INTERVIEW WITH ADMIRAL. BEATTY.

Taihape Daily Times, 4 August 1919, Page 7

INTERVIEW WITH ADMIRAL. BEATTY.

HIS PARIS VISIT. ,(Fi-om Andree Voillis). ’ “Admiral Beatty‘! A magnificenfly audacious spirit. Th ogre-atest British sa.iloi'—a Wol'thy son of Nelson. But this time Nelson is on our side. Indeed, in him, Velson is still with um.” These words, spoken~ to me by a great French admiral last year at the izvcsi. critical moment of the war, c"=nle back to me the other day as _! watched the dark blue silhouette o*’ the British admiral side by side with that of . a French general passing along the lines of troops in the vast‘ quadrangle of t-he Invelides.

The sacred union of the British Navy with the French Army for the defence of the liberty of peoples———there we have a newly accomplished fact, the most wonderful in the world's history consecrated at the Invalides and at the Sorbonne by the shouts of enthusjasnl and gratitude of the French crowd. -

This time N"éls6fi——Beatty— is \V’ii;h us! Audacity em?a'fia.*es as Simply and naturally from Adm"ral Beatty as light does from the sun. There are twinkles of humour in his eyes aswell as lightning glance-.s of criticisnr there is sharp irony in the clarion call of his laugh. It was this laugh I heard first. of all’ when I went to ask Admiral Beatty his iniprcssions on his visit to Paris. “Talk again?” he said “I feel as if I had done nothing else for two days,‘ Ah! fighting is finished, talking has begun! It is peace indeed!-” ‘ Then he became grave and a shadow of emotion crossed his face while he pronounced slowly, pausing between the phrases: . H 1 _“lt is difficult to express what one; feels most. The reception given toi the British Navy by the French nation.‘ has been so enthusiastically warm and brotherly that it overcomes all feel-

ings. The value of such visits to .z-I.gi3.nd and to France is that it adds a persqnal touch and I'emenlbl-ances to esteem and frielldshil3- I knew very Well What the French Army had endured, the prodigies _ot‘ valour it had accomplished, ~ut I had not seen thom_ My tour of the French battlefields of the east enabled me ‘to see them. My admiration for the heroism of the French soldier was augmented gr.eatly..” A

“But the British Navy has been just as Splendid," I Said} “its battle has been as painful and perilous as the monotonous battle of the tl'cllchcs,'wil'h-

jom. ‘mt: same hope of the daily com- , muniquo and its sparkle of glory!” I , “Yes,” replied Admiral BeL\,tt'y, ;“the French soldlcl' and the British isailor have done their duty, the one Son the land, the other at sea, I am I u 5 not forgottmg the grc-.ut French Navy, 3 which We always fbtllid at our side in I . . , the hour of dangcl“, and on which we ' counted as our most Valuable I‘i‘S()l'V‘ ” I L. E . - . ; Before le:lvnlg Adm.ll'al Bezltty. I i asked him to tell me his most clldul~ jing impression of the war, the worst 1 or the best. ~

g He threw me a I‘.Zl])id glance from his istcady eyes. wliere I rem] :1 slznfiv of ?pity. “’.l‘lle \mrs{!” he :said, with 21. "short, ironical laugh, i'ul'nillg ‘.ou:.u'Lls ihis aideS—de—cznnp; “\\'hi(:h (lily was it‘, iazind at what time?” and, gl'a'vely. "‘ThC \\'olSt3"' He 1'is~:,:; !;I‘Lls<’lixel;)'; I paces the red carpei‘ of the saloon with his 1-apid—balanced step as if he were 'pacing up and down the bridge of :1 ;‘ship_; then, lifting the c111'1u:,1:711 with his liiirni in its sleeve heavily braided with gold, he Stops before the window" and. g1~ookin;: with :1 far-away gaze out 2 across the rgreell g‘al‘der:S of the Tum»-.

ics, he seems to be S‘C‘()illg‘ the DO‘;-.‘cl' ful grey Dl'oadno‘ught.~', the bold subnl:All'in(‘s, all‘ those ships—tho pl-id-2 of the British Empire~—which, obzsidicm to his voice, \\'ont. to dcmh or glory. Is hp thinking of the hard am] hi‘.-

ter eomba'r. off Doggar Bank, in which the‘ breath ‘of a. big shell tore 0&7 his coat, and which maimed the German Fleet for fifteen months, or of the splendid and bold manoeuvre oif Jutland, in which he drew the enemy upon him and held them to give the rest. of the fleét time to come up—onc of those dramatic and stilhunknown incidents which are the‘ glorious naval epics of Bl‘ifain‘.’ What prodigious minutes of danger and heroism was he living over again in his mind?

All at once he turns round. “There were too many bad hours,,’’ he said, E “but. I will tell you the pleasantest. It was on the 28th of August, 1914. A isnrall British force trailed her coat——— you know the Irish expressi-on‘.?—for five hours‘ off the enenly’s principal base——Heligoland——ivith the whole of the High Seas Fleet waiting behind. \Vell, the head and tail of the story is we sank and destroyed everything that came out and put the rest to flight. That is all. But that. day, which one is too apt to forget, markefi for me the moral superiority of the British fleet.” j The whole fciviiisecl word has. ratified the verdict of the glorious sailor, and it is with the love rand; gratitude of us all that Britannia will henceforth rule the waves.