JOFFRE AND VICTORY.

Western Star, 21 April 1916, Page 3

JOFFRE AND VICTORY.

LONDON, February 23. Mr Owen Johnson, the American novelist, is in France, where he is driving a Red Cross ambulance. He has written a book of his experiences, which will appeal soon, and it contains a report of an interview h© had with General Joffre. ‘•Peace to-day,” said the French Generalissimo, “would be a crime towards posterity. It would only be an armistice in which every nation would continue feverishly to prepare for war. The French nation is too intelligent to deceive itself or to be deceived. We are not fighting a nation with the same ideas as our own, but a nation drunk with the idea of imperial domination, a nation which believes that in the progress of the world there is no place for little nations. ‘‘The decision,” he went on, “as to whether Europe will continue as free and individual States will be made in this war alone. Either we win the right now to continue democratic and peaceful or we surrender Europe to the imposition of an imperial idea. You will find wherever you go that the French people know this. You will find them absolutely of one opinion. They are prepared for anything and they know what the issue is. We do not need to lie to our soldiers.

“No matter how long the war lasts,” added General Joffre, “it will be fought out until we have conquered the right to leave a heritage of peace to our children.”