Americans oftentimes marvel at the praise that the British and
the French bestow upon the armies of the other. Each insists upon
considering the other superior to himself. One August day, in a Paris
restaurant, a young English captain, quiet, reserved, modest to a
degree, was praising the French soldiers and officers whom he had met.
Having just returned from the front of Ypres and La Bassée he was
so filled with admiration for the fortitude, the endurance, and the
heroism of the French soldiers, that he sought in vain for words bright
enough with which to describe their achievements. Asked for the reason
of his eulogy, and his conviction as to the supremacy of the French,
the British captain answered, "You must remember that the Frenchman is
fighting for his native land, while England has never been invaded
by the Huns." Then the captain went on to praise the British rifles,
machine guns, their military tactics, and the skill of their soldiers.
"When my company march, they are so perfectly drilled that their one
hundred right legs swing like the single stroke of a pendulum. I will
put my men against the soldiers of the world. Still," he said, "so far
as I now recall, no English division ever brought in at one time more
than one fourth their number as prisoners."