New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-08-02
England and France.

War fills so much of the horizon while
II is going forward that there is always a
temptation to set down as permanent
things which are transitory and dependent
upon the conditions and emotions growing
cut of conflict This is particularly true
Of the hatreds that grow out Of strife; 1t
Is only less true of alliances, and there Is
sound reason for refraining from attach
ing too much Importance TO alliances
which are made during the war.
And yet, having said this, 1t remains
true that no more surprising, no more IN
teresting and certainly no more hopeful
sign can be found in the whole history OF
the present conflict than the slow, steady,
but ever growing friendship between
France and Britain, conditioned upon a
growing understanding between two peo-
ples who over centuries have either mlsun-
derstood each other or too well understood
the less attractive sides of their neighbor
Now more than all else the progress OF
the war has taught Britain the true France
the France that always existed. Moth
ing is more preposterous than the notion
that the France Of to-day is different from
the France Of yesterday. But what mill
ions of Englishmen have seen is the true
France that escapes the mere traveller
and for the mass of the people Of Eng
land as of America France was Just
geographical expression.
And no one can read the British press,
the letters of the soldiers in the trenches,
the comments of military critics and the
simplest of civilians without feeling that
here has come home TO the whole British
people a newer and truer appreciation Of
great people long their enemies and only
recently their allies.
Over and over again, sometimes little
aaively, sometimes crudely, but with I'M
nistakable sincerity and conviction, there
s spread out in the testimony Of British
,oldiers an unnieasured admiration for the
men and women Of France, for the cour-
,ge. the devotion, the steadfastness Of the
french living in the midst of their ruins,
n the presence of their dead, on the very
odee Of that abyss which yawns beyond
he firing line.
Conversely the understanding Of the
British by the French has marched for
ward a little more slowly. The awful
Ioubt of the days when Britain seemed
irresolute. when the war had come, this
remained in the French mind for months.
Small wonder. too, that for days weeks
and months France waited anxiously,
little despairingly, for Britain to be ready.
Yet. with it all, with the doubts, the dis
appointments, the delays, no one who
knows France can fail to recognize that
appreciation of British purpose, British
LOYALTY. above all British good faith, has
increased with every succeeding month OF
the war. No one can mistake the fact
that to-day, when Britain is at last be-
ginning to lift a portion Of the terrible
burden of the war off French soldiers,
there is final and a just appraisal Of
Britain from the Pyrenees to the German
firing line.
In nothing has German intrigue been
less successful than in the effort to foment
trouble between the two Allies. The at
tack upon Verdun was beyond all else an
attenrpt to convince France that Britain
was not ready to help her and never would
be, that France must surrender or die.
French military authorities measured
this threat and they appraised French
spirit accurately. There is nothing In the
whole war finer than the French and
British course in the Verdun crisis. Act
ually the British were still unready, but
Sir Douglas Haig promptly offered to be-
gin. Joffre declined to let him. He chose
to have France carry on" terrible as was
the cost, until the British were ready.
Always, too, in the later months of the
war the British have frankly and without
question conformed to the will of the
French military commanders. Britain has
sent hundreds Of thousands Of men to
France and in effect turned them over TO
the orders of Joffre. His will has pre-
vailed. Even in the matter Of Salonica
Kitchener bowed to Joffre and British
troops followed the French to the Balkans.
After ~. the amazing thing about the
Anglo-FIench alliance is not that it has
not always worked perfectly, but that it
has worked at all, that it has worked with
ever increasing efficiency, and that out of
the fusion of these people, so different in
their race history and in their traditions,
there has grown a mutual confidence and
respect which it is not too much TO say
will remain a potent influence in Eu-
ropean history for many decades at least.
The growth of Anglo-French confidence
has quite baffied the German. From the
outset his higher policy has leen directed
at estranging two enemies that he might
destroy them separately. To-day he still
warns Frenchmen that the British mean