1940-02-26 — Page 13

Monday,

•HONGKONG TELEGRAPH

..February 26,

1940.

BY SOMERSET MAUGHAM

By

THAT are the reac

WHA

tions of the French soldier to the war with Germany? We know that Hitler has attempt. ed to separate Britain and France. He hurls propaganda at the French soldiers in the front lines with this object in view. Has he succeeded?

Somerset Maugham, the famous English novelist, visited the Maginot Lines to find out.

In this, the second of a vivid series of articles from his pen, ho tells of what he found there.

I

SPENT a week with the French Armies in Alsace and Lorraine. The case mute I visited was well in front of the Maginot Line.

· The Commandant who showed me over it had the look of a well-fed Burgher in an old Dutch picture; he was a thick-set, rubicund, jovial man with a red mous- tache.

He took the same pride in his fortress as the commander of a iman-of-war takes in his ship.

I asked him how long he could hold out against an attacking force.

"If necessary I could stand a siege of six months," he said. | and with his eyes twinkling added: "But I should hope they'd come and rescue us be- fore then,"

When he showed me one of his big machine-guns and de- monstrated how it could be brought into action, he remark- ed, his eyes twinkling again: "The one thing a gunner dreams of at night is that he will sight an enemy tank passing within range when there's no superior officer by and he can have a shot at it on his own."

The Peace Conference At Versailles-1919

They Fight

GENERAL GAMELIN

They've

A New

Made

Home

Night falls early and there are limits to the number of hours you can play betotta.

Boredom is one of the enemies that the General Staff has to deal with.

Books are needed, books by the thousand, and radios, with program- mes that will cheer and amuse, and without too many patriotic haran- gues; they do not want their patrio- tism aroused, thene men, it is there deep in their

for France

bones; they want

to know what la

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1. A. CAMIDGE,

Manager,

POLISH TROOPS REVIEWED

London

Penang

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Every description of Banking and Ex- change business transacted.. Loans grunt- ed on approved securities,

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Bake Deposit Boxes To Lot.

KAN TONG PO...

Chief Manager.

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CONSIGNEES' NOTICE.

SERVICES CONTRACTUELS DES MESSAGERIES MARITIMES

Bringing Cargo from Marseilles via Saigon.

Consignees are hereby informed that their goods with the exception. of Oplum, Treasure and Valuables are being landed and stored into the Godowns of the Hongkong Kowloon Wharf and Godown Co., Ltd., Kow- loon, whence delivery may be ob- tained immediately after landing.

ed

All claims must be sent in to mo on or before 1st March, 1940, or they will not be recogni

Damaged Packages will be examin

by the Company's Surveyor Messrs-Goddard and Douglas in and non commissioned officers who the presence of the Consignees at 10 escaped from Poland. He was greatly impressed by the Aine physique

Paris, Feb. 25. General Sikorsky, Pallah Prime me going on, of Minister, has made his first review of and good humour to help them Discipline is maintained as course, but they want to laugh and the Polish Army now in training in they were finding life good well as in any other army, but sigh at songs, comic and senti- France. They consist chiefly of Polish enough. They knew how much there is in the French army a mental; and they want entertai-miners and labourers led by officers better off they were than the feeling of solidarity between the ments. men in the cold and mud of the various ranks which is truly de- The Poilu Sticks advanced posts.

mocratic.

To His Rifle

They had a neat little canteen where they could buy cigarettes, beer, chocolates and toilet heces- saries; they could even buy hair- wash and scent. There were tables in the canteen where they

With the whole nation in arms, men in every rank of society are together, bearing the same dis-

comforts and exposed to the same THE French soldier is above all infantry man. He heard with sincere distress of

risks.

ал

That hard upon two thousand

A French reporter told me that could sit in their leisure hours, he and a number of his colleagues the loss of the British ships drink a glass of beer, listen to iad been taken along the front for Courageous and Royal Oak. the radio und almost think a trip that lasted several days and themselves back in the estominet of their native village.

Pour la

Patrie

1

TRIED to find out what the French soldier thinks about

the war.

me an

the men.

of

A correspondent who visited the training camp saw the great progress made in the training of the men who have been taught the use of the

General Sikor-

most modern weapons in accordance with French methods. Inspection sky said. "I um proud of my troops who will give a good account of themselves when the time comes."

Later the Prime Minister and the

at the end of it a suggestion was officers and men should have lost Anericum Ambassador received eight made that the drivers of their cars their lives had a peculiar effect on vehicles presented by the Polish- should be tipped.

him. Even though these were la-American Ambulance Soelety to the mentable catastrophes they hearten- Polish Army for use as ambulances. "Watch your step," said the officered him, for they brought it home-Reuter Bulletin. who had charge of them, "some of to him that he was being really sup- your drivers could buy you all up ported by the British Navy,

a dozen times over."

I made it my business to ask a number of men how they ate and I found none who had a commolaint to make.

