
 Vineyard of Red Wine, H. Sheehan, Atlantic, August, 1916. 
 
 How American Aviators Saved Verdun, Current History Mag- 
 azine, July, 1917. 
 
 An American Ambulance in the Verdun Attack, F. H. Gailor, 
 Living Age, Aug. 12, 1916. 
 
 Revue des Annees de Verdun, L'lllustration, Aug. 20, 1917. 
 
 Petain Enters Metz, Current History Magazine, Dec, 1918. 
 
III. MARSHAL FOCH 
 
 On the 2d of October, 1851, the boy who was to 
 become the commander-in-chief of the greatest army 
 of the world, was born in the old city of Tarbes in 
 southern France. He was born into a family that 
 had already won military honors, for his grandfather 
 Dupre had served under Napoleon and had been deco- 
 rated by him. 
 
 There were four children in the Foch family, three 
 boys and a girl. Ferdinand was the second son. His 
 father was the general secretary of the Department of 
 the High Pyrenees, of which Tarbes was the chief 
 city. 
 
 Ferdinand did not go to school until he was eleven 
 years old, but was taught at home. A part of his edu- 
 cation had to do with the wars in which his grand- 
 father had fought. He knew all the stories of the 
 campaigns and Napoleon became his great hero. 
 When he was twelve, he decided that he would read 
 the entire history of Napoleon's empire. There were 
 several volumes, and politics made rather dull reading, 
 but the stories of the battles made up for the dull 
 parts. 
 
 In the two years that he attended school at Tarbes 
 he made no unusual record of any kind. He had a 
 good head for mathematics, and once he won an "hon- 
 
 55 
 
56 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 orable mention" for religious knowledge, Latin, his- 
 tory, and geography, but he took no prizes for schol- 
 arship. 
 
 The holidays of the Foch children were often spent 
 at the home of their paternal grandfather. Grand- 
 father Foch was a man of some wealth and had built 
 himself a substantial house in Valentine, a village in 
 the foothills of the Pyrenees. 
 
 On one of the hills not far from the house was a 
 chapel to which people from all the country around 
 came on pilgrimages. Ferdinand's favorite walk 
 was to this place. From the top of the hill could be 
 seen upon one side the wide valley of the Garonne 
 River, and upon the other the great white peaks of 
 the Pyrenees. These holidays came to an end, how- 
 ever, when Ferdinand was thirteen, for that year his 
 father moved away from Tarbes. 
 
 At sixteen he entered the college of St. Michel in 
 the village of St. Etienne, near Lyons, where the Foch 
 family was then living. Two years later, when he 
 passed his final examintions at St. Michel, his general 
 education was finished. He had now to decide what 
 he wanted to do and begin special studies for his 
 career. 
 
 His mind was already made up. Like his grand- 
 father Dupre, he would become an officer. In 
 Metz there was a preparatory school. This was 
 in the days before the Franco-Prussian war, when 
 Metz was a city of France. Ferdinand was in his 
 nineteenth year when he journeyed to Metz and en- 
 
MARSHAL FOCH 57 
 
 tered St. Clement's, and it was the first time he had 
 ever attended school away from home. 
 
 The first year passed uneventfully and, when the 
 summer holidays came, he went home to St. Etienne, 
 expecting to return for the opening of the new term 
 in August. But on the 19th of July, 1870, came the 
 war, which ended the studies of so many French boys 
 that summer. In August, when St. Clement's should 
 have opened, it was serving as a military hospital and 
 the Germans were marching on Paris. 
 
 Ferdinand remained at home until September, when 
 he was accepted as a private in the army. For the 
 next four months he worked hard at drilling, but he 
 did not get any nearer to the war than the barracks 
 of his home town. 
 
 In January of 1871 the war ended, and the follow- 
 ing month found Ferdinand back at St. Clement's, 
 but what changes the war had made! When he had 
 left six months before, the tricolor of France had 
 waved from the old fortress; now it was the German 
 flag. Arriving at school, he found German sentries 
 on guard at the door. German soldiers were quar- 
 tered in the college. They were a part of the army of 
 occupation which remained on French soil until the 
 last penny of the indemnity was paid. 
 
 For six months, while he studied to become a French 
 officer, Ferdinand shared quarters with the German 
 army. And the next summer, when he went to Nancy 
 to take his examinations, he found the Germans there 
 also. 
 
58 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 Nancy was the headquarters of the German First 
 Army Corps, and the commanding general took de- 
 Hght in ordering the band to parade through the city 
 and play military retreats as a daily reminder to the 
 inhabitants that France had been defeated. Ferdi- 
 nand wrote his examinations to the sound of this music 
 and he never forgot it. 
 
 Forty-two years later he returned to Nancy to take 
 command of the 20th Corps of Lorraine. The city 
 was gaily decorated for the occasion. The tricolor 
 flew from every house. If any of the inhabitants re- 
 mained who had lived through the days of German oc- 
 cupation, they had probably forgotten all about the 
 German general's music to which they had listened 
 nearly half a century ago. 
 
 But Ferdinand Foch had not forgotten. His first 
 act upon taking command was to order out the bands 
 of six regiments to play the most stirring marches of 
 victory. Into every corner of the city his bands went. 
 As night came on flaring torches lighted their way, 
 and the people followed, cheering and shouting, *'Vive 
 la France!" It was a revelry of music and patriot- 
 ism that many will never forget. 
 
 In November of 1871 Ferdinand went to Paris to 
 enter the Ecole Polytechnique. In ordinary times 
 this would have been a happy event, but the days fol- 
 lowing the war were some of the saddest in the his- 
 tory of the school. 
 
 After the signing of peace with Germany, France 
 was torn by civil war. The poor people, who had suf- 
 
MARSHAL FOCH 59 
 
 fered most from the war and who could obtain neither 
 food nor work in the days which immediately fol- 
 lowed, set up a new government in Paris, called the 
 Commune. It lasted nearly two months, when the 
 national troops took th'e city. Then followed a week 
 of terrible fighting, in which shells fell upon the Ecole 
 Polytechnique, where the Communists had taken ref- 
 uge. Finally, when the school was captured, the 
 Communists were seized and lined up before a firing 
 squad in the boys' recreation court. 
 
 All of these things had happened before Ferdinand 
 Foch came to Paris, but the evidence still remained. 
 Until the damaged buildings could be repaired, the 
 boys were obliged to seek quarters elsewhere. The 
 war had also left its effect upon the boys themselves. 
 Not a single festivity of any kind w^as held at the 
 school during all that year because " no one had any 
 heart for amusements." 
 
 One of Foch's comrades at this time was Joseph 
 Jofifre. For nearly a year these two were students 
 together at the Polytechnique. Jofifre graduated in 
 September of 1872 and went to the School of Applied 
 Artillery at Fontainebleau. Six months later Foch 
 followed him. He was one of the students of high 
 standing who had been given a commission before his 
 course was finished because the new army was in great 
 need of officers. 
 
 He finished third in his class at the School of Ap- 
 plied Artillery and then returned, a lieutenant, to the 
 garrison at Tarbes. Why had he chosen Tarbes, his 
 
6o LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 friends asked ? His family no longer lived there and 
 Tarbes could not possibly offer any advancement to a 
 young officer. 
 
 It was characteristic of Foch, however, that he 
 knew what he wanted. He had just graduated from a 
 school of artillery. Later on he meant to enter a 
 cavalry school, but for the present he would get what 
 cavalry practice he could in the garrison which af- 
 forded the finest horses in France, for the country 
 around Tarbes is famous for its Arabian horses. 
 Having decided to become a general staff officer, one 
 who would help to plan for the defense of the nation, 
 he would need to understand all branches of the ser- 
 vice. 
 
 After two years at Tarbes, he entered a cavalry 
 school and from there passed to the 10th regiment of 
 artillery at Rennes in Brittany. He was twenty-seven 
 years old now and a captain. 
 
 Brittany was to become his new home. Near the 
 city of Morlaix he purchased an estate. The house — 
 an old manor house of gray stone — looks across a 
 sunny meadow to a fine woodland. It was the wood- 
 land, above all, which had attracted Foch, for he loves 
 trees. All his life he has studied them; next to war 
 he knows more about them than anything else. His 
 chief pleasure is to ride through his forests seeing 
 what improvements he can make, and now that the 
 war is over, he desires only to return to Brittany and 
 plant more trees. 
 
 At home he does not use a motor car ; he prefers his 
 
MARSHAL FOCH 6i 
 
 horses. A favorite, named Croesus, is nearly always 
 with him. It is one of the fine Arabian horses from 
 the comitry near Tarbes. 
 
 Although Foch was a captain when he went to Brit- 
 tany and had spent many years at school, he had not 
 yet reached the goal he had set for himself, and he 
 began to study now to prepare himself to enter the 
 Superior War School at Paris. This school prepares 
 officers for the High Command. 
 
 He finished his course at the Superior War School 
 fourth on the lists. He had made a record, both as a 
 student and an officer, a record which was to lead, 
 eventually, to his being recalled to the War School as 
 Professor of History and Tactics. Foch was forty- 
 four when he returned to Paris to take up this work, 
 and it is as a teacher that his career really begins. 
 
 The professorship which he held was counted the 
 most important one in the training of officers. Stu- 
 dents always looked forward to the course in Tactics, 
 and when Lieutenant Colonel Foch was announced as 
 the new instructor, they were impatient to see and hear 
 him. 
 
 They were not disappointed. Young officers who 
 attended his classes never forgot him. He was a 
 small man, so slender that he appeared almost frail, 
 but no one doubted his energy who heard him speak. 
 He must have talked to officers in his classes much as 
 he talked to them at headquarters. "Have you a 
 clear idea in your head? No? Then go away and 
 form one." Exactness he demanded first and last. 
 
62 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 During the years that he was connected with the 
 Superior War School, both as a professor and, later, 
 as its head, he trained many hundreds of officers. 
 When the war came, nearly all of these officers held 
 high positions. Thus, while Joffre was organizing 
 and equipping the new army, Foch was furnishing it 
 with brains. This was his great work up to August, 
 1914. 
 
 So little did France expect a war in the summer of 
 1914 that, on the 18th of July, Foch asked for a leave 
 of absence to visit his home in Brittany. He was a 
 man of sixty-three at this time, commanding general 
 of the 20th Corps, with headquarters at Nancy. 
 
 He had looked forward to his holiday particularly, 
 for there was to be a family reunion. His grandchil- 
 dren, with whom he loved to play, would be there. 
 There would be rides through the forests and excur- 
 sions to the sea, while the business of conducting 
 manoeuvers was forgotten. His two sons-in-law, both 
 captains in the army, had been granted leave at the 
 same time. The only disappointment was that his 
 son. Lieutenant Germain Foch, must remain with his 
 regiment. It was the last time the Foch family was 
 to come together. The war was soon to take the son 
 and one of the sons-in-law. 
 
 While General Foch was enjoying his holiday, not 
 knowing what was to come, Germans from all over 
 France were flocking home to join the army. On 
 July 25th 12,000 Germans left the city of Nancy alone, 
 
MARSHAL FOCH 63 
 
 having completed all the preparations for war which 
 the German government had entrusted to them. Dur- 
 ing the month of July they had been very busy in 
 Nancy. They had visited all the public buildings and 
 many private homes, especially those with high roofs, 
 offering to install a wireless system at the very cheap 
 price of $34.00. It would be so interesting, they 
 said, to get the exact time every day from the Eiffel 
 Tower. 
 
 On July 26th a telegram recalled General Foch to 
 Nancy to prepare for the defense of the city. By the 
 last of the month the German plan was clear. It was 
 to send troops through Belgium and through Alsace 
 to encircle the French army. That it did not succeed 
 w^as due to the French right wing, of which the 20th 
 Corps was a part. 
 
 '' The best means of defense is to attack," said Foch. 
 Therefore, wdth an advance guard of the 20th Corps^ 
 he left Nancy on the 15th of August and marched into 
 Germany. When the men reached the frontier, they 
 dug up the red, white, and black posts that marked the 
 boundary and crossed the line, singing the Marseil- 
 laise. 
 
 The fighting which followed lasted from the 19th 
 to the 26th of August and ended in a German retreat. 
 This was not included in the plan and considerably 
 upset the schedule. Every effort was made to keep 
 it a secret from the people and from the German 
 armies in Belgium. In the end, however, the French 
 army of Lorraine was obliged to fall back to keep its 
 
64 
 
 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 &'». If J"r..«^^**^^SMP 
 
 Marshal Foch 
 
MARSHAL FOCH 6$ 
 
 unity with the armies of the center and left, which 
 were retreating toward the Marne. 
 
 On the 29th of August, while General Foch was 
 watching one of his regiments attack a German out- 
 post, he received an order to hand over the command 
 of the 20th Corps to another general and come to 
 Chalons-on-the-Marne to consult with General Joffre. 
 
 Arriving- at Chalons, he found that he was to have 
 command of the Ninth Army, a new army which 
 Joffre was then forming. 
 
 The Ninth Army was " new " only in name. Most 
 of the units had been taken from other points in the 
 line. Everything was in confusion. Some of the 
 officers did not know where their units were. The men 
 had been fighting and retreating for days and were 
 worn out. The only roads over w^iich troops could 
 be moved were crowded with refugees fleeing from 
 the invaded districts. 
 
 On the third day after he had taken command. Gen- 
 eral Foch was told in a telegram from Jofifre that the 
 New Ninth Army, this tired, disorganized army, would 
 occupy the position of honor in the coming battle, the 
 center, against which the Germans were to throw their 
 full strength. 
 
 On a line that ran from the village of Charleville 
 twenty-five miles in a southeasterly direction to the 
 village of Sommesous, the Ninth Army took up its 
 position. For eleven miles along the western end the 
 line bordered upon the marshes of Saint Gond. Once 
 a lake, much of this marsh land had been drained and 
 
66 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 turned into pasture, but there still remained wide 
 stretches of marsh, " with shallow pools and thickets 
 of brown rushes." 
 
 The Saint Gond marshes, which were to become a 
 part of the battleground of the Marne, were known 
 quite as well to the Germans as to the French. For 
 years the Germans had been visiting them under one 
 pretext or another. Sometimes they came to hunt 
 wild ducks. Sometimes they traveled through the 
 country selling fertilizers to the farmers. A few had 
 settled in the villages and remained as cheesemakers 
 and shepherds. Every foot of ground had been care- 
 fully examined and mapped. 
 
 On the morning of the 5th of September, villagers 
 saw the French army retreating toward the south. 
 In the afternoon they saw it returning, saw the men 
 dragging batteries up the slopes of the hills that bor- 
 dered the southern edge of the marshes. Soon whole 
 divisions poured into the towns, traveling northwest. 
 About four o'clock the batteries on the hills opened 
 fire; then, from somewhere to the northwest, German 
 shells began to fall on the villages. There was not 
 much fighting, however, and by evening all was quiet 
 again. The only sound was the cry of wild ducks 
 among the rushes. 
 
 At six o'clock the next morning, Sunday, September 
 6th, General Foch established his headquarters in a 
 chateau near the village of Pleurs. Along the front 
 everything was still quiet. 
 
 It was some time between seven and eight o'clock 
 
MARSHAL FOCH 67 
 
 that, suddenly, a great roar broke the silence. Smoke 
 clouds began to roll across the marshes and flashes of 
 flame streaked the sky. The army had just received 
 Joffre's order to attack and every battery had opened 
 fire. 
 
 The 77th regiment, holding the southern border of 
 Saint Gond, now pushed forward, only to be driven 
 back by the Germans into the hills still farther to the 
 south. What happened to this regiment had hap- 
 pened to oiher units all along the line. On the even- 
 ing of the first day of battle the Ninth Army had 
 everywhere retreated. 
 
 Looking toward the marshes that night, the men of 
 the 77th saw one of the border villages in flames and 
 black shadows moving around it. The Germans were 
 dancing to celebrate the victory that had turned a 
 French attack into a retreat. 
 
 The night was intensely hot and the men suffered 
 from thirst. They were to suffer still more, for this 
 w^as only the beginning of the battle. Hunger, too, 
 was to be added to their misery. For three days they 
 tasted no food except the raw beets which they found 
 in the fields. 
 
 The next day, September 7th, the German attack 
 was stronger. Foch's army, from the beginning, had 
 been outnumbered. He had against him some of the 
 best German divisions, the Saxons and the Prussian 
 Guards, for the German plan was to break the French 
 line here at the center. 
 
 However, the line held that day and even advanced 
 
68 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 a little, but so strong was the German attack that It 
 led Foch to remark: "They are trying to throw us 
 back with such fury that I'm sure things are going 
 badly for them elsewhere, and they are seeking com- 
 pensation." 
 
 He was right. North of Paris things were going 
 badly. Von Kluck was retreating. 
 
 It was the following day, September 8th, that disas- 
 ter befell the Ninth Army. At three o'clock in the 
 morning the Saxons rose out of the darkness and 
 attacked the French with such fury that the whole 
 line was driven back. At nine o'clock they stormed 
 the village of Sommesous and broke through. The 
 situation was so serious that General Foch left head- 
 quarters and went to the battle front. There he found 
 everything in confusion. Regiments were badly 
 confused. Many of the men did not know where 
 they belonged. Guns and trucks were hurrying to- 
 ward the rear, troops were falling back along every 
 road amidst the crowds of villagers who had been 
 driven from their homes by the attack. Officers 
 everywhere were trying to rally their men. 
 
 General Foch rode up to a Breton regiment just as 
 it was preparing to make a stand. He knew the 
 Bretons — they were men from his own province. 
 Pointing toward the Germans, he said : " My boys, you 
 must kill those fellows to hold them back." 
 
 " We will, my general," was the cheery reply. 
 
 By eleven o'clock, however, the Germans were in 
 Fere Champenoise, the largest village in the battle 
 
MARSHAL FOCH 69 
 
 area, and the right wing of the Ninth Army had fallen 
 back four miles. This made it necessary for the cen- 
 ter to fall back to keep in touch with the divisions that 
 wxre retreating. The German thrust had also endan- 
 gered Foch's headquarters, and he was obliged to 
 move in the midst of battle to the village of Plancy, 
 seven miles to the south. 
 
 He knew what the Germans were trying to do. 
 They had found the weak spot in his line and were 
 throwing all their strength against it. If they could 
 break through, they could yet roll up the whole west- 
 ern half of the Allied army and win a decisive victory. 
 Therefore they must not be allowed to break through, 
 said Foch. The right wing must be supported. But 
 with what? He had no reserves. Every man was 
 engaged. 
 
 It was at this moment, with the defeat of the nation 
 facing him, that he sent his famous message to Joffre. 
 '' My center is giving way. My right is retreating. 
 The situation is excellent. I shall attack." 
 
 Attack! Could an outnumbered and retreating 
 army attack? The Germans were driving the French 
 before them, as one writer has said, " like dead leaves 
 before the wind." 
 
 Serious as the situation was, however, this drive 
 gave General Foch an opportunity, for, while the Ger- 
 mans pressed the French back on the eastern half of 
 the battle line, on the western half they had not been 
 able to make any gains. Foch reasoned that the point 
 where the two halves joined might be weakly guarded. 
 
70 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 If only he had men to throw against this weak point he 
 might yet save the battle. There was but one way of 
 getting men ; that was to take them from some other 
 point of the line which was still holding. The success 
 of the plan depended on keeping any knowledge of the 
 movement of troops from the enemy. The risk was 
 very great, but General Foch decided to take it. 
 
 He sent an order to General Grosetti, commanding 
 the 42d division, the best division in the line, to retire 
 from his position and march to the village of Pleurs, 
 where he would receive new orders. It was ten 
 o'clock of the night of September 8th when the officer 
 whom Foch had sent woke General Grosetti " from his 
 sleep in the straw '' in a wretched farm building, and 
 delivered the message. The general was astonished 
 at the order but prepared at once to carry it out. 
 
 The troops also were astonished, nor did they like 
 being taken out of the line, for, until then, the 42d 
 division had won most of the local victories of the 
 battle. Why had they been ordered out and where 
 were they being sent? Was the whole army re- 
 treating? 
 
 The day of disaster had ended in torrents of rain, 
 but, notwithstanding the rain, villages were burning 
 everywhere. When morning came the sky was still 
 reddened from the fires. 
 
 At daybreak of September 9th the German attacks 
 began again, and once more Foch's right wing fell 
 back. The battle was at the crisis. 
 
 " Hold on till midday," word went to the 77th, 
 
MARSHAL FOCH 7 1 
 
 which was still in action, '' till the 42d division ar- 
 rives at Pleurs, and the battle is won." 
 
 But at midday the 42d had not arrived. Two 
 o'clock came and still there was no 42d. What had 
 happened ? Had General Grosetti made a mistake and 
 gone to some other place ? Foch sent messenger after 
 messenger. No word came. The suspense was tell- 
 ing on everybody except General Foch. He was un- 
 disturbed. At the same time that he was despatching 
 messengeis after his lost division, he was sending 
 word to his defeated right that everything was going 
 splendidly. 
 
 It was four-thirty in the afternoon when the 42d 
 was seen to sweep down the slopes toward Pleurs, the 
 sun's last rays falling upon the head of General Gro- 
 setti as he rode at the head of his troops. To the tired 
 and anxious army in the valley below, its appearance 
 was like a vision of victory. From that moment they 
 believed the battle won. 
 
 The call to arms sounded and the men, too over- 
 joyed now to remember their weariness, prepared to 
 advance. So many officers had been killed that many 
 companies were commanded by sergeants and whole 
 regiments went into battle without superior officers. 
 
 At six o'clock that evening Foch gave the order 
 for the attack. What the outcome would be he could 
 not know for several hours. Having given the order, 
 he took one of his staff officers with him and wxnt for 
 a walk. On the walk he did not once speak of the 
 war. 
 
72 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 The day before, it will be remembered, the Prussian 
 Guards had entered Fere Champenoise. Believing 
 the battle won, they had proceeded at once to make 
 merry. That afternoon and all the next day they 
 held a fair. On the afternoon of September 9th, at 
 the moment when the 42d division was about to hurl 
 itself on the German flank, the merrymaking was 
 at its height. A piano had been carried into the street 
 and set up before the hotel, and benches and ammu- 
 nition wagons made seats for the audience. "Offi- 
 cers lolled in basket chairs on the pavement, smoking 
 and drinking. Sword belts were unbuckled, haver- 
 sacks thrown in heaps, rifles stacked against the 
 wall." ' 
 
 The war was forgotten. All afternoon the singing 
 and dancing went on. But the victory which was 
 being celebrated was not yet won, and at five o'clock 
 a mounted officer came galloping into town, shouting 
 an order as he passed. It was the order to retreat; 
 the 42d division had been sighted by an airplane, 
 and the Germans were trying to get away before dis- 
 aster should befall them. 
 
 The men snatched kits and rifles and were soon on 
 the road. The retreat was conducted in good order. 
 By six o'clock scarcely a German was left in Fere 
 Champenoise. At nine the next morning the French 
 entered the town. The tide of battle and of the war 
 had turned. 
 
 1 General Foch at the Marnc, Charles Le Goffic. 
 
MARSHAL FOCH 73 
 
 Following the battle of the Marne, General Foch 
 remained in Chalons until he was ordered north to 
 Ypres in Belgium, where the Germans were preparing 
 to take the channel cities of northern France/ Ypres 
 was a battle in which all the Allies took part. On the 
 northern end of the battle line, the Belgians were 
 fighting for the little strip of country that still re- 
 mained in their hands. The British held the center, 
 while French divisions were scattered all along the 
 line, a little " French cement," as General Foch re- 
 marked, '' to stop up any holes the Germans might 
 make." 
 
 On the afternoon of October 4th General Foch 
 received a telegram from Joffre, asking him to start 
 at once for Belgium, and at ten that night he left 
 Chalons by automobile. After spending three weeks 
 with the French armies of the North, on the 24th of 
 October he established his headquarters at Cassel, a 
 little town situated on the top of a hill which over- 
 looks all the plain of Flanders. Cassel is about eight- 
 een miles south and west of Ypres. 
 
 His office was in the old Town Hall, and here he 
 spent the most of his time at work over his maps, a 
 telephone at his side. Often he worked far into the 
 night. He lived very simply in a house near by, and 
 took his exercise in walking about the town, nearly 
 always alone. 
 
 The great battle for the channel cities had already 
 begun when General Foch arrived at Cassel. On the 
 
 1 For the British part in the First Battle of Ypres, see the biography 
 of General Haig. 
 
74 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 20th of October the Germans had struck at the north- 
 ern end of the Hne, which the Belgians held in front 
 of the city of Dixmude. They struck so hard that the 
 Belgians were obliged to use the last of their reserves. 
 They could do no more. All the soil of Belgium 
 except the tiny strip on which the Belgian army was 
 now fighting was in German hands. What it meant 
 to the Belgians to hold this strip no one understood 
 better than General Foch. He went at once to the 
 Belgian front. 
 
 '' You must hold," he said to the general staff, ''you 
 must hold, at whatever cost. I will send you my 
 42d division." 
 
 Then, seeing a map lying on the table, he traced a 
 line across it. 
 
 '' There you are," he added. " There is the line on 
 which you can hold, the line of the railway from Nieu- 
 port to Dixmude. I don't know how much good it is 
 but it's an embankment. With a little water in front 
 of it you are masters of the situation." 
 
 The idea had come to him while he was speaking. 
 Was there no way of flooding the plain? The Bel- 
 gian officers, who, a few moments before, had despaired 
 of saving their little corner of Belgium, now forgot 
 all their troubles. They remembered that the plan of 
 inundating the plain of Flanders had already been 
 studied. The maps and papers must still be in exist- 
 ence. 
 
 Three days later Belgian engineers, working under 
 fire, had filled in all of the openings in the embank- 
 
MARSHAL FOCH 75 
 
 ment, and in four days more the flood gates were 
 opened. The water, rising over the plain, flooded the 
 German guns. Without the artillery the infantry 
 could no longer hold its position. The Belgian army 
 and the little strip of Belgian territory had been saved. 
 
 Checked in their effort to break through at Dix- 
 mude, the Germans next turned their attention to the 
 British line before Ypres. Here again they met Gen- 
 eral Foch. 
 
 October 29th, the first day of that furious attack 
 upon the British, found Foch at his headquarters in 
 Cassel. In the evening the reports of the day's fight- 
 ing began to come in. They were very unfavorable 
 and Foch remained in his oflice late, thinking out ways 
 of meeting the new danger. He knew that on this 
 day the battle was only beginning, that the strongest 
 attacks were yet to come. Having thought the prob- 
 lem out, he sent for his motor car about midnight and 
 started for the city of St. Omer, where Marshal 
 French, commander-in-chief of the British army, had 
 his headquarters. He arrived a little before one. 
 Marshal French had gone to bed and had to be 
 wakened. 
 
 ''Marshal, is your line broken?" were General 
 Foch's first words. 
 
 " Yes,'' replied Marshal French. 
 
 " Have you any reserves ? " 
 
 " None whatever." 
 
 ''Very well then," said Foch. "I give you mine. 
 The hole must be stopped at once. If we let our line 
 
76 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 be pierced at a single point we are lost, because of the 
 mass attacks of our enemy. I have eight battalions of 
 the 32d division which Joffre is sending me. Take 
 them and go forward." 
 
 Marshal French rose and gripped General Foch's 
 hand. ''Thanks," he said, ''you are giving me splen- 
 did help." 
 
 The two generals then worked out a plan for the 
 next day. By two o'clock all orders had been tele- 
 graphed and before daybreak the first trains bearing 
 Foch's reserves had arrived behind the Ypres line, and 
 the men were on their way to the front. 
 
 In the spring of 1916 General Foch narrowly 
 escaped being killed, not in battle as might be expected, 
 but in an automobile accident. It was the time when 
 the British and the French were preparing for their 
 joint offensive — the battle of the Somme. Foch was 
 retut-ning from a conference at the headquarters of 
 the central French armies, and was driving along the 
 river Marne near the city of Meaux. 
 
 " Suddenly a woman with a child in her arms, not 
 noticing the near approach of the car, stepped out to 
 cross the road in front of it. The chauffeur, to avoid 
 running over her, put on the brake sharply and pushed 
 round the steering wheel. The car skidded and crashed 
 into one of the roadside trees. Foch was hurt about the 
 head, happily not very seriously, but seriously enough 
 to be taken to the hospital at Meaux, where he was 
 under the anxious care of the doctors for some days." * 
 
 1 Marshal Ferdinand Foch, A. Hilliard Atteridge. 
 
MARSHAL FOCH 77 
 
 At the time no mention was made of the accident 
 in the newspapers, lest it create a feeling of anxiety 
 throughout France, such was the confidence of both 
 the army and the French people in General Foch. 
 President Poincare and General Joffre, however, 
 quietly slipped away from Paris and paid a visit to 
 the hospital at Meaux to make sure that this chief on 
 whom so much depended was not seriously hurt. 
 
 By the middle of June General Foch was at work 
 again, preparing with General Haig for the great 
 battle of July 1st. Of that twenty-five mile battle line 
 from Albert to St. Quentin, the British held the 
 northern half, the French, under General Foch, the 
 southern. The many operations known as the battle 
 of the Somme were to continue into the first months 
 of 1917, but by the end of September, 1916, General 
 Foch had been transferred to other work. 
 
 He was sixty-five years old now, the age at which 
 generals in the French army are placed on the retired 
 list, but at such a time France could not possibly do 
 without Foch. Therefore, he was to remain ''with- 
 out limit of age " as long as his services should be 
 needed. 
 
 His new work was of a different kind from com- 
 manding armies in the field. He was one of several 
 officers of high rank chosen to make a special study 
 of the military problems that might have to be met 
 during the months to come. 
 
 A_ year later, in the summer of 1917, General Foch's 
 work came to light quite unexpectedly. That sum- 
 
78 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 mer the Austrians broke through the Italian lines and 
 poured into the Venetian plain, taking thousands of 
 guns and hundreds of thousands of prisoners. It was 
 for just such a crisis as this that General Foch had 
 prepared. Plans for sending French and British 
 troops to the aid of the Italians had been made months 
 before and, when the emergency came, the troops were 
 immediately dispatched. General Foch himself went. 
 In every crisis, with the exception of Verdun, he was 
 to be found somewhere behind the lines, putting ob- 
 stacles in the way of the Germans. When defeat 
 seemed certain his mind could always think of a way 
 out. Misfortunes were never too great to shake his 
 confidence in victory. 
 
 After the war ended a friend once spoke to him of 
 the glory his services had brought him. 
 
 '' Glory ? " said Foch. '' Never use that word to me. 
 I have done my work as a soldier, but I deserve no 
 more glory for it than if I had been a civilian and 
 done my work as a civilian well." 
 
 On Thursday, the 21st of March, 1918, the Ger- 
 mans began their great drive which they called the 
 "Emperor's Battle," or the ''battle of Peace," since 
 it was to end the war. A half million men were 
 hurled against the British that morning and there 
 were waiting behind the lines as many more to take 
 the places of those who fell. 
 
 Day after day the Allies were forced back, across 
 the battlefields of the Somme, whose capture had cost 
 
MARSHAL FOCH 79 
 
 SO many months and so many lives. The situation 
 was so grave that, on March 26th, five days after the 
 battle began, a conference of statesmen and military 
 leaders was held, and it was decided to place all of 
 the Allied armies under one command. General Foch 
 was the man chosen to be the commander-in-chief of 
 this great army. 
 
 Never before had a general commanded an army 
 such as this. Including both the armies in the field 
 and those in reserve, it numbered eleven million men. 
 
 From that time the war became a great game be- 
 tween General Foch and the German commander-in- 
 chief, General Ludendorff, to see which could keep the 
 largest number of reserves for the final victory. The 
 German plan was to strike so hard that the Allies 
 would have to use all of their men in defense, while 
 General Foch's plan was to let the Germans strike as 
 hard as they would, since the losses of the attacking 
 army are always higher than those of an army of 
 defense. 
 
 Through April, May, and June the fighting went 
 on. These were months of deepest anxiety to the 
 Allied peoples, who did not know any more than the 
 Germans knew the secret number of Foch's reserves. 
 When would the Allies strike back? Why did they 
 always fight outnumbered? Had they already used 
 their reserves? 
 
 General Foch alone was unmoved. To all these 
 questions he merely replied that everything was going 
 very well. Perhaps, after a time, it would go better. 
 
8o LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 The Germans were of the opinion that General 
 Foch's reserves were gone. They did not believe that 
 England had any more men, and they laughed at the 
 idea of America's sending help across three thousand 
 miles of ocean. They continued to push on, therefore, 
 though the cost of their gains grew higher with each 
 effort. By the end of June they had carved out a 
 slice of territory one hundred fifty miles long and 
 forty miles wide at the widest point. One last drive, 
 they reasoned, and Paris and victory would be theirs. 
 
 They began this last drive at a little past midnight 
 on the night of July 14th. They had chosen the time 
 most carefully. July 14th was the national holiday 
 of France, and a great many troops would have gone 
 to Paris to celebrate. They would strike at a moment 
 when the French were off guard. 
 
 But it happened that on the night of July 14th Gen- 
 eral Foch sat in his office, his watch in his hand, wait- 
 ing for the boom of the first gun to announce that the 
 battle had begun. Through prisoners and spies he 
 had learned of the latest German plan and the precise 
 hour at which it was to be carried out. When, in the 
 darkness of early morning, they hurled themselves on 
 the French, they discovered that they had struck 
 against a stone wall. In two or three places a few 
 Germans managed to get across the river Marne, 
 where they met the Americans and were promptly 
 driven back. 
 
 At the apex of the triangle of territory which the 
 Germans had gained was the city of Chateau Thierry. 
 
MARSHAL FOCH 8i 
 
 One side of the triangle ran eastward to the city of 
 Rheims and it was along this line that the Germans 
 had attacked. Another side ran north from Chateau 
 Thierry to Soissons, and here something of great 
 importance was about to happen. All the while that 
 the Germans had been preparing to advance on Paris, 
 General Foch only waited for the time when they 
 should make the attempt in order to strike back. 
 
 Behind the line from Chateau Thierry to Soissons 
 were dense forests, which afforded a splendid screen 
 from German airmen, and here General Foch had 
 massed his army. To surprise the enemy was part 
 of his plan and his secret was well kept. Not until 
 9 P.M. on the night of the 17th was the order sent 
 out to junior officers to advance at dawn the next day. 
 
 In most battles of the war an attack had been pre- 
 ceded by hours of artillery bombardment, but this 
 was also a warning to the enemy that an attack might 
 be expected. General Foch had no intention of in- 
 forming the Germans of what was about to take place. 
 Just before daybreak on the morning of July 18th, 
 says a writer of the London Times, " not a sound was 
 to be heard from the forest, though it was teeming 
 with men and guns. And then, suddenly, at the ap- 
 pointed moment, as day broke, there was one roar 
 from all the guns, and the whole front broke into 
 activity as the men and tanks dashed forward to the 
 attack." 
 
 General Foch had not expected to drive the enemy 
 from France before the spring of 1919, but. as the 
 
82 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 weeks passed and victory followed victory, it became 
 clear that the attack of July 18th was to carry the 
 Allies to the Rhine. 
 
 "When did you know that you had won the final 
 victory?" a newspaper correspondent afterwards 
 asked General Foch. 
 
 '' At the end of August," said Foch. " I did not 
 know then when the Germans would give in, but I 
 knew that our advance could not be stopped until they 
 were finally defeated. Our offensive had become 
 general. It began on July 18th on the Marne. Ter- 
 rible fighting that. The Germans exhausted their 
 reserves. That had gone well. Then came the attack 
 in the Amiens sector on August 8th. That went well, 
 too. The moment had arrived. I ordered General 
 Humbert to attack in his turn. No reserves! No 
 matter. Go ahead! I told General Haig to attack, 
 too. He was also short of men. Attack all the same ! 
 There we are, advancing everywhere — the whole 
 line." 
 
 By November the Allies had retaken nearly all of 
 France and more than half of Belgium, and the Ger- 
 mans, lacking food, ammunition, and men, knew that 
 they must surrender or suffer the invasion of Ger- 
 many. The last effort, which was to have been the 
 Emperor's victory, had ended in defeat. At home the 
 dissatisfaction of the people over their enormous 
 losses and the hardships they had had to bear was 
 pointing more and more toward a revolution. Con- 
 sequently, on November 6th, the German government 
 
MARSHAL FOCH 83 
 
 announced that it would send delegates to meet Foch 
 — now Marshal Foch — who would present the Allies' 
 terms for an armistice or temporary truce. 
 
 From the German general headquarters in the little 
 city of Spa, Belgium, the peace mission set out on the 
 following day. Ten men composed the party. They 
 traveled in automobiles, which bore white flags and 
 were preceded by a trumpeter, lest they be mistaken 
 by their own gunners. 
 
 At Capclle they met French officers, who blind- 
 folded them and conducted them through the French 
 lines to the railway station of Rethondes, where Foch 
 received them in the railway car which then served 
 as his headquarters. 
 
 The leader of the German party, speaking in 
 French, requested Marshal Foch to read the terms of 
 the armistice. 
 
 The terms, w^hich were severe, were designed to 
 prevent Germany from renewing the war. Foch read 
 them slowly, in a stern voice, making each word clear. 
 When he had finished, the Germans asked that the 
 fighting might end at once. This request Foch re- 
 fused. They then asked permission to send the terms 
 by a courier to the German headquarters at Spa, and 
 this request was granted. 
 
 Meanwhile what was happening in Germany? On 
 the same day that the peace delegates received the 
 terms of the armistice, crowds were marching through 
 the streets of several German cities, carrying red flags 
 and shouting, " Long live the Revolution ! " The day 
 
84 • LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 before there had been mutiny on one of the Kaiser's 
 ships, and on November 8th practically the entire navy 
 was seized by the revolutionists. 
 
 November 9th brought the abdication of the Kaiser 
 and the Crown Prince and the news of their flight into 
 Holland. On the 10th occurred the event so long 
 feared b}^ the old government — the revolution. In 
 Berlin that day thousands of laborers, soldiers, and 
 sailors crowded the square in front of the government 
 building to hear the Emperor's abdication read. Then, 
 marching to his palace, they tore down the flag of the 
 Empire and hoisted the red flag of the revolution in 
 its place. 
 
 These were the events which, occurring between 
 the time that the German peace delegates left Spa and 
 the arrival of the courier, hastened the signing of the 
 armistice. 
 
 On the morning of the 11th of November, Marshal 
 Foch telegraphed his soldiers that the war had come 
 to an end. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 Foch, Rene Puaux. 
 
 Marshal Ferdinand Foch, A. Hilliard Atteridge. 
 
 Foch, the Man, Clara E. Laughlin. 
 
 General Foch at the Marne, Charles Le Goffic. 
 
 Elements of the Great War, Hilaire Belloc. 
 
 General Foch's Personality, Henry Leach, Living Age, Oct. 19, 
 
 1918. 
 Marshal Foch and the Second Victory of the Marne, E. 
 
 Requin, Scribner's. Dec, 1918. 
 Foch in the Midst of War, Charles Dawbarn, Atlantic, Oct., 
 
 1918. 
 
IV. LORD KITCHENER 
 
 The Kitcheners were an English family living on 
 a farm in Kerry County, Ireland, when their son Her- 
 bert was born on June 24, 1850. He was the second 
 of five children. A few months after his birth his 
 father purchased the Crotto estate, and Crotto House, 
 an old Irish manor house, became the home of the 
 Kitcheners for the next several years. 
 
 Herbert's father, an excellent farmer and business 
 man, was more interested in his affairs than in the 
 education of his sons, and the boys were left much 
 to themiselves. They lived out of doors and were not 
 at all sorry to have sports take the place of history 
 and Latin exercises. 
 
 There were two things which Herbert liked espe- 
 cially to do, to ride horseback and to swim in the 
 ocean. From the house where the Kitcheners lived 
 it was only a short distance to the pebbly beach which 
 broke the line of wild, rugged hills along the south- 
 west coast. Beneath one of the cliffs a great cave 
 had been hollowed out by the swirling of the sea. It 
 had once been used by pirates and smugglers, who had 
 buried treasure there. That was the rumor, anyhow, 
 and boys came from all the neighborhood to hunt 
 for it. 
 
 85 
 
86 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 However, treasure did not interest Herbert Kitch- 
 ener so much. He came to the cave to go swimming. 
 He was one of the best of swimmers, although the 
 Irish boys could beat him when it came to some daring 
 or reckless venture, because he would never take a 
 chance. They teased him a great deal about this, but 
 nothing they said ever troubled him, neither did he 
 care how badly he was beaten. For he knew that, 
 when it came to an emergency, he could do things 
 that they could not. 
 
 One day, when he was twelve, he swam a long way 
 out to sea. He did not stop to think how far he had 
 gone until he saw that he was opposite the headland 
 that marks the entrance to the bay. Then, realizing 
 that he would have a long swim back, he turned over 
 on his back to rest. Soon he felt something tugging 
 at his feet and found that he was hopelessly entangled 
 in a floating mass of seaweed, which was slowly carry- 
 ing him past the headland. It was impossible either 
 to extricate himself or to swim and drag the seaweed 
 after him. He tried both of these things; then he 
 kept still and thought the problem out, and after a time 
 he knew exactly what would happen. He waited very 
 patiently, although he could see that the drifting mass 
 was carrying him farther and farther toward the 
 open sea. Then he heard far off the ripples of the 
 incoming tide, and in a few minutes the tide reached 
 him, loosened the seaweed, and he was free. 
 
 Like most English boys, Herbert began to think 
 about his career while he was still very young. His 
 
LORD KITCHENER 87 
 
 father was a retired army officer, and he thought he 
 would like to go to Woolwich, the West Point of Eng- 
 land. But in order to get into Woolwich one had to 
 study, and he was never very fond of study. In fact 
 he had failed in his examinations at the village school. 
 When his father heard about this he sent for him to 
 talk things over. 
 
 '' Herbert," he said, " a man must dream, must pos- 
 sess the power of vision to be great ; but he must not 
 let his dreaming run away with him. As punishment 
 I shall send you to the neighboring dame school until 
 you learn the value of mastering that which is at hand. 
 Remember always that the practical side has its place 
 as well as dreams. Thoroughness is our motto, you 
 know, lad." 
 
 Herbert was silent. 
 
 *' Another failure," his father w^ent on, " and I shall 
 apprentice you to a hatter." 
 
 Still Herbert sat thinking; then he said, '' I think it 
 will be Woolwich, sir," and got up and left the room. 
 He never failed again. 
 
 With four boys in the house, not only was it hard 
 for Mr. and Mrs. Kitchener to have any peace, but 
 there was the added difficulty of keeping the furniture 
 intact. Year by year the house grew a little shabbier 
 and a little noisier, until finally Mr. Kitchener packed 
 the whole lot of them off to Switzerland to school. 
 
 Although Herbert was thirteen at this time, he was 
 still quite undisciplined. When he woke up in the 
 morning, he used to decide what his conduct was to 
 
88 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 be for the day. If he decided to be agreeable, all 
 went well; on the other hand no one could give more 
 trouble than he when he set his mind in that direc- 
 tion. He was also backward in his studies. Never- 
 theless, he must have been thinking all the while of 
 his career, for one day he remarked to his brother, 
 '' I mean to get on." He did not talk about what he 
 meant to do; in fact he rarely ever talked. It was 
 clear, however, that in his own mind he had taken a 
 decision. 
 
 It was probably thirty years after that remark be- 
 fore the world woke to the fact that he had got on, 
 but during those years he never lost sight of his am- 
 bition. 
 
 He returned to London, after a few years in Swit- 
 zerland, to cram for the Woolwich examinations. He 
 was eighteen when he made Woolwich, and he did not 
 stand very high in the lists. He had rather a dull 
 mind. The only thing at which he was good was 
 mathematics; other things came hard. But if his 
 mind was not very brilliant, at least now he had it under 
 the control of his will. He made it do what he wanted 
 it to do, for he was doggedly determined to get on. 
 He went to classes, took notes, and worked hard. He 
 almost never joined with other cadets in sports or 
 games. Athletics did not appeal to him; he had no 
 ambition to win the Woolwich Colors, which most 
 boys thought the' highest distinction to be attained at 
 school. He kept largely to himself, sometimes not 
 speaking, even to his friends, for days at a time. 
 
LORD KITCHENER 89 
 
 Before he graduated from Woolwich, he was to see 
 active service for the first time. In the summer of 
 1870 Herbert's family was living in France, and he 
 had only just got home for his vacation when the 
 Franco-Prussian war was declared. He enlisted with 
 the French and fought to the end. It was no spirit 
 of adventure, however, that carried him into the war ; 
 it was simply his ambition to get on. When, later, he 
 returned to Woolwich and the commanding general 
 asked him why he had joined the French army, Her- 
 bert's answer was, ''I thought I should not be wanted 
 for a time and I was anxious to learn something." 
 
 What he learned was that the French, with all their 
 sacrifice and splendid courage, were beaten by some- 
 thing called organization, and he never forgot the 
 lesson. 
 
 He went home then to finish his studies and to get 
 his commission in the British army, and shortly he 
 received his first appointment, which was to go to 
 Palestine with an archeological expedition. He got 
 this appointment because he knew how to take pic- 
 tures. 
 
 His work in Palestine was mostly to draw maps. It 
 was dull work and he spent four years at it. The 
 government did not require him to learn Arabic, but 
 he had a habit of looking ahead, and he saw that such 
 knowledge would be invaluable to an army officer 
 serving in the East. So once more he forced himself 
 to a difficult task that had no immediate reward at- 
 tached to it. It happened that things fell out just 
 
go LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 the way Kitchener thought they would; at any rate 
 it was his knowledge of Arabic that brought him, in 
 1882, the work of reorganizing the Egyptian army. 
 
 When his brother heard of his appointment he said : 
 "My young brother has just got himself appointed to 
 Egypt; he'll never come out till he's at the top." And 
 this was true. The story of modern Egypt is the 
 story of Kitchener, 
 
 Egypt was ruled jointly by Great Britain and the 
 Egyptian government, as it is to-day, but the country 
 had suffered greatly from the mismanagement of the 
 Egyptians. The British government, therefore, sent 
 Kitchener down to reorganize the army and look after 
 things generally. 
 
 To the south of Egypt lies the Sudan, a rich coun- 
 try, a third as large as the United States, which for- 
 merly had belonged to Egypt; but in 1881 a rebellion 
 had broken out among the native Arabs, called Der- 
 vishes. They had overrun the land and now held it. 
 During the occupation of the Dervishes, which lasted 
 from 1881 to 1898, the country underwent the most 
 terrible devastation. Farms were neglected or to- 
 tally destroyed; people died by the thousands from dis- 
 ease and famine, were killed in war, or were sold as 
 slaves by the Arabs, until only one fourth of the orig- 
 inal population remained. When Kitchener was 
 sent to Egypt, Britain had no immediate intention 
 of attempting to reconquer the Sudan, but each year 
 the Dervishes grew more daring; and more powerful 
 until, finally, England concluded to act. It was 
 
LORD KITCHENER 91 
 
 Kitchener's idea; therefore Kitchener was given the 
 task. 
 
