"BE PROUD," SAYS FOCH.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 January 1919, Page 5

"BE PROUD," SAYS FOCH.

WHAT IS THERE NOT TO BEEMSMBEE THE MEW WHO SAVED THE LIBERTY Ob" THE WORLD. AMD ALL ITS HAEPY FCXUEE. , Nov. 25, OfficeM, Bon-commiaaicned officers «nd soldiers of tho Allied Armies, "After having resolutely barred the way to the enemy, you have for months attacked mm without respite and with unwearying faith and energy. You have won the greatest .battle iu history and. saved the mo3t sacred cause: the liberty of the world. Be proud. With jrlory immortal you have adorned )aur flags, and posterity will toe over grateful to you. °

i. 11 (Signed) Foeh, Marshall of France, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies.

FOCH'S MASiiiRSIROKR "The history of the war may be searched in vain lor such a defeat as Las overtaken the Germans, Never in the immediate past has any comfoatant stood m tho position of the Allies, who have iLeen able to dictate what terms ft pcaco they liked. Neither Napoleon nor Molte ever achieved such a triumph," says tho Daily llaiL 10 r«veal th« tact that if tire German envoys had not signed the armistice, Marshal Foch had prepared a blow which must have brought utter catastrophe on their Hb Btood to BtriL " o east of Mete, that fortress andSiwraruck, to seize their main line of retreat and to capture, not some 80,000 men as Moltke did at Sedan, but 1,800,000 men. INHERITED NAPOLEON'S MANTIS

Thin was the great blow U p to which his whole'strategy led from that night of July 17, when the Allied troops moved into position for their first counterstroke. So hopeless was the German position on November 11 that the o-owning blow was not required. The Allies' triumph was won in the field and the secret of it was consummate generalship. Marshal Focli showed himself the Bup<mor of the .boasted leaders of the vterman Staff as the Allied soldiers have proved themselves the wasters of the German soldier. Marshal Foch, in a wwd. has inherited Napoleon's mantle and there could be no higher tribute to his genius." LET US REMEMBER.

"The absorptions of the future will sooa tend to destroy many memories of Jie war," says the Obaamr. ■ "For the sake of the future itself let us give at least his day to recollection. The difference between one human 'being and another, as between man and ail other creatures, is largely a difference in power of rememberance—whereby we do not mean the lively mental retentiveness so often prized, and not without reason, out that morai seizure and imaginative hold which can turn the meaning and color of past experTefftie info the'very stuff and hue of character.

EMOTIOXS, EFFORTS, IDEAIS. "What is thsre not to remember? 'We live in thoughts not years, in deeds not bresths, in actions not in figures on a , that measure, w 6 of this use who remain have all lived more than any in the times before us. We have crowded into a few years emotions, efforts, and ordeals, tragedies and achievements, catastrophes and triumphs, and convulsions of mankind and changes of the world such as were formerly stretched over generations or centiiric? '"Once wc had all dreamed of what it might hare been to have lived with Pericles or Alexander, with Hannibal or Caesar; tojmve known the early Crusades or th'eir efflorescence in the thirteenth century; to have had part in the Renaissance or the Reformation, in the age of discovery, or in that Elizabeth; to have breathed and stirred when Cromwell and Chatham did; or to have gor.o forward with events through the whole epic of Europe from the fall of the liastille to the fall of Napoleon.

J. VISTA BEYOND SIGHT.

'ln four years and four months we hnve passed through an ago more won derful and terrible than all these; and tlte sequel is a vista going beyond sight. Posterity will be interested for ever in knowing wliat manner of men and women we were, in our traits and luabits aS we lived, and may much exaggerate us. Or uay not. Wc have heen great. We had to be. We may have been greater than we know. "Much ovnr about ourselves that will bo clear to history is dim to us."

BRITAIN "WON THE WAK DOUBLY." Commandant "13," the famous French military writer, says:— "What France shall tevei cease to bear witness to is the part played bv Great Britain. Sho was the first on the ground of equity and to protect the weak against the strong, to enter the struggle, and to sacrifice in it her interests, her liberties, and her dearest pr" • judice. She threw in the whole resources of her immense Empire jujd the flower of her manhood.

"And we realise also thai without the freedom of the seas, wliidh her naval power secured for the Allied world, the war was lost in advance. Groat Britain won the war doubly, because it was this maritime supremacy which drove Germany into unrestricted submarine piracy, thereby bringing about the intervention of the United States.

J "Men forget quickly, bat history will have a more tenacious memory. History will do justice to those who, whether with us or not in the hour of victory, were the early artisans of victory, and who are now almost forgotten ibecause thoy have disappeared from the life or from the field of Itfittle. Among them are two who, as far tus concerns Britain, will certainly not bo overlooked by history—l mean to<l j&ftciuuKr and. Ijord IVcnctL* THANKS TO SIR DOUGLAS TTATft Tlie following massage haa ieem Asnt by the Amy Ootmcil to KeJd-Marahal Sir Douglas Haig, Coxn.ipju>deis-in-ChiGf British Armies in lionrc:— ,B Hie Aiiay flomdl dadrc, ».h 0 occasion of file happy tilitiea, ta eamgatulafrj ofll rank* ofUht> Majasty"e teai in SaMc open tiae magnificent sharcr-taken by iton fa thti t Mfiani actiona wlidj fcaw> oiKtritefce«J sw powerfully to - t&a j£Dtdmf down and fine erdnnisakai cf ito-wnQ'*, *s3n« August* 1814, tt* UriUA- <

no*-n at Mora, in the battle of tin jMarne and tK» Aisne, and at Ypres, to a great army, "For the last four months this anay " as wc £e<i on a front of many miles an i unceasing battle, and has every day wot new glories for its standards. "Through these four chequered year* [■of conflict the seme spirit of cheerfuli.ess, etoidsm, and imlfcuury, which our | forefatheri constantly displayed, has again been shown ir. the glorious tale of daily achievements which i 3 tbs Empire's pride j.nd rejoicing to-da ■. "To Field-Marshal Sir Douglas TfrSg. tlni Commander who has led to a decerns victory, ocer a lormidjiWo and skilful foe, t,lio mightießt army ever sent forth to battle from tho Empire, to all the rank and file, who have borne the burden of the campaign, undaunted by discomfort, wounds, sickness, or death, and also to those whose unceasing labor behind tho lines has smoothed the working of the machine of victory, the Army Council tender Heir tribute of admiration and gratitude with the hope t-W-, under God, the mighty work which has now been brought to a victorious eonelusion on the battlefield may ensure for , the Empire a future of honor, prosper* ity, and peace." -