THE BARONESS SEES IT THROUGH.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18959, 4 January 1930, Page 6

THE BARONESS SEES IT THROUGH.

A CONVINCING HUMAN DOCUMENT. (By An Old Stagi-r.i LOXDOX, November 21. It would be droll indeed if the best of all the war books, the one out of tlie whole clanjamfry to retain enduring literary interest, were written by an old lady who was alive in 1870. Having read everything yet published about the war, with the dual attention of old soldier and older reviewer, I find the Baroness Brnest de la Grange s “Open House In Flanders,” published ty John Murray at 15s, incomparably the most convincing and fascinating human document of the lot. lam not even sure that it will not eventually take its place in. the select company of the world’s most famous diaries. It mav live with Madame de Sevinge, and our own Pepys. This is tremendous praise, but even a grizzled journalist may be allowed a little honest enthusiasm on occasion.

The Baroness belongs to an ancient patrician family, and is chatelaine of La Motte au Bois, a fine French chateau dating back to 1066. This statelv Flemish home, adjoining the Forest of Nieppe close to Mervilie behind the Bethune-Bailleul sector of the old Western ' Front, was right in the midst of the fighting. It was for long the billet of successive British staffs. Allenby, Byng, Horne, Bird wood, and other famous Brass Hats shared the Baroness’s gallant "open house.” King George and the Prince of Wales as well as the Queen of the Belgians visited it. The Baroness became known as “the Mother of the British Army” and “the Duchess of Anzac.” She stuck to her home even when cavalry skirmishes were enacted at its doors, when shells burst in Nieppe Forest, machineguns crackled amongst the undergrowth, and German helmets glimmered in the dusk round her garden.

Finally she had to leave, when even the British staff beat a rapid exit, and German shells were demolishing the ancient walls. Her diary gives a qipuant record of this unique experience. But to the absorbing interest of such a record, simply narrated day by day, is added the fascination of a remarkable personality. The Baroness, who had been many years a widow before Armageddon engulfed her lawns, is a magnificent type of the grande dame of pre-revolutionary French history, indomitable, aristocratic, capable, witty, vivacious, and with just a soupcon of that delicate naughtiness that suggests the delightful Court scandals of old monarchist days. Just as her witty ancestors jested between snuff pinches in the turnBrils, so Baroness de la Grange joked amid shell bursts of 1914-18. and some of her jokes ring with the subtle laughter of Balzac.

Though her own son was at all the hazards of the war, first with the cavlary, then with trench mortars, and later with the Flying Corps, and she had a brother-in-law and innumerable other relatives serving France gallantly in the field, her own peril and those of her kinsmen never caused her to neglect what she regarded as her duty ; to her guests. Never can open house have been more graciously kept under such amazingly trying conditions. She took the British Army to her heart, and, through thick and thin, mothered the staff while befriending t< e Tom mies. When all ,her servants had left her in terror, while refugees from surrounding villages flocked past, she remained with one young nun, cooking soup for the wretched folk in an old laundry cauldron. She was taking a stroll near her chateau, when the officer of a British cavalry patrpl dismounted to ask her which way a* troop of Uhlans had gone, and, having directed him, she heard the sound, and later found the signs, of the grim encounter that ensued. But it is essential, if the true quality of this literary vintage is to be appreciated, that the Baroness should speak for herself. Here is one sample of the days before the British arrived, when alarms of enemy cavalry wete constant, and the people around were fleeing for life. A neighbour drew up his car at the gates and urged her to take the one vacant seat. “Madame, come! Only three miles from here they have assaulted even a countess!” To which the Baroness replied, “ Well, so much the worse; they will assault mel” The diary proceeds: “ I heard a crash behind me. It was the little sister, who had collapsed into a chair in such fits of laughter that I was thunderstruck. Before my scandalised face she recovered herself to say: ‘With all due respect, madame, it doesn’t seem to worry you much!’ Oh! these Parisians! Even a nun, at such a time, could not resist a little mockery!’’ Later, that same little sister, when the chateau was full of wounded French soldiers, spent her Sunday rolling cigarettes for them.

Another characteristic entry relates how the old Reverend Mother o: the convent eams in a state of great agitation, complaining that men of the Cavalry Corps were bathing in the canal in their birthday suits, “and no other.” so that the young girls, going to church or convent, “ obtained sights of a most unorthodox nature.” When the Baron ess remonstrated with General Allenby. who was then billeted at the chateau, he asked her to fix the limits of the bathing pool herself, which was done by means of boards marked “ Bath.” Next da\% when she was writing letters in the library. General Allenby, “with the expression on his face that l now know precedes sarcasm,” walked ir»

“ My dear lady,” he said. “ you know those signposts we put in yesterday ? Well, I wanted to see if things were all right, so I went there this morning. All your girls were there, watching the bathing! ” But, mingled with similar comic relief in the way of domestic sidelights on the Great War as seen close up, the Baroness reveals many most important and interesting facts about the 1914-18 epoch that make her diary cf absorbing interest. And she narrates, with a vivid literary style that gains everything from its fine simplicity, some most grim and dramatic episodes. The pen-picture of the Trappist monks at prayer amidst the battle raging on the Mount of Cats, when Prince Max of Hesse was mortally wounded by a machine-gun bullet and died ir riie Father Superior’s arms, is only one such instance that comes readily to mind. Those who were actuallv in the war, and know its real psychology, will find “ Open House in Flanders ” a far more moving and true picture of what they experienced than all the morbid hysteria of the pacifist chroniclers or the exaggerated earthquake and eclipse of the romanticists. The shrewd, cultured grande dame of La Motte au Bois tells the story of the war from a new angle with captivating piquancy and thrilling succinctness. Maybe her diary will cause front-line soldiers to confirm their impressions about the lives and habits of Brass Hats But that rather clinches the engrossing fidelity of this unique war book. It is the most readable volume I have opened since the mud of Flanders faded into an epic memory of scarlet poppies.