"In all my life this trip is the biggest show I have ever had."
The first point on the trip where the French intelligence proved superior to the German was that I was allowed to pay my own expenses. With the exception of motor cars and a hundred courtesies extended by the scores of French officers, I paid my own railroad fare, hotel and food bills.
"This army has nothing to hide," said one of the greatest Generals to me. "You see what you like, go where you desire, and if you cannot get there, ask."
This General was de Maud'Huy, the man who with a handful of territorials stopped the Prussian Guard before Arras shortly after the battle of the Marne and who since then has never lost a single trench. His name is now scarcely known, even in France, but I venture the prophecy that when the French Army marches down the Champs Elysées after the war is over, when the vanguard passes under the Arch de Triomph, de Maud'Huy—a nervous little firebrand—will be right up in the front rank with Joffre.
While our party did all the spectacular stunts the Germans have offered the correspondents in such profusion, such as visiting the trenches, where in our case a German shell burst thirty feet from us, splattering us with mud, also where snipers sent rifle balls hissing only a few feet away, almost our greatest treats were the scientific daily discourses given by our Captain concerning the entire history of the first campaign, explaining each event leading up to the present position of the two armies. He gave the exact location of every French and allied army corps on the entire front.
On the opposite side of the line he demonstrated the efficiency of the French secret service by detailing the position and name of every German regiment, also the date and the position it now holds. Thus, we were able to know during the journey that it was the crack Prussian Guard that was stopped by de Maud'Huy's Territorials and that the English section under General French was opposed by Saxons.
Our Captain by these lectures gave us an insight into the second great German blunder after the failure to occupy Paris, which was the failure immediately to swing a line across Northern France, thus cutting off Calais and Boulogne, where they could really have leveled a pistol at England's head. He explained that it was the superiority of the French cavalry that dictated that the line should instead run straight north through the edge of Belgium to the sea. His explanations went further than this, for he refuted many military arguments to the effect that cavalry became obsolete with the advent of aeroplanes.
Cavalry formerly was used to screen the infantry advance and also for shock purposes in the charges. Now that the lines are established, it is mostly used with the infantry in the trenches; but in the great race after the Marne to turn the western flanks it was the cavalry's ability to outstrip the infantry that kept the Germans from practically all of Northern France. In other words, the French chausseurs, more brilliant than the Uhlans, kept that northern line straight until the infantry corps had time to take up position.
My introduction to the real French Army was made at the point of junction with the English troops, so I was thus able to make some comparison between the types of the Allies. I did not see the Germans except as prisoners, although on this trip I was sometimes within a few yards of their lines. With all consideration for the statement that they are the greatest fighting machine the world has ever seen, all I can say is that the greatest fighting machine I have even seen is the French Army.
To me they seem invincible from the standpoints of power, intelligence, and humanity. This latter quality specially impressed me. I do not believe any army with such high ideals can easily be beaten, and I judge not only from Generals in command, but the men in the trenches. One morning I was going through the trenches near the most important point where the line was continually under fire.