1. Joseph Joffre is best known for regrouping the retreating allied armies to defeat the Germans at the strategically decisive First Battle of the Marne in September 1914.
39 Facts About Joseph Joffre
1. 2.
Joseph Joffre first saw active service as a junior artillery officer during the Siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War.
3.
Joseph Joffre subsequently spent much of his career in the colonies as a military engineer, serving with distinction in the Keelung Campaign during the Sino-French War.
4.
Joseph Joffre's mission killed over a hundred Tuareg and captured fifteen hundred cattle.
5.
Joseph Joffre served under Joseph Gallieni in Madagascar and was promoted to General de brigade while serving there.
6.
Joseph Joffre commanded the 2nd Army Corps from 1908 until 1910 when he was appointed to the Conseil superieur de la guerre.
7.
Joseph Joffre believed that Liege was still holding out, and hoped that Lanrezac would be able to reach Namur, which was expected to hold out for even longer.
8.
The Germans entered Brussels that day, but Joseph Joffre was convinced, after the defeat in Alsace-Lorraine and air and cavalry reports of strong German forces in Belgium, that the German centre in the Ardennes must be weak.
9.
Edouard de Castelnau asked for permission to abandon Nancy and its fortified heights, but Joseph Joffre forbade him to do so.
10.
Michel-Joseph Joffre Maunoury was put in command of the newly formed Sixth Army, which initially assembled near Amiens and then fell back toward Paris.
11.
Fernand de Langle de Cary's Fourth Army, originally intended to be the spearhead of the attack into the Ardennes, was a strong force and had made several counterattacks, but Joseph Joffre now ordered it to cease counterattacking and to send a detachment under Ferdinand Foch to cover the gap between Fourth and Fifth Armies; this became the new Ninth Army.
12.
Joseph Joffre turned up at Lanrezac's headquarters to supervise his conduct of the Battle of Guise, willing if necessary to sack him there and then.
13.
That day Joseph Joffre placed Maunoury under Gallieni's direct command as the "Armies of Paris" and had Millerand place Gallieni under his own command.
14.
Joseph Joffre's reply saying he preferred the southern option arrived too late to reach Gallieni, who had left for a meeting with the BEF chief of staff, Archibald Murray.
15.
Joseph Joffre fought a further major offensive in the Artois in spring 1915.
16.
Joseph Joffre met with Poincare and Briand both before and after the meeting to discuss the issue.
17.
In practice, Joseph Joffre now took command over both Salonika and the Western Front, but not Morocco, Algeria or Tunisia.
18.
Gallieni wrote to Joseph Joffre, expressing concern at the state of trenches at Verdun and elsewhere on the front; in fact, matters were already being taken in hand at Verdun.
19.
Gallieni demanded to see all paperwork from the period, but Joseph Joffre had made no such order in writing, merely despatching Castelnau to assess the situation.
20.
Early in 1916 Joseph Joffre asked the British commander-in-chief, Sir Douglas Haig, to put in a good word with Lord Bertie, the British ambassador in Paris, so that it would get back to the French government.
21.
Joseph Joffre was successfully lobbied by Robertson, and at the second Chantilly Conference they agreed to concentrate on the Western Front in 1917 rather than sending greater resources to Salonika.
22.
Joseph Joffre was appointed "general-in-chief of the French armies, technical adviser to the government, consultative member of the War Committee", with Robert Nivelle as commander-in-chief of the Armies of the North and Northeast.
23.
Joseph Joffre was still popular and was the first man to be promoted Marshal under the Third Republic.
24.
On 1 April 1917 Prime Minister Ribot asked Joseph Joffre to go on Viviani's mission to the United States.
25.
Joseph Joffre was initially reluctant to go as the Nivelle Offensive was underway.
26.
Joseph Joffre initially considered recommending the incorporation of US companies and battalions into the French and British armies, but realised that the Americans would never accept this.
27.
The party sailed to the US on the Lorraine II, making an effort to cultivate reporters on board, who noticed how busy Joseph Joffre kept his small staff.
28.
Joseph Joffre arrived in Washington the following morning, where he met Secretary of State Robert Lansing and Arthur Balfour.
29.
Joseph Joffre stayed in Washington for ten days, and addressed both Houses of Congress individually.
30.
Joseph Joffre recommended sending a single American unit to France at once and requested that the Americans send railroads, automobiles and trucks for the French Army.
31.
Joseph Joffre recommended that an American unit be rushed to France to show the flag.
32.
Joseph Joffre became leader of the Supreme War Council in 1918.
33.
Joseph Joffre died at the age of 78 in Paris on 3 January 1931.
34.
Joseph Joffre's body was buried on his estate at Louveciennes.
35.
Joseph Joffre was initiated into Freemasonry in 1875, at the lodge Alsace-Lorraine.
36.
Joseph Joffre was generally taciturn and a man of impenetrable calm, sometimes interspersed with furious anger.
37.
Joseph Joffre kept his cool when the initial attempt to have Maunoury envelop the German west flank at Amiens failed, requiring a retreat on Paris.
38.
John Eisenhower writes that Joseph Joffre's "personality had a profound effect on the course of history" and he became a household name in the United States.
39.
The Joseph Joffre class of steam locomotives was a French Decauville design built by Kerr Stuart under contract during 1915 and 1916.