vil officials.

An unwarranted sense of security was also to blame. France had worked so
hard to recoup her fortunes after the disaster of 1870 that her
people--delighted with their ability as money makers, blinded by the
glitter of great prosperity--grudged the expanse of keeping up a large
army, grudged the time that compulsory military training took out of a
young man's life. And this preoccupation with success and the arts and
pleasures of prosperous peace made them incline their ears to the
apostles of "Brotherhood" and "Federation" and "Arbitration instead of
Armament."

Little by little legislation went against the army. The period of
compulsory service was reduced from three years to two; that cut down the
size of the army by one-third. The supreme command of the army was
vested not in a general, but in a politician--the Minister of War. The
generals in the highest commands not only had to yield precedence to the
prefects of the provinces (like our governors of states), but were
subject to removal if the prefects did not like their politics and the
Minister of War wished the support of the prefects.

Even the superior war council of the nation might be politically made up,
to pay the War Minister's scores rather than to protect the country.

All this can happen to a people lulled by a false sense of security--even
to a people which has had to defend itself against the savage rapacity of
its neighbors across the Rhine for two thousand years!

It was against these currents of popular opinion and of government
opposition that Ferdinand Foch took up his work in the Superior School of
War--that work which was to make possible the first victory of the Marne,
to save England from invasion by holding Calais, and to do various other
things vital to civilization, including the prodigious achievements of
the days that have since followed.

Foch foresaw that these things would have to be done and, with absolute
consecration to his task, he set himself not only to train officers for
France when she should need them, but to inspire them with a unity of
action which has saved the world.

I have various word-pictures of him as he then appeared to, and
impressed, his students.

One is by a military writer who uses the pseudonym of "Miles."

"The officers who succeeded one another at the school of war between 1896
and 1901," he says, referring to the first term of Foch as instructor
there, "will never forget the im