Before proceeding to British headquarters, General French held a conference with General Joffre, Commander in Chief of all the French armies.  Until the outbreak of the war, General Joffre was practically unknown to the French people.  He was no popular military idol, no boulevard dashing figure.  But he had seen active service with credit, and had climbed, step by step, with persevering study of military science into the council of the French General Staff.  As a strategist his qualities came to be recognized as paramount in that body.  A few years previously he had been intrusted with the reorganization of the French army, and his plans accepted.  Therefore, when war with Germany became a certainty, it was natural the supreme command of the French army should fall to General Joffre.

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CHAPTER VI

CAMPAIGNS IN ALSACE AND LORRAINE

The French staff apparently had designed a campaign in Upper Alsace and the Vosges, but the throwing of a brigade from Belfort across the frontier on the extreme right of their line on August 6 would seem to have been undertaken chiefly with a view of rousing patriotic enthusiasm.  French aeroplane scouts had brought in the intelligence that only small bodies of German troops occupied the left bank of the Rhine.  Therefore the opportunity was presented to invade the upper part of the lost province of Alsace—­a dramatic blow calculated to arouse the French patriotic spirit.  Since the Germans had expended hardly any effort in its defense, leaving, as it were an open door, it may have been part of the strategic idea of their General Staff to draw a French army into that region, with the design of inflicting a crushing defeat.  Thus French resistance in the southern Vosges would have been weakened, the capture of Belfort, unsupported by its field army, a probability, and a drive beyond into France by the German forces concentrated at Neubreisach made triumphant.  Doubtless the French General Staff fully grasped the German intention, but considered a nibble at the alluring German bait of some value for its sentimental effect upon the French and Alsatians.  Otherwise the invasion of Upper Alsace with a brigade was doomed at the outset to win no military advantage.

On August 7, 1914, the French dispersed a German outpost intrenched before Altkirch.  Some cavalry skirmishing followed, which resulted in the French gaining possession of the city.  As was to be expected, the citizens of Altkirch welcomed the French with enthusiasm.  The following morning the French were permitted an uncontested advance to Muelhausen.  That such an important manufacturing center as Muelhausen should have remained unfortified within striking distance of the French frontier, that the French entered it without being compelled to fire a shot, was a surprise to everyone with the probable exception of the German and French General Staffs.