The Spirit of the French Army.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 197, 4 August 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Spirit of the French Army.

It has been my privilege, thanks to the facilities placed at my disposal by the French Government, to have during the past two weeks a vision of Franco in the midst of war. I shall try to convey some impression of that vision : n its broad aspects. It is lint an easy task, but it is worth attempting. for without that vision it is impossib'e for us to understand the spirit of France in this momentous time. An,l it's necessary to understand that spirit if wo are to have a true estimate of the essentials upon which th;> course of the struggle depends, and an appreciation of what the position after the war will 'Hi. The task is worth attempting, also, because mutual confidence between tho Allies is a factor of supreme importance. In the past there has been much wanting in this respect. The suspicions which arc natural in such circumstances have been largely encouraged i»y tho cunning diplomacy of the enemv. and, in the case of England, bv the de preciation of our activities by a certain section of the press, Broadly those suspicions have been, -n the one case, that England was not putting her back into the struggle, and in the other, that France was exhausted, flagging n spirit, and must have peace in the near future or utterly succumb. The one suspicion is as false as the other. Both s>fcill though in well-informed quarters in Franco there is no misapprehension of the immensity of the part which tin's country has played in tho war, especially what I may call the invisible part—the blockade, finance, industry, and mil the collaterals of war. THE TRAGEDY OF FRANCE. And yet, vast as the effort of England has been, it would not lie possible to claim for us the intensity of spirt that makes France in these days such a iwelation of national passion. It wou'd be strange if that were possible. We do not five in the visible presence of war. To equal the pass : on of France we should have to sharp its tragedy - we should have to see England Irom Liverpool, through the Potteries, to Birmingham and the Wash in the hands of the enemy, every village and town over that long line of battle in ruins, a belt of desolation extending right through the heart of England, all tho resources of Lancashire and Yorkshire feeding the fires of the enemy and all the countiy norlh of London given over to the operations of War. That has taon sometlr'ng like the position ' f France for nearly two years, and under that terrific stimulus the nation has revealed a grandeur and a devotion of spirit as splendid as anything in historv.

It is that revelation which lias burst on me with profound meaning through the emotions of these thrilling days. I have seen a nat ; on in agony, but it an agony borne with a greatness of soul that will be an imperishable memory after the war. It is only by seeing all the phases of the lite of France today, in the trenches, in the factories : in the iields, in the sphere of administration, that one discerns the mightv passion that has transfigured the nat:on. There is in that transfiguration something epic and personal. It is as though the nation has resolved itself into a single figure and a single emotion. Wherever I have gone I have seemed to have that figure moving beside me ancl that emotion flaming heaven-high in my presence. •THE MARSEILLAISE.' It is the flame of the France of the Revolution. Fox saw in that flame the fire that was to consume the old tyranny of feudalism from the earth. It burned itself out and from its ashes there emerged a new Imperialism, but the spirit that give it birth has remained the undying motive of France ever since, and to-day the flame it' liberty glows again like a pillar of fire throughout the land. As I stood the other diay on the great parade grouirJ at Suippes, where Genera' Gouraud was rev'ewing some of the troops behind tho lines of Champagne and conferring decorations on officers and men who had distinguished themselves n the struggle of the trenches, T seemed to see the issue of this war stated with moving and memorable emphasis. From a score of bands, as the regiments of war-sta:ned soldiers pissed by. there broke the triumphant strains of "The Marse : lb>i>e." For more than a century the story of Franc? has centred in that immortal song of liberty. With every reaction the tyrants have sought to stamp it out of the heart of the people, but always it has come aglajn to their lips, and to-day it is the unchallenged utterance of the nation, weighted with the splendid indignat'on against tyranny, sobbing with the sadness of sacrifice, thrilling with the note of victory or death. Nearly a. million of the sons of France have died in this war in the sp : rit of that deathless song, and as it rose and fell with the passing of troops, and as I saw the General salute it as the anthem of his country, T realised that here in France, if nowhere else, the issue is plain and that men are dying that liberty may live. DEMOCRACY IN ARMS. And that impression : s deepened nv every contact with the army of Franco. I have, been permitted to see much at that Army under all conditions. 1 have walked many miles through the trenches; I have penetrated to the secret places where the batteries of the " io are coughing out death at the rate o! twenty coughs a minute: 1 have stood on the thickly wooded mountain oi Klreiin> and, from an "'ovation muni like that of Box Hill, have seen the black columns of smoke rising irom the bursting .shells scattered over twentv miles of country; I have watched from cunningly concealed observatories while l lie observers at tho periscope-; record their observations to the men at the telephone, and the mail at the telephone communicates them to tlie batters that is coneertn-d: I have sat in advanced posts where you look out e.u a tannic of barbed wire and where you are bidden to walk softly and talk low 'est the enemy outpost that is ju-t on the other side of the tangle ol barbed wire should hear. And the impression that emerges from all these experiences •s the impression of an army in- p'red bv the great idea of democracy and fused in to-a. whole by an extraordinary spiritual companionship. Military discipline there is ill a high degree, but it is discipline instructed bv a greet. common purpose ;im | charged with the qualities of \-elf-resneot and mutual affectum that ure singularly moving. There is nothing of the bard militarism of Pros, svi. in the- armv of cit'zens. The spirit of militarism indeed is strangely absent. The form, ere preserved, but the essence of tli" relationship between ollL eers and men is the smit nt a common service. '"Von will not hear anv mili--I'ir'sni talked among the umn ill the trench"s," -a'd a French officer to nie, and the Icming of t!r> officers tliem-

