All the French people I met in France seemed to be thinking and talking about the English.The English bring their own atmosphere with them; to begin with they are not so talkative, and I did not find among them anything like the same vigour of examination, the same resolve to understand the Anglo-French reaction, that I found among the French.In intellectual processes I will confess that my sympathies are undisguisedly with the French; the English will never think nor talk clearly until the get clerical "Greek" and sham "humanities" out of their public schools and sincere study and genuine humanities in; our disingenuous Anglican compromise is like a cold in the English head, and the higher education in England is a training in evasion.This is an always lamentable state of affairs, but just now it is particularly lamentable because quite tremendous opportunities for the good of mankind turn on the possibility of a thorough and entirely frank mutual understanding between French, Italians, and English.For years there has been a considerable amount of systematic study in France of English thought and English developments.Upon almost any question of current English opinion and upon most current English social questions, the best studies are in French.But there has been little or no reciprocal activity.The English in France seem to confine their French studies to /La Vie Parisienne./ It is what they have been led to expect of French literature.
There can be no doubt in any reasonable mind that this war is binding France and England very closely together.They dare not quarrel for the next fifty years.They are bound to play a central part in the World League for the Preservation of Peace that must follow this struggle.There is no question of their practical union.It is a thing that must be.But it is remarkable that while the French mind is agog to apprehend every fact and detail it can about the British, to make the wisest and fullest use of our binding necessities, that strange English "incuria"--to use the new slang--attains to its most monumental in this matter.
So there is not much to say about how the British think about the French.They do not think.They feel.At the outbreak of the war, when the performance of France seemed doubtful, there was an enormous feeling for France in Great Britain; it was like the formless feeling one has for a brother.It was as if Britain had discovered a new instinct.If France had crumpled up like paper, the English would have fought on passionately to restore her.
That is ancient history now.Now the English still feel fraternal and fraternally proud; but in a mute way they are dazzled.Since the German attack on Verdun began, the French have achieved a crescendo.None of us could have imagined it.
It did not seem possible to very many of us at the end of 1915that either France or Germany could hold on for another year.
There was much secret anxiety for France.It has given place now to unstinted confidence and admiration.In their astonishment the British are apt to forget the impressive magnitude of their own effort, the millions of soldiers, the innumerable guns, the endless torrent of supplies that pour into France to avenge the little army of Mons.It seems natural to us that we should so exert ourselves under the circumstances.I suppose it is wonderful, but, as a sample Englishman, I do not feel that it is at all wonderful.I did not feel it wonderful even when I saw the British aeroplanes lording it in the air over Martinpuich, and not a German to be seen.Since Michael would have it so, there, at last, they were.
There was a good deal of doubt in France about the vigour of the British effort, until the Somme offensive.All that had been dispelled in August when I reached Paris.There was not the shadow of a doubt remaining anywhere of the power and loyalty of the British.These preliminary assurances have to be made, because it is in the nature of the French mind to criticise, and it must not be supposed that criticisms of detail and method affect the fraternity and complete mutual confidence which is the stuff of the Anglo-French relationship.
2
Now first the French have been enormously astonished by the quality of the ordinary British soldiers in our new armies.One Colonial colonel said something almost incredible to me--almost incredible as coming as from a Frenchman; it was a matter to solemn for any compliments or polite exaggerations; he said in tones of wonder and conviction, "/They are as good as ours./" It was his acme of all possible praise.
That means any sort of British soldier.Unless he is assisted by a kilt the ordinary Frenchman is unable to distinguish between one sort of British soldier and another.He cannot tell--let the ardent nationalist mark the fact!--a Cockney from an Irishman or the Cardiff from the Essex note.He finds them all extravagantly and unquenchably cheerful and with a generosity--"like good children." There his praise is a little tinged by doubt.The British are reckless--recklessness in battle a Frenchman can understand, but they are also reckless about to-morrow's bread and whether the tent is safe against a hurricane in the night.
He is struck too by the fact that they are much more vocal than the French troops, and that they seem to have a passion for bad lugubrious songs.There he smiles and shrugs his shoulders, and indeed what else can any of us do in the presence of that mystery? At any rate the legend of the "phlegmatic" Englishman has been scattered to the four winds of heaven by the guns of the western front.The men are cool in action, it is true; but for the rest they are, by the French standards, quicksilver.
