FRENCH AND BRITISH.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 66, 17 March 1916, Page 6

FRENCH AND BRITISH.

PERSONAL ISOLATION. THE VETERAN CANADIANS. (From H. S. GULLETT, Official Australian Correspondent with the Bntis.i Headquarters in France.) While the diplomatic and military co-operation of the Allies grows each day closer and more effective, and the British and French people loam to appreciate each other's good qualities, there apparently exists some sort of barrier between the regimental ollicere and men ot the two nations. Perhaps it is the language difliculties; it well might be. *or not only is the Anglo-Saxon, as you see him here in France, true to his reputation as a man of one language, but tr.3 war has served to qualify the popular idea that most well-educated Frenchmen speak some English. Lately I met. hv.j French Generate, and not one of them knew a word of our language, while English-speaking members of their staffs were not easy to discover. Probably half of the soldiers of our new armies went to the front determined to employ their spare time in " picking up" French. Publishers have done a record business in books bearing such alluring titles a3 " French Made Easy," and enterprising cigarette manufacturers have enclosed in their packets little booklets of words and phraees covering " all the thing 3 the soldier will require to ask for in France." But unfortunately for these designs the British soldier in France, strange as it may appear, seldom has occasion to epeak to French people, You can spend weeks upon this area and never be called upon to use anything but English. The Germans have made the sojourn of the British Army in Northern France and the corner of Flanders, the subject of one of their clumay attempts to divide the Allies, one method being to falsely declare by wireless that the British will never give up possession of the country they arc now occupying. True, our troops make purchases at the French shops in the towns and villages, but even when the men do slop with the French, they invariably Snd that the quick-witted Frenchwomen have, sine? the war began, acquired enough Englieh to put an end at once to the fumbling efforts of our soldiers. THE BROTHER SENTRIES. You might say that the British soldier speaks no French and the.Frenca soldier no English, and when you find them sharing the same towns, as you occasionally do, the barrier between them still' exists. The British soldier looks upon the Frenchman as a queer fellow though withal a rare good fighter, who smokes strange tobacco and has not the good sense to appreciate the merits of tea; while the Frenchman regards the Britisher as a stolid, reserved chap, with a very crude palate. When you see them in the same district you would never guess that they were comrades in arms, who had been for eighteen months lavishing their blood in the same cause upon a common battleground. Go into a little cstaminet, an<l you generally find British soldiers at one table and the French at another; ■you seldom find them sharing the same board. And this is equally true of tha officers. Each nationality keeps to iteelf. At British headquarters and other places the sentries are, for various reasons, always duplicated. French and British being always on guard. The men occupy boxes side by side, and watch after j watch may go by without cither speaking to the other beyond to pass the time of day. They are kept apart by ttia lack of common tongue, and also—and perhaps this is the real reason—by the absence of common personal interests outside the war.

THE CONFIDENT CANADIANS. The Canadians, like the Australians, are now an army of veterans. They have not had the repeated opportunities of ■ our men at Gallipoli,.,but in the second battle of Yprce and elsewhere they have ■proved themselves grand hurly-burly fighters, resourceful and impetuous and ugly fellows with the bayonet. They ako have a great reputation for sb-aight shooting. When I first saw them in ■ttie trenchee one night last Jlarcli they were ireeh and over keen and a little! "jumpy." Their part of the line was very muuli alive then, and they chafed at the thought that they could hot at any time get aerose No Man's Land and come to grips with the enemy. A race which had in the eouree of a few years flung out successive railways from the Atlantic to the Pacific found it hard to believe that there were 50 yards of level cultivated field in Prance which could not be crossed by all' the hustle and engineering in the world. If yoii went among them in the darknees they were disposed to shoot you as a firet ■precaution, and to challenge you after■wards. Now they are very different. Like the .Australians in London, they carry themselves as men Who have been thrpugh the, fiercest test that can be imposed upon mankind, and bave come out of it with great distinction. CANADIANS AND AUSTRALIANS. . The Canadians, although of conspicuously fine psysiquc, are not nearly so uniform in type as the Australians. This ie particularly true of the early lattalions, which contained co large a proportion of British-born, but even among the later men to arrive, among •whom you find more and more native Canadians, there is still a greater variety than in the armies of the Commonwealth. And there arc a number of other distinguishing features, particularly the strong American flavour in speech. But after making allowance for these pnje •finds far more affinity between the Canadians and the Australians than between the Colonials and the soldiers of the United Kingdom. The men from the Dominions seem distinctly older, if not always in yeaTs, certainly in their bearing, as ie natural perhaps in the citizens of young countries where most men etifi lead unrestrained and combative lives. Then both among the Canadians and the Australians you are impressed by the fact that their junior officers are on the average some years older than in the Home armies. At first British officere ■were surprised at the familiarity of the touch between the Canadian leaders and their men, but the -war has shown that the customary British ceremonial of discipline whiah seems indispensable for Home-borne troope is not essential for getting the best out of the Canadians ffn tight places these Colonials have excelled in cohesion, while all ranks have been rich in initiative. Tiere never has been a Continental war in which officer losses have been co heavy and in which opportunities for non-commissioned ranks and even privates have come so I quickly. Along the Canadian trenches you come to believe, as you do amon<» the Australians, that half the men could, if necessary, in a crisis be relied upon to take a lead and command a following