ranco-Prussian war began.

Immediately Ferdinand Foch enlisted for the duration of the war.

III

A YOUNG SOLDIER OF A LOST CAUSE

There is nothing to record of Ferdinand Foch's first soldiering except
that from the depot of the Fourth Regiment of Infantry, in his home
city of Saint-Etienne, he was sent to Chalon-sur-Saone, and there was
discharged in January, 1871, after the capitulation of Paris.

He did not distinguish himself in any way. He was just one of a
multitude of youths who rushed to the colors when France called, and
did what they could in a time of sad confusion, when a weak government
had paralyzed the effectiveness of the army--of the nation!

Whatever blows Ferdinand Foch struck in 1870 were without weight in
helping to avert France's catastrophe. But he was like hundreds of
thousands of other young Frenchmen similarly powerless in this: In the
anguish he suffered because of what he could not do to save France from
humiliation were laid the foundations of all that he has contributed to
the glory of new France.

At the time when his Fall term should have been beginning at Saint
Clement's College, Metz was under siege by the German army, and its
garrison and inhabitants were suffering horribly from hunger and
disease; Paris was surrounded; the German headquarters were at
Versailles; and the imperial standards so dear to young Foch because of
the great Napoleon were forever lowered when the white flag was hoisted
at Sedan and an Emperor with a whole army passed into captivity.

How much the young soldier-student of the Saone comprehended then of
the needlessness of the shame and surrender of those inglorious days we
do not know. He cannot have been sufficiently versed in military
understanding to realize how much of the defeat France suffered was due
to her failure to fight on, at this juncture and that, when a stiffer
resistance would have turned the course of events.

But if he did not know then, he certainly knew later. And as soon as
he got where he could impress his convictions upon other soldiers of
the new France he began training them in his great maxim: "A battle is
lost when you admit defeat."

What his devotion to Saint Clement's College was we may know from the
fact of his return there to resume his interrupted studies under the
same teachers, but in sadly different circumstances.

He found German troops quartered in parts of the college, and as he
went to and from his cl