"Not when your splendid courage and your noble sacrifices gave us a theme; then we were always frankly loud in our admiration; but when we reflected upon what I may venture to call your faults and failings. Whatever we may have thought about them during all those terrible years, you will find in our public statements no note of criticism and not a single word that did not breathe a true loyalty. You too were generous in your praise of us when we won battles; and at the end, with your own FOCH for witness, you were quick to recognise what part we played in those great Autumn days that brought the crowning victory. But it almost looks as if your memory of our brotherhood in arms were beginning to fail; as if we, who were then hailed as your 'glorious Ally,' were about to resume our old name--it has already been revived in some quarters--of 'Perfide Albion.' "Oh, I know that the best of France is loyal to us; that her true chivalry understands. But what of your public that is all ear for the so-called _Echo de Paris_, with its constant incitement to jealousy and suspicion of England? What of your second-rate Press and its pin-pricking policy, connived at, if not actually encouraged, by your Government? "Of course I recognise that you never really liked the idea of all those British soldiers making themselves at home in your country, though they did it as nicely as it could be done, and made hosts of friends in the process. I can believe that we should not have been too well pleased at having a like number of French troops established between Dover and London. I don't say we should have charged you rent for every yard of their trenches or claimed heavy damages for any injury they might have done to our roads in the course of defending the Metropolis from our common enemy. But we certainly should not have been depressed when we found that they needn't stay any longer. Still I hope we should have registered on the tablets of our hearts a permanent record indicating that we appreciated their friendliness in coming to our support. "But I am told that the secret of the present attitude of our French critics is that they cannot forgive us for having used the soil of France in order to defend our own. Is this quite fair or even decent? Let me refresh their memory of the motive that brought us into this War. The true motive was not to be found in the duty imposed upon us by Germany's breach of the Belgian Treaty, though that in itself furnished us with an unanswerable reason. The true motive was our desire to help you. We had nothing in those days to fear for ourselves. We knew that our Fleet was strong enough to protect our own shores. We had not yet appreciated the submarine menace; we did not recognise what your loss of the Channel ports might mean for us. We entered the War because we could not look on and see you overwhelmed.