FRANCE’S ARMY LEADERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 May 1940, Page 9

FRANCE’S ARMY LEADERS

STRONG IN ACTION Richard Capell, Daily Telegraph War Correspondent with the French Army, wrote recently: — Within the limits of the rules laid down, rules which prescribe anonymity as regards persons no less than places, I should like to record some of my impressions of the generals, three army commanders and their chief, the commander of the army group in whose territory I have spent most of this winter.

All four have had the goodness to entertain me on various occasions and to speak their mind freely. To look back over these occasions is to realise afresh the amazing diversity of type which goes to make the French Army what it is.

in their different ways these four distinguished men are all unmistakably leaders; each wears his great authority as to the manner born. The formalities of the military career do not cramp a Frenchman’s individuality. My four generals all make the impression of rare force of character.

All have spoken to me of their faith and confidence in victory. All have received the.yisitor with exquisite courtesy, but, so much said, what comes to mind is the difference of the tone and pitch of these several interviews.

My first general is an eagle. Sometimes one meets great, military chiefs whom one could imagine as eminent administrators or ambassadors. But this one is unmistakably a fighting man.

First and foremost he has a way of addressing you which demands of you in response all the preciseness you can manage to summon up with the least possible wordiness. A command from this man is a command indeed. He is small and spare. Every movement he makes is expressive of an energetic and decided mind and bis utterance rings.

On public occasions I have heard him deliver sentences which could without the change of a word be inscribed monumentally for all time. My second general clothes his authority in urbanity and charm. FATHER OF HIS ARMY He has given to the army a fine intelligence which might, if he had chosen differently, have brought him an Embassy or a seat in the Academy. He is the father of his army. I have been with him on a tour of the defences of his front and have seen how muddy pioneers swarm round him when he encourages'them to fell him of their grievances and questions them about their homes and families.

The rank and file would perhaps be somewhat more intimidated by my third general. He is not a man to whom one would feel inclined’to complain because there had been a delay in the postal service. But everyone in his army must know that their chief is a great man. He is tall, spare and somewhat stooping, and his noble face is marked with the signs of thought and care as also with the strength to copejvith care. •

His voice is low and musical, his conversation expresses a broad view of men and events. He is confident: and he inspires the more confidence since he is, you feel, the last man to be beguiled by any facile sort of optimism.

It is a pleasure to hear him say handsome things about the British troops. He could say nothing he did not mean.

Magnificently burly and sanguine, my fourth general is quite a different type of war lord. He is a sort of commander who would in another age have figures in song and story. Even as things are, an oral tradition is forming about him. Whatever the future may bring, it is already certain that he will figures in the history of the eastern marches of France.

There may yet arise a poet to sing “Le Soldat Laboureur,” the ploughman soldier of this general’s army, who with rifle slung over shoulder tills the deserted fields while awaiting the enemy.

With one hand the general is fighting; with the other he is saving the land, or as much of it as may be, from going fallow.