NEWS FROM FRANCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 May 1940, Page 9

NEWS FROM FRANCE

FIRST SIX MONTHS OF WAR HITLER’S UNTRIED GENERALS. CONFIDENCE IN ALLIED VICTORY. (From Our Paris Correspondent.) PARIS. March 15. Newspapers of France, like those of Great Britain and other countries, have been filled with summaries and appreciations of the first six months of war, among the neutrals the very important and impartial Gazette de Lausanne printing an exhaustive article by its military critic showing that the position of the Allies is far superior to that of the Germans and the conflict can only end in the defeat of Hitler and his untried generals. But what no newspaper seems to have noted is the absolute confidence of the French as shown by the fact that no alternative to complete victory ever comes into their minds. The last war was fought with a degree of uncertainty; this one is fought with absolute sureness of victory.

Many psychological factors explain this attitude. Though the last war started with all the disadvantages possible, a surprise attack by the German ■army, at that time the most powerful in the world, and a shortage of munitions, yet the French stopped and held the enemy on the Marne, at a later stage in the war- breaking up the massed attack at Verdun, the greatest and most determined effort the world had ever seen. Unlike as this war is in many ways to the last, it is yet dominated by the principles and lessons of 1914-1918, in which the French proved themselves the masters. News comes from the other side of the Rhine of manoeuvres in which troops are made to rush across fields and attack fortifications made to look like the Maginot Line. Officers who look on and who had experience of the last war, when the in comparison almost primitive defence works of Verdun proved impassable, realise that Hitler can lose as many millions of men as he likes without any chance of getting past the Maginot Line. Other talk has been of massed attacks by airplanes, but the new anti-aircraft machine guns are such as would make the attempt far too costly. There is a general feeling that another peace offensive is on the way, and that if the Allies do not appear ready to listen to some scheme by which the Germans will be able to hold on to what they have, we shall be threatened with the formation of a triple alliance between Germany. Russia and Italy. France is quite prepared for this. A report that reached Europe from America spoke of a month’s truce, during which time the situation could be talked over, a development it was said of the Sumner Welles visit to the belligerents. This was dismissed with indignation. The position of the ‘Frepch has not varied, as laid down by M. Daladieiand coinciding exactly with the determined expression of Mr Chamberlain, and it is that there can be no talk of any peace , settlement until Nazi-ism is destroyed and definite guarantees are secured that shall make German aggression impossible. This is not the determination of a government, it is the will and intention of a whole nation. and you cannot meet anyone in France, any civilian or soldier, willing to listen to any mention of peace that shall not bring definite and certain guarantee that Europe is not to be mobolised every six months and fighting every four or five years. The whole nation is ready for any sacrifice to secure this end, and it is disciplined with a discipline of consent and not compulsion.

The historian of the future will have to give an important place to radio in this war. In Mr Chamberlain, in England, and M Daladier, in France, the peoples of the two countries have two remarkably good radio speakers, who both have the gift of being able to forget, the rhetoric of the platform or parliamentary bench and talk with simple, friendly directness to every man and every woman. This means that people whose opinions may vary according to the policies of the newspapers they read come together on common ground to hear one view, ably reasoned, of leaders whom they themselves have placed in power. The French and the British in the meetings with their leaders are reasoned with, the Germans are screamed at.

In the crowded history of the last few weeks and days the attitude of the Scandinavian countries has not impressed the French as being particularly courageous, and Mr Churchill's simile of the crocodile has been mentioned more than once. It has been more and more apparent that very definite pressure has been brought to bear on Sweden by Germany. Public opinion in France has been ready for an unequivocal attitude in regard to Russia, and the very obvious truth that the Allies will.be fighting Germany and Russia causes no uneasiness. An article that appeared in Le Temps the very same evening that M. Daladier informed the Chamber of the ■ expeditionary force ready to go to the aid of Finland put the matter as the French in general see it:

“Public opinion in our free country,” says Le Temps, “is asking with more and more insistence what things are to the interest of the enemy—and by that fact are against our interest — and if, in order to counteract them, everything is being done that should be done. Time never works for men In war only bold and strong action prepares the* way for victory.”

Restrictions have come and are cheerfully borne. As a matter of fact, they are by no means severe. The days on which only two dishes may be served in restaurants are little different from other days, especially as the dishes restricted in number arc meat dishes, and one can order hors d’oeuvres and dessert with freedom. The days on which cafes cannot serve

“aperitifs,” the alleged appetite provoking drinks, see no ban on wine, so that instead of a cocktail of dubious benefit one can drink fine French wines. Many people who had forgotten some of the wines for which France is famous renewed acquaintance with old friends. Pastry cooks are looking a bit glum behind their counters because of restrictions on the sale of pastry, and chocolates are to disappear. One confectioner’s had a notice in the window, “The last days of the condemned.” with beside it a large box of chocolates.

The weather in Paris has been mild and sunny, and spring seems eager to be here again. Crowds on Sunday on the Boulevards and the Champs-Ely-sees, as well as in the Tuileries and the Luxembourg park, are more dense.

Shrieks of children’s laughter from the Guignol, the French Punch and Judy show, add a welcome note at this time. The round-about in the same gardens, which recently celebrated its fiftieth birthday, is doing brisk business, and the horses go round with the same surprised look on their faces as fifty years ago that they can travel so far and get nowhere. Many of the well-known statues have disappeared under pyramids of sandbags, and the obelisk, which was standing three thousand years ago in Luxor, has a hideous poultice of sandbags reaching half way up the shaft. The Marly horses, at the entrance to the ChampsElysees, have also been buried beneath sandbags. King Albert of the Belgians, on the Place de la Concorde. and Clemenceau, in the ChampsElysees, are without protection. The reason is that the moulds from which they were cast still exist, and in case of damage the statues can be recast at less cost than it would take to protect them.