To go forward is all very well; but to fall back in good order, to understand that a retreat may be a masterpiece of strategy, to find in himself that other kind of courage which consists in not getting discouraged, to be able to wait without getting demoralized, to preserve unshaken the certainty of the final outcome—­in these things lies a virtue which we did not know we possessed:  the virtue of patience.  It won us our victory of the Marne.  One man is its personification today, that great chief, wise and prudent, who spares his men, who makes up his mind not to give battle except in his own time on his own ground, that chief toward whom at this moment the calm and confident eyes of the entire country are turned.

To carry a position by assault is one thing.  But to stand impassive in a rain of shot, amid exploding shells, amid infernal din and blinding smoke; to fire at an invisible enemy, to dispute foot by foot ground covered with traps, to retake the same village ten times, to burrow into the soil and crouch there, to watch day after day for the moment when the beast at bay ventures from his lair—­where have we acquired the phlegmatic coolness for such things?  Has it come from the proximity of our English allies?  It is in the English reports that we read the eulogies of our army for its endurance and tenacity.

We have always known how to pluck the laurels of the brave on fields of battle and to water them with our blood.  We Frenchmen, all of us, are lovers of glory.  The stories of war which we read in our childhood days—­captures of redoubts, fiery charges, furious fights around the flag—­made us thrill.  And, like the Athenians who left the performance of a tragedy by Aeschylus thirsting to close their books and march on the enemy, we dreamed of combats in which we were to win fame.

But since those days military literature has undergone somewhat of a change, and the communiques which we devour twice a day, hungry for news, give us no such tales of prowess.

“On the left wing we have progressed.  On the right wing we have repulsed violent counter-attacks.  On the front the situation remains without change.”  Where are our men?  What troops are meant?  What Generals?  Nothing is told of such things.  The veil of anonymity shrouds great actions, a barrier of impenetrable mystery protects the secret of the operations.

Great Things Done Simply.

Our soldiers have endured every hardship, braved every danger, never knowing whether each dawning day was their last, yet the cleverest manoeuvring, the most gallant feats, are obliterated, effaced, lost, in the calculated colorlessness of an enigmatic report.  But that sacrifice also have they made.  To be at the post assigned to them, to play a great or infinitesimal role in the common work, is the only reward they desire.  Can it be that the disease of individualism is a thing of yesterday?  The soldier of 1914 has cured us of it.  Never have disinterestedness and modesty been pushed so far.