_" The
talked back as if we had met in a club. General Pelle pulled my leg
very gaily with some quotations from an article I had written upon the
conclusion of the war. I think he found my accent and my idioms very
refreshing. I had committed myself to a statement that Bloch has been
justified in his theory that under modern conditions the defensive wins.
There were excellent reasons, and General Pelle pointed them out, for
doubting the applicability of this to the present war.
Both he and General Castelnau were anxious that I should see a French
offensive sector as well as Soissons. Then I should understand.
And since then I have returned from Italy and I have seen and I do
understand. The Allied offensive was winning; that is to say, it was
inflicting far greater losses than it experienced; it was steadily
beating the spirit out of the German army and shoving it back towards
Germany. Only peace can, I believe, prevent the western war ending in
Germany. And it is the Frenchmen mainly who have worked out how to do
it.
But of that I will write later. My present concern is with General
Joffre as the antithesis of the Effigy. The effigy,
"Thou Prince of Peace,
Thou God of War,"
as Mr. Sylvester Viereck called him, prances on a great horse, wears a
Wagnerian cloak, sits on thrones and talks of shining armour and "unser
Gott.
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