 It was a stupendous task. In the first place, a 
 great organization was required to move an army 
 across the desert and insure a constant stream of sup- 
 pHes. Of course it was not nearly so great an un- 
 dertaking as the organization of the Great War, but 
 in that day such a thing was unheard of. 
 
 " First of all, I shall have to build a railroad," 
 Kitchener said, and the War Office sent back word 
 that this was impossible. From Wady Haifa to Abu 
 Hamed, where Kitchener proposed to run his railroad, 
 it was two hundred thirty miles across the burning 
 desert. Locomotives couldn't be run without water, 
 and where could one find water in a desert ? 
 
 But Kitchener persisted and finally experts were 
 sent to look over the route. They reported it quite 
 impracticable; the thing simply could not be done. 
 
 Kitchener listened to their reasons, and, after care- 
 fully considering them, ordered that the railroad start 
 at once. 
 
 Whenever he drew plans for any undertaking he 
 drew them so carefully that they simply could not fail. 
 He knew where to find water. He sank wells. He 
 sank three before he came to water, but when he did, 
 he found enough to supply all his needs. Then he 
 hunted up all the old discarded steamboats that had 
 ever plied the Nile. These were patched, put into run- 
 ning order, and used to bring in supplies until the rail- 
 road was ready. 
 
92 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 Kitchener's plan was to send the army ahead and 
 conquer a small piece of territory, which was then 
 turned over to the railroad engineers, while the army 
 moved on to conquer more. Wady Haifa was the 
 starting point. A sleepy Arab town, the terminus of 
 an older railway, it came to life again when Kitchener 
 turned it into a big workshop for his desert line. 
 
 At Wady Haifa the railroad left the Nile and 
 started across the desert, and soon a new town rose 
 out of the sandy plains. It was built entirely of tents 
 and was known as Railhead. As the railroad moved, 
 the town moved, with its telegraph office, its station, 
 its canteen, and its stores. Railhead had some 2,500 
 inhabitants, who rose every morning at three o'clock 
 to meet the incoming train which brought material for 
 the day's work. 
 
 At Abu Hamed the railway joined the Nile again 
 and from there followed the river all the way to 
 Khartum. When finally it was finished. Kitchener 
 reported that, in return for the money the government 
 had spent, England had now ''seven hundred sixty 
 miles of railways, two thousand miles of telegraph 
 lines, — and the Sudan." 
 
 What it meant for each man who shared in the 
 work can be understood only by trying to picture the 
 country — the great stretches of treeless desert, the 
 torrential rains, terrible sandstorms, the intense heat 
 even in winter. The Arabs say of the Sudan: "The 
 soil is like fire and the wind like flame." But no mat- 
 ter w^hat the hardships of climate or the difficulties 
 
LORD KITCHENER 93 
 
 under which men worked, Kitchener drove them with 
 the same relentless energy with which he drove him- 
 self. The railroad was built at the rate of one to three 
 miles a day, whether men dropped or whether they car- 
 ried on. He was unmerciful. He accepted no ex- 
 cuses, even though they were reasonable ones. An 
 officer who failed never got a second chance. 
 
 There is the story of the young officer who, when 
 called upon to do a certain piece of work, sent back 
 word that he was suffering from sunstroke. "Sun- 
 stroke ! " said Kitchener. '' What does he mean by 
 having sunstroke at a time like this ? Send him back 
 to Cairo." Everybody knew that there was not much 
 hope of advancement for a man who was ''sent up," 
 even for sickness, so the general under whom the 
 young officer was serving wisely changed the order to 
 '' You had better get over your sunstroke as quickly 
 as you can." 
 
 It was by such means as this that Kitchener was 
 successful. Men did things that he asked them to, 
 partly because they respected him, partly because they 
 feared him. Laborers instinctively laid down their 
 tools when he came to inspect their work. Officers 
 were always silent in his presence. There was some- 
 thing hard and unyielding about the man that was felt 
 by everyone who came in contact with him, and this 
 was emphasized by his physical qualities. He was tall 
 and powerfully built, with broad, strong shoulders, and 
 his body bent forward a little from the hips. His face 
 was square and rugged and tanned brick-red by the 
 
94 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 African sun. But it was his eyes that people feared. 
 They were as blue and as hard as steel, and one did not 
 look at them any longer than he could help. 
 
 One day Kitchener sent for an officer and told him 
 to carry a dispatch to a distant city. 
 
 " How long will it take you to do it ? " he asked. 
 
 ^'Twelve hours, sir." 
 
 Then Kitchener looked at him and in his cold blue 
 eyes the officer read a different estimate. 
 
 ''You must do it in six," said Kitchener, and the 
 officer did it in five. 
 
 Another officer was not so successful. Fearing 
 that the Dervishes might attack the railway and cut 
 off the army's water supply. Kitchener sent a brigade 
 to raid the nearest Dervish camp, one hundred thirty 
 miles across the desert. He then ordered a field tele- 
 graph line strung that he might keep in touch with 
 his brigade. 
 
 "But how can I put up a line when I have neither 
 appliances nor animals for transportation?" said the 
 officer to whom the order was given. 
 
 Kitchener frowned. He had been known to " send 
 officers up " for saying his plans were impossible, but 
 this time he chose to reprimand in a different way. 
 He told the officer to go out and get some donkeys 
 from the next village. To his mind, that much assist- 
 ance should have been enough. 
 
 The next morning, however, the officer reported 
 that he had the donkeys, but that there were no saddles 
 for carrying wire. Kitchener went himself to the 
 
LORD KITCHENER 95 
 
 place where the field telegraph outfit had been col- 
 lected. Beside the donkeys lay the coils of wire. 
 For a moment his eyes were fixed with stern disap- 
 proval on the officer, then he picked up a coil of wire, 
 slipped it over a donkey's heels, and walked away 
 without a word. 
 
 There was never a word of praise for a man who did 
 better than was expected of him, yet there was the un- 
 derstanding both with officers and men that their 
 chief gave as much as he demanded. He never failed 
 them ; that is why they respected him so much. In all 
 his years of service he was relieved from official duty 
 only twice, once when he was wounded in Egypt, and 
 once when he broke his leg in India. For his services 
 in the Sudan he was made a member of the peerage, 
 but it was thirteen years after this before he could find 
 time for the necessary ceremony that would establish 
 his m.embership in the House of Lords ; then he man- 
 aged it only because he had to change trains in London 
 and found himself burdened with a little spare time. 
 
 Yet it is unfair to think of Kitchener as a man 
 made up wholly of driving energy and an iron will. 
 It was only when there was pressing work to be done 
 that he became so hard and exacting. At other times 
 he could show a different side. He was called from 
 his work one day, when he was governor of Egypt, to 
 see an old peasant who had come from somewhere in 
 the back country all the way to Cairo to report that 
 someone had stolen his white mule. Kitchener lis- 
 tened attentively and made note of all the facts in the 
 
96 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 case; then, while the old man waited, he sent every- 
 body — clerks, officers, and men — to look for a white 
 mule. Literally the whole machinery of government 
 was stopped until the mule was found, and the old 
 man drove it home, telling everyone he met what an 
 extraordinarily kind person the great Lord Kitchener 
 was. 
 
 Khartum, situated at the junction of the Blue and 
 the White Nile, was formerly the capital of the Brit- 
 ish-Egyptian Sudan, but in 1885 the Dervishes had 
 captured and burned the city, and had taken for their 
 capital the city of Omdurman, across the river. 
 
 Before Omdurman Kitchener's army was encamped 
 on the first day of September, 1898, waiting to begin 
 the battle that was to end a campaign of nearly two 
 and a half years. All night the army waited. The 
 men dared not sleep, not knowing what the Dervishes 
 might do. 
 
 With the first light of morning the British saw 
 them — a moving line of white figures. They were 
 coming on! "They came very fast," says a corre- 
 spondent with Kitchener's army,^ '^and they came 
 very straight, and then, presently, they came no far- 
 ther. With a crash the bullets leaped out of the Brit- 
 ish rifles." 
 
 It was not yet seven o'clock when the battle began. 
 At 11.30 Kitchener, who had commanded, put up his 
 glasses, saying that the enemy had been given a good 
 dusting. 
 
 ^ With Kitchener to Khartoum, by G. W. Steevens. 
 
LORD KITCHENER 97 
 
 Thirty-one thousand Dervishes had fallen. Kitch- 
 ener's army, in the beginning, had numbered less 
 than 26,000 and his own casualties were light. The 
 battle had been a fury of fighting. The infantry fired 
 until their rifies grew red hot, the lancers thrust until 
 their lances broke as they charged straight into the 
 Dervish lines and went through. 
 
 And Kitchener? ''In the center," writes a corre- 
 spondent,^ "under the red Egyptian flag, careless of 
 the bulletc which that conspicuous emblem drew and 
 which inflicted some loss among those around him, 
 rode the Sirdar, stern and sullen, equally unmoved by 
 fear or enthusiasm." 
 
 At four o'clock in the afternoon, accompanied by 
 his staff and a regimental band, he rode into Omdur- 
 man. As he approached the city he was met by three 
 Dervishes, w^ho begged him to spare the lives of the 
 people. 
 
 Kitchener told them that he would speak with the 
 head man of the town, and shortly an old man, riding 
 a donkey, came to present him the keys to the gates. 
 Prostrating himself in the dust, he repeated the re- 
 quest for mercy. Kitchener spoke to him in Arabic. 
 "The lives of all who lay down their arms will be 
 spared," he said. At this the old man rose, kissed the 
 hand of the Sirdar, and hurried back to Omdurman 
 to tell the news. In an instant the city, which had 
 appeared deserted, swarmed with people. Pressing 
 around the British, they kissed their garments and 
 
 1 The River War, by Winston Churchill. 
 
 H 
 
98 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 their boots, and called down all the blessings of Allah 
 on their conquerors. 
 
 When the British and Egyptian flags had been run 
 up over Khartum, Kitchener set to work to clean up 
 the city. Then he went home to England to get money 
 for a church and a college, for, he said, '' Those who 
 have conquered are now called on to civilize." 
 
 Egypt was his great achievement. Although he 
 served in South Africa four years during the Boer 
 War and later seven years in India as commander-in- 
 chief of the Indian armies, neither country offered in 
 the same degree the opportunities for organization 
 and reconstruction that he found in Egypt. It was to 
 Egypt, therefore, that he returned, and there he re- 
 mained until he was called to the War Office in Lon- 
 don in 1914. 
 
 He had been home on a furlough that summer and 
 was just starting back to Egypt when a telegram re- 
 called him to serve as England's Minister of War. 
 
 It was only then, perhaps, that the English people 
 realized what Kitchener meant to them. They felt 
 the deepest confidence in him. He had never failed 
 them. He would not fail them now. And so he sat 
 down to his task, the biggest task that he had ever 
 undertaken, unhurried and unworried, yet working 
 with all of his old tireless energy, although he was 
 now sixty-four. 
 
 With Kitchener in the War Office, England began 
 to breathe freely once more. "It will be only a short 
 war," people said, "and Kitchener will see it through/' 
 
LORD KITCHENER 
 
 99 
 
 i.^y-;*"^:^, 
 
 
 Lord Kitchener 
 
lOO LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 But Kitchener thought differently. ''The war will 
 last three years," he said, ''and we shall need great 
 armies." No one believed him. Besides, how was 
 England to equip a great army ? 
 
 While others debated the question, Kitchener went 
 to work. First, he called for 500,000 men. This 
 staggered the nation, and, before it had recovered 
 from the shock, he called for 500,000 more. Bills 
 were posted all over England which read: "Enlist in 
 Kitchener's army. Your king and country need you." 
 
 It took months of the hardest kind of training to 
 shape England's new army, and to equip it required 
 an organization so big that many doubted whether 
 it could ever be accomplished. But Kitchener never 
 doubted and, although it was left to another great 
 man, Lloyd George, to work out the details of the or- 
 ganization, it was Kitchener's unyielding confidence 
 that got things under way. 
 
 Meanwhile the expeditionary force of scarcely 
 200,000 men w^as to " hold the line " in Fr^tice, al- 
 though Kitchener himself expected that the Germans 
 would sweep them clear to the Atlantic coast. How 
 they held, retreated, held again, and by holding saved 
 Paris, is one of the great stories of the war. The 
 army was wiped out almost to a man, but the line held 
 unbroken for five months until divisions of the new 
 army began to arrive. 
 
 Each British soldier who went to France carried in 
 his knapsack a personal message from Kitchener in 
 the form of ten rules of conduct. Summarized, it ran 
 something like this: 
 
LORD KITCHENER lOl 
 
 " You are going over there to help the French, and 
 this is a task which will require all your energy, 
 patience, and courage. 
 
 '' Remember that the honor of the British army 
 depends on the conduct of each individual. There- 
 fore, you are to set an example of discipline and per- 
 fect steadiness under fire. 
 
 '' Treat the French and the Belgians with courtesy, 
 consideration, and kindness, and do not destroy prop- 
 erty. 
 
 " Keep in the best of health for the sake of duty, 
 and if it should be necessary, give everything for God 
 and your King." 
 
 For nearly two years Kitchener sat at his desk in 
 the War Office endlessly planning. Sometimes he 
 visited the training camps, sometimes he inspected the 
 armies in France, but perhaps he gave to England no 
 greater service than his example of calm, dogged per- 
 sistence in the work to be done. There was hardly a 
 person who, during the first months of the war, did 
 not give way either to undue excitement or anxiety, 
 and the example of Kitchener, silent and unmoved, 
 helped to steady the whole nation for the long struggle 
 and sacrifice to come. 
 
 As the war progressed, it became clear that there 
 was a need for closer cooperation among the Allies, 
 and it was decided that Kitchener should go to Russia, 
 presumably to confer with the Russian General Staff 
 in regard to ammunition. 
 
 Kitchener looked forward to the trip as to a holi- 
 
I02 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 day. Having lived so much of his Hfe in the open, he 
 had no hking for office work, and after two full years 
 of it, here was a vacation of the kind he enjoyed most. 
 He paid a short visit to his home at Broome, a place 
 of which he was very fond, said good-by to a few 
 friends, and with his staff left London on an evening 
 in June, 1916. Traveling by train to a small station 
 in Scotland, he was driven by automobile to a waiting 
 destroyer, which in turn conveyed him to the cruiser 
 Hampshire. 
 
 What happened to the Hampshire is not known ex- 
 cept that it sank that night on the west coast of the 
 Orkney Islands and Lord Kitchener, with 4iis staff, 
 went down. 
 
 It was a night of violent storm. Four boats put off 
 from the cruiser but none of them reached shore, two 
 miles away. Twelve men were washed in on a raft; 
 out of more than two hundred fifty these were all that 
 survived. 
 
 There are many theories regarding the loss of the 
 Hampshire. Some people believe that the ship was 
 torpedoed, but it seems more probable that it struck a 
 mine which had been wrenched from its moorings by 
 the storm. One of the survivors remembers to have 
 seen Kitchener just after the explosion occurred. He 
 was walking quietly up and down the deck waiting for 
 the boats to be launched, though he must have known 
 that any attempt to reach shore would prove useless 
 for he had not even put on his overcoat. The blue- 
 jackets prepared to abandon ship. The captain 
 
LORD KITCHENER 103 
 
 shouted something to Kitchener, which, in the howl- 
 ing of the storm, he did not hear ; he was talking to an 
 officer as the ship went down. 
 
 His death shocked England as nothing else had in 
 the whole course of the war. It was a national trag- 
 edy, not lessened by the fact that Kitchener himself 
 would have counted it only a part of the day's work. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 Boys' Life of Lord Kitchener, Harold F. B. Wheeler. 
 
 Horatio Herbert Kitchener, Harold Begbie. 
 
 Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, Edwin Sharp Grew. 
 
 With Kitchener to Khartoum, George W. Steevens. 
 
 The River War, Winston Churchill. 
 
 Kitchener the Unknozvu, Sidney Brooks, World Today, Oct., 
 
 1911. 
 Kitchener the Boy, Eugenie M. Fryer, Forum, Apr., 1917. 
 Kitchener in Action, World's Work, Nov., 1914. 
 Personal Glimpses, Literary Digest, Sept. 19, 1914. 
 Sinking of the Hampshire, Illustrated London News, June 24, 
 
 1916. 
 
V. MARSHAL HAIG 
 
 In October of 1880 a young Scotchman by the name 
 of Douglas Haig went down to Oxford to register at 
 England's oldest university. He was the youngest 
 of five sons. For generations the Haigs had lived at 
 Cameron's Bridge in the county of Fife. Here was 
 the ancestral estate, and here in 1861 Douglas Haig 
 had been born. He w^as educated 2it Clifton, a pri- 
 vate school for sons of the upper classes, but in Eng- 
 land called a public school. At Clifton he prepared 
 for the university. 
 
 It was taken as a matter of course that Douglas 
 Haig would go to Oxford. Probably the Haigs had 
 always gone to Oxford and the youngest son was to be 
 no exception. Conditions at Oxford to-day have 
 changed so little from those of the early eighties, 
 when Haig was a student there, that it is not difficult 
 to imagine what his college days were like. 
 
 To begin with, Oxford is quite different from an 
 American university. In England the word "uni- 
 versity " means a group of colleges, and a college is the 
 place where a student lives. There are twenty-six 
 colleges at Oxford, each having its own customs and 
 practices, differing somewhat from the others, and 
 standing for certain things in the life of the student. 
 
 104 
 
MARSHAL HAIG 105 
 
 For instance, Brasenose College has always been fa- 
 mous for its athletics, and it was at Brasenose that 
 Douglas Haig registered. 
 
 Suppose that he drove up from the station, as un- 
 doubtedly he did, with his luggage piled high on the 
 driver's seat. At the gates of the college he was met 
 by a porter, who lifted down his luggage and turned 
 him over to the college butler to be show^n his rooms. 
 At Oxford freshmen have some privileges that seniors 
 are denied If there is not enough room in the col- 
 leges for all the students, the juniors and seniors are 
 turned out to find lodgings wherever they can in the 
 town and to m.ake room for the freshmen. This is 
 because the English believe that the life of the college 
 is as much a part of a man's education as the books 
 he studies, and that the older students, having enjoyed 
 this privilege, should if necessary give place to the 
 younger men. 
 
 Douglas Haig, then, as a freshman, was certain of 
 having rooms. He had at least two, possibly three, 
 and they were furnished quite luxuriously compared 
 with the rooms of a student at an American university. 
 Here he was to live and study for three or four years. 
 
 His college day began at 7.30 in the morning when a 
 servant, called by the students a '' scout," bustled into 
 his room, prepared a bath, and announced " Half past 
 seven, sir." 
 
 At eight o'clock he went to chapel, which took the 
 place of roll call. He dared not miss chapel; to 
 stay away even one day out of six meant that he 
 
Ig6 leaders of the GREAT WAR 
 
 would be reported to his dean and probably would be 
 forbidden to pass the college gates after dark. For 
 Oxford was founded in the Middle Ages, when most 
 of the students were children or at least boys of high 
 school age, and some of the old rules seem very funny 
 when applied to a body of grown men. To-day a stu- 
 dent may not roll his hoop in the quadrangles or play 
 marbles on the steps of the great library. 
 
 Following chapel Haig breakfasted in his rooms or 
 in the rooms of some other student. Since social af- 
 fairs took up a large part of the day, it was the custom 
 frequently to breakfast or lunch with friends. 
 
 After luncheon, which usually consisted of bread 
 and cheese with a little jam, he went to the athletic 
 field. Haig was an all-round athlete. He was 
 splendidly healthy and strong and he had the English 
 boy's love of sports. English boys do not play to win. 
 They play to perfect themselves in the game. Of 
 course those who play the best game usually do win, 
 but the first object is to increase one's skill. Douglas 
 Haig's favorite form of exercise was horseback rid- 
 ing, and, as might be expected, he was a fine polo 
 player. 
 
 At four o'clock he was back in his rooms and 
 dressed for tea. Tea afforded another opportunity 
 for the men to gather and talk. This time the talk 
 usually ran to sports and to the happenings of the day. 
 Between tea and dinner there were two hours when 
 there was no special demand on a student's time. It 
 was the general custom to give these hours to reading. 
 
MARSHAL HAIG 107 
 
 At seven the dinner bell rang and the students, 
 dressed now in their gowns, filed into the great hall 
 and took their places at table. There were no chairs. 
 They sat on benches, and probably the benches and 
 tables, like the hall itself, had come down from the 
 Middle Ages. 
 
 At one end of the hall w^as a raised platform on 
 which stood the table for the " dons " or tutors. The 
 dons did not enter until the students had taken their 
 places. This formality over, the dinner began. In 
 spite of the fact that one of the duties of the dons was 
 to fine students for any breach of table manners, din- 
 ner was a jolly affair. For dessert the students went 
 to the college store, w^hich in Brasenose was a room 
 underneath the great hall, where there w^as a fine dis- 
 play of fruits and candies to choose from, and after- 
 wards they returned to their rooms for coffee. 
 
 The American boy, reading of Oxford, will quite 
 likely ask, ''Do the students never study?'' 
 
 They do, but they are not required to prepare daily 
 lessons. There are no classes. Each student has his 
 private tutor, w^ith whom he works as much or as 
 little as he wishes. In the three or four years that 
 he spends at Oxford he is required to pass two exam- 
 inations — that is all. As the most of his work is 
 reading for these examinations, he may do it at any 
 time. It is a curious fact that sometimes he prefers 
 to do it at home during the summer holidays. 
 
 The examinations, however, are exceedingly diffi- 
 cult, and if a student is, so to speak, " on his own " for 
 
io8 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 months at a time, there comes a day finally when he 
 must give an account of what he has done. More- 
 over, his whole career may depend on how he accounts 
 for himself. Especially is this true of a man entering 
 a profession. A degree from Oxford, or from some 
 other university, is almost necessary, and an "honor" 
 degree is of priceless value. 
 
 All through his college days Douglas Haig debated 
 between literature and soldiering as a profession. 
 But after his graduation he definitely decided on a 
 military career and took the examinations for the 
 Royal Military College. Then came a disappoint- 
 ment — he was refused admission on account of color 
 blindness. For a time it looked as though he would 
 have to give up the career he had chosen, when the 
 commander-in-chief, hearing of his difficulties, gave 
 him an appointment. Having worked so hard to be 
 admitted to the Royal Military College, Haig worked 
 all the harder once he was in. He made a splendid 
 record. 
 
 He chose the cavalry and was one of the young 
 officers selected by Kitchener for the expedition to 
 the Sudan. There he experienced for the first time 
 the dangers and hardships of campaigning. It was 
 the work of the army to conquer the country and pre- 
 pare the way for the railroad which Kitchener was 
 building across the desert. Young officers found their 
 endurance tried to the utmost. 
 
 Work began at four or five m the morning. It was 
 supposed to end at seven in the evening, but for a 
 
MARSHAL HAIG 109 
 
 junior officer there was little or no leisure. At night 
 he must look after the comforts of his men. He him- 
 self slept in the sand. If there were not enough blan- 
 kets he went without. It fell to him also to patrol 
 the camp, since the Egyptian sentries could not be 
 trusted to keep awake. He was lucky if he could 
 snatch a few hours' sleep between patrols. He was 
 still luckier if he could sleep comfortably, protected 
 from the penetrating cold of a desert night. 
 
 For two years Haig kept at it doggedly and cheer- 
 fully. He had a quiet way of meeting difficulties that 
 delighted Kitchener. Nothing was too hard for him. 
 He never complained; he simply worked. 
 
 As he was a captain at the time and much inter- 
 ested in his profession, he sometimes thought out 
 plans of his own. He knew quite well that Kitchener 
 did not take kindly to suggestions from young officers, 
 but he did not let slip a chance to improve his knowl- 
 edge on that account. He fought in both the big 
 battles of the campaign — at Atbara and Khartum. 
 For his skill in handling his men in the battle of Khar- 
 tum he was made a major; for his bravery he was 
 twice decorated. 
 
 In 1899 came the war in South Africa, or Boer 
 War. The Boers were farmers, chiefly of Dutch 
 descent, living in parts of South Africa known as the 
 Transvaal and Orange Free State. These states were 
 Dutch republics having an independent government, 
 although they acknowledged the protection of Great 
 Britain. The discovery of diamond mines in Orange 
 
no LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 Free State and of gold in the Transvaal brought to 
 the country thousands of foreigners, for the most 
 part British, and the ill feeling which grew up between 
 the Dutch farmers and the British capitalists led 
 finally, in the fall of 1899, to war. 
 
 One of the first things that happened was the siege 
 of Kimberley by the Boers. Kimberley, a city of 
 50,000 inhabitants in Orange Free State, possessed the 
 largest diamond mines in the world. Early in Octo- 
 ber of 1899 the Boers surrounded the city and de- 
 manded its surrender, but the people of Kimberley 
 refused, thinking that they had on hand a sufficient 
 supply of food and ammunition to hold out until the 
 British army could reach them. As month followed 
 month, however, and the British army did not come, 
 the people grew alarmed, for, aside from a growing 
 shortage of food, many were killed daily by the Boer 
 shells. Finally, in February, 1900, they sent an appeal 
 to the British commander-in-chief, Lord Roberts, for 
 immediate relief. 
 
 There had been before this time many attempts to 
 reach Kimberley, but all had failed. Now the task 
 fell to General French, the general who, in 1914, was 
 to become the commander-in-chief of the British 
 armies in France. Ford Roberts warned him of the 
 difficulties. To this General French replied : '' I 
 promise faithfully to relieve Kimberley at six o'clock 
 on the evening of the fifteenth of February, if I am 
 alive." 
 
 The camp of General French on the eleventh was 
 
MARSHAL HAIG ill 
 
 about a hundred miles from Kimberley. Major Haig 
 was one of his chief officers. Between the camp and 
 Kimberley lay the Boer army. The country was a 
 difficult one in which to fight and French had allowed 
 himself only four days to get through. 
 
 It was African mid-summer. The sun beat down 
 cruelly upon a plain that offered neither shade nor 
 food nor water. As the men marched, great clouds 
 of dust rose and settled on them, choking and blinding 
 them and increasing their thirst. Their suffering was 
 intense. Some dropped by the way, overcome by 
 the heat. Over a hundred horses fell and their riders 
 were obliged to walk or to wait under the scorching 
 sun until ammunition carts could pick them up. On 
 the third day's march a well was reached, but General 
 French would not permit the cavalry to touch a drop. 
 The water must be kept for the infantry coming on 
 behind. 
 
 Deceiving the Boers as to the direction he meant 
 to take. General French had twice eluded them with- 
 out heavy fighting. Once a shell had fallen between 
 him and his staff, but no one had been killed. On the 
 fourth day, however, he found himself in a position 
 from which he must either withdraw or abandon Kim- 
 berley. He was hemmed in on all sides but the one 
 from which he had come. By all military rules he 
 should have turned back, but he had promised to 
 relieve the city and he meant to keep his promise. He 
 decided on a cavalry charge straight at the enemy's 
 lines. He thought the cavalry might be wiped out, 
 
112 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 but the experiment was worth trying, and with his 
 staff officers he led the charge. 
 
 The Boers, watching closely for any move on the 
 part of the British, were suddenly amazed at the sight 
 of hundreds of horsemen, with pistols and lances, 
 dashing across the plain straight at them. The unex- 
 pectedness of the charge unnerved them. Their shots 
 went wild. A hundred fifty men fell ; then the army 
 broke and fled. 
 
 The inhabitants of Kimberley, looking out over the 
 plain that day, saw, miles away, a company of horse- 
 men advancing rapidly toward the city. Believing 
 them to be Boers, they prepared to surrender, for the 
 addition of such a large enemy force made it hopeless 
 to hold out longer. Then, as the company drew 
 nearer, they saw that they were in khaki uniform. 
 
 '' British ! " someone cried, and the cheers that rang 
 out startled the Boers who guarded the city. They 
 also looked and fled, and General French's scouts came 
 dashing into Kimberley within an hour of the time he 
 had promised. 
 
 With such experiences as these Haig's years in 
 South Africa were filled. He escaped death so many 
 times and by such narrow margins that his fellow 
 officers gave him the name of '' Lucky Haig." 
 
 When the Great War came, Haig was a lieutenant- 
 general, in command of Alder shot, England's largest 
 training camp. In the two years since he had taken 
 command he had worked constantly to improve the 
 training of the men. Never before had they been so 
 efficient as under him. 
 
MARSHAL HAIG 113 
 
 The Aldershot troops were among the first to be 
 called. During the early days of August, 1914, train 
 load after train load left the camp. '' Where are we 
 bound for ? " was the question they constantly asked. 
 No one could answer for no one knew. Somewhere 
 in France there was a war. Quite likely they would 
 fight. 
 
 Arriving at Southampton, they were packed in 
 transports along with horses and supplies and dis- 
 patched across the channel. The war loomed much 
 nearer. A few hours later they disembarked at a 
 French port and began the last lap of a journey from 
 which few, if any, were to return. 
 
 Sometimes they did not land at a port, but sailed up 
 the rivers of France to some inland city — sailed, sing- 
 ing the Marseillaise, and the French women and chil- 
 dren flocked to the rivers with flowers and British 
 flags, cheering the men who had come to the rescue of 
 France. 
 
 The British met the Germans for the first time at 
 Mons, Belgium, on the 24th of August, 1914. The 
 battles of those first days of the war were somewhat 
 like a game of tenpins. Let us say that the Germans, 
 in their march across Belgium, had knocked down 
 every pin but three, and that the three remaining were 
 the cities of Namur, Charleroi, and Mons. The Allies 
 had no idea of the numbers of Germans opposed to 
 them. Their estimate was about half the number that 
 struck at their lines, struck with such overwhelming 
 force that the three remaining pins went down, one 
 
114 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 after another. First Namur, which had been held by 
 the Belgians, fell. Then came the defeat of the 
 French at Charleroi, and last, the British retreat 
 from Mons before von Kluck's splendid First Army. 
 These three defeats forced the long retreat of the 
 French and British armies to the river Marne. 
 
 A retreating army escapes capture or destruction 
 only by sacrificing a part of itself. Some units must 
 be continually fighting to hold the enemy while the 
 larger force withdraws. It was this position of sacri- 
 fice that fell to Flaig's First Corps at Mons. 
 
 " We shall hold here for a while if we all die for it,'' 
 said Haig. 
 
 There was a night engagement, bayonet fighting by 
 the light of gun fire, in which many of Haig's men 
 fell ; then, while the Second Corps carried on, the First 
 fell back. Thus, step by step, the armies retreated a 
 hundred fifty miles. 
 
 The intention of the Germans at this time was to 
 destroy the Allied armies. But they failed to do this 
 and, after a disastrous defeat on the Marne, were 
 forced to swing backward in retreat to the river Aisne. 
 When the retreat ended, the position of the armies left 
 an open space between the city of Lens in northern 
 France and the sea. Here was the gate to Calais and 
 Boulogne, the French ports through which the British 
 were sending men and supplies. 
 
 The Germans saw a chance to strike; the British 
 saw the danger; and both rushed to close the gate. 
 The British arrived first, took position before the Bel- 
 
MARSHAL HAIG 
 
 115 
 
 
 Marshal Haig 
 
 
Ii6 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 gian city of Ypres, and thus blocked the way to the 
 channel ports. 
 
 Although the Germans had failed to reach the gate 
 in time, they were confident that they could break it 
 open. Heavy reenforcements, just arrived from 
 home, had come, as one officer remarked, to see the 
 British run. They would be in Calais by the end of 
 the week. 
 
 As the men were preparing to go into battle their 
 officers sought to cheer them by announcing that Paris 
 had fallen. This news had the desired effect. The 
 men went wild with joy. They danced and sang the 
 German national air and a triumphal song, especially 
 written for their entry into Paris. 
 
 But one soldier, who had been in several battles of 
 the war, was not deceived. "Unfortunately, this is 
 the fourth time wt have had the fall of Paris an- 
 nounced to us," he remarked. 
 
 It was Haig, with the First Army Corps, w^ho had 
 closed the Ypres gate to the Germans. This corps 
 had been the first to arrive. Others followed and 
 scarcely had the British time to form their plan of 
 defense before the Germans attacked, now here, now 
 there, in order to try the strength of the line they 
 meant to break. Meanwhile they prepared for the 
 great battle. 
 
 It began on the morning of October 29th. Like a 
 storm that had been slowly gathering, it now broke 
 furiously. At dawn the Germans came singing and 
 yelling and hurled themselves against Haig's First 
 
MARSHAL HAIG 117 
 
 Corps. The thin British Hne wavered and swayed 
 backward, then forward again, then back. Eight 
 hours later the British were everywhere driven from 
 their trenches ; the Germans had broken in the gate. 
 Then came Haig's order for the counter-attack, and 
 the men swept forward, cheering, and retook their old 
 positions. 
 
 The first attack on Ypres ended in failure, but this 
 meant only that others would follow, for the Emperor 
 desired the city and had come himself to see it taken. 
 He went about am.ong his soldiers, cheering them and 
 encouraging them with that story, already worn and 
 old, that victory would end the war. 
 
 On the afternoon of October 31st, when the Ger- 
 mans were making their strongest effort to break 
 through, a shell struck Haig's headquarters, killing 
 or wounding every officer of the staff. Fortunately 
 Haig himself stood just far enough away to escape 
 injury. He was knocked down by the concussion, 
 however, and lay unconscious for an hour. 
 
 It was a critical time for the First Corps to lose its 
 commander and General French was obliged to go to 
 the battle line to prepare for the counter-attack. Haig 
 was just returning to consciousness when General 
 French appeared. Refusing to go to a hospital, he 
 insisted on accompanying the commander-in-chief to 
 the line. Still dazed and staggering, he gave orders 
 and rallied his men. Cheers greeted him and with 
 cheers the line went forward and, once more, the gate 
 to the channel cities was closed. 
 
ii8 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 The Kaiser made one more attempt to take Ypres. 
 Ten days later, on November 11th, he flung into the 
 battle the best soldiers of his army, the famous Prus- 
 sian Guards, and, when these also were defeated, he 
 gave up. The fighting lasted twenty-seven days and 
 the cost in human lives was very high. The losses for 
 this one battle, including those of the Allies and the 
 Germans, were nearly equal to the losses of the North 
 during the entire Civil War. 
 
 Winter was now coming on and, neither side having 
 won a decisive victorv, the armies alons: the entire six 
 hundred fifty mile battle line began to dig them- 
 selves in. Trench warfare took the place of war in 
 open country, or what is called war of movement. 
 So strong and secure were the trenches that, for nearly 
 two years, it seemed impossible that the war could 
 ever end, because the positions on neither side could 
 be taken. In 1915 the British tried twice to break 
 through the German lines, at Neuve Chapelle and at 
 Loos, and failed. The French attempted the same 
 thing in the Champagne country and were unsuccess- 
 ful. Early in 1916 the Germans began their attack 
 on Verdun, the most powerful assault yet made upon 
 any intrenched positions, but Verdun also proved a 
 failure. This was the situation w^hen, in June of 
 1916, the British began their great offensive against 
 the German positions in the region of the Somme 
 River, known as the battle of the Somme. 
 
 Some of the strongest of the German positions lay to 
 the northeast of the city of Albert, audit was here that 
 
MARSHAL HAIG 119 
 
 the " Big Push " began. There were three main Hnes 
 of fortifications, connected by innumerable trenches 
 and railways. If you were to lay upon a table a some- 
 what narrow piece of lace and think of each separate 
 thread as a German trench, you would have some idea 
 of what the network of fortifications, known as the 
 German first line, looked like. Then, if you were to 
 lay behind the first a second and narrower strip, you 
 would have constructed the second line. The third 
 would cotisist of a single thread, that is, of a single 
 line of trenches. The pattern of the lace would cor- 
 respond roughly to the fortified woods and villages 
 which these threads of trench lines connected. 
 
 Not only was this network of galleries and dugouts 
 a position of defense, but here the German army had 
 lived for nearly two years. The men had had little 
 fighting to do and had spent their time in making their 
 quarters comfortable, sanitary, and safe. The chalky 
 soil of the region made excavating easy. Dugouts, 
 especially officers' dugouts, were marvelously con- 
 structed and luxuriously furnished. Built of heavy 
 timbers and concrete, barred by iron doors, and buried 
 in the depths of the earth, they were fairly safe from 
 shells. 
 
 Some of them were of two stories, with a suite of 
 rooms upon each floor connected by staircases. One 
 such suite had ten rooms, including a bath. The floor 
 was covered with linoleum. The walls were papered 
 and hung with pictures. The apartment was fur- 
 nished after the manner of a comfortable citv home. 
 
I20 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 There were chairs, desks, brass and wooden beds, and 
 tables with books and magazines. There was a piano 
 and a phonograph. A system of electric lights and 
 bells had been installed, and before the door hung 
 absorbent curtains to keep out poisonous gases. It 
 is hardly to be wondered at that the officers who lived 
 there did not believe that their dugout could be taken. 
 
 General Haig, now commander-in-chief of the Brit- 
 ish armies, had been preparing for the battle of the 
 Somme for a year. Miles of railways had been con- 
 structed, new roads made, and causeways built across 
 the Somme marshes. Hundreds of miles of new 
 trenches were dug, with shelters, first-aid stations, and 
 magazines for ammunition. Miners worked for 
 months laying mines under the German trenches. A 
 whole water system was installed, with a hundred 
 pumping plants and one hundred twenty miles of new 
 water mains. 
 
 Of the old First Army that had fought at Mons 
 and Ypres hardly a man was left now, not a trained 
 soldier, except for a few officers, in the entire British 
 force. It was an army of clerks, tradesmen, students, 
 and laborers, but the number had grown from 300,000 
 to 5,000,000. 
 
 Every time it rained the parapets melted down and 
 had to be rebuilt. Sometimes the trenches also disap- 
 peared. Digging, constant digging, filled the soldiers' 
 days. Though there was little fighting, each day took 
 its toll of life. Plenty of German shells and bombs 
 found their way into the trenches, and German snipers 
 
MARSHAL HAIG 121 
 
 were always watching for men who grew indifferent 
 or careless. Such were the conditions under which 
 the British army learned the new business of warfare. 
 
 They were conditions that, as the months passed, 
 began to wear on the nerves of the men — the dirt, 
 the discomfort, the monotony of work, the standing 
 still to be shot at. What was the sense of it all? 
 When was it ever going to end? 
 
 Then one day a rumor came and the hopes of the 
 army rose. The increasing activity everywhere be- 
 hind the lines meant only one thing — a battle. At 
 last they were going to leave the trenches. 
 
 It was the end of June, 1916, and the region of the 
 Somme blossomed with yellow mustard, red poppies, 
 and blue corn-flowers. Grain fields covered the slop- 
 ing plains, broken by patches of wood and winding 
 rivers, with here and there a village. Along the 
 roads, poplar trees grew in tall, straight lines and hid 
 the masses of men and trucks which were moving 
 toward the battlefield of the morrow. But as yet 
 no one knew just when the attack would come. For a 
 week a furious bombardment of the German lines had 
 gone on incessantly. Then, when night came, officers 
 whispered to each other, ''At 7.30 in the morning." 
 
 July 1st dawned clear and hot. The storm of shells 
 that for a week had been raining on the German lines 
 now gathered fury, hour by hour, until at 7.15 it be- 
 came a hurricane. To those who watched from the 
 heights back of the lines it was like the breaking of the 
 sea ag-ainst a rockv coast. The shells fell with mar- 
 
122 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 velous precision along a straight line and great jets 
 of earth spouted into the air, filling the plain with dust 
 and smoke. Their accuracy was due to the men in 
 the kite balloons, who, from their high observation 
 posts back of the lines, directed the fire of the artillery. 
 Mountains of shells disappeared into the guns, and 
 when they fell upon the German lines, mountains 
 seemed to rise again out of the plains. The minutes 
 passed. Seven-thirty drew near, and now the line of 
 breaking shells leaped forward and thick clouds of 
 smoke rolled across No Man's Land — a screen for 
 the advancing army. There came a lull. Then, in 
 a few seconds the bombardment began again. The 
 men had gone over the top. 
 
 Near a village called Beaumont-Hamel miners had 
 been working for months preparing for this day. 
 They had constructed the largest mine yet known to 
 the war. 
 
 '' The exploding chamber," said a sergeant who had 
 helped to build it,^ " was as big as a picture palace, and 
 the gallery was an awful length. It took seven 
 months to build and we were working under some 
 crack Lancashire miners. Every time a fresh fatigue 
 party came up, they'd say: 'Ain't your grotto ever 
 going up?' But, my word, it went up all right the 
 first of July. It was the sight of your life. Half the 
 village got a rise. The air was full of stuff — wagons, 
 wheels, horses, tins, boxes, and Germans. It was 
 seven months well spent getting that mine ready. I 
 believe some of the pieces are coming down yet." 
 
 1 Battle of the Sommc, Philip Gibbs. 
 
MARSHAL HAIG 123 
 
 So began the battle of the Somme. The taking of 
 those miles ui:)on miles of fortified German trenches 
 was to prove a difficult and discouraging task. The 
 cost in human lives was enormous, yet progress was 
 made, a little each day. By hard fighting a village 
 was won here, a wood there, until the British were 
 well through the German first lines. Then followed 
 another attack on the enemy's second line. This was 
 on July 14th. The summer wore on. By September 
 the army was attacking the last villages within the 
 fortified area. On the fifteenth they reached open 
 country. They had accomplished the thing that for 
 nearly two years was believed impossible — they had 
 broken through. 
 
 It was about this date that the British sprang on 
 the Germans a little surprise that they had been keep- 
 ing for months — the tanks. No one had dreamed 
 of armored cars such as these. A few days before 
 the first tank made its appearance on the British front, 
 an ofiicer who had seen one tried to describe its ap- 
 pearance and use. 
 
 ''They eat up houses," he said. ''Walk right over 
 them .... They knock down trees like match 
 sticks. They go clean through a wood." 
 
 "Anything else?" a fellow officer asked. 
 
 "Everything else. They take ditches like kanga- 
 roos. They simply love shell craters. Laugh at 
 'em ! " 
 
 And one morning not long after this, two of these 
 queer creatures went over the top at dawn. In all the 
 
124 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 war there had never been anything as funny as this, 
 and the men followed, cheering and laughing and wav- 
 ing their helmets. 
 
 The tanks laughed, too. They knew that they bore 
 a charmed life — that was the joke. The time was to 
 come w^hen the Germans would learn how to send their 
 bullets into the hearts of these monsters, but now they 
 only hit and fell away. The tanks waddled serenely 
 across No Man's Land through a shower of bullets. 
 They dipped into shell holes and came up again. They 
 tramped down fences, snapped off trees, walked right 
 through barbed wire entanglements. If an old build- 
 ing appeared in their way, they would lean against it 
 for a moment as though thinking w^hat to do. Then 
 the building would crumble in ruins and the tanks 
 climb over the ruins and go laughing on. 
 
 When they reached the German lines they sat calmly 
 down on the trenches and began to fire their guns. 
 The frightened Germans ran from their shelters with 
 cries of ''Mercy! Mercy!" and one colonel advanced, 
 his hands held high over his head, shouting "Kam- 
 erad." 
 
 The tank heard him, for suddenly a hand reached 
 out and grabbed him and drew him inside through a 
 hole and treated him to a ride over the lines. 
 
 The other tank, feeling better and better as the 
 morning wore on, struck off in an easterly direction 
 toward Berlin. There was fighting going on here 
 also, shells and shrapnel falling, and men pressing 
 steadily on toward a village called Fler. Outside the 
 
MARSHAL HAIG 125 
 
 village the tank met the army and together they pushed 
 on. An airman who had been watching the game 
 flashed back by wireless the first news of their victory. 
 " A tank is walking up the High Street of Fler with 
 the British army cheering behind." 
 
 • ••••** 
 
 The battle of the Somme did not result in any very 
 great gain in territory, but it proved that positions 
 which the Germans had believed unconquerable could 
 be taken. It also relieved the French, who had been 
 fighting for months at Verdun, and, not by any means 
 of least importance, it took the heart out of the Ger- 
 mans. The Somme became a word of dread and ter- 
 ror. 
 
 In a French chateau some miles behind the lines 
 lived the man who had planned this battle. There 
 was little about the appearance of Haig's headquarters 
 to remind one of war. The chateau was set in the 
 midst of a formal garden. Flowers bloomed in the 
 hedges. Cattle grazed in the meadows near by. 
 Upon the whole countryside was a look of peace. 
 
 Within, the chateau remained just as the owners 
 had left it. The paintings hung in their accustomed 
 places and the furniture had hardly been disarranged. 
 
 General Haig's office was in the drawing room. 
 Beside his desk stood a table, on which rested a large 
 relief map of the Somme region. It was made of 
 ereen and red clav and was criss-crossed bv red lines, 
 indicating roads and trenches. The walls, too, were 
 hung with maps. The study table, covered with re- 
 
126 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 ports and photographs, told its own story. For 
 months Haig had sat here planning. He had made 
 a study of the weather conditions of the locality cov- 
 ering a period of twenty years. He had had photo- 
 graphed every foot of enemy territory, its appearance 
 in fair weather, after rain, and after snow. No 
 amount of work was too much if it would add to the 
 success of his plans. 
 
 Promptly at nine o'clock every morning he was at 
 his desk. He first studied the reports of everything 
 that had happened the night before ; then he held con- 
 ferences with his staff officers until luncheon. 
 
 Following luncheon he spent an hour in his office 
 alone, working out plans for the coming night. Or- 
 ders then went out to the various unit headquarters 
 and were passed down the line until they reached the 
 trenches. 
 
 Every afternoon, regardless of weather, General 
 Haig went for a horseback ride. This is the recrea- 
 tion he enjoys most. He does not care for motor 
 cars and uses them only when it is necessary. The 
 commander-in-chief's car, however, was known to 
 everyone ; it was the only car at the front flying a small 
 British flag. 
 
 Returning from his ride, he held conferences until 
 dinner. For most of the officers, w^ork was over then 
 for the day, but not for General Haig. After dinner 
 he went again to his office to pore over maps or else 
 he walked alone in the garden with his problems 
 of war. Less frequently he went to his room to 
 
MARSHAL HAIG 127 
 
 read. He reads both French and German and still 
 loves books, as in his college days. But whatever 
 filled his evenings, he always retired at ten o'clock 
 that he might keep himself physically fit for his 
 work. 
 
