COMRADES IN ARMS

Grey River Argus, 3 February 1917, Page 2

COMRADES IN ARMS

A FRENCH SOLDIER ON THE BRITISH. Captain Philippe Millet, who has served for a year as French Officer of Ac Liaison with a British division on the Western tront. has been Particularly struck by the ease with which the French and British soldier can and do fraternise together. His twelve months' experilnce. of which he writes £ the November "Nineteenth Century " has taught him the great factastonishing, no doubt, to many people —that the differences between the British and the French temper are, on the whole, superficial. It took him a little while t P realise this truth, but. as he says, war is a great master and reveals many hidden things. tiaitiestingly he remarks that draughts are the only subject on which the 1* rencn and British armies thoroughly disagree "Be he a private or an officer, the Frenchman always avoids draughts if he can help it. It is just *c reverse with the British Army. They have a real genius for inventing draughts, even when there is only one window in the room. Cunouslv enough, this does not prevent them from catching cold. The most striking demonstration of this fact was given me in March, igis. We were billeted in Vielle-Chapelle. a primitive place, where the general's mess had to be m the kitchen ; so that mv friends arranged that both the window and the entrance door, which faced each other, should remain open and proviae^us with a cold wind, while the kitdhen stove was beating us from behind : in consequence of which they all fell in. .one after the other, beginning with the general and ending with the ADC My revenge for all I had sutfered was that I was the last to be laid up with the 'flue.' From what we had read, more especially in English novels,^ Captain Millet expected the average British otficer to be "a silent, siow-mmded sportsman, full of manly qualities, such as self-respect and self-control, but admirable rather than amiable, and on the whole not very numan. ] He was surprised, therefore, when several senior officers proved to be very talkative — one, a colonel, "the best of men. who talked himself to death at every supper, with a variety of gestures that a Southerner might well have envied." General topics, includ- j ing literature, and politics, were dis- . cussed every night, and in the matter- of politics the British officers J Army, for they cursed their own Go"could beat any officer in the French vernrnent with unabated vigour." One of the writer's British comrades, "a most cultured and delightful fellow."/ was a good pianist, and "each time he returned from the trenches would fling himself on the piano and gratify j us with a selection of Italian music." "Where?" asks Captain Millet, "was mv typical English hero?" As for self- ! control, the British officers had, .of course, a good deal of it, but "they did not overdo it in any way," as Captain Millet discovered when, on a slippery road, his car ran into the car of a British army corps Commander. Little damage was done, .but "the general iumped out like a tiger, followed by his two staff officers, who carefully imitated his voice and gestures." He Bad completely cost his temper. Although the unfortunate captain (or. rather, lieutenant, as he then was) had never met the irate general before, the latter declared that it was not the first time that such a thing- had occurred, and that he would have to' report the delinquent [to his French superiors. No apologies i seemed to soothe him. but a few days later when he again met Captain Millet, the general lauerhed over ttie" incident, and thereafter always hailed him with a smile, and the words. "Hello-! here is the fellow who ran into my car!" "I liked him better with his occasional fits of ill-tumour," says the Frenchman, "than if he had been the Iron Duke." Under fire the British officers were, of course, all v.erv brave men. "Indeed, they behaved in a very peculiar way. in the most unpleasant circumstances — as if they were playing golf oh a peaceful green. We had a brigadier in the division who was uncommonly remarkable in that respect: for he would, in the midst of a hot battle, carefully pick out .the most dangerous spot and make it his report centre, as if he were enjoying a shower-bath." Yet" the British officers did not attempt to conceal that they found the game as beastly as the French did, and their "human feeling expressed itself sometimes in a picturesque way," as was the case with an R.E. officer, who, when surprised by a burst of shell-fire while inspecting wire entanglements, sat him down in the first-line trench, and muttered indignantly to himself, "1 suppose I" had better wait until the blighters have done." Like the French, the British were equally modest about their own courage. Not a few of them spoke of being frightened as they would have mentioned 'a headache. "One day." says Captain Millet, "during ,# battle one of the staff officers, who had iust gone ahead to reconnoitre the ground in a most unwholesome place, and was startincr again on the same errand, said to me with a smile, 'It's, beastly out there. . . Not being personally brave, I hate it' I shall never forget that word spoken by one who never showed the slightest hesitation m exposing his life." Indeed, the genuine humanity of the British soldier seems to have cpme almost as a revelation to this French officer. He was amazed to find officers and men in the British Army so like officers and men in his own. the only great difference beinc that the British spoke English and the French spoke French. "The truth is. it is impossible to have watched the two armies in «■*»« G«ld without coming to the conclusion that a common civilisation, as well as a common cause, has created links between us." says Captain Millet, "that are stronger than any barrier a difference in ton cue can raise between two peoples. For we are both at bottom 'made of tfTc same wood.' as people say in France; we are equally human, we have the same defects, and the same trick of kicking when a bully comes across our path."