THE H.B. TRIBUNE. SATURDAY, JAN. 27th, 1917. FRENCH AND ENGLISH.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume VI, Issue 340, 27 January 1917, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE. SATURDAY, JAN. 27th, 1917. FRENCH AND ENGLISH.

lx an article, whose brevity is its least satisfactory feature. Captain Philippe Millet. French “Officer of Liaison’’ with one of the British divisions in France gives some of his impressions gathered from his close association with the officers ami men of Kitchener s Army. He opens by saying that, when he joined the staff.'he soon realised that the only poitit on which the two armies thoroughly disagree is the subject of draughts, the Briton having a real genius for the invention of draughts, even w hen there is only one windowin the room, while the Frenchman alwtivs avoids draughts where he possible can. even in the trenches. With this airv introduction, he goes on to say that, for the rest, he felt himself quite at home in the British Armv. This pleasant feeling was due in a large degree to the treatment which he and the other French officers attached to the Expeditionary Force experienced alike from the British senior officers and from British comrades. His twelvemonths of close contact with the British soldiery taught him the one great fact, which might prove astonishing to some people, and this is that the differences between the British and the French temper are, on the whole, superficial. He confesses that this was to him a most bewildering discovery. His conclusion was not one at which he arrived speedily, for he had been duly impressed by the many brilliant writers of both nations who had busied themselves with pointing out how few features the two peoples had in common. He had thus a life-long belief to shake off, but war he found was a great teacher, revealing many hidden things, tearing off external garments, and making one look at other folk’s naked souls. One of the first things he discovered was that the British officer, of to-day at any rate, in no way answered to the description oi the military hero in English novels. Having read many of these, he fully expected the average British officer tp be a silent, slow-minded sportsman, full of manly qualities, such as self-respect and self-control, but admirable rather than amiable, and, on the whole, not very human. He was therefore very much surprised to find many of the senior officers very talkative, one full colonel talking himself to death at every supper, with a variety of gesture that a Gatin Southerner might have envied. Although the war and its conduct were, naturally, the stock subjects of conversation, it still ranged over a variety of other topics, and he was especially struck with the freedom of criticism levelled at politicians of all shades and ranks. In this respect, he says, “they couia beat any French officer pointless, 1 cursing their own Government with unfailing vigour.” Of self-control they certainly haa a good deal, but they did not overdo it in any way, and he gives amusing instances of choleric outbreaks that fully justify his statement, putting the particular Britons cited on a pinnacle of distinction far above any vociferous and gesticulating Frenchman, whose profanity, he has regretfully to admit, lacks the sincerity and convincing quality of the British type. When it came to a question of courage he was again pleased to find that the fiesh-and-blood British officer did not fulfil the ideal presented by the literature of the circulating library. “Of course,” he says, “they were all very brave men. Indeed they behaved in a very peculiar way, under the most unpleasant circumstances—as if they were playing golf on a peaceful green. We had a brigadier-general, for instance, who was uncommonly remarkable in this respect, for be would, in the midst of a battle, carefully pick out the most dangerous .spot and make it his report-centre, as if lie was enjoying a showerbath.” But cases like this were exceptional, and in many’ instances the resentment against the enemy's too close attentions brought forth unholy protests strongly tinged with an unconscious indignation that was highly 7 entertaining. There was quite a likeable sincerity’ about those who thu.s frankly recognised that'fear was not unknown to them, yet did not permit it for one moment to interfere witli the fulfilment of duty 7 and the achievement, of feats of valour that went far beyond it. In many other ways, which he particularises and illustrates, the French officex- found points of similarity of which he had hitherto been quite ignorant, and he winds up with theconclusion that “after all the only great difference between the two allied armies is that one speaks English and the other French. Perhaps,”, he adds, “this war will not only deliver us from the Germans, blit also from all the silly’ prejudices which used to make an Englishman think that a Frenchman is bound to be an extraordinary creature, and vice-viisa I’oi «e a><‘ at bottom ‘both made of the same wood,’ as people say in Fiance ; we are equally? human, we hare the «ame defects, and the same trick of kicking when a bully comes across our path.”