It is difficult now not to regard this appointment in the light of later fame.[38] But the commander of the 20th Corps was already distinguished. It is noteworthy that Ferdinand Foch was born within 4 miles and four months of Joffre——at Tarbes in the Upper Pyrenees, on October 2, 1851. Of a solid and comfortable middle-class family, he is said to have called the Generalissimo’s attention, when he was offered the army command, to the fact that he had a brother who was a Jesuit priest. Joffre swept the hinted objection aside. Foch, who had served as subaltern in the 1870 war, had risen to be brigadier-general when he was made director of the Ecole de Guerre. Later, he commanded successively the 13th Division, the 8th Corps, and the 20th, of Nancy. The new force he was now called upon to lead——consisting of the 42nd Division of the 6th Corps, taken from the 3rd Army, the 9th and 11th Corps, taken from the 4th Army, the 1st Moroccan Division, and two reserve divisions from the 4th Army——was not yet ready to enter into action. Joffre’s purpose in creating and placing it was not only to strengthen his centre, but to preserve the offensive force of the 5th Army. The German Staff probably did not know of the existence of Foch’s “detachment.” It did know that, farther east, its central armies, those of Duke Albrecht of Würtemberg and the Prussian Crown Prince, were not doing as well as had been expected. On August 28, de Langle, having obtained the Generalissimo’s leave to suspend the retreat of the 4th Army for a day, and a day only,[39] drove the German IV Army back across the Meuse between Sedan and Stenay with his right, while, with his left, he struck at the Saxons between Signy-l’Abbaye and Novion-Porcien (sometimes called the battle of Launois), where, in particular, the 1st Moroccan Division dealt faithfully with the I Saxon (XII German) Corps. The 3rd French Army was also deliberate in its retirement toward and around the northern limits of the entrenched camp of Verdun, and, on the 29th, near Dun-sur-Meuse, almost completely destroyed one of the Crown Prince’s regiments which tried to cross the river. V. END OF THE LONG RETREAT