That is one side of the character of French soldiers as I have seen it in this war. But there is another, which almost seems to have been born during the war, some little time after it had begun. I only speak from a very slight experience, but some of the French as well as the Belgian officers whom we met right at the beginning gave me the idea of being nervous and rattled of knowing nothing about their own plans or the enemy’s whereabouts, and of being generally in a state of mental confusion and irritable uncertainty, which looked extremely likely to lead to disaster. When I came to France later on I saw an extraordinary change, or perhaps my original diagnosis was entirely wrong. Bad mistakes were certainly made at the beginning, and probably the greatest service rendered by General Joffre to France was the way in which, quietly and without unnecessary publicity, but with perfect firmness, he weeded out the men, whatever their rank, whom he held to be at fault. But these, perhaps, were exceptions. The spirit and training of the great bulk of the army may have been as admirable from the first as it is now, and that spirit may have been in existence before the war, and not produced by it and by the example and warning of the preliminary failures. At all events, there is no doubt about it now. The confusion and uncertainty and nervous apprehension, if they ever existed to an extent greater than what was naturally caused by the suddenness of Germany’s unprovoked attack, are gone—were already gone when we arrived in Belfort. Even in those anxious times, when we had only just begun to throw back the impetuous rush of the enemy, there was everywhere order, and method, and quiet confidence, and a fixed determination to go on, neither unduly elated by success nor troubled by failure, to the absolutely certain end. No one was in a hurry, but every one was quick and alert. The army, officers and men, seemed to be an army of real soldiers, masters of their profession, and not a collection of bunglers. If mistakes had been made, or should be made, they would have to be rectified. But no mistakes and no defeats, and no possible combination of circumstances, would alter the final issue, because France and her Allies were fighting for the cause of the liberty of the world, the triumph of which was absolutely certain. That was the spirit of the French a year ago, and it is so now more than ever. For all their light-heartedness they are taking the war as seriously as a religion, and out of the travail of it a new France has been born. CHAPTER IV ROBBERY UNDER ARMS