It cannot have been prescience that called him there. It was just
Providence, nothing less!

For that was a time when men like Ferdinand Foch (whose whole heart was
in the army, making it such that nothing like the downfall of 1870 could
ever again happen to France), were laboring under extreme difficulties.
The army was unpopular in France.

This was due, partly to the disclosures of the Dreyfus case; partly to a
wave of internationalism and pacifism; partly to jealousy of the army
among civil officials.

An unwarranted sense of security was also to blame. France had worked so
hard to recoup her fortunes after the disaster of 1870 that her
people--delighted with their ability as money makers, blinded by the
glitter of great prosperity--grudged the expanse of keeping up a large
army, grudged the time that compulsory military training took out of a
young man's life. And this preoccupation with success and the arts and
pleasures of prosperous peace made them incline their ears to the
apostles of "Brotherhood" and "Federation" and "Arbitration instead of
Armament."

Little by little legislation went against the army. The period of
compulsory service was reduced from three years to two; that cut down the
size of the army by one-third. The supreme command of the army was
vested not in a general, but in a politician--the Minister of War. The
generals in the highest commands not only had to yield precedence to the
prefects of the provinces (like our governors of states), but were
subject to removal if the prefects did not like their politics and the
Minister of War wished the support of the prefects.