on
in France was temporarily overcast by one of those peculiar "crises"
which seem to happen chiefly in countries enjoying the most liberal
institutions and the greatest freedom of speech and press. On the 6th it
was announced from Paris that the Government had decided to replace
General H. J. E. Gouraud, Commander of the French Expeditionary Force at
the Dardanelles, by General Sarrail, who had been designated Commander
in Chief of the Army in the Orient. That Gouraud would have to be
relieved of his command was painfully obvious, for that gallant officer
had been struck by a shell while visiting a base hospital on July 8,
hopelessly shattering his right arm, which had to be amputated. As,
however, the French military contingent in the ill-starred Gallipoli
adventure was but a small affair, the appointment of General Sarrail to
the command thereof could only be regarded as the reverse of a
promotion. In the first great German offensive toward Paris it was
General Sarrail who had successfully defended the fortress of Verdun
against the attacks of the German Crown Prince. Gradually the story came
out that the general was the victim of a political intrigue--a plot to
displace him as well as M. Millerand, the Minister for War. An
acrimonious discussion developed in the French Chamber on August 14,
1915, in which some of the members nearly came to blows. The political
truce, arranged between the conflicting parties at the beginning of the
war, hung in the balance. Faithful to the old tradition that the duty of
the Opposition is to oppose anything and everything, the
Radical-Socialists and the Socialist party were loud in their
denunciation of the conduct of the war, and desired to allocate
responsibility for the military failures of the previous year. A number
of high officers had already been "retired" in connection with those
failures, which were serious enough. But the charge alleged against
Sarrail was that he had omitted to supply his men adequately with
antipoison gas masks. In one of the German attacks in which gas was
used, Sarrail's front was pierced and a thousand men were forced to
surrender. Some accounts gave the number as 5,000. For this the general
was at first suspended, and then offered the other command, which he
refused on the ground that if he was guilty he deserved punishment; if
not, he was entitled to reinstatement. The real motive underlying the
prosecution, however, was generally believed to have bee