ctive command of a group of armies; and
at once began the organization of a bureau devoted to the study of
great military questions affecting not the French lines alone but those
of France's allies.

[Illustration: General Petain--Marshal Haig--General Foch--General
Pershing]

At first the headquarters of this bureau were at Senlis, near Paris.
Then they were moved close to France's eastern border where Foch and
his associates studied ways and means of meeting a possible attack
through Switzerland--if Germany resolved to add that crime to her
category--or across northern Italy.

So clearly had Foch foreseen what would happen in the Venetian plain,
that he had his plan of French reinforcement perfected long in advance,
even to the schedule for dispatching troop trains to the Piave front.

In January, 1917, Marshal Joffre reached the age of retirement (65).
He was venerated and loved throughout France as few men have ever been.
Gratitude for his great gifts and great character filled every heart to
overflowing. His country had no honor great enough to express its
sense of his service to France. Yet it was felt that for the
operations of the future, the interests of France and of her allies
would be best furthered with another strategist in command of the
armies in the field. Joffre's retirement was therefore effected.

Joffre is an engineer, a master-builder of fortifications, a great
defense soldier. But defense would not end the war. France must look
to her greatest offensive strategist.

There could be no question who that strategist was. No one knew it
quite so well as Marshal Joffre. And one of the most splendid things
about that mighty and noble man is the spirit in which he concurred in
(if, indeed, he did not suggest) the change which meant that another
should lead the armies of France to victory.

The appointment of General Foch as head of the General Staff was made
on May 15, 1917, while Marshal Joffre was in the United States to
confer with our officials regarding our part in the war. On the same
date General Philippe Petain, the heroic defender of Verdun, who had
been Chief of Staff for a month, was appointed Commander-in-Chief of
all French armies operating on the French front.

General Foch installed himself at the Invalides, and addressed himself
to the study of all the allies' fronts, the assembling American army,
and to another task for which he was signally fitted: that of
coordinating