10 
LAND & WATER 
March 29, 1917 
Verdun, and you're about fed up. Don't worry — we 
are licTc, and we're going to give it them hot ! " 
,;By one of those revulsions in public opinion that are 
very instructise the actions and exploits of the British 
army, once regarded as events of almost negligible im- 
portance, now arouse the most prodigious interest in the 
French trenches : " Just wait till the English get at them ! 
— The English won't let them go in a hurry ! — The English 
are a sheer wonder ! " Stories of the feats of the English 
arouse passionate enthusiasm : they carry with them the 
conviction that victory is certain and close at hand. 
Tommy has not failed to respond to this appreciation oi 
his valour and importance. He has lost his original 
shyness, but he knows perfectly well that his French 
comrade has been through greater hardships even than 
himself, and that after all it is the defenders of Verdun 
who head the list of heroes. 
Therefore, though the grounds of their opinions may 
be different, the two armies respect each other, admire 
each other, and love each other with the same affection. 
Rise of the Anglo-French Entente 
By J. Holland Rose, Litt.D. 
(Author of The Dtoelopmtnt of tht European ?^alhna (1870-1914); The Life of Pitt ; The Life of V^aptUon I, etc.) 
Ti 
^O suppose that any nation can be unalterably 
the enemy of another is weak and childish. 
It has its foundation neither in the experience 
of nations nor in the history of man." Those 
memorable words of Pitt the Younger, uttered in the 
debate of February i2th, 1787, reduced to silence the 
carping critics (including Burke and Fox) who censured 
his recent enlightened Treaty of Commerce with France. 
(Friendly commercial dealings with our " natural enemy ! " 
Was anj'thing so monstrous ? ) During five years that first 
Enienle CordiaU benefited both nations. Then came 
war and the cynics jeered. During more than a 
century (except for a brief space after 18 15 and 
the Anglo-French Treaty of Commerce of i860) the 
horizon remained overcast ; and not until 1904 were the 
hopes of Pitt fully realized. A student of Adam Smith, 
he saw that commerce ought to unite rather than sever 
the two great nations of the West ; and ultimately, as we 
shall see, it has become a binding force. So soon as each 
people understood that the prosperity of its neighbour 
was a benefit, not a curse, hoary hatreds were doomed. 
That understanding dawned slowly, especially in France, 
where the Republics founded in 1792, 1848 and 1870, 
have been commercially more exclusive than the pre- 
ceding monarchies. But, finally, the French have 
learnt the lesson, without which the Entente would be 
an empty exchange of pretty phrases. 
Not only faulty economics but grasping political pro- 
grammes kept the two peoples apart during ages. 
Omitting temporary and personal provocations (such as 
clashing dynastic claims) we may ascribe Anglo-French 
conflicts mainly to three causes (I) Disputes concerning 
supremacy in the Netherlands (II) Questions of maritime 
ascendancy (III) Colonial rivalries. It is impossible here 
to do more than glance at these topics. 
(1) From the daysof William III, to those of George III, 
Franco- British wars arose mainly from the resolves of 
Louis XIV, and Louis XV, to dominate the Nether- 
lands. Waterloo was not the last word on that question ; 
for, during the Belgian Revolution of 1830-1, French troops 
marched in to help expel the Dutch ; and French interests 
for a time promised to be paramount. However, the 
final Act of 1839 constituted Belgium an independent 
State under the guarantee of all the Great Powers ; and 
that Act was hailed as ending the most permanent cause 
of Anglo-French disputes. (5ur apprehensions, however, 
revived in and after 1866, when Napoleon III, was 
revoking schemes for the partition of Belgium ; and 
the lack of sympathy with France during the early part 
of the Franco-German war arose from the same dominant 
feeling. Even after the second Empire vanished amidst the 
smoke of Sedan, the British Government would do almost 
nothing for the young Republic. In vain did M. Thiers 
proceed to London, in the month of September, 1870, 
during that pathetic tour of appeal to the neutrals to 
intervene on behalf of France. Mr. Gladstone and Lord 
Granv ille had promised Parliament before the recess that 
the United Kingdom would preserve strict neutrality. 
In December an equally pressing appeal by M. Frederic 
Reitr.n'j;er, the pri\'ate secretary of Jules Favre, met 
with no better response, though he pointed out with 
equal wisdom and eloquence that British intervention 
(possiMy supported by that of Austria) would lead to a 
durable peace ; while persistence in an insular policy 
would leave England friendless at the next outbreak of 
trouble in the Near East. Lord Granville remained 
inflexible ; and France long resented the impassiveness 
with which the British Government, if not the British 
people, looked on at her spoliation and the immense 
aggrandisement of German power. Even the friendly 
remonstrances of the Disraeli Cabinet in the spring of 
1875, during the bellicose threats of the German war- 
party against France, did not efface the bitter memories of 
England's " desertion " of her former Ally. Our conduct 
sprang largely from suspicion as to French pohcj' 
respecting Belgium. 
(II) That the British and French were age-long rivals 
at sea is a truism. From the days of Torrington and 
Russell to those of St. Vincent and Nelson the " natural 
enemy " was France. Why, then, have those maritime 
enmities ceased ? Partly because the two nations, after 
Waterloo, tacitly agreed to expand in different directions; 
and colonial strifes (the chief feeder of naval wars) figured 
less prominently than in the i8th Century. But there is 
another equally important cause. The progress of 
mechanical inventions during the age of steam has con- 
ferred immense advantages on the country which possesses 
large stores of coal and iron near the sea. In the British 
Isles are to be found all those advantages for marine con- 
struction in a unique degree. In France they are signally 
wanting. She therefore cannot hope to vie with us as 
she did in the days of wood and sails. She has recognised 
the fact, and she perceives that friendship is far more 
sensible than an exhausting and futile rivalry. Further, 
Kaiser William's first Navy Acts, those of 1898 and 1900, 
supplied added reason for an Anglo-French rapprochement. 
His declarations to his people — " The trident must pass 
into our hands " — and — " Our future lies on the water " 
— were no empty boasts. In respect to coal supply Ger- 
many surpasses the United Kingdom and far surpasses 
France ; while in Lothringen (German Lorraine) she 
acquired rich deposits of iron. Accordingly, she soon 
outstripped France in naval construction ; and the im- 
mense development both of her Imperial and her mer- 
cantile marine impelled her to seek tor better maritime 
outlet in Belgium. 
(III) As we have seen, colonial struggles lessened after 
Waterloo. That battle sounded the death-knell to the 
hopes of Napoleon I, and his people to acquire Egypt, 
India and parts of Australia. Napoleon III, turned the 
thoughts of France towards Syria and Egypt ; but the 
Third Republic preferred to exploit West Africa, Tunis, 
Madagascar and Tonquin. In 1895-8 the longing for 
Upper Egypt and the Soudan prompted the expedition 
of Colonel Marchand from West Africa to Fashoda on 
the upper Nile ; but it arrived too late and in inadequate 
force. Lord Kitchener's momentous victory at Omdurman, 
on September 2nd, 1898, enabled him to establish a 
British-Egyptian condominium over the whole of the 
Soudan ; and in an interview with M. Marchand at 
Fashoda, the two officers very sensibly agreed to refer the 
question of ownership to their respective Governments. 
Successive Cabinets at Paris had of late indulged in a 
policy of pin-pricks, especially at British control of Egypt ; 
but, after the mighty blow at Omdurman, France decided, 
in the spring of 1899, to recognise the inevitable and with- 
draw from the Upper Nile. Whether that decision was 
not helped on by the recent threatening naval measures 
