This is CBS I In The World, I'm John Bachelorette Nick Law, a reader and military and imperial

history King's College. His magnificent new storytelling is the history of the Great

War 14 to 18, 1914 to 1918 on the Western Front, Belgium and France. You think of this

as trench warfare. That was not the intention. However, it was the result of the opening

stages of the war and the French determined a deal of what was to happen in their defensive

Paris. We begin with the commander of the French forces as the war opens. His name is

Jaffa. He is a man whom Nick describes as he does not panic. He did not panic. What do

we need to know about Jaffa? How his vision of the war took place, Nick.

He is one of the great heroes of the Western Front, one of the great heroes of the French

Army. He is memorably described in Barbara Tukman's Guns of August that you may have read. He is a

figure that in some ways is quite unimpressive. He is an engineer. He is not taught at the

Staff College or he is not produced works of great military merits. But he has a kind of

earthiness and a connection to the army that I think is really important in 1914, as

whereas under the shock of war, Bethman, sorry, not Bethman, but Helmuth von Molte, the German

commander collapses, essentially just can't take the pressure. Jaffa can. He is able to do

what he can to defeat the Schleefland Plan and the German invasion and counterattack at the

Maan River in September 1914 and Jaffa's ability to essentially absorb punishment but

to keep an eye through all the chaos of war, he just understands what is going on and is

able to react quickly. I think that's what marks him out for greatness, certainly in 1914. It's

his ability not to lose his head, not to become too discouraged to keep playing the game,

keep moving his units, try to outflank the enemy and ultimately that ability to just have

that sort of gravitas is really important. Again, Jaffa is not particularly charismatic in that

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