BY A. G. GARDINER.

selves is equally free from that vice Indeed tlv whole feeling of the Army is civic, not military tit all, and those who feared that the war might lead to reaction in Franco have long since had their fears al'ayed. France lias outgrown the crude passion of nr'litary glory, and is to-day fighting with incomparable bravery to preserve democratic liberties. The Army of France s the servant of the nation, not a-s ; n Prussia the master of the nation. CAUSES OF CONFIDENCE. It is this liberal ideal that gives the Army the sense of (exaltation, almost of gaiety that is so noticeable. No doubt tho high spirit that prevails is due to tiie universal conviction that victory iassured. Verdun has done much to intensify that conviction, and all the evidence goes to show that to-day the French sold : ers a/re seldom checked by that ordeal. And the bearing i f the German prisoners who are brought in is the bearing of a beaten army. It is natural, no doubt, for prisoners to look defeated, but these men are not merely defeated; they are phvsicallv inferior, often obviously luadlv fed. ucarlv alwavs obviouslv glad to be captured.

They fresuently reveal tlio character of the strain which is being put upoi tlie enemy's resources in men. The other day, 1 was told, the prisoners included a one-armed man who had been captured by the English, exchanged as permanently disabled, and returned to the ranks. Several of the 1916 class have been taken in the fighting at Verdun. and among them some who had been brought from the Russian front. Until they were actually in the trenches they did not know that tliey were fighting against the French. They ha J been put in trains in Russia, had travelled day and night with drawn blinds, and had never been allowed to leave the : r carriages. The trains stopped only in the open country, and 110 contact with the outside world was allowed. They were given to understand that they were being moved to another part of the eastern front, and on.v learned that they had been transferred to the west when they found them selves face to face with the French. I)e. sertions are common, and not from the trenches only. A few days ago in an aerial battle between two French and two German aeroplanes, one of the latter was seen to descend in the Fren r 1 in t os. The occupants emerged from the car unhurt and announced that they had come to surrender. They wer * both men of education connected witn university life. "»> e cannot stand it any longer," they said —"nether the misery of the conditions, nor the brutality of the officers." THE LEADERS. Incidents like these serve to stinus late the spirit of the French soldier. He has discovered that he is the better man, he knows that the advantage of the enemy in material is at an end, and he has confidence, and more than confidence, in his officers. And he has reason for h : s confidence. The Frcncn olficer is very literally one of the people. He has not the aloofness winch the public school 'tradition has established in England, and there is no suggestion of the military caste about him. Take General Gouraud, to whom I have referred and of whom I saw a good deal, as an example. There is, I suppose, no one in the French Army who inspires quite the same measure of affection as this remarkable man. The rise and fall of reputations .anion? the leaders lias been no less noticeable in France than in England. General Foch. whose brilliant achievement 'l the centre at the battle of the Marno made him the most conspicuous of the Generals in the French Army, has subsided s : nce the battle in the Champagne in September, of which he was the chief insp'.rer, and General Jolfre himself has hardly escaped a certain depreciation. It is understood that ho was prepared to evacuate the \ erdun position, and though he gave a free hand to General Castelnau in the matter, the fact stands against him in the pulbic mind. But he will survive tie.' criticism. He lacks brilliancy, but h* is a great organiser of victory, has patience, far-sightedness, and stub bornne-s. ;s free from vanity, and knows when to y : eld to the judgment of others. He fulfils in a quite extraordinary nunner the description wliic'i Jean Jaures gave of the General of thfuture in that prophetic book "1/ Anneo Nouvelfe. ' How wonderfully that great man imagined the charact<v of modern warfare is now. generally recognised, and it is admitted that Irs description of the General who would be necessarv in such .a warfare is <o true to General JofTre that it might have been drawn with him in mind. PET ATX AM) GOURAUD.

