VALIANT AND STRONG AS EVER.
FRANCE HAS NOT BEEN «BLE<D WHITE."
ARMIES NEVEIft SO ~O<JD'
(By Edward Price Bell, m the "Daily Mail.")
Mr Edward Price Bell is the doyen oh the United States newspaper correspondents .in England. A native of Indiana, lie has represented the 'Chicago "Bativ News',' in -.Londoii< continuously'since 1900. Mr Bell achieved national celebrity a year ago by his series- of ,striking letters to "The Times ' .-foreshadowing' the-~certainty of AmeVican intervention in the-war Latterly he had been devoting himself to "interpreting" America and the Americans in lectures 'at Englis'i public schools) ['France is bled white." f So we have been told.
After eight busy days in that wonderful country, I have a 'fresh sense of the wideness of the gulf between rhetoric and reality. France is not bled white. France has less red blood than siie did have, but'sho has an ocean of red blood yet._ Many hundreds of thousands of glorious Frenchmen have died in this war, but many more hundreds of thousands are alive and well and ready to give their lives for the cause in-which their compatriots perished. ■ Of course, it was only a glimpse 1 had of France; no one can get more in eight days. But 1 saw masses of French soldiers and of French civilians. I saw divisions' on the march, and saw scores of hamlets, villages and cities. 1 saw something of France's broad agricultural acreage.. JN'ot a soul I saw in the army or out of it, nor airything that came before my eyes, lent the slightest colour to the suggestion that France is bled white.
Never before have her armies been so good, thdugh this is saying almost incredibly much. It can be said only because her armies are still sufficiently numerous and are more highly skilled than at any previous time, 'they are more highly skilled because in this war armies learn every day. Experiments are ceaseless. Strategy.' tactics, and machinery rue progressive. In none of these things are the French second to anvorie.
Most of the roads for miles behind the French front resound by day and by night with the tramp of troops. However far one motors one seems never to comu to the end o f them. Sturdy men they are, m the pink of condition, tough as leather. ' Infantry, cavalry, and artillery alternate
I travelled from Amiens to Paris and •from Paris to Harve, and found the French .nation—the substructure of iu-ench civilisation—at the back c the armies, industrially and. ■ commercially holding, like n citadel, the foundations of those armies. 1 wont to France expecting to find melancholy, covering the country as with a veil. I expected" that at best the nation would seem gaunt and haggard. Surely 1 should find something answering to the phrasal bled white. ' i
Not. at all. »
Instead of those things I saw shining thrpugi". the handsome face.s of the men , W1!;- beautiful laces of tho women and children the old magnificent spirit that hzs filled French history with splendour. Paris, with that* awful dooa of Prussian-savagery held in check by Jreuch and British manhood only a lew miles away, is as r-elf-possessed' as is London If the military dam broke lans would be inundated: but Paris lives, works, and play? unafraid. Factories, shops, theatres, music-halls, picture palaces, hotels, restaurants,' and the streets of the great and beautiful city are aquiver with life. True darkness claims the whole outer world of 1 ans at-mgns. True, coal is dear, food is dear, and the pinch of war is felt far and wide. But what-matters is that the spirit of the people is not only unbroken but unbent.
If the streets are smothered in gloom after sunset, lights glow within the dark walls. People cat, drink, watch the play, chat, laugh, ihake love as in happier days., Any; great restaurant at night furnishes an absorbing spectacle ot animated manhood and wonfanhood. borne of the finest faces one can see in the world are there— -faces of soldiers and civilian men, faces or jnen remarkable alike for personality and for beauty. Th-jse mirrors one "searches -in vain for evidence that France suffers her misfortunes with anything bu« invincible moral. '
Go among the crowds that throno- f,h e streets in daylight and you got the same'impression. If yon" expect languor and depression you find vigour and buoyancy to a degree nothing .short of astounding. In a word, in spite of all! its losses and sorrows," Paris rings with the old voices and leaps with the old vivacity. Mourning i s viable every-, where, but how charmingly, iiow bright- ■ ly it is worn! Parisian women jppoar to! regard it as a. patriotic duty, white: showing by their dress that'they have been bereaved, not to spread an atmosphere of grief. Their black frocks are beautifully cut and. worn with incomparable charm. It is the same vvith the httlo girls; in their costumes! of unrelieved sombreness they are tho perfection of dainty elegance. France, as i saw her, has more and better food . than' has " Britain. I saw rectangular lurcps of luminous white sugar that made my mouth v.ater. I brought a few of these back to London,! not"to eat, but to exhibit! Britons of all classes, 1 feel sure, are on shorter! rations than are the French; yet even I British rations are adequate, aacl promise to become better rather than worse. Such-are my. impressions from a kind of kinematograph gkuco as • parts of! France and at the "French capital. V went expecting to be saddened, andj came away deeply gladdened. let 1 would not project -a false perspective. France's miseries,, her sacrifices, her efnux of energy, blood, money, and material has been stupendous. She could not go on for over as sho has been going j on ior three Nand a half years. Witn all her might America should hurry. Already the American uniform meets one at every turn in Paris,, and is seen I at every Parisian centre. American soldiers are streaming to the front. But where we have thousands,' hundreds ■ of thousands, possibly millions, will be' needed. Unlimited numbers of cannon also are a crying necessity.. America can make them and transport them, and save innumerable lives. France believes she will do it. Every officer, British or French,, that 1 saw in France believes she will do it. 1 certainly believe she will do it. '
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Bibliographic details
Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14654, 7 March 1918, Page 3
Word Count
1,065VALIANT AND STRONG AS EVER. Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14654, 7 March 1918, Page 3
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