They begin the morning with a of black coffee and hunk of cup

With respect to this, a general I lunched with told anecdote.. He had been review-brend: at ten they have a snack

But the activities of Grent Bri- tain on the sea and in the air do not really mean very much to him, any more than do those of his own navy and air force. The arm in which he puts his confidence is the infantry.

a.m. on Monday 20th February, 1940. Consignees must have a Revenue Ollicer in attendance when any dutl- able goods are examined by the Com- pany's Surveyors,

No Fire Insurance will be effected

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TROPO

L OHL, Agent..

ROOM BATH

CENTRAL

CLEAN

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COMFORTABLE

HIS MASTER'S VOICE

Presents

A PROGRAMME OF OLD FAVOURITES

B2288-Blue Danube Waltz

Vienna blood.

Senza Nieluno. DA958—I ́licar you" calling" me

Mother Machree. DA205-Chanson Paroles

I saw the men's quarters.

was told by a doctor. Three Eng- I will fluish this sketch by n story There is not much room and the

ing some troops and on the way they call the casse-croute and this ligh planes, flying over the Gernian beds are close together, one row above another; some were lying

back to his car passed a bugler, consists of sardines or Bausages lines, were attacked and two were The bugler saluted smartly, but with another cup on their beds reading, others

of coffee. The brought down in flames; the pilot DA1373-0 solo Mio... in cupion; hora of the third, though. badly wounded. were clustered at the further THEY-had made-themselves-nt in the agitation of the moment midday meal end of the dormitory playing home in their narrow space, forgot to bring his feet together; dores, meat with rice, potatoes managed to bring it down In France; smiling, the general stopped, or lentils, cheese or stewed fruit to but when the French troops got up and you felt that with youth asked him his nume, where he follow, and quarter of a litre of to him they found that he was un-

wine. The evening meal is the conscious. came from and what his occupa-same except that soup repinces the tion was in civil life.

They took him to the hospital at kors d'ocuires. The ration of wine Nancy. When he recovered consci- When, with some embarrassment, has now been increased to a litre ausness his first question was

day.

cards or chatting.

Crossword Puzzle

ACROSS

1-Stupid 30 (ilang)

--Spacer

thelise

10-krat sign of nödlar 12-One who mertides 11-Device for taking

seeds out of fruil

25-Fossed

15hort sleep

15-Eighteentis letter di

Hebrew Kiphabet

18-Mental Longi

21-WHID

23-Light browb

st-hird homer

21-Person #poken to

21-Termination

28-Organi

30-United distes of

America (abtr.)

31-Rap lightly

27-ikurned out remaina

<1-tize

42-3atience

4-innd of megani

45-Chari

47-lærgy birda

4hort poem

60-Musical composition

b2-Happy

15

19

24

mi By LARS MORRIS

28

135

32

33 34

મા

42

H5

чь

50

SH

Sb

ANSWER Y PREVIOUR PUZZLE

St-Lukenar 85-Prugal person

Seal unite

r

177

10

DOWN

-Clearing in threes -Uncle to. After J-Uncione

Glenu of urcits

7-Kind of vatry (pli

Dignified

-badow

11-Clured cat

1-Part of leg

14-Tear patt

17-Trenetait money to 20-[38vailed

-Prench coin

-Pinely divided rock

particlex

-

serpent

37--2011 Nahtig.

33-Anigo by lot 34-Batelli: of AUD 14-Hold back water 28-Made peculiar notie 39-led at the 40-Plant embryo

-Burmire

44 -Duck of arch 41-knit with fat of hand Al-Valuable metal 63--Farewell #alutation

16

7

18

13

18

22

23

31

38

449

152

153

55

.

The had answered these questions,

the general said: Well, my bos But of course the days are long, and why are you fighting this war?" Except for the men who are in the Pour la Patrie; for my country," front line there are interminable The general laughed. "Yes hours in which there is nothing know all about that. That's what much to do but to kill tinio.

they taught you to any at school. But why are you dighting this war ?”

The French suffer from the lack

A smile broke on the bugler's of the organised games which en- honest face and he said: "Eh, bickade the Iritish soldier to occupy tis

a cause des Boches, Fen ai marge. (Well, because I'm fed to the teeth with the Germans.")

1 thought the anecdote signi feant for the insight it gave one into the soldiers' frame of mind.) There is no hatred there, no desire to hurt, no irreconcilable antagon- ism; but impatience, impatience. with those Teutons who will not let their neighbours live in the ponce, they love so well. Impatience and thol feeling that things have gone too far.

It seemed to me that the French officers I came across were men of unusual intelligence. They

were

keen soldiers, and they gave me the impression of knowing their business with extreme thoroughness. Moderni war is a science and these wore! scientists.

But what particularly struck me was their solicitude for their men. their humanity and their reasonable.

ness.

I was told a little story, which, trivial as it may be, seemed to me rather touching.

Half a dozen men, sent out to do some job, had been splashing about fall day in the mud and wet and; when they gut back to their quar- ters were soaked to the skin; their captain know they bud no change of socles and so distributed his own among them till theirs were dry.

Nazis Stare Would Make

IMAGINE that such a story would make a German of- ficer stare.

leisure.

men in the planea about the two that had gone up with him. The doctor told him they were dead.

The pilot was just a boy. He raised himself up in bed and brought his hand up to his ban- daged head in n salute.

"Never mind," he said. “It's for England."

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