10 NOVEMBER 1939, page 14

We Were Taken To The Maginot Line. I Had Already

seen photographs and heard descriptions of that necklace of fort- resses. The actual details, the guns and the casemates, were more or less as I had imagined ; and in any case......

People And Things

By HAROLD NICOLSON I FLEW to France the other day in a mood of melancholy. It was a wet and wind-swept morning and the wide wings of the aeroplane glistened with scudding rain.......

* * * * These Confident Assertions Were Echoed For

us by the Ministers whom we saw. There was no sign of wishful thinking, of vapid optimism, of empty boastfulness. Before answering our many questions the Ministers would gaze......

* * * * The Virility Of The French Will

always remain a mystery to me. How comes it that they are so disciplined as soldiers and so subversive as civilians? In Prelude to Victory General Spears has devoted some......

It Seemed Intolerable To Me That For The Third Time

in living memory this gentle and pacific people should he exposed to outrage by the barbarians of the east. It seemed intolerable that a civilisation so ancient and yet so......

* * * * Striking Also Was The Quality Of

the discipline which pre- vailed. It recalled to us the discipline, not of some military unit, but of some well-organised hospital. The General who accompanied us spoke to the......

We Sat There In One Of The Committee-rooms Of The

French Chamber, discussing with our colleagues the means by which we politicians might smooth the path of Anglo- French co-operation. I found that they were not unduly......

* * * * The Last War, In Such A

setting, seems as distant as Agin- court. Even the men are of different build. The " concrete boys," as they call themselves, bear but slight resemblance to their fathers. In......