 General Haig is a tall, handsome man, with deep 
 blue eyes and gray hair. He wears the plain uniform 
 of a British field marshal, with spotlessly polished 
 boots and silver spurs. Pinned to his coat is a row 
 of colored service and order ribbons. Whether at 
 work or on the battlefield he is always immaculately 
 dressed. 
 
 He was born of an aristocratic family, but educa- 
 tion has made him a strong believer in democracy. 
 Because he believes in democracy he does not think 
 the war w^as altogether bad. It brought together in a 
 common cause men of all classes from all parts of the 
 world and gave them understanding of each other. 
 From their comradeship, Haig believes, will come bet- 
 ter ways of living and thinking. 
 
 Throughout the war he was the hero of every Brit- 
 ish Tommy. They called him affectionately " Duggy " 
 or '' D. H. " Tommy Atkins likes a brave man and he 
 knows that General Haig has experienced as much 
 shell fire as any soldier in the ranks. Like Joffre, 
 Haig used to pay visits to his men in the trenches, but 
 there was this difference. Joffre, in talking to his 
 soldiers, was one with them; Haig talked to them as 
 though they were all generals. 
 
128 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 In March and April of 1918 came those dark days — 
 the darkest Britain ever lived through — when the fate 
 of the nation and of the world once more hung in the 
 balance. The Germans began their great drives to 
 end the war before America could throw her full 
 strength on the side of the Allies. 
 
 The history of the war shows that each battle sur- 
 passed those which preceded it in the numbers of men 
 engaged and in the amount of ammunition used, for 
 the effort required was constantly greater in propor- 
 tion as the resources of the armies increased. Now 
 Germany meant to cast everything, all her resources 
 of men and wealth, into the hazard of a last battle, to 
 win or lose. 
 
 The greatest secrecy covered the movements of the 
 German army. The troop trains ran only at night 
 and without lights, and during the day the troops re- 
 mained hidden. The quantities of ammunition col- 
 lected were literally mountain high. The men were 
 again confident of victory. 
 
 On the 21st of March the first blow fell against the 
 British south of St. Quentin. The gray waves of the 
 German advance rose and fell like the sea moving 
 across the land, to which there was no end. The Brit- 
 ish gunners fired point blank into the moving masses 
 of men. They did not need to aim; they could not 
 miss them. They fired for hours, for days, until their 
 ammunition gave out and they fell exhausted, and still 
 the gray waves came on. 
 
 ''Our men have been fighting for six days," wrote 
 
MARSHAL HAIG 129 
 
 a British correspondent, ''until their beards have 
 grown long and their faces haggard and worn for lack 
 of sleep, and their clothes have become torn on wire 
 and covered with dust of mud and chalk." 
 
 The German losses were enormous. The ground 
 was covered with the dead, but the ranks quickly 
 filled and the great human tide flowed on. 
 
 Almost with the first blow the British line had 
 broken. Creeping up in the fog, the Germans had 
 hurled themselves on the British Fifth Army and had 
 separated it from the Third. The gap was finally filled 
 and a serious disaster prevented, but the British were 
 obliged to retreat further than they had planned. 
 Then, with each attack, the line bent a little and a little 
 more until a dent was made in it twenty miles deep, 
 and many cities and hundreds of villages passed again 
 into German hands. After ten days the first drive 
 came to an end. 
 
 The purpose had been to separate the British army 
 from the French and destroy it, but, failing in this, 
 the Germans began a second drive upon the British 
 farther north. Now it was the old story of Ypres 
 and the channel cities again. 
 
 Greatly outnumbered, the British again fell back. 
 What must have been their feeling to give up posi- 
 tions that, a year before, had cost them half a million 
 casualties to win ! The men wxre tired, so tired that 
 they staggered and fell, and rose up and fought again 
 like men moving in a dream. Whenever the oppor- 
 tunity came they lay down in the ditches and by the 
 
I30 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 roadsides and in the open fields and slept, with the 
 shells screaming overhead. They could hardly be 
 wakened when their turn came to resist another at- 
 tack. 
 
 Could these tired men hold until support could reach 
 them? In an order of the day, written on the 12th 
 of April, Haig- rallied his men to the supreme effort. 
 
 ''Many amongst us are now tired. To those I 
 would say that victory will belong to the side which 
 holds out the longest. 
 
 ''The French army is moving rapidly and in great 
 force to our support. 
 
 '' There is no other course open to us but to fight it 
 out. Every position must be held to the last man; 
 there must be no retirement. With our backs to the 
 wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each of 
 us must fight on to the end." 
 
 The last effort was " the greatest battle in the 
 world." No men ever endured more than the British 
 endured through all the month of April. When the 
 situation was at its worst, Haig sent out the Grenadier, 
 Irish, and Coldstream Guards to check the Germans 
 until reserves could be brought up. In forty-eight 
 hours the Australians would come. Some of the 
 men were so exhausted that they could hardly stand. 
 There was but one way in which they could hold out 
 for fortv-eight hours — "each must fight on to the 
 end." 
 
 They fought in groups, in twos or threes, back to 
 back and shooting in every direction. They were like 
 
MARSHAL HAIG 131 
 
 men battling with the tide to prevent it from reaching 
 the land. The Germans pressed them on all sides. 
 One after another they fell. The hours never crept so 
 slowly. For two days and nights the Guards held on. 
 When the Australians came they found them still 
 fighting, though the groups had dwindled sadly, and 
 their own dead and wounded lay in circles around 
 them. But this time they '' had held the longest," and 
 the final victory was theirs. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 With Kitchener to Khartoum, George W. Steevens. 
 
 The Story of Ypres, Captain Hugh B. C. Pollard. 
 
 Battle of the Somme, John Buchan. 
 
 Battle of the Somme, Philip Gibbs. 
 
 Nelson s History of the War, John Buchan. 
 
 With the Flag to Pretoria, H. W. Wilson. 
 
 An American at Oxford, John Corbin. 
 
 General Haig, Man of War, Isaac F. Marcosson, Everybody's, 
 June, 1917. 
 
 Literary Digest, Sept. 15, 1917. 
 
 The Greatest Battle in the World, Philip Gibbs, Current His- 
 tory Magazine, June, 1918. 
 
VI. ADMIRAL BEATTY 
 
 In 1896, when Kitchener went into the Sudan, one 
 of the first things he did was to patch up some old gun- 
 boats for service on the Nile. There were four of 
 them to begin with, all stern-wheelers, and one called 
 Abu Klea was commanded by a young lieutenant of 
 the British navy named David Beatty. 
 
 Beatty's father. Captain D. L. Beatty, was a famous 
 sportsman. The family lived at Borodale, Wexford 
 County, Ireland, but early in the year 1871 Captain 
 Beatty's love of hunting took him to Chester County, 
 England. Fox hunting was a favorite sport of the 
 English gentry and Chester County was noted for 
 its hounds. It was there that David Beatty was born. 
 When he was thirteen, his father was offered a cadet- 
 ship in the navy for his son and accepted. This is 
 the age at which boys who are to become officers regu- 
 larly enter the British navy. David Beatty had re- 
 ceived an appointment but no further favors came his 
 way. He got on solely by his own efforts. 
 
 He was twenty-five when he went into the Sudan 
 with Kitchener and it was his first active service. 
 However dull was the soldier's life in the work of re- 
 taking this vast desert country from the Arabs, life 
 for the young naval officer was full of adventure. 
 
 132 
 
ADMIRAL BEATTY 133 
 
 Up and down the Nile the gunboats ran, sometimes a 
 hundred miles in advance of the army, patrolling, re- 
 connoitering, raiding, fighting. It was work which 
 just suited David Beatty. 
 
 About a thousand miles south of Cairo, Egypt, lies 
 the town of Kerma. Until September of 1896 Kerma 
 had been held by the Arabs, or Dervishes, and the 
 British army had expected to find them still there when 
 they marched into the town at daybreak one September 
 morning. But to their surprise the enemy had disap- 
 peared. Then it was discovered that, half a mile up 
 the river and on the opposite bank, the Dervishes 
 were entrenched in a position which the army could 
 not possibly reach. Here was work for the gunboats. 
 ^ The Dervish camp was in a palm grove, on either 
 side of which were impassable marshes, and along the 
 river ran a loopholed mud wall. As the sun rose over 
 the camp that morning, the British rubbed their eyes 
 in astonishment, for the scene before them was like 
 some tale from the Arabian Nights. From the para- 
 pet flags of gorgeous colors waved defiantly against 
 the sky. The Dervishes, men, women, and children, 
 in white garments, ran in and out of their mud houses, 
 busily preparing for battle. Riflemen had already 
 taken their places in the palm trees along the river. 
 Most of them were cleverly hidden but here and there 
 one caught a flash of color against the dark green foli- 
 age. In a wide plain behind the camp the Dervish 
 cavalry was at maneuver practice, their spears glit- 
 tering in the sunlight as they wheeled and turned. 
 
134 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 Now the gunboats moved slowly up the river. The 
 little flotilla comprised three of the old stern-wheelers, 
 the Tamai, the Metemma, and Lieutenant Beatty's 
 boat, the Ahu Klea. At a place called Hafir, just 
 opposite the Dervish camp, they came within range 
 of the enemy guns, and all at once the Dervishes let 
 them have it. From every loophole in the long mud 
 wall came a puff of smoke. Concealed batteries along 
 the shore sent out their shells and from the palm trees 
 fell a shower of bullets. They fell chiefly on the 
 decks, where the men and guns were unprotected. 
 They seemed to penetrate everywhere. There were 
 a few casualties, but the gunboats steamed ahead. 
 They were giving shell for shell and the shots were 
 telling. The Egyptian infantry on board were pick- 
 ing off the Dervish riflemen in the trees. Still they 
 did not succeed in silencing the Dervish guns. 
 
 A shell now struck the Abu Klea and entered her 
 magazine, but fortunately it did not explode. On the 
 other boats things were going badly. Commander 
 Colvifle, chief oflicer of the little flotilla, was wounded 
 and the Tamai withdrew from the fighting to carry 
 her wounded commander ashore. Next the Metemma 
 withdrew. Suffering terribly from the Dervish fire, 
 she turned and ran downstream. Seeing two boats 
 out of three abandon the battle, the Arabs believed 
 that they had won a victory and loud cheering fol- 
 lowed the Metemma as she disappeared. 
 
 But the cheering soon died out, for the Ahu Klea 
 remained. There was nothing Lieutenant Beatty 
 
ADMIRAL BEATTY 13S 
 
 loved so much as a good fight. There was nothing he 
 would not dare. After Commander Colville had been 
 wounded Beatty was given the command of the flo- 
 tilla, and he meant that the Dervishes should hear from 
 him. Back and forth the Abu Klea steamed, lashing 
 the water into foam, firing into the Dervish camp as 
 fast as the men could load the guns. And all the while 
 that she was fired upon in return, her young com- 
 mander was thinking, as coolly as though he were 
 working out the same problem at his desk in college, 
 just how he would maneuver to avoid being blown to 
 pieces before the job was done. After a time the 
 Tamai returned and for two and a half hours more 
 the battle went on. Then Kitchener decided to 
 change his plans. He ordered Beatty to run, under 
 fire, the passage of the river, which at this point was 
 very narrow, and to advance as far as Dongola, 
 thirty-six miles upstream. 
 
 Dongola was to be the end of the campaign of that 
 year. There Kitchener meant to wait until the rail- 
 road had caught up with the army. All the fighting 
 hitherto led to the taking of this town, and it was ex- 
 pected that the Dervishes would make every efifort to 
 hold it. 
 
 When Lieutenant Beatty arrived he found the Der- 
 vish army busily at work preparing for the defense of 
 the town. They knew all about the fighting that had 
 taken place the day before and were ready for the 
 same kind of warfare. A row of batteries which 
 lined the river front opened fire on the Abu Klea the 
 moment she appeared. 
 
136 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 Beatty had been told to ''keep the enemy busy" 
 while the Anglo-Egyptian army advanced. In other 
 words he was there to be shot at until relief came. 
 It was the same old game of dodging shells, but so 
 long as he was not hit, the Dervishes might shoot as 
 much as they liked. 
 
 Meanwhile he did some shooting on his own ac- 
 count. He gave the enemy no rest. Day and night 
 the old river boat chugged up and down, spitting fire. 
 After a time several of the enemy batteries stopped 
 firing. Soon others were silent. When there re- 
 mained only one or two, Beatty, with a few men from 
 the Abu Klea, landed and took the town. And when 
 the army marched upon Dongola, expecting that one 
 of the hardest battles of the year awaited them, it 
 was Kitchener's own flag, a red star and crescent on 
 a field of white, that waved over the governor's palace. 
 Lieutenant Beatty had earned the Distinguished Ser- 
 vice Order. 
 
 The flotilla, which in the beginning had consisted of 
 four old stern-wheelers, grew month by month. With 
 the addition of river steamers, barges, and new mod- 
 ern gunboats, it became a most important part in win- 
 ning the Sudanese war. It did all sorts of things, but 
 chiefly its business was to fight the Dervishes and to 
 carry materials for Kitchener's railroad, food and 
 munitions for the army. It is hard to say which of 
 these two kinds of work had in it the most thrills, for 
 transporting materials meant taking the boats over 
 the cataracts of the Nile. 
 
ADMIRAL BEATTY 137 
 
 The cataracts are a series of granite steps, often 
 several miles in length, over which the water plunges 
 with terrific speed and force ; at low water they are im- 
 passable by all but the smallest craft. Five of them 
 barred the passage to Khartum. Of these the fourth 
 was the most difficult. Here huge boulders, protrud- 
 ing from the water, broke the main direction of the 
 current so that it was almost impossible to tell where 
 the passage lay. Kitchener had been told that he 
 would never get the boats over the Fourth Cataract, 
 but he did not give up trying on that account. 
 
 It was this task that he turned over to Lieutenant 
 Beatty and a fellow officer. Lieutenant Hood. On a 
 summer morning of 1897 the two officers arrived at 
 the foot of the Fourth Cataract with two gunboats and 
 a number of barges, carrying two hundred men from 
 the Egyptian army, who were to help in pulling the 
 boats upstream. Lieutenant Hood commanded the 
 Tamai. Lieutenant Beatty had another of the old 
 river boats called El Teh. 
 
 The method of ascending the cataracts was for the 
 steamer to drive full speed ahead, while the men on 
 the shore, by means of cables attached to steel blocks, 
 added their strength to that of the engines. The 
 Tamai was the first to try the ascent. Plunging into 
 the rapids she succeeded in making half the passage 
 w^hen, by some mismanagement, the ropes gave way 
 and she was spun about and was carried swiftly down- 
 stream. It was thought that there had not been 
 enough men to hold her and in order that the same 
 
138 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 misfortune might not happen again, three hundred 
 more men were added to the force. 
 
 This time the Teb was to make the trial. Proceed- 
 ing as the Tamai had, she reached the same point in 
 the passage, when a similar but far worse accident 
 occurred. As she was suddenly swept around by the 
 force of the current the cables, instead of releasing 
 the boat, held, and the water came pouring over the 
 decks, carrying everything with it. In a few seconds 
 more the Teh turned completely over. Lieutenant 
 Beatty and his men were thrown into midstream and 
 carried below the rapids. One seaman was drowned. 
 Two others were missing. The rest, including Lieu- 
 tenant Beatty, were picked up by the Tamai at the foot 
 of the cataract. Beatty's first thought was for his 
 men. His second was for the boat. Where was she? 
 From the Tamai they made her out, jammed in the 
 rocks a mile below, to all appearances a complete 
 wreck. Still there was a possibility that she might be 
 saved, and Beatty proceeded at once to investigate. 
 
 Only the bottom of the Teh was visible above the 
 water; it was evident that nothing could be done for 
 her. Having finished their examination, the officers 
 were about to turn away, when they heard a knocking 
 that appeared to come from the inside of the boat. 
 Workmen were summoned, a plate was removed from 
 the bottom, and out stepped the two missing men, the 
 engineer and the stoker. Theirs had been, as a writer 
 of the catastrophe remarks,^ '' a wild career." " With 
 
 ^ The River War, Winston Churchill. 
 
ADMIRAL BEATTY 139 
 
 the boat turned upside down, the engines working, the 
 fires burning, and the boilers full, with the floors all 
 become ceilings, and water rushing in," they had been 
 flung about in the darkness and by some miracle had 
 managed to live. 
 
 The two years that Beatty spent in the Sudan were 
 full of experiences such as these. He fought in all 
 the important battles of the campaign, both on land 
 and water. There was no holding him back where 
 there was a piece of dangerous work to be done. His 
 courage was of the cool, calculating kind; in the midst 
 of excitement or confusion he never lost sight of the 
 thing he had to do. All up and down the Nile men 
 talked about his daring. 
 
 " Why won't Kitchener let the gunboats above Shab- 
 luka (the Fifth Cataract) ? " a young lieutenant of the 
 army asked one day as he discussed the campaign 
 with fellow officers. 
 
 ''Because Beatty would take Khartum," another 
 officer promptly replied. 
 
 This was probably an injustice to Kitchener, but it 
 shows what the army thought of Beatty. 
 
 Kitchener himself was of the opinion that Beatty 
 was a rare young officer. He mentioned him repeat- 
 edly in dispatches to the war office. He recommended 
 him for promotion. At twenty-seven Beatty was a 
 commander, and two years later he was on his way to 
 China to fight in a new war and to win new honors. 
 
 The war in China which broke out in June of 1900 
 is known as the Boxer Rebellion. The Boxers were 
 
I40 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 members of a Chinese secret society which was sup- 
 posed to be an athletic organization, but which really 
 existed for the purpose of doing away with foreigners 
 and foreign customs. " China for the Chinese," was 
 their motto; it was a motto which covered many ter- 
 rible crimes. Foreigners, especially Christians, were 
 robbed, cruelly tortured, and murdered. In the cities 
 of Pekin and Tientsin, foreigners of all nationalities 
 were besieged. Crowded into the foreign quarters, 
 with food enough to delay starvation only a few weeks, 
 not knowing at what moment they might be killed, 
 they waited rescue from the world outside. 
 
 The result of these happenings was the speedy ap- 
 pearance of allied warships at the mouth of the Peiho 
 River, the water highway to the besieged cities. All 
 the nations having fleets stationed at that time in 
 Chinese waters were represented, England, France, 
 Italy, Russia, Japan, Germany, Austria, and the 
 United States. One of the ships, called the Barfleur, 
 was commanded by David Beatty. 
 
 A relief expedition was immediately formed to go 
 to the rescue of the besieged foreigners. At first it 
 consisted of a small force of two thousand officers and 
 men, chiefly British, of which Commander Beatty and 
 his bluejackets formed a part. Later Russian, Jap- 
 anese, French, and American troops joined. It was 
 this combined force of five thousand men that stormed 
 and took the city of Tientsin. 
 
 Two days before the relief column reached Tientsin, 
 the city had been set on fire by the Chinese and the 
 
ADMIRAL BEATTY 141 
 
 railroad destroyed. For the foreigners who remained 
 there was now no escape and every day brought the 
 fear of a general massacre. Then, one night, a young 
 Englishman living in Tientsin escaped through the 
 Chinese lines and carried to the allied forces word of 
 the desperate situation in the city. He implored them 
 to advance with all possible speed. 
 ^ Tientsin is a walled city and strongly fortified. It 
 lies on the western bank of the Peiho River. Up this 
 river the relief party fought its way until it reached 
 a point on the eastern bank opposite the city. The 
 Chinese, having guessed that the relief party would 
 attempt to reach the foreign quarter, had placed two 
 field guns near a railway embankment outside, where 
 they commanded the crossing of the river. It was 
 impossible to reach the city in face of the fire from 
 these guns. At this point Commander Beatty and his 
 three companies of bluejackets were ordered to cross 
 the river and see what they could do about silencing 
 these guns. It was work that Beatty was used to, 
 silencing guns, but this time there were serious dif^- 
 culties in his way. Crossing the Peiho under heavy 
 fire, he succeeded in reaching the Chinese positions 
 and advanced to within two hundred yards of the 
 guns. With the help of some Russian troops, who 
 were moving up at the same time, he intended to rush 
 the guns. While he waited for the Russians to ad- 
 vance, he halted with his little band of bluejackets 
 near one of the mud walls that surrounded the city. 
 He did not know that behind that wall the Chinese 
 
142 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 had watched the approach and only waited the order 
 to fire. As he stopped in what he supposed was a place 
 of shelter, the bullets suddenly leaped out from all di- 
 rections. The Russians withdrew, but the British 
 held on. The fire was deadly. Four officers and sev- 
 eral men fell. Beatty himself was wounded twice. 
 
 It was his particular kind of courage that saved 
 him that day. He might have gone on and given his 
 life splendidly, but he saw clearly enough that to do 
 so would not take the guns. The British had not a 
 chance. The only reasonable thing was to withdraw 
 and he gave the command. This was Beatty, 
 wounded, in danger every moment of being killed, yet 
 coolly thinking the situation out to a sensible end. 
 
 It was on the 19th of June that this happened. The 
 13th of July found Beatty in action again, though his 
 wounds had not yet healed. The relief expedition 
 had not yet taken Tientsin. They held several 
 strong positions, however, on the western bank. One 
 of them was a group of houses situated in the 
 middle of the causeway that was the main approach 
 to the city. It was an important position, which the 
 Japanese and the French had great difficulty in hold- 
 ing on account of the terrific fire of the Chinese. 
 When it seemed that they could not hold much longer 
 they saw that help was coming. Beatty and his blue- 
 jackets had started to cross the causeway. 
 
 Advancing along the narrow road, the men were un- 
 able to spread out and the bullets caught them. 
 Though many were wounded, they bravely pushed on 
 
ADMIRAL BEATTY 143 
 
 and reached the houses they were to defend, only to 
 find them so full of men that there was no room for 
 more. The only shelter was a ditch by the side of the 
 causeway. Standing in water to their knees, without 
 food, exposed to the unceasing fire of the guns, this 
 little force held throughout a hot, sultry summer day 
 and an interminable night until the city of Tientsin 
 fell at sunrise the next morning. 
 
 The conduct of Commander Beatty on this occasion 
 was brought to the notice of the British Admiralty by 
 Admiral Seymour, commander of the expedition. In 
 his report he says: ''Commander David Beatty, 
 D. S. O. of H. M. S. Barflcur, although suffering from 
 two wounds only partially healed, one of which is 
 likely to cause him considerable suffering and incon- 
 venience for some time, begged to be allowed to accom- 
 pany the expedition of the relief forces under my 
 command. He is thoroughly deserving of any mark 
 of appreciation." 
 
 The ''mark of appreciation" was promotion to a 
 captaincy. At twenty-nine, Beatty was the youngest 
 captain in the British navy. 
 
 Coming now to the great European w^ar, it is neces- 
 sary to go back as far as the year 1890 in order to un- 
 derstand the parts the British and German navies were 
 to play. That year the Kaiser, who had been em- 
 peror of Germany but a short time, paid a visit to 
 England to witness the practice maneuvers of the 
 British fleet. What those practice maneuvers 
 proved was that, given a start of twenty-four hours, 
 
144 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 an enemy fleet could easily escape the British and, 
 once at large in the Atlantic, control the trade routes 
 to England. Whether this discovery actually deter- 
 mined the Kaiser's future action, one cannot know. 
 At any rate, it was soon after this that Germany began 
 the building of her great navy, which she hoped would 
 one day rival Britain's. 
 
 The Kiel Canal, connecting the North Sea with the 
 Baltic, was already in the process of construction. 
 This canal not only shortened Germany's trade routes 
 by hundreds of miles but allowed great freedom of 
 movement to her fleet. It was begun in 1887 and com- 
 pleted in 1895 while Germany's navy was still small. 
 Eleven years later, in 1906, when the German fleet had 
 grown to such a size that it might feel hopeful of mak- 
 ing war use of the Kiel Canal, England launched a 
 new t3^pe of battleship called the dreadnought. It 
 was the largest battleship ever built, so large, in fact, 
 that it could not pass through the Kiel Canal. Con- 
 sequently, before Germany could ever hope to fight 
 Britain with dreadnoughts, she must first rebuild the 
 Kiel Canal. This she did; the new canal, deepened 
 and widened, was completed in June, 1914. 
 
 It was also in 1890 that Germany traded with Brit- 
 ain the island of Zanzibar, a fertile and populous island 
 off the east coast of Africa, for the little rocky island 
 of Heligoland near the entrance to the Kiel Canal. 
 The British said of this transfer that they had traded 
 a button for a good pair of trousers. But the Ger- 
 mans thought differently. If they had got only a 
 
ADMIRAL BEATTY 145 
 
 button, they said, it would some day hold together a 
 whole suit of armor. Germany began immediately 
 to fortify her new possession. At the cost of millions 
 of dollars she made of it a second Gibraltar. 
 
 It happened that in the latter part of July, 1914, the 
 British fleet had been reviewed by the King and was 
 preparing to demobilize, when an order came from the 
 Admiralty that thrilled every man. The order was 
 to " stand fast." Austria had delivered her impos- 
 sible terms to Serbia and war seemed about to break 
 over all Europe. The Admiralty's order came none 
 too soon. At 11 p.m. on the 4th of August Germany 
 declared war on England and at daybreak the next 
 morning the Kdnigen Luise, formerly a passenger 
 ship of the Hamburg-American line, was caught 
 planting mines along the English coast. She was 
 sunk by a British ship ; the navy had been ready. 
 
 The ofreat work of the British navv in the war was 
 to patrol the seas of the world. Everywhere, to the 
 remotest corners of the earth, her ships sailed to guard 
 lives and cargoes, but most important was the patrol- 
 ling of the North Sea. Immediately upon the decla- 
 ration of war Britain's dreadnoughts moved out to 
 block the passage between Norway and the British 
 Isles and prevent the German fleet from reaching 
 the Atlantic. And every now and then they would 
 leave their stations to sweep the whole North Sea. 
 This was an invitation to the German fleet to come out 
 to fight, but the Germans, for the most part, chose 
 to remain in hiding. But three times during the four 
 
146 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 and a half years of war did they make their appear- 
 ance. 
 
 The first time was soon after the war began, on the 
 28th of August, 1914. It was not a big battle, as 
 sea battles go, but it excited the interest of people 
 everywhere because it was the first naval engagement 
 since the great naval battle of the Japanese-Russian 
 war in 1904. In that battle wireless telegraphy was 
 used for the first time, but there were no submarines, 
 no airplanes, no battle cruisers, no dreadnoughts. 
 All of these new instruments of war had developed 
 within ten years. No wonder then that people waited 
 with such great interest for the time when these two 
 giant fleets would meet. 
 
 The battle of the 28th of August was called the 
 battle of Heligoland Bight. Bight is another name 
 for bay and Heligoland Bay was an immense mine 
 field protecting Germany's ports, as well as the har- 
 bor for her submarines. The British had come down 
 into this enemy territory, in all probability, to deliver 
 one of their invitations to the German fleet to come 
 out. It was Beatty who commanded the British 
 squadron. He was a vice-admiral now, the youngest 
 admiral in the navy as he had once been the youngest 
 captain, and he was still the daring fighter. If it 
 had not been for that other quality of his mind, a cool 
 and reasoning judgment, he would probably have at- 
 tempted to destroy the German submarine bases, for 
 that was what he wanted most to do. He called these 
 little expeditions of his battle cruiser squadron " barg- 
 
ADMIRAL BEATTY 147 
 
 ing about the North Sea," and this time he had 
 " barged " right under the nose of HeHgoland. 
 
 The German cruiser squadron had to come out. 
 There was a spirited fight, in which the British sank 
 three German battle cruisers and several destroyers 
 and got away without serious losses on their own part. 
 
 The battle of Heligoland Bight, although it in- 
 flicted heavy losses on the Germans, was a disappoint- 
 ment to people who had expected a great sea fight. 
 The giant dreadnoughts were not used at all. They 
 had yet to prove whether they were worth the millions 
 upon millions of dollars they had cost. The truth 
 was the Germans were not ready. For two years they 
 had stayed at home preparing. Meanwhile Beatty 
 and his cruiser squadron continued to "barge about 
 the North Sea," always hoping to meet the enemy. 
 
 Throughout the entire period of sea warfare it was 
 Sir John Jellicoe and not Sir David Beatty who com- 
 manded the British fleet. In time of battle it is the 
 commander-in-chief who directs the strongest unit of 
 the navy, the squadron of dreadnoughts, but it hap- 
 pened that the dreadnoughts came into action only 
 once. Practically all of the fighting was done by the 
 lighter ships, so that Admiral Beatty, as commander 
 of the First Battle Cruiser Squadron, actually com- 
 manded in all of the battles fought in the North Sea. 
 Following the last and greatest, the battle of Jutland, 
 he was himself made commander-in-chief. 
 
 Like all great commanders. Sir David Beatty is will- 
 , ing to talk of his men but never of himself. His men. 
 
148 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 on the other hand, are always ready to talk about hhn. 
 They will tell ytni, for one thing, that if yon think an 
 admiral's job is easy, you do not know how Beatty 
 works. At the end of the first seven months of war, 
 he had spent just two hours with his family. Many 
 days he had worked the twenty-four hours through. 
 They will tell you that, whenever there is fighting to 
 be done, he is always in the thick of it, as often ex- 
 posed to fire as a stoker or deck hand. They call him 
 "David," sometimes ''Lucky Beatty." He is so 
 lucky that once when a thief stole all his medals, he 
 dropped them when he found out whose they were. 
 
 Officers and bluejackets alike would die for Beatty 
 to the last man. His kindness, his humor, his fear- 
 lessness, have made him, as one officer expressed it, 
 '' the idol of every man in the squadron." 
 
 Lady Beatty is an American by birth. There are 
 two sons, David and Peter, thirteen and eleven years 
 of age. David probably will follow his father's pro- 
 fession. He already speaks several languages and is 
 an authority on the organization of the Grand Fleet. 
 In his playroom he has a model submarine that 
 really dives, a small ship Tiger with turrets that turn, 
 a baby tank, and little dock cranes that revolve and lift 
 weights like real ones. 
 
 On Sunday morning, the 24th of January, 1915, 
 Admiral Beatty was cruising with his squadron off 
 the east coast of England, when, far out on the hori- 
 zon, he saw ten German ships moving northwest. 
 There w^as no doubt in his mind about what these ves- 
 
ADMIRAL BEATTY 149 
 
 sels meant to do. They were on their way to bombard 
 the coast cities of England, as they had done twice be- 
 fore. Every man in Beatty's squadron knew just how 
 many wTjmen and children had been killed in these 
 bombardments and they had sworn that such a thing 
 should not happen again. On this occasion Admiral 
 Beatty had heard that the '' Germans were out," and 
 had pledged himself to catch them. 
 
 When first sighted the German ships appeared very 
 small, for they were fourteen miles away. They were 
 really great battle cruisers, traveling at a high rate of 
 speed. Suddenly they w^ere seen to change their 
 course. Having discovered the British ships, they 
 had decided to give up shelling the English coast cities 
 and go home. But home was one hundred twenty 
 miles away, and Admiral Beatty was out for them. 
 
 Immediately on sighting the enemy, the bugles on all 
 the British ships had sounded " action stations." 
 Every man took his place for battle and the order was 
 " full speed ahead." All rested now with the en- 
 gineers. The ships shook and trembled in every beam 
 as the stokers and oilers and greasers did their ut- 
 most to increase the speed The Germans also were 
 doing their utmost. They had not counted on a fight, 
 but, little by little, the British gained on them. Those 
 who saw it said it was a glorious race. It had begun 
 about seven o'clock. In less than two hours the Brit- 
 ish were within battle range, and shortly the first shot 
 was fired. 
 
 From the bridge of his flagship, the Lion, Admiral 
 
I50 
 
 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 Beatty had made his observations and given his or- 
 ders, and there he remained during the fighting. 
 When the fighting began it was give and take with 
 both sides. " Shells went over our ships," said a sur- 
 geon on the British cruiser Tiger, " with a noise like 
 a lot of bees buzzing and dropped in hundreds about a 
 hundred yards all around us, throwing up spray all 
 over the ship." Two of the German cruisers were 
 soon in flames; a third, the Blilchcr, largest of them 
 all, was sinking. 
 
 Two British cruisers were also hit. Admiral 
 Beatty's own ship, the Lion, and the Tiger. These 
 two ships, as famous as any in the British navy, fought 
 in all the battles of the war and endured shell fire 
 such as few ships in all the history of naval battles 
 have ever known. 
 
 A shell now came crashing into the Lion, tearing a 
 hole in one of her compartments, which quickly filled 
 with water. This caused one of her engines to stop. 
 An examination showed that the damage could not be 
 repaired at sea, and the Lion was obliged to fall out of 
 the line of battle. But her trials were not yet over. 
 Just as Admiral Beatty was preparing to transfer his 
 flag to another ship, a second shell struck the Lion. 
 This was serious. Although the Lion was afterwards 
 able to make port under her own steam, the second 
 shell delayed Beatty further from directing the battle. 
 In too great a hurry to consider his own safety he 
 jumped from the cruiser to the deck of the destroyer 
 which was to carry him to another ship. It required 
 
ADMIRAL BEATTY 
 
 151 
 
 y^ 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 "^t 
 
 
 '7 ' t ^^'-^ ■< 
 
 Vf^ 1.^ 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 W^- 
 
 i 
 
 Admiral Beatty 
 
 
 ^.?i;;.T-^ 
 
152 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 three quarters of an hour running at top speed to 
 catch up with the fighting cruisers, and it was only a 
 Httle later that the battle ended. This engagement is 
 called the battle of Dogger Bank, Dogger Bank being 
 the name of a large shoal in the North Sea near the 
 scene of the battle. 
 
 One great German cruiser, with her 885 officers and 
 men, had gone down. A few men had been taken 
 prisoner; many more had been wounded. The Brit- 
 ish casualties were slight, less than 50. Many 
 stories of heroism could be told of both the British 
 and the Germans. Admiral Beatty publicly praised 
 his men and awarded medals to those who had distin- 
 guished themselves for bravery. He recalled to them 
 in verse what always happened when the Lion and the 
 Tiger went out to fight : 
 
 " There's beauty in the howling of a gale, 
 There's a beauty in the bellow of the blast ; 
 There's a terrible outpouring 
 When the Liofi starts a-roaring, 
 And the Tiger starts a-lashing of its tail." 
 
 It was scarcely six months after this that the 
 Lion was to start roaring again in the greatest naval 
 battle of the war. On the last day of May, 1916, the 
 British fleet was on one of its regular patrols of the 
 North Sea. Three long lines of ships, reaching from 
 England to Denmark, were spread across the water. 
 The faster and smaller ships, such as destroyers and 
 auxiliary flotillas, went ahead; next came the fast 
 cruisers and the battle cruisers, and last the squadron 
 
ADMIRAL BEATTY 153 
 
 of great dreadnoughts. Admiral Beatty, on the Lion, 
 led with the First Battle Cruiser Squadron. The fleet 
 was traveling south and had just reached a point off 
 the coast of Denmark called Jutland Bank, when word 
 came from the advance destroyers that the German 
 Battle Cruiser Squadron was on the sea. 
 
 At once Admiral Beatty changed his course to get 
 between the enemy and the home waters of Heligoland 
 Bay. It was twenty minutes past two in the after- 
 noon. The day was so hazy that ships could not be 
 seen farther than six miles and a seaplane was or- 
 dered up to make observations. Flying low to keep 
 between the sea and the drifting clouds, the observer 
 had scarcely come within sight of the German squad- 
 ron when every anti-aircraft gun opened fire on him. 
 He coolly continued with his observations and just 
 twenty-two minutes after he had left his ship, his re- 
 ports were in Admiral Beatty's hands. A line of 
 battle was now formed, and in another five minutes 
 the enemy was in sight. 
 
 The situation was like this : Both the German and 
 the British battle cruiser squadrons, with their de- 
 stroyer flotillas, were traveling south in nearly paral- 
 lel lines, but, hidden behind a screen of smoke and 
 mist to the north and east of the German cruiser 
 squadron, lay the fleet of German dreadnoughts called 
 the High Sea Fleet. The plan of the Germans was to 
 draw Beatty's cruiser squadrons into battle with the 
 whole German fleet and destroy it before Admiral 
 Jellicoe with his dreadnoughts could get there. 
 
154 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 As yet Admiral Beatty was unaware of the presence 
 of the German High Sea Fleet. He had his problems 
 without this. Standing on the bridge, as usual, he 
 directed the maneuvers of his ships to give the best 
 light for firing and to allow the wind to clear the fir- 
 ing field of smoke. 
 
 When a battleship goes into action, of course no man 
 knows whether he will come out alive or not. All the 
 safety devices that are ordinarily used in a wreck at 
 sea, such as lifeboats, rafts, and life preservers are 
 put away, because in battle there is no time to use 
 them. Even when a ship is hit, there is no way of 
 telling whether or not it will sink. The men know 
 this. They are there to fight. They simply do their 
 work and do not worry about the consequences. A 
 boy from the Warspite, a battleship which saw some of 
 the heaviest fighting, tells what it felt like to be going 
 into this greatest of naval battles:^ 
 
 '' I did not see much of what took place during the 
 fighting," he says. ''None of the men could, for with 
 the exception of some of the officers, the signal ratings, 
 and a few of the men, there was no one in the battle- 
 ship exposed. We were all in the barbettes or below 
 decks. But news travels quickly from the upper decks 
 and it was in this manner that we knew what was tak- 
 ing place. 
 
 ''Did I feel nervous? No. Of course, after 
 ' general quarters ' was sounded in the Warspite, we 
 
 1 Stirring Deeds of Britain's Sea Dogs in the Great War, Harold 
 F. B. Wheeler. 
 
ADMIK\L BEATTY 155 
 
 were some time before getting in action and there was 
 a tight feeling when we were standing by, waiting 
 for the first gun to be fired. We all knew our stations 
 when the bugle sounded. T^Iine was to draw a fire. 
 I did so and then nipped for the magazine where I was 
 to work and I stuck there. Even in that place you 
 could tell that the JJ\irspitc was steaming at her best, 
 and inquiries up the hoist were pretty frequent. 
 
 " The men about me did their work and made jokes. 
 It was not as if we were going into battle. It seemed 
 to me as if we were going to do something at last that 
 we had been waiting a long time for, — like playing a 
 football cup-tie, when vou are waiting to enter the 
 field." 
 
 The two lines of battleships, steaming at top speed, 
 "entered the field" exactly at twelve minutes to four, 
 British and German cruisers opening fire at the same 
 time. A few minutes later, several British destroy- 
 ers darted out to attack the big German cruisers with 
 torpedoes. They were met by enemy destroyers and 
 a fierce battle took place between them, from which the 
 enemy was finally obliged to retire. 
 
 Hundreds of shells were now flying through the 
 air. The sea, which a few moments before had been 
 perfectly calm, was lashed and churned by the ships 
 steaming at high speed, and in all directions giant 
 fountains, caused by shells bursting in the water, 
 spouted, often as high as the ships' masts. The noise 
 was deafening. One broadside followed another as 
 fast as the gunners could fire. Streaks of flame 
 
156 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 flashed against the sky whenever a shell struck a 
 ship, followed by dense clouds of smoke and showers 
 of dust and white-hot splinters of steel. The various 
 chemicals used in the shells produced smoke of all 
 colors, blue, green, yellow, black, and soon the air was 
 so filled with it that it was impossible to tell one's own 
 ships from the enemy's. 
 
 Now and then a shell penetrated a magazine and a 
 terrific explosion occurred. Sometimes a ship broke 
 completely in two, as did the Queen Mary; some- 
 times, when several shells hit at once, all that 
 was left of a giant cruiser was a floating mass of 
 wreckage. The sea was strewn with wreckage and 
 with men clinging to floating bits of wood, waiting 
 their chances of rescue. In places it also had the 
 appearance of being solid or congealed, because there 
 floated upon the water myriads of fish, killed by the 
 shells. 
 
 All this whirlwind of destruction descended upon 
 the British when the smoke screen lifted and revealed 
 the German High Sea Fleet. The fighting before 
 was as nothing to that which came after. Twenty-six 
 minutes after the battle opened Admiral Beatty dis- 
 covered that he had arrayed against him all the forces 
 of the German navy. Badly outnumbered, he turned 
 north to lead the Germans "into the jaws of the 
 Grand Fleet." It was at the turn where the British 
 cruisers received broadsides from all the German 
 dreadnoughts that most of the tragedies of the battle 
 occurred. Three cruisers went down, the Indefati- 
 
ADMIRAL BEATTY 
 
 157 
 
 gahle, the Queen Mary, and the Invincible. Nearly 
 every British ship was hit. The Lion and the Tiger 
 suffered terribly. Twenty German ships fired upon 
 the Tiger at once and the Lion received almost as 
 many shells. Once it was thought that she had gone 
 down. Her wireless had been shot away and she did 
 not respond to call. But she had not gone down, as 
 the Germans afterwards discovered, for Admiral 
 Beatty was leading them as fast as high-speed ships 
 could travel toward the British Grand Fleet. 
 
 At ^Y^ o'clock the fighting still continued fiercely, 
 and now the weather conditions changed, which added 
 greatly to the Germans' advantage. Clouds of mist 
 began to drift in among the German ships, completely 
 masking them, while the British fleet was plainly out- 
 lined against a clear sky. Three more of Admiral 
 Beatty's ships were put out of action ; with those re- 
 maining, six battle cruisers and four battleships, he 
 fought the entire German navy until Admiral Jelli- 
 coe's dreadnoughts came within range at seven o'clock 
 that evening. At this stage of the battle it is thought 
 that both Zeppelins and German submarines took part, 
 but no one seems to have known for certain. 
 
 As night came on and it grew too dark for the big 
 battleships to fire effectively, the destroyers again took 
 up the battle. Stealing out in the darkness, both the 
 British and the Germans attempted to get near enough 
 to enemy battleships to send their torpedoes crashing 
 into them. They soon discovered each other's pres- 
 ence and fought at close range. The play of gunfire 
 
158 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 on the black sky and water made this one of the most 
 spectacular parts of the battle. Men who saw them 
 say ''there are no finer tales of the sea than the sto- 
 ries of these destroyers/' In all, the British lost 
 twelve, the Germans twenty. 
 
 Speed played a very important part in the battle of 
 Jutland, the speed which Admiral Beatty's cruiser 
 squadron maintained throughout, and the speed with 
 which Admiral Jellicoe's dreadnoughts appeared. 
 The Germans had not expected them quite so soon, or 
 they would probably have withdrawn. Until then, 
 however, they dared not withdraw. Although they 
 greatly outnumbered the British, they had not yet 
 won the battle, and this fact would not appear very 
 well to the people at home. 
 
 It was the appearance of the British Grand Fleet 
 that convinced them it was time to go home, and they 
 slipped away in the darkness and mist. Though the 
 British gave chase that night and the next morning 
 searched every corner of the North Sea, they found 
 no trace of the German fleet. Much to their disap- 
 pointment this was the way the battle ended. 
 
 The Germans had gone home to announce a great 
 naval victory, and this, the first word of the battle of 
 Jutland, was flashed all over the world. 
 
 '' The English Fleet is Beaten " ran the headlines in 
 all the German newspapers, and the Kaiser publicly 
 thanked his sailors for having ''broken England's in- 
 vincibility on the seas." The Germans said they had 
 lost one old battleship that they did not care about any- 
 
ADMIRAL BEATTY 159 
 
 how, four cruisers, and five destroyers, ten ships in all. 
 
 Judged by the losses which Admiral Beatty re- 
 ported, it did look like a German victory. The British 
 people themselves believed at first that they had been 
 defeated. But when official count was taken of the 
 losses on both sides, it was found that Germany's cer- 
 tain losses were 119,200 tons, her probable losses 
 174,000 while Britain's amounted to 113,317 tons. 
 
 " Sir David Beatty once again showed his fine qual- 
 ities of gallant leadership, firm determination, and 
 correct strategic insight," were the first words of 
 Admiral Jellicoe's dispatch concerning the battle of 
 Jutland. His men thought so, too, although they 
 would probably have said he had showed once more 
 how he could fight. As the Lion, homeward bound, 
 steamed past other ships, less speedy or more disabled 
 than herself, the men lined up and sent cheers of 
 '^ Bravo, David," ringing through the air. 
 
 It was the Lion, too, which led into port the scarred 
 and battered fleet, her ensign proudly flying although 
 a part of it had been shot away. The appearance of the 
 ships spoke for what they had been through. Great 
 holes had been torn in them, their armor had been 
 ripped, their funnels smashed, their turrets crumpled 
 and dented. The officers and men were worn out. 
 The strain they had undergone had been almost be- 
 yond endurance and they had not slept for sixty hours. 
 
 On the pier a great crowd had waited all night to 
 greet them. They were chiefly women, wives and 
 mothers of the men of the fleet. Among them was 
 
l6o LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 Lady David Beatty, waiting to learn the fate of her 
 husband. 
 
 As yet, the crowd did not know that the fleet had 
 won a victory, but of one thing they were certain — 
 the splendid tradition of the British navy had been up- 
 held. The ships themselves bore evidence of that, 
 and cheer after cheer went up, as, one after another, 
 they steamed slowly into harbor. 
 
 ''We drew the enemy into the jaws of the fleet," 
 wrote Admiral Beatty of the battle of Jutland. ''I 
 have no regrets except for the lives and pals that have 
 gone, and who died gloriously .... We are ready 
 for the next time. May it come soon." 
 
 Two years later, on the 21st of November, 1918, the 
 rival fleets of Britain and Germany met for the last 
 time. It was the day of the great surrender. From 
 the Firth of Forth on the east coast of Scotland the 
 Grand Fleet moved out to meet the High Sea Fleet and 
 escort it to its final resting place in the Orkney Islands. 
 The first British ship weighed anchor at two in the 
 morning. The last, Admiral Beatty's flagship, the 
 Queen Elizabeth, left the harbor at six. Between two 
 and six Admiral Beatty kept in touch with the entire 
 fleet by wireless. Not a ship changed speed or moved 
 out of line without his permission, for he still feared 
 some trickery on the part of the Germans. Two hun- 
 dred forty ships formed this convoy, and with them 
 went several others, a French cruiser and several de- 
 stroyers, and the five American battleships that had 
 
ADMIRAL BEATTY l6l 
 
 constituted the Sixth Battle Squadron of the Grand 
 Fleet. They moved in one long line, stretching end- 
 lessly seaward, until they approached the meeting 
 place, when they formed a double line to receive the 
 German fleet in their midst. 
 
 There was not a sign of life in all this vast company 
 of gray ships. '' General quarters " was sounded at 
 seven-thirty and the men stood ready for action. 
 They waited only the flashing of a signal to give gun 
 for gun if the enemy should fire upon them. Admiral 
 Beatty meant to take no chances. 
 
