and challenge each other, as Britishers have always done, as Americans did in the time of their civil war, when Lincoln's heart was almost broken by opposition from his political foes, and by savage criticism of his friends. At this time we are all in a state not perfectly normal.

We are living, as it were, at the top of our being, and we are inclined to exaggerate, to be extravagant in denunciation or in criticism when things do not go as we think they ought to do, but go as they always do in war, with staggering ups and downs.

There are those among us who have thought that the United States, as a vast democracy inspired by high national ideals, and as the enemy of all reactionary and tyrannical elements, might have done more to help us in our fight for civilization, might indeed have entered the war with us.

But let me say-and in this I believe I speak for the great majority of British people that we have not had the least desire to invoke the armed assistance of the United States, or to influence her in the slightest in this matter.

The United States has performed immense service to the Allies by resisting all attempts to wean or force her from her neutrality by prohibiting the export of munitions of war. Her perfect propriety and adherence to the spirit of true neutrality have resisted German pressure.

Secondly, the services she has performed to civilization by organizing relief for Belgium have been a service to humanity, and therefore a service to the Allies, who are fighting to restore to Belgium her ursurped dominion.

Thirdly, the United States has rendered immense services to this country by caring for the interests of British subjects abroad, and, above all, by making the lot of British prisoners of war easier. Some of the worst cruelties and inhuman oppressions have been removed by her intervention.

Lastly, her sympathy, expressed in a thousand ways, and not the least by fair consideration of the action taken by Great Britain in the blockade and other matters, has eased the minds of millions of King George's subjects. Lack of sympathy might easily have misinterpreted the acts of our Government.

I wish Americans would believe that in this country there has been since this war began a larger and truer understanding of the American people. For my own part I have known the United States intimately for many years, have had faith in her national purposes and confidence in her diplomatic integrity, and, from reading her history, a realization of her sense of justice.

And in this war of ideals, fundamentally different, I believe the people of both nations have come to a sense of kinship and of mutual admiration, not diminished by the possible mistakes which may have been made by Great Britain largely due to improvised organization, or in the United States by her rigid neutrality, which may not have seemed to chime with her sympathy.

Her diplomacy has been unimpeachable, and we in Great Britain are grateful for an understanding which is as material a support as an army in the field.

(Copyrighted, 1915, by Edward Marshall.)

Y the

'OU will find it natural that after a year of war the President of the Republic has the honor to associate himself with the Government and the two houses of the Legislature to render homage, admiration, and gratitude to the nation and the army. When a year ago I recommended to the country this sacred union, which was then and still remains one of the conditions of victory, I had no doubt but that my appeal would be immediately heard. Our enemies, who always have misunderstood France, alone believed that we would offer an evidence of our dissensions to their brutal aggression.

At the precise hour when they audaciously asserted that Paris was a prey to upheaval the capital of the republic assumed that grave and serene physiognomy in which could be read its cold resolution. From the largest cities to the smallest villages there passed a great current of national fraternity which, among the people as well as in Parliament, wiped out even the memory of civil quarrels. The whole people turned a united face to the enemy.

For a year this unity of will has not belied my belief that nothing will weaken it. If Germany is counting on the possibility of dividing France at the present time, she is deceived today as she was a year ago. Time will not weaken the ties binding the great French family. United France is great and strong, and because she is united she is confident and calm. Every day in the smallest communities there is spontaneous collaboration between the old people, the women and the children, which makes sure the continuance of the normal life of these villages in its regular course. Fields are sowed and cultivated and crops

harvested, and this organization of labor is a material factor to the keeping alive of patience and firmness in the soul of the people.

Every day Frenchmen of all parties. and all religions bring their offerings to the Treasury, and hands which bear noble marks of daily labor push over the counters of the banks gold pieces which they have painfully saved up.

Everywhere the country gives a sublime example of common thought and resolution.

A generous emulation inspired all lines of French activity to come to the aid of the national defense, and this aid is given utterly without selfishness. The country should encourage not only harmony among political parties, but also private co-operation and good-will.

Individual energies, recognizing how to submit themselves to discipline, constitute a great force in the nation. In war time such energies never are too numerous or too powerful, nor is there ever a greater need to co-ordinate national action to produce a single effect.

The merits of a people are luminously reflected in the army. The army, composed of the substance of the nation, immediately understood the grandeur of its rôle. It knows it is fighting for the safety of the race and the traditions and liberties of the country. It knows that on the victory of France and the Allies rests the future of civilization and humanity.

Into the hearts of the most modest of our soldiers and marines has come a high appreciation of this great historical duty. Each man is completely devoted to his mother country, and those who fall die without fear, since by their death France lives and will live forever.

In the error of its arrogance, Germany

has represented France as light, impressionable, unstable and incapable of perseverance and tenacity. The people and the army of France will continue to controvert this calumnious judgment by their calm course. They will not let themselves be troubled by that false news, which has its effect only on impressionable souls; by noisy manifestos for peace by our enemies, or by the perfidious and suspicious insinuations whispered by the agents of the enemy in the ears of neutrals-cowardly counsels aimed at future efforts at demoralization. No one in France is disturbed.

