by Richard van Pelt, WWI Correspondent

An op-ed piece in the Oregon Statesman by W. H. Alburn describes the state of France and of the French:

THE SPIRIT OF FRANCE

The world has had to revise its opinion of France since the war began. Americans particularly have had their eyes opened.

We had previously seen but the superficial, now we have glimpse into the real heart of France. And we see not the light, cynical effervescent race of tradition, lacking in the deeper things of spiritual life. The froth and pretense are swept away, and there appears a nation of strong, patient soul and iron will.

There is no gayety

[sic] now in France – and no despair.

The volatile Parisian no longer laughs and jests. Paris, the playhouse of nations, sees its theaters closed, four-fifths of its famous shops barred and shuttered, even its pianos stilled. The designers of the world’s frivolous fashions no longer send forth their edicts; the war sets the styles now, and the color of the season is black.

In the sunny south of France there is a zone of disabled soldiers. The government sends its wounded as far as possible from the firing line. Staring at the Mediterranean, the have gradually flowed up through the Midi and northward farther and farther, in a great, red deluge of bandaged men, overwhelming the hospitals, flooding private houses, filling every public building and crowding children out of school rooms.

With the wounded as they come mingles an interminable procession of refugees from devastated northern France and Belgium. Native or neighbor it makes no difference. The Belgians, a helpless burden, are accepted without question or distinction, sharing the homes and frugal fare of strangers.

It is a strange thing, a nation at war. Imagine all the men of your city, your county, your state, gone – only the weaklings and women left, and the boys under 18 and the men over 46. That is France.

Imagine a nation of women knitting, knitting, knitting, raveling out their own garments for yarn and going cold, that their loved ones in the trenches may not freeze. Imagine industries prostrated, a country of homes without incomes, save the 25 cents a day which the government allows every soldier’s family, with a trifle more for the children, and two-thirds of the wives and mothers of the nation refusing that! A nation of women holding their homes together by toil and privation, and the slender savings of “stocking banks.” That is France.

Imagine newspapers whose chief feature, aside form official war bulletins is column after column of “personals” inquiring the whereabouts of Private Jean or Corporal Jacques, last heard from such-and-such a place – no news being bad news. And with all this not a world of complaint, not a tear, no heroics, no recrimination; hatred of the invader, but none of the fury that rants and weakens.

Then turn to the troops at the front. It is commonplace now to admire the French soldier; we forget that a few months ago he was a theme for scorn and pity. The Germans thought to reach Paris in three weeks – and nearly did owing to the suddenness of their attack and the unpreparedness of France. Today every helmeted German speaks of the red-trousered Frenchman with deep respect, and German statesmen have thrown out hints they would welcome a French alliance.

The red-trousers yielded at first, to be sure; the citizen troops, hastily assembled and outnumbered, were frankly scared by the steel legions of the kaiser, and some of them disgraced themselves, as our own soldiers did at Bull Run. But since the magnificent stand at the Marne there has been no wavering or retreating. General Joffre knew his men when he gave the order, “Advance as far as you can, then stand and die!”

So the Frenchman, traditionally good only in attacks, stands like a rock, or works forward inch by inch in the grueling trench work. The mercurial race has turned suddenly steadier than the enemy.

It is hard for Anglo-Saxons to understand Latin races. Their lightness and animation lead us more stolid folk to set them down as excitable fools. We know better now of the French, at least. And it is what we should have expected of the race that inspired our Declaration of Independence and helped us to win our Revolution, and with which we ourselves have such spiritual affinity.

We shall hear no more of “the decadence of France.” Never has that great nation, for centuries a torchbearer of civilization, appeared more glorious than today, with her men patiently burrowing in the cold mud of the long battle line and her uncomplaining women at home garbed in black.