 The men worked silently. They did not especially 
 enjoy the mission upon which they had come. They 
 were eager to see the meeting of these two great na- 
 vies, for no occasion had ever brought together such 
 a vast number of ships, and they were eager to take 
 part in an event which they knew would be counted 
 among the greatest of history, but they did not like 
 this kind of surrender. For a navy to give itself up 
 without having fought was not sportsmanship. They 
 felt as if their own profession were being dishonored. 
 
 To the Germans it must have been a monstrous trag- 
 edy, for it marked the end of the sea power of a great 
 nation. The fleet had been their pride for thirty 
 years. The ships were as fine as any of Britain's and 
 they were going to be surrendered. They had become 
 symbols of great power misused. 
 
 The day had started cold and cloudy. Then, al- 
 most with the coming of the sun, the British had their 
 first sight of the fleet for which they had searched four 
 
l62 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 long years. The light cruiser Cardiff, towing a kite 
 balloon, met the enemy and marshaled her prisoners 
 into position. After an old custom of the navy the 
 Cardiff signaled Admiral Beatty on the Queen Eliz- 
 abeth: "Unknown number of unknown ships, steam- 
 ing line ahead." 
 
 First came the German cruiser Seydlitc, a veteran 
 of Jutland. The Friedrich der Crosse, flagship of 
 the fleet, flew for the last time the imperial battle flag, 
 a black cross on a white field. Then followed a line 
 of cruisers, battleships, light cruisers, and destroyers 
 that extended so far across the North Sea that its end 
 could nowhere be seen. 
 
 Slowly they advanced between the British lines, 
 and, as they reached a point even with Admiral 
 Beatty's flagship, the British ships all at once swung 
 round with beautiful precision and began the home- 
 ward journey. 
 
 The Queen Elizabeth now led. From her masthead 
 floated Admiral Beatty's mascot, the powder-black- 
 ened and tattered ensign which the Lion had borne 
 through Jutland battle. Immediately following came 
 the Oak, Admiral Beatty's destroyer. The First 
 Battle Cruiser Squadron was there too, the Lion and 
 the Tiger steaming well ahead. Above, a guard of 
 seaplanes dipped and circled. 
 
 At May Island in the Firth of Forth the enemy fleet 
 dropped anchor for the night. The next day it would 
 be taken to the Orkney Islands. In a great semi-circle 
 lay the British ships which guarded it. And now 
 
ADMIRAL BEATTY 163 
 
 came the very end of a nation's tragedy. Admiral 
 Beatty's order had read : " The German flag will be 
 lowered at smiset and will not be hoisted again without 
 permission." The bugles rang out. The hour of 
 sunset sounded and slowly the ensign of the German 
 Empire fluttered down from the masthead, never to 
 be raised again. There was no cheering on the part 
 of the British. It was not the sort of victory for 
 which one cheers. 
 
 There had been a different scene on Admiral 
 Beatty's flagship. With the first note of the sunset 
 bugle every man had turned and saluted the British 
 flag: then three rousing cheers for the commander-in- 
 chief echoed across the water. Admiral Beatty stood 
 in the ship's stern. He faced his men. ''Thank 
 you," he said simply. Then the men scattered to take 
 up their work, but in the five minutes that had elapsed 
 the great war on the sea had come to an end. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 The River War, Winston Churchill. 
 
 With Kitchener to Khartoum, George W. Steevens. 
 
 China and the Powers, H. C. Thomson. 
 
 Stirring Deeds of Britain's Sea Dogs in the Great War, Harold 
 
 F.' B. Wheeler. 
 The British Navy in the World War, John Leyland. 
 Admiral David Beatty, Kansas City Times, Dec. 30, 1916. 
 Battle of Jutland, Literary Digest, June 24, 1916. 
 Battle of Jutland, Fortnightly Review, Aug., 1916. 
 The Great Battle in the North Sea, John Leyland, Nineteenth 
 
 Century, Aug., 1916. 
 
i64 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 The Great North Sea Battle, Scientific American, June 17, 
 
 1916. 
 Report on Battle of Jutland, Admiral David Beatty. 
 Glimpses of the Jutland Battle, Literary Digest, June 17, 1916. 
 Watching the Great Surrender, F. Perrot, Living Age, Jan. 4, 
 
 1919. 
 
VII. DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 
 
 In the village of Llanystumdwy in Wales lived a 
 cobbler by the name of Richard Lloyd. He lived 
 alone in a small house of two stories with his cob- 
 bler's shop adjoining. He was a quiet man who said 
 very little about what he was going to do, but one 
 day he closed his shop and went on a journey. When 
 he returned he brought with him his widowed sister 
 and her three children. 
 
 The eldest of these, David Lloyd George, was then 
 little more than three years old. He had been born 
 in Manchester, England, but, on account of his 
 father's failing health, the family had moved to a 
 farm in south Wales. There his father had died. A 
 sale of the farm and household goods barely paid the 
 debts and the family would have been homeless and 
 destitute but for the coming of his uncle. 
 
 It was something of a sacrifice for Richard Lloyd 
 to take his sister and her children into his home, for 
 his earnings did not much more than supply his own 
 needs. They would have to live very frugally. There 
 was a small garden back of the house where a few 
 vegetables could be grown. Once or twice a week 
 they managed to afford a little meat, and for a treat 
 the children had each half an Qgg for Sunday morn- 
 
 165 
 
i66 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 ing breakfast. In the kitchen David's mother was 
 always thinking and planning how she could save a 
 six-pence a week. 
 
 The house was a plain workman's cottage of stone. 
 A sign hung over the entrance door on which was 
 painted a boot and the words, " Richard Lloyd, Shoe- 
 maker.'' 
 
 Inside one large room served all the purposes of 
 kitchen and living room. It had a stone floor, a wood 
 ceiling, and a large fireplace, which made it appear 
 very inviting and comfortable. It was always scru- 
 pulously neat. Across the hall was a tiny parlor, 
 used only for company and special occasions. A nar- 
 row wooden stairway led to the bedroom above. 
 Such was the new home to which David Lloyd George 
 had come. 
 
 It was clear from the first that young David was 
 to become either a preacher or a public speaker. He 
 began his career shortly after coming to Llanystum- 
 dwy. Mounting the pulpit, which in those days was 
 the stairs, he preached to a small congregation made 
 up of his brother and his sister. As it proved some- 
 what difficult to hold the attention of his hearers, he 
 used " to thump on the stairs with a stick " in order 
 to drive his points home. 
 
 When he was six he entered the village school. 
 Here he was fortunate in having as headmaster a 
 man of education, who encouraged his liking for 
 study. He was taught reading, writing, and arith- 
 metic, with some geography and history. Though he 
 
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 167 
 
 was far from being a model pupil he was a very clever 
 one. It was easy for him to learn. He had only to 
 read a page once to have it and he never forgot what 
 he learned. 
 
 Three times on Simday and once during the week 
 he went with his uncle to chapel. Richard Lloyd was 
 a Baptist, and as there was no church of that denom- 
 ination in Llanystumdwy, he attended at Criccieth, a 
 town two miles distant. On these walks David used 
 to discdss the sermons he had heard and comment on 
 the way in which the}^ had been presented. He 
 longed for the time to come when he would be old 
 enough to take part in the mid-week meetings. His 
 uncle, pleased at the boy's interest, led him on. He 
 liked to discover his opinions. Above everything, he 
 wanted David to learn to think for himself. 
 
 In spite of school and chapel there was plenty of 
 time for out of doors. The favorite game of the 
 winter months was bandy (hockey) ; in summer it was 
 ball and hide and seek. When the Franco-Prussian 
 war came in 1870, the boys of Llanystumdwy divided 
 themselves into French and Prussians and fought it 
 out. 
 
 Another amusement in which they engaged was 
 continually getting them into trouble, for legally it 
 was a crime. This was poaching. The little river 
 that ran through the village was filled with trout and 
 salmon, but fishing was forbidden by the rich people 
 living on the estates, who had stocked the river for 
 their own pleasure, as they had also stocked the woods 
 
l68 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 with game. Though they employed many keepers to 
 guard their pleasure grounds, it was perfectly well 
 known that some of the villagers occasionally enjoyed 
 a supper of trout or hare. 
 
 Probably David was not one of the boys who 
 poached. His uncle would hardly have permitted 
 that, but the fact that he might not fish in the river 
 that ran through his own village made a strong im- 
 pression on his mind. 
 
 Following the stream into the country beyond, he 
 came upon another condition that seemed to him very 
 unfair. Here were the large estates of the gentry, 
 with their parks and meadows and woodlands, and 
 right next to them the small stony farms of the peas- 
 antry, which hardly yielded a living. It was these 
 conditions, together with the simple life of the vil- 
 lage, that fixed from his earliest youth David's cham- 
 pionship of the poor. 
 
 When he was ten years old, his uncle thought that 
 it was time some decision was taken regarding his 
 career, since, without money or education, a boy 
 could hardly expect to become anything more than a 
 day laborer. The decision was a difficult one, for 
 Richard Lloyd saw only one way of giving the boy 
 an education. That was to take the little sum he had 
 put by for old age. If David succeeded, well and 
 good, but if he failed, the family could only look for- 
 ward to poverty more severe than they had ever 
 known. 
 
 Finally it was settled that David should become a 
 
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 169 
 
 lawyer. But even when this decision was reached 
 the means had still to be provided, for there was not 
 enough money to pay for a lawyer's education. Then 
 Richard Lloyd hit upon a plan. He would teach the 
 boy French and Latin himself. He did not know the 
 languages and had not much time for learning them, 
 but he set about his task cheerfully, puzzling over 
 Latin declensions and French verbs by a little oil 
 lamp in his shop at night. 
 
 Not every evening, however, went to the study of 
 foreign languages. Once or twice a week a few of 
 the neighbors would drop in to talk over affairs in the 
 village while the cobbler worked. All sorts of things 
 would come up for discussion, but there were two 
 topics that were debated more often and more warmly 
 than any others. These were religion and politics. 
 
 Most of the people in the village were nonconform- 
 ists; that is, they belonged to some other denomina- 
 tion than the Church of England. Nevertheless, 
 they were taxed for its support and for the support 
 of its schools, and were obliged to send their children 
 to a church school since there was no other. They 
 objected very strongly to this and were always dis- 
 cussing ways by which the church might be separated 
 from the state. 
 
 While these discussions were going on, David, hav- 
 ing come in unobserved, would sit quietly in some cor- 
 ner, listening eagerly to everything that was said. 
 And afterwards he would think about it. As he grew 
 older he began to form opinions of his own and to 
 
lyo LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 enter into the talk. One evening, when he was only 
 fourteen, he engaged in a debate with the village 
 blacksmith. 
 
 " Do you know," said the blacksmith to Richard 
 Lloyd the next day, " I really had to turn my serious 
 attention to David last evening, or he would have got 
 the best of me." 
 
 Perhaps David was only trying himself out, for it 
 was about this time that he went up to Liverpool to 
 take his examinations, preparatory to studying law. 
 The examinations lasted a week. Then he returned 
 home to await results. He had said nothing to any- 
 one about his plans for fear that he might fail, but 
 one day a letter came, inclosing his certificate, and 
 there were many congratulations when it became 
 known that David Lloyd George was now an appren- 
 tice at law. 
 
 His certificate permitted him to enter an ofiice as 
 a clerk, and his uncle found him a position with a law 
 firm in the neighboring town of Portmadoc. He was 
 doing a great deal of reading at this time, not only 
 law^ but history and plays, particularly the plays of 
 Shakespere. He also taught himself shorthand. 
 
 But his chief interest was politics. He was old 
 enough now to understand some of the conditions 
 with w^hich he had been familiar all his life. He saw^ 
 that much of the land belonging to the aristocracy 
 was unproductive, given over to parks and game pre- 
 serves, while the Welsh farmers had not enough to 
 provide themselves with a living and could not buy 
 more. 
 
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 171 
 
 Poaching was a crime, but the punishment was 
 greater than the offense deserved. A man might beat 
 his children and go free, but let him be caught fishing 
 in private waters and he would be fined, or jailed, or 
 both. Clearly there was one law for the rich and 
 another for the poor. 
 
 David had read history and he knew something of 
 feudalism. Here was feudalism at his very door, for 
 these estates and the power that went with them had 
 been handed down since the Middle Ages from father 
 to son. He also learned that this condition of things 
 existed all over the British Isles except in Ireland, 
 as it does to-day, and he began to plan ways by which 
 it could be changed. 
 
 It was his uncle, Richard Lloyd, who influenced him 
 most in this. His uncle was a thinker and a man of 
 conviction. In politics he belonged to the Liberal 
 party, or progressive faction, which was opposed to 
 the Conservative party, controlled by the lords. 
 Once a few of the townspeople, more bold than the 
 rest, voted with the Liberals at a village election and 
 were promptly turned out of their cottages by the 
 owner, who was a lord and a Conservative. Richard 
 Lloyd, however, owned his cottage and earned his 
 living independently of any lord, and he alone of all 
 the villagers continued to vote the Liberal ticket. 
 
 David was proud of his strong unyielding uncle. 
 Like him he became a rebel against the power of the 
 rich. That one man could bend another to his will by 
 the use of money aroused the strongest feelings he 
 
172 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 had. He was one of the poor and he knew how they 
 Hved. Life was hard enough without the burden of 
 oppression. He was not yet seventeen, but already 
 the cause of the poor had begun to shape his career. 
 It was to become the work of his whole life. 
 
 The next year he went to London for the first time 
 and, among other places of interest, he visited the 
 Houses of Parliament. Apparently he did not think 
 much of them, for afterwards he wrote in his journal : 
 '' Went to Houses of Parliament. Very much disap- 
 pointed with them. Grand buildings outside, but 
 inside they are crabbed, small, and suffocating, espe- 
 cially the House of Commons. I will not say but that 
 I eyed the assembly in a spirit similar to that in which 
 William the Conqueror eyed England on his first visit 
 to Edward the Confessor, as the region of his future 
 domain. Oh, vanity ! " 
 
 In view of the fact that he was only a country boy 
 with no prospects whatever, his ambition appears 
 rather amazing, yet it could not have seemed so to 
 him, for his confidence in himself at this time was 
 quite equal to his imagination. Moreover, he had 
 been reading political pamphlets for years and some 
 time before there had appeared in the North Wales 
 Express several political articles over the signature of 
 " Brutus," but written by an ambitious young law 
 clerk named David Lloyd George. 
 
 He also belonged to the Portmadoc Debating So- 
 ciety and through his public discussions of such ques- 
 tions as the Irish land laws, free trade, and trade 
 
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 173 
 
 unionism he had become known throughout the local- 
 ity. One of the local papers published some verses 
 ridiculing his " thirst for renown." He commented 
 on the verses in this fashion: '' Perhaps ( ?) it will be 
 gratified. I believe it depends entirely on what forces 
 of pluck and industry I can muster.'' 
 
 At the age of twenty-one he went to London for his 
 final examination in law. The family, meanwhile, 
 had moved to Criccieth, and here the news reached 
 them that David had passed " with honors." One 
 more obstacle, however, remained in his way. He 
 had not the fifteen dollars necessary to purchase a 
 gown, without which he could not appear in court, 
 and he was obliged to go into an office and work for 
 a time. But, a few weeks later, a brass plate ap- 
 peared on the door of the cottage at Criccieth, bear- 
 ing the name " David Lloyd George, Solicitor," and 
 in the back parlor, which had been turned into an 
 office, the young lawyer awaited his first client. 
 
 From the very first it was clear that he meant to 
 fight the influence of wealth and class. He always 
 took a case that he believed to be right, even though 
 the odds were overwhelmingly against him. If the 
 local magistrates were too much influenced by wealthy 
 landowners to give a fair judgment he took his cause 
 to a higher court. 
 
 One of his first cases was of this kind. An old 
 laborer had died and had expressed the wish to be 
 buried beside his daughter in the cemetery of the 
 Church of England. The old man being a non- 
 
174 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 conformist, the rector had refused to allow the 
 burial to take place unless the services of the Eng- 
 lish Church were read. Otherwise, they must bury 
 the man in the plot allotted to unknown persons 
 and suicides. This so outraged the laborer's friends 
 that they appealed to Lloyd George for advice. 
 He looked up the law of the matter and gave his 
 judgment. 
 
 '' Should the vicar refuse to open the gates," he 
 said, " then break down the wall which your subscrip- 
 tions have built, force your way into the churchyard, 
 and bury the old man beside his daughter." 
 
 The villagers took his advice, broke down the gates, 
 buried the old man, and the church authorities brought 
 suit against them. The case was finally taken before 
 the Chief Justice of England, who gave a decision in 
 favor of Lloyd George. It was such an unusual case 
 that it brought the name of the young lawyer into 
 notice, not only throughout Wales, but in England. 
 Probably it was directly due to this that he was nom- 
 inated the Liberal candidate of his district for Par- 
 liament at the next election. 
 
 The district which he was to represent was con- 
 servative and nothing could have appeared more hope- 
 less than the possibility of winning that election. He 
 had not even the assurance that the poor would vote 
 for him, for many of them lived on the great estates 
 and dared not vote for a Liberal candidate. 
 
 As for the rich and educated classes, they hated 
 him. To them he was uncultured, lacking in man- 
 
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 175 
 
 ners, and insolently bold in the things he said. This 
 was partly true. In his speeches he called the land- 
 owners abusive names, not from personal feeling, 
 but because he was working for a great cause and did 
 not hesitate to use any means that would gain his 
 end. His speeches shocked everybody, rich and poor 
 alike, woke them to a realization of existing condi- 
 tions, and that was exactly w^hat he wanted. It was 
 a bitter fight which lasted two years, but Lloyd George 
 won the election by a few votes and took his seat in 
 the House of Commons on April 17, 1890. He was 
 then just twenty-seven years old. 
 
 In the House of Commons he was like a freshman 
 at college. His surroundings were unfamiliar and 
 he did not know how the business of government was 
 conducted, so he quietly listened to the discussions of 
 other members and observed their manner of doing 
 things. Meanwhile he formed his opinions and laid 
 his plans. Of one thing he was certain. He was not 
 in Parliament in the interest of any party, but in the 
 larger interests of Wales and democracy. 
 
 Then little by little he let himself be known. He 
 made a few speeches. Some of them were accepted 
 with approval, others were frankly laughed at. But 
 he was indifferent either to ridicule or criticism, and 
 to the amazement of the House, which expected that 
 new members would take no part in debate, he would 
 not keep still. He had set his goal and he meant to 
 reach it by the straightest road. It proved a straight 
 road but a long one, for it was sixteen years after he 
 
176 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 took his seat in Parliament before his first great op- 
 portunity came. This was in 1906. 
 
 That year he was appointed President of the Board 
 of Trade, a cabinet position similar to that of the 
 American Secretary of Commerce. The position was 
 not considered of first importance, but it was charac- 
 teristic of Lloyd George that anything he undertook 
 he made of first importance. It was not long until the 
 British public learned that a department which had 
 been dead had suddenly become alive and exceedingly 
 useful. New and efiicient business methods were in- 
 troduced, many changes were made. If the govern- 
 ment disapproved of his measures he fought for them 
 as hard as he had fought for the Welsh villagers who 
 buried the old laborer in the graveyard of the Church 
 of England. 
 
 A principle for which he stood most staunchly was 
 that of free trade, which means no tariff on goods 
 imported from other countries. Bitterly opposed to 
 free trade were the Conservatives, and one day Lloyd 
 George made them a speech. It was a typical speech 
 and shows the way he sometimes went for members 
 of the opposition. 
 
 '' ' I have been challenged,' he said,^ ' with regard 
 to statements as to the food of the poorer people of 
 Germany, and I am going to give now, not my opinion, 
 but some hard facts.' He held up a blue book. 
 
 'This volume is the last annual report of the con- 
 sul-general in Germany. The facts which I shall 
 
 1 Lloyd George. Frank Dilnot. 
 
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 177 
 
 quote are his facts, not mine. If you will not take my 
 word you will at any rate be able to take his.' He 
 turned to a marked page. ' Let us see what he says 
 about a typical center, the city of Chemnitz. Here 
 are some interesting figures as to what the poorer 
 class eat in the tariff-reform paradise of Chemnitz.' 
 
 ' This report states that in Chemnitz last year there 
 were sold in shops two thousand tons of horse flesh. 
 These are not my figures, mind, but those of the 
 consul-general. I commend the figures to the ex- 
 cited members opposite. But horse flesh is not the 
 only thing the people, through pressure of tariff re- 
 form, are compelled to eat in Chemnitz. They even 
 eat dog meat.' (Here there were cheers from the 
 Liberals and derisive shouts from the Conservatives.) 
 ' The consul-general states that one thousand tons of 
 dog meat were consumed in Chemnitz last year.' 
 (More shouting from both sides.) 'But there is 
 even worse to come.' Lloyd George's voice w^as 
 grave and the House hushed itself to listen. 
 
 ' Not only horse flesh, not only dog meat, but five 
 hundred tons of donkey flesh were sold in Chemnitz 
 last year.' He swung his finger along the line of the 
 opposition leaders and paused. 'The fact has a 
 tragic significance for right honorable gentlemen who 
 want to introduce tariff reform into this country.' " 
 
 In 1908 Lloyd George was appointed Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer. The office, next to that of the Prime 
 Minister, is the highest in England. It is the duty 
 of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to determine how 
 
178 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 the people shall be taxed to meet the expenses of gov- 
 ernment. The estimate of taxes which he makes is 
 called the budget. 
 
 When it became known that Lloyd George had been 
 appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer and would 
 frame the budget, there was great excitement and 
 alarm among the upper classes, for everyone knew 
 his opinions in regard to the needs of the poor. They 
 did not know what he would do, but they were certain 
 that he would tax them higher than they had ever 
 been taxed before. 
 
 At this time perhaps no country in the world pre- 
 sented a greater contrast between rich and poor than 
 England. The wealthy owned not only great es- 
 tates made up of rich farms, fine woodlands, and pri- 
 vate parks, but whole villages and immense areas of 
 valuable property in the heart of large cities. If fac- 
 tories, mines, and railroads be added, it will be seen 
 that they owned practically everything that produced 
 wealth. They lived in houses so large that great 
 numbers of servants were required to meet the needs 
 of a small family. Lloyd George, in one of his 
 speeches, told how many strong men were employed 
 in serving a boiled egg to " his lordship " in the morn- 
 ing, and it made the rich man appear so ridiculous 
 that thereafter people only laughed when he tried to 
 explain that all this luxury was really necessary. 
 
 On the other hand, in the poorer districts of Lon- 
 don and other cities thousands of people had not 
 enough to eat. If one were to go to London's East 
 
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 179 
 
 End on a Sunday morning, he might see the people of 
 the slums buying decayed vegetables that had been 
 left on the hands of merchants on Saturday night, 
 tearing them into shreds and eating them raw, like 
 so many hungry animals. Was it their fault that 
 they were so poor? Sometimes it was, but more 
 often it was the fault of laws and customs that had 
 been handed down from the days when the rich were 
 masters and the poor were slaves. 
 
 These wTre the conditions which Lloyd George 
 determined to change. There were few people, he 
 said, who, having powxr either of money or position, 
 knew how to use it wisely. They were not too greatly 
 concerned about the health or happiness of the work- 
 ing population as long as they could make more money 
 by disregarding these things. Consequently many of 
 the poor gave their lives only that the rich might grow 
 richer. Of course he did not consider all rich people 
 in this class. Some w^ere spending large sums of 
 money for the improvement of the farmers and work- 
 ers, but the temptation not to do so was very great. The 
 necessary remedy for this was a change in the laws 
 of England. 
 
 For any bill to become a law in England it must 
 receive the majority vote of the House of Commons, 
 and the House of Lords, and be passed on by the 
 King. The members of the House of Commons are 
 elected by the people, but membership in the House 
 of Lords descends from father to son and carries with 
 it the enormous power of the aristocracy. Lest too 
 
i8o LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 much power fall into the hands of the lords, the con- 
 stitution of England provides that the House of 
 Lords cannot change any bill sent up from the House 
 of Commons which has to do with money. 
 
 Now see what Lloyd George's scheme was. In 
 order to force the lords to pass his bill for the bet- 
 terment of the poor — a bill which struck at the very 
 roots of their own interests — he wrote all of the 
 proposed new laws into the budget, or money bill. 
 It was a plan more daring than any of which his 
 bitterest enemies had dreamed. 
 
 On the day that the Chancellor was to read his 
 budget, people began to arrive at the House of Com- 
 mons early. All England was expectant. Lloyd 
 George had such a surprising way of doing things that 
 one could never tell what would happen. The great hall 
 in w^hich the House of Commons holds session was 
 quickly filled to its capacity. Members overflowed 
 the seats and were obliged to stand or sit on the steps 
 of the speaker's platform. In the galleries were for- 
 eign ambassadors, lords and ladies of title, officers, 
 reporters, representatives of labor unions, families 
 of the members of the House, everybody, in fact, who 
 could get in. 
 
 A hush fell upon the assembly when the Prime Min- 
 ister announced the Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 As Lloyd George began to read, he appeared pale and 
 nervous, for he, better than anyone, understood what 
 a great step forward he was taking, not only in the 
 government of England, but in the cause of democ- 
 
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE i8i 
 
 racy everywhere throughout the world. He also 
 knew that, though the majority of the House of Com- 
 mons was with him, the most powerful class in Eng- 
 land was against him, and it was of this class that 
 he was to make his demands. One can imagine that 
 it took a great deal of courage to tell them what he 
 meant to do. 
 
 He read on — tax after tax he imposed on the rich. 
 From the mines they owned to the gasoline used in 
 their motor cars he levied a graduated scale of taxes 
 w^hich included all luxuries and which fell heaviest 
 on those w^hose wealth came without effort. 
 
 " The primary duty of a rich nation," said Lloyd 
 George, " is to help the down-trodden." But the plan 
 he had in mind in asking for so much money was 
 something even greater than this. It was nothing 
 less than to create a new race of people, a healthy and 
 efficient people. " The Empire depends for its 
 strength, its glory, nay for its very existence upon 
 the efficiency of its people," was the way he put it. 
 And the new measures of taxation were only a start 
 toward this end. 
 
 Of course the rich rose in protest against him. 
 There followed such a bitter fight as there had not 
 been in the history of politics for centuries. Through 
 long stormy sessions of the House of Commons which 
 sometimes lasted all night, Lloyd George debated with 
 his opponents. And in the morning he would go from 
 the House of Commons to his office to meet with com- 
 mittees and organize his plans for carrying on the 
 
1 82 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 fight. He hardly slept or rested. Day after day, and 
 week after week, he fought on, and when, finally, the 
 budget was sent up to the House of Lords, only a few 
 hours were required to wipe out all that he had accom- 
 plished. The lords refused to accept the budget, 
 although to do so was breaking the custom of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 In rejecting the budget, however, the lords had 
 failed to consider one thing, that is that Lloyd George 
 never knew when he was beaten. He wasted no re- 
 grets over his defeat but set to work immediately to 
 make new plans for winning Parliament's support. 
 And this time it was to be a final battle, for what 
 Lloyd George proposed to do was to break the power 
 of the lords forever, so that such a defeat could 
 never happen again. His plan was so bold that no 
 one believed he could ever carry it out, and certainly 
 he could not have done so without the help of Mr. 
 Asquith, the prime minister, and the King. Both be- 
 lieved with Lloyd George in the necessity of bettering 
 the condition of the working people, and the amazing 
 plan which Lloyd George now laid before them was 
 that the King should create five hundred new lords 
 from the Liberal party who would vote for the budget. 
 The King agreed to do this, but in the end it was 
 unnecessary, for the lords, rather than share their 
 titles with a " made aristocracy," agreed to accept the 
 budget. 
 
 Since the budget was passed in 1910 Lloyd George 
 has carried through several other bills of immeas- 
 
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 183 
 
 urable benefit to the poor. One is the Workingman's 
 Insurance Bill. This is an arrangement whereby 
 each man pays eight cents a week out of his wages, 
 his employer six, the government four, and the whole 
 sum is invested to yield interest which guarantees 
 him care in the case of illness or accident. It pro- 
 vides not only for free medical attendance but for 
 a wage of $2.50 a week for a period of twenty-six 
 weeks. If the trouble is incurable the government 
 pays him $1.25 a week until he is seventy, when he is 
 entitled to the benefit of the pension bill for old people. 
 Every person in England, not capable of self-support, 
 receives $1.25 on his seventieth birthday and each 
 week thereafter as long as he lives. 
 
 When the pension bill first went into effect, a group 
 of old people were overheard talking outside the post 
 office of a small town in England. They had come, 
 some of them, from quite a distance, and had gath- 
 ered near the post office because they had heard that 
 the money was to be paid out there. Instead of going 
 in to receive their pensions, however, they waited in 
 the street, puzzling over the announcement. It was 
 like a dream. They would tell each other over and 
 over what things they needed and the little comforts 
 they would buy; then they would shake their heads 
 and say, '' No, it can't be true." Still nobody would 
 go inside. But after a time one old man, thinking he 
 would put an end to the uncertainty, boldly stepped 
 into the office. The others waited breathlessly and 
 in a few minutes he returned, holding five bright 
 
1 84 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 coins in his hand. Then there was a rush for the 
 door. 
 
 Not far from Lloyd George's residence in London 
 is St. James Park. If you were to go there early 
 some morning you would probably see him walking- 
 hand in hand with his small daughter Megan. Rarely 
 do they miss their morning walk, for Megan's great 
 delight is St. James Lake with its famous water-fowl. 
 
 Evening brings Megan and her father together 
 again. Perhaps she will sit down at the piano and 
 play some popular air, and Lloyd George will join in 
 the song. He is particularly fond of American negro 
 melodies. Also a great deal of teasing goes on be- 
 tween these two. Megan tells him that the affairs of 
 government are a nuisance and he threatens that his 
 next bill will be one to reduce school holidays to two 
 weeks. 
 
 Lloyd George's family, in addition to Megan, con- 
 sists of Mrs. Lloyd George, who shares equally her 
 husband's interest in the poor, an older daughter, and 
 two sons, both of whom served in France. Another 
 person who has become a member of the household 
 in recent years is the old uncle, Richard Lloyd, now 
 nearly ninety. 
 
 Down in Wales, less than a mile from the village 
 where Lloyd George grew up, he has built his home, 
 and it is to this place that he retires when in need of 
 rest or a vacation. Sometimes he runs down just 
 for the week end. A day spent sitting on the ve- 
 
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 185 
 
 randa, which overlooks the sea, or tramping through 
 the woods completely refreshes him when tired by 
 weeks of exacting work. 
 
 If it is a real vacation of a month or so, he will 
 take Mrs. Lloyd George or one of the sons or even 
 the whole family and go up into the mountains to 
 camp. He is very fond of Welsh scenery and will 
 pitch his tent on some wild, bleak moor, where he can 
 enjoy a view of snow mountains, lakes, and forests. 
 
 In August, 1914, when England entered the war, 
 Lloyd George was still Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 The Boer War, some years before, had made him a 
 bitter opponent of all wars ; therefore the question of 
 what he would do became of first importance. For 
 ■ more than a week he was silent. Then he came be- 
 fore the public with these words: ''There is no man 
 who has ahvays regarded the prospect of engaging in 
 a great war with greater reluctance and greater re- 
 pugnance than I have done through all my political 
 life. There is no man m.ore convinced that we could 
 not have avoided it without national dishonor." And 
 after that speech there was no other man in England 
 who supported the war with so much vigor and 
 strength of purpose. 
 
 Everyone knows from America's experience how 
 great are the money problems of a great war. In 
 England they were even greater, and the bankers, 
 who knew what vigorous methods Lloyd George 
 sometimes used, were afraid lest he should upset the 
 
i86 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 whole financial system. But instead he sent word 
 to the bankers to come to see him. " I want the 
 assistance of the best brains of expert people. I want 
 you to give me your help as to the best way of putting 
 things straight. I require your help at once. Will 
 you come immediately to my office? " 
 
 When he had all the facts before him he began to 
 shape his plans. One of the most striking qualities 
 of Lloyd George's mind is his ability to see future 
 needs, and once he sees, to act with promptness and 
 courage. This is the method by which he worked 
 throughout the war, and always he managed to bring 
 order out of confusion. 
 
 The money problems solved, he turned his atten- 
 tion to munitions. He saw that the English army 
 was not getting enough of the right kind of shells. 
 The trouble was with the organization for handling 
 munitions and immediately he thought of a better 
 way. He had to fight, as usual, to get the govern- 
 ment to accept his method, but finally he was made 
 Minister of Munitions. 
 
 Then things began to happen. Whole towns 
 sprang up almost over night. Women went into the 
 factories by the hundreds of thousands, relieving the 
 men for war. They worked in shifts of eight hours 
 each, so that the manufacture of munitions never 
 ceased day or night. Factories that formerly had 
 made machinery were now converted into munition 
 factories. Railroads, ships, and automobiles were 
 organized into one great transportation system for 
 
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 187 
 
 bringing raw materials to the factories and for send- 
 ing an endless stream of munitions to France. 
 
 With this tremendous increase in manufacturing 
 came many difficult labor problems. There was gen- 
 eral dissatisfaction among the workers, which often 
 ended in serious strikes. Lloyd George recognized 
 the justice of this dissatisfaction and made the gov- 
 ernment see that, in order to guard the health and 
 efficiency of its workers, enormous sums of money 
 must be spent for better homes and factories. On 
 the other hand he told the workers that, inasmuch as 
 the soldiers could not choose the conditions under 
 which they would fight, neither could the workers in 
 such an emergency choose the conditions of work, 
 and England expected of them the same loyalty to 
 the cause. 
 
 With the death of Lord Kitchener Lloyd George 
 became Minister of War. Kitchener had asked for 
 great armies and, though England had been amazed 
 at the largeness of the order, she had responded loy- 
 ally. More than a million young men had volun- 
 teered. Now came Lloyd George demanding still 
 larger and larger armies, and what was hardest of all 
 for England to accept, conscription. He gave them 
 a little time to think it over and set to work, mean- 
 while, to learn everything he could about the war. 
 
 The story of how he learned the very complex 
 mechanism of shells shows how he went after a thing 
 he wanted to know. One day he sent for the muni- 
 tion experts to come to his office and explain shells. 
 
1 88 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 They spent the entire morning with him. Point by- 
 point they went over the mechanism and when by 
 noon Lloyd George had not mastered it, he invited 
 the men to lunch. The conversation at luncheon was 
 about shells and after luncheon they returned to the 
 office once more to talk shells. Tea time came and 
 still Lloyd George insisted on talking shells. The 
 men grew tired and restless but he held them. It was 
 night before he let them go and, though he had accom- 
 plished nothing else that day, he knew shells from 
 beginning to end. 
 
 It has always been the custom for a member of 
 England's cabinet to attend only to the affairs of his 
 department and leave other departments alone, but 
 the time came when Lloyd George was not content 
 to do this. Everywhere he saw opportunities for 
 improving the organization and speeding up the war. 
 Greater speed was his constant demand. 
 
 He felt that the important questions of war were 
 decided upon by too many people and that this fact 
 chiefly explained the slowness of the government to 
 act. He recommended that all such decisions be 
 placed in the hands of not more than six men. Like 
 most of his recommendations this was another of 
 those startling changes to which the British people 
 had not, even yet, become accustomed. It aroused 
 so much opposition that it led finally to the resignation 
 of the Prime Minister. It was then that Lloyd George 
 stepped into the highest office of the British Empire. 
 
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 189 
 
 The London residence of Lloyd George is No. 11 
 Downing Street. It is an old dingy building which 
 has served for a century or more as the official resi- 
 dence of the Prime Minister of England. Next door, 
 at No. 10, is the Foreign Office. A connecting pas- 
 sage makes the two buildings practically one. 
 
 Lloyd George is up every morning at seven o'clock. 
 Almost the first thing he looks through a packet of 
 papers and documents relating to the business of the 
 day. Usually they are papers which he has brought 
 to his room the night before in order to have them 
 at his bedside should he waken in the night. Then 
 he takes a quick glance at the morning papers, not 
 only London papers, but those from other English 
 cities and from European capitals. 
 
 Soon visitors begin to arrive. Breakfast, which 
 is at 9.10, is rarely an affair of the family alone. 
 There are always guests, as there are also guests for 
 dinner and luncheon. In this way Lloyd George in- 
 terviews many people he w^ould not otherwise have 
 time to see. Many problems having to do with the 
 country's welfare are settled at his breakfast or 
 luncheon table. 
 
 By ten o'clock he is ready to begin the day's work. 
 He has three secretaries, who answer his correspond- 
 ence, supply him with whatever material he desires 
 for his conferences, and who look after the endless 
 details of government business to which he cannot 
 o-ive his time. When he was Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer he received on an average a thousand letters 
 
igo LK\DERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 a day. Xow he probably receives three or four times 
 that many. 
 
 He rarely answers a letter and is known among his 
 associates as the ** Great Unanswered." He says that 
 letters answer themselves if one gives them time. 
 Sometimes people have tried to get a reply from him by 
 inclosing two stamped and addressed envelopes, one 
 bearinof the word ** ves," the other *' no." The effort 
 usually proves unsuccessful for quite likeh* he will 
 return both of them. 
 
 During the war Lloyd George held cabinet meet- 
 ings almost every day. beginning at 11.30 in the morn- 
 ing and lasting until 1.45 in the afternoon. They 
 were probably unlike any other cabinet meetings that 
 Downing Street had known, for the cabinet seldom 
 met alone. Experts of every kind were invited in to 
 furnish the best available knowledge upon which to 
 base the decisions of state. The cabinet also em- 
 ployed a large staff of secretaries, each having charge 
 of a special department, such as labor, health, or 
 schools. 
 
 The room in which the cabinet meets is stately and 
 dignified in appearance; it is furnished simply with a 
 long table, a desk, and twenty or more chairs. The 
 walls are covered with maps. Its only brightness is 
 the fire burning on the open hearth. 
 
 Lloyd George sits at the center of the table, where 
 he can easily talk with all the members. The meet- 
 ings are informal, for the Prime ^Minister dislikes 
 both stateliness and red tape. He likes to get at the 
 
DAMD LLOYD GEORGE 191 
 
 point of subject as quickly as possible in order to 
 finish with the business at hand and get on to some- 
 thing else. 
 
 Before Lloyd George moved in, Xo. 10 Downing 
 Street had the quiet, dignified air that has always 
 belonged to Britain's Foreign Ofhce. But now every- 
 thing is business and movement. People are coming 
 and going all day. The secretaries are kept busy 
 early and late and Lloyd George himself works hard- 
 est of all. 
 
 At 2.45 in the afternoon the Parliament assembles, 
 when he either attends the session or shifts his con- 
 ference to the Parliament building. From that time 
 until the houses adjourn, which is often at a very late 
 hour of the night, he is constantly busy, interviewing 
 members and working to carry out his plans. 
 
 When Lloyd George became Premier, a storm of 
 protest swept political England. 
 
 " A cobbler's nephew! '' cried his enemies, "a man 
 from the Welsh hills, without training in history or 
 statesmanship, the Prime Minister of England ! What 
 is England coming to? " 
 
 They failed to see what it was that had made him 
 Prime ^Minister of England. They forgot that there 
 is always a close relation between great men and the 
 age in which they live. Lloyd George is a man who 
 believes in government by the people and he lives in a 
 democratic age. 
 
 For centuries the aristocracy, the people of wealth 
 and large possessions, have been the governing class. 
 
192 
 
 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 David Lloyd George 
 
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 193 
 
 But little by little the working people have been ac- 
 quiring power, until the war has suddenly brought the 
 conflict to an issue. In England, in Germany, in 
 Russia, in America, it is the question uppermost in 
 men's minds. For whom shall a government exist, 
 for the privileged classes whether they be rich or poor, 
 or for all the people? 
 
 Before there can be a government for all the 
 people many bad systems that now exist must be 
 changea and the war has made people see that they 
 must be changed. What Lloyd George hopes is that 
 everywhere in the w^orld enough people will see the 
 need for reform ''to make it impossible for govern- 
 ments not to do so." 
 
 And how is this change to be brought about? In 
 three ways, says Lloyd George. First, people must 
 see things as they are. Secondly, each person must 
 feel himself responsible for the conditions that exist. 
 And lastly, each must be prepared to sacrifice some- 
 thing in the larger interests of the community or the 
 nation, for democracy means the service of mankind, 
 whether that service be given in school, at work, or 
 on the battlefield. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 Lloyd George, Frank Dilnot. 
 
 David Lloyd George, Herbert du Parcq. 
 
 Lloyd George, an Intimate Study, Isaac F. Marcosson, Every- 
 body's, Jan., 1917. 
 
 Lloyd George at Work and at Play, Review of Reviews, Nov., 
 1913. 
 
194 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 Some English Statesmen, Sydney Brooks. McClure's, June, 
 
 1911. 
 Lloxd George's England, Clarence Poe, World's Work, Nov., 
 
 " 1912. 
 Llo\d George on the Chureh and Poverty Problem, London 
 
 Quarterly Review, April, 1912. 
 No. To Dozening Street, Outlook, April 24, 1918. 
 Lloxd George's Big Program for Social Reform, Literary 
 'Digest, Jan. 11, 1919. 
 
VIII. GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 
 
 He is called the Tiger, this "young man" of sev- 
 enty-eight years who is now the Prime Minister of 
 France. He has " torn, clawed, and bitten his way 
 to power," people say. Armed with his principles of 
 liberty and justice, he has spared no one. He has 
 made and unmade careers. His enemies fear him; 
 the people love him, for they know that he fights 
 always for the happiness of his fellow men and for 
 France. 
 
 He was born in 1841 in a small village in that part 
 of western France called Vendee. It was a typical 
 French village of low plastered houses set in the 
 midst of a pleasant farming country. The father of 
 Georges Clemenceau was the village doctor. He was 
 a stern, harsh man who often made fun of the rough 
 manners of the peasants among whom he practiced, 
 but who rarely charged them anything for his services 
 and constantly sought ways to improve their condi- 
 tion. Living at a time when France was an empire, 
 he believed in a republican form of government, loved 
 liberty, and hated injustice. Not infrequently his 
 ideas came into conflict with the government, and once 
 he w^as imprisoned. 
 
 He was a landowner as well as a doctor, and the 
 second home of the Clemenceaus was the Chateau de 
 
 195 
 
196 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 I'Aubraie, also in the region of Vendee. It was a 
 bleak, gloomy castle of stone, surrounded by a moat 
 filled with muddy water. One of the towers dated 
 from the sixteenth century and the drawbridge was 
 at least two hundred years old. 
 
 Here Georges Clemenceau passed his boyhood. In 
 daily contact with his father, he grew up to share his 
 way of thinking. Afterwards, when as a man he 
 returned to the Chateau de I'Aubraie to visit his 
 father, the two were often seen walking through the 
 lanes or across the fields in earnest discussion of some 
 problem having to do with government or with bet- 
 tering the lot of men. 
 
 Georges was the second of six children. The name 
 which he had inherited in itself indicated the stern 
 qualities of the family of Clemenceau. The word 
 "clement" in French means ''mild" or ''gentle," 
 and the name Clemenceau is said to have been derived 
 from the phrase, " le peu clement," " the least mild," 
 that is, " harsh " or " unmerciful." Unmerciful the 
 Clemenceaus were, but only toward wrong and in- 
 justice. 
 
 In time the family moved to Nantes, where 
 Georges's mother helped him to prepare for the lycee, 
 or high school. At the lycee he was not an excep- 
 tional student, though he was considered a promising 
 young orator. He learned languages easily, how- 
 ever, and mastered English in an unusually short time 
 because he was so eager to read Robinson Crusoe. 
 After finishing at the lycee he took up the study of 
 
GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 197 
 
 medicine, first in Nantes, then in Paris. For three 
 hundred years the Clemenceaus had been doctors and 
 it was taken as a matter of course that Georges would 
 follow in the profession. 
 
 Determined to get ahead as rapidly as possible, he 
 worked very hard for a time, studying in the libraries 
 and serving as an interne in the Paris hospitals. But 
 after a few months he discovered that he was becom- 
 ing more interested in politics than in medicine. 
 
 With the impatience of a youth of nineteen, he 
 rebelled at the conditions he found in Paris. It was 
 a dirty, ill-smelling city. The quarters in which the 
 working classes lived, especially, were dark, crowded, 
 and unhealthful. The government was at fault, he 
 reasoned, and the government was an empire. 
 Trained as he had been from boyhood, he believed 
 that the only remedy was the reestablishment of the 
 Republic. In this he was not alone. He found that 
 a political organization for that purpose already ex- 
 isted, its members being chiefly students like himself, 
 and he threw in his lot with the radicals. He made 
 speeches and wrote articles for their publications. So 
 ardent a believer in democracy was he at this time 
 that one day, when an acquaintance unwittingly joked 
 about^ his political ideas, he challenged him to a duel. 
 This was the first of the many duels he fought. 
 Although he is left-handed, he uses either a sword 
 or a pistol with great skill. Sometimes he was 
 wounded, but usually his antagonists fared the worse. 
 He always made it a point of honor, however, never 
 
1 98 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 to kill. These duels all came in the early years of 
 Clemenceau's life, the practice of dueling having 
 practically disappeared in France to-day. 
 
 The life of a political radical in the days of the 
 Second Empire was filled with excitement and danger, 
 particularly of such a radical as Georges Clemenceau, 
 who was unable to keep his ideas to himself. The 
 24th of February, the anniversary of an unsuccessful 
 revolution in 1848, was a day which republicans 
 always celebrated. On this day, during his second 
 year in Paris, Clemenceau was among the crowd that 
 gathered to commemorate this event. Carried away 
 by enthusiasm for the cause, he so far forgot himself 
 as to shout "Long live the Republic." A few days 
 later, as he sat in the theater, he was arrested and 
 given two months in prison to think over his political 
 offense. 
 
 His first act on being released was to go to Geneva, 
 Switzerland, to get materials for a new printing press, 
 the old press of the radicals having been confiscated 
 during the days of the celebration. He discovered 
 that he could no longer go and come unobserved ; the 
 police now kept watch of him. One night, soon after 
 his return, a search was made of his lodgings. He 
 was quite equal to the occasion. He held a candle 
 for the inspector, held it so close to his eyes that it 
 blinded him, and the printing press escaped notice. 
 
 It was in the midst of such activities as these that 
 he carried on his studies, and in 1865, when he had 
 been five years in Paris, he took his doctor's degree. 
 
GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 199 
 
 The essay which he presented on this occasion gained 
 him a reputation as a student of anatomy; it is said 
 to be consulted to this day. 
 
