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 7th. Painlevé has seen Castelnau, who adopted the same tone of fatalism he displayed to Foch. Painlevé expressed the gravest concern about it to Poincaré. Absurd to take the risk of an offensive under the orders of a general who has no faith in it. Poincaré went to see Castelnau, who declared that he was not obliged to tell the truth to Deputies."
Entry for September 7, 1915 from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government. Paul Painlevé was a French Deputy representing Paris's Latin Quarter, who would later serve as cabinet minister and Prime Minister. Raymond Poincaré was President of France throughout the war. General Noel de Castelnau would command the French Fourth and Fifth Armies in the Second Battle of Champagne, French Commander Joffre's great offensive in the autumn of 1915. Many French and British commanders doubted the attack could succeed, particularly the British, who did not expect to have adequate men or weapons until spring or summer of 1916. With the industrial north of their country occupied, Italy's failures in its initial battles, and Russia's continuing retreat before the month's-long German-Austro-Hungarian advance, Joffre and other French leaders believed they had no alternative.The Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 105, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
1915-09-07, 1915, September, Castelnau, Foch, Painlevé, Poincaré, Champagne Offensive
