JS;q»\'ember i6, 19 16 
LAND & WATER 
13 
The French and Their Allies 
By Lewi's R. Freeman 
[This article, if must be borne in viind, is from the 
■pen of a Neutral. Mr. Lewis Freeman is an eminent 
American journalist. He has lately been in France. 
The impressions he gives here are all first-hand, and 
the relationship between France and her Allies to -which 
he bears testimony has been investigated on the spot.] 
THE increasing confidence of the peoples of the 
various Allied countries in each other is one of 
the most significant developments of the third 
year of the great war. From the first the Allied 
Governments have been closelv in accord as to the 
uhimate ends to be striven for, and the differences 
of opinion as to the way in which these ends were to be 
compassed have never proved irreconcilable. 
History will reveal that the several members of the 
Quadruple Entente have shown the greatest readiness 
to exert their efforts in the common behalf to the full 
extent of their ability whenever a call for help has been 
made, but because military effort is more tangible and 
spectacular than the supplying of men and material, 
or even "silent " naval pressure (which has formed and 
will continue to form so large a part of Britain's con- 
tribution), these latter have not always been adequately 
appreciated by the people of the countries that have been 
the greatest beneficiaries. It is for this reason that the 
French people— and, indeed, the world at large— were 
never fully convinced of the seriousness and sincerity 
of England's purpose in the war until British man- 
power was organised on a Continental basis and the 
British soldier fell into step with the French soldier 
in the great attack upon the Sommc. 
Tiiere is often a wide divergence between the com- 
paratively uninformed popular opinion of a country 
and the thoroughly informed official opinion. The 
French Government has understood from the out- 
set not only the value of England's financial and in- 
dustrial efforts, but has also been able to weigh and 
allow for the tremendous difficulties confronting that 
country before a war organisation comparable to that 
which existed in Germany for many years before the out- 
break of the present struggle could be perfected. This 
knowledge made the French 'Government extremely 
reluctant to call on England for any help beyond such as 
It had every reason to believe could be freely and readily 
granted, and there is no doubt that M. Briand spoke 
the literal truth when he said recently that Great Britain 
. had never yet answered nay to an appeal from France 
for assistance. 
As typical of the French official appreciation of the 
difficulties confronting England in organising for a 
Continental war, I will quote the words of a distinguished 
staft officer whom I sat next to during luncheon at 
Matt Headquarters, on the occasion of a recent visit 
to one of the French armies. 
"On a visit to England from which I returned a few 
days ago, he said. " I was taken to one of the great 
new munition factories just being put in operation. 
Here I was shown a thousand or more new machines 
for performing a certain operation in munition-making 
Now not only were these machines not in existence 
before the war, but it was even necessary to make 
machines to make parts of other machines that were 
needed for the rapid turning out of certain parts of the 
first one. One of these latter machines had over 500 
parts, and many thousands of separate measurements and 
many months of time were required before the first 
working model could be turned out. Knowing that 
practically the whole of England's vast war organization 
had to be created anew, those of us who understand the 
situation, far from being impatient of what some have 
characterized as that country's 'glacial slowness' in 
making her weight felt in the land war, have con- 
stantly marvelled at what has actually been accomplished 
in the face of difficulties that would have dismayed 
a less resolute people, toward maV.ing that weight count 
overwhelmingly in the end." 
. This, as I have said, fairly characterizes the attitude 
of official and informed France toward Great Britain 
as an Ally. That of educated France outside official 
circles seems to me to have been well stated by the dis- 
tinguished Vicomte X , to whom I had brought a 
letter of introduction from America and at whose chateau 
on the upper Seine I spent a couple of days last week. 
A Gallant Foe and Ally 
" There have been times," he said, " when some of 
my frjends have expressed impatience at the seeming 
deliberation of England in coming to our aid on the 
Western Front, and to these I have always replied that 
a nation that had been as gallant a foe to France as 
England had proved herself during several centuries 
could not but prove a gallant ally. To me, as an old 
soldier of France, the pride of knowing that we were 
stemming the full might of Germany with French bayonets 
more than offset any apprehension I may ever have had 
as to the ultimate issue ; and, in case of need, I always 
felt sure that England could be depended upon for 
any effort that was really needed, just as she finally 
consented to launching the joint offensive on the Somme 
a month or two before she was entirely ready in order 
to relieve the pressure at Verdun." 
Of the great bulk of the French public, however, 
England had to win the confidence bv action and achieve- 
ment as a military power, and untifthc Somme offensive 
was well under way this was not done. When scarcely 
one Enghshman in a hundred realised the gathering 
might of his country's war effort, it is not strange that 
the average Frenchman— who knows little of sea-power 
and economics of war finance— should have felt that 
France was doing a disproportionate amount of fighting 
and bleeding in the common cause. An Englislf lady, 
long resident in Paris and prominent in war relief work 
from the outset, told me a few days ago that the position 
of a British subject in France during the first two j^ears 
of the war was a good deal like that of Americans in 
France or England to-day. 
" We saw France fighting, fighting for her very life 
before our eyes, and felt that our country somehow 
ought to be lending more aid than she was. We knew 
little of the nature of the task of creating a, war machine 
which confronted the Government at home, and were 
impatient that more Englishmen were not fighting by 
the side of the French. We felt apologetic, and yet. 
Our New Serial 
'THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE, from the pen 
* of M. Maurice LeUanc, the creator of Arsme 
Liipin, imll begin in next week's Land & Water. 
Arsrne Lupin, ivho it was generally thought was 
dead, reappears in " The Golden Triangle." 
In this dramatic story M. Lehlanc is chiefly con- 
cerned with the mystery that surrounds the " Little 
Mother Coralie," a volunteer nurse xvorking in a 
military hospital in Paris, and Captain Belval, one 
of her patients who has lost a leg in the imr. 
M. Maurice Lehlanc is the brother of Mme. 
Maeterlinck. He is old enough to remember as 
a thild the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. 
He has -^hid several visits to England, and has 
been helping at Etretat with the British wounded. 
Paris is his home for the greater part of the year, 
and Paris. is lite scene of the amazing adventures 
described in " TJte Golden Triangle." 
The English translation has hebn made by Mr. 
Alexander Teixeira de M altos. 