The only peace which the republic can accept is that which guarantees the security of Europe and which will permit us to breathe and to live and to work to reconstruct our dismembered country and repair our ruins, a peace which will effectively protect us against any offensive return of the Germanic ambitions.

The present generations are accountable for France to posterity. They will not permit the profanation of the trust which their ancestors confided to their charge. France is determined to conquer; she will conquer.

M. DESCHANEL'S SPEECH.

Paul Deschanel, President of the Chamber, opened the session with a speech, which was apparently intended to follow the example of the address of M. Rodzianko, President of the Russian Duma, at the recent opening of that legislative body, and as a reply to the anniversary manifesto of the German Emperor. To this Premier Viviani gave response in the name of the Government. M. Deschanel said a year had passed since the enemy of France, even before declaring war, had violated French territory. He added:

This year has been so full of a glory so pure that it will forever illumine the human race. It has been a year in which France, the France of Joan of Arc and Valmy, has risen, if possible, to even greater heights.

Be the war of short or long duration, France accepts it. The country is summoning its genius and changing its methods. Each French soldier before the enemy repeats the words of Joan of Arc, "You can enchain me, but you cannot enchain the fortunes of France."

A year of war finds "France fit to continue the struggle to the end and confident of the outcome," says Count Adrien Lannes de Montebello in a review of the first twelve months of hostilities given to The Associated Press on July 31. Count de Montebello, a recognized authority on military affairs, was one of the strongest advocates of the three-year military service law and its co-author with the ex-Premier, Louis Barthou. He was formerly Deputy from Rheims and Vice President of the Committee on Military Affairs of the Chamber of Deputies. His grandfather was Marshal Lannes, at whose death on the battlefield of Essling Napoleon is said to have

wept. Count de Montebello's review follows:

F

RANCE was not expecting war, and her preparations therefore were less complete than those of her adversaries, who, knowing their intentions, had accumulated an immense supply of fighting material and disposed of their troops in such a manner as to strike the most powerful blow of which they were capable.

Germany threw against Belgium and France fifty-two army corps, or almost her entire military force as mobilized in August. Under the impact of the German advance the French armies, with their British allies, suffered initial re

verses and great losses, especially in the battle of Charleroi. While the French armies were in retreat a national Ministry was formed, and the civil population of France organized for war. The French and British armies stood on the line of the Marne from a point near Paris to the eastern frontier of France. They received the shock of more than 1,200,000 German troops, and defeated them with somewhat inferior forces. The Germans were outled and outfought in a vast general action over a line of more than 120 miles.

The French troops were too exhausted by their fifteen days of marching and fighting to make their victory decisive. The Germans checked their retreat upon the line of the Aisne, and had sufficient time to dig in. The battle of the Aisne developed by the Germans endeavoring to turn our left and by the simultaneous French effort to turn the German right. This contest resulted in a race for the sea in the obstinate two months' battle along the Yser in October and November. The Germans again failed, and finally gave up that part of their offensive, on account of their terrific losses.

Simultaneous with the battle of the Marne, though forming no part of the battle front of what has been called the battle of the Marne, were the operations in the Argonne, the Woevre, and the Grand Couronne de Nancy. The army of the German Crown Prince, marching on Verdun, and the army of Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, marching on Nancy, both were defeated in some of the bloodiest engagements of the entire war.

The ultimate result of these defeats was the liberation of that part of the ancient Province of Lorraine left to France after 1870 from the occupation of the German Army. The German forces had penetrated fifteen or eighteen miles. They were not only driven out before the 1st of November, but since then the French have invaded Upper Alsace, of which they now hold a considerable part. This country, taken from France in the

war of 1870-71, has been reorganized and is under control of a civil government which restored the school and judicial systems of France.

From the battle of Charleroi to the end of the first year of the war the Germans achieved no successes on the western battle front save the slight advance at Soissons during the floods of the River Aisne and the advance at Ypres, partially lost afterward, at the time of the first attack with the assistance of asphyxiating gas.

The successes of the Allies since the battle of the Marne are in the recapture of Thann, Steinbach, Hartsmans-Weilerkopf, Metzeral, La Fontenelle, together with considerable territory in the Alsatian Vosges; the capture of an entire German position in the Forest of Le Prêtre, along the wedge the Germans are still holding in the French lines at St. Mihiel; an advance of a mile along a front of ten miles at Beausejour, in the Champagne country; the capture of Neuve Chapelle by the British, the capture of Notre Dame de Lorette, Carency, and Neuville St. Vaast, and an advance of two or three miles along a front about seven miles north from Arras by the French, and the clearing of the left bank of the Yser of the enemy by the Belgian Army.

Never since the war began has the French Army been so fit to continue it to a triumphant conclusion as today. We have not only carried on the war with success during the year, but we have accumulated immense reserves of every necessity for continuing the war until it has been won. Our reserve troops in depots and under training are relatively greater than those of the Germans. The army is absolutely confident. The peo

ple behind the army, to a man, are equally so.

The French people, through no fault of theirs, have suffered and are suffering today, but they are equal to every hardship, every effort necessary to drive the war to a final victorious conclusion.