Evening Post. SATURDAY, JULY 13, 1918. AS RESOLUTE AS EVER.

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 12, 13 July 1918, Page 6

Evening Post. SATURDAY, JULY 13, 1918. AS RESOLUTE AS EVER.

To-morrow is the festival of the French Republic, the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, of the day

When France in wrath her giant limbs up>

raised, And with that oath which smote earth and

sea, Stamped her strong foot, and said she would be free. For the fourth year in succession she will celebrate the festival in circumstances of stress and gloom and sorrow to which all the strange vicissitudes of her history present no parallel. Of the celebration in 1914 an English observer has recorded that "it was kept with all the customary pomp and merriment. The weather was superb. How hot the soldiers looked in their long coats! How free from care the great crowds that surged through the streets! How remote the thought of the savage desolation of war! Even the 'Marseillaise ' lost its.rousing martial air and seemed only to give a national benediction to the songs of lovers and the laughter of children." None surely of the rapid changes for which the "light-hearted heroine of tragic story" has been famous was more dramatic or more cruel than that which but a few weeks later brought the most hateful of invaders within striking distance of her capital, and has left them in possession of some of her richest and most beautiful of her provinces for nearly four years. Yet a people which even friendly critics were accustomed to regard as frivolous and mercurial, and as incapable even tinder the most favourable conditions of continuing long in one stay, still keeps its heait up, still holds its head high, and still by its unshaken resolution continues to protect and inspire the friends of freedom throughout the world.

We do not need to await the result' of the celebrations by the French of their national day for assurance on this point. The history of the last twelve months has proved, without the need for any verbal testimony, that the spirit of the nation after nearly four years of almost intolerable suffering is still as resolute as ever. The message which Mr. Lloyd George wrote for Prance's Day a year ago only needs the change of "three" to "four" in the opening sentence in order to fit the circumstances of to-day.

" For three years," wrote Mr Lloyd George, " France has been the bulwark of the freedom of the world. She was the first of the Allies to resist the full force of tho German attack; yet though her people and her soil have since suffered continuously from the worst savagery which autocratic power could inflict, she is aa steadfast and determined to-day as sho was in 1914 to see the war through until her own people are freed and the liberty of Europe has been restored."

Since these words were written Germany has been able once more to reach the Marne, from which she was ignominiously routed in 1914, and for some months past has been able to shell Paris with her long-range gun. But French gallantry has met the new danger just as gloriously as it met that of four years ago, and each month brings its quota of men and munitions from the great Eepublic beyond the Atlantic to reduce the odds against which the armies of France and Britain have had to contend during the last four months. Measured by a bee-line on the map, Paris is perilously near to the German lines, but nobody realises more clearly than the German High Command that it is really further off than when the great offensive began. France may, as the Germans allege, have been bled white, but she has not been bled white enough to show the white feather, and until that time comes all the victories of the Germans, all their slaughter of women and children, all their desecration of churches and tombs, all their devastation and arson, will beat against the rock'of the popular resolution in vain.

France is indeed exemplifying to-day the saying of her great soldier that it is the moral element that counts for most in war. The courage of her army is but a reflection of that of the people upon which it ultimately depends. The clash is not merely of armies against armies, but of nations against nations, and in tho sphere of the national will France has shown herself even more obviously invincible than on the battlefield. "Will the line hold?" was, as Mr. Newton D. Baker, the American Secretary for War, said on his return from France in April, the question on everybody's lips, and he expressed his conviction that, whatever might happen to the line, there was no room for doubt as to the ultimate outcome. "'Tho end of the war," said Mr. Baker, " will. not come when a line is broken. This war cannot end until a people's heart is broken, and those who have looked into the faces of tho people of England, of France, or of Italy, who have looked into the faces of those refugees leaving territory to be occupied, know that mere force can never break that, heart." Of all the peoples mentioned by Mr. Baker the Frencli are the least likely to excite any suspicion as to the accuracy of his testimony. The fear which he could not see in the faces of the French people has not, we are sure, been found in their, hearts by that all-seeing eye from which no secrets are hid. A testimony as recent as Mr. Newton Baker's, and necessarily weightier than any foreigner's,, is that of M. Paul J3ajaafcier».. Jin's... ri'^nCTishfid' 'Fiswrh;-

man, whoss metier is not war, but religion and philosophy, testified in a striking fashion at the beginning of the war to the spiritual strength and elation which his countrymen derived from Britain's entry into the war. ."An immense and intimate sense of joy" ran, he said, through the French people when they know that France and Britain were to march hand in hand. "The humblest sections of our people," wrote M. Sabatier to friends in England, "expressed a sensa of happiness—a happiness to a certain extent disinterested—when they saw yonr .country, which we had been accustomed to regard as the most preoccupied with the ideal and with peace, at our side. It meant that the new and moral character of the war was assured from the beginning." If M. Sabatier's countrymen had not long since repaid this spiritual debt they are surely doing so row by the glorious example of their resolution under unexampled sufferings and sacrifices. In a letter written to Sir Frederick Pollock at the beginning of the great German offensive M. Sabatier thus describes the attitude of the peasantry among whom he lives:

I could wish much to show you the homes of our people in the Cevennes, in whom, stricken as they are, there seems to be emerging a new humanity. The grave news from the front-has only strengthened and stiffened the will in them still more. I find nowhere the smallest indication of wavering. They go to the travail of the war with the same calm determination as they take to the toil of the fields. The optimism of the press offends our sturdy Highlanders. "It is not a question of knowing when we shall conquer, or if we shall conquer," said a poihi the other day, who was setting off again for the front, '" it is just a question of doing one's duty; God will do the rest." A ccuntry which is defended in this spirit is not beaten, and cannot be beaten. In its darkest hour it is able by its faith and courage not merely to rise superior to misfortune, but to hold out a light for the guidance and encouragement of others along the difficult and', dangerous path.