Almost Posthumous

All France mourned the death of General E. A. L. Buat, chief of the French General Staff, at Paris, following an operation for intestinal disorder.

He was to have been included in the French New Year's Honor list with an award of the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. Upon hearing of the imminence of his death, President Millerand and Marshal Petain went to the hospital and pinned the insignia to his breast shortly before he expired.

Although he had falsely prophesied that the German invasion in 1914 would come through the Vosges, his vast knowledge of military affairs made him worthy of a place on the Supreme War Council in 1920. His three associates were his marechals, Joffre, Foch, Petain.

Speaking of America's part in the War, he once said: "It was not in 1918, when the Armistice was signed, that Germany was defeated; but in April, 1917, when America declared war."

He was appointed Chief of the French Military Advisers at the Washington Conference.