SPORTSMAN AND SOLDIER.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3136, 25 September 1922, Page 8

SPORTSMAN AND SOLDIER.

There is something almost English about Marshal Petain, the tall, tanned, blue-eyed, fair-haired sportsman who saved Verdun. He is English in the abruptness ol his speech: "You; none of you know anything about it," he said, after listening to a long discussion of operations "after a field day on manoeuvres'. He is English in his love of exercise. When he was fifty-two he used to challenge Younger officers' to run a hundred vards'while he hopped fifty; he still uses a skipping rope before his morning bath. At Verdun he announced that he had no use for any but champion runners' and champion cyclists. Hewore out fourteen chauffeurs. He is English 'in his knowledge ol and sympathy with his men. Once in Champagne, 'when he ordered a specially heavv advance at the "double, he' ran three miles with the men himself He has- long been known as "the soldiers' generaL" When it wm revealed that he was to take over the defence of Verdun, one of them sj.id: "You here, general? Then it will be all right." ... He resembles us in his suspicion ot politicians-, his hatred of wire-pulling, and in his enthusiasm for his profession. ~ . . As a soldier he has all the gitts; Ins lectures on tactics and strategy before the war were masterpieces of lucidity; his quick grasp of the new conditions when the war broke out showed how thorough had been the years of his training for it. The greatness ot the occasion tested the greatness of the man. Within a month this unknown colonel, about to be placed on the retired list, was commanding a division; seven weeks later an army corps. ... to-day he is inspector-general in time of peace, commander-in-chief in any future war. Yet the marshal ia not altogether soldier. He has found time for the tuts. Not only lias he married the daughter of one of France's most famous paint crs, M. Ferrier, but his closest friend was Debussy, and (as we should expect from this) his favorite hobby, music. He is himself a brilliant pianist. In appearance he resembles an enlarged edition of Lord Roberts, in character Field-Marshal Sir William Robertson, whoso rise to lame coincided so closely with his own. A hard hitter, cool and courageous in time of stress, simple and human in his dealings with his fellows, he. like Sir William Robertson, had to rely on his own forceful personality and not at all on influence to help him to climb the heights. Now that he has succeeded he is no more willing to curry favor with authority than he ever was. What he says he means, and he says at once what he thinks. "Nobodv is fetter placed than \ou are, M. le President" he once said to M. Poincarc, "to know that France is neither governed nor disciplined." The President, not unnaturally annoyed at this blunt statement, replied: '"■ l take it that you are joking. General?" "On the contrary, 1 am deadly schious." answered the soldier. S.P.B.M.