 At some time during this period Clemenceau had 
 made the acquaintance of an American, who per- 
 suaded him to visit the United States, and soon after 
 his graduation he made the journey by way of Lon- 
 don to New York. EstabHshing himself as a doctor 
 in an office on West 12th Street, he waited for 
 patients. But in New York, as in Paris, he was much 
 more interested in the living conditions of the people 
 about him than in his profession. The people who 
 finally sought his medical advice were chiefly the poor, 
 whom he never had the heart to charge enough to 
 give him a living. 
 
 His income at this time came from letters about 
 America which he sent back to one of the Paris papers. 
 His first impressions of Americans, he wrote, were 
 that they had " no general ideas and no good coffee." 
 Included in his travels was a walking trip through 
 the country which James Fenimore Cooper described 
 in The Last of the Mohicans, and the book has 
 remained a favorite of Clemenceau's because it recalls 
 scenes of New York State of which he was especially 
 fond. 
 
 When, later, he had exhausted the possibilities for 
 letters and his money began to run low, a friend 
 secured him the position of teacher of French and of 
 French literature in a young ladies' seminary in Stam- 
 ford, Connecticut. One of his duties at the seminary 
 
200 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 was to accompany his pupils on horseback rides. 
 " There were free and deh'ghtful httle tours, charm- 
 ing excursions along the shady roads which traverse 
 the gay landscape of Connecticut." ^ 
 
 Four years were spent in America at this time. 
 Later, Clemenceau made a second trip in order to 
 marry Miss Mary Plummer, one of his former pupils 
 at the seminary. 
 
 The year of 1870 found him again in Paris, prac- 
 ticing medicine among the working people of the dis- 
 trict called Montmartre. Again he was unable to 
 make a living. Since then he has confessed that the 
 most his practice ever brought was $650 a year. 
 
 This year — 1870 — was the year of the Franco- 
 Prussian war, and September 4th saw the reestablish- 
 ment of the Republic, for which Clemenceau had 
 worked so hard during all his student days. The 
 change of government had come, however, at a time 
 when change brought the gravest dangers, for Paris 
 was besieged and the German army all but encircled 
 the city. 
 
 Clemenceau, then only twenty-nine, was appointed 
 Mayor of Montmartre. At once he set to work to 
 organize a relief system to care for the people of his 
 district. The number for whose welfare he was 
 responsible was 155,000. Bread, meat, water, and 
 fuel had to be distributed to each family every day. 
 Yet, in spite of the amount of work this required, he 
 found time during the months of the siege to reorgan- 
 ize the school system. 
 
 1 M. Maurice Le Blond in H. M. Hyndman's Clemenceau. 
 
GEORGES CL^MENCEAU 201 
 
 After peace was declared, he was elected deputy, 
 or congressman, to represent Paris. During the war 
 the seat of government had been moved to Bordeaux. 
 Accordingly Clemenceau went to Bordeaux to meet 
 with the National Assembly. This was the begin- 
 ning of his political career and he took his place 
 at once on the side of the '' opposition." When 
 everybody else wanted peace, Clemenceau rose in 
 the assembly and voted to continue the war with 
 Germany and against giving up Alsace and Lor- 
 raine. Owing to the food situation, a very bitter 
 feeling existed at this time between country and 
 city people, a feeling which Clemenceau tried hard 
 to change. Failing to do this, he immediately re- 
 signed as deputy and returned to Paris to take up 
 again his relief work among the poor of Mont- 
 martre. 
 
 Less than a month later, the citizens of Paris re- 
 volted against the new republic and set up a govern- 
 ment of their own called the Commune. In the civil 
 war which followed, Clemenceau's own district of 
 Montmartre was one of the first sections of the city 
 to be taken by the Nationalist troops. Fearing vio- 
 lence between soldiers and citizens, Clemenceau had 
 obtained a promise from the President of the Republic 
 that some cannon belonging to the Paris National 
 Guard should not be touched. Though the cannon 
 were useless for lack of powder, the people regarded 
 them with particular affection, for they had bought 
 them with their own savings to defend Paris against 
 
202 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 the Germans. All together they numbered one hun- 
 dred seventy-one pieces. 
 
 For some reason the new President broke his prom- 
 ise and sent troops to remove the guns. Hearing of 
 this, Clemenceau hurried to the spot, and, while the 
 soldiers were waiting for horses to be brought, remon- 
 strated with the general in charge. But the general 
 would not tolerate any interference and the work of 
 removal continued. 
 
 With many misgivings, Clemenceau returned to his 
 office in the Town Hall. A few hours later he was 
 informed that the two generals commanding the Na- 
 tionalist troops had been shot by the enraged mob. 
 Thinking that the report might be only a rumor, 
 he again hastened to the scene of trouble, hoping 
 that he might be in time to save the lives of the two 
 generals. 
 
 Cries of '' Traitor '' greeted him. Had he not 
 promised that the guns would not be touched? He 
 tried to speak. The crowd refused to hear him. 
 Learning then that the generals had already been shot 
 and that the soldiers had gone over to the side of 
 the people, he gave up trying to calm the tumult and 
 started back to the Tow^n Hall. People struck at him 
 as he passed. A few pointed their rifles. Ordinarily 
 it was but a fifteen minute walk; that day it took 
 Clemenceau an hour and a half. 
 
 He arrived at last only to turn back again. This 
 time it was reported that the Communists were to 
 shoot two hundred soldiers whom they had captured. 
 
GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 203 
 
 Clemenceaii's fearlessness in returning won the re- 
 spect of the mob for the moment ; they agreed to spare 
 the soldiers' lives, but two days later they turned 
 Clemenceau out of office as a suspected person. 
 
 For the next five years he followed his profession, 
 working as before among the poor, but in 1876 he was 
 again elected deputy, and from this time on he had 
 great influence in the affairs of France. Determined 
 to make France a real democracy, he fought for his 
 principles of equal rights, justice, and honesty with 
 a savageness that gained him the name of " Tiger." 
 Politicians who desired favors from the government 
 found him a person greatly to be feared. He liked 
 nothing better than a chance to expose dishonesty or 
 inefficiency in public affairs. His method was usually 
 to attack his opponents in a speech upon the floor of 
 the Chamber of Deputies. He was quick at retort 
 and had a great fund of knowledge, which he knew 
 how to turn to good account. To interrupt him was 
 to invite humiliation and defeat. 
 
 But the thing which exasperated his opponents 
 most was his sense of humor ; he wrecked careers with 
 an air of having a very good time. Sometimes his 
 enemies w^ould pass him in the Bois de Boulogne of a 
 morning and would gnash their teeth to see him ride 
 by with a manner of gay indifference, when he was 
 planning, perhaps, to destroy them in one of his biting 
 speeches that very afternoon. 
 
 His influence was enormous. He made and un- 
 made the presidents of France. '' He would upset 
 
204 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 a cabinet like a house of cards."' Once someone 
 asked him how many ministries he had destroyed. 
 He said that he could not remember. However, between 
 the years 1876 and 1893, which marked the first 
 period of his political career, eighteen administra- 
 tions fell under his attacks ; since then the number has 
 grown. 
 
 His opponents said of him that he was unable to 
 build up what he tore down, for each time he upset a 
 ministry he refused to form one himself. Men whom 
 he could easily have defeated enjoyed positions of 
 wealth and power while he remained a deputy. 
 
 Once in conducting a political campaign he placed 
 all his private accounts before the people and they 
 learned that for all his power and influence the Tiger 
 was not very well off. His only luxuries had been a 
 hunting license costing $125 and a horse which he 
 had kept nine months at an expense of $1 a day for 
 food and care. He had not been able to give his 
 daughter a marriage portion and he was still paying 
 installments on furniture bought six years before. 
 
 In 1893 came his great political defeat. The foes, 
 who for six years had smarted under his stings and 
 gibes, at last contrived to get him out of office. He 
 lost the election in the district which he had repre- 
 sented for so many years. From the most influential 
 person in France he became once more an ordinary 
 citizen, whose only voice in affairs was his single vote. 
 
 He was the Tiger still, however. The next day 
 
 1 " M. Clemenceau," Laurence Jerrold, Contemporary Review, Nov., 
 1906. 
 
GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 205 
 
 after his defeat he sat down to write. Deprived of 
 the opportunity to make speeches in the Chamber of 
 Deputies, he would make them through the press. 
 In 1878 he had founded a small paper called "Jus- 
 tice," but heretofore his busy life had permitted him 
 to write only an occasional article. Now, at the age 
 of fifty-three, he took up journalism as a profession. 
 In a daily editorial for his paper he continued to speak 
 his mind about men and affairs. His articles soon 
 attracted as much attention as his speeches had done. 
 Editors of newspapers and magazines from all parts 
 of France wrote asking for something from his pen. 
 In addition to articles for the newspapers, he wrote 
 a novel, several books of essays and stories, and a 
 one-act play, which was performed in Paris a few 
 years later. Many of his books had to do with the 
 bad conditions under which men worked and lived. 
 In fact, ''in everything he wrote," says one of his 
 biographers,' ''there are passages which show how 
 warm was his heart for the poor, how strong his 
 horror of oppression, how persistent his love of liberty 
 and his sympathy with those who fight for it." 
 
 Though Clemenceau is now seventy-eight, he walks 
 with the firm, quick step of a young man. The 
 French describe his appearance as " picturesque." He 
 has white hair and sharp black eyes, and he wears his 
 clothes in a manner which others try to imitate but 
 
 1 " M. Clemenceau and His Problems," Charles Dawbarn, Atlantic, 
 June, 1918. 
 
2o6 
 
 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 Georges Clemenceau 
 
GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 207 
 
 cannot. His serious face shows at the same time his 
 humor and kindliness. 
 
 Next door to his home in Paris is a school, and 
 occasionally, when the children are at play, a ball 
 comes flying over the wall that separates the play- 
 ground from Clemenceau's garden. If the Premier 
 happens to be in his garden, he very obligingly runs 
 after the ball and tosses it back; often he narrowly 
 escapes being hit. 
 
 He laises both flowers and vegetables and keeps 
 enough poultry to supply him with fresh eggs. Some- 
 times of an evening he is to be seen sitting in the 
 shrubbery, revolver in hand, waiting for the cats that 
 kill his chickens. Nevertheless he is very fond of 
 animals, especially dogs. Frequently a visitor to the 
 office of the Prime Minister will find one of his favor- 
 ite dogs comfortably curled up on the hearth. When 
 Clemenceau became Minister of the Interior, he 
 thought the gardens of the Ministry incomplete with- 
 out animals and ordered that peacocks be placed in 
 them. But the residents of the neighborhood objected 
 to the peacocks' shrill cries and petitioned that they be 
 removed. Clemenceau finally solved the difficulty by 
 having an operation performed on the vocal cords of 
 his birds in order that he might have the pleasure of 
 seeing them whenever he looked out of the Ministry 
 windows. 
 
 It would be hard to find anywhere a person who 
 works so many hours as the Premier of France. That 
 he is able to accomplish so much is due first to his 
 
2o8 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 strong constitution and secondly to the regular habits 
 he keeps. On ordinary working days eight o'clock 
 every night finds him in bed, but he rises at three in 
 the morning. Between three and six o'clock he writes 
 the daily editorial for his paper, which might itself 
 be considered a day's work. In order that he may 
 have the latest news for his editorials, a messenger 
 from the newspaper office is sent to Clemenceau's 
 home every night with the last bulletins, which he slips 
 under the doormat, where the Premier looks for them 
 the first thing in the morning. Sometimes, fearing 
 that he has overslept, he gets up to look under the mat 
 before the messenger has arrived. 
 
 After a half hour of gymnastic exercises, his break- 
 fast, consisting of a cup of coffee and a roll, is served 
 at six-thirty. Frequently he holds conferences in the 
 morning, and visitors begin to arrive as early as 
 eight. Otherwise he writes and studies in his library 
 until twelve. 
 
 Clemenceau has been a student all his life. He be- 
 lieves that to study is the best way of keeping young 
 and says that a person should learn a new language 
 every ten years. In the midst of a busy political career 
 he finds time to keep up his interest in medicine. 
 For recreation he reads Latin and Greek. 
 
 His library is a beautiful room, furnished with 
 works of oriental art. It is sound proof and contains 
 neither a typewriter nor a telephone. He works at 
 a big table shaped like a horseshoe, setting down his 
 notes in a neat, fine handwriting. 
 
GEORGES CLfiMENCEAU 209 
 
 After luncheon he rests for an hour, then goes to 
 the Ministry or attends a session of the Chamber of 
 Deputies. This he counts the hardest work of the 
 day. In the evening he either spends a social hour 
 with his family or goes again to his study. 
 
 In 1902 Clemenceau came back into politics as sen- 
 ator for one of the "departments," which in France 
 correspond somewhat to our states. Four years later 
 he became Prime Minister, holding the office of Min- 
 ister of the Interior at the same time. His enemies, 
 who had complained that he had nothing better to offer 
 in place of the laws which he so persistently opposed, 
 were to learn that he knew how to build quite as well 
 as to tear down. Under his leadership France passed 
 more laws affecting the welfare of the people than un- 
 der any other ministry in the history of the Republic. 
 There were laws that provided for the relief of the 
 sick, for old age pensions, for the insurance of work- 
 men against injury, and for one day of rest in each 
 week. A Ministry of Labor was established. An in- 
 come tax law was passed. Freedom of the press, of 
 schools, and of religion, was staunchly upheld. 
 
 Meantime Clemenceau, who watched the prepara- 
 tion of Germany, sounded the alarm of war. Few 
 people heeded his warning. Nevertheless he contin- 
 ued to fight for laws to increase the military strength 
 of the nation and appointed Foch the head of the Su- 
 perior School of War. 
 
 In the diplomatic relations between the two coun- 
 
2IO LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 tries things frequently happened which, had the mo- 
 ment been right, Germany could easily have made the 
 occasion for war. One such circumstance occurred 
 during Clemenceau's ministry. Two soldiers who had 
 deserted from the German army joined the French 
 Foreign Legion and Germany demanded that they be 
 returned. International law, in this case, was on the 
 side of France and Clemenceau refused to give up 
 the men. Germany threatened. He remained firm. 
 He believed that these desertions were only a pretext 
 to give Germany the right to dictate to France. Fi- 
 nally the German ambassador conceived a plan which 
 he thought would bring Clemenceau to time. 
 
 '' Mr. Premier," he said, '' if complete satisfaction 
 were not given to my Government, I would be forced 
 by order of His Majesty, the Emperor, to ask for my 
 passports." This meant war. The German ambas- 
 sador knew that France was unprepared. 
 
 Clemenceau consulted his watch. ''The express 
 for Cologne leaves at nine o'clock; it is now^ seven," he 
 replied. '' Your Excellency, if you do not wish to 
 miss the train, you had better hurry." It is hardly 
 necessary to add that the ambassador did not go. 
 
 Though Clemenceau went out of the ministry again 
 in 1909, he continued to watch Germany and to warn 
 France. In 1912 he established another paper called 
 '' Free Man," and by means of this he gave his whole 
 time and energy to the cause of preparation for war. 
 His ideas made him unpopular, for, almost up to the 
 last minute, the French people refused to believe in 
 
GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 211 
 
 the possibility of war. Sometimes Clemenceau 
 pleaded with them, sometimes he scolded and stormed. 
 With it all certain reforms were accomplished, though 
 to his mind they were not enough. Then one day the 
 church bells in every village and drums at every cross- 
 roads sounded the call to arms. 
 
 One of the first measures for which Clemenceau 
 asked after the declaration of war was the establish- 
 ment of the censorship. In the Franco-Prussian war 
 the newspapers had needlessly alarmed the people 
 many times by printing false reports. To avoid a 
 repetition of this error a military censor was now ap- 
 pointed to determine what news the press should give 
 out, and almost the first thing he did was to suppress 
 Clemenceau's own paper for exposing the mistakes of 
 the army medical service. 
 
 To suppress the publication of false news was one 
 thing, but to keep from the people a knowledge of 
 everything that went wrong was another, and Clemen- 
 ceau did not submit to this kind of censorship without 
 a struggle. The next day his paper appeared again 
 with the same articles. Then the publication of the 
 paper was ordered stopped. At this point Clemenceau 
 must have agreed to accept the censor's ruling, for 
 after a few days the paper reappeared, only it no 
 longer bore the name of " Free Man " ; it was now 
 called '' Man Enchained." Three years later, when 
 Clemenceau became Prime Minister for a second time, 
 the old name v/as restored. 
 
 In the beginning of September, when the Germans 
 
212 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 were marching on Paris, the War Office sought to pre- 
 pare the people for the possibiHty of defeat by issuing 
 the following bulletin: " The great battle is on at last, 
 between Maubeuge and Donon. Upon it hangs the 
 fate of France." Except for this the people lacked 
 information entirely. They did not know what had 
 happened to their armies or what the next few days 
 might bring to them. Some despaired, others hoped, 
 but there was no one who did not feel the deepest 
 anxiety. The next day following this announcement 
 Clemenceau's paper came out with a startling denial. 
 " It is not true," it said, referring to the War Office's 
 bulletin. " The fate of France does not depend upon 
 this one battle, nor upon any which may follow. Her 
 fate depends solely upon the resistance which the 
 French, all the French, can oppose to the invader with- 
 out a sign of weakness. France is not lost merely 
 because her soldiers happen to meet with defeat in 
 one battle." 
 
 In his words the people found courage and comfort. 
 Many who had never read his paper began to read it 
 now for the sake of the daily article, which always 
 contained some such words as these. In all of Cle- 
 menceau's services to France, none was greater than 
 this, that through four terrible years of war he con- 
 stantly upheld the courage of the nation. 
 
 " He is mounting guard for France," wrote one of 
 his fellow countrymen.^ " Since he cannot be the 
 pilot who steers the vessel he will be the watchman who 
 
 ^ CUmenceau, Gustave Geffroy. 
 
GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 213 
 
 warns of the reefs and the dangers of getting off the 
 course; he will be the night-watch who observes the 
 sky and forecasts the weather. At the first hours of 
 the morning every day, on the ground floor of a house 
 at Passy, a lamp is lighted. The same hand that has 
 lighted the wick and lowered the lampshade, seizes a 
 pen. An energetic and thoughtful face bends under 
 the light toward the white page that will soon be cov- 
 ered by a swift, nervous handwriting. Under the 
 thick black eyebrows his eyes gleam, become angry and 
 tender at the same time. Under the white mustache 
 his mouth mutters or formulates the words, the sen- 
 tences, the ideas. Clemenceau is writing his edi- 
 torial." 
 
 Sometimes he would slip away from Paris to the 
 seashore near his old home in Vendee, but there, too, 
 he lighted his lamp at three every morning in order 
 that the people mJght not miss the words of encourage- 
 ment for which they now looked every day. 
 
 As the war progressed it became more and more 
 clear to the French people that something was wrong 
 within the government. They were convinced that 
 men of high standing were in the employ of the enemy, 
 that Germany, failing to achieve a decisive military 
 victory, had set on foot a scheme to bring about the 
 defeat of France from within. While these facts 
 were generally known, no one dared to act. So clev- 
 erly had the plan been worked that Germany had con- 
 trived to get powerful political support and it was 
 doubtful whether anyone who tried could succeed in 
 
214 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 getting the suspected men arrested. Meanwhile the 
 army was being sacrificed at the front, and the people, 
 despairing of justice, grew more disheartened every 
 day. 
 
 It remained for Clemenceau to act. Suspecting 
 where the trouble lay, he boldly accused the Prime 
 Minister and the whole administration of being re- 
 sponsible for a conspiracy to ruin France. Day after 
 day he hurled his accusations until it became impos- 
 sible for the men he accused to continue in power. The 
 government fell, the traitors were arrested and tried. 
 Only one member of the cabinet was found guilty, M. 
 Malvy, Minister of the Interior, whose punishment 
 was exile from France. Two others figuring chiefly 
 in the plot were M. Caillaux, a financier of interna- 
 tional standing, who was imprisoned, and an adven- 
 turer named Bolo, who was shot. 
 
 Having been saved at the eleventh hour from a dis- 
 aster worse than any that could have happened on the 
 battlefield, the people now demanded a premier who 
 would ''use all the energies and resources of France 
 to defeat Germany, who would see that they had fuel 
 and food, and who would not allow the armies to be 
 assailed in the rear by the use of German money." ^ 
 President Poincare, heeding their cry, asked Cle- 
 menceau to form a cabinet, and in twenty-four hours 
 the new Prime Minister had begun to straighten out 
 the entanglements that had come so near losing the 
 war. 
 
 1 The Tiger of France, Herbert Adams Gibbons. 
 
GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 215 
 
 From the beginning of the war Clemenceau had 
 visited the front ahnost daily. He had preferred to 
 go as a journahst, refusing the attention paid to sena- 
 tors; in this way he obtained a great deal more in- 
 formation about the armies. When he became Prime 
 Minister he also served as Minister of War, and this 
 furnished another reason for his frequent visits to 
 the trenches. Though there was little he did not know 
 about the war, he kept himself informed to the last 
 minute, and he liked best to get his information di- 
 rectly from the soldiers. 
 
 Villagers living along the way quickly recognized 
 him and cheered him as he passed, or gathered about 
 his car to talk with him when there was occasion. 
 -But usually he traveled at full speed, and, since he al- 
 ways insisted on visiting the front where the heaviest 
 fighting was going on, he had many narrow escapes 
 from shells. Once two windows of his automobile 
 were broken by fragments of a shell that fell in the 
 road just after he had passed. If he chanced to meet 
 troops on the march he would greet them with '' How 
 do you do, gentlemen?" and men who did not know 
 him were at a loss to account for this distinctly unmil- 
 itary person who traveled about the war zone with 
 such freedom. 
 
 In the trenches, however, he was a familiar figure. 
 Dressed in knickerbockers and gaiters and wearing 
 a rough felt hat pulled over his eyes, he waded through 
 mud, or sat for hours, pressed into a niche of some 
 trench wall, getting the information he so much 
 
2i6 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 desired while he waited for a bombardment to 
 cease. If he were accompanied by an officer, as 
 he always was in the days before he became Min- 
 ister of War, his constant endeavor was to make his 
 escape. 
 
 ''You are not obliged to accompany me," he would 
 say, half earnestly, half in fun. To which the officer 
 would generally reply, " I can't do anything about it. 
 Telephone to general headquarters." 
 
 And when Clemenceau had got some general on the 
 wire who, politely but firmly, refused to let him take 
 unnecessary risks, he would shout back, '' Because the 
 staff officers are often kept away from the trenches 
 is no reason for forbidding me access to them." 
 
 At other times, by one means or another, he had his 
 way. Word would reach headquarters that the Pre- 
 mier was in the trenches, but where no one knew ex- 
 actly, so quickly did he move from place to place. Just 
 after one of the hardest battles of July, 1918, he was 
 discovered picking flowers in a shell crater to make the 
 tri-color for his buttonhole. 
 
 " Once," says an English writer,' " he stood looking 
 down on a heap of French dead. The shells were fall- 
 ing near him, the staff officers wanted to move him 
 on. 'My old carcass?' he said. 'What an end it 
 would be ! ' And he stood looking long at the voung 
 dead." 
 
 To all who questioned his policy Clemenceau had but 
 one answer, "I am fighting the war." Nor did he 
 
 ^ " Clemenceau," Laurence Jerrold, Fortnightly Review, Jan., 1918. 
 
GEORGES CLfiMENCEAU 217 
 
 wage war with his pen alone, but with every means he 
 could command. He appealed to America to send 
 armies and food, to Britain to send more men. He 
 insisted upon putting the Allied armies under the com- 
 mand of General Foch. In a speech before the Cham- 
 ber of Deputies when he took over the government, he 
 plead in words that were never to be forgotten by 
 those who lived through that trying time that every- 
 thing be sacrificed for victory. 
 
 " You ask me my war aim ? " he said. '' I reply that 
 my aim is to be victorious." 
 
 And finally the day came for which the people had 
 hoped and despaired alike for nearly four and a half 
 years. In the beginning of the war church bells had 
 sounded the call to arms; on the 11th of November, 
 1918, they announced the signing of the armistice and 
 peace. The Chamber of Deputies, which met accord- 
 ing to custom that afternoon, was to hear the terms of 
 the armistice read by Premier Clemenceau at four 
 o'clock. 
 
 Long before the appointed hour the square outside 
 the Bourbon Palace, where the Chamber meets, was 
 thronged with people, — students, soldiers, laborers, 
 men, women, and children — waiting for a sight of the 
 Premier. From time to time they sang the Marseil- 
 laise and called for Clemenceau so loudly that the 
 Chamber found it difficult to hold session. Finally 
 Clemenceau went to the window to speak to the people. 
 Seeing him, they broke wildly into cheers of '' Long 
 live the Tiger," and '' Long live Clemenceau." When 
 
2i8 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 he could make himself heard he asked them to shout 
 instead " Long live France." 
 
 Inside the Chamber the people were not less ex- 
 pectant. The visitors' galleries were full. Every 
 deputy was there. Clemenceau entered so quietly that 
 at first no one saw him, then the Assembly rose, cheer- 
 ing and applauding. Deputies rushed to shake hands 
 with him; his friends sought to congratulate him. 
 Finally he raised his hand, asking for silence, and the 
 Assembly hushed itself to hear what he had to say. 
 
 " Let us promise in this moment to work always with 
 all the strength of our hearts for the public good." 
 Then, putting on his glasses, he began to read the 
 terms of the armistice. 
 
 '' This morning at eleven o'clock firing ceased on all 
 fronts." The applause which greeted this official an- 
 nouncement of the end of the war echoed to the roof, 
 as it did after the reading of each article. Silence fell 
 upon the assembly again when the Premier spoke of 
 the honor France owed to her dead. " And when our 
 living, on their return, pass in review before us on our 
 boulevards," he went on, '' as they march toward the 
 Arc de Triomphe, we shall cheer them to the echo. 
 Salute them in advance for the world they have made 
 anew." 
 
 From the Chamber of Deputies Clemenceau went 
 to the Senate, where, after hearing the terms of the 
 armistice, a resolution was passed to be placed in the 
 council chamber of every city and in the town hall of 
 every village throughout France. It read : 
 
GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 219 
 
 Georges Clemenceau, President of 
 THE Council and Minister of War, and 
 Marshal Foch, General-in-chief of 
 THE Allied Armies, Have Well De- 
 served THE GRATITUDE OF THE COUNTRY. 
 
 At three o'clock on the afternoon of January 18th, 
 1919, the Peace Conference was opened in Paris. 
 Representatives of the AUied nations and of the new 
 nations created by the war met to determine the condi- 
 tions of peace. Twenty-eight countries were repre- 
 sented, the whole number of delegates being seventy- 
 two. 
 
 The assembly held its sessions in a splendid hall in 
 the Foreign Ofhce. Its decorations were in white and 
 gold and from the ceiling hung four large crystal 
 chandeliers. At one end of the chamber, immediately 
 behind the president's chair, stood a statue somewhat 
 resembling the Statue of Liberty, which represented 
 Peace. 
 
 The tables for the delegates were arranged in the 
 form of a large horseshoe extending the length of the 
 hall. They were covered with green baize and the 
 chairs were upholstered in bright red leather. Before 
 each place was a portfolio containing everything nec- 
 essary for writing. 
 
 The Conference was opened with impressive cere- 
 mony. A fanfare of trumpets heralded each dele- 
 gation as it arrived, the delegates being arranged 
 according to the alphabetical order of the countries 
 
220 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 represented. Exactly at three o'clock a roll of drums 
 announced the arrival of President Poincare. He 
 was escorted to the head of the table, where he took 
 his place temporarily in the president's chair. Next 
 on his right sat President Wilson. All rose as Pres- 
 ident Poincare began the opening address. There 
 had been a special reason, to which President Poincare 
 referred in his speech, for opening the Conference on 
 the 18th of January. ''This very day, forty-eight 
 years ago, on the 18th of January, 1871, the German 
 Empire was proclaimed by an army of invasion in the 
 Chateau at Versailles." Now the day which marked 
 the end of the Great War marked also the end of the 
 German Empire. 
 
 Premier Clemenceau was unanimously chosen Pres- 
 ident of the Conference. In his address to the dele- 
 gates he again spoke of the fact that it was the first 
 time in history that a delegation made up of the civ- 
 ilized peoples of the world had come together. " We 
 have come here as friends, we must go out of the door 
 as friends. That is the first thought I have to ex- 
 press to you." And finally, ''The program of this 
 Conference has been set up by President Wilson; it 
 is no longer a peace concerning greater or smaller 
 territories which we have to make, it is no longer a 
 peace of continents. It is a peace of peoples. This 
 program is sufficient in itself. Gentlemen, let us try 
 to act quickly and well." 
 
 In a room next to the hall where the Peace Confer- 
 ence held session were some two hundred newspaper 
 
GEORGES CLfiMENCEAU 221 
 
 reporters, "straining eye and ear" to see and hear 
 everything that went on. One of them^ describes 
 Premier Clemenceau: 
 
 "With his seventy-seven years, Clemenceau is the 
 oldest member of the assembly. He is also the most 
 vital, externally at least. . . . He shifts in the 
 presidential chair now right and now left, throwing 
 bits of his own interpretation to Wilson or Lloyd 
 George in advance of the official translator. He cor- 
 rects, exnphasizes, he underlines the interpreter with 
 emphatic nod or takes exception with his gray-gloved 
 hands or a swift uplift of the white scythe of his mus- 
 tache. His eyes scour the room to study effects. He 
 is constantly signaling to the secretaries behind him 
 for orders, memoranda, messages to be delivered." 
 
 One day when Clemenceau was returning home 
 from a session of the Peace Conference an attempt 
 was made on his life. He had just descended from his 
 automobile and had started to walk toward his apart- 
 ment when he was attacked by the would-be assassin, 
 who fired several shots at him, one bullet penetrating 
 his lung. With his usual calmness, Clemenceau con- 
 tinued walking in the direction of his apartment, 
 crossed the vestibule and court, and reached his door 
 unaided. Bystanders say that he was smiling an 
 ironical smile which seemed to say, " The Tiger is not 
 done for yet." 
 
 Some twenty minutes later he was telling President 
 Poincare, who had rushed to his bedside, his thoughts 
 while the shooting was going on. 
 
 1 " The Peacemakers," Simeon Strunsky, Atlantic, April, 1918. 
 
222 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 " When I felt the whistle of the first bullets so near 
 my head I muttered, 'The animal shoots well/ At 
 the second shot, which was indiscreet enough to get 
 inside of me as far as my lung, I said, ' But he shoots 
 too well' Finally, under this rain of bullets which 
 whistled about my ears and almost didn't stop there, 
 I reflected, ' At least my enemies will not be able to 
 insinuate any longer that I haven't ballast in my head 
 — lead ballast.'"^ 
 
 Each day during the two weeks that the Premier 
 was confined to his house a stream of visitors, old 
 men and women, soldiers, young girls and children, 
 came to his door to inquire how he was, to express 
 their indignation over the assault, and to bring him 
 flowers and delicacies. Conferences were also held 
 at his home, for, despite his wound, Clemenceau could 
 not be kept from work. 
 
 The Peace Conference was now drawing to a close. 
 The settlement had proved, in the words of President 
 Wilson, ''a colossal business such as the world had 
 never dreamed of before." Five months had been re- 
 quired to reconstruct the world that four and a half 
 years of war had destroyed. The peace terms, as 
 they were finally written, were severe, but, in the 
 minds of the statesmen who had drafted them, Ger- 
 many had committed a great wrong and must make 
 just reparation. By the provisions of the treaty 
 several new nations were created out of territory 
 formerly belonging to Austria-Hungary and Ger- 
 
 1 Georges Clemenceau, George Le Comte. 
 
GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 223 
 
 many. This was done in recognition of the rights of 
 all peoples to be free. Alsace and Lorraine were re- 
 turned to France. In territories where any doubt 
 existed as to the nationality of the majority, the treaty 
 provided for a vote of the people. An indemnity of 
 $5,000,000,000 was imposed on Germany for the im- 
 mediate reparation of the ruined areas of Belgium 
 and France, a second payment of $10,000,000,000 to 
 be made between 1921 and 1926, and a larger indem- 
 nity to be paid in the future, the amount to be deter- 
 mined by a commission appointed for that purpose. 
 By another article Germany agreed to surrender the 
 Kaiser, his statesmen, and the military leaders who 
 were responsible for the war, in order that they might 
 be tried and punished for the greatest crime in his- 
 tory. Finally the treaty provided for a League of 
 Nations, " pledged to use their united power to main- 
 tain peace." ^ 
 
 After many delays it w^as finally announced that the 
 treaty would be signed at Versailles on the 28th of 
 June, 1919. 
 
 The Chateau at Versailles had been the scene of the 
 signing of the Franco-German peace treaty of 1871. 
 In the same room, the famous Hall of Mirrors, the 
 new treaty was to be signed. Now, however, the con- 
 ditions were exactly reversed. 
 
 '' It was a few minutes after two," writes a corre- 
 spondent of the " New York Times,^ " " when the first 
 
 1 Woodrow Wilson, Address cabled to American people. 
 
 2 " The Signing Provides a Brilliant Pageant," Walter Duranty, New 
 York Times, June 29, 1919. 
 
224 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 automobile made its way between dense lines of cav- 
 alry, backed by a double rank of infantry with bay- 
 onets fixed — there were said to be 20,000 soldiers al- 
 together guarding the route — that held back the 
 cheering crowds. 
 
 " The scene from the Court of Honor, where I was 
 standing, was impressive to a degree. The Place 
 d'Armes was a lake of white faces, dappled every- 
 where by the bright colors of flags and fringed with 
 the horizon blue of troops, whose bayonets flashed like 
 flames as the sun peeped for a moment from behind 
 heavy clouds. Above, aeroplanes, a dozen or more, 
 wheeled and curvetted. 
 
 " One of the earliest to arrive was Marshal Foch, 
 amid a torrent of cheering, which broke out even 
 louder a few moments later when the massive head of 
 Premier Clemenceau, for once with a smile on the 
 Tiger's face, was seen through the windows of a 
 French military car. To both, as to other chiefs, in- 
 cluding Wilson, Pershing, and Lloyd George, the 
 troops paid the honor of presenting arms all around 
 the courtyard. 
 
 ''After Clemenceau they came thick and fast, dip- 
 lomats, soldiers. Princes of India in gorgeous turbans, 
 Japanese in immaculate Western dress, admirals, fly- 
 ing men, Arabs, and a thousand and one picturesque 
 uniforms of the French, British and Colonial ar- 
 mies. . . . 
 
 "At ten minutes of three came President Wilson, 
 in a big black limousine, with his flag, a white eagle on 
 
GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 225 
 
 a dark blue ground. The warmth of welcome ac- 
 corded him bore witness to the place he still holds in 
 French hearts." 
 
 Inside the Hall of Mirrors, so-called from the sev- 
 enteen great mirrors placed to reflect the beauty of the 
 palace gardens, the peace table had been prepared. 
 It was in the shape of a hollow rectangle. Two other 
 tables held documents containing the changes and 
 modifications of the treaty. Thus three persons could 
 sign at once. A box of goose quills was placed on 
 each of the three tables for those representatives who 
 wished to sign in the traditional manner. 
 
 In 1871 a body of Prussian guards had been wit- 
 nesses to the signing of the peace. Their places were 
 taken in 1919 by French veterans of the Franco-Prus- 
 sian war and by detachments of French, British, and 
 American troops. 
 
 At ten minutes after three Premier Clemenceau 
 announced the opening of the session and, after a 
 bare statement of the fact that both sides had agreed 
 to accept the treaty, he invited the German delegates 
 to come forward and sign. 
 
 " There was a tense pause for a moment. Then, in 
 response to M. Clemenceau's bidding, the German 
 delegates rose without a word and, escorted by Wil- 
 liam Martin, master of ceremonies, moved to the 
 table, w^here they placed upon the treaty the signa- 
 tures which German government leaders declared 
 until recently would never be appended to this treaty. 
 
 "When they regained their seats after the signing, 
 
226 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 President Wilson immediately rose and, followed by 
 the other delegates, moved to the signing tables." ^ 
 
 President Wilson's signature came first for the 
 Allies, because the signing was in the alphabetical or- 
 der of the countries named in the treaty, the United 
 States being officially written the United States of 
 America. At 3.49 the booming of cannons announced 
 that the ceremony was over, that, after five years of 
 war, peace had come. 
 
 It had been planned that, following the ceremony, 
 the representatives of the Allies should go to the pal- 
 ace gardens to see the fountains play. Premiers 
 Clemenceau and Lloyd George, and President Wilson, 
 therefore, led the way; the rest got no further than 
 the door. 
 
 " W^ith cries of ' Vive Clemenceau ! Vive Wil- 
 son ! Vive Lloyd George ! ' dense crowds swept for- 
 ward from all parts of the spacious terrace. In an 
 instant the three were surrounded by struggling, 
 cheering masses of people, fighting among themselves 
 for a chance to get at the statesmen.^ 
 
 "Probably the least concerned for their personal 
 safety were the three themselves. They went for- 
 ward smilingly, as the crowd willed, bowing in re- 
 sponse to the ovation, and here and there reaching out 
 to shake an insistent hand as they passed on their way 
 through the chateau grounds to watch the playing of 
 the fountains .... 
 
 ^ " Peace Signed," Associated Press Dispatch, New York Times, 
 June 29, 1919. 
 - Ibid. 
 
GEORGES CLlfiMENCEAU 227 
 
 "The return of President Wilson, M. Clemenceau, 
 and Lloyd George toward the palace was a repetition 
 of their outward journey of triumph. As they 
 reached the chateau, however, they turned to the left 
 instead of entering .... Near by a closed car was 
 waiting. The three entered this and drove from the 
 grounds together amid a profusion of flowers which 
 had been thrust in through the open window." 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 Clemenceau, the Man and His Time, H. M. Hyndman. 
 
 Georges Clemenceau, Georges LeComte. 
 
 Clemenceau, Gustave Geffroy. 
 
 M. Georges Clemenceau, Georges Brandes, Contemporary Re- 
 view, Nov., 1903. 
 
 M. Clemenceau, Laurence Jerrold, Contemporary Review, 
 Nov., 1906. 
 
 Georges Clemenceau, Augustin Filon, Fortnightly Review, 
 Oct., 1908. 
 
 Clemenceau, Laurence Jerrold, Fortnightly Review, Jan., 1918. 
 
 Clemenceau, Master of France, Sydney Brooks, Harper's 
 Weekly, Feb. 20, 1909. 
 
 The One Man of Genius in French Public Life, Current Liter- 
 ature, Aug., 1906. 
 
 M. Clemenceau and His Problems, Charles Dawbarn, Atlantic 
 Monthly, June, 1918. 
 
 The Nezv French Premier, Charles Johnston, Harper's Weeklv, 
 Dec. 1, 1906. 
 
 Clemenceau, H. M. Hyndman, Living Age, July 27, 1918. 
 
 Clemenceau, Graham H. Stuart, North American Review, 
 May, 1918. 
 
 Clemenceau, the Indomitable Ruler of France, Current Opin- 
 ion, April, 1918. 
 
 The Peacemakers, Simeon Strunsky, Atlantic Monthly, April, 
 1919. 
 
 Peace Signed, Associated Press Dispatch, New York Times, 
 June 29, 1919. 
 
IX. ADMIRAL SIMS 
 
 There were three boys in the Sims family, and one 
 day their father announced that he had just received 
 an appointment to Annapolis for one of his sons. 
 It had to be decided immediately which one should go. 
 Two of the boys thought that they would not care for 
 the navy, and the choice fell upon William. 
 
 William was seventeen at the time, and until then 
 probably the thought of a naval career had not entered 
 his mind. He had been born at Port Hope in Ontario 
 in 1858, but had lived the most of his life on a farm 
 in western Pennsylvania. 
 
 The opportunity which had come so unexpectedly 
 found him quite unprepared. He had never been a 
 student. In fact, "his greater pleasure was not to 
 learn," and in school he was counted a slow and rather 
 careless pupil. 
 
 The competitive examinations for Annapolis in 
 those days comprised mostly grammar school subjects, 
 but they were difficult, and the passing mark was high. 
 William took them and failed. Then there came an 
 awakening. 
 
 It was not customary to give candidates who failed 
 a second chance, but William Sims begged so hard 
 that the examiners finally consented. And they gave 
 him a month in which to prepare. 
 
 228 
 
ADMIRAL SIMS 229 
 
 At the end of the month he went up again for his 
 examinations, and this time he passed. He had 
 worked ''terrifically." 
 
 He had now four years of hard study ahead of him, 
 and he soon discovered that his scholarship no longer 
 concerned himself alone but reflected on the standing 
 of his company. If he made a poor recitation or 
 '' busted cold," in the language of the cadets, his class- 
 mates turned their thumbs down. He was slated for 
 disapproval. If his marks were unsatisfactory he 
 was put on the " tree," the published list of those who 
 are poor in scholarship, and other members of the 
 company made it very uncomfortable for him. On the 
 other hand, if he made an average of eighty-five per 
 cent throughout the year, he was entitled to wear a 
 gold star on the collar of his uniform the next year 
 and become a popular man with his mates. 
 
 There were two studies that William Sims particu- 
 larly disliked, French and mathematics. Since these 
 were especially necessary for a naval officer, he made 
 up his mind to overcome his dislike for them. He 
 succeeded so well that, after his graduation, he asked 
 for a year's leave of absence in order that he might 
 go to Paris to complete his study of French. To-day 
 he speaks French quite as well as English. 
 
 He learned other things that first year not included 
 in the curriculum. His company saw that his schol- 
 arship was high, but upper-class men looked after his 
 table manners. '' Boat your oars," a senior would call 
 out to the embarrassed freshman when knife and fork 
 
!30 
 
 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 rested against his plate, or " Rig in your boom," if his 
 elbows stuck out. 
 
 Regulations met him at every turn. Most of them 
 had to do with his conduct in class or at drill, but a few, 
 it seemed, were designed to govern even his leisure 
 time. He must always appear with his shoes black- 
 ened and his uniform carefully brushed, and every- 
 thing in his room must be in order. When off duty, 
 however, he was on his honor. A midshipman's word 
 was never questioned. Any misconduct was his own 
 aifair, but there was always the honor of the class to 
 be upheld, and the class did not deal leniently with 
 offenders. 
 
 After graduating from the Academy, a midshipman 
 was required to spend two years at sea before he could 
 become an officer of the navy. William Sims found 
 that the life at sea admitted of considerable improve- 
 ment. With twenty-one others he occupied the fore- 
 castle of an old sailing ship. The quarters were small 
 and the ventilation was bad. On hot nights the men 
 could hardly breathe. Sims complained to the com- 
 manding officer. 
 
 " As human beings," he said, '' we are entitled to 
 so many cubic feet of air." 
 
 ''You don't say!" replied the captain. ''Get to 
 your quarters and remember, young man, that there 
 ain't anything human about a midshipman." 
 
 Sims then wrote to the navy department. When 
 no reply came to his letter, he wrote again. Mean- 
 while he had investigated the amount of air space in 
 
ADMIRAL SIMS 231 
 
 barns and found that midshipmen were allowed less 
 than pigs and cattle. Though it was considered al- 
 most an act of effrontery on the part of a midshipman, 
 he sent his figures in to Washington. The improve- 
 ment of midshipmen's quarters which finally resulted 
 was the first of many reforms Sims was to bring 
 about. 
 
 For the next eighteen years, however, not much was 
 heard of him except that he was doing his work well. 
 A part of that time he was instructor on the school 
 ships Saratoga and Philadelphia. Two years he spent 
 in China and the far East. Promotion in the navy 
 in times of peace is extremely slow, and at forty Sims 
 was still a lieutenant. 
 
 When the Spanish- American War came, in 1898, 
 he was naval attache to the American Embassy at 
 Paris. Probably it was his knowledge of French that 
 had gained him the appointment. 
 
 There is a story that, in the beginning of the war. 
 Lieutenant Sims was ordered to Liverpool to hurry 
 the shipment of a cargo of ammunition much needed 
 by our troops in Cuba. About the time the order was 
 ready, word came that the Spanish fleet had sailed for 
 America, and the Liverpool firm refused to let the 
 loaded ship start unless it was insured against loss. 
 Time was too valuable to wait for the government to 
 act, and Lieutenant Sims pledged himself personally 
 to be responsible for any loss if the ship would only 
 sail before sunset. At the time he did not consider 
 how long it would take him to pay the bill, but after- 
 
232 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 wards he was amazed when he remembered that the 
 value of the cargo was a milHon dollars. 
 
 His work in Paris and Petrograd, where he also 
 served as naval attache, gave him the opportunity to 
 see what other navies were doing, and he woke up to 
 the fact that the American navy was very inferior to 
 those of European nations. We had beautiful ships, 
 trim, clean, and white, but they were not fighting ships. 
 Again Sims reported his observations to the navy de- 
 partment. His letters were filed away and nothing 
 came of them. 
 
 In 1900 he was again transferred to the China 
 station. He reported for duty on the U. S. S. Ken- 
 tucky, which had put in at Gibraltar on its way to the 
 Orient. The Kentucky was a ship of the type to which 
 Sims had objected. Though her captain thought she 
 was the pride of the navy, the junior officer, '^with 
 two fingers on the typewriter,'' says Lieutenant Reut- 
 erdahl, " pointed out that she was no ship at all." 
 
 "We should have shed tears when we launched 
 her,'' he argued, '' instead of sprinkling her with cham- 
 pagne." The report which went to Washington 
 found its way into a pigeon hole marked '^ Lieutenant 
 Sims." 
 
 Out in China Sims met a British naval officer 
 named Captain Percy Scott, who was interested in 
 new methods, and the two officers became good friends. 
 
 One day Captain Scott told Sims that he had in- 
 vented a device for improving the marksmanship of 
 his gunners. It was generally conceded at the time 
 
ADMIRAL SIMS 233 
 
 that the marksmanship in all navies was poor, for am- 
 munition was too expensive to permit of gun practice 
 every day. Captain Scott's device was simple and in- 
 expensive. To the barrel of a big gun was attached a 
 tube, which fired a bullet at a small target set up at 
 close range. If the small target was hit, the gun was 
 accurately aimed to hit the large target miles away. 
 
 Sims was much impressed with this scheme and 
 made use of it on a number of the guns of the Ken- 
 tucky. At the next target practice the marksmanship 
 of his crews surpassed that of all the other crews in 
 the Asiatic fleet. This convinced him that the scheme 
 was a practical one, and he wrote at once to Washing- 
 ton, sending a full report of his experiment and urging 
 that Captain Scott's system be adopted by the Ameri- 
 can navy. 
 
