Joffre was one. The other was Foch.
"Foch? Foch? Who is Foch?" asked the British public, perplexed, when the
newspapers printed the news of the granting of this signal honor.
"Foch is the General who was at the head of the French military mission
which followed our army manoeuvres three years ago," replied a few men
who happened to have been intimately acquainted with those manoeuvres.
"But what has that to do with the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath?"
asked John Bull. And the manoeuvre experts not being able to reply, the
English newspapers demanded from their correspondents in France an
answer to the query, "Who is Foch? Why the Grand Cross?"
And the main features of the answers to that query were these:
Foch is the "greatest strategist in Europe and the humblest," in the
words of Joffre.
Foch is the hero of the Marne, the man who perceived on Sept. 9 that
there must be a gap between the Prussian Guard and the Saxon Army, and
who gathered enough artillery to crush the guard in the St. Gond marshes
and forced both the Prussians and the Saxons, now separated, to retreat.
Foch is the man of Ypres, the commander who was in general control of
the successful fight made by the French and the British, aided by the
Belgians, to prevent the Germans from breaking through to Calais.
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