The correspondent asks what would happen if the British Chief
of the General Staff and the British War Cabinet were asked by the Generalissimo to consent to schemes which they could not approve. One has only to imagine the situation that might be created to wish to avoid it:— "The Generalissimo is master by general consent, and he will proceed to passer entre. We can scarcely picture a President, a Primo Minister, and a President du Conseil waiting hat in hand for the sic Atha, of the Generalissimo, but so it must be. It will be his right, and he will hold to it. A friction will be set up ; everybody will grumble and become suspicious, and if the plan fails, and our troops or somebody else's get into difficulties, we shall all damn the Generalissimo into heaps and the resentment will be intense. It is a fact which has to be accepted with all its consequences that an Army can stand a defeat under its own chiefs, but cannot stand a defeat incurred by obeying the orders of a foreign general. National pride, arrogance, and prejudice are all aroused, and the real bond of an Alliance, mutual understanding and accord, soon breaks."
We are certain that our gallant French friends would not wish to see such mischief as this created. After all, they want, as we do, the best fighting powers of tho British soldier to be developed ; and those who believe that those powers are developed most strongly under the British soldier's own Generals are most shy of the proposal to have a Generalissimo.
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