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Cbe Great War
E D IT O R S
H. W. WILSON
J. A. HAMMERTON
O R
EDITORIAL
B
M I
A T T L E stories anim ate the chapters which constitute •
this Part of T h e G r e a t W a i <. Glencorse Hill and
Polygon W ood, H outhulst Forest, Langem arck, and
Passchendaele Ridge are names w ritten in the life-blood
of tw o great Em pires upon the m ap of Belgium and
inscribed in golden glory on the colours of m any a Britisn
regiment. In actual term s of hum an life the alternate
processes of B ritish advance and Germ an counter-attack
were horrible, and the strain upon the endurance of both
Armies was unparalleled and past imagining. B u t the
moral of the B ritish was the better, and the balance of
the victory was theirs. The story of it as narrated here
throbs w ith intensity.
Hill 35 and Polygon Wood
\ LM O ST em otional in their intensity are the passages
¦ **- devoted to the " tragic d ay for Ireland ” when,
weakened b y their attack, her sons cam e all unsheltered
under the fire of thousands of German guns massed upon
the centre of the battlefield where the advanced Irish
line was pierced and m any groups of it surrounded.
H ill 35 w ill be remembered long in U ls te r ; but its blood
stained slopes were sanctified b y splendid sacrifice and
devotion— of warrior striving to take life, of doctor
strivin g to save it, and of priest on his knees b y dying
men speeding their souls with prayer. H ardly less tragic
was th at d a y for English C ounty regiments and London
battalions on the right of the Irish Divisions, w ith Polygon
W ood for their objective. They, too, cam e under a
tornado of lead— shrapnel bullets, high-explosive shells,
and gas-shells poured from the parks of Germ an guns
to the south and the east of them, and the w astage of
life was grievous. Y e t the lesson th ey taught the enemy
was th at he could kill but he could not conquer. When
it comes to hard pounding, the B riton to-day, like the
Briton of a hundred years ago, m ay be trusted to pound
longest.
Canada and Ludendorff
Q
U IT E as stirring is the battle-story of the Canadians
at Lens, and it provides Mr. W right w ith an occasion
to digress into one of the searching and most instructive
dissertations of political strategy which are so distin
guishing a feature of his historical m ethod. H e shows
th at the repeated victories won b y the Canadians had
had a most disturbing effect upon German opinion and
upon the spirit of German troops opposed to , them,
Ludendorff feared th a t a success at Lens com parable to
th at won at V im y R idge would determ ine Canadian
opinion in favour of com plete national service w ith cul
m inating results disastrous to himself. H e hoped th at by
subjecting them to an exceptional heavy w astage process he
m ight dishearten the people of the Dominion and weaken
the links which bound it to the M other Country. Conse
quently, he paid them the m ilitary com plim ent of turning
the fiercest blast of his fu ry upon them — and got badly
burned for his pains. Lens was the new trium ph for
Canada that Ludendorff dreaded it m ight b e ; and the
result of the Canadian election, which was to determine
the question of increasing her energy in sending over
fighting men to Europe, was definitely in favour of the
B ritish m ilitary cause. Subtle and far-seeing though
Ludendorff was, he was a born m iscalculator where the
psychology of the B ritish race was concerned. H e sought
to weaken and destroy tlje B ritish Em