His progress was slow, as
he stopped to make friends with native chiefs, and enlist their aid where
possible.
At last they reached Timbuctoo, only to find orders awaiting them to
"prepare for evacuation," in the face of a threatening Tuareg army.
Joffre for once disobeyed orders, and decided, instead, to attack. He
did so, and administered a crushing defeat to the brigands. He followed
this up so thoroughly, that the whole district was restored to peace.
Then the soldier gave place to the engineer. He cleaned up the town (in
another sense) and returned home.
"Luck was on my side," he said briefly after receiving official
congratulations, and the rank of lieutenant colonel. "I might have met
the fate of Bonnier and Boiteux, had the Goddess of Good Fortune not
attended me."
But those who knew him believed that it was something more than luck.
That Joffre was a fatalist is evinced by another incident of this march
in Soudan. An insect's sting had poisoned his left eye so severely that
the sight was threatened. The doctor of the force advised him to wear a
bandage. Joffre would not agree.
"I could not command my troops if I were blindfolded," he said.
"Then it must be blue glasses," said the doctor.
But eyeglass shops are not found in the desert, and Joffre went on
without protection.
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