left there in 1871, discovered a chateau belonging to the Kaiser close by, and requisitioned from it some of the necessaries of life.  Bordeaux drunk out of a glass marked with the Kaiser’s monogram had a taste of its own.  In the same way, when on the British front we drew up one afternoon, north of St. Omer, at a level crossing to let a goods train go by, I watched the interminable string of German trucks, labelled Magdeburg, Essen, Duesseldorf, and saw in them, with a bitter satisfaction, the first visible signs of the Reparation and Restitution to be.

The relations between the General and his Staff were very pleasant to watch; and after dinner there was some interesting talk of the war.  I asked the General what had seemed to him the most critical moment of the struggle.  He and his Chief of the Staff looked at each other gravely an instant and then the General said:  “I have no doubt about it at all.  Not May 27th (the break through on the Aisne)—­not March 21st (the break through at St. Quentin)—­but May and June, 1917—­’les mutineries dans l’armee,’ i.e., that bitter time of ’depression morale,’ as another French military critic calls it, affecting the glorious French Army, which followed on General Nivelle’s campaign on the Aisne—­March and April, 1917—­with its high hopes of victory, its initial success, its appalling losses, and its ultimate check.  Many causes combined, however—­among them the leave-system in the French Army, and many grievances as to food, billeting, and the like:  and the discontent was alarming and widespread.  But,” said General Gouraud, “Petain stepped in and saved the situation.”  “How?” one asked. “Il s’occupa du soldat—­(he gave his mind to the soldier)—­that was all.”  The whole leave-system was transformed, the food supply and the organisation of the Army canteens were immensely improved—­pay was raised—­and everything was done that could be done, while treating actual mutiny with a stern hand, to meet the soldiers’ demands.  “In our army,” said General Gouraud, “a system of discipline like that of the German Army is impossible.  We are a democracy.  We must have the consent of the governed.  In the last resort the soldier must be able to say:  ‘J’obeis d’amitie.’”

That great result, according to General Gouraud, was finally achieved by General Petain’s reforms.  He gave as a proof of it that on the night of the Armistice, he and his Staff, at Chalons, unable to sit still indoors, went out and mingled with the crowd in the streets of that great military centre, apparently to the astonishment and pleasure of the multitude.  “Everywhere along the line,” said the General, “the soldiers were cheering Petain! ’Vive Petain!  Vive Petain!’” Petain was miles away; but it was the spontaneous recognition of him as the soldiers’ champion and friend.

Gouraud did not say, what was no doubt the truth, that the army at Chalons were cheering Gouraud no less than Petain.  For one can rarely talk with French officers about General Gouraud without coming across the statement:  “He is beloved by his army.  He has done so much for the soldiers.”  But not a word of his own share appeared in his conversation with me.