AN OPEN LETTER TO FRANCE.
Mr. Punch had kissed the lady's hand and she had smiled upon him very graciously, for they were old friends.
"I have brought you a letter from myself," he said.
"Shall I read it while you wait?" said Madame la France.
"Please, no. I never read my contributors' compositions in their presence. It is embarrassing to both sides. And I want you to take your time over this one, and consider carefully whether it is suitable for publication in your Press. I have enclosed a stamped and addressed envelope, to be utilized in the event of your deciding to return my communication with regrets. In any case I propose to publish it in my own paper, The London Charivari."
[Here begins the letter:—
"Nearest and Dearest of Allies.—You and I (I speak for my country, though I have not been asked to do so) have gone through so much together that it would be an infinite pity if any misunderstanding were suffered to cloud our friendship for want of a little candour on my part. No Entente can retain its cordiality without mutual candour; and hitherto the reticence has been all on our side.
"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.
"You complain, again, that, in contrast to yourselves, we have got all we wanted out of the War. As a fact we wanted nothing; but let that pass. You point to the destruction of the German Fleet as if it were a private gain for us and us alone, and not the removal of a danger to the whole world. And what of the German armies—now in process of reduction to a mere police force? Did you derive no advantage from the overthrow of a system which was always a greater menace to you than the German Fleet ever was to us? And, though we did not pretend to be a military nation, had we not some little share in that achievement?
"And what of your revanche? How do the German Colonies, which we have freed and now hold in trust—how do these compare with your solid recovery of Alsace-Lorraine? No, you have not come badly out of Armageddon.
"Oh, you have suffered, that we know; you have suffered even more than we, who at least were spared the ravaging of our lands. And never for a moment do we forget this. But you too must not forget that where the soil of France suffered most there thickest lie our English dead, who fought for England's freedom, yes, but for your freedom too. And it is we who stand by you still, pledged to be once more at your side if the same peril ever come again; though America, for whom nothing was once too good, should fail you in your need.
"There, I have said what I wanted to say; what your best friends here have been thinking this many a day. For your best friends are not, as you might imagine, to be found in a certain section of our Press who for their own political or private ends are prepared to encourage all your suspicions if so they may injure the good name of our statesmen who meet you in council for the common cause. Your best friends are the men who deplore those suspicions; who beg you, as I do here, to get them swept away as being unworthy of a great nation and a great alliance.
"For this end, Believe me, dear Madame, to be at your service as always,