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Show C0NAN DOYLE PAYS HOMAGE TO MEN OF THE FRENCH ARMY! Tells of His Visit to the Front in the Woody Argfonnc. By SIR A. CONAN DOYLE. THERE is a couplet of Stevenson Steven-son 's which haunts mo, "There fell a war in a woody place in a land beyond the sea." I have just come back from spending three wonderful days in that woody place. It lies with the open, bosky country of Verdun on its immediate right and the chalk downs of Champagne upon its left. It is a very undulating country of abrupt hills and dales. It is this peculiarity pe-culiarity which has made the war on this front different from any other, j more picturesqtfe and more secret. In front the fighting lines are half in the clay soil, half hidden behind fallen trunks. Between the two the main bulk of the soldiers live like animals of the woodlands, burrowing, burrow-ing, on tho hillsides and among the roots of the trees. French Fire Ten Shells to One. At three different points I have visited tho front in this broad region, re-gion, wandering from the lines of one army corps to that of another. In all three I found the same conditions, con-ditions, and in all three I found also the same pleasing fact which I had discovered at Soissons, that the fire of tho French was at least five, and very often ten, shots to one of the Germans. It used not to be so. The Germans used to scrupulously return shot for shot. But whether tltey have moved their guns to tho neighboring Verdun, or whether, as is more likely, all the munitions are goingj there, it is certain that they were very outclassed out-classed upon the three days of June which I allude to. There were signs that for some reason their spirits were at a low ebb. On the evening before our arrival the French had massed all their bands at the front, and, in honor of the Russian victory, had played the Marseillaise and the Russian national na-tional hymn, winding up with general gen-eral shoutings and objurgations calculated to annoy. Failing to stir up the Germans, they had ended by a salute from a hundred shotted guns. After trailing their coats up and down the lino they had finally to give up the attempt to draw the enemy. The French officers assured me that the prisoners pris-oners and deserters made bitter complaints of their scale of rations. And yet it is hard to believe that the fine efforts of our enemy at Verdun are the work of half -starved or dispirited men. Embodiment of ""Revanche." To return to my personal impressions, impres-sions, it was at Chalons that we left the Paris train a town which was just touched by the most forward for-ward ripple of the first great Ger- A. CONAN DOYLE. I - ' i fW Jr-' man flood tide. A drive of some twenty miles took us to St. Mene-hould, Mene-hould, and another ten brought us to the front in the sector of the divisional general. A fine soldier sol-dier this, and heaven help Germany if 'he and his division get within its border, for he is, as one can see at a glance, a man of iron who has been goaded to fierceness by all that his beloved country has endured. He is a man of middle size, swarthy, hawk-like, very abrupt in his movements, with two steel gray eyes, which are the most searching that mine have ever met. His hospitality hos-pitality and courtesy to us were beyond all bounds, but there is an- j other side to him,- and it is one which it is wiser not to provoke. ! In person Ke took us to his lines, ; passing through the usual shot-torn villages behind them. Where the rpad dips down into the great for- est there is one particular spot which is visible to the German artillery ar-tillery observers. The general men- i tioued it at the time, but his remark re-mark seemed to have no personal interest. We understood it better on our return in the evouing. Now we found ourselves in tho depths of the woods, primeval woods of oak and beech in the deep clay soil that the great oak loves. There had been rain and the forest paths were ankle deep in mire. Everywhere Every-where to right and left soldiers' faces, hard and rough from a year of open air, gazed up at us from their burrows in the ground. Presently, Pres-ently, an alert, blue-clad, figure stood in the path to greet us. It was the colonel of the sector. ; He was ridiculously like Cyrano (Continued on Page Ten.) COM DOYLE PAYS HOMAGE TP FRENCH (Continued from Pago One.) de Bergenia ns depicted by tho late M. Coquelin, save that his nose was of more moderate proportion. The ruddy coloring, tho bristling feline full-fledged mustache, the solidity of pose, the backward tilt of the head, the general suggestion of tho bantam cock, were all there