United States or Maldives ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It was upon Saturday, the 15th of August, that the great bulk of the two main German armies set aside for passage through the Belgian Plain began to use the now liberated railway, and the week between that date and the first great shock upon the Sambre is merely a record of the almost uninterrupted advance, concentration, and supply of something not far short of half a million men coming forward in a huge tide over, above, and round on to, the line Namur-Charleroi-Mons, which was their ultimate objective, and upon which the Anglo-French body perhaps half as numerous had determined to stand.
Our Column was attached to the Second Army, which operated on the eastern front of Warsaw. The Russian front changes so much more rapidly than the Anglo-French front, where progress is reckoned in metres, that these mobile columns are a great feature of ambulance work here. Our front changed many miles in a week sometimes, so that units that can move anywhere at an hour's notice are very useful.
How well Byron said: I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs; though he was an aristocrat too. I was always for progress the younger generation are all for progress. And what do you say to the Anglo-French business? We shall see whether they can do much, Boustrapa and Palmerston. You know Palmerston has been made Prime Minister. No, say what you like, the Russian fist is not to be despised.
Negotiations to this effect were set on foot through the medium of Ouvrard and Labouchere, son-in-law of the banker Baring: Fouché also, without the knowledge of his master, ventured to put forth a diplomatic feeler as to a possible Anglo-French alliance against the United States, an action for which he was soon very properly disgraced. The negotiation failed, as it deserved to do.
The French mordant was too much for Prussians as well as Saxons, who in many villages of France and in the hollows of the downs were heavily punished by the Anglo-French artillery, and routed by bayonet charges thrust home with incredible ferocity.
But the German Chancellor officially acknowledged, when all was over, that England's share in the Anglo-French Agreement had been perfectly correct, and that Germany bore England no ill-will for effecting a rapprochement with France.
The story was dramatised by two French collaborators, one of whom was at that time stage manager of the Grand Theatre, Rheims. What, then, was my delight to see one morning placarded throughout the town the announcement of the Anglo-French play?
As the century grew older there was no difficulty in deciding whether French works were written by Englishmen or Frenchmen. Yet barbarous as Anglo-French became, it retained the freshness of a living tongue, and gained some ground at the expense of Latin, notably in the law courts and in official documents. English was slowly making its way upwards.
"It sounds adequate," Lutchester confessed, laying his hat and cane carefully upon the table and drawing up an easy-chair. "How much is Mr. Fischer going to lose?" "God knows! If you allow me to sell at the present moment, you'll ease the market, and he'll lose about what you make." "And if I decide to hold my Anglo-French?"
"I have had the most extraordinary luck," he remarked. "No other man, naturally, knew so much of Anglo-German and Anglo-French relations. And instead of being at home in Downing Street, and muzzled, I happened to be here on the spot, to run up against Falkenberg, discover his little schemes, and with my own special knowledge to see through them at once. No one else ever had such an opportunity."
Word Of The Day