ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Grand Quartier General (GQG's) role as the disseminator of official doctrine and interlocutor with the British army. It offers into the dynamic French conduct of war as it adjusted to the new, gruelling conditions of trench warfare without resorting to a basic analysis of guns and shells. The chapter begins by looking at the doctrinal redressement as documented and disseminated by GQG. Spring 1915 was one of most important periods of activity in the forming of doctrine, addressing one of the weak points of the French army before 1914. Douglas Porch asserts that the 'post-1900 French army was simply not capable of formulating or applying a tactical doctrine'. Robert Doughty is a bit more generous in at least considering the offensive outrance to be an actual doctrine. Michel Goya cites several doctrinal documents, must ultimately reject the idea that such a body of work really represented an integrated and functional doctrine 'unanimously accepted'.
