Tinted French Postcard of French Generals de Castelnau, Joffre, and Pau. Joffre was Commander of the French Army at the beginning of the war, and engineered the Allied victory of the Marne. General Pau was brought out of retirement to lead the short-lived Army of Alsace, disbanded to strengthen French forces to the west for the French counterattack at the Marne. De Castlenau commanded the French Second Army at the beginning of the war.
Nos ChefOur LeadersGen. de Castelnau, Gen. Joffre, Gen. PauJK 9333Reverse:Dated April 20, 1915, and postmarked April 22, to Miss ??? in England.
"The Commander-in-Chief, having to summon all the troops to the Meuse front, ordered the evacuation of the occupied territory. The great battle is engaged between Maubeuge and the Donon; on it depends the fate of France, and with it of Alsace. It is in the north that the Commander-in-Chief calls all the forces of the nation to the decisive attack. Military action in the Rhine Valley would distract from it troops on which victory might depend. It is necessary, therefore, to leave Alsace for the present. It is a cruel necessity which the army of Alsace and its chief have submitted to with pain, and only at the last extremity."
The Paris communiqué of August 26, 1914. French Plan XVII had failed, and the French had fallen back after initial advances into their lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. Although recognizing the danger presented by the German forces in Belgium, French Commander Joseph Joffre had not yet recognized how far to the west they would advance before turning to cross south into France. Joffre had brought General Paul Pau out of retirement to lead the Army of Alsace which he was now decomposing to move to his left wing.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. II, 1914, p. 117, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
Battle of the Frontiers, August, 1914, 1914-08-26
