Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-07-01
Anglo French Unity Welded as Big Battle Looms
Continued from Page One

Continued from Page One
which had been gained by desperate
and heroic endeavor in the early bat.
ties of Flanders and the Somme, one
has a sense of thankfulness that the
enemy was checked before he could
do greater damage and that the Brit.
ish forced him to give them time to
| reorganize and build up their strength
with their young drafts that filled up
the gaps. They are now strong in
defense again, and during the last
two months. while the enemy has been
preparing for fresh assaults on a pro.
digious scale, an immense amount of
work has been done behind the Brit.
ish lines and at the front to give
them greater security when the next
thrust comes.
The weather has been astonishing
| in the number of sunny days. Now
and then storm clouds have gathered,
Threatening a deluge, but after a few
showers the sky has cleared again,
and on this first day of July it is still
blue and brilliant. and all this north
ern France which is our fighting
ground is a glory of green and gold,
where wheat is growing tall and the
new cut is yellowing in the sun and
the air is heavy with the scent of
flowers.
The British soldiers are helping the
French peasants to make their hay. and
the refugees who still come down the
roads with farm carts and cattle from
villages, which may be under fire when
another battle begins, find friendly
| Tommies with helping hands in their
wayside camps. During the last three
months of history, full of menace and
ira gedieS terror in their early days, one
thing has happened which ought to
count for something in the future of the
world 1t is the closer comradeship and
finer understanding between the French
/ and British armies and between the
| British soldiers and the French people
! In all the experiences which have fol-
/ lowed March 81, Field Marshal Haig's
men have been most impressed by the
/ tragic plight and courage of the viii
layers and country folk who were
caught in the moving tide of war. Shells
came smashing into some of their towns
before they could escape and some Of
I them We're killed, and many villages
and hamlets which had been safe be-
! hind the lines. so that the fields were
cultivated as though in world far from
war, were brought suddenly into the
| danger zone.
The women there were wonderful,
and the young girls gallant beyond all
/
remember that during those bad days
the admiration and pity Of .he English
soldiers for these defenseless people were
translated into helpful acts which have
| left deep impression in France
Amid the traffic of guns and transport
when the armies were falling back with
| the enemy close upon them. the Tommies
! crowded the civilians into lorries and
wagons, fed them with their own
rations, carried their babies for them
and rescued old people at the risk of
their own lives from villages under
shell fire.
New brotherhood in Arms
These things will not he forgotten.
! During that time also there grew up a
new brotherhood of arms between
French and British soldiers. The
French realized that the British armies
had been confronted with the full and
frightful weight Of the German hordes
and that their line was strung out too
! thinly, for its numbers had sustained
the thrust of so many German divisions.
When these stricken troops had
fought themselves out, not without hav-
ing inflicted the heaviest losses upon the
I enemy, French troops poured up from
!Amiens to Flanders and that new
strength assisted in bringing the Ger
mans to a standstill. 1t was then that
the brotherhood of the French and
British armies was sealed as never be-
fore.
The fighting men Of both nations inter-
mingled. Both fought side by side in
the battle raging around Meteren and
Nierestraat, and the French at KENNEL,
under the terrible bombardment-Ver-