On September 30, 1916 (just before his sixty-fifth birthday, on which his retirement from active service was due), he was “retained without age limit” in the first section of the general staff of the French army.

Honors were beginning to crowd upon him as the debt of France and of her allies to his genius began to be realized.  Responsibility vested in him became heavier and heavier as he demonstrated his ability to bear it.  But always, say those who were nearest him, “a great, religious serenity pervaded and illumined his soul.”

This is a serenity not of physical calm.  Foch is intensely nervous, almost ceaselessly active.  His body is frail, racked with suffering, worn down by the enormous strains imposed upon it.  But the self-mastery within is always apparent; and it inspires confidence, and renewed effort, in all who come in contact with him.

XVI

THE SUPREME COMMANDER OF THE ALLIED ARMIES

After his position in the first section of the General Staff had been made independent of age limits, General Foch was relieved (for the autumn and winter at least, during which time no operations of importance were expected) of active command of a group of armies; and at once began the organization of a bureau devoted to the study of great military questions affecting not the French lines alone but those of France’s allies.

[Illustration:  General Petain—­Marshal Haig—­General Foch—­General Pershing]

At first the headquarters of this bureau were at Senlis, near Paris.  Then they were moved close to France’s eastern border where Foch and his associates studied ways and means of meeting a possible attack through Switzerland—­if Germany resolved to add that crime to her category—­or across northern Italy.

So clearly had Foch foreseen what would happen in the Venetian plain, that he had his plan of French reinforcement perfected long in advance, even to the schedule for dispatching troop trains to the Piave front.

In January, 1917, Marshal Joffre reached the age of retirement (65).  He was venerated and loved throughout France as few men have ever been.  Gratitude for his great gifts and great character filled every heart to overflowing.  His country had no honor great enough to express its sense of his service to France.  Yet it was felt that for the operations of the future, the interests of France and of her allies would be best furthered with another strategist in command of the armies in the field.  Joffre’s retirement was therefore effected.

Joffre is an engineer, a master-builder of fortifications, a great defense soldier.  But defense would not end the war.  France must look to her greatest offensive strategist.

There could be no question who that strategist was.  No one knew it quite so well as Marshal Joffre.  And one of the most splendid things about that mighty and noble man is the spirit in which he concurred in (if, indeed, he did not suggest) the change which meant that another should lead the armies of France to victory.