THE NEW FRANCE.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume IV, Issue 203, 12 August 1914, Page 3

THE NEW FRANCE.

ARDENT SOLDIERS

German officers are said to drink after dinner to “The Day.” In France that kind of cheap theatricality is laughed at.. But quietly, without any bombast or bravado, the French Army, men as well as officers, are talking about “The Hour.”

Hero is a characteristic passage from an article by Count Albert de Mun, Aca-demician-and patriot: “The flag is threatened. That no one doubts. France stands erect, ready for sacrifices, but not resigned to annihilation. Her desire is that when the hour strikes her army shall be strong, not only because of its armament, its capacity for work, and its technical skill, but strong also by reason of its firm discipline, of its confidence in its leaders, of its moral force.” “When the hour strikes!” For some time the Comte de Mun in one of the chief Paris newspapers has been proclaiming ‘Theure decisive.” A young staff officer who was lately in command of a squadron of cuirassiers in a garrison near the frontier reports that whenever “the coming war” was discussed, which was not seldom, the men always spoke of it in this fashion: “Well, the sooner the better. Let’s stop them annoying us, once and for all.” “Wnat struck me even more than their speech was their physical attitude,. Their eyes grew brighter and harder. Instinctively their thighs gripped their saddles more firmly, their fingers gathered up the reins. .They were ready, for a forward move.”

Others have given the same account of the spirit of the troops. It is not a provocative spirit. It is the temper of men who have received provocation and put up with it over and over again, but have resolved to hear it no longer. It is a very different spirit from that of even ten years ago. Then the officers were sick at heart' on account of the political wire-pulling that influenced promotion and discouraged efficiency. Then the men were under the spell of the Tolstoyan idea—brotherhood, war a relic of barbarous ages, “anti-militar-ism.” A distinguished young writer, M. do Monvel, states that these vague and dangerous theories were much harboured during his two years of service (1902-3). When he went up recently for his reservist training he found they had utterly faded away. ..Even one who was an ardent Tolstoyan himself, Professor Paul Desjardins, has discovered that “there is something uglier than war ;” the slipping of a nation into flaccid indifference, with only one motive: to live as cheaply as possible .on the lat of the land.” There are still causes for which it is worth while to fight ; and “the opposition to the Prussion idea, that idea which we see. at work in Alsace-Lor-raine, in Schleswig-Holstein, in Poland, is one that might well persuade a man. with excellent reason, to stand up and be slain.” That is the spirit of the Army and the nation. But spirit is not enough. Is the fighting machine in good order." Are the troops well trained and the leaders competent —more competent than they were in 1870? There are many reasons, chief among them the. good words of all recent military observers, for believing that the French Army was never in better condition than it is to-day. Its high officers are many of them distinguished intellectually.’ In the lower grades there is vivid keenness and attention to duty. One thing strikes the visitor to France : the army is always in evidence, always at work. That is the way to make military service popular. Let the soldiers be seen. In France they are seen drilling. They are seen route-marching. Very early in the morning their tramping feet sound under my window. At noon one meets them coming back to barracks. In the evening they are seen in a torchlight tattoo. “The more work the better,” the young officers say. They apply themselves to the training of their men with untiring ardour. Usually they are well liked. -The plan of putting them in the ranks for a year before giving them commissions makes them considerate. “A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind.” They take as much trouble as our Guards’" officers do to get to know their men. And they have a fine sense of responsibility. “tVe have to shape the souls of our men,” writes a young gunner, Lieutenant Regnauld, “to awaken and train the military virtues, i’his cannot be done by precept; only by example. An officer must train his meh hy the example of, his character, by his practice of the qualities which "die wishes to see developed in them.”

Another proof of the eagerness to remove all possibilities of weakness can be seen in the growing dislike, both naval and military, to promotion by seniority. Such promotion, says Lieutenant Regnauld, assumes that the officer promoted is fit for higher command. That is frequently not the case. A naval officer put the same point when he shrewdly said that promotion ought not to be regarded as reward for past services, but as a demand for sort ices to come How much difference a good or bad Minister can make to the service in France is shown by the excellent work M. Millerand did for the Army and, by the successful efforts of Admiral Germinet, M. Delcasse, and Admiral Bque de Lapeyrere to undo the harm which M. Pelletan did to the fleet. M. Millerand almost entirely smoothed away the bad feeling caused by the persecution of officers because they were Catholics. A succession of excellent Ministers for the Navy have succeeded in untying the tangle'left by the man whose riew of his duties to the State was not inconsistent with a triumphal entry into Toulon Dockyard, accompanied by a red flag and a band playing the “International,” the Socialists’ hymn. Upon the complaints of sailors, sent direct to the Ministry or to the newspapers, officers were tried by secret tribunal. Criminals who should have gone to African punishment ships were drafted defiantly into vessels of the home fleets. Strikes were continuous. “Sabotage” (willful damage) destroyed life as well as property. The gravest faults were found with service material. However, M. Pelletan did his count rv one service. He disgusted Young France with the particular brand of Radical Socialism which he represents. And now that the Navy has recovered from his sinister reign, one can afford to look back upon it as an absurdity. But it might have easily been a disaster. To M. Pelletan and his associates Young France says: “Never again.”