THE SPIRIT OF A NATION.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 June 1916, Page 6

THE SPIRIT OF A NATION.

CALM CONFIDENCE OF THE FRENCH. "GERMANY CAN NEVER WlN.'* (From Malcomi Ross, Official Correspondent with the N.Z. Forces). Northern France, May 1. "Would you like to see a miracle?" said the Colonel, as we came to a break in the communication trench and looked along a disused road. Yvs, we assured him that we should.

"Well, scatter," he added, .as we emerged from the trench one at a time, for the Bodies could see this road, and in these days even miracles cannot be seen in safety if you cross open spaces in groups.

In a green field on our right beside the road was a huge shell hole. It was us if some earthly carbuncle had been rooted from the soil. On the left, some little distance ahead, were the ruins of peasant homes. And near them, in a shattered shrine, was a Christ, life-sized and untouched, on a cross. The tumbled bricks lay in a red heap at the foot of the cross. Only the aureole behind the crucifix was slightly broken. The :ross and the figure had escaped unscratched. That was the miracle.

''The people here go down on their knees before that," said the. Colonel.

On a used road, close up behind the firing-line, was another crucifix. A young woman walking along the road svent up to it, made a genuflexion, and said an "Ave Maria." Continuing her journey, she saw a little child playing by the roadside. She took the child back to the *shrine and made her, also, say an "Ave Maria."

Change the scene now to a homely interior in one of the villages al*o not far behind the firing-line. The husband ishome from the trenches on leave, and is rating a meal. The women are working at their ordinary domestic duties. The bell for the Angelns tolls. The man stops his eating, tiie women their work. Each one goes through the same performance, reverently, as did the young 'woman ?nd the little child at the'roadside shrine.

H is this deeply religious spirit, combined with pride of race and love of country, a supreme confidence in their own powers, and a great faith in their just cause, that is. winning the war in France to-day. There are no rebels in this land, no Conscientious objectors, no stop-thc-war party. Everyone knows that the war must go on—and go on as quickly as possible—to its legitimate end. And they realise fully that there is only one way out—the destroying Hun must himself be destroyed.

You get your first impression of an altered France on fowling; at Marseilles. Knt Marseilles itself is not changed. The .lock's and <|uays seem to be as busy as ever. There is a vast amount of shipping, mostly British. In the glorious avenues of the city the plane trees are bursting into leaf, as when yon last saw them. There are no shattered monuments here. Marseilles is too far behind the lines. But you note a great change in the people. Everywhere there are soldiers, many of them wounded, some without a leg', some without an arm. Out of the gateway of the fort at the entrance of the harbor that centuries ago held the argosies of the old conquering Greeks comes a stream of strange troops—a mixture of black and. while and brown. Some of them are great big fellows, much stronger than the Roches that under fixed bayonets we saw unloading the ships near by. Marching up the Rue de la Ropublique comes a column of the little Senegalese, biaek and jolly, sweating in the warm sun under their packs and warm overcoats. The mixture of ca-ite and color, and I lie variety of uniforms—blue and red and grey—remind you that France, like England, has her colonies, and that whereas (ierinany's overseas dominions are to her a sealed book, there is free intercommunication between the possessions of England and France and the mother lands. At one. of the crowded quays soldiers parLially recovered from wounds and sickness—a shipload of them —are going back to recruit their wasted strength in Algiers.

For the first time we see soldiers wearing! their stool casques. It almost seems as if we had stepped back into the spacious days of tlie crusades. Some of the casques have dents in tlicni. In the varied ecsir.opolitan throng that moves and lias its being in .Marseilles one rubs shoulders with tall, handsome Serbs in khaki, Australians of the "grand cliapeau"—the French at first mistook them for the corps Alpin of Italy—British. Canadian*, Xrw Zealanders, Maoris, French, Italian and English naval officers, and the advance guard of the friendly linssian influx that a few days later wib a thrill the city wit.li a new enthusiasm. All this variety and the riot of military color struck strangely on our eyes after the dull-faded khaki of Clallipoli and the Egyptian desert. By way of background there was a sombre note in the dresses of the women. A great many were in black, with veils of long heavy crepe such as the Latins affect in times of mourning. But even these women were calm and confident. They were brave also, for they smiled through their tears. One saw scarcely any young men. They were in the lines at Verdun stopping the mad onrush of the Hnnnisb horde, and along the lines south to Switzerland and north to Flanders, where were also the British, the Australians, the New Zealanders and tlie Belgians, and more French. The old woman in the little shop where we buy some books has a brother in the lines, and is quite cheerful about the war. It will end all riglit for France. The Germans cannot win. Yes, she has seen, many Australians passing through Marseilles —the men with the "grand chapeau." Where are we going ] We tell her we are going to . All r* there is good beer and good cider in that place! In the evening we hail a fm ire to take us back to our transport. The cachir demands six francs. We jlforod him five, but he would not alter bis lir.-t demand. We tried another imin farther down the rank. He denunded seven. We went back to the first driver and accepted the original offer. 'Alii'.:"' lie said, "I'll wager you the other i-iiin asked seven." At the end of tli< journey we told him we were not rv '■•':■• and that it was the second ymr . | war. But to this his onb • j "It is all a matter of in'" war, lie said, was go:n< bade us a cheery goc' l.:s way chortling, in;; us for » "porbpire'

