Even the superior war council of the nation might be politically made up,
to pay the War Minister's scores rather than to protect the country.

All this can happen to a people lulled by a false sense of security--even
to a people which has had to defend itself against the savage rapacity of
its neighbors across the Rhine for two thousand years!

It was against these currents of popular opinion and of government
opposition that Ferdinand Foch took up his work in the Superior School of
War--that work which was to make possible the first victory of the Marne,
to save England from invasion by holding Calais, and to do various other
things vital to civilization, including the prodigious achievements of
the days that have since followed.

Foch foresaw that these things would have to be done and, with absolute
consecration to his task, he set himself not only to train officers for
France when she should need them, but to inspire them with a unity of
action which has saved the world.

I have various word-pictures of him as he then appeared to, and
impressed, his students.

One is by a military writer who uses the pseudonym of "Miles."

"The officers who succeeded one another at the school of war between 1896
and 1901," he says, referring to the first term of Foch as instructor
there, "will never forget the impressions made upon them by their
professor of strategy and of general tactics. It was this course that
was looked forward to with the keenest curiosity as the foundational