I read what I had just done.
It was found to be too moderate. General Pell?'s, on the other hand,
seemed too alarming. I had purposely omitted von Deimling's order of
the day. To put it into the communiqu? _would be to break with the
formula to which the public was accustomed_, would be to transform
it into a kind of pleading. It would seem to say: 'How do you suppose
we can resist?' There was reason to fear that the public would be
distracted by this change of tone and would believe that everything
was lost. I explained my reasons and suggested giving Deimling's text
to the newspapers in the form of a separate note.
"Opinion being divided, General Pell? went to ask General de Castelnau
to come and decide finally. The General arrived smiling, quiet and
good humored, said a few pleasant words about this new kind of
literary council of war, and looked at the texts. He chose the simpler
one, gave more weight to the first phrase, inserted the words 'as had
been anticipated,' which supply a reassuring quality, and was flatly
against inserting von Deimling's order, but was for transmitting it to
the press in a special note ... " General Joffre that evening read the
communiqu? carefully and approved it.
Within a few hours those two or three hundred words would be read all
over the world. They would paint a picture in men's minds of what was
happening on the slopes of Verdun, and in front of that picture people
would take heart or despair.
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