THE SPIRIT OF FRANCE.

Taihape Daily Times, 20 July 1918, Page 6

THE SPIRIT OF FRANCE.

NO SIGN OF EXHAUSTION.

NATION TUNED UP FOR WAR,

Two years ago the world was told that the French were tired of the war. A year ago the United States was told *that the French nation w,as bled white;

*hat it could holi U P itß end in thQ great war only a short time longer, and that unless powerful reinforcements' were sent to the battlefront and new Spirit injected into the French #e war would end with Germany the con-

quwor. "I have been fortunate enough to see a great deal of the. Freticn people. and the French soldiers during the last few months and I think I understand why France has been able, "to bear the brunt of the war and why France will continue to hold her place in the very front line until the Hun Is defeated," writes Mr. D. Martin in the New York Herald. "Surrender is a word as foreign to the vocabulary of the French poilu as it was to the Old Guard of Napoleon. The spirit of surrender is as alien to the soul of France as it was to the life of aneient Greece. France/knows that Germany will be defeated. She has never doubted it. She was just* as confident when the Hun was slaughtering hundreds of .thousands of his own men and soldiers

of France as she is to-day Avhen her lines has been extended to the north to be prepared for any new onslaught the German may undertake.

"Just after the German nad begun his gigantic sweep against the French and British lines on March 21 I saw hundreds of miles of French trucks, supply waggons, artillery, and every other paraphernalia of war trailing from all directions to the point where danger lay. I saw French drivers who had not had a wink of sleep for 40 hours; teamsters who had been sitting exposed to the rain for two days and nights, going about their task jjfest as cheerily as if they were on a holiday. It was easy to understand. They were going to help France. France needed them. "How such a spirit could survive after a nation has for nearly four years gone through what France has gone through is not easy for one to understand until he has an insight into the French charcater. The. nation is tuned up to war. Its entire energy is focussed on war. Nothing else is thought of. Not a wheel turns in the entire country ex'cept to make something which is needed for war. In all France there is not a single pleasure automobile. There is no gaiety. The. civil population is subjecting itself to 'hardships which, it hopes, are just as trying as those of the men who are bearing arms. When the German onrush in Pieardy was causing some anxiety France never grew disturbed. I asked a hundred Frenchmen—privates, civilians, officers—if Germany would break the line. " 'Push,it back, yes! but, break it —never!' was the reply from all. " 'Suppose she should drive across to the sea?" I asked. "She won't; but, oh, if she should, J the war will go on just the same till Germany is licked." "They all said it in the most matter | of fact way. Their attitude was that it was absurd even to think that Germany had a chance to defeat France. There were moments of gloom as Amiens 'was bombarded and the big St. Gobain gun plumped its shells into Paris, but French gloom is always-short-lived, An hour's sunshine pro-' vides enough cheerfulness to bear the average Frenchman through a week of rain. 1 ' You might drive or walk for 200 miles through any part of France and j you would not see a single civilian ' except elderly men, boys, invalids,, or j cripples. Every able man is in the > army. S'till the farms look promising in the spring sunshine. Not a foot of soil is being neglected. The 'old folks' who had finished their life's toil and settled down in their little • village home to watch their grandchildren grow up, have put on the yoke again."