IN THE PUBLIC EYE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17251, 19 August 1916, Page 12

IN THE PUBLIC EYE.

PROMINENT PEOPLE OF THE PERIOD. A popular novelist ought to bo a good war correspondent, because bo has tlio gift of imagination and a facility in the graphic presentation of facts, but experience proves otherwise. Either your writer’s personality monopolises the interest or his imagination is so active that ho never comes quite to grip with tho facts. Tho articles which Sir Arthur Conan Doylo has been writing for various London journals aro a striking illustration of tlio futility,, of trying to make a journalist out of a novelist. Sir Arthur goes' to France and visits the.front, and one is straightway alarmed lost ho should venture too close under tlie German guns—ns, indeed, he did. And when ho is there ho tells little of tho warfare hut much of personalities, adding many little touches of colour that aro fascinating and sometimes magnificent, but not war. When he ivont to the Argon no, for instance.-he was able to dismiss the trenches and the fighting in a few lines, but Iris guide, the commander of a. division, becomes a Cyrano, and Cyrano must havo his sixty or seventy lines of description all to himself.

They aro vivid enough, these personal notes, and quito to bo welcomed, provided one is not looking for real war correspondence. Here, for instance, is a. paragraph of the generals:—“’Tliat night we dined with yet another type of the French soldier, the general who commands the corps of which my friend has one division. Each of these French generals lias a striking individuality of his own, which I wish J could fix upon paper. Their only common point is that each seems to bo a iaro good soldier.' Tlio corps general is Athos with A touch of cl’Artagnan. Ho is well over six feet high, bluff, jovial, with huge, upcurling moustache,, aud a voice that would rally a regiment. It is ft grand figure, which should hare been done by Van Dyck with lace collar, hand on sword, and arm akimbo. Jovial and laughing was he. but a stern and hard soldier was lurking behind the smiles. His name may appear in history, and so may Humbert’s, who rules all the army of which tho other’s corps is a unit. Humbert is a Lord Roberts figure, small, wiry, quick-stepping, all steel and elastic, with a short, sharp, upturned moustache. which ono could imagine as crackling with electricity in moments of excitement like a cat’s fur. What ho does or says is quick, abrupt and to the point. He fires his remarks like pistol shots at this man or thnt. Once to my horror he fixed me with his hard little eyes and demanded ‘ Sherlock Holmes, est. ce qu’il est un soldat dans l’armee Anglaise?’ The whole table waited in an awful hush. 1 Mais, mon general,’ I stammered. ‘II est rop vieux pour service.’ There was general laughter, and I felt that T had scrambled out of au awkward place.”

Or take this example:—“ Yet another type of French general takes us round this morning.' He, too, is a man apart, an unforgetablo. man. Conceive a man with a large, broad goodhumoured face, and two placid, dark seal’s eves, which gaze gently into yours. Ho is young and has » pink cheeks and a soft voice. Such is one of the mast redoubtable fighters of France, this general of division. His former staff officers told me something or the man. He is a philosopher, a fatalist, impervious to fear, a dreamer of distant dreams amid tli® most furious bombardment. Tho weight of the French assault upon the terrible Labyrinth fell at one time upon the brigade which he then •commanded. He led them day after day gathering up Germans with the detached air of the man of s- i-nce who is hunting for specimens. In whatever shell-hole he might chance to bunch he had his cloth spread and decorated with wild flowers plucked from the edge. If fate be kind to him ho will go far. Apart from his valour ho is admitted to be ono of the most scientific soldiers of France.” r

The talk, however, is not all of soldiers. Sir Arthur met many prominent 'French civilians, and in his first article he digresses with a note concerning M. Clemencoau. “If ever, one wanders into the high places of mankind, the places whence the guidance should come,” he writes, “it seems to mo that one has to recall the dying words of the Swedish Chancellor who declared that the folly of thoso who governed jfcis what had amazed him most in his experience of life. Yesterday I met one of those men of power—M. Clomence.au, once Primo Minister, now the destroyer of governments. Ho is by nature a destroyer, incapable of rebuilding what he has pulled down. ' With his personal force, his eloquence, his thundering voice, his bitter pen, he could wreck any policy, but would nob even trouble to suggest an alternative. As lie sat before mo with his face of an old prizefighter (he is remarkably like Jim Mace as I can remember him in his later days), his angry grey eyes and bis truculent, mischievous smile, lie seemed to he a very dangerous man. His conversation, if a, squirt on one side and Niagara on the other can bo called conversation, was directed for the moment upon the iniquity of the English rate of exchange, which seemed to me very much like railing against the barometer. My companion, who has forgotten more economics than ever Clemenceau knew, was about to ask whether France was prepared to take the rouble at face value, hut the roaring voice, like * a strong gramophone with a blunt needle, submerged all argument. We have our dangerous mon, but we have no one in the same class as Clonienceau. Such men enrage the people who kuow them, alarm the people who don’t, set everv one by the ears, act as a healthy irritant in days of peace, and are a public danger in days of war.

There is a good deal more of what the working journalist would call the •‘meat” of war in Sir Arthur’s Italian articles, but even in these the novelist is not in touch with tho actual warfare. Thero is a brief note, all too brief, concerning tho Italian high command. ‘‘Tho Italians are excellently led ”ho writes. “ Gadorna is an old Roman a man cast in the big simple mould of antiquity, frugal in lus tastes, clear in his aims,' with no' thought outside his duty. Everyone loves and trusts him. Porro, tho Chiei of the Staff, who was good enough to explain the strategical position to me, struck me as.a man of groat, clearness ot vision, middle-sized, straight as a dart, with an eagle face grained and coloured like an old walnut. The whole of tho staff work is, as experts assure me, most- excellently done.”

And since Sir Arthur is himself a personage of consequence, one of his own adventures may be related. Ho was motoring to Monfajcone. the civilian cuts a ridiculous figure when ho enlarges upon any small adventures which may come his way-adven-tures which tho soldier endures in Bilcnce as part of his every-day life, he says. “On this occasion, liowcycr, tho episode was all our own, and had a sporting flavour m it which made it dramatic. I know now tho feeling of tense expectation with which tho driven grouse whirrs onwards towards tho butt. I have been behind tho butt before now, and it is only poetio justico that I should see

tho matter fron) the other point of view. As « approached Ronchi we could see shrapnel breaking over tho road in front of ns, hut we had not yet realised that it was precisely for vehicles that tho Austrians wore waiting. and that they had tho range marked out to 'a yard. We went down the road all out at a steady fifty miles an hour. Tho village was near, and it seemed that we hnd got past tho place of danger. We had in fact just'reached it. <• At this moment there was a noise as if the whole four tyres had gone simultaneously, a most terrific bang in our very cars, merging into a second sound like a reverberating blow upon an enormous gong. As I glanced up I saw three clouds immediately above my head, two of them white and the other of a dusty ‘rod. The air was full of flying metal and tho road, as wo were told afterwards by an observer, was all churned up by it. Tho metal base of one of the shells was found plumb in the middle of the road just where our motor had been. There is no use telling mo Austrian gunners can't shoot. I know better. It was our pace that saved us. The, motor was an open one, and the throe shells burst, ac'cording to ono of my Italian companions who was himself an artillery officer, about ten metres above our heads. They threw forward, however, and wo travelling at so great a pace shot from under. Before they could got in another we had swung round the curve and under the lec of a house. The good Colonel B. wrung my hand in silence. They wore both distressed, theso good soldiers, under the impression that they had led me into danger. As a matter of fact it was T who owed them an apology, sinee they had enough .risks in the way of business without taking others in order to gratify the whim of a joyrider/’