ff officers of General Foch who was closely associated
with him there in the north in that time of great anxiety, has given us
a pen-picture of the chief as his aides often saw him then. Doubtless
it is a good picture also, except for differences in trifling details,
of the great commander as he has been on many and many a night since,
while the destinies of millions hung in the balance of his decisions.

"All is silence. The little town of Cassel is early asleep. On the
rough pavement of the Grande Place, occasional footsteps break the
stillness. Now they are those of a staff officer on his way to his
billet. Now it is the sentry moving about to warm himself up a bit.
Then silence again.

"In a little office of the Hotel de Ville, a man is seated at a table.
His elbows are on a big military map. A telephone is at his hand. He
waits--to hear the results of orders he has given. And while he waits
he chews an unlighted cigar and divides his attention between the map
and the clock--an old Louis XVI timepiece with marble columns, which
ticks off the minutes almost soundlessly. How slowly its hands go
round! How interminable seems the wait for news!

"Someone knocks, and Colonel Weygand, chief of staff, enters; he has a
paper in his hand: 'Telephoned from the Ninth army at 1.15 A.M.' . . .

"The general has raised his head; his eyes are shining.

"'Good! good!'

"His plans are working out successfully; the reinforcements he sent for
have arrived in time. There is nothing more he can do now; so he will
go to bed.

"A last look at the map. Then his eye-glasses, at the end of their
string, are tucked away in the upper pocket of his coat. The general
puts on his black topcoat and his cap.

"In the hall, the gendarme on guard duty gets up, quickly, from the
chair wherein he is dozing.

"The general salutes him with a brisk gesture, but with it he seems to
say: 'Sleep on, my good fellow; I'm sorry to have disturbed you.'

"At the foot of the grand staircase, the sentry presents arms; and one
of the staff officers joins the commander, to accompany him to the
house of the notary who is extending him hospitality.

"A few hours later, very early in the morning, the general is back
again at his office."

Thus he was at Cassel, as he directed those operations on the Yser by
which he checked the German attempt to reach Calais and Dunkirk, and
revealed to the military world a new strategist of the first order.