Part 21

"Marshal," said Foch, "your line is cracked?"

"Yes."

"Have you any resources?"

"I have none."

"Then I give you mine; the gap must be stopped at once; if we allow our lines to be pierced at a single point we are lost, because of the masses our enemy has to pour through it. I have eight battalions of the Thirty-second Division that General Joffre has sent me. Take them and go forward!"

The offer was most gratefully received. At two o'clock the orders were given; the gap was stopped.

Nevertheless, the British despaired of their ability to hold. Marshal French had no reserves, and decided to fall back.

A liaison officer hastened to notify General Dubois that the British were about to retire, and General Dubois betook himself in all speed to Vlamertinghe, the Belgian headquarters, to notify their commanding general. Foch happened to be with the Belgian general. And while these three were conferring, the liaison officer (Jamet) saw the automobile of Marshal French pass by.

Realizing the importance of the British commander's presence at that interview, Jamet ventured to stop him and suggest his attendance.

Foch implored French to prevent retreat. French declared there was nothing else for him to do--his men were exhausted, he had no reserves. Foch pointed out to him the incalculable consequences of yielding.

"It is necessary to hold in spite of everything!" he cried; "to hold until death. What you propose would mean a catastrophe. Hold on! I'll help you."

And as he talked he wrote his suggestions on a piece of paper he found on the table before him, and passed it to the British commander.

Marshal French read what was written, at once added to it, "execute the order of General Foch," signed it, and gave it to one of his staff officers.

And the Channel ports were saved.

But a greater thing even than that was foreshadowed: Foch had begun to demonstrate what was in him before which not only the men of his command must bow but the generals of other nations also.

One of the staff officers of General Foch who was closely associated with him there in the north in that time of great anxiety, has given us a pen-picture of the chief as his aides often saw him then. Doubtless it is a good picture also, except for differences in trifling details, of the great commander as he has been on many and many a night since, while the destinies of millions hung in the balance of his decisions.

"All is silence. The little town of Cassel is early asleep. On the rough pavement of the Grande Place, occasional footsteps break the stillness. Now they are those of a staff officer on his way to his billet. Now it is the sentry moving about to warm himself up a bit. Then silence again.

"In a little office of the Hotel de Ville, a man is seated at a table. His elbows are on a big military map. A telephone is at his hand. He waits--to hear the results of orders he has given. And while he waits he chews an unlighted cigar and divides his attention between the map and the clock--an old Louis XVI timepiece with marble columns, which ticks off the minutes almost soundlessly. How slowly its hands go round! How interminable seems the wait for news!

"Someone knocks, and Colonel Weygand, chief of staff, enters; he has a paper in his hand: 'Telephoned from the Ninth army at 1.15 A.M.' . . .

"The general has raised his head; his eyes are shining.

"'Good! good!'

"His plans are working out successfully; the reinforcements he sent for have arrived in time. There is nothing more he can do now; so he will go to bed.

"A last look at the map. Then his eye-glasses, at the end of their string, are tucked away in the upper pocket of his coat. The general puts on his black topcoat and his cap.

"In the hall, the gendarme on guard duty gets up, quickly, from the chair wherein he is dozing.

"The general salutes him with a brisk gesture, but with it he seems to say: 'Sleep on, my good fellow; I'm sorry to have disturbed you.'

"At the foot of the grand staircase, the sentry presents arms; and one of the staff officers joins the commander, to accompany him to the house of the notary who is extending him hospitality.

"A few hours later, very early in the morning, the general is back again at his office."

Thus he was at Cassel, as he directed those operations on the Yser by which he checked the German attempt to reach Calais and Dunkirk, and revealed to the military world a new strategist of the first order.