SIR JOHN FRENCH.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 101, 31 December 1914, Page 2

SIR JOHN FRENCH.

NAPOLEON HAS TAUGHT T.ITM EVERY INCH OF FRANCE. Mrs Charlotte bespard, interviewed in London about her brother Sir John I'V'ench], Conimancle/'infChie? C|f '.the JlriMsh Forces fighting in France, f si !(i: "My brother will bo one oi: the hapj;i»st men in the field. The war game is his cne passion. He loved it when lie was a boy. Battles and preaching were his only hobbies. '•'Napoe-lon was, ana is still, his hero. 13;;t i- is Napoleon the soldier, not Mapclecn the politician, indeed, Sir John held::, very strongly thai a soldier should stick le his sword. ■'That is one of his first axioms in life. M ybrother has made Napoleon .•hij hero, because the Corsican v.as the greatest tactician the world has ev.'i' I known. In cn-e'curious way, his Nayolofch cult has been unexpectedly useful, in pursuing his hero-worship, he ha::; (raced every Mile-civ and hedgerow of the country over which ho is now fight; Inn. He kenw the Belgian theatre oi; war by heart, through the Waterloo campaign, before lie ever landed there. loves. It is the game ha has spent his life in learning. He thinks it the great, est game of all an- when he is in action he is the happiest warrior in all the world." Mrs Despard is almost as notable a figure in England as her distinguished brother. She is a vehement militant suffragist ,and has hungered in gaol for "the cause" of the Women's Freedom League, of which she is an active member. During the Boer-War, in which her brother acquired much of his fame, Mrs Despard became equally famous. c ;h- ranked with David Lloyd George iho war, and kept up a virulent attack iipcii the BiHish Government •'rem the plinth of the Nelson Column, in Trafalgar Square defying with complete nonchalance the tomatcos.eggs.stones, and even knives that were flung at her.