facing us as he stood amid the leaves in the sunlight. Gauntlets and a long rapier uuthjng else was wanted. Something had amused Cyrano. His mustache quivered with suppressed mirth and his blue eyes were demurely de-murely gleaming. Then the joke came out. Ho nd spotted a German Ger-man working party, his guns had concentrated on it, and attcrwards he had seen the stretchers go forward. for-ward. A grim joke, it may seem. But the French see this war from a different angle to us. Discipline Is Not Lacking. "We passed in a little procession among the French soldiers, and viewed their 'multifarious arrangements. arrange-ments. For them we were a little break in a monotonous life, and they formed up in lines as we passed. My own British uniform and the civilian dresses of my two companions interested them. As the general passed these groups, who formed themselves up in perhaps a more familiar manner than would have been usual in the British service, serv-ice, he glanced kindly at them with those singular eyes of his, and once or twice addressed them as "Mes enfauts." One might conceive that all was "go as you please" among the French. So It is as long as you go in the right way. When you stray from it you know it. As we passed a group of men standing on a low ridge which overlooked over-looked us there was a sudden stop. I gazed round. The general's faco was steel and cement. The eyes were cold and yet fiery, sunlight upon icicles. Something had happened. hap-pened. Cyrano had sprung to his side. His reddish mustache had shot forward bevond his nose, and it bristled out like that of an angry an-gry cat. Both were looking up at the group above us. One wretched man detached himself from his comrades com-rades and sidled down the slope. No skipper and mate of a lankee blood boat could have looked more ferociously at a mutineer. And yet it was all over some minor breach of discipline which was summarily disposed of by two clays of confinement. confine-ment. Then in an instant the faces relaxed, there was a general buzz of relief and we were back at "Mes enf ants ' again. But don 't make any mistake as to discipline in the French army. Trenches 'are trencheSj and the main specialty of these in the Ar-gonno Ar-gonno is that they are nearer to the enemy. In fact, there are places j where they interlock, and where the advance posts lie cheek .by jowl. We were brought to a sap head where the Germans were at the other side of a narrow forest road. Had I leaned forward with extended ex-tended hand and a German done the same we could have touched. I looked across, but saw only a tangle of wire and sticks. Even whispering whisper-ing was not permitted in these forward for-ward posts. When we emerged from these hushed places of danger Cyrano took us all to his dugout, which was a tasty little cottage carved , from the side of a hill and faced with logs. He did the honors of the humble cabin with the air of a 1 seigneur in his chateau. There was little furniture, but from some broken mansion he had extracted an iron fire-back, which adorned his grate. It was a fine, mediaeval bit of work, with Venus, in her traditional tra-ditional costume, in the center of it. It seemed the last touch in the picture pic-ture of the gallant, virile Cyrano. I only met him this once, nor shall I ever see him again, yet he stands a thing complete within my memory. mem-ory. Even now as I write these lines he walks the leafy paths of the Argonne, his fierce eyes ever searching for the German worker, his red mustache bristling over their annihiliation. He seems a figure fig-ure out of the past of France. Another Type of Soldier. That night we dined with yet another an-other typo of the French soldier, the general who commands tho corps of which ray friend has one division. Each of these French generals has a striking individual-i individual-i lty of his own which I wish I could fix upon paper. Their only common com-mon point is that each seems to be a rare good soldier. The corps general is At bos with a touch of a 'Artagnan. He is well over six feet high, bluff, jovial, with huge, upcurling must acne, and a voice that would rally a regiment. It is a grand figure which should have been clone by Van Dye It with lace collar, hand on sword, and arm akimbo. Jovial and laughing was he. but a stern and hard soldier was lurking behind the smi los. This name may appear in history, and so may Humbert 's, who rules all the army of which this officer 's corps is a unit. Humbert is a Lord Holier Holi-er ts figure, small, wiry, quick - stepping, step-ping, nil steel and elastic, with a short, sharp upturned mustache, which one could! imagine