When the promotion disease was most acute, however, the word promotion never exercised over the army the spell of the word Blois. Though Blois was not mentioned in the press, it was as familiar in the secrecy of the army world as Verdun, Ypres, Paris, or Château-Thierry. Every officer who was uncertain whether or not he was pleasing his superior stood in fear of Blois, which was the synonym of failure. Downcast generals and lieutenants traveled together from the front to Blois. What was to be done with officers who broke down in health, or who did not come up to the standards required in their work? They might be sent home; but white-haired generals and colonels who had reputations as able officers in time of peace were not wanted airing their grievances on the steps of the Army and Navy Building in Washington. There was an injustice, too, in placing on any officer the stigma of having been sent back from France, which would react on the many capable officers who were recalled from France in order to apply their experience abroad in furthering our preparations at home. Then, too, we needed the service of any officer who could do any kind of work in France. In the majority of instances it was not so much a question of being unfit as being "misfit." The thing was to put round pegs in round holes. The town of Blois near Tours became a depot for classification and reassignment of officers who had been relieved by their superiors. A Leavenworth man who was in charge had the power to reduce an officer in rank if he thought this were warranted. He secretly interrogated the arriving officer, who was told that his record would not be considered against him; his superiors might have been unjust to him; if he had "stubbed his toe," this did not mean that he would do it again. Though the plan was as logical as the transfer of an employee of a business from the manufacturing to the selling branch, the object of the attention felt the humiliation none the less. Despite all propaganda to alleviate its association in the minds of fellow-officers, "being sent to Blois" had only one generally accepted significance, which was wickedly unfair to many a victim. There were superiors who followed their subordinates to Blois; while the subordinates were later promoted, they sank into the desuetude of a routine position. Indigestion, a burst of temper, a case of nerves, of prejudice, of finding a scapegoat for a senior's mistakes, might start an officer away from the front with his unhappy travel order. I knew of instances where it was a tribute to the officer that he had been sent: a tribute to his honest effort, his initiative, his unselfish spirit in trying to do his duty under an incompetent, irascible superior, who himself should not have received the consideration of Blois but been sent to a labor battalion, in the hope that by a few hours of physical effort a day he might have earned a part of the pay and the pains his country had wasted on him.