Britain entered into the Entente Cordiale with France — despite their differences — because it was concerned about German militarism and the effect this would have on peace in Europe. This was because any political instability in Europe would also affect British trade. So, what was in it for France? May I read a sentence from that wonderful document? At this most fateful moment in the history of the modern world the Governments of the United Kingdom and French Republic make this declaration of indissoluble union and unyielding resolution in their common defence of justice and freedom against subjection to a system which reduces mankind to a life of robots and slaves.
Every citizen of France will enjoy immediately citizenship of Great Britain. Every British subject will become a citizen of France. Then came the wonderful conclusion: The Union will concentrate its full energy against the power of the enemy, no matter where the battle may be, and thus we shall conquer.
The prophecy contained in that wonderful document was fulfilled. The mover of this Motion has pointed out the wonderful reception given to the Prime Minister and the British troops in Paris in Fortunately, the late Lord Norwich lived long enough to give us a beautiful account of that welcome. He also told us of the efforts made in by the late right hon. Ernest Bevin and the French Minister M.
Bidault to bring about the Treaty of Dunkirk which was, unlike the Entente Cordiale, a treaty of alliance, and was developed in into the Brussels Treaty by including Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg.
I was delighted to find a clause in that Treaty which insists upon the importance of cultural relations, by which I understand the study of the French language and literature. I have never met an Englishman who knew any French at all who was not an admirer of French prose. I admit that the appreciation of French verse requires a certain amount of initiation.
I have always held that the acid test was a realization of the beauties of Racine. Once that has been acquired, the whole of French literature is opened up. It is an amazing French literary masterpiece, at least equal to the works of Sophocles or Euripides. While paying this tribute of admiration to French literature, I can only conclude by saying, "Vive la France!
Vive l'Entente Cordiale! I rise to associate Her Majesty's Government and Members on this side of the House with the Motion which has been so happily proposed by the hon. Member for Coventry, North Mr. Edelman and seconded by my hon. Savory , whom I congratulate on his return to robust health. It is a remarkable fact, which my hon. Friend has well illustrated, that at the time when it was concluded the Entente Cordiale did not represent some great surge of opinion on either side of the Channel.
It was, in fact, an instrument of political policy at the time, calculated to attempt to remove the differences which had so long complicated Anglo-French relations in Egypt and Morocco. That was the foundation of the business, which I suppose some people, using language which at one time was popular, would call a form of power politics deal.
However it began, its character over the years has entirely changed, and it is now important not because of the Treaty, not because of the arrangements which my hon. Friend has described to us and some of which I had myself forgotten, but because it is an expression of friendship which has come to mean something truly important to the men and women in both countries, Britain and France.
Since the war, as has been truly stated, we have tried to enshrine our relation- ship again in a number of documents like the Treaty of Dunkirk, but I do not think that they really count for so much in the relations between Britain and France as the fact that the two peoples accept, as something which nobody can ever destroy, their deep feelings of friendship and comradeship, whether the weather be foul or fine.
There is only one other comment I would like to make. It is always difficult to express one's sentiments towards any country without either exaggeration or seeming cold. I remember at this moment a particular incident in when I went with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to Tours at a very bad moment in our fortunes and those of France. As we came flying back we had, for reasons into which I need not enter now, to fly very low, almost hedge-hopping over the French countryside.
As we did so, I could not help the thought coming to my mind—we knew well what the immediate military future held— "Will I ever see France again? It is a fact that France in her own peculiar way expresses to the world the epitome of Western civilisation as we know it.
Whatever her problems, internal or external, she holds to that faith. We feel that when we are together the results for both of us are better and that we have each something to contribute to the common effort. So, looking back on these 50 years, and forward to the work we have still to do together, I should like to endorse what has been said, and I should like to mention two French statesmen of this post-war period, M.
Robert Schuman and M. Georges Bidault, both of whom have proved themselves not only great Frenchmen but great Europeans. Robinson, who also bats second, homers in his first at-bat in Cleveland's win. Nearly 28 years earlier, the Pirates had not captured a ship sailing under the American flag since the s until April 8, , when the MV Maersk Alabama was hijacked off the coast of Somalia.
The high-profile incident drew worldwide attention to the problem of piracy, commonly believed to be a thing of He had been given six months to live in December of but defied expectations and lived for five more years, during which time his story helped educate the On board is astronaut Ellen Ochoa, soon to become the first Hispanic woman in space. Eric Rudolph agrees to plead guilty to a series of bombings, including the fatal bombing at the Olympics in Atlanta, in order to avoid the death penalty.
He later cited his anti-abortion and anti-homosexual views as motivation for the bombings. Eric Robert Rudolph was born Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. Although it was resolved quickly the crisis was by no means over.
The argument over compulsory service was a much more drawn-out affair, and perhaps less poisonous but nonetheless a source of rivalry and friction. Many of those who believed that Britain needed a large standing army on the European scale formed the National Service League in under the presidencies of Lord Raglan and Lord Frederick Roberts of Kandahar it became a loud and pressing voice for compulsory service.
Against it were figures of equal standing including General Sir Ian Hamilton. In strategy and in military organization you can not successfully bestride two horses at once. By around , the army was ready for the expected war. The British Expeditionary Force of was well equipped and well trained; but was the army ready for war?
When men could finally look back and review the Great War and the unprecedented and improvised steps that had to be taken in order to win, it was all too easy to form the opinion that Britain had entered into it poorly prepared.
Even Sir Douglas Haig, victorious Commander-in-Chief of the British Armies in France and Flanders, who had been involved in pre-war planning and presumably had an appreciation of the complexities and sensitivities of the time, said in In the first place, we were unprepared for war, or at any rate for a war of such magnitude. We were deficient in both trained men and military material, and, what was more important, had no machinery ready by which either men or material could be produced in anything approaching the requisite quantities.
Haldane was right. Given the contemporary assumptions of its likely role in a war in Europe and the known factors of its military, political, economic and industrial position in , and given that it had no desire for conflict but was prepared to defend the interests of the nation and its Empire, Britain was as prepared for war as it could reasonably be.
Had this all been so, Britain could be said to have been unprepared for a war of such magnitude. But these things were not known and could not reasonably have been predicted. Britain was prepared enough to have identified the main enemy, forged a close relationship with two vital allies, reorganised and modernised its army, built an unassailable naval superiority and deployed at a place and time to assist in the decisive defeat of Germany at the Marne.
The British battles and engagements of the Great War. Skip to content. Emerging views on how Britain would fight a war in Europe At the very outset of the military talks with France, Britain spoke of sending a force of , or , men — five or six Divisions.
Was Britain ready for war in ? Useful bibliography Samuel R.
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