18th August 1914
French troops under General Dubail have occupied Sarrebourg.
General Dubail was given command of the French First Army when war broke out. He led his soldiers through the first invasion of Germany occupied land by taking Lorraine. However, the strong resistance from Germany pushed them back to the French border.
In 1915, General Dubail became concerned about a major German attack that he believed to be imminent. He told his Chief-In-Command his fears and asked for much needed reinforcements and heavy artillery. In spite of this, Joseph Joffre disagreed that there would be an attack and refused to fulfil his request. When the attack did happen, General Dubail was blamed and used as a scapegoat by Joseph and was publicly humiliated by being fired.
Although he did return to military life for a couple of years, I would imagine the stigma attached to Joesph's wrong-doing made it more stressful than it should have been. General Dubail removed himself from military and public life in 1918 and died in 1934 aged 82.
No comments:
Post a Comment