14 
LAND & WATER 
March 29, 1917 
" La Part de I'Angleterre " 
A celebrated cartoon by "Sem" published in La Baionnelle, in 1915 
traditions that both British and French sailors base their 
horror of the methods of naval warfare originated by the 
German navy, which has no glorious past, and sees no 
difference between a fair fight and a massacre. In the 
trenches on the Western Front, as in every other part of 
Europe, and the East, where the Allies are fighting, the 
British and French soldiers know that the reason for 
their fighting is not that they may rob other nations of 
the independence they so lately possessed, but that they 
may restore that independence, and, if possible, destroy 
the menace of Prussian militarism for ever. All classes 
of society are mingled in the trenches, There are more 
peasants than bourgeois, more artisans than aristocrats ; 
and all of them, British and French alike, hold the same 
opinion with regard to the war that they held at the 
beginning. It may easily be imagined what they think 
of these d\Tiasties and mihtary castes ; and if, at the 
end of hostilities, all the combatants of the victorious 
Franco-British army should be asked to express their 
most earnest prayer for the future, they would answer 
with one voice : " That there shall be no more war ! " 
This was the prayer of all who have already fallen, and 
is the prayer of those who must yet fall— alas ! — before 
Germany awakens from her criminal madness. 
If from these general considerations we return to the 
consequences of the Franco- British fraternity of arms, 
we may hope that for the future there will be an indis- 
sohible bond between the British democracy and the 
French democracy. Both of them have learnt to see 
that no democratic nation would allow itself to be 
hallucinated by demented authorities, as has been the 
case with the German nation. No democratic nation, 
responsible for itself, its prosperity, and its fate, would 
ever have consented to provoke the present disastrous 
state of things. A philosopher might find here a subject 
for bitter and ironical meditation. This struggle between 
the*' past and the future, between free nations and 
monarchical institutions that are threatened on all 
sides and bid fair to be submerged beneath the irre- 
sistible tide of democracy— this struggle was brought 
about by privileged castes who hold their prerogative 
from the throne. It all hung upon a yes or a no from the 
lips of a man, whom medical science would term a de- 
generate, but whom the chances of birth made into n.n 
absolute monarch. The supreme War Lord, with iiis 
atrophied arm, would not have been passed for military 
service, but he is a lifting symbol for all that he repre- 
sents, and it is possible that the horrors of this conflict 
have been permitted by a ruthless fate in order that the 
nations may see at last that the time has come for them 
to grow to maturity, and to abstain from placing their 
destiny in the hands of irresponsible individuals. 
The two great western democracies have proved to 
the Germans that nations may be free, and desirous of 
peace, and yet be not degenerate nor cowardly. France, 
without a moment's hesitation, blocked the path of the 
invader with all her able-bodied manhood. From that 
day to this she has held him in check, with the help- the 
constantly increasing help— of the British, who in creating 
the formidable army of to-day, have made the most 
prodigious effort of this kind recorded in history. 
In the northern provinces of France, from the Channel 
to the lines that the enemy still holds, millions of young 
Britons are in close contact with a country of which they 
have hitherto known nothing. In every town, large or 
small, in every village, they mingle with the Hfe of the 
French population. In their billets they become one of 
the family, they come in contact with habits and customs 
differing from their own, and they certainly lose the 
failing that used to be called " insularity." 
British soldiers who have been through this campaign 
in France will be, one cannot doubt, much less exclusive 
than before. All those prejudices and misconceptions 
with regard to " foreigners," which are so hard to uproot, 
will have disappeared, especially thcsi which concern 
the French. On the other hand, the French, who have 
housed him, will never forget " the good-natured 
Tommy." The French soldiers who have been brought 
into contact with their English comrades will carry 
away to their distant homes beside the Atlantic or the 
Mediterranean, in the Pyrenees or the Alps, pleasant 
memories of their fraternity of arms. 
After having fought for the same cause, a distinierested 
cause, the cause of the whole human r.xe, these two great 
democratic nations of the west, the French and British, 
will remain bound together loyally in a lasting alliance. 
And thus, with the help of the great democratic nations 
of the other continents, they will be able to maintain 
that state of fruitful peace for whose sake so much ])lood 
will surely not have been shed m \'ain 
