AGAINST "FRATERNISING."

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 144, 19 June 1915, Page 13

AGAINST "FRATERNISING."

♦ General Joffre has decided to put an end to what he considers improper fraternising which goes on at times between the French and Germans when their respective trenches are in close proximity. The papers have recently published accounts of an exchange of ' photographs between the two, or of some practical jokes played by the French at the expense of the Germans during hours when all is calm. German officers were, it is said, delighted to see their men on friendly terms with the French, and did their utmost to encourage their intimacy. General Joft're considers it incorrect to treat as comrades an enemy who has massacred, pillaged, and bombarded open towns. In prohibiting in future all intercourse between the two camps the General has instructed officers to read to their men extracts from the official documents concerning German atrocities. This, he believes, will cure the French soldier of any desire to fraternise with the Germnn soldier. It appears the Berlin press was already exploiting these trencli incidents and the almost amicable relations existing between the two camps in some instances to prove that there is no real hatred between the French and Germans. lii fact, it has been more than once declared that "an alliance between two nations which esteem one another is possible, and may tit a given date become a reality, their alliance being againet .Britain.' 1