FRANCE AT WAR.

Timaru Herald, Volume CIII, Issue 15742, 28 August 1915, Page 9

FRANCE AT WAR.

LIGHT-HEARTED BUT EARNEST. "LIVING THE WAR." LONDON, August 26. Mr Rudyard Kipling, writing to the ' 'Daily Telegraph/' after a visit to th© west front, says Franco is not merely fighting this war, she is living it, and with gaiety and a high heart that does not hide her cold deadly earnestness and tenacity of purpose. The whole of France is working at the utmost pressure, soaked with a strong determination. Wo will reach that stage in. time. It is not yet realised how France is living this war. We must be made to understand it. Have we conceived that in Franee every man is 'assigned a duty by the military? Every woman is engaged, in war duties .and has no time for anything else. It is marvellous to see the readiness, endurance and light-heartedness of Frenchmen. All agree that the only good Bosche [German] is a dead Bosche. j He saw a parade of forty thousand. There was no ceremonial and this made its all the more impressive because it was simply a passing of hard-bitten fighting men. He watched the efficiency of the seventy-fives, officers .working to a thirty yards clearance' over their own infantry. Nothing that England can do is enough to keep abreast of such an allv.