The
problem down there was a vexatious one, due to a do-nothing policy of a
predecessor. Things were in bad shape. Joffre arrived, after a long sea
voyage, gave one look around, and then things began to happen.
"If men are responsible for this disorder," he said sententiously, "it is
easy to suppose that men can restore the needed order."
And the forts and barracks went up in record time.
"We never expected to see that job done," reports one soldier. "The
thing was so old that it had cobwebs over it. When Joffre took hold it
went up by magic."
They concocted another saying about him, down in that distant island,
which was:
"There goes old man System!"
At another time an officer remarked: "Joffre wants what he wants when he
wants it--and furthermore he knows why he wants it!"
In 1901, at the century's turn, and when he was rounding out his half
century, his long-delayed promotions began to arrive. He was made
Brigadier General, and thenceforth began to forge rapidly to the front.
One reason for his slow advancement was that he was no politician or
time-server. He never pushed himself forward. And so much of his work
was done in remote provinces that the General Staff hardly knew him at
all. We remember, too, that he had made no friends at school, who would
follow his career, or speak a good word for him in official ears.
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