as crackling crack-ling with electricity in moments of excitement like a cat's fur. What he does or says is quick, abrupt and to the point. He fires his remarks re-marks like pistol shots at this man or that. Once to my horror he fixed me with his hard little eyes and demanded de-manded "Sherlock Holmes, est ce qu 'il est nn soldat dans 1 'armee Anglaisc?'"' The whole table waited in an awful hush. "Mais, mon general, gen-eral, ' ' I stammered, "II est trop vieux pour service." There was general laughter, and I felt that I had scrambled out of au awkward place. Drop a Shell Near Doyle. And talking of awkward places, I had forgotten about that spot upon the road whence the German observer ob-server could sco our motor cars. He hail actually laid a gun upon it, tho rascal, and waited all the long day for our return. . No sooner did we appear upon the slope than a shrapnel shell burst above us, but somewhat behind me, as well as to the left. Had it been straight the second car would have got it, and there might have been a vacancy in one of the chief editorial chairs in London. The general shouted to the driver to speed up, and we were soon safe from the (iernian gunners. gun-ners. One gets perfectly immune to noises in these scenes, for tin1 guns which surround you make louder crashes than any shell which bursts about you. It is only when ;nu ac-ttiiillv ac-ttiiillv see the cloud over you that your thoughts come back to your self, and that von realize that in this wonderful drama you may be a useless super, but none the less you are on tho stage and not in the stalls. iSext morning we were down in the front trenches again at another portion of the line. Far away on our right, from a spot named the Observatory, we could see the extreme ex-treme left of the Verdun position and shells bursting on the Fille Morte. To the north of us was a broad expanse of sunny France, nestling villages, scattered chateaux, cha-teaux, rustic churches, and all as inaccessible as if it were the moon. It is a terrible thing, this German bar a thing un think a bio to Britons. To stand on tho edge of Yorkshire York-shire and look into Lancashire feel- ing that it is in other hands, that our fellow countrymen are suffer-there suffer-there and waiting, waiting for help, and that we cannot, after ' two years, come a yard nearer to them would it not break our hearts Can I wonder that there is no smile upon the grim faces of these Frenchmen! But when the bar is broken, when the line sweeps forward, for-ward, as most surely it will ah. what a day that will be! Men will die that day from the. pure,- delirious deliri-ous joy of it. We cannot think what it means to France, and tho less so because she stands so nobly patient waiting for her hour. French officers above a certain rank develop and show rheir own individuality. In the lower grades tho conditions of service enforce a certain uniformity. The Uritish officer of-ficer is a Brit isn gerrlcnran first, and au o Hi cer af terw ard. The Frenchman is au officer first, though none the less the gentleman stands behind it. It was the evening of the third day that we turned our faces to Paris once more. It was my last view of the French. The roar of their guns went far with me upon my wav. Soldiers of France, farewell! fare-well! n your own phrase I salute you! Many have seen you who had more knowledge by which to judge your manifold virtues. Many also who had more skill to draw you as you are, but never one, I am sure, - who admired you more than I. Great was tho French soldier under Louis the Sun-King, great, too, under un-der Napolian, but never was he greater than today. And so it is back to England and to home. I feel sobered and solemn from all that I have seen. It is a blind vision which does not see more than the men and the guns, which floes not catch something of the terrific spiritual conflict which is at the heart of it. "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord He is trampling out the vinyard where the grapes of wrath are stored. ' ' We have found no inspired singer yet, like .(ulia Ward Howe, to voice "the divine meaning of it all that meaning which is more than numbers num-bers or guns upon the day of battle. bat-tle. But who can see tiie adult manhood of Europe standing in a double line, 4H0 miles long from the English channel to the Alps, waiting for a signal to throw themselves them-selves upon each other, without knowing that he lias looked upon the most terrific of all the dealings between the creature below ui nd that gTeat force above, which works - : so strangely toward some distant but glorious end. (Copyright. 15IS. far A. Cooia Doyl- |