CERTAIN KINDS OF FISH

Southland Times, Issue 19157, 29 January 1924, Page 4

CERTAIN KINDS OF FISH

While Mr Ramsay MacDonald is telling the French people in plain terms that the British people are uneasy about the expan sion of France’s military power and her military influence on small nations, there may be some thoughtful people who will wonder if the British habit of decrying the nation’s own leaders has had any effect on the prestige of the nation in the .world of arms. In Australia some years ago the depreciation of one’s own products was fitted with an expressive if offensive title. This objectionable habit was known as “crying stinking fish,” and it was repulsive enough to be apt. Unfortunately during the war and Rafter it the achievements of British arms were belittled and the French leaders scooped up all the credit. The British Army was again a collection of lions led by asses, and yet the Americans found when they reached France that the British organisation and development in the science of warfare had put them in advance of the French. TJie story of Lord Haig’s work reveals a great deal, but not all, because it does not show how much better informed of the German plans and movements were the British than the French. From the start of the last Allied offensive the hand of Haig was writ large on the Allied strategy. His modification of Foch’s original plan brought the war to a close in 1918 by preventing the dispersal of energy. In the dark days of 1918 the French Intelligence was at fault time after tinie, as was the Nivelle plan of 1917. Foch owed his appointment as Generalissimo to Haig’s anxiety to prevent a separation of the French and British armies, which Petain, following the strategical line he had favoured in 1914, had said he would effect. Britain’s commanders were villified by British critics, but there has not been so much-talk concerning the French mistakes, and to-day the world looks to France as the repository of all military knowledge. The effect of this is not difficult to see. When a nation wants a military adviser a Frenchman is called in. Prior to the,war the British Navy held a similar position in its sphere, and its despatch of advisers to other countries was beneficial politically, economically and in the realm of war. To-day a host of critics have destroyed the prestige of the Navy and it does very .little in the way of training foreign navies. These things may not strike the laymen as being matter of first-rate importance, but in the expansion of France’s military power—the ramifications of her effort is now becoming clear—the legend of her unchallenged genius is a big factor, while Britain’s diminished prestige and power comes from her predilection for a certain kind of fish.