low shoes. But there were also several survivors of the old generation - men whom Oom Paul himself knew and led. They had retained all the externals of the old-time Boers- their tangled beards and big broad-brimmed soft hats. Whenever one of these old fighters appeared on his little sturdy pony he received tumultuous applause. These old chaps were in their glory. They galloped madly around and showed the younger fellows how to toss their rifles high in the air and catch them again while riding at breakneck speed.

In the afternoon Kruger's monument was unveiled. The sidewalks along the route of the procession were packed with a dense throng of people; but here again not a policeman was needed to keep them in order. In fact, the only ones I saw that day were a little escort of honor at the monument itself.

There the whole Cabinet was present. When General Smuts appeared he received a round of complimentary applause, but when a few minutes later Hertzog arrived the whole crowd stood on tiptoe and gave him a wild ovation. Then came the moment for which all the press photographers and cinema men were waiting. The two distinguished guests, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, shook hands. A couple of dozen camerashutters clicked, three movie cameras began to grind, and the historic event was preserved for posterity.

Immediately commands were heard. The band played 'God Save the King,' and Hertzog greeted a distinguishedlooking and well-groomed gentleman accompanied by a beautiful lady and a military adjutant. He was the Earl of Athlone, Governor-General of South Africa and representative of His Britannic Majesty, who holds one of the pleasantest jobs in the world to be

on hand wherever anything important is happening, without having the slightest responsibility for it.

A moment later the parade reached the square in which the monument stood. First came a standard-bearer carrying the Transvaal flag, followed immediately by the bürger kommandos, who were received with a roar of applause, by a battery of the old State artillery in full uniform, by a Boer trek wagon, and by a number of floats with allegorical figures.

The first speaker of the day was General Hertzog. He occupied scarcely ten minutes. He is a man of arresting appearance, with a head that suggests the scholarly son of a peasant father, and wonderful eyes. He is calm strength and self-control personified, and clearly a man of iron will. He spoke very simply, without the slightest attempt at oratorical effect, and directly to the hearts of his hearers, and it was very plain that what he did not say was more than what he said. The next speaker was General Smuts, who began his speech in English, thereby arousing manifestations of violent disapproval from some of his hearers. But these were only a few words of greeting to the representative of the Crown. Then he too began Jannie Afrikaans te praaten.

Smuts is an eloquent speaker of the intellectual-statesman type-a very different man indeed from Oom Paul Kruger, who was more like Hertzog. For that reason Smuts is by no means as close to the heart of his people as was his predecessor, Louis Botha. He has mixed up too much in European affairs to appeal to the average Boer. Whatever his calibre as an international leader may be, he impressed me as too big a man for his own country as it is to-day. England should thank Cecil Rhodes, whose sharp eyes discovered young Smuts and sent him to

[EXCEPT for a few outstanding literary figures like Romain Rolland and Henri Barbusse, France's ultra-Nationalists almost monopolize attention in the foreign press. This article presents a different aspect of French opinion, and one by no means undeserving of attention.]

I KNEW Germany slightly before the war, having spent several vacations in that country. Visits to Berlin and Munich, and bicycle tours over her Imperial highways, had given me some insight into the German mind. I was therefore not an utter stranger when I got off the train in October 1921 at the station of Kaiserslautern in the Palatinate, where I had been ordered to report as second in command of the French garrison.

I was glad to join the Army of Occupation. Having traveled over Germany as a civilian tourist, a little intimidated by her Verboten signs, I now came back in uniform as one of the victors. How many times before the war I had dreamed, when passing through a German town, of marching through it in triumph behind a brass band playing the 'Sambre-et-Meuse'! My dream had in part come true.

But I was even more curious than elated. What was going on in Germany? How were our people getting along with the Boches? How did the latter regard us and treat us? Kaiserslautern is a city of sixty-five thousand people, two 1 From Le Progrès Civique (Paris Radical weekly), February 6, 13

thirds of whom are Protestants and one third Catholics. It is encircled by magnificent forests that come down to its very edge; and it manufactures furniture, bicycles, sewing machines, and many other things. The business centre is old, gray, and gloomy, although busy and animated; and the suburbs, which date from after 1870, have grown up planlessly, without conventional German regularity, and lack order and beauty on the whole, a rather ugly place.

The people, who all seemed to wear angular, dull-colored clothing, did not impress me as sympathetic. When I met them on the street they would not look at me. But they showed no hostility—simply indifference. In a word, their attitude impressed me as dignified, and not obsequious as it had been immediately after the Armistice, when they still expected reprisals from us.

I could not look forward to a particularly agreeable time under these gray heavens and among these gray and sombre people, but I was pleased to think that the post promised at least variety. How many interesting problems it presented! And besides, I imagined that I might, in a modest way, be of some real service to my country.

I wanted to know at the outset how to conduct myself toward the inhabitants. 'What are our instructions on this point?' was my first question on arriving.

'Instructions? There are n't any. You don't have to conduct yourself

toward the Boche. We've licked them, have n't we? Well, we 've only got to keep them respectful—and at a distance.'

