ABSTRACT
At the age of eight Edmonds was taken to Paris and watched Napoleon III drive along the Rue de Rivoli. He returned two years later a few months after the end of the Franco-Prussian War. Having read of the bombardment of Paris and the fall of the Arc de Triomphe, he was struck by the sight of the great arch still intact and later claimed that his faith in the accuracy of war correspondents was thereafter shaken for life.1 It was on this trip too that an event occurred which was perhaps decisive in determining Edmonds’ eventual career in the army. At that time the Germans continued to occupy Amiens and, according to Edmonds, were ‘strutting about with oak leaves round their helmets’. A Bavarian captain approached Edmonds and his father and asked if they were English. When his father replied that they were, the German said, ‘Ve have beat de Franzman; you vil be de next.’ According to Edmonds, his father was so impressed by the seriousness of this threat that he made sure both his sons spoke German and, as the sabre-rattling increased, determined to put both of them in the army.2