In K Tli9«Rapide" to, Paris. We are in a crowded train, travelling in the usual way at the usual speed. We elimb the heights and get passing glimpses of the lights of Marseilles, very much as one looks on the lights at the head of the Adriatic as the train climbs from Finnic on its way to Budapest. And there is no stint of good food and drink'. The dinner is of the best. You can have your choice of five different brands of champagne, and a variety in red and white wines. And you can finish with a glass of Benedictine or Grand Manier and a cigar—the latter, for preference, of your own providing. The French ollicers travelling back to the front a."c bright and amusing and confident. Vet it was the fifty-fourth clay of the Battle of Verdun, and to the outside world the issue still hung in doubt. Xo. no, Verdun was not. finished yet. Hut the Germans would never take Verdun. The English might be nervous about it—the French were serenely confident. One could not but admire the spirit of a nation such as this at a time when tingreatest war in the world's histon »■«• being waged within its own boundaries. Paris! A changed Paris! More women in black. More soldiers—though not so many as at Marseilles. Elderly bearded men, women, girls and boys in the streets. Where was the gay boulevardier of the old iParis? He had become a thing of the past. The casual English have perhaps been too. prone to think that the light-hearted Frenchman of the boulevards was the embodiment of the soul of France. He was not. The soul of France is rooted in her soil. Von will find it in the towns and villages and in the fields behind the lines nmuch as the cities. But the business life of Paris seemto go on much as it did before the war Such shops as were closed at the heigh! of the German menace have in ncari> every ease reopened their dors. The ordinary shops are doing business a> usual, though the volume of trade m.v. not_be as great. It is very much as i: is in London. Just as you miss the fashionably - dressed throng in Bond street, so you miss it in the Rue de la Paix. And jewellery there is cheaper than it was. In the Place Vendoim the great costumiers who set th< fashions for half a continent are m longer adding up extravagant bills. Xr rich ladies from London and no America i millionairesses ride up in their earts nowadays. The Place Ve'ndome is almost as silent as a tolnb. The Louvre is closed, its treasure hidden farther south, but we are lob that already they are coming bad. Notre Dame, in the silent gloom oi which we rest and meditate awhile, stii stands, nnd the light still shines throng! the glorious rose window as it did o' old. Indeed, all the monuments of Pari are safe. Thank God. the destroyin; Huns, with their cold machines tha have been made the symbol of the! kultur, were foiled in their attempt t< add 'Paris to their other acts of dose eration and destruction. Tt is sonic satisfaction to us to know that this wa in a measure made possible by the eon; ing of the English. In large measure also the plan failed because of tin promptitude and the resource of r French General who, in thousands n' taxi-cabs, hurriedly and unexpectedly rushed up an army that formed a bar rier upon which this wave of moden kultur broke and spent its force am! then receded. But it was touch am!

And now a new spirit Ims fallen upon Paris. Paris still stands" as it stood. Imt the people have changed. The gay life—never quite so gay as it was painted, and less vicious a great deal than that of Berlin —has given place to a sober seriousness that, while it does no! seem natural to a Latiir race, yet synchronises with the times.

From Paris to and along the front in (he next few days we rode many miles in trains and motor-cars, through tinfertile fields of France. Everywhere one saw soldiers—here a regiment of young Frenchmen, in bluish-grey, singing as they marched along the straight unending roads; there Canadian cavalry, strong, hardy and resolute, riding along a fold in the hills; and yonder the tali, big, meat-fed men from the outer lands, already going into the trenches. But in the midst of all this preparation and atmosphere of war the most astonishing thing was the intense cultivation of the land. The old men and the women and children, with a determination and an industry of which few other nations are capable, had left scarcely a square yard that could be spared from the grass lands unfilled. Streams ran swollen through the gentlysloping valleys in which the meadows were emerald. Cowslips ' and violets decked the lloor of the woods where elms were, budding and the tender green •of the chestnuts relieved the brown. Peach and cherry blossoms were already brightening the scene. The com was sprouting quickly under the soft influence of passing April showers. The country, like its people, was smiling through its tears.