It was patriotism which induced him to accept the heavy succession of the Ministry of War from M. Millerand. Years before he had been offered the post, but declined it "because it meant presence in the Chamber." But the war changed everything; it was impossible to urge personal reasons when the country was at stake. But he knows so little of political labels that he makes his friends laugh in confusing one kind of Republican with another. To him they are all the same, provided they have the national interests at heart. For this reason he was equally friendly with men of such divergent tendencies as Gambetta, Jules Simon, Waldeck-Rousseau and Albert de Mun. It is because of his many-sided appeal that he inspires collaborators with peculiar devotion. Two qualities outstand: his perennial youth, represented by a figure which might be that of a young cavalry officer, though he has passed the age limit, and a scientific precision of thought which means that in everything he is clear, precise, and piercing, like a sword-blade. Illness caused him, unfortunately, to relinquish his post at the Ministry of War in the spring of 1916, after a few months of strenuous work, but his influence remains as that of a good patriot inexorable in his country’s service. *CHAPTER XI* *GALLIÉNI AND HIS COLONIAL EXPERIENCE* If General Galliéni allowed his mind to take a retrospective turn in the intervals of his intensive work at the Ministry of War, there must have opened to him a dazzling prospect of colonial enterprise and adventure. And in the picture would appear a gallery of celebrities, brown, black and yellow, as well as white. The man who made the profoundest impression on his character was certainly Faidherbe, type of the serious Frenchman, whose spectacles added to the natural gravity of his face. His work as pioneer had ceased before Galliéni’s had commenced, but his influence remained, powerful for good, and vitalising in its effect on the young mind. He realised that when you beat back barbarism you must attach the native to the flag and give him new objects for devotion. Before the War of 1870, he was engaged in conquering the Niger Basin. Galliéni was destined to complete that work. Like his master, as he called Faidherbe, he was inspired by the great English explorers, Mungo Park and Livingstone. The latter was discovering Lake Ngami when Galliéni was born.