Ax the moment, of course, General l'< tain is the hero of France, and wherever one goes one hears again the ptory of that marvellous recovery at Verdun —liow under the terrible rajn ot tlicll the French Jell hack, how the General in command had prepared tor retreat behind Verdun, how Castelna t arrived on the scene on the Wednesday, telephoned for General Peta'.n. ulio was in Pars and who arrived on the Friday, how General Retain stopped the plans of retreat, motored rapidly over the front, declared that tin*- position cou'd be held, launched the memorable co 1111 NT-attack. saved Verdiin, and gave the enemy the appalling blow under which the Central Empires are still reeling. But General P,-tain, like Wellington, insp : res more admiration than affection. 11c is intellectual and cold, has a sharp tongue and an imperious temper, and is a tcvrihle critic of superors. Like Lor 1 ivitcln ner, lie has the reputation ot loin" a in war - a pessimist 111 the right sense. H.e never underestimates the enemy nor is the victim of too sanguine v:ews about his own «.-tren>'th. He sees the situation from th" enen'iv s side rather than from blown and believes in Xenon's maxim '■ H" wou'd be a tool who iouglit the enemy two to one when hj" could fight him ten to one." Hut it is General Gouraud who mop than a 11 voile else perhaps has touched tl," sentiment and the imagination 1 tl.o Annv. This is due in some measur'e no doubt to the pathos of Irs figure In Gallipoli he lost his right ami and had both lens broken, and as lie limps rapidlv along the parade, leaning henviiv upon a stick he looks like the MsMV sviubol of all that France has sul-fen-d in th."so tremendous days. Jin--much more than the physical apical is the spiritual appeal of a ]>ersnnahty .>t extraordbiarv sw.'etne-s and strength that looks out through the bluest eye's I have with a candour, a comprehension, and a s\mpath\ that tie strangelv moving. "T spom to so* all Africa in those wonderful eves. ' said •> French officer to 111". referring to the fm t that it was in Meuretania and Morocco that Gouraud made his renutation. Bet there i.- more than Africa

there. It is the soul of France that looks out from those eyes—the .soul of a nation which is measuring its passion for humanity against the passion of might. AN INCIDENT. That ; s the final and splendid impression that emerges from close contact with the French Army. It is an army which is fighting not for militarism, but for civilisation. And it knows that it is winir'ng. This high confidence is not expressed jn .words, but in bearing, in the sense of exultation that pervades a' lranks, in tho feeling of joyous comradeship that is visible on all sides. And it is sustained by the consciousness of growing power. The days are long passed since the amazing head of the department of artillery objected to increasing the output of shells on the ground that the vice of batteries was to "waste shells" and that the only way to correct that vice was to keep them on short commons. The days of starvation are over, and I shall have something to say later on the white heat at which France beh'nd tho lines is working to feed the army with the food of war. It is enough here to say talit there is no sphere in which til,; Army is now inferior to the enemy. The struggle for supremacy in the air, perhaps, undergoes more fluctuations than are apparent elsewhere. These fluctuations are due in part to the fierce conipetit : on in construction which gives the advantage now to this .'•do, now to that. At prjespnt the French again have the whip-hand, iargely owing to their new tactics anil the incomparable address of men liks Navarre. But the losses on both sides are heavy, for the war in the air grows daily in 'ntensitv. As I threaded my way through tho intricacies of the trenches in those bare hills of Massiges. the rattle of machine-guns above was as constant as the plangent song of the

"To," and only less constant than the song of the lark which was going on unceasingly around me in the midst of this great business of death. The aeroplanes were often invisible to the naked tye, but you could follow their course by the tufts of smoke from the shrapnel fire that flecked the blue sky. The battles • themselves are fought at so high an a'titude as to be invisible. But the results are tragically visible. As at the end of the day I stood in tho colonel's dug-out behind the lines, J was called out into the sunlight. An aeroplane was descending in flames. 11 was drop'png straight as a stone, and on the shield of the sky it looked like a scrap of burnished copper. Was u (ieruian ? Was it French? The answer was only too apparent. There tn the northward, surounded by the tufts of the pursuing shrapnel fire, was the victor plane flying to the German lines. Th," flaming machine fell half a mile away, and from all sides men scurried, te the scene of its fall. AVhen we reached it the machine was still blazing like a furnace, but brave men had recovered the bodies from the flames and were reverently carrying the poor broken remains away. There were tears in tho eyes of my brave companion as we turned to go. He had seen much of death. He had been ;n the great retreat, and through the battle of the Marne, and had himself been sorely wounded in these sinister hills ■■*' Massiges. But familiarly with death had not seared him. "It is terrible," be said. Then, after a pause, "But it is war, and they have died for France." "Daily News.''