Military strategist Xia Fei

He was born into a family of brewers in Rivosalte, Pyrenees, France. He spoke Catalan at home and French at school. As a child, he was taciturn and organized. At the school of Perpignan, he was extremely talented in mathematics, science and painting. In 1868, he entered the famous public high school of Charlemagne in Paris. At the age of 17, he was admitted to the Paris General School of Engineering and studied engineering. In 1870, when the Franco-Prussian War broke out, he enlisted as a second lieutenant in the army of engineers and joined the artillery regiment of Vincennes. He was promoted to lieutenant in the army during the war. After the war, he returned to school and received an engineering degree. But instead of working in civil engineering, he was admitted to the army practice school. After graduating in 1872, he was assigned to engineering and served in the army. In 1876, when relations between France and Spain were tense, he served as captain of a battalion stationed in the Pyrenees. At that time, his architectural talent was recognized and he was responsible for building the Mindali defensive positions.

In 1884, he invaded Vietnam with his troops, joined the staff of Admiral Guba, and became a colonial officer. During the Sino-French War, he built a fortification in Taiwan to prevent a counterattack by the Chinese army's Liu Mingchuan Department. In 1885, Guba awarded him the Cross of Honor. In 1887, when there was a rebellion in Bating, Vietnam, he built many trenches and completely defeated the enemy by setting fire to bamboo forests. From then on, trench warfare quickly became popular in the French army. On his way back to Paris, he became a member of the Army Department and in 1891, he became a professor of military engineering at Fontainebleau. A year later, he went to West Africa and entered the fantastic city of Timbuktu in 1893, which made him famous. He also built fortifications on the island of Madagascar at a time of tension between France and Britain. Over the next 10 years, he rose rapidly in the French army's senior command ranks, returning to Paris in 1901 and being promoted to brigade commander, division commander in 1905, and commander of the Third Army in 1908.

In 1911, the French and Germans were at loggerheads over Morocco, and war was imminent. The newly appointed French Minister of the Army, Adolfo Messimi, recommended talents, and promoted the then undistinguished but relatively young and politically moderate Chaffy to a high position, making him vice-chairperson of the Supreme Military Council and chief of the general staff. Chaffy has since fulfilled his dream of commanding the three armies. He and his staff drew up the famous Plan No. 17, which stipulated that the main force of the French army would take Alsace and Lorraine directly, and fell into the trap of the Schlieffen Plan. Count Alfred von Schlieffen asserted that a successful Battle of Cannes requires not only the clever Hannibal, but also a foolish opponent like Farrow.

When World War I broke out, he served as the commander-in-chief of the French army. He lost 300,000 in the border battle in August, and the whole army collapsed; fortunately, the little Mochi did not resolutely carry out Sriffin's will, but turned a bold plan of concentrating troops and encircling one wing into an equal division of forces, resulting in a situation where the French army was defeated but not encircled. When everyone was panicked, only he relied on his strong nerves and continued to command the troops to retreat and resist with almost dull indifference. When the two German armies under the city of Paris, due to poor cooperation, there was a huge gap and the flanks were exposed. He launched a counter-offensive at the constant urging of Josef Gallieni, halted the German advance at the Battle of the Marne, crushed the German "quick decision" plan, and then commanded the army in a series of detours in November, forming a run to the sea. In the spring of 1915, he launched the Champagne and Artus offensives, which suffered great casualties and received very little, and from then on the Western Front the war was moved from mobile operations to a long-lasting positional warfare stage. In February 1916, after the German army won the battle against Russia on the Eastern Front, it decided to focus on the French fortress of Verdun on the Western Front. This offensive caught him by surprise. What made the matter worse was that he misjudged the German siege of Liege and withdrew the heavy artillery of Verdun, relying on the tenacious command of General Henri Philippe Pétain. After six and a half months of tug-of-war and scramble, the French finally turned to attack and regained lost ground. The German strategic attempt failed. The Battle of Verdun, known as the "meat grinder" at that time, became a turning point in the First World War. Chaffy won great honor for this. In December 1916, due to the heavy losses of the Battle of the Somme, which he had advocated, he was removed from his actual post and replaced by a military advisor to the French government. In the same month, he was promoted to marshal.

From 1917 to 1918, he served as head of the French military delegation to the United States, and later as head of the military delegation to Japan. In December 1918, he was elected as a member of the French Academy of Sciences. In 1922, he served as Chairman of the Defense Committee of the French Government. He died in Paris on January 3, 1931. He has books such as "War Preparation and Campaign Implementation" and "Memoirs of Marshal Xia Fei".

When Xia Fei was chief of the general staff, he had a paunchy, innocent and lovely face, but his appearance concealed his strong personality. Although he was calm, patient and methodical, he was brave, bold and determined. Unfortunately, under the conditions at the time, the offensive theory he advocated was no different from suicide in terms of strategy and tactics. He is also stubborn and hates attempts to change his mind. He was largely responsible for the near-catastrophic failure that befell the French army in August 1914; equally, he could be credited with rescuing the French army at the Marne a few weeks later. After the war, it was argued that the first hero of the Marne Miracle was his old rival Joseph Galieni. His views were worth noting. He said: "I don't really know, but I know who will be responsible if it is a defeat."¡»