The supreme honour came to him on July 29, 1911. The _Panther_ had dropped a noisy and menacing anchor in the quiet waters of Agadir. In spite of assurances of peace from Germany and the fixity of the pacifist idea in France, clear-sighted people saw the cloud of danger in the sky. Joffre had no misgivings on the subject. One of the earliest questions to occupy him was that of effectives. None but he and his charming wife, whom he had married on returning to France, will ever realise how hard he worked during the three years that intervened before the outbreak of the war. Sundays and weekdays—it was an incessant round. He was deeply convinced that the hour was approaching for the trial of the French military institutions, to which he was called to supply not merely the finishing touch, but, alas! a great deal of the foundation work. That was the tragedy of it, the tragedy of an optimism, which had ignored all German preparations. It had ignored the vast accumulations of engines of war on the frontiers of Lorraine and Belgium, it had ignored the meaning of the caves and subterranean passages prepared in advance in the Champagne and the Soissons district, just as it ignored the other phases of German activity, the systematic corruption, the spying, and the rest. Thus Joffre came to the post which his persistent work had made a just, if onerous, reward. He was Generalissimo in new conditions. The old duality, which allowed one man to lead in war and another to prepare for it, was swept away. Parliament at last had awakened to its dangers, and MM. Caillaux and Messimy, Premier and Minister of War, had submitted to President Fallières a new decree designating Joffre the Supreme Commander in time of war and the Chief-of-Staff in peace. It was an admirable choice. If it meant little to the public which had forgotten all about the march on the Niger, it meant a great deal to the army which felt comforted and relieved at the appointment of a sound and thorough administrator. For Joffre, by long contact, knew every cog in the military machine, which he was now called upon to direct. As _divisionnaires_ went, he was the youngest of his rank in the army and had still some years before him which he could count his own. Thus he joined experience to a comparative youth, which was all in his favour. Probably the defects rather than the qualities of the organisation engaged his attention and stimulated his amazing energy to even greater efforts. At the age of fifty-nine he was faced with a task to try the strongest head, the steadiest nerves, the most robust health. Happily he possessed all three and placed them unreservedly at the service of the State. France was fortunate in her General-in-Chief. How he succeeded in the colossal burden of the Great War may be left for consideration to a future chapter. *CHAPTER V* *PREPARATION*