 Months passed and no reply came. Sims knew as 
 well as anyone that the destination of all his letters 
 was either a pigeon hole or a waste basket, but he kept 
 on writing. His thought then, as it had been from the 
 first, was to improve the service. His reports, how- 
 ever, had not resulted in any change of system, for an 
 inefficient navy reflected on the navy department, and 
 the department did not want a lieutenant out in China 
 to show up its faults. 
 
 Nevertheless, the letters continued to come, and 
 finally one reached President Roosevelt himself. 
 
 Meanwhile information had come from other 
 sources that the navy was not very efficient. In the 
 Spanish War, so recently ended, the records of our 
 
234 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 fleet showed that, out of every hundred shots fired 
 on the Cuban coast, only four had reached the mark. 
 
 Therefore, when President Roosevelt received 
 Lieutenant Sims's letter, he determined to find out for 
 himself w^hether the marksmanship in the navy was 
 really as bad as had been reported. If it was, some- 
 thing should be done about it, but if it was not. Lieu- 
 tenant Sims, who had come very near to criticizing 
 his superior ofhcers, ought to lose his rank. Five of 
 the best battleships of the Atlantic fleet were ordered 
 out, and for five hours they steamed back and forth 
 firing at a target larger than the one used regularly 
 for gun practice. An examination of the mark at the 
 end of that time showed that only three hits had been 
 made. 
 
 When President Roosevelt heard this, he immedi- 
 ately recalled Lieutenant Sims from China and put 
 him in charge of the navy's target practice. 
 
 The building of a more effective navy was to 
 be Sims's w^ork. The methods w^hich he introduced 
 were then little known ; to-day they would be termed 
 the methods of scientific management. With a stop 
 watch he timed and coordinated the movements of a 
 crew so that not a moment was wasted in the firing 
 of a gun. In this way he reduced the firing time from 
 five minutes to thirty seconds. He told the bluejack- 
 ets that higher ratings and extra pay would be given to 
 the men who made the best records, and soon there 
 was great rivalry among crews. A good gun pointer 
 became the most popular man aboard ship. Then it 
 
ADMIRAL SIMS 235 
 
 was ship against ship and squadron against squadron 
 for the honor of flying the pennant of the winner. 
 
 A record to compare with that of our fleet during 
 the Spanish War is that of the South Carolina, a few 
 years after Sims's methods had been introduced. 
 Firing twelve-inch guns, one of the Carolina's crews 
 recorded sixteen hits out of sixteen shots in four min- 
 utes thirty-one seconds. This was battle practice; 
 our navy had learned to shoot. 
 
 Another of Sims's reforms was to create a better 
 spirit between officers and men. In the old days an 
 officer would have said, in the words of Sims's first 
 captain, that there was nothing human about a blue- 
 jacket. An officer's duty was to work his men as long 
 and as hard as he could. With this way of thinking 
 Sims radically disagreed. He believed that a friendly 
 feeling between officers and men was necessary to 
 the making of a better navy. 
 
 " The happy ship," he said, " is almost invariably 
 the efficient ship," and he began another one of his in- 
 vestigations. The many ways he found of adding to 
 the comforts of the men won their loyalty at once. 
 
 On board the superdreadnought Nevada, which 
 Sims commanded just before the European war, the 
 bluejackets wanted some way of showing their affec- 
 tion for Captain Sims and decided to make some- door- 
 mats for his cabin. Knowing his motto to be " Cheer 
 up and get busy," they wove the first part of it into 
 the mats, so that everyone stepping across the thresh- 
 old was invited to "cheer up." Then in the cabin 
 
236 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 port holes they arranged electric lights that threw 
 out on the decks the words, '' Get busy." This was the 
 relationship between officer and men that Sims worked 
 constantly to bring about. It is said that in ten years 
 his reforms have revolutionized the navy's spirit. 
 
 Some twenty years ago the question of larger ships 
 was being considered by naval experts all over the 
 world. The biggest ship of the day was the battle- 
 ship, which carried both large and small guns. In 
 1903 Lieutenant Homer C. Poundstone of the Ameri- 
 can navy invented a great heavy armored, high-speed 
 ship with all big guns. Sims was much interested in 
 this new type of craft and, with Lieutenant Pound- 
 stone, worked out all the details of the plan. Both 
 officers believed it to be the fighting ship of the future. 
 They named it the U. S. S. '' Scared-o-Nothing/* 
 Two years later, there appeared in the British navy 
 an all-big-gun ship, the first of the kind to be built. 
 It was called the '' Dreadnought f' 
 
 From the time Sims first heard of Lieutenant 
 Poundstone's big ship, he had tried repeatedly to have 
 the plans accepted by the navy department, but it was 
 not until Great Britain and Italy actually began to 
 build dreadnoughts that the department finally con- 
 sented. Plans for the Michigan and the South Caro- 
 lina, which had been ordered as battleships, were 
 then changed and these became our first dread- 
 noughts. 
 
 One other achievement of Sims's was to prove of 
 great value in the European war. This was his work 
 
ADMIRAL SIMS 237 
 
 with the destroyers. In 1911, when Captain Sims 
 was a man of fifty-three, he entered the Naval War 
 College at Newport, Rhode Island, and worked there 
 as an ordinary student for two years, chiefly upon the 
 problems of destroyers. 
 
 Destroyers were comparatively new ships in the 
 navy and it was not very clear what their function in 
 battle was to be, whether they should keep to the work 
 for which they were originally built, destroying tor- 
 pedo boats, or whether they should be used in attack 
 against the giant battleships. If they were to be used 
 in attack, their movements must be regulated and 
 timed. 
 
 When Sims left the War College, he was given com- 
 mand of the Torpedo Flotilla of the Atlantic fleet, 
 which afforded him the opportunity of trying out in a 
 practical way the problems over which he had worked. 
 He converted the destroyer flotilla from a mere col- 
 lection of ships into a coordinated fighting machine, 
 and it was this work which enabled us to take our 
 place in the fighting line just five weeks after war was 
 declared with Germany. 
 
 Sims was President of the Naval War College when 
 war came. Shortly afterwards he was promoted to 
 the rank of vice-admiral, and since the war has ended 
 he has been made an admiral, which is the highest 
 rank in the navy. 
 
 Before war w^as actually declared, he was sent to 
 London to confer with the British Admiralty. He 
 has himself told the story of his departure. 
 
238 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 '' While I was President of the Naval War College 
 at Newport, I was ordered to report without delay to 
 the Secretary of the Navy at Washington. I was not 
 notified of the nature of the business to be discussed. 
 When I arrived, I was received in secret conference 
 with Secretary Daniels and Admiral Benson, chief 
 of naval operations. 
 
 " I was told that it looked as though we should go 
 to war with Germany. They then explained to me 
 that I was to go at once to see the people on the other 
 side and reach an understanding as to how the United 
 States could best cooperate with the Allied sea force 
 in operation against Germany. 
 
 " They told me that one aide would be allowed me 
 and that his identity must not be known until it might 
 be decided to reveal it on his arrival on the other side. 
 
 *T chose Commander J. V. Babcock, who was my 
 aide at Newport. We both put on civilian clothes, 
 dropped our names, and assumed others more suitable 
 to the occasion. Babcock and I chose ' Richardson ' 
 and 'Robertson' as near as I can recall. We sailed 
 from New York on March 31, 1917, on the steamship 
 New York. No one on the steamer recognized us, 
 and we passed the trip as ordinary voyagers. 
 
 ''We received the news of the declaration of war 
 by the ship's wireless on April 6th, but it did not dis- 
 turb us. We reached Liverpool on April 9th in a 
 thick fog. Entering the harbor, the New York struck 
 a mine, which blew a hole in one of her forward com- 
 partments. 
 
ADMIRAL SIMS 239 
 
 ''At Liverpool we went ashore like anyone else. 
 A special train was waiting at the landing stage, how- 
 ever, with x\dmiral Hope of the British Admiralty. 
 It waited there until we got aboard, then pulled out 
 for London. 
 
 "We arrived at London April 10th, still wearing 
 civilian clothes. We went at once to the Admiralty 
 offices, where we had a conference with Admiral Jell- 
 icoe. 
 
 "On April 13th, at a luncheon in London, the 
 United States ambassador made a formal announce- 
 ment that I had arrived in the country. After that I 
 went about in uniform." 
 
 The first of our ships to reach the fighting zone 
 were the destroyers. From their camouflage they 
 were known as " Sims's circus." They were barred, 
 striped, and daubed in all colors. Breaking the out- 
 line renders a ship less visible to the enemy and often 
 makes it difficult to tell in which direction it is moving. 
 
 The destroyers had sailed, prepared in every detail 
 for war, yet not even the commander knew that the 
 flotilla was bound for Europe. The instructions were 
 to "proceed to a point fifty miles east of Cape Cod 
 and there to open sealed orders." 
 
 The Germans, however, had learned of the sailing 
 of the flotilla, knew of its destination and the day of 
 its arrival, and, the night before it was to reach 
 Queenstown, Ireland, had planted a field of mines at 
 the entrance to the harbor. In spite of this effort on 
 the part of the enemy, our destroyers slipped into port 
 
240 
 
 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 
 Admiral Sims 
 
ADMIRAL SIMS 241 
 
 safely, the Stars and Stripes flying from their masts, 
 "their funnels white with salt spray." 
 
 On shore a crowd had gathered to greet them and, 
 from the time they were first sighted, filing in a long 
 line into the harbor, cheer after cheer went up, until 
 they finally dropped anchor and the officers came 
 ashore. 
 
 It was a simple greeting of a few hundred people, 
 quite dififerent from the one Queenstown had planned. 
 MiHtary bands and a celebration to last several days 
 had been ordered, but at the last moment Admiral 
 Sims arrived and asked that all preparations be 
 stopped. Our destroyers were not coming for pleas- 
 ure, he said, but to fight. 
 
 Nevertheless, the British commander who greeted 
 our flotilla was hardly prepared for the senior officer's 
 answer to his question, '' When will you be ready for 
 service?" 
 
 ''We can start at once, sir," the American com- 
 mander replied. It was expected that the destroyers 
 would need time to prepare for war service. 
 
 "We made preparations on the way over," the 
 American officer continued. '' That is why we are 
 ready." And within an hour after their arrival at 
 Queenstown the destroyers were on their way to the 
 fighting zone. 
 
 At this time, as Admiral Sims has since said, the 
 Germans were w^inning the war. Every month their 
 submarines destroyed between 700,000 and 800,000 
 tons of Allied shipping. The American navy adopted 
 
242 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 new methods of combating submarines. At first 
 they were only experiments, but they proved so suc- 
 cessful that the shipping losses rapidly decreased from 
 that time on. The principal methods used were three : 
 first, the convoy system, which was Admiral Sims's 
 own idea; second, the depth bomb; and third, the 
 listening device for detecting submarines. The last 
 two were American inventions, sent over by the Amer- 
 ican Board of Inventions. 
 
 To fight submarines was especially the work of the 
 destroyers. They are slender, trim looking ships, 
 some three hundred feet long, with a breadth of only 
 thirty feet. Steaming at high speed, a destroyer darts 
 upon a submarine, endeavoring to ram it before it can 
 submerge. Failing to do this, it then wheels in cir- 
 cles or in zigzag lines and drops its depth bombs. ' The 
 bombs explode eighty feet below the sea's surface, 
 destroying everything within one hundred fifty yards. 
 They have accounted for more submarines than any 
 other single device. 
 
 A naval officer on board one of qur first transports 
 tells w^hat happened during a submarine attack when 
 a destroyer came to the rescue."" 
 
 ''Like a striking rattlesnake, it darted between a 
 couple of transports. Her nose was so deep in the 
 sea as to be almost buried, while a great wave at the 
 stern threw a shower of spray on the soldiers massed 
 at the transport's bow. That destroyer ran right 
 along the line of bubbles like a hound following a trail, 
 
 1 Our Navy in the War, Lawrence Perry. 
 
ADMIRAL SIMS 243 
 
 and when it came to the spot where the commander 
 estimated the submarine must be lurking he released 
 a depth bomb. A column of smoke and foam rose 
 fifty feet in the air, and the destroyer herself rose half 
 out of the water under the shock of the explosion. 
 On the water were seen oil and fragments of wood and 
 steel." 
 
 Convoy work was exacting, patrol duty hardly less 
 so. In seas strewn with wreckage, where any stick 
 resembled a periscope, a patrol ship had to be on the 
 alert constantly. A destroyer on patrol sometimes 
 covered six or seven thousand miles a month, and its 
 patrol beat might be anywhere from the Mediterra- 
 nean to the North Sea. 
 
 But, whatever the dangers and hardships, hunting 
 submarines was " the greatest game in the world," and 
 both officers and men counted themselves lucky to be 
 with the destroyers. A song went round among the 
 crews that ran like this : 
 
 " Talk about your battleships, cruisers, scouts, and all ; 
 Talk about your Fritzers who are waiting for a fall ; 
 Talk about your Coast Guard, it's brave they have to be ; 
 But Admiral Sims's flotilla is the terror of the sea." 
 
 The number of our destroyers in the beginning of 
 the w^ar was, however, too small to meet the needs of 
 the patrol service, and soon France sent in a call for 
 more ships to guard her coasts. Until more destroy- 
 ers could be built, the only available ships were those 
 of the naval auxiliary, private yachts turned over to 
 the navy for war service. 
 
244 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 So frail did they appear for the task ahead of them 
 that the navy men dubbed them the '' Suicide Fleet/' 
 Their crews numbered a few enlisted men and one or 
 two petty officers. The rest were chiefly college stu- 
 dents. What they lacked in training they made up 
 for in their eagerness to serve; when it came to fight- 
 ing submarines, no destroyer fleet was going to get 
 ahead of them. 
 
 Arriving at Brest one day, the Suicide Fleet found 
 no end of work waiting for it. It had been sent for 
 chiefly to convoy shipping along the French coast. 
 This was the route to the Mediterranean and here the 
 submarines were most active. Much of the convoy- 
 ing had to be done at night. With twenty to thirty 
 merchant ships depending on it for safety, one of these 
 yachts would feel its way in the darkness through the 
 dangerous reefs and shoals of the Bay of Biscay, 
 reaching some port only to take on coal and depart im- 
 mediately. There was neither rest nor leisure for the 
 crews as long as their boats held together. 
 
 In the chart room there was always a pile of radio 
 messages. And too often there came a message which 
 read like this : ' " From S. S. , S. O. S. Am be- 
 ing torpedoed, thirty miles west of . Shot just 
 
 missed by five hundred yards. Am being shelled. 
 Hope to see you soon." 
 
 To which the yacht would reply, " Keep on that 
 course. We are heading for you. Hold on! Help 
 
 1 With the Fighting Fleets, Ralph D. Paine. 
 
ADMIRAL SIMS ' 245 
 
 Perhaps the ship that was being shelled was one of a 
 convoy in which case the other ships were obliged to 
 steer a wild, zigzag course to escape a similar fate. 
 Not infrequently they collided. If it were night, 
 darkness added to the confusion. Unable to see the 
 submarine, they would fire in the direction where they 
 thought it might be. The answer was shells and more 
 shells. Explosions told where a ship was struck, ex- 
 plosions and the cries of men calling for help as they 
 floated about in the icy water. 
 
 Steaming up to a scene like this, the yacht would 
 begin rescue work. Flashing on a searchlight, though 
 to do so was to risk being torpedoed, she circled round 
 and round, gathering in the men one at a time. She 
 did not get them all. Some drifted quickly out of 
 sight ; others went down before she could reach them. 
 Most of those rescued made work for the ship's doctor. 
 Generally they were either wounded or frozen. Only 
 now and then a man would clamber up the ship's side, 
 grinning, and call out cheerfully, ''Where do we go 
 from here?" 
 
 The storms that battered them were some of the 
 worst ever known in the east Atlantic. Heavy seas 
 smashed, masts, life boats, and now and then the bow 
 of a ship itself. Wind at sixty to a hundred miles an 
 hour would roll them over until their funnels all but 
 touched the water. Torpedoed in a sea like this, they 
 were helpless; the waves would sweep the men over- 
 board before they could reach their guns. Often it 
 meant suicide for them to put to sea, yet they never 
 
246 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 failed to leave on schedule. Going down was only a 
 part of the ''great game." 
 
 So entirely was the attention of the Americans 
 centered upon German submarines that for a time they 
 forgot that we had submarines of our own. For 
 months after the declaration of war nothing was 
 heard of them. They worked quietly, patrolling our 
 coasts, guarding our harbors. Then one day the 
 Secretary of the Navy announced that a flotilla of 
 American submarines had crossed the Atlantic. They 
 had crossed in December of 1917 in severe winter 
 storms which had carried them far out of their course 
 and made their crossing a memorable achievement. 
 
 "On all the boats the lookout on the bridge had 
 to be lashed in place," wrote the captain of one of 
 these submarines,^ ''and every once in a while a 
 couple of tons of water would come tumbling over 
 him. 
 
 " You can imagine what it was like inside. To be- 
 gin with, the oily air was none too sweet, because 
 every time we opened a hatch we shipped enough water 
 to make the old hooker look like a start at a swimming 
 tank; and then she was lurching so continuously and 
 violently that to move six feet was an expedition. 
 The men were wonderful, wonderful ! Each man at 
 his allotted task and — what's that English word? — 
 carrying on. Our little cook couldn't do a thing with 
 his stove, might as well have tried to cook on a minia- 
 
 1 With the American Submarines, Henry B. Beston, Atlantic 
 Monthly, November, 1918. 
 
ADMIRAL SIMS 247 
 
 ture earthquake, but he saw that all of us had some- 
 thing to eat, doing his bit game as could be. 
 
 '' Since it was impossible to make any headway, we 
 lay to for forty-eight hours. The deck began to go 
 the second morning, some of the plates being ripped 
 off. And blow — I never saw anything like it. The 
 disk of the sea was just one great ragged mass of 
 foam being hurled through space by a wind screaming 
 past with the voice of a million express trains. 
 
 " Perhaps you are wondering why we didn't sub- 
 merge. We simply couldn't use up our electricity. 
 It takes oil and running on the surface to create the 
 electric power, and we had a long, long journey ahead. 
 Then ice began to form on the superstructure, and we 
 had to get out a crew to chop it off. It was something 
 of a job; there wasn't much to hang on to, and the 
 waves were still breaking over us. But we freed her 
 of the danger and she went on." 
 
 After three weeks of this, when Admiral Sims was 
 beginning to feel some anxiety about his submarines, 
 they came into port one day, shipshape, with flags 
 flying. They were to become a part of the subma- 
 rine patrol, working in waters around the British Isles. 
 Their work also was to hunt enemy submarines. By 
 means of the listening device a German submarine 
 could be detected miles away. Once an enemy boat 
 was followed eighteen hours by an American subma- 
 rine before it was caught. 
 
 '' But aren't our submarines ever mistaken for Ger- 
 man ? " someone asked a submarine officer. 
 
248 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 '^ Oh, yes," he answered in a matter-of-fact way. 
 
 To be mistaken for the enemy, to have torpedoes 
 fired at you and depth bombs dropped on you, to run 
 the risk of being rammed by one of your own destroyers 
 — that was all a part of the business of the submarine 
 patrol. There was even a grimmer side than this. 
 That was to go scouting about under the sea and come 
 unexpectedly upon the enemy. " Sometimes," re- 
 marked a British captain, ''nobody knows just what 
 happens. Out there in the deep water, whatever 
 happens happens in a hurry." And on the navy rec- 
 ords there is entered against the number of the sub- 
 marine which met the enemy simply the item, ''Failed 
 to report." 
 
 One day, some months after we entered the war, 
 there arrived at an English port five strange looking 
 battleships, with towers of latticed steel unlike any- 
 thing in European navies. " At sight of them," says 
 an English writer, "the gray, war-weary battle fleet 
 of Britain burst into a roar of welcome such as had 
 never before greeted a stranger within the gates, 
 either in peace or war." That same day Admiral Sims 
 cabled the navy department in Washington, "Ar- 
 rived as per schedule." 
 
 The American battleships had come to take part in 
 the fighting, for it was expected that more naval 
 battles would be fought before the end of the war. 
 Since the battle of Jutland, May 31, 1916, the German 
 fleet had remained at home, yet every now and then 
 there came a rumor that the enemy was out. On these 
 
ADMIRAL SIMS 249 
 
 occasions the British fleet would leave its base and 
 search the whole North Sea. Such an alarm was 
 sounded soon after the arrival of our battleships. 
 ^' Under way at three o'clock," was the order, and in 
 the silence and darkness of early morning the whole 
 fleet moved out. The place of honor was given to the 
 American ships, which, operating as part of the Brit- 
 ish fleet, now became known as the Sixth Battle 
 Squadron. Steaming in line, just so many hundred 
 yards apart, each battleship kept in its appointed place; 
 following, came the cruisers, the destroyers, and the 
 submarines. 
 
 Morning brought wind, rain, and fog. ^' No weather 
 for a scrap unless it is a short and merry one," 
 an officer remarked, and disappointment settled upon 
 the Americans. It was due them to have just one 
 " crack " at the Germans. 
 
 The high seas were making life most uncomfortable 
 aboard ship.^ '' Men moved with care lest they to- 
 boggan across the deck and break a leg. Water 
 swashed in when the gun-ports rolled under, and bare- 
 legged bluejackets were baling the floors with buckets. 
 It was damp, gloomy, and dismal below with the 
 hatches battened, but the ships had bucked through 
 heavier seas than this, and these hundreds of Ameri- 
 can sailors were salt-water philosophers." 
 
 Despite the weather the fleet still headed for the Ger- 
 man coast. A stick appearing suddenly a few hun- 
 dred yards to the starboard brought down a shell from 
 the gunners. No risks could be taken in these waters, 
 
 ^ With the Fighting Fleets, Ralph D. Paine. 
 
250 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 and the red flag, warning of submarines, was sent 
 up the signal yard. 
 
 After twelve hours without sight of the enemy, the 
 fleet reluctantly turned back. It w^as no use to go on 
 in such weather. The next time, perhaps, there would 
 be better luck. 
 
 The opportunity to engage the German fleet in 
 battle, however, never came. The only time our 
 battleships met the enemy w^as on the day when the 
 German fleet surrendered, and the Sixth Battle Squad- 
 ron, as part of the Grand Fleet, escorted it to May 
 Island off the coast of Scotland. 
 
 It happened that on Christmas some of our battle- 
 ships were in port.^ ''Heard about it?'' asked a 
 sergeant of the marines. 
 
 ''Well, there was Christmas trees and fake fire- 
 places all over the ships and socks hung up for dear 
 old Santa Claus to slide down through the ventilator. 
 And the Admiral pulled off his favorite stunt, which 
 was to invite a million or so poor kids aboard and give 
 them a party. Counting noses, I suppose there was a 
 thousand of them, to get it right. They were war 
 orphans or their daddies were serving in France. We 
 blew them off to a turkey dinner and a moving picture 
 show and clothes and shoes and ten shillings, in cash, 
 per kid, and w^hat they couldn't eat without busting 
 they carried home in paper bags. It was no trouble 
 at all to raise funds. And was it worth it ? Say, you 
 forgot to be homesick. 
 
 1 With the Fighting Fleets, Ralph D. Paine. 
 
ADMIRAL SIMS 251 
 
 '' The kids sang Christmas songs and cheered the 
 flas: and the Admiral and the crews and the navy. 
 Then a gang of minstrels came over in boats from 
 some British ships and serenaded us and we gave 
 them a band concert and, when we turned in that night, 
 it didn't seem such a bum Christmas after all." 
 
 When our navy had been at war a little more than 
 a year it numbered a thousand ships. The trade 
 routes for which it was responsible were not as many 
 as Great Britain's, but our coast line was longer. 
 From Puget Sound to San Diego Bay, from Maine to 
 Panama, and on the shores of the Great Lakes, our 
 patrols protected transports and shipping. Our 
 dreadnoughts and battleships, with the exception of 
 those in foreign service, formed a line of defense ex- 
 tending along the entire Atlantic coast and served also 
 as training schools for war. 
 
 Submarine nets protected our harbors, mine sweep- 
 ers worked continuously outside the harbor entrances 
 to keep them free from mines, while scout boats and 
 submarines watched for any sign of the enemy in 
 American waters. All this was the " silent service " 
 about which one heard little, but without which our 
 fighting fleets could not have carried on. 
 
 Occasionally passers-by on the streets of London 
 w^ould turn to look at a tall straight man, wearing the 
 blue uniform of the American navy, and remark, 
 ''That's Admiral Sims." He was usually seen going 
 or coming from one of two places, the British Admi- 
 
252 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 ralty or a mansion in Grosvenor Gardens, West Lon- 
 don, over which floated the American flag. This 
 latter place was Admiral Sims's office, the London 
 headquarters of the American navy. 
 
 It was through this office that all information 
 reached Washington regarding the needs and organ- 
 ization of our navy in the war zone. Methods and 
 plans changed as the character of the war changed, 
 and all instructions had to come from Admiral Sims. 
 
 From the moment he arrived in London he made it 
 clear that the policy of the American navy was not to 
 be one of rivalry but of cooperation with our allies. 
 If the British had methods that were better than ours, 
 we should adopt British methods. The real object 
 being to win the war, it did not matter by what meth- 
 ods the end was achieved. 
 
 It was the business of Admiral Sims's organization, 
 too, to watch the enemy, to know what German boats 
 were on the seas and their approximate location. Re- 
 ports reached the London office daily, and orders were 
 flashed to ships from the North Sea to the Mediterra- 
 nean. 
 
 In June of 1917 Admiral Sims was given command 
 of the Allied fleets in Irish waters. It was the first 
 honor of its kind that the British navy had ever paid to 
 a foreign naval officer. This work required that he 
 spend a large part of his time at Queenstown, Ireland, 
 and a fine old house, with beautiful lawns and gardens, 
 situated on the heights above the town, was turned 
 over to him. 
 
ADMIRAL SIMS 253 
 
 His office at sea was on board the Melville, mother 
 ship of a destroyer squadron, but he never remained 
 very long in one place. One day he might be in Lon- 
 don, the next in Paris, and on the third day at the 
 naval base. Though he worked long hours, some- 
 times staying in his office until midnight, he was care- 
 ful to keep in the best of health. He has always en- 
 joyed his work above everything. 
 
 Some of his English friends have tried to interest 
 him in hunting and fishing, but he is not a sportsman; 
 he does not like to kill birds or animals. His idea of 
 recreation is something quite different. In his spare 
 moments he gets a great deal of fun from writing lim- 
 ericks and humorous verse. 
 
 "One night when the American fleet was lying at 
 anchor in the Bay of Guaconabays," writes an English 
 correspondent, '' the officers assembled to discuss naval 
 subjects. Sims was leaning on a table, busy with pen 
 and paper. Officers thought that the Admiral was oc- 
 cupied with an order or a dispatch. After an hour he 
 handed each officer a limerick on the subject he had 
 been discussing." 
 
 One other pleasure which Admiral Sims enjoys 
 quite as much as his work is playing games of all sorts 
 with his children. When he was President of the Na- 
 val War College, he used to ride a bicycle to school ev- 
 ery morning with one of the children perched on the 
 handlebars. Callers at his home have frequently 
 found him sitting on the floor, entertaining the baby. 
 
 Outside of the navy, people have known very little 
 
254 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 about Admiral Sims. He prefers not to be known, 
 and has asked reporters repeatedly not to mention his 
 name in dispatches. Lieutenant Reuterdahl, writing 
 of Admiral Sims, says that he has known him for sev- 
 enteen years and has never been permitted to tell a 
 story about him. 
 
 First and last his thought has been for the navy. 
 Officers agree that Admiral Sims, more than any other 
 person, has been responsible for making our navy 
 efficient. The principles for which he has fought so 
 persistently, however, include not only better methods 
 of doing things, but improved conditions of work and 
 a friendly relationship between officers and men. It 
 is the recognition of the human quality in work which 
 Admiral Sims believes makes for the highest type of 
 efficiency. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 The Fighting Fleets, Ralph D. Paine. 
 
 Our Navy in the War, Lawrence Perry. 
 
 Naval Academy of the United States, A. D. Brown, Harper's, 
 July, 187i: 
 
 United States Naval Academy, C. H. Foster, Scribner's, June, 
 1918. 
 
 Admiral Sims, Henry Leach, Living Age, Dec. 22, 1917. 
 
 Sims's Successful Indiscretions, Robert F. Wilson, World's 
 Work, June, 1917. 
 
 Sims's Circus, H. Whitaker, Independent, June 1, 1918. 
 
 One Thousand Ships in the United States Navy, Current His- 
 tory Magazine, Feb., 1918. 
 
 United States Navy Begins Operations, New York Times, May 
 17, 1917. 
 
 The Cheer Up Admiral, Henry Reuterdahl, Saturday Evening 
 Post, June 30, 1917. 
 
ADMIRAL SIMS 255 
 
 Admiral Sims in Team Work for Victory, Scientific American, 
 
 April 12, 1919. 
 Admiral Sims and His Fleet, Living Age, June 8, 1918. 
 The Very Human Admiral, Independent, April 21, 1919. 
 With the American Submarines, Henry B. Beston, Atlantic 
 
 Nov., 1918. 
 
X. GENERAL PERSHING 
 
 Laclede, Missouri, in 1860, was a village of some 
 six hundred inhabitants. A one-room school, a few 
 stores, and a small cluster of houses comprised the 
 town. A railroad, running from Hannibal to St. 
 Joseph, had only just reached Laclede. There were 
 no sidewalks, and the streets were hardly better than 
 muddy country roads. Such was the town of General 
 Pershing's boyhood. 
 
 At the time of his birth, September 13, 1860, his 
 father was a section foreman on the new railroad, 
 and John was born in a farmhouse not far from the 
 place of his father's work. A few years later his 
 father bought a store in Laclede and the family moved 
 into town. John F. Pershing, the general's father, 
 was an excellent business man; in time he became 
 fairly well-to-do. In addition to the store, he also 
 owned several farms, and the family moved into a 
 large white house on Main Street, the largest house 
 in town. 
 
 There were nine children in the Pershing family, 
 of whom only six lived. John was the eldest. A 
 friend who remembers him as a boy has described him 
 as having light curly hair and black eyes. " He was 
 square-jawed and iron-willed. His shoulders were 
 
 256 
 
GENERAL PERSHING 257 
 
 square, and he was straight as an arrow. He had a 
 firm, set mouth and a high forehead, and even as a 
 boy was a dignified chap. And yet he was thor- 
 oughly democratic in his manner and beHef." 
 
 Another friend, who was also a playmate in La- 
 clede, says that '' as a boy, Pershing was not unlike 
 thousands of other boys of his age. . . . He knew 
 the best places to shoot squirrels or quail, knew where 
 to find the hazel or hickory nuts. He knew, too, 
 where ttie coolest and deepest swimming pools in the 
 Locust, Muddy, or Turkey creeks were." 
 
 His first school was the little one-room school- 
 house. He was an average student, exceptionally 
 good in mathematics, and he liked books. As a boy 
 he had no desire to be a soldier, but he wanted an 
 education and he went after knowledge in the same 
 way that he did everything else, that is with all the 
 energy he had. The boys used to say of him that he 
 hit hard. 
 
 When he was thirteen a catastrophe befell the 
 family. That year his father lost everything he had 
 except an interest in two farms. For the next three 
 years he tried farming with John's help. But in 1875 
 there came a year of drought, when no crops were 
 harvested at all, and the elder Pershing had to seek 
 other means of making a living. John now under- 
 took to run the farms in his father's absence and to 
 help support the family. 
 
 He had heard that the negro school in Laclede was 
 in need of a teacher. It was a position that paid little 
 
258 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 and was difficult to fill. He was only seventeen at 
 the time, but he was tall and strong, and he had a 
 reputation as a student. When he applied for the 
 position, therefore, the school board decided to let 
 him have it. He taught only one term but his expe- 
 rience enabled him to secure a place as teacher in 
 Prairie Mound, a neighboring town some miles away. 
 While teaching there, he read law at the same time, 
 for his big ambition was to become a lawyer. 
 
 Some time later, with the money saved from teach- 
 ing, he entered the Normal School at Kirksville, Mis- 
 souri, and was a student there for two years. In the 
 spring of 1882, during his last term at the normal 
 school, he chanced to see the announcement of a com- 
 petitive examination for the West Point Military 
 Academy and decided that he would try for it. He 
 did not even then think of a military career. He 
 simply wanted an education and West Point offered 
 an unusual opportunity. 
 
 Without saying anything to his parents about his 
 intention, John went to Trenton, Missouri, to try for 
 the appointment. There were seventeen other con- 
 testants besides himself. The examination, however, 
 developed into a contest between John Pershing and 
 a boy named Frank Higginbotham. Higginbotham 
 was the first to finish, but this fact did not trouble John. 
 He was careful to read over each answer and to prove 
 every problem before he turned in his papers. 
 
 That night it was announced that John Pershing 
 had won by a single point. Writing of this event 
 
GENERAL PERSHING 259 
 
 many years later, Pershing says that the day he won 
 his appointment was the proudest day of his hfe. 
 
 ''An old friend of the family happened to be in 
 Trenton that day," he writes/ " and, passing on the 
 opposite side of the street, called to me and said, 
 ' John, I hear you passed with flying colors.' 
 
 "In all seriousness, feeling the importance of my 
 success, I naively replied in a loud voice, ' Yes, I 
 did/" 
 
 The examination which he had just passed, how- 
 ever, was only for the purpose of selecting a candi- 
 date. The regular entrance examination was yet to 
 come and John now went home to inform his parents 
 of his success and to get their permission to go East 
 to study. Three months later he passed his final ex- 
 amination, twenty-second on the list, and was admit- 
 ted to West Point on July 1, 1882. 
 
 Every plebe, or first-year man, at West Point has 
 to undergo a certain amount of '' deviling." One of 
 the inventions of upper classmen for trying out the 
 disposition of a plebe was known as " dragging." A 
 cadet was seized in his bed, " preferably on a rainy 
 night," carried out of his tent and dragged by his 
 heels the length of the camp street. Not infrequently 
 the street was lined with persecutors who cooled his 
 temper by dashing buckets of cold water on him as he 
 passed by. General Pershing still remembers the 
 draggings he got the first year. He took it in good 
 spirit, however, and found some satisfaction in devis- 
 
 1 Life of General Pershing, George MacAdam. 
 
26o LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 ing new ways of deviling plebes when he should be 
 an upper classman. 
 
 Another memorable event of that first year, says 
 General Pershing, was his first turn at guard/ 
 
 '' I got along all right during the day, but at night, 
 on the color line, my troubles began. Of course I 
 was scared beyond the point of properly applying any 
 of my orders. A few minutes after taps ghosts of 
 all sorts began to appear from all directions. I se- 
 lected a particularly bold one and challenged accord- 
 ing to orders. 
 
 "^Halt! Who comes there?' 
 
 " At that time the ghost stood still in his tracks. I 
 then said, ' Halt ! Who stands there ? ' whereupon 
 the ghost, who was carrying a chair, sat down. 
 I promptly said, ' Halt! Who sits there? ' " 
 
 At the end of his first year Pershing stood twenty- 
 second in a class of seventy-seven. In another year 
 he had dropped to the thirty-fourth place. He found 
 his studies hard. French and Spanish were particu- 
 larly troublesome, and many a Saturday afternoon, 
 the only free time he had, went to " boning " French 
 lest he fail to get through. 
 
 It was as a soldier rather than as a student that he 
 made his record. In each of the three years in which 
 officers are chosen from the cadet ranks John Per- 
 shing headed the list. Upper-class men tremendously 
 respected his discipline. In his senior year he was 
 Captain of Company A , the highest honor a cadet can 
 
 1 Life of General Pershing, George MacAdam, 
 
GENERAL PERSHING 261 
 
 win. The day on which he won his captaincy was 
 the chmax of days," he writes. " No honor can 
 ever come equal to that." 
 
 At the end of the second year he was allowed his 
 hrst furlough and went home for the summer That 
 summer he tried to come to some decision about his 
 career. Lymg out under the trees, he and his old 
 friend, Charley .Spurgeon, talked it over. John still 
 clung to the idea of studying law. 
 
 " This country is at peace now and it's going to 
 stay at peace," he said. " There won't be a gun fired 
 m the next hundred years. The army is no place for 
 me m peace time. I'd start in as a second lieutenant 
 and get to be a first lieutenant only when a first lieu- 
 tenant died. The world is going to be too peaceful 
 m the future to make the army look promising as a 
 career." 
 
 As late as his senior year he was still undecided and 
 was planning then with three of his classmates to 
 resign from the army and start some kind of irri- 
 gation project out in Oregon. But when, upon his 
 graduation, he was assigned to active duty with the 
 Sixth Cavalry, all thoughts of a career outside the 
 army were given up. 
 
 For the next five years Lieutenant Pershing was 
 engaged in hunting rebel Indians in the West, first 
 in New Mexico, then in the Bad Lands of South 
 Dakota. He did not take part in any battles, but his 
 work was trying and often dangerous. Each country 
 had its hardships. Under the scorching sun of the 
 
262 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 treeless mesas of New Mexico thirst caused intense 
 suffering; often forty to fifty miles lay between water 
 holes. In South Dakota the other extreme was 
 reached. There the men had to endure the severe 
 cold of below-zero temperatures, sleeping in tents, 
 facing blizzards, riding for days over the snow-cov- 
 ered plains. 
 
 Back in his cadet days Pershing's classmates used 
 to say of him that he was '' dependable," and this was 
 the opinion of his superior officers during these years 
 in the West. Whether his work was rescuing trav- 
 elers from the Indians, capturing bandits, or looking 
 out for the comfort of his men, it was always well 
 done. 
 
 He was thirty-two, however, before he became a 
 first lieutenant, and, shortly after, he received the 
 appointment of military instructor at the University of 
 Nebraska. 
 
 At this time military drill was not very popular at 
 the university. Everybody who could got out of it 
 and those who could not spent very little time 
 polishing shoes and rifles and brushing uniforms. 
 They slouched about with rounded shoulders and 
 hands in their pockets in a way that was not exactly 
 military. They did not know their new instructor's 
 record as a drill-master at West Point, but they were 
 not long in finding it out. They scrubbed and 
 brushed and polished for their credits after Pershing 
 came, and in two or three months there was such a 
 change that one could not always be sure whether the 
 
GENERAL PERSHING 263 
 
 soldierly figure crossing the campus was that of Lieu- 
 tenant Pershing or one of the cadets, who now dressed 
 like him and walked like him. 
 
 Another thing these Mid-Western boys were never 
 to forget was the way Pershing taught. " Once at an 
 annual encampment," says Col. William Hayward," 
 who was one of Pershing's cadets, '' the company was 
 lined up along a country road, firing on a masked 
 battery in an orchard. In those days the firing was 
 by volleys and commands. 
 
 " Pershing gave the command, ' Load, ready, aim !' ; 
 then, walking along the line of Cadets, he touched my 
 foot and whispered, ' Fire ! ' I fired. Then every- 
 body fired. Pershing ran back and forth inquiring of 
 each of the cadets : 
 
 '' ' Did you hear the command. Fire? ' 
 
 "^ No, sir!' 
 
 " ' Then Vv-hy did you fire? ' 
 
 *' ' I heard some one else fire.' 
 
 " ' Do you ahvays do what you hear other people 
 do?'" 
 
 These cadets were very proud of having served 
 under Pershing, and when it became known that he 
 was to leave the university, they called a meeting to 
 devise some badge that would distinguish them from 
 other students. " The majority favored a gold 
 medal," continues Col. Hayward, " but one boy stood 
 out for a pair of Pershing's breeches." When he ex- 
 plained the idea he had in mind, all voted for the 
 
 1 Kansas City Star, July 9, 1916. 
 
264 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 breeches and he was appointed to interview Lieuten- 
 ant Pershing. 
 
 " What in the world do you want of a pair of my 
 breeches?" Pershing asked. 
 
 The cadet explained that they were to be cut up 
 into stripes, showing the yellow cavalry stripes with 
 the blue of the uniform, and made into service 
 ribbons. 
 
 " I'll give you the very best pair I own," said 
 Pershing. 
 
 At the university Pershing found the opportunity 
 he had always wanted to study law. Though he had 
 by this time given up the idea of practicing, he thought 
 that a knowledge of law would be helpful to an army 
 officer. He completed the full course, receiving the 
 degree of Bachelor of Laws. 
 
 From the University of Nebraska he went to West 
 Point as instructor in tactics, where he remained until 
 the Spanish War in 1898, when he at once asked for 
 active service. As an officer of the Tenth Cavalry, a 
 colored regiment, he was among the first 15,000 who 
 sailed for Cuba on the 14th of June. Two weeks 
 later he was fighting in the battle of San Juan Hill. 
 He has himself described the charge which resulted 
 in the taking of Santiago. 
 
 " On June 30th," he writes, " with myself as guide, 
 the second squadron of the Tenth forced its way 
 through wire fences and almost impenetrable thicket 
 to its position. . . . Through streams, tall grass, 
 tropical undergrowth, under barbed wire fences and 
 
GENERAL PERSHING 265 
 
 over wire entanglements, regardless of casualties, up 
 the hill to the right, this gallant advance was made. 
 As we appeared on the brow of the hill, we found the 
 Spaniards retreating, only to take up a new position 
 farther on, firing as they retired and stubbornly yield- 
 ing ground, inch by inch. 
 
 '' Our troops halted and lay down for a moment 
 to get their breath. In the face of continued volleys, 
 they soon formed an attack on the blockhouses and 
 entrenchments of the second line. . . . The fire from 
 the Spanish position had doubled in intensity; the 
 cracking of their rifles was a continuous roar. There 
 was a moment's lull and our line moved forward to 
 charge across the valley separating the two hills. 
 Once begun, it continued, dauntless and unchecked in 
 its steady, dogged, and persistent advance until it 
 dashed triumphant over the crest of the hill and, fir- 
 ing a parting volley at the vanishing foe, planted the 
 silken standard on the enemy's breastworks and the 
 Stars and Stripes over the blockhouses of San Juan 
 Hill." 
 
 It was the first time that Pershing had taken part in 
 a battle, and he won his captaincy. Afterwards Gen- 
 eral Baldwin said of him : '' I have been in many fights 
 in the Civil War, but Captain Pershing is the coolest 
 man under fire I ever saw in my life." 
 
 Another officer, Captain Charles S. Ayres, who 
 commanded Troop E of the Tenth Cavalry, also 
 speaks of Pershing in the battle of San Juan. "As 
 we approached San Juan Creek, Troop E was in the 
 
266 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 lead of the Tenth Cavalry. When we got to the 
 creek the order was brought by the gallant Pershing, 
 who was as cool as a bowl of cracked ice, for the 
 troops to take cover along the creek and await further 
 orders. Into the creek we went after the courteous 
 Pershing, who was showing us where to go." 
 
 In 1899 Captain Pershing, at his own request, was 
 sent to the Philippine Islands, which the United States 
 had purchased upon the conclusion of the war. His 
 work was to be the subjugation of the islands' savage 
 tribes, the largest of which was the Moros, a people 
 whom the Spaniards had never succeeded in conquer- 
 ing. They were a farming and sea-faring people 
 who lived for the most part in the island of Mindanao, 
 the southernmost island of the Philippine group. No 
 one knew exactly how many they were, their numbers 
 having been estimated anywhere from thirty to one 
 hundred thousand. 
 
 Soon after the Americans came, the Moros began 
 to raid the army camps, stealing horses and not infre- 
 quently killing a sentry. Pershing tried to stop the 
 raids by talking to the Moro leaders, but he was 
 unsuccessful. Then he warned them that, if their 
 attacks continued, he w^ould destroy their villages. 
 
 One of the most troublesome of these tribes lived 
 on the shores of Lake Lanao, in a country where 
 high hills, covered with tropical jungle, protected 
 them from attack. Here each farm was a- little for- 
 tress in itself. The leader of the tribe, called the 
 datto, in his stronghold of earth and bamboo, with its 
 
GENERAL PERSHING 267 
 
 walls twenty feet thick and its deep wide moat, was 
 much amused at the idea of the Americans taking his 
 villages. 
 
 Two days after Pershing came, however, the datto's 
 stronghold no longer existed and a hundred Moros 
 had fallen in battle. Then the tribesmen of the en- 
 tire lake region came out of the hills and surrendered. 
 They welcomed Pershing and promised loyalty to the 
 new government. Wishing to impress them with the 
 fact that the American army was strong enough to 
 see that they kept their word, Pershing and his men 
 made a triumphal march all the way around the lake. 
 The natives were greatly awed, for it was the first 
 time in three hundred years that white men had encir- 
 cled Lake Lanao. 
 
 Pershing's first term of service in the Philippines 
 came to an end in 1903, when he was recalled to the 
 United States to become a member of the General Staff 
 Corps. In 1905, when the Russian-Japanese War 
 broke out, he was appointed military observer with the 
 Japanese army. The study he made of the tactics 
 and organization of the Japanese army was to prove 
 of great value later on, when it fell to him to organize 
 and command the American armies in France. 
 
 He was forty-five years old now and still a captain. 
 Advancement in the army was slow, too slow, Presi- 
 dent Roosevelt thought, for an officer who had done 
 all that Captain Pershing had. In 1906, therefore, 
 Roosevelt appointed him a brigadier-general. 
 
 At the end of the Russian- Japanese War Pershing 
 
268 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 returned to the Philippines. Many campaigns had 
 still to be made before the Moros were finally sub- 
 dued, the last occurring as late as 1913. That same 
 year he was appointed military governor of the Island 
 of Mindanao, and soon afterwards the Moros made 
 him a datto, or ruler, of one of their own tribes. It 
 was an unheard-of thing for a foreigner to become a 
 datto, for the datto was not only a judge among his 
 people, but held the power of life and death over 
 them. 
 
 Pershing had won their loyalty by treating them 
 fairly, and this was not always easy to do, for it 
 depended on his understanding of Moro customs. 
 First he learned the Moro language, then he studied 
 the Koran. The Moros are Mohammedans in reli- 
 gion and the Koran is their Bible. He did not try to 
 impose white men's ideas of civilization and govern- 
 ment on them, but allowed them to keep their own, and 
 after a time they discovered that they could get fairer 
 judgments from him than from one of their own 
 tribe. To a green tent among the palms, over which 
 waved an American flag, the Moros came for miles 
 around, old men, young warriors, mothers with babies, 
 to hear Pershing read their own law to them and settle 
 their differences. 
 
 In 1914 Pershing was recalled from the Philip- 
 pines and, a few months later, he was ordered to the 
 Mexican border. While he was hunting for a house 
 for his family in El Paso, word came to him of the 
 tragedy that had occurred in San Francisco, where 
 
GENERAL PERSHING 269 
 
 his wife and three Httle daughters had lost their lives 
 in a fire. Of all his family, only his son, then a boy 
 of six, had escaped. Those who were with General 
 Pershing in the months that followed noticed that the 
 lines in his face grew deeper and his hair turned more 
 gray, but he never spoke of his grief. He went 
 quietly on with his work, which was to patrol the 
 border and to build an efficient army organization. 
 
