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With passes which the German commandant in Brussels gave us the correspondents immediately started out to see how far those passes would carry us. A number of us left on the afternoon of August 23 for Waterloo, where it was expected that the great clash between the German and the Anglo-French forces would occur.
This disposition was, of course, designed to meet the ceaseless German attempt to outflank on the west; and with the dawn of Wednesday, the 26th, it was already apparent how serious would be the task before this 2nd Corps, which covered all the rest of the army, and, in a sense, the whole of the Anglo-French retirement.
In a word, instead of having to pay their bills through an intricate mechanism that rose and fell with the tides of trade and put a premium on trading with us, a medium was needed that would restore the whole economic trade balance. It was as essential to us as to our customers. Hence the Anglo-French Five Hundred Million Dollar Loan was floated and Uncle Sam became a war banker.
No irony certainly could be more exquisite that this last-named article. This was the end of that magnificent conception, the great Anglo-French League against the house of Austria. King James would combine his efforts with King Philip to pacify the Netherlands. The wolf and the watchdog would unite to bring back the erring flock to the fold.
Large concessions for railroads had been asked for and granted under solid guaranties the line from Vera Cruz to Mexico to an Anglo-French company, pledged to complete it in five years, and another concession for three lines, for the carrying out of which $4,500,000 had been subscribed.
Aulif made friends with him at once, spoke enthusiastically of the Crimea, talked of improvements in guns and gunnery since those days, praised the Anglo-French alliance, and said how sad it was that England now had to be on her guard against her former allies across the Channel. As the discourse proceeded, I began to question my theory that Aulif was an actor. Perhaps he was a soldier.
Duncan belonged to the Anglo-French society, which had sprung into existence since the downfall of Napoleon I, and was in some degree the outcome of the part played by Great Britain in the comedy of the Bourbon and Orleanist collapse.
Leroux was a parish politician from some place near Quebec, and his clean-shaven, wrinkled face was as hard and mean as that of any city boss in the United States. His vile Anglo-French expletives were as nauseous as his cigars. He and old Tom used to be closeted together for hours at a time. I never liked the man, and I never cared for Carson's business ways.
Never did De Ruyter exhibit higher qualities of leadership than in the naval campaign of 1673. His fleet was greatly inferior in numbers to the combined Anglo-French fleet under Prince Rupert and D'Estrées. A stubborn action took place near the mouth of the Scheldt on June 7, in which the English had little assistance from the French squadron and finally retired to the estuary of the Thames.
It was needed in Flanders close to its bases and to the Channel ports which the Germans had now resolved to seize in the hope of cutting or straining the Anglo-French liaison and furthering their new campaign on land and sea against their gathering British foes.
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