Doctrine, training, weapons

Pétain’s successful handling of the French Army after the mutinies following Nivelle’s failed offensive (see Chapter 5) has obscured Pétain’s other significant achievements in improving its organisation. If his appointment did not arouse great enthusiasm amongst his colleagues – ‘the most acceptable’ of the possibilities, wrote Guillaumat – yet he had the necessary qualities to restore the French Army. Pétain’s strength was his sense of order and organisation, and he imposed his views about training, doctrine and materiel provision upon a reorganised GQG staff. It is important to note, in this respect, that Pétain was an infantry officer, hence likely to be more in tune with the pcdf, unlike his two predecessors, Joffre an engineer and Nivelle an artillery officer. (Joffre’s GQG in 1915, for example, had four artillery officers and three engineers in the senior positions.) Colonel Pétain began the war as a brigade commander, moving quickly through the various levels of command, from division to corps to army and army group. Although he had spent time as a lecturer in the Ecole Supérieure de Guerre, his experience was of active command in the field, rather than as a staff officer. He believed that training was important, as well as liaison between infantry and artillery and between aviation and artillery, and he imposed that belief on the French Army.