I soon discovered, however, that they were the ones who kept us at a distance. It was impossible to secure entrée to a German family. I comforted myself at first with the assumption that the people of Paris must have some ideas on the subject, which they had not yet communicated to us. Besides, it would be mighty strange if our French boys, who were such good fellows at heart, failed to win the affection of the natives. Little by little the Germans would begin to compare to our advantage our amiable manners with the brusque rudeness of their own officials and officers.

But it did not take long to undeceive me on these points. Evidently nothing was further from the minds of our superiors than to have us ingratiate ourselves with the Germans. Neither were the honest little French peasants in their sky-blue uniforms, who constituted the rank and file of my regiment, likely to impress the people among whom they were quartered by their manners or their appearance. Their old army-coats, whose original horizon-blue had faded to a dirty yellow, their frayed and sloppily wound puttees, their police caps generally worn hind side before, did not exactly recommend them to the eyes of people still filled with retrospective admiration for their own soldiers before the war. The Germans did not see, and would not have admitted in any case, the courage and initiative of our troops their real capacity as fighting men. They judged them only by their externals. What chiefly impressed them was the negligence of a Government that dressed the troops representing it abroad so shabbily.

this. Here were people who loved order, discipline, and propriety to excess. Yet they saw floating over their town five tricolored banners, symbols of the victorious nation-above the headquarters, the coöperative, the soldiers' club, the offices of the Interallied Delegation, and the gendarme headquarters. I shall surprise no one when I say that these colors resembled strikingly the weathered flags that adorn some of our public monuments in France the blue had become greenish yellow, the white was a dirty gray, and the red had run lamentably.

a

From our point of view the German people have many faults, but we all credit them with one excellent quality a love of music. We are even surprised that a country with so little artistic taste in architecture, clothing, cooking, and other things, should be so musical. Now, every month the city orchestra gave excellent classical concerts within reach of the most modest purse. The concert-hall was invariably packed, not only with the best people of the city, but also with clerks, salesmen, and workingmen. It was a pleasure to watch this audience, absolutely motionless, listening devotedly for two hours to the works of their great composers, Bach, Schumann, Beethoven, or to classicists of the younger school like Boellmann and Max Reger.

Now what did we do to give the natives a favorable impression of our own music? It would not have been a bad thing to have had a few of our best military bands tour the occupied territory, or to have brought a few good symphony orchestras from France. That was done on a few occasions at Wiesbaden and Mainz when General Mangin, who was himself an excellent musician, was in command. But Wiesbaden and Mainz are not all the Rhine country. Nowhere else did we

period of service. Our regimental band, consisting entirely of our own recruits, who had to learn music during their two years of service and sometimes within eighteen months, played so badly that its leader 'was ashamed,' as he himself declared to the Colonel, to have it play in the public square the two steps with drum and trumpet accompaniment, the waltzes, and the medleys which constituted its only repertoire. Later the people of Kaiserslautern were treated also to the native music of our African Scouts, which they called Katzenmusik. We may joke as much as we will about the prudishness of the Germans, but it is a part of their character with which we had to deal. It may seem very ridiculous to us that a well-bred young lady should consider it hardly good form to linger in front of a show-window display of lingerie, at least if there were men in the vicinity. Nevertheless, this was a feeling to be taken into account if we hoped to impress the Rhinelander with the admirable qualities of France. Imagine my feelings, then, a few days after our arrival, to see posters displayed all over the city advertising a play to be given by the only French theatre troupe officially authorized by our Government to tour the occupied territories. The title itself was idiotic. The poster represented a little lady of the Vie Parisienne type in scanty garments, perched on one toe, with the other foot high in the air, and a vieux polisson leering at her. I shall never forget as long as I live the contemptuous regard that Germans, and especially German ladies, cast at these announcements of our art exports'

a regard that included also any Frenchman who chanced to be in the vicinity. This company played at Kaiserslautern about once a month, and its repertoire was all of the same kind. Needless to say, no German ever entered the theatre when it was there.

To be perfectly fair, our people did hit upon some happy ideas ideas-free courses in French, French readingrooms, and public soup-kitchens. Unfortunately, however, these, like all our other enterprises, suffered from lack of money. The people of the Palatinate were anxious to improve their French, of which they had learned the rudiments in school; but the emergency teachers appointed by the Interallied High Commission to conduct the classes were too few, and for the most part incompetent. The first time I visited the French reading-room at Kaiserslautern I was overwhelmed with shame. It was designed to attract Germans who wanted to learn more of our better writers, by giving them access to our best books and reviews, especially our illustrated journals. In a word, its purpose was to give the Germans a taste for France and French things. A capital idea! But I found the readingroom installed in a tiny shop in the care of a shabby soldier with unkempt hair, wearing a dirty, ragged overcoat. The books consisted of fifty old volumes on a single shelf, most of them dusty, dirty, and ragged. They were not even works by distinguished authors. The papers and magazines were equally unattractive. It was with a feeling of relief, therefore, that I noticed one day that the place was closed. On inquiry I learned that the garrison, being somewhat depleted at that time, was no longer able to detail a soldier to look after the place.

Our soup kitchens were never able to supply more than a small fraction of the real need, for lack of money. There was a great deal of distress in Germany at this time. It would have taken only a trifling part of the vast sums that were wasted uselessly by the Army of Occupation to maintain them adequately.

So our well-intended but maladroit