 One day in the spring of 1916, a party of Mexican 
 soldiers raided the town of Columbus, New Mexico, 
 killing several Americans. They were soldiers of a 
 Mexican rebel leader named Pancho Villa, who was 
 fighting the regular Mexican army. The result of 
 the Columbus raid was an order to General Pershing 
 to take his army into Mexico and capture Villa. Al- 
 though permission to do this had been obtained from 
 the Mexican government, it was clear that the gov- 
 ernment did not want the American army in Mexico, 
 even for the purpose of fighting its chief enemy. 
 General Pershing's position, therefore, was very dif- 
 ficult. In the end, the soldiers of Villa deserted him 
 when they discovered the presence of the American 
 army. Villa himself fled to the mountains, and the 
 American forces were finally withdrawn in January, 
 1917. 
 
 Three months later, on the 6th of April, 1917, the 
 United States declared w^ar against Germany, and 
 immediately there followed the announcement that 
 General Pershing had been chosen to command our 
 armies in France. 
 
270 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 As with France and Britain, so now with America, 
 the war was not to be fought with the army and the 
 navy alone but with all the industries, wealth, and 
 brains of the nation. A great business organization 
 had to be planned. While this work went on, people 
 forgot that the day would come when an American 
 army would sail for France, but one morning in June 
 word came that General Pershing and his staff had 
 landed in England, and suddenly the war seemed 
 very near. 
 
 His arrival was to mark a new understanding be- 
 tween the two great English-speaking nations. The 
 British people felt this and welcomed General Per- 
 shing as one of their own. The highest state and mili- 
 tary honors were paid to him, while cheering crowds 
 greeted him wherever he appeared. The enthusiasm 
 reached its height when the people read in Pershing's 
 message to the British public: '' We hope in time to be 
 playing our part — and we hope it will be a big part — 
 on the Western front." Four days were filled with 
 receptions, with army conferences, with visits to the 
 British training camps; then Pershing left England 
 for France, arriving at Boulogne on June 13th. 
 
 Mr. Floyd Gibbons, an American correspondent, 
 w^ho crossed the English Channel with General Per- 
 shing, tells of his arrival in France :^ 
 
 " It happened that I looked back amidships and saw 
 a solitary figure standing on the bridge of the vessel. 
 It was General Pershing. He seemed rapt in deep 
 
 ^ And They Thought We IVouldn't Fight, by Floyd Gibbons. 
 
GENERAL PERSHING 271 
 
 thought. He wore his cap straight on his head, the 
 visor shading his eyes. He stood tall and erect, his 
 hands behind him, his feet planted slightly apart to 
 accommodate the gentle roll of the ship. 
 
 "He faced due east and his eyes were directed 
 toward the shores of that foreign land which we were 
 approaching. . . . 
 
 " As we drew close to shore, I noticed an enormous 
 concrete breakwater extending out from the harbor 
 entrance. It was surmounted by a wooden railing 
 and on the very end of it, straddling the rail, was a 
 small French boy. His legs were bare and his feet 
 were encased in heavy wooden shoes. On his head 
 he w^ore a red stocking cap of the liberty type. As 
 we cam.e within hailing distance, he gave to us the 
 first greeting that came from the shores of France 
 to these first arriving American soldiers. 
 
 '' ' Vive r Amerique,' he shouted, cupping his hands 
 to his mouth and sending his shrill voice across the 
 water to us. Pershing, on the bridge, heard the salu- 
 tation. He smiled, touched his hand to his hat, and 
 waved to the lad on the railing." 
 
 Paris had prepared a holiday to celebrate General 
 Pershing's arrival. For two or three days the capital 
 city was to forget the war while it expressed its joy 
 over the coming of the Americans. Since early morn- 
 ing dense throngs had waited outside the station. 
 They filled the sidewalks, the streets, and the house- 
 tops. They crowded the windows and the balconies 
 along the route that Pershing was to pass. The 
 
272 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 Stars and Stripes and the tri-color were everywhere 
 entwined. 
 
 When the official greeting was over and General 
 Pershing stepped from the station into view of the 
 people, a great shout went up. " Vive I'Amerique ! " 
 and '' V^ive Pershing! " was the greeting of all Paris. 
 It ran like an echo along the entire route of the pro- 
 cession, while from the windows and balconies came 
 showers of confetti and flowers. 
 
 The destination of the Americans was Hotel Cril- 
 lon in the Place de la Concorde. When General 
 Pershing had disappeared within, the crowd imme- 
 diately demanded his reappearance on the balcony. 
 
 He came out and looked down, says Mr. Gibbon, 
 *' upon the sea of faces turned up to him, and then 
 it seemed that nature desired to play a part in the 
 ceremony of that great day. A soft breeze from the 
 Champs Elysees touched the cluster of flags on the 
 general's right and from all the Allied emblems fast- 
 ened there it selected one flag. 
 
 " The breeze tenderly caught the folds of the flag 
 and wafted them across the balcony on which the 
 general bowed. He saw and recognized that flag. 
 He extended his hand, caught the flag in his fingers 
 and pressed it to his lips. All France and all Amer- 
 ica represented in that vast throng that day cheered 
 to the mighty echo when Pershing kissed the tri-color 
 of France." 
 
 While France was expressing her gratitude to 
 America for the help that was still to come. General 
 
GENERAL PERSHING 273 
 
 Pershing did not forget the debt of free America to 
 France. With a few members of his staff and sev- 
 eral French officers, he went one day to an old ceme- 
 tery in the suburbs of Paris, where Lafayette lies 
 buried. There he was greeted by the Marquis de 
 Chambrun, a descendant of Lafayette, who spoke 
 again of the principle of liberty that had ever united 
 the two nations. 
 
 When the Marquis had finished speaking, Pershing 
 took from one of his officers a large wreath of pink 
 and white roses and placed it on the marble slab which 
 bore the name of Lafayette. Then, stepping back, he 
 removed his cap and stood a moment looking down 
 upon the tomb. Finally he spoke four words, '' La- 
 fayette, we are here." 
 
 The arrival of the first battalions of the American 
 army was a sequel to the arrival of General Pershing. 
 Paris saw them first on the Fourth of July, when they 
 passed in review before President Poincare, General 
 Joffre, and General Pershing. When the short cere- 
 mony was over, thousands of French soldiers, women, 
 and children left the crowds and, surging among our 
 troops as they marched through the streets, decorated 
 their hats and guns with roses and scattered flowers 
 in their way. 
 
 Fighting was the work to be done, after all, and 
 soon the new army was established in training camps. 
 At Gondrecourt, in the foothills of the Vosges moun- 
 tains, the First Division went into camp. It received 
 its instruction directly from French troops and in 
 
274 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 French. The instructors were men of the Alpins 
 Chasseurs, or Blue Devils, whom Americans on this 
 side were afterwards to know. 
 
 All summer the training went on. Soon after day- 
 break each morning the American soldiers left their 
 billets and marched with their French instructors to 
 the training grounds, where, through long, tedious 
 hours, they learned to dig, to drill, to throw grenades, 
 and to shoot. Late in the afternoon they marched 
 back to the village, and after supper, in their free 
 evening hours, the men would gather about the door- 
 ways to talk with the people and to learn French. 
 There was also the business of teaching the French 
 children to play ball. This became a regular occu- 
 pation, like drilling or trench digging. It had to be 
 done every day. 
 
 From the moment of its arrival the French chil- 
 dren adopted the American army, and after a time 
 the army reversed this proceeding by adopting the 
 French children. They took them individually and 
 by companies and regiments, each man contributing 
 so much a month for the support of some child whose 
 father had been killed in the war. 
 
 If there was one thing more than another that made 
 friends for the army among the French people, it was 
 their willingness to help. Their work was anything 
 waiting to be done ; they harvested the fields, cleaned 
 up the villages, or gave organ recitals in the churches, 
 as the need might be. 
 
 Americans who visit Paris in the future will not 
 
GENERAL PERSHING 275 
 
 unlikely go out of their way to find a house numbered 
 31 on the rue Constantine, not far from the tomb of 
 Napoleon. " There," they will say, " were the Amer- 
 ican headquarters. In that house the organization 
 for our army in France was planned. In the corner 
 room upstairs was General Pershing's office." 
 
 When America first entered the war, a French 
 General had said, " We should be satisfied if we might 
 have two or three hundred thousand Americans." 
 General Pershing, however, knew that great armies 
 would be needed and he planned, not for hundreds of 
 thousands but for millions. A member of General 
 Pershing's staff says that the work of '' supplying the 
 army, let alone preparing it for battle, was an enter- 
 prise surpassing that of the Panama canal in magni- 
 tude and difficulty." 
 
 The army needed everything and everything had 
 to be brought across the ocean in ships. But first new 
 harbors had to be made, new docks and warehouses 
 constructed, and hundreds of miles of new railroads 
 laid, all with American materials and American labor. 
 It was a regiment of American lumber-jacks, re- 
 cruited in the Far West, that turned the forests of 
 France into lumber for the army's needs. 
 
 Each section of the army had its special work to 
 do. One section looked after supplies, including 
 food, clothing, medicine, motors, and guns; another 
 looked after the training of the men ; a third had to do 
 with ships, a fourth with mail, a fifth with prisoners 
 and spies, and so on through all the details that 
 
276 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 together made up the organization which was pre- 
 paring to fight. 
 
 And all of the organization rested finally on the 
 shoulders of one man. General Pershing was every- 
 where. One could not tell from one day to the next 
 where he might be found. He inspected all the train- 
 ing camps and villages where American troops were 
 quartered, climbing into the lofts to see where the men 
 slept, assisting the cooks in the kitchens with their 
 menus. The stevedores at the ports and the truck 
 drivers along the roads knew him. The Red Cross, 
 the Y. M. C. A., and the various organizations con- 
 nected with the army received a visit from him at one 
 time or another. 
 
 And while he attended to these many things he kept 
 in touch with the fighting on all fronts. Now he was 
 with the British, now with the French, in their front 
 line trenches, their training camps, at headquarters. 
 His coffee-colored car, the only car with four stars 
 on the wind shield, was known throughout France, 
 fit came and went like a whirlwind. After a visit 
 from General Pershing, a training camp was always 
 aware that something had happened to it. The drills 
 had a little more snap to them. The discipline was 
 more strict. Every man wanted to make good. 
 
 As a part of their training, General Pershing be- 
 lieved that his soldiers should have some experience 
 in the front line trenches. In October of 1917, there- 
 fore, three American battalions took over a small sec- 
 tion of the French lines near St. Mihiel, on the Lor- 
 
GENERAL PERSHING 277 
 
 raine border. Although there was no heavy fighting 
 on the St. Mihiel front that winter, there were many 
 raids on both sides which resulted in our first losses. 
 Here the first men were wounded, the first prisoners 
 taken, and in the little village of Bathlemont are bur- 
 ied the first American dead. Month by month our 
 army was growing and becoming more efficient. In 
 the spring of 1918 one American division was fighting 
 with the French in Champagne and our line in Lor- 
 raine hnd been extended. Notwithstanding, the 
 French High Command still thought the Americans 
 insufficiently trained to engage in the heavy fighting 
 of a great battle. 
 
 Then came the twenty-first of March and the Ger- 
 man drives toward Paris. When the news went out, 
 every American officer understood that the time for 
 action had come. On the 28th General Pershing 
 sought out General Foch, who had that same day 
 been made the supreme commander, to offer him the 
 American army. 
 
 He found General Foch in his garden at headquar- 
 ters in the city of Doullen. Arm in arm, the two 
 generals walked up and down the garden, discussing 
 the situation. Finally, speaking in French, General 
 Pershing said, " I have com.e to say to you that the 
 American people would hold it a great honor to have 
 our troops engaged in the present battle. I ask it in 
 the name of the American people and in my own. 
 
 " There is at this moment no other question than 
 that of fighting. Infantry, artillery, aviation, all that 
 
278 
 
 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 General Pershing 
 
GENERAL PERSHING 279 
 
 we have, is at your disposal. Alore are coming, as 
 many as will be required. I have come to say to you 
 that the American people will be proud to be engaged 
 in the greatest battle in history." 
 
 General Pershing's offer of the American army 
 stirred the hearts of the French people as nothing had 
 since the entrance of America into the war, for they 
 had not understood why it had taken so long to train 
 our troops. They knew only that the Americans had 
 been in France for nearly a year without having done 
 much fighting, while each month the toll of French 
 lives rose higher and higher. Now the people living 
 along the Toul-Paris route saw trainload after train- 
 load of khaki-uniformed soldiers pass through their 
 cities and villages. " The Americans are going in," 
 they cried, and the news spread. In the suburbs of 
 Paris children flocked to the trains, shouting and 
 throwing their hats and wooden shoes into the air, 
 while from the car windows descended a shower of 
 pennies, dimes, and quarters that turned the greeting 
 into a wild scramble for coins. 
 
 The men had received with cheers the news that they 
 were to go into battle. Each division hoped that it 
 would be chosen. The honor fell to the First, a divi- 
 sion of the regular army. At Chaumont-en-Vexin, 
 in Picardy, the men of the First detrained and went 
 into camp for ten days, while they practiced maneu- 
 vers and made their final preparations. After an in- 
 spection by General Pershing and several French 
 officers, they were pronounced ready for the front. 
 
28o LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 Now they left the main roads and kept to the by- 
 ways, winding among wheat fields and green hills. 
 They joked and sang as they marched and the French 
 people who saw them pass thought that the Americans 
 could not possibly understand what a battle meant. 
 A three days' march brought them to the battle area. 
 
 The first line consisted chiefiy of holes scattered 
 here and there, from which riflemen, constantly ex- 
 posed to shell and machine gun fire, w^atched for any 
 sign of a German attack. Behind them were the 
 artillerymen, who also lived in the ground in hastily 
 constructed dugouts near their guns. Taking over 
 the line could be done only under cover of darkness. 
 One night, therefore, two of our guns moved out and 
 took the place of two French guns, and our infantry 
 platoons crawled into the rifle pits to relieve the tired 
 poilus who had been fighting for weeks. On the third 
 morning there were no French left in that sector ; our 
 army had taken its place in the line of the great battle. 
 
 That line ran north and south near the city of 
 Montdidier. Across No Man's Land, situated on a 
 hill, was a tpwn which the Germans held. From the 
 heights of this town they looked down upon our posi- 
 tions and shelled them unmercifully. Our men, 
 crouching unprotected in shell-holes and rifle pits, 
 desired more than anything else to climb out of their 
 holes, go over, take that town, and put a stop to the 
 German shells. Eventually this was what they did, 
 for the name of the town was Cantigny. It was the 
 taking of Cantigny, the first American attack upon 
 
GENERAL PERSHING 281 
 
 the German lines, that set at rest all doubts of how 
 the army would fight. 
 
 But something was happening on another part of 
 the line that quite overshadowed the capture of a 
 single village. On May 27th, 1918, the Germans 
 began their third great drive. They struck just south 
 of the city of Laon, and in five days they had advanced 
 to the river Marne, driving a wedge into the French 
 lines nearly thirty miles deep. At Chateau Thierry, 
 the southernmost point of their drive, they were less 
 than forty miles from the Paris forts. 
 
 For a second time since the beginning of the war 
 Paris was menaced and thousands of people fled from 
 the city. Our own offices of the Red Cross and the 
 Y. M. C. A. prepared to move. The French army, 
 weary with fighting and falling back, was unable to 
 hold the line, and a call for help was sent to the 
 Americans. 
 
 All of our trained divisions were already in the 
 fighting line, with the exception of the Third, a new 
 division which was about to go into the trenches of 
 a quiet sector. Almost at the moment the men pre- 
 pared to start the order was changed, and the new 
 order sent a thrill into the camp. The Third was to 
 stop the Germans on the Marne. 
 
 It would take several days, however, to move 
 27,000 men from eastern to central France. Mean- 
 while there was one unit of the Third that did not 
 have to wait. This was the 7th Motorized Machine 
 Gun Battalion. The men had only to jump into their 
 
282 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 cars to be off. They were but one battalion, it was 
 true ; still they had guns and guns could stop Germans. 
 
 It was four o'clock on the afternoon of May 31st 
 when the first lorries of the Motorized Machine Gun 
 Battalion dashed into that part of Chateau Thierry 
 which lies on the southern bank of the Marne. The 
 machine guns were speedily set up in the houses and 
 gardens bordering on the river, and the American 
 gunners, looking across the city to its extreme north- 
 ern edge, caught their first glimpse of the enemy. The 
 Germans had just entered the town. 
 
 Though quantities of shells soon began to fall in 
 the southern part of the city, not a shot was fired 
 from the American side; our men only waited beside 
 their guns. That night an American lieutenant, with 
 twelve men, crossed the river and placed two machine 
 guns in a street leading to one of the bridges. With 
 the first light of morning the Germans made a rush 
 for the bridge; then they discovered the Americans. 
 From both sides of the river came the fire, driving 
 them back to shelter or melting their ranks. 
 
 All that day these thirteen Americans held on the 
 north bank, while the gunners on the south bank kept 
 up an unremitting fire. It was the first of June. 
 Since the morning of the 27th of May the Germans 
 had pushed steadily forward. Victory had followed vic- 
 tory. They had crossed the river Aisne and the river 
 Vesle. They had now but to cross the Marne and 
 the way to Paris was open. It was inconceivable that 
 a few American machine gunners could stop a vic- 
 torious army. 
 
GENERAL PERSHING 283 
 
 But on that day they made no progress. Every 
 effort to cross the river failed. The next day they 
 tried again. They advanced shoulder to shoulder in 
 the usual German manner, and singing. As before, 
 the American fire met them. A few men reached the 
 middle of the bridge, but no one got across. Most 
 fell in the streets near the river. Whichever way one 
 looked, the pavements were carpeted with dead. 
 
 While the machine gunners held the bridge at 
 Chateau Thierry, other units of the Third Division 
 and some of the Second were thrusting the Germans 
 back at various points along the Marne. At no point 
 were they able to establish a foothold on the southern 
 bank. Finally the bridges were blown up. The 
 Crown Prince had no choice but to end the drive; the 
 road to Paris was blocked by green American troops, 
 fighting their first battle. 
 
 Sterner work awaited our men. The Second Divi- 
 sion, which had taken over the line northwest of 
 Chateau Thierry, taken and held it against terrific 
 assaults of the enemy, was now to retake from the 
 Germans some of the territory so recently gained. 
 Belleau Wood, Torcy, Bouresches, Vaux, — each is 
 the name of an American victory. In Belleau Wood, 
 where the 5th and 6th regiments of marines wrote 
 their names in history, three fifths of the men and 
 officers fell, but the remaining two fifths " got there." 
 That forest is no longer called Bois de Belleau but 
 the Wood of the American Marine Brigade. 
 
 For some time General Pershing had been talking 
 
284 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 of an offensive in which the Americans should have 
 an equal part with the French and the British, but 
 General Foch thought that our men had not yet had 
 sufficient battle experience. It was the victories of 
 June that gave him confidence in the American army. 
 Whatever our men might lack in training was made 
 up for by their courage and the spirit with which they 
 fought. Untried in battle, though many of them 
 were, they did not retreat; they went forward, and 
 General Foch agreed that an offensive might now be 
 undertaken. 
 
 Of all the units at his command. General Foch chose 
 for his offensive two American divisions and one 
 French. The American divisions were the First and 
 the Second, our trained regular troops. The French 
 division was one of Moroccans which included the fa- 
 mous Foreign Legion. It was a compliment to our 
 men to be chosen with the Foreign Legion, which 
 was considered unequaled in attack and which had 
 taken part in every offensive of the war. 
 
 In the forests of Villers-Cotterets, just south of 
 the city of Soissons, General Foch gathered his army. 
 This was on the western side of the triangle which 
 the Germans had won in their third drive. On the 
 eastern side the fifth German drive was about to take 
 place. This was the Emperor's Battle, or the Battle 
 of Peace, that was to end the war. From Chateau 
 Thierry to the east of the city of Rheims the German 
 artillery opened fire on the morning of July ISth and 
 German storm troops once more attempted to cross 
 
GENERAL PERSHING 285 
 
 the Marne. On the south bank, the Americans and 
 the French together held for three days, a rigid 
 human wall against which the German waves struck 
 and broke, and fell back again across the river. 
 
 During these three days the Germans ceaselessly 
 watched the Villers-Cotterets forests. Their air- 
 planes flew over the trees, looking for any signs that 
 might reveal an approaching battle. They discovered 
 nothing. The photographs which they brought back 
 gave no evidence that any change had taken place. 
 
 Yet here General Foch's offensive was about to 
 beein. His armv remained undiscovered because it 
 did not enter the forests until the night previous to 
 the attack. It was 4.30 in the afternoon of July 17th 
 when the army commanders received their orders. 
 The attack was set for 5.35 the next morning. Be- 
 tween dusk and the coming of daylight all must be 
 ready; everything needed for a great battle must be 
 got into line. 
 
 The night, fortunately, was dark, and soon rain 
 began to fall. Thunder cracked among the trees and 
 lightning flashed, revealing men, men everywhere. 
 
 On each of the few roads in the forests a double 
 line of traffic moved forward, limbers, gun carriages, 
 transports, ammunition carts, and tractors hauling 
 the big guns. Guides were stationed at intervals 
 along the route to give directions and, if possible, to 
 prevent collisions. 
 
 The men groped their way along muddy paths or 
 stumbled through the forests, colliding with carts, 
 
286 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 mules, and trees, and with each other. It was all but 
 impossible for officers to keep their units together. 
 Notwithstanding these difficulties, there was little con- 
 fusion. The lines moved forward silently and in good 
 order. There was no, talking. Commands were 
 spoken in whispers. 
 
 The men carried the usual battle equipment. All 
 wore, strapped across their backs, packs containing a 
 blanket, a pick, a shovel, extra shoes, and extra am- 
 munition. From their shoulders hung gas masks, 
 haversacks with water and rations for two days, and 
 first aid packets. Bayonets swung from their am- 
 munition belts, and some wore pocketed aprons filled 
 with hand grenades. Each carried a rifie or machine 
 gun parts. 
 
 Beside them, a little farther from the road, the 
 engineers w^ere struggling through the underbrush 
 with steel picks, shovels, axes, saws, and rolls of 
 barbed wire. Farther on marched the Foreign Legion 
 and beyond, threading their way among the trees, 
 rode the French cavalry, with lances tilted across their 
 shoulders. 
 
 Here and there the procession was blocked by the 
 slow-moving tanks, cautiously feeling their way over 
 the uneven ground. Ahead of each tank walked a 
 man, wearing upon his back a white towel, which 
 served as a guide through the darkness and the wil- 
 derness of trees. 
 
 Hour after hour throughout the night this move- 
 ment continued. As dawn approached, anxiety seized 
 
GENERAL PERSHING 287 
 
 the French commanders lest all the miits had not ar- 
 rived. The American Second Division was to lead in 
 the attack. Like the "lost division" in the battle of 
 the Marne, it could not be found. Runners were sent 
 back. They brought word that the Second was 
 thought to be too far in the rear to arrive in time. 
 
 At 4.35, exactly one hour before the infantry was 
 to advance, the guns opened fire, and there followed 
 such destruction as every bombardment makes; only 
 this time it was the work of our guns. We were 
 '' striking back." 
 
 A quarter of an hour passed, half an hour. The 
 Second Division had not appeared. The attack would 
 have to be made without it, leaving a gap in the line. 
 Of what might happen in consequence of that gap it 
 was useless to think. The risk had to be taken. 
 
 The hour of 5.35 was fast approaching when word 
 came that the Second was hurrying forward. It had 
 been unavoidably delayed, but it meant to get there. 
 Though heavily burdened with their equipment the 
 men were running. The suspense increased as, min- 
 ute by minute, the time grew shorter. Success or fail- 
 ure — all thoughts turned to the men hurrying through 
 the forest. 
 
 Five thirty-five! The order was given. Behind 
 the barrage the tanks moved out. Following the 
 tanks went the infantry. Tired, hot, and breathless, 
 the men of the Second staggered into line. Now, 
 however, they need not run. Slowly, unwaveringly, 
 the lines went forward. 
 
288 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 The Germans had been taken completely by sur- 
 prise. They flocked from trenches and dugouts with 
 hands held over their heads and the usual cry of 
 *'Kamerad." Streams of prisoners began to move 
 toward the rear. Through forests, ravines, and into 
 villages our men swept on. Always before, machine 
 guns, cleverly hidden, had checked a rapid advance, 
 but now the tanks were looking after the machine 
 guns. In an hour the men had reached their first ob- 
 jective. "Through to the guns!" was the cry. It 
 had been a German war cry before the Americans 
 made it theirs. 
 
 All day and all night they fought without stopping 
 for food or water, and on the second day, looking 
 ahead, they caught glimpses of the city of Soissons. 
 The men were utterly weary. Some had not slept for 
 three days. The fighting, too, was growing more 
 difficult ; the infantry had outdistanced the tanks and 
 the enemy machine guns had to be taken in the old 
 hand-to-hand way. 
 
 For five hard days they kept on ; every division was 
 needed, and there was none to take their places in the 
 line. When, finally, relief came, they marched back 
 to their billets, so tired that the road swam before their 
 eyes but knowing that a splendid victory was theirs. 
 Seven thousand prisoners, over one hundred guns, and 
 an advance of seven miles — it was the largest gain the 
 Allies had counted in a year. It was the victory 
 which turned the tide of the war. 
 
 After July 18th, the Germans steadily retreated as 
 
GENERAL PERSHING 289 
 
 the Allies pressed forward. The Americans, contin- 
 uing the advance they had made, fought their way 
 northward across the river Ourcq and on to the river 
 Vesle. One town was taken nine times in twenty- four 
 hours, so desperate w^as the fighting that marked this 
 whole advance. 
 
 On the 10th of August, the First American Field 
 Army was formed, under the command of General 
 Pershing. Although the number of our men on the 
 fighting line was a million and a half, other American 
 divisions continued to fight with the French and the 
 British until the Second and the Third Field Armies 
 were formed. 
 
 The month of September brought us a still greater 
 task. In eastern France, near the city of St. Mihiel, 
 the Germans had made a large dent in the French lines 
 in the beginning of the war, a dent which had re- 
 mained for four years because to straighten it had 
 been considered an impossible undertaking. It was 
 this enterprise, however, which now fell to the First 
 American Army. Though the French had planned it, 
 our army was to carry it out. If it failed, the respon- 
 sibility would be ours. 
 
 What it meant to straighten the St. Mihiel line can 
 be told briefly by the figures of our army reports. In 
 preparation, 100,000 maps of the territory were made 
 and given out to officers and men. Forty thousand 
 photographs pictured the region under every possible 
 weather condition. Five thousand miles of telephone 
 wire were strvmg and to this the signal corps at- 
 
290 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 tached 6,000 telephones after the attack started. One 
 milHon shells were fired in the first four hours of the 
 battle, which is the heaviest artillery bombardment 
 ever recorded in history. Five hundred fifty thou- 
 sand men were engaged. 
 
 The attack began on the morning of September 
 12th, and in twenty-four hours the First Army had 
 taken 152 square miles of territory, more than 15,000 
 prisoners, and had liberated the people of 72 villages. 
 One who came to express his gratitude to General 
 Pershing was President Poincare of France, whose 
 ow^n home near St. Mihiel had been occupied by the 
 Germans for four years. 
 
 On September 26th, just thirteen days after St. 
 Mihiel, came the battle of the Argonne Forest, the 
 greatest battle America has ever fought. It was our 
 battle of the Somme, against positions which the Ger- 
 mans had been fortifying not two years but four. 
 Compare the thirteen days in which General Pershing 
 prepared for the battle of the Argonne with General 
 Haig's year of preparation before the battle of the 
 Somme. Great changes had taken place in the man- 
 ner of fighting. To take the enemy unaware with a 
 sudden, bold attack was the new way, and there could 
 be no surprise if there was much preparation. But 
 the difiiculties for the commander-in-chief and for the 
 army wxre enormously increased. 
 
 Ever since the First Division had arrived in France, 
 it had been known that the Americans were to attack 
 in the Argonne Forest. The battle, however, had 
 
GENERAL PERSHING 291 
 
 been planned for the spring of 1919. It was now 
 September of 1918. Winter was coming on. The 
 chances of failure were many, yet so rapid had been 
 the progress of the Allies that the situation demanded 
 an attack on this front. 
 
 The line ran from the Argonne Forest to the Meuse 
 river. All previous efforts to thrust the Germans 
 from their positions had failed. They were consid- 
 ered so secure that they had been turned into a rest 
 area, where soldiers exhausted from the fighting on 
 other fronts came to recover. The Germans did not 
 believe that they could be taken, but, more than that, 
 so long as the German army remained in France, they 
 must not be taken. There was no front more impor- 
 tant than that from the Argonne to the Meuse. 
 
 To carry on the war Germany needed coal from 
 northern France and iron from Lorraine, but the chief 
 reason for the importance of the Argonne front was 
 a four-track railway line that ran from Lille to Lux- 
 emburg, wnth branches connecting with Metz and 
 Verdun. To cut this line was to cut the chief artery 
 of supplies for the German army. 
 
 Three main lines or series of entrenchments 
 guarded this railway. They were much like those the 
 British took in the battle of the Somme, except that 
 in place of timbers the Argonne trenches were con- 
 structed of masonry and concrete. Communicating 
 trenches, w^hich ran from the front lines to officers' 
 quarters and supply chambers were roofed with iron, 
 camouflaged, and covered over wath steel. 
 
292 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 The first of the series of entrenchments lay but 
 a few hundred yards from the American positions. 
 It was know^n as the Hindenburg Line. Roads cross- 
 ing this line were blocked with stone walls and honey- 
 combed wdth traps to prevent the tanks from reaching 
 the German machine guns. A trap was a hole in the 
 road, usually a shell hole, covered with weak timbers 
 and a few inches of earth, which gave it the appear- 
 ance of being solid. In crossing it, a tank simply dis- 
 appeared into the earth and had to be pulled out by 
 trucks at the cost of much time and trouble. 
 
 Behind the Hindenburg Line were others, the 
 strongest of which was the Kriemhilde Line. It was 
 the last strongly fortified position before the Belgian 
 frontier. The fall of the Kriemhilde Line meant the 
 withdrawal of the German army from France. 
 
 Such was the situation when the American army 
 went into position on the 24th of September. Not 
 only were the defenses opposing them as formidable 
 as any known to military history, but they were 
 guarded by the most highly trained troops. 
 
 Our army greatly outnumbered the German army. 
 It was an army of civilians, men who had learned 
 the business of war within a few short months. Of 
 all the divisions that were to make the attack but one 
 was a regular division. The battle lasted forty-seven 
 days and before the end '' there was not a township in 
 the United States that did not have a son in it." ^ In 
 all, there were 650,000 Americans engaged. 
 
 '^America's Greatest Battle, Major Frederick Palmer, Collier's, 
 March 22, 1919. 
 
GENERAL PERSHING 293 
 
 Preparations were made in haste and with the ut- 
 most secrecy. At night roads leading to the front 
 were crowded with traffic of every kind; by day not 
 a sign of activity appeared anywhere. 
 
 In the town of Souilly, where General Petain had 
 lived during the Verdun battle, General Pershing es- 
 tablished his headquarters. His office was the same 
 one that General Petain had occupied, a bare upstairs 
 room in the Town Hall. Into the courtyard cars came 
 and went as busily as in 1916, but they were American 
 cars and they were busy with a battle even greater 
 than Verdun. 
 
 Five-thirty in the morning of September 26th was 
 the hour set for the attack. Three hours before, the 
 bombardment began, a violent thundering of four 
 thousand guns on a front of some eighteen miles. 
 Giant trees, bits of masonry, and pieces of steel, ris- 
 ing high in the air, were illumined by the flash of 
 bursting shells. Above, hundreds of airplanes cir- 
 cled in the half-darkness, guarding our lines, and for 
 the first six hours of the battle not a single enemy 
 plane was able to get across. 
 
 The country over which the army was to advance 
 was a series of rolling hills, dotted with patches of 
 woods. Upon the western edge was the Argonne, a 
 dense forest twenty-five miles long, situated on a high 
 ridge. 
 
 A heavy mist hung over the valleys, a protecting 
 screen for the infantry as the men went forward. 
 Keeping to the hills, they endeavored to avoid the 
 
294 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 machine guns concealed in the thick underbrush of 
 the ravines. At first there was but little resistance, 
 for the Germans, seriously outnumbered, had with- 
 drawn from their front lines, leaving only scattered 
 machine gun nests to check the advance. By noon 
 the Americans were through all of the entrenchments 
 known as the Hindenburg Line, and when night came 
 they counted a gain of seven miles. The days imme- 
 diately following saw no such marked advance and, 
 on the last day of September, the first phase of the 
 battle came to an end. The Germans had retreated 
 to the Kriemhilde Line; before these new positions 
 the Americans dug themselves in. 
 
 On the morning of October 4th the second phase of 
 the battle began. The struggle for the Kriemhilde 
 Line was to last until November 1st and was marked 
 by most determined fighting. For the Germans to 
 give up these positions meant that the end was near, 
 and they threw into the battle all their remaining re- 
 serves in a last desperate effort to save themselves 
 from defeat. 
 
 In the Argonne Forest, where the artillery only 
 partly destroyed the defenses, our men had to cut their 
 way through a formidable system of wire entangle- 
 ments. Much of this work was done at night. 
 Reaching a line of wire, which was nailed to the trees 
 to a height of ten feet, the men would stack their guns 
 or throw them over their shoulders, pull out their 
 pliers, and cut an opening. The noise was apt to at- 
 tract the enemy machine gunners and draw artillery 
 
GENERAL PERSHING 295 
 
 fire. Many men fell into the trenches in attempting 
 to leap them and sometimes were injured. Those who 
 got across reached another line of wire ten feet far- 
 ther on, beyond this another, and so on to a depth of 
 two and a half miles. 
 
 Gas was always present, particularly in the woods, 
 where it lingered in the moist places and under the 
 trees. Rain and cloudy days marked the battle 
 throughout. The nights were cold, and the men had 
 no shelter except underbrush or the '' fox-holes " 
 where they dug themselves in. 
 
 Compared with the French and the British armies, 
 our army w^as still inexperienced in many ways and 
 paid dearly for its gains. One division fought con- 
 tinuously for eight days and nights and when it came 
 out only half of the infantry remained. The men 
 stumbled along the road, with tired white faces and 
 sunken eyes. All were foot-sore. Some were sick, 
 and others were wounded. Nevertheless, they were 
 determined to break through. " To drive and keep driv- 
 ing to the end," was the way the Americans fought 
 best, and slowly the Germans' hold upon the Argonne 
 was weakening. 
 
 By the 28th of October the Americans had reached 
 a position but thirteen miles from the Lille-Luxem- 
 burg railway, and at this point the navy came into the 
 fight. 
 
 Earlier in the year, when the news reached America 
 that the Germans were shelling Paris with huge, long- 
 distance guns, Admiral Plunkett had wanted to take 
 
296 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 some of our big 16-inch navy guns to France. They 
 were more powerful than any artillery the Allies had 
 used, having a range of twenty-five miles. Everyone 
 tried to discourage him but in the end he had his way. 
 The guns were too large to go into the hold of a ship 
 and he had them lashed to the decks. Arriving in 
 France, he was told that the guns were too heavy to be 
 carried over French railways. He said he would pay 
 whatever damage resulted. Next it was found that 
 the guns could not go through the tunnels. He fixed 
 them so they could. Finally they reached the battle 
 front and began shelling the all-important railway 
 on October 28th. 
 
 Then cam.e the last phase of the battle. When our 
 guns opened fire on the morning of November 1st, 
 only a feeble response came from the Germans. The 
 infantry advanced, meeting little opposition, and on 
 November 2d the Germans announced for the first 
 time in four years that their line had been broken. 
 
 On the night of November 4th the Americans threw 
 pontoon bridges across the Meuse and, in the face 
 of vigorous fire, established a foothold on the eastern 
 bank. Two days later the forces on the western side 
 had reached Sedan. The end was now near but the 
 effort was not relaxed. The men pressed steadily, 
 doggedly on. 
 
 On November 11th everyone back of the lines knew 
 that peace had come. The men at the front, however, 
 did not ; on both sides the fighting continued through- 
 out the morning. Just at eleven o'clock a great salvo 
 
GENERAL PERSHING 297 
 
 was fired from all guns. Platoon leaders suddenly 
 called out ''Cease firing!" and the Americans were 
 amazed to see the Germans spring from their trenches 
 with white flags. Then, realizing that the end of the 
 war had come, the men broke into a tumult of cheers. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 Life of General Pershing, George MacAdam, beginning in 
 
 World's Work, Nov., 1918. 
 The Story of General Pershing, Everett T. Tomlinson. 
 And They Thought We Wouldnt Fight, Floyd Gibbons. 
 America in France, Major Frederick Palmer. 
 The A. E. F., Hey wood Broun. 
 
 Pershing, Our Leader in France, World's Work, June, 1917. 
 General Pershing, United States Soldier, R. Thomas, World's 
 
 Work, Nov., 1906. 
 General Pershing, K^nsdiS City Star, July 9, 1916. 
 Battle of St. Mihiel, Current History Magazine, Oct., 1918. 
 Battle of the Argonne, Current History Magazine, Nov., Dec , 
 
 1918. 
 Americas Greatest Battle, Major Frederick Palmer, Collier's, 
 
 Mar. 22, 29, April 5, 1919. 
 
XI. WOODROW WILSON 
 
 One of the earliest memories President Wilson has 
 is of an important event which happened in November 
 of 1860. He was only four years old at the time, yet 
 he remembers the incident clearly. He was swinging 
 on the gate in front of his father's house when he saw 
 two men approaching from opposite directions. They 
 chanced to meet near the gate and one said to the 
 other, ''Lincoln is elected and there'll be war." 
 
 Five months later the war came. Though the Wil- 
 son family was living in Augusta, Georgia, at the time 
 and Georgia was one of the states which joined the 
 Confederacy, the war did not greatly affect the life 
 of the household. Certain foods were scarce and 
 prices were high. Also there was no school. 
 W^hether this was the reason that Woodrow Wilson 
 did not learn his letters sooner is uncertain. At any 
 rate he did not learn to read until he was nine years 
 old. 
 
 His father was his only, teacher during these years. 
 They did not have lessons, but the two would sit on 
 the floor and talk for hours. Once a week, usually on 
 Monday, they went on an excursion to some point of 
 interest in or near the town. One such excursion was 
 to some machine shops, where his father showed him 
 the process of forging steel. 
 
 298 
 
WOODROW WILSON 299 
 
 Many books were read aloud in the Wilson family, 
 and in this way Woodrow became familiar with the 
 stories of Scott and Dickens long before he could read 
 them for himself. But the two things in particular 
 which he learned from his father were to use good 
 English and to think clearly. 
 
 " My best training came from him," wrote the Presi- 
 dent years afterward. '' From the time I began to 
 write until his death in 1903, when he was eighty-one 
 years old, I carried everything I wrote to him. He 
 would make me read it aloud, which was always pain- 
 ful to me. Every now and then he would stop me. 
 ' What do you mean by that ? ' I would tell him and, 
 of course, in doing so would express myself more 
 simply than I had on paper. ' Why don't you say so ? ' 
 he would go on. ^ Don't shoot your meaning with bird 
 shot and hit the whole countryside. Shoot with a rifle 
 at the thing you have to say.' " 
 
 Woodrow's father was pastor of Augusta's leading 
 church, the First Presbyterian. The church, an old 
 dignified building, stood in the center of a large 
 wooded square, and the woods surrounding it were 
 the first playground the President remembers. 
 
 Another member of the family was also a preacher. 
 This was President Wilson's grandfather Woodrow, 
 his mother's father. 
 
 Once his grandfather came to preach in his father's 
 church. Mounting the pulpit, he discovered that he 
 had forgotten his glasses and was at a loss to know 
 how he should read his sermon. Several members 
 
300 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 of the congregation offered theirs, but of these only 
 one pair fitted his eyes, a pair so large that they would 
 not stay in place and kept sliding down his nose. 
 
 To the small boy in the front seat, the sermon sud- 
 denly acquired a new interest. Watching the specta- 
 cles slowly traveling down his grandfather's nose, he 
 expected every instant to see them fall and was amazed 
 at the cleverness with which his grandfather always 
 managed to catch them at the last minute, push them 
 up, and go on with his sermon. 
 
 Some time after Woodrow began to go to school, 
 the boys of the neighborhood organized a club which 
 they called the " Light foot Club." It had two pur- 
 poses, to play baseball and to hold parliamentary meet- 
 ings. Except that he could run well, Woodrow was 
 not a ball player. It is said that, as a young boy, he 
 was always in too great a hurry to walk; he ran 
 wherever he went. However, it was probably the 
 parliamentary meetings rather than baseball that had 
 attracted him to the Lightfoot Club. The meetings 
 were held in the Wilson barn, to which a gaudy col- 
 ored advertisement for deviled ham gave the air of a 
 clubroom. All the boys knew parliamentary rules 
 and conducted their meetings in the regular manner 
 of a legislature. 
 
 A few years later Woodrow's first calling cards, 
 which he printed himself, showed that he still had an 
 interest in politics. They read, ''Thomas Woodrow 
 Wilson, United States Senator from Virginia." 
 
 At a place called Sand Hills, not far from Augusta, 
 
WOODROW WILSON 301 
 
 lived a small cousin, named Jessie Bones, with whom 
 he liked especially to play. He used to ride out often 
 on his father's big black horse and spend the day, and, 
 sometimes, when his mother was away from home, he 
 would stay at Sand Hills for a whole summer. 
 
 As Jessie was not yet old enough to read, he used to 
 tell her the stories he read, and in their play they would 
 act them out. 
 
 One day, some time after Woodrow had begun to 
 read Cooper's '' Leatherstocking Tales," two small but 
 very savage looking Indians appeared in the Sand 
 Hills woods. Their faces and arms were stained 
 with pokeberry juice, they wore headdresses made of 
 feathers, and they were armed with bows and arrows 
 and tomahawks. Stationing themselves at a lonely 
 point on the Augusta road, they lay in wait for their 
 victims. With the first passer-by, they dashed out of 
 the woods, yelling blood-curdling war cries and bran- 
 dishing their weapons. But they never succeeded in 
 getting a scalp. In the end, Jessie had to play the part 
 of the victim, which was to run the gantlet and 
 finally to burn at the stake. 
 
 At other times, when Woodrow was a hunter, it 
 fell to Jessie to be a squirrel. Once, when she was 
 sitting in the top of a tree the hunter quite unexpect- 
 edly made a direct hit with his arrowy and the squirrel 
 fell limp and white at his feet. Terrified at the 
 thought that he had killed her, he picked her up and 
 carried her into the house, crying, " I am a murderer. 
 It wasn't an accident. I killed her." But the squir- 
 rel soon revived and was found to be uninjured. 
 
302 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 When he was fourteen, the family moved to Col- 
 umbia, South Carolina, where his father became a 
 teacher in a Presbyterian school for the training of 
 ministers. At this time he was a tall, slim boy, some- 
 what frail, and more fond of books than of out of 
 doors. Now he was reading the sea tales of Cooper 
 and Marryat. Though he had never seen a boat ex- 
 cept the river barges on the Savannah, he knew every 
 kind of ocean-sailing craft and was as much at home 
 among spars, yards, and sails as any seaman. He 
 played that he was an admiral of the United States 
 navy, detailed to hunt pirates in the south Pacific, and 
 he wrote out the story of his adventures each day in 
 the form of a government report. This game lasted 
 for nearly a year. 
 
 At seventeen he went away to school for the first 
 time. He entered a small Presbyterian college at 
 Davidson, South Carolina, which, whatever it may 
 have offered in the way of an education, did not pro- 
 vide its students with many luxuries. The boys took 
 care of their own rooms, made their beds, filled their 
 lamps, and carried water from a pump out of doors. 
 Woodrow thought himself lucky to have a room on the 
 first floor. 
 
 The English class at Davidson that year was study- 
 ing the history of some of our common words. A dis- 
 cussion in class one day brought out the fact that the 
 names of certain animals were of Saxon origin, but 
 that the same animals, w4ien converted into meat for 
 the table, took on Norman names. The k. \ "calf," 
 
WOODROW WILSON 303 
 
 for instance, the English teacher explained, was an 
 old Anglo-Saxon word. 
 
 " But what is calves' meat when served on the table, 
 Mr. Wilson?" 
 
 Mr. Wilson was unprepared. 
 
 " Mutton," he answered hurriedly, and " Mutton " 
 he was called for the rest of his time at Davidson. 
 
 In his second year he was obliged to go home on ac- 
 count of illness and, when he recovered, he did not re- 
 turn to Davidson but spent his time tutoring in Greek 
 and Latin, preparatory to entering Princeton College, 
 as it was then called. 
 
 The following September found him again a fresh- 
 man. One of his classmates says that the first thing 
 he did upon arriving at Princeton was to rush to the 
 library and take down a fat volume on philosophy, but 
 this is just a good story. He did go to the library, 
 however, and he did take a book from the shelves, but 
 it was not a book on philosophy; it was a bound vol- 
 ume of an old English magazine which contained a 
 series of articles on the lives of English statesmen. 
 Though he had read everything he could find on gov- 
 ernment all through his school and college days, he has 
 since said that the reading of these articles, more than 
 anything else, helped to fix his purpose to enter pub- 
 lic life. 
 
 From that time on he seems to have been perfectly 
 sure of what he wanted and, so far as it was possible, 
 chose his studies to fit in with his career. To enter 
 public life ^dired, among other things, that he should 
 
304 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 know how to make speeches, and he began at once to 
 study public speaking. He would learn some states- 
 man's speech, then go out into the Princeton woods 
 and practice it. At home, during vacations, he spent 
 hours practicing in his father's church. 
 
 Once the opportunity came to him to try for a prize 
 in English Literature. One hundred twenty-five dol- 
 lars was offered for the best essay on the plays of Ben 
 Jonson and Shakespeare. But when he learned that 
 he would have to give considerable time and study to 
 the subject, time which otherwise would go to the 
 study of government, he gave up all thought of trying 
 for the prize. 
 
 Though he was but nineteen when he entered 
 Princeton, he had already gained his full height. He 
 stood nearly six feet tall, slender and erect. His face 
 was serious but his eyes were always aware of every- 
 thing amusing that went on, and they lighted with in- 
 terest whenever he talked. He had a frank, cordial 
 manner that people liked. He joined a club and took 
 part in all the regular activities of college life. For 
 two years he was managing editor of the college news- 
 paper, and, during that time, he also contributed many 
 articles to the college magazine. He was also one of 
 the managers of the athletic association, although he 
 took no part in sports himself. In his work he main- 
 tained an average of ninety throughout the four years. 
 In addition he learned shorthand to make his note 
 taking easier. 
 
 But the thing which set him apart from his fellow 
 
WOODROW WILSON 305 
 
 students was his absorbing interest in the problems 
 of government. As he was always reading and think- 
 ing about government, so he was always writ- 
 ing about it. And it was this work, done outside of 
 college requirements, that brought him fame when he 
 was only twenty-three. 
 
 In August of 1879 there appeared in the "Interna- 
 tional Review," a magazine devoted to political affairs, 
 an article by Woodrow Wilson on '' Cabinet Govern- 
 ment in the United States." Had it been written by 
 a man with years of experience in the affairs of gov- 
 ernment it would have been counted an exceptional 
 piece of work. For a college student to have written 
 it, a young man of twenty-three, made it a remarkably 
 brilliant achievement. 
 
 Success in itself, however, did not interest him par- 
 ticularly. He still wanted to know more about gov- 
 ernment and in some way make his knowledge count 
 in public service. After graduating from Princeton 
 in June of 1879, he entered the University of Virginia 
 in the autumn of the same year to begin the study of 
 law. 
 
 May of 1882 found him an established lawyer in 
 Atlanta, Georgia. From a window in the second 
 story of 48 Marietta Street hung a shingle which 
 read '' Renwick and Wilson," but the two young men 
 of this partnership were to learn that it was difficult 
 to establish a law practice in Atlanta without private 
 means. They waited a year and a half for clients 
 that did not come. Meanwhile Woodrow Wilson 
 
3o6 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 went on with his writing -and study of government. 
 At the end of that time he discovered that, after all, 
 it was the teaching of law rather than the practice 
 of it which interested him most, and once more he re- 
 turned to college to prepare himself for this work. 
 
 In the fall of 1883 he entered Johns Hopkins Uni- 
 versity at Baltimore. He had taken a long time to 
 find out what he was best fitted to do; now he went 
 ahead rapidly. Here, as at Princeton, he impressed 
 his fellow students and his teachers with his excep- 
 tional mind. He was spoken of as one of the coming 
 educators of the country and, before he had taken his 
 degree, he was offered a professorship at Bryn Mawr 
 College. He was in his thirtieth year when finally he 
 began his chosen work of teaching. 
 
 The same year saw his first book, '' Congressional 
 Government,'' published. The book had grown out 
 of the essay written in his college days, and was no less 
 an achievement for a man of thirty than the essay 
 had been for a youth of twenty-three. It remains 
 to this day the best thing written on government in 
 the United States and is counted President Wilson's 
 foremost work. 
 
 For twenty-five years, he was to continue his work 
 of teaching and writing. From Bryn Mawr College 
 he went to Wesleyan University, and from Wesleyan 
 back to Princeton, his own college. He taught His- 
 tory, Political Economy, and Law. 
 
 During his first year at Princeton, the members of 
 his class in Law tried to discover what it was that 
 
WOODROW WILSON 307 
 
 made him such a successful teacher. The subject of 
 law was not particularly interesting, yet the class was 
 one of the largest on the university's records. One 
 member thought that it was because he was a brilliant 
 scholar. Another spoke of his literary ability. A 
 third said, " That fellow seems to be a man," and the 
 class agreed that this explained it. Booth Tarking- 
 ton, the author of the Penrod stories, was the student 
 who had found the explanation. 
 
 Year ^fter year the senior class at Princeton voted 
 Woodrow Wilson the most popular professor. Their 
 choice was probably due to two qualities always pres- 
 ent in his teaching, a sense of humor and a sense of 
 fairness. There w^as, in addition, one underlying pur- 
 pose that ran through all his teaching and all his writ- 
 ing. This was to wake up the youth of the nation to 
 a sense of right and wrong in the affairs of govern- 
 ment, to give to young men and young women about to 
 take their places in the world an ideal of serving un- 
 selfishly in the interests of the community or the na- 
 tion, rather than in their own. 
 
 In 1902 he was elected President of Princeton Uni- 
 versity. In his work as president he strove constantly 
 to accomplish two things, to make the university more 
 democratic and to raise the standard of scholarship. 
 
 One day a group of students were reading a list of 
 the new requirements posted on the bulletin board, 
 when one of them was heard to remark, " Look here, if 
 we're not careful, Woodrow Wilson will turn this 
 college into an institution of learning." 
 
308 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 His position as head of one of our leading universities 
 afforded him still greater opportunities for discussing 
 public affairs. He was invited to speak in all parts 
 of the country and his speeches attracted a great deal 
 of attention, for they all had to do with the need for 
 reform in schools, in business, in government. So 
 generally was he thought to be a popular reform 
 leader that many people urged him to enter politics. 
 He considered it but had not yet reached a decision, 
 when quite unexpectedly he was chosen the Demo- 
 cratic candidate for Governor of the state of New Jer- 
 sey. 
 
 This was in September of 1910. He was playing 
 golf on the links at Princeton University when the 
 news of his nomination reached him. A touring car 
 had been sent to take him to the Democratic conven- 
 tion which was then in session in Trenton, eleven miles 
 away. The convention wanted to hear from its can- 
 didate what he would do if elected. He stated briefly 
 the reforms he meant to carry through and they had 
 the convention's approval. Every candidate promised 
 reform; that was expected. Once he was in oflice, 
 however, he would be guided by the men who had put 
 him there. 
 
 Never had politicians so misjudged a candidate, for, 
 no sooner was Mr. Wilson inaugurated than he began 
 to carry out his election promises. Many of them 
 struck at the interests of the very men who had helped 
 to secure his nomination. They accused him of in- 
 gratitude and went over to the side of his enemies. 
 
WOODROW WILSON 309 
 
 On the other hand, those who had long suffered op- 
 pression from the money interests of New Jersey and 
 those who beheved, as he did, in the need for reform 
 now gathered round him, RepubHcans and Democrats 
 ahke, giving him their hearty support. In the two 
 years of his governorship, with the help of the leg- 
 islature, he was able to carry out his reforms almost 
 to the letter. 
 
 One improvement he secured was a law to regulate 
 the corporations of New Jersey and to prevent get- 
 rich-quick schemes from becoming established in the 
 state, a law which was to save thousands of people 
 from losing their money. Another provided for the 
 insurance of laboring men against injury in factories. 
 A third was the complete reorganization of the school 
 system of New Jersey. There were others but these 
 will show the kind of promises he had made. 
 
 Meanwhile his career as governor had attracted the 
 attention of the whole country. In many sections 
 people were coming to regard him as a possible can- 
 didate for the presidency. However, of the many 
 Democratic candidates proposed, it was not thought 
 likely that Governor Wilson would win the nomina- 
 tion. 
 
 This was the situation when, in June of 1912, under 
 the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt, a new party, 
 called the Progressive Party, was formed. As it 
 drew its members chiefly from the ranks of the old 
 Republican Party, the division made it almost certain 
 that a Democratic candidate would be elected. 
 
3IO LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 The Democratic national convention also met in 
 June of 1912. Though the Democratic ])oliticians 
 tried in every way to prevent the nomination from go- 
 ing to Governor Wilson, it became clear, as the ballot- 
 ing progressed, that Wilson was the people's candi- 
 date, and he was finally nominated on the forty-sixth 
 ballot. 
 
 The election the following November gave Mr. Wil- 
 son an overwhelming majority of the votes cast and 
 the Democratic party a majority in both houses of 
 Congress. 
 
 When Woodrow Wilson came to the presidency he 
 had very definite ideas of what the duties of a presi- 
 dent should be. They were ideas so different from 
 those of other presidents that they startled Americans 
 as much as the ideas of Lloyd George had startled the 
 British people. For many years it had been the custom 
 for the president to leave the business of law-making, 
 except for certain recommendations, to Congress. If he 
 did not approve of the laws Congress made, he had the 
 power of veto. President Wilson, however, believed 
 that the office of president should mean something 
 more than this. Not only should he recommend new 
 laws to Congress, Init he should use every means 
 within a president's rights to see that his recommen- 
 dations were carried out, that he should be the head of, 
 the government, not merely in name but actually, di-^ 
 recting its policy and responsible for it, a representa- 
 tive of the people as a whole. 
 
 With these ideas, he set to work immediately to 
 
WOODROW WILSON 311 
 
 bring about the reforms which the Democratic party 
 had promised. On April 8th, a month after his in- 
 auguration, he called a special session of Congress. 
 This had been more or less expected. The unexpected 
 was the President's announcement that, instead of 
 sending his recommendations in writing, he would go 
 before Congress and read his own message. 
 
 The announcement caused great excitement. Only 
 two presidents in the history of the United States had 
 ever appeared before Congress, and these were George 
 Washington and John Adams. For one hundred 
 twelve years the practice of sending written messages 
 had continued. To overturn it was considered by 
 many to be revolutionary. 
 
 Doubtless President Wilson meant it to be, for in 
 one hundred twelve years the significance of the presi- 
 dent's message had sadly lessened. The custom had 
 been for it to be read by a clerk, who usually performed 
 his task in a monotonous, hum-drum voice, while mem- 
 bers of Congress '' for the most part, attended to other 
 business." It was to give new life to an old custom 
 that President Wilson now proposed to read his own 
 message. 
 
 The scene in the House of Representatives on the 
 appointed day was not unlike that in the House of 
 Commons when Lloyd George presented his budget. 
 The visitors' galleries were crowded, while outside the 
 Capitol thousands waited in the vain hope of gaining 
 admission. It was to be a joint session of the Senate 
 and the House. The members of the House were the 
 
312 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 first to arrive; then the Senators filed in, and hardly 
 had they taken their seats when the President entered 
 from a side door and took his place at the desk of the 
 reading clerk. The house grew suddenly quiet. 
 
 " Senators and Representatives," the Speaker an- 
 nounced, " I have the distinguished honor of present- 
 ing the President of the United States." 
 
 Thus, after a century, a president once more ad- 
 dressed Congress '' as a human being trying to coop- 
 erate with other human beings in a common service." ^ 
 
 At the time of President Wilson's election the 
 spirit of a new age was beginning to show itself in 
 America, as it w^as also in England and Europe. 
 Everywhere the working classes were striving to re- 
 move injustice and to bring about equality of oppor- 
 tunity. It was not political change alone that they 
 sought, but better conditions of living, shorter hours 
 of work, higher wages, the chance to be something 
 more than cogs in the wheels of industry. 
 
 In accepting his nomination, Woodrow Wilson had 
 said that America had at last awakened to the fact 
 that ''the rank and file of her people find life very 
 hard to sustain," and in his inaugural address he had 
 pledged himself in stirring words to ''the cause of 
 humanity." The recommendations which he now 
 proposed resulted in new laws which were in keeping 
 with this pledge. 
 
 First, there was a new tarifif law which reduced the 
 
 1 Woodrow Wilson. Address to Congress, April 8, 1913. 
 
WOODROW WILSON 313 
 
 excessive profits certain manufacturers had enjoyed 
 under the old tariff law and lowered some prices. 
 Secondly, an act to establish Federal Reserve Banks 
 greatly improved our money system and lessened the 
 possibility of panics, such as occurred in 1907. An- 
 other law provided for a Federal Trade Commission to 
 deal with the trusts and to prevent any one trust from 
 controlling too many businesses. A Federal Farm 
 Loan Law enabled farmers who had lost their crops 
 through drought or frost to borrow enough money 
 from the government to get a new start. 
 
 Each of these laws, which were only a few of those 
 enacted, was a step forward in the direction of a more 
 just and efficient government. Taken together, they 
 constituted an achievement which no other adminis- 
 tration had equaled in many years, yet in the mind of 
 the President, they were but a start toward creating 
 better conditions of working and living. 
 
 An Englishman ^ has said that, if one would under- 
 stand Woodrow Wilson, one must not fail to recognize 
 that the motive which has prompted his actions, both 
 as a man and a president, has been an intense desire 
 to bring a larger amount of happiness and prosperity 
 into the lives of other men. 
 
 Immediately following his inauguration, people de- 
 sired to know what kind of man the new President 
 was. They were shortly to find out, for no sooner 
 had he gone to live in the White House than he took 
 
 1 Woodrow Wilson, A. Maurice Low. 
 
314 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 the public into his confidence; he said that there 
 were certain things about being president that he 
 did not like. He did not like, for instance, being a na- 
 tional exhibit like the Washington Monument or the 
 Smithsonian Institution. It was hard always to look 
 like a president. 
 
 " I can hardly refrain every now and then from tip- 
 ping the public a wink," he remarked, " as much as to 
 say 'It is only ''me" that is inside this thing.'" 
 
 There were also certain customs that a president 
 was expected to follow that seemed to him very funny. 
 One was that he must leave the room ahead of his 
 guests. Good form also forbade his guests to sit 
 down while he remained standing. 
 
 " It is very uncomfortable," he complained humor- 
 ously, '' to have to think of all the other people every 
 time I get up and sit down, and all that sort of thing, 
 so that when I get guests in my own house and the 
 public is shut out, I adjourn being President and take 
 leave to be a gentleman. If they draw back and 
 insist upon my doing something first, I firmly 
 decline." 
 
 President Wilson had already learned during the 
 two years of his governorship that a man who enters 
 public life must get accustomed to the public interest 
 in whatever concerns him. When the newspapers 
 first began to describe his looks and to feature him in 
 cartoons, he got hold of a limerick which, he said, ex- 
 actly expressed his feeling in the matter. And he 
 would quote it with a twinkle in his eyes : 
 
WOODROW WILSON 315 
 
 "As a beauty I am not a star; 
 There are others more handsome by far; 
 But my face — I don't mind it, 
 For I am behind it; 
 The people in front get the jar." 
 
 President Wilson's private study in the White 
 House is a plain room in the west wing, where many 
 presidents before him have worked and thought over 
 the country's problems. It contains simply a flat-top 
 desk, a filing cabinet, and a few chairs. The filing 
 cabinet is his own. No one touches it except himself 
 In it are the many notes and memoranda necessary to 
 his work. 
 
 On the President's desk is usually to be found a 
 black leather notebook, which contains the memoranda 
 of the day. Sometimes the entries are made in Pres- 
 ident Wilson's clear, neat handwriting, but more often 
 m shorthand, for the shorthand learned in his college 
 days still serves to make note taking easier. He is 
 also an expert typist and types his own speeches. 
 
 There is a story that, when he was the guest of 
 King George of England, the servants of Buckingham 
 Palace were greatly mystified by a strange clicking 
 sound that seemed to come from the President's room 
 m the late hours of the night. Fearing that some- 
 thing might have happened to their distinguished 
 guest, they tip-toed to the door and listened. The 
 sound, though louder, was none the less mysterious 
 Finally someone boldly rapped on the door. 
 
3i6 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 '' Come in ! " a voice answered cheerfully. They 
 opened the door to discover President Wilson click- 
 ing away on a little typewriter, which, he explained, he 
 always carried around with him. To see the Presi- 
 dent of the United States doing his own typing was a 
 shock, so the story goes, from which King George's 
 servants have not yet recovered. 
 
 The business office of President Wilson is in the 
 main executive offices of the White House proper, and 
 it is here that he reports every morning precisely at 
 five minutes to nine. The first business of the day 
 is dictating letters. After this come the appoint- 
 ments. A list of the people he is to see, with the num- 
 ber of minutes allotted to each, is made out by his 
 secretary and placed on his desk. Usually a caller 
 receives five minutes of the President's time, some- 
 times only three ; rarely do the minutes run to fifteen. 
 
 Following luncheon, the President goes to the East 
 Room, where he receives tourists and people who 
 come merely to shake hands with him. Whenever it 
 is necessary he holds conferences in the afternoon, 
 either with his cabinet or some member of the diplo- 
 matic corps. Later, he usually goes for a walk, an 
 automobile ride, or has a game of golf. He often 
 sees a baseball game and always attends the theater 
 at least once a week. Many of the leading actors and 
 actresses of the country treasure notes from the Pres- 
 ident telling them how much he has enjoyed their 
 plays. 
 
 ''There is a lot of the bov left in me," he once said. 
 
WOODROW WILSON 317 
 
 "Tve never forgotten how to play, never forgotten 
 how to loaf. I get great relief as I go along by a 
 sense of fun in things. There is a constant succession 
 of funny things happening." 
 
 Dinner at the White House is at seven. After 
 dinner the family usually gathers for a social hour. 
 Sometimes the President reads aloud, selecting a story 
 or a poem which he likes. Then he goes again to his 
 study. This is the part of the day which he reserves 
 for himiSelf. His messages, speeches, and letters are 
 generally written between the hours of nine and mid- 
 night. 
 
 When President Wilson had been in office only a 
 little more than a year the Great War came, with con- 
 sequences so far-reaching that no country was left 
 untouched by them. What it w^as to mean to x\merica 
 eventually, few people at that time could foresee. So 
 swiftly and unexpectedly had it come that Americans 
 had not had time to find themselves. To them it was 
 like any other European war, a war of conquest be- 
 tween nations. The issue of right and wrong, which 
 in the end made the Great War different from most 
 other wars, was not very clear on the 1st of August, 
 1914. 
 
 President Wilson, whose problems until now had, 
 for the most part, concerned America alone, was at 
 once confronted wnth the very difficult problems of 
 America's relations with the warring nations of Eu- 
 rope. There was no doubt in his mind about the course 
 
3i8 LEADERS OF. THE GREAT WAR 
 
 America should follow. America was a peace-loving 
 nation, unprepared for war, and had ever since her 
 existence kept aloof from European affairs. Accord- 
 ingly, on the 18th of x\ugust. President Wilson is- 
 sued a proclamation of neutrality. The time would 
 come, he said, when the European nations would need 
 the help of some neutral nation to settle their differ- 
 ences, and the United States would be called upon to 
 play the part of peacemaker. As the friend of all 
 nations it was given to us, as it had rarely been given 
 to another people, to serve mankind. 
 
 From the 1st of August, 1914, until the 6th of April, 
 1917, the President lost no opportunity to put before 
 the people this idea that the destiny of America was to 
 serve mankind. The principle of unselfishness upon 
 which America had acted more than once in her rela- 
 tions with other nations was, he believed, the prin- 
 ciple which should govern the relations of all nations 
 with each other. Throughout the years 1914, 1915, 
 and 1916, when war with Mexico seemed possible, this 
 was the principle which had governed his own policy. 
 
 "We shall, I confidently believe," said President 
 Wilson on one occasion, "never again take another 
 foot of territory by conquest. We shall never in any 
 circumstances seek to make an independent people sub- 
 ject to our dominion . . . The mission of America in 
 the world is essentially the mission of peace and good 
 will." 
 
 This, he believed, was the ideal of the American 
 people. " I have tried to know what America is," he 
 
WOODROW WILSON 319 
 
 said, " what her people think, what they are, what they 
 most cherish and hold dear." 
 
 The proclamation of neutrality, however, had not 
 made Americans neutral. From the first they were 
 divided into three classes, those who were pro-Ally, 
 those who were pro-German, and those who thought 
 the war was no concern of ours in any way. 
 
 On May 7th, 1915, the Liisitania was sunk and 
 many people thought that war with Germany would 
 surely follow, but so divided was opinion in the coun- 
 try still that President Wilson did not believe that a 
 declaration of war was possible. 
 
 Two years more were to pass before a united people 
 finally sanctioned war. Those who, in the beginning, 
 did not believe in war came to believe in this war. 
 Germany's crimes against the civil populations of Bel- 
 gium and France, together with her repeated acts of 
 war against the United States — the destruction of 
 our factories, the torpedoing of our ships — at last 
 convinced Americans that, if their ideals were to be 
 upheld, their country must fight. 
 
 On the 2d of April, 1917, President Wilson, ad- 
 dressing Congress in special session, reviewed the 
 wrongs Germany had committed against the "prin- 
 ciples of peace and justice," and asked for a declara- 
 tion of war, 
 
 ^' It is a fearful thing," he said in conclusion, '' to 
 lead this great, peaceful people into war, into the most 
 terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself 
 seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more 
 
320 LEADERS OF- THE GREAT WAR 
 
 precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things 
 which we have always carried nearest our hearts, for 
 democracy, for the right of those who submit to au- 
 thority to have a voice in their own governments, for 
 the rights and liberties of small nations, for a univer- 
 sal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples 
 as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make 
 the world itself at last free. To such a task we dedi- 
 cate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we 
 are and everything that we have, with the pride of 
 those who know that the day has come when America 
 is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the 
 principles that gave her birth and happiness and the 
 peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she 
 can do no other." 
 
 To Americans to whom the principles of liberty and 
 justice have always been the only things worth fight- 
 ing for, perhaps it did not seem so strange that now 
 they should fight in order that peoples of whom they 
 had never heard might enjoy these things. But to 
 the nations of Europe it was a strange and wonderful 
 thing. ''The history of the world offers no parallel 
 to America's act in offering everything and asking 
 nothing.'' 
 
 Once in the war, the President worked night and 
 day to bring it to a successful end. There was hardly 
 a plan concerning our army, navy, or industries that 
 did not have to pass through his hands. Such prob- 
 lems as the management of the railroads, the price of 
 coal and wheat, the draft law, labor difficulties, mili- 
 
WOODROW WILSON 321 
 
 tary and naval cooperation with the Allies, all had to 
 be thought out in his study. 
 
 That he was able to keep his health under the pres- 
 sure of so much work and such heavy responsibilities 
 was due to five things, says Admiral Grayson, the 
 President's physician, "to his system of work, exer- 
 cise, diet, plenty of sleep, and his sense of humor." 
 
 Instead of taking his exercise late in the afternoon 
 he now took it the first thing in the morning, lest the 
 day's work entirely crowd it out. Sometimes he 
 played golf, but usually he went for a horseback ride. 
 He chose from the White House stables a fine bay 
 horse which he called Democracy. Occasionally on a 
 Saturday afternoon he would slip away to the coun- 
 try with the family, carrying a picnic lunch and a book 
 of poems. Or, if time permitted, he would spend the 
 week-end on his yacht, the Mayflozver. On these oc- 
 casions he kept in touch with affairs in Washington 
 by wireless. 
 
 In speaking of his responsibility in the war, the 
 President said: "The awful and overwhelming 
 thought was that the country trusted me. My deter- 
 mination from the start was to let nothing tempt me 
 to override principles. I meant, if possible, to keep 
 the country square with principles. I waited for 
 clearer air. I made it a point not to read the details 
 of what was happening in instances of personal sufifer- 
 ing and what seemed individual outrage. I did not 
 dare to do so lest I should see red. I feared to be over- 
 whelmed by a storm of feeling. 
 
322 
 
 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 WooDROw Wilson 
 
WOODROW WILSON 323 
 
 " In handling national affairs feeling must not take 
 precedence of judgment." 
 
 In March of 1918, when the Germans began their 
 drives on Paris, President Wilson at once cabled Gen- 
 eral Pershing to offer the American forces to France. 
 Although this decision was taken in agreement with 
 the General Staff of our army, it was upon the Presi- 
 dent that the final responsibility rested. In the same 
 way, too, it was his vote which finally decided the 
 question of placing the Allied armies under one com- 
 mand. There is hardly any doubt now that, had he 
 decided differently upon these two questions the war 
 would have been greatly prolonged. 
 
 At the same time that he was calling for every re- 
 source America had in men, money, and materials, in 
 order to win the war, he was preparing with no less 
 zeal for the day of peace. When that day should 
 come, he said, it should bring to " all peoples and na- 
 tionalities the right to live on equal terms of liberty 
 and safety with one another, whether they be strong 
 or weak." Again and again he spoke of the war as 
 the " final war for human liberty," which was to end 
 oppression and establish justice in its place. 
 
 To the war-weary peoples of Europe his words gave 
 new life and a new hope. They looked to him as leader 
 and spokesman for the people's cause. His speeches 
 were translated into almost every language, his pic- 
 ture found its way into the remotest villages, and the 
 American flag became for oppressed peoples every- 
 where the symbol of their liberty. 
 
324 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 The practical means of making possible a lasting 
 peace was to be a League of Nations. Instead of the 
 old policy, by which a nation got what it could at the 
 expense of all others, the nations would enter into a 
 relationship of a ''common family," resting both their 
 agreements and their differences on the final judgment 
 of the League. The idea of a league of nations was 
 almost as old as history ; the plan was new only in not 
 having been tried in modern times. 
 
 On the 3d of October, 1918, the German Chancel- 
 lor had addressed a note to President Wilson, asking 
 for an armistice or temporary truce. To this Presi- 
 dent Wilson had replied that the only armistice the 
 Allies would consider was one which would leave Ger- 
 many no chance of renewing the war, and throughout 
 the month of October the negotiations continued. 
 That month, however, brought one defeat after an- 
 other to the German armies, and on November 5th, 
 at the request of the German government. Marshal 
 Foch presented the terms of the armistice. Follow- 
 ing this last event, six days elapsed before word came 
 that the armistice had been signed and that the Great 
 War had come to an end. 
 
 The word reached President Wilson in his study 
 in the White House. With the materials at hand, 
 a lead pencil and a half sheet of note paper, he hur- 
 riedly wrote a proclamation to the people announcing 
 the end of the war. Then word went out that at one 
 o'clock he would read the terms of the armistice to 
 Congress. 
 
WOODROW WILSON 325 
 
 Again the galleries of the House of Representatives 
 were filled to overflowing. The streets were lined 
 with people and Capitol Hill surged with crowds, 
 eager for a glimpse of the President. Loud cheering 
 marked his arrival, and cheers greeted him again as 
 he appeared in the door of the House. It was the 
 President's day. Senators and members of the House 
 who had disagreed with him on the day before and 
 who would disagree with him again on the morrow 
 heartily c.pplauded his success in negotiating the end 
 of the war. The President also was happy. With the 
 autocratic governments of Europe overthrown, it 
 remained, he said, " for America to aid in establishing 
 a just democracy throughout the world." 
 
 A week after the signing of the armistice. President 
 Wilson announced his intention of going to Europe to 
 take part in the Peace Conference, and on the morning 
 of December 4th, he sailed from New York on the 
 steamship George Washington. Thousands of people 
 lined the water front to see him off and, as the big 
 liner moved slowly down the harbor, they sent up 
 cheer after cheer and waved thousands of flags and 
 handkerchiefs in farewell. 
 
 On 1)oard the George Washington, beside the 
 President's party, were members of the American 
 Peace Commission and specialists and advisers on 
 European affairs. 
 
 Just after the departure two airplanes suddenly 
 swooped down from the clouds and flew out to sea in 
 advance of the President's ship. The naval escort 
 
326 LEADERS OF. THE GREAT WAR 
 
 consisted of the super-dreadnought Pennsylvania and 
 five destroyers, which were to convoy the George 
 Washington to Brest. Twelve other destroyers ac- 
 companied the fleet to a point a hundred miles at sea. 
 
 The guns of the shore batteries and of the naval 
 boats at anchor had fired the presidential salute, and 
 the George Washington was about to slip through the 
 gate of the submarine net into the open sea, when 
 President Wilson caught sight of five hundred school 
 children weaving flags from the Staten Island shore. 
 This was America's last farewell. 
 
 The sound of the Star Spangled Banner floating 
 over the harbor of Brest was the first greeting of 
 France. It was all but lost, however, in the uproar of 
 shouting, singing, and guns thundering in salute. 
 
 Europe's welcome to the President was tumultuous. 
 It was a welcome w^hich came from the hearts of 
 people who looked to him as the champion of a new 
 order of things. For, out of the suffering of the war, 
 had grown the hope that there might never be another 
 war, and this, the people knew, was also the Presi- 
 dent's hope. It was this that had brought him over- 
 seas. With flowers and gifts and cries of '' Long live 
 Wilson " and " Long live America," they expressed 
 their gratitude. 
 
 At 10.30 on the morning of December 14th the 
 President reached Paris. An American officer, writ- 
 ing from Paris, tells of his reception in the capital 
 city of France : 
 
 " Early in the day of President Wilson's arrival, I 
 
WOODROW WILSON 327 
 
 went to get a look at the crowd outside the Hotel de 
 Ville, where the reception was held. Instead of an 
 awning over the entrance, it was canopied with the 
 richest red velvet, trimmed with gold fringe. Sta- 
 tioned within were those magnificently uniformed 
 Gardes de Municipale, their shining helmets, rich 
 capes, and flashing swords reminding one of court 
 days. And then the crowd! There were ladders 
 twenty feet high that had been brought out for the oc- 
 casion and every one was full; there were little carts 
 like the tumbrils that had carried unhappy victims to 
 the guillotine; there were kitchen chairs, tables, and 
 benches, but over and above all were people, people, 
 people on the roofs, in the trees, on shaky poles, on top 
 of each other. Fve never seen so many in my life. 
 
 " I managed to worm myself back to our offices, and, 
 long before the procession passed by, we knew by the 
 booming of the big guns in the presidential salute that 
 the first man in the only land had arrived. The mur- 
 mur that passed through the crowd was like the gath- 
 ering of a storm; the people were crying, laughing, 
 singing, roaring all at once — that's France. 
 
 " I had a wonderful place from which to view it all. 
 When it came about time for the procession to reach 
 the Concorde, I climbed out of our ofifice window on to 
 the ledge, from which I could almost touch the car- 
 riages as they passed. President and Mrs. Wilson, 
 Clemenceau and General Pershing received the most 
 applause. Several French people have told me that 
 President Wilson made by far the best impression of 
 
328 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 any of the celebrities. I've seen them all, and none of 
 them looked as intellectual or so much 'man of the 
 hour ' as he did. 
 
 "One of the prettiest sights of the whole thing I 
 obtained from the roof of our building just after the 
 President passed. When the divided throng surged 
 together in the Place de la Concorde, the light blue of 
 the long columns of French soldiers, as they tried to 
 wind themselves out of the crowd, stood out in sharp 
 contrast to the somber hue of the civilians and the 
 khaki groups of American and English soldiers." 
 
 Christmas Day the President spent with the Ameri- 
 can troops at Chaumont, our general headquarters. 
 This was a visit to which he had looked forward very 
 much, and he was up before daylight for the first 
 glimpse of the camp from the car windows. After 
 an army review he addressed the troops, expressing 
 his pride in the achievements of the American army 
 and in the spirit with which the men had fought. He 
 ate Christmas dinner with General Pershing and his 
 staff and that same night left for England. 
 
 The welcome of the British people quite equaled that 
 of the French. The King and the Queen met his train 
 in London and he was driven to Buckingham Palace, 
 along streets lined with cheering crowds. '' In the 
 great open space before the palace," writes a corre- 
 spondent of the New York Times,^ " a crowd of 
 200,000 had gathered. It was an assemblage of all 
 classes and ages. People up from the country for the 
 
 1 Edward Marshall, New York Times, Dec. 26, 1918. 
 
WOODROW WILSON 329 
 
 holidays rubbed shoulders with dwellers in Mayfair. 
 Aged Chelsea pensioners hobbled alongside Dominion 
 soldiers. Factory girls blocked the view of staff 
 officers, and everywhere through the throng were 
 American soldiers and sailors, watching a little curi- 
 ously to see how their President was received. Sev- 
 eral busloads of wounded Tommies were admitted to 
 the forecourt of the palace, but they were the only per- 
 sons for whom places were reserved. 
 
 " The first intimation that he was approaching was 
 the boom of the presidential salute, echoing from the 
 high buildings. Then came the sound of cheers. As 
 the procession passed along Piccadilly, a quarter of a 
 mile away, and turned down Constitution Hill, its 
 course could be traced by the tide of sound which drew 
 nearer and nearer. . . . The crowd held its cheers 
 until the first royal carriage came by and then gave 
 vent to its enthusiasm with full energy. Children 
 were hoisted on fathers' shoulders, handkerchiefs and 
 hats were waved, hundreds of little American flags 
 were displayed, and men and women burst into rounds 
 of cheers. The President was evidently much pleased. 
 He bowed and smiled to right and left. His hat was 
 not on his head for a second, and he kept waving it 
 as some more than usually exuberant cheers caught 
 his ear." 
 
 From England President Wilson went to Italy, and 
 everywhere along the way welcoming crowds met his 
 train, men and women beseeching him for peace. At 
 Milan a delegation of wounded Italian soldiers pre- 
 
330 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 sented him with a petition for a League of Nations, an 
 incident which led him again to speak of the responsi- 
 bihties resting on those about to make peace. 
 
 " I am very much touched to receive at the hands of 
 wounded soldiers a memorial in favor of a League of 
 Nations/' he said, '' and to be told by them that this 
 was what they had fought for, not merely to win the 
 war, but to secure something beyond, some guarantee 
 of justice .... which would make it certain that 
 they would never have to fight a war like this again. 
 
 '' This is an added obligation upon those who make 
 peace. We cannot merely sign a treaty of peace and 
 go home with a clear conscience. We must add so far 
 as we can the security which suffering men everywhere 
 demand." 
 
 At Rome he stated what he believed to be the only 
 way this security could be brought about. " There is 
 only one thing that holds nations together, if you ex- 
 clude force, and that is friendship and good will. . . . 
 Therefore, our task at Paris is to organize the friend- 
 ship of the world." 
 
 At the Peace Conference President Wilson, with 
 Premiers Clemenceau of France, Lloyd George of 
 England, and Orlando of Italy, constituted the Coun- 
 cil of Four, upon whose decisions rested the settlement 
 of all great questions. 
 
 Before the war had ended. President Wilson, in 
 agreement with the Allies, had named fourteen condi- 
 tions of peace, known as the " fourteen points." They 
 were based upon the general principles contained in 
 
WOODROW WILSON 331 
 
 the President's war message to Congress, the prin- 
 ciples of liberty, justice, and the right of all people to 
 choose their own form of government. Upon these 
 conditions Germany agreed to the signing of the ar- 
 mistice. 
 
 At the conclusion of the war, however, there came 
 to light some secret treaties, entered into by England, 
 France, Italy, and Japan, which, but for America's 
 entrance into the war, w^ould have served as the basis 
 for peace. Since many clauses in these treaties were 
 directly opposed to President Wilson's " fourteen 
 points," a compromise had to be made. For, while 
 these questions were debated, the civilizations of the 
 Old World were rapidly falling to pieces. Some kind 
 of peace had to be made, if anarchy and revolution 
 were not to spread over all Europe. 
 
 The peace terms, as they were finally written, there- 
 fore settled the questions of the Great War in a way 
 that was neither the old way nor the new, but a com- 
 promise between them. What President Wilson's 
 influence was, what decisions he made, just how much 
 he succeeded in changing old systems, one cannot know 
 until the history of the Peace Conference is written. 
 
 The provision for a League of Nations within the 
 treaty, however, was chiefly the work of the President, 
 and it is to the League of Nations that he looks for still 
 greater changes to be brought about. 
 
 " Many terrible things have come out of this war," 
 he said in his address to the Peace Conference on the 
 League of Nations, ''but some very beautiful things 
 
332 LEADERS OF THE GREAT WAR 
 
 have come out of it. Wrong has been defeated, but 
 the rest of the world has been more conscious than it 
 ever was before of the majority of right. People that 
 were suspicious of one another can now live as friends 
 and comrades in a single family and desire to do so. 
 Men are looking eye to eye and saying: 'We are 
 brothers and have a common purpose. We did not 
 realize it before now, but now we do realize it, and 
 this is our covenant of friendship.' " 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 Woodrozv Wilson, the Story of His Life, William Bayard 
 Hale. 
 
 Woodrozv Wilson, an Interpretation, A. Maurice Low. 
 
 Woodrozv Wilson, the Man and His Work, Henry Jones 
 Ford. 
 
 Woodrozv Wilson as President, Eugene C. Brooks. 
 
 Woodrozv Wilson as a Man of Letters, Bliss Perry, Cen- 
 tury, 85 : 753. 
 
 Woodrozv Wilson, Sanford Andrews, Cosmopolitan, Octo- 
 ber, 1902. 
 
 Woodrozv Wilson, Jesse Lynch Williams, McClure's, Octo- 
 ber, 1902. 
 
 President Wilson at Work, Literary Digest, May 24, 1913. 
 
 Hozju Does He Stand Itf David Lawrence, Ladies' Home 
 Journal, November, 1917. 
 
 A Talk zvith the President, Ida Tarbell, Collier's, Oct. 28, 
 1916. 
 
 Woodrozv Wilson in Europe, Current History Magazine, 
 February, 1919. 
 
GLOSSARY 
 
 KEY 
 
 fate, fat, art, fast, law. 
 me, get, her. 
 kite, hit. 
 
 s5, not, or. 
 too, book, 
 ciire, biit, fur. 
 
 FRENCH NASAL SOUNDS 
 
 Syllables of French words having nasal sounds are numbered to cor- 
 respond with the following approximate English sounds : 
 
 1 an, en, an as in want. 
 
 2 in, eim, ain, aim, an as in hang. 
 
 Abu Hamed, a-bii ha'med 
 
 Abu Klea, a-bii kla'a 
 
 Aisne, en. 
 
 Albert, al-ber' 
 
 Aldershot, al'der-shot 
 
 Allah, al'a 
 
 Alpins Chasseurs, al-pin'^ sha-sur' 
 
 Alsace, al-sas' 
 
 Annapolis, a-nap'o-lis 
 
 Arab, ar'ab 
 
 Arabic, ar'a-bic 
 
 Arc de Triomphe, ark dii tre-omf'^ 
 
 Artois, ar-twa' 
 
 Atbara, at-ba'ra 
 
 attache, a-ta-sha' 
 
 Auteuil, o-tu'e 
 
 Barfleur, bar-flur' 
 Bar-le-Duc, bar-lii-diik' 
 Bathlemont, bat-lii-mon''* 
 Beatty, ba'te 
 Beaumont-Hamel, bo-mon'4 ha-mel' 
 
 3 un, um, un as in grunt. 
 
 4 on, om, on as in don't. 
 
 Belleau, be-lo' 
 
 BlUcher, blu'ker 
 
 Boers, boorz 
 
 Bois de Belleau, bwa du be-lo' 
 
 Bois de Boulogne, bwa dii boo-lon' 
 
 Bolo, b5'lo 
 
 Bordeaux, bor-do' 
 
 Borodale, bo'ro-dal 
 
 Boulogne, boo-lon' 
 
 Bourbon, boor-bon'^ 
 
 Bouresches, boo-resh' 
 
 Brasenose, braz'noz 
 
 Brest, brest 
 
 Breton, Fr. bre-ton''* ; Eng. bret'iin 
 
 Bryn Mawr, brin mar 
 
 Caillaux, ki-yo' 
 Cairo, ki'ro 
 Calais, ka-la' 
 camouflage, cam'oo-flazh 
 Cantigny, kan-ten-ye' 
 Capelle, ka-pel' 
 
 Z?>?> 
 
334 
 
 GLOSSARY 
 
 Carency, ka-ren^-se' 
 Cassel, ka-sel' 
 Castlenau, kast-lu-no' 
 Chalons-sur-Marne, sha-lon''*-sur- 
 
 marn 
 Champagne, sham^-pan'i-ya 
 Champs Elys^es, shamz^ a-le-za' 
 Charleroi, shar-lu-rwa' 
 Charleville, shar-lu-vel' 
 Chateau Thierry, sha-to' te-re' 
 Chateau de I'Aubraie, sha-to' du 
 
 lo-bra' 
 Chaumont, sho-mon'^ 
 Chaumont-en-Vexin, sho-mdn'*- 
 
 ten^-vex'in^ 
 Chelsea, chel'se 
 Chemnitz, kem'nitz 
 clement, kla-men'i 
 C16menceau, kla-men^-so' 
 Cologne, ko-lon' 
 Colville, kol'vil 
 Commune, ko'miin 
 Criccieth, krik-ke-eth 
 Croesus, kre'siis 
 Crotta, krot'ta 
 
 datto, da'to 
 Dervish, der'vish 
 Dixmude, dex-mud' 
 Dongola, don'go-la 
 Donon, do-non'^ 
 Douaumont, doo-o-mon'^ 
 Doullen, doo-len'i 
 Dupre, doo-pra' 
 
 ifccole Polytechnique, a-kol' po-le- 
 
 tek-nek' 
 Eiffel, a-f el' 
 El Paso, el pa'so 
 El Teb, el teb' 
 Escadrille, es-ka-dre'ya 
 
 Fere Champenoise, f er sham^-pen- 
 
 waz' 
 Fler, fler 
 Foch, f osh 
 
 Fontainebleau, fon-ten-blo' 
 Friedrich der Grosse, fre'drik der 
 
 gros'sa 
 
 Gardes de Municipale, gard du mu- 
 
 ne-se-pal' 
 Garonne, ga-run' 
 Geneva, je-ne'va 
 Germain, zher-main'^ 
 Gibraltar, ji-bral'ter 
 Gondrecourt, gon^-dru-coor' 
 Grosetti, gro-set'ti 
 Grosvenor, gro'ven-6r 
 Guaconayabs, gwa-kon'a-yabs 
 
 Hafir, ha'fir 
 Haig, hag- 
 Hamburg, ham'burg 
 Hannibal, han'i-bal 
 Heligoland, hel'e-go-lant 
 Hindenburg, hin'den-burg 
 Hotel Crillon, o-tel' kre-yon'^ 
 Hotel de Ville, o-tel' dii vel' 
 Humbert, un^-ber' 
 
 Joffre, Joseph Jacques Cesaire, 
 zhof r, zho-sef ' zhak sa-zer' 
 
 kamerad, kam'er-ad 
 
 Kerma, ker'ma 
 
 Khartum, kar-toom' 
 
 Kiel, kel 
 
 Kimberley, kim'ber-ly 
 
 Kitchener, kitch'en-er 
 
 Konigen Luise, ku'ni-ken loo-e'sa 
 
GLOSSARY 
 
 335 
 
 Koran, ko-ran' 
 Kriemhilde, krem-hirda 
 
 Laclede, la-cled' 
 
 Lafayette, la-fa-et' 
 
 Lafayette Escadrille, la-fa-et' es- 
 
 ka-dre'ya 
 Lancashire, lan'ka-sher 
 Lanao, la-na'o 
 Laon, lan^ 
 Lens, lans^ 
 Lille, lei 
 
 Llanystnmdwy, lan-u-stimd'wi 
 Loos, los 
 
 Lorraine, Fr. lo-ren' ; Eng. lo-ran' 
 Ludendorff, loo'den-dorf 
 Luxembnrg, lux'em-burg 
 lycee, le-sa' 
 Lyons, Fr. le-on'* ; Eng. li'ons 
 
 Mah^, mal-ve' 
 
 Marche Lorraine, marsh lo-ren' 
 
 Marne, marn 
 
 Marquis de Chambrun, mar-ke' dii 
 
 shami-brun'^ 
 Marseillaise, Fr. mar-sa-yez' ; Eng. 
 
 mar-sa-laz' 
 Maubeiige, mo-buj' 
 Meaux, mo 
 Megan, me'gan 
 Metemma, me-tem'ma 
 Metz, metz 
 Meuse, muz 
 Milan, mi-lan' 
 Mindanao, min-da-na'5 
 Mons, mons^ 
 Montceau-les-Provins, mon^-so'-la- 
 
 pro-vin'2 
 Montdidier, monMe-de-a' 
 Montmartre, mon'*-mar'tr 
 
 Morlaix, mor-la' 
 Moro, mo'ro 
 
 Namur, na-miir' 
 Nancy, nan^-se' 
 Nantes, nant^ 
 Ney, na 
 Nieuport, noo-por' 
 
 Omdurman, om-der-man' 
 Orlando, 6r-lan'do 
 Ourcq, oork 
 
 Palestine, pal'es-tine 
 Peiho, pa-ho' 
 Pekin, pe-king' 
 Perpignan, per-pen-yan'^ 
 Petain, Henri Philippe, pa-tain'^, 
 
 an^-re' fe-lep' 
 Picardy, pe-kar-de' 
 Place d'Armes, plas darm' 
 Place de la Concorde, plas dii la 
 
 kon^-kord' 
 Plancy, plan^-se' 
 Pleur, pier 
 poilu, pwa-loo' 
 Poincare, pwain^-ka-ra' 
 Portmadoc, p5rt-ma'd6k 
 Pyrenees, per'e-nez 
 
 Rennes, ren 
 
 Rethondes, rii-tond'^ 
 
 Reuterdahl, roi'ter-dal 
 
 Rheims, Fr. rans; Eng. rems 
 
 Rivesaltes, rev-salt' 
 
 Rue Constantine, rii con^-stan^-ten' 
 
 Saint Bon, sain^ bon'^ 
 
 Saint Clement, sain^ kla-men'i 
 
 Saint Cyr, sain- ser' 
 
 Saint ;fetienne, sain^ ta-te-en' 
 
 Saint L.ond, sain^ gon'^ 
 
336 
 
 GLOSSARY 
 
 Saint Michel, sain^ me-shel 
 Saint Mihiel, sain^ me-e-el' 
 Saint Omer, sain^ to-mer' 
 Saint Quentin, sain^ ken^-tin'^ 
 San Diego, san de-a'go 
 San Juan, san wan' 
 Santiago, san-te-a'go 
 Sedan, sa-dan'' 
 Seydlitz, sid'Iits 
 Seymour, se'mor 
 Shabluka, shab-loo'ka 
 Sirdar, sir-dar' 
 Soissons, swa-son'4 
 Somme, siim 
 Sommesous, sum-soo' 
 Souilly, soo-ye' 
 Spa, spa 
 Staten, stat'en 
 Sudan, soo-dan' 
 
 Tamai, fa-ma'e 
 Tarbes, tarb 
 Tientsin, te-ent'sm 
 Timbuctoo, tim-biik'too 
 
 Torcy, tor-se' 
 Toul, tool 
 Transvaal, trans-val' 
 
 Valentine, val-an^-ten' 
 
 Vaux, vo 
 
 Vendee, ven^-da' 
 
 Verdun, ver-dun'^ 
 
 Versailles, Fr. ver-si'ya ; Eng. ver- 
 
 salz' 
 Vesle, val 
 
 Villa, Pancho, vil-a, pan'cho 
 Villers-Cotterets, ve-ya'-ko-tra' 
 vive, vev 
 
 Vive I'Amerique, vev la-ma-rek' 
 Vive la France, vev la frans^ 
 Von Kluck, fun klook' 
 Vosges, voj 
 
 Wady Haifa, wa'de hal'fa 
 Woolwich, wool'ich 
 
 Ypres, epr 
 
 Zanzibar, zan'zi-bar 
 
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 111 Thomson Park Drive 
 
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 Cranberry Township. PA 1 6066 
 (724)779-2111 
 

 
 
 ^^ JAN 79 
 
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