M. Pierre Loti, who happened to be at Madrid when the troops were leaving to fight the Americans, wrote: "They are, indeed, still the solid and splendid Spanish troops, heroic in every epoch; one needs only to look at them to divine the woe that awaits the American shopkeepers when brought face to face with such soldiers." He prophesied des surprises sanglantes. M. Loti is a member of the French Academy.
See also letter quoted, pp. 230-231.
"Patriotism and Empire." Grant Richards.
"For permanent work the soldier is worse than useless; his whole training tends to make him a weakling. He has the easiest of lives; he has no freedom and no responsibility. He is, politically and socially, a child, with rations instead of rights—treated like a child, punished like a child, dressed prettily and washed and combed like a child, excused for outbreaks of naughtiness like a child, forbidden to marry like a child, and called "Tommy" like a child. He has no real work to keep him from going mad except housemaid's work" ("John Bull's Other Island"). All those familiar with the large body of French literature, dealing with the evils of barrack-life, know how strongly that criticism confirms Mr. Bernard Shaw's generalization.