Produced by Irma Spehar, Emmy and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) LETTERS OF A SOLDIER You do not know the things that are taught by him who falls. I do know. (_Letter of October 15, 1914._) LETTERS OF A SOLDIER 1914-1915 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY A. CLUTTON-BROCK AND A PREFACE BY ANDRE CHEVRILLON AUTHORISED TRANSLATION BY V.M. LONDON CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD 1917 Printed in Great Britain CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION vii PREFACE BY ANDRE CHEVRILLON 3 LETTERS 33 INTRODUCTION I have been asked to write an Introduction to these letters; and I do so, in spite of the fact that M. Chevrillon has already written one, because they are stranger to me, an Englishman, than they could be to him a Frenchman; and it seems worth while to warn other English readers of this strangeness. But I would warn them of it only by way of a recommendation. We all hope that after the war there will be a growing intimacy between France and England, that the two countries will be closer to each other than any two countries have ever been before. But if this is to happen we must not be content with admiring each other. Mere admiration will die away; indeed, some part of our present admiration of the French has come from our failure to understand them. There is a surprise in it which they cannot think flattering, and which ought never to have been. Perhaps they also have been surprised by us; for it is certain that we have not known each other, and have been content with those loose general opinions about each other which are the common result of ignorance and indifference.