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Show rjOFFRE'S STATUS. Confusing information from Paris has made the world wonder whether General J off re was being disgraced or promoted. It is fairly manifest now that he remains re-mains the most eminent military figure in France. It is said that the ancient and mighty title of marshal of France is to be conferred upon him by act of parliament. When it was announced that General Nivelle had .been appointed commander of all the armies in the north and northwest north-west it was suspected that General J off re, for some reasons not apparent to the public, was to be humiliated. A little lit-tle later, when it was announced that Joffre was to be "technical counsel" for the ministry of war, it was hastily assumed as-sumed that his disgrace was complete. Then General Nivelle, in taking over command from General Joffrc, complimented compli-mented him upon his "well-deserved piomotion. ' ' A report of about the same date had it that Joffre was to be made chairman of tho united war council, vhich is the organization the entente powers formed to secure unity of action in the conduct of military operations in ail theaters of war. The latest report is sufficient evidence that General Jo IT re, en though he is to take a less conspicuous con-spicuous position for the time being, is still regarded as the greatest soldier of 1'iar.t'e in the greatest of wars. General J off re 's chief claim to renown must always be his victory on the Marne. Tho world adjudged it the decisive de-cisive battle of the war, and the judgment judg-ment appears to have been connrmed by time. It was the last of the giant battles bat-tles in the open field. It was a contest between a French army, which had .been tailing ba c k f o r s e v e r a 1 weeks, and a numerically superior German army in the full flush of victory. JorTre, who had replaced many incompetent generals remorselessly during the retreat, turned the tables tin the finest a rniy ever assemble'! as-semble'! in the world's history and defeated de-feated it. If ,1 off re has made any failures since ti'.at time ir ha? ijnt been apparent to the public. On the contrary, the observer who i more or less familiar with the heart-breaking difS'uh:cs of tho light against the invader has often wondered that the French have been able to do so well. The general ulio wins the decisive battle of a war is not always the general whom history regards as the leading .-uldii-r of the war. We have an example in our own annals. General Meade, commander-in-chief of the army of the Potomac, Po-tomac, won the battle of Gettysburg, the decisive battle of the civil war, after four or five union generals had failed almost pathetically in the contest with General Lee. Meade remained commander com-mander of the army of the Potomac to the end of the. war, but Grant was his superior. They fought together until the end of the war, and then Grant emerged from the conflict as tho greatest general on the union side, so far as popular pop-ular estimation was concerned. Next to him in renown came General Sherman, hero of tho "march to the sea," which broke the backbone of the confederacy, while Grant's army still was held up, after many reverses, before Lee's in-trenehments in-trenehments at Petersburg. The eclipse of Meade, is something of a mystery. It is true that he did not follow fol-low up his success at Gettysburg as rapidly as the civilian officials in Washington Wash-ington thought he should. He was blamed for letting Lee escape, but, in view of what had happened to the union armies before the conflict at Gettysburg I and what befell Grant throughout the sanguinary year of 1864, his achievement achieve-ment at Gettysburg must be considered 1 one of the most brilliant victories in all history. It may be that General Joffre had be-I be-I gun to break under tho strain. His task has been moro tremendous even than the task allotted to the iron Hindenburg. In any event, Joffre 's honors are secure, se-cure, and the government at Paris will honor itself and the French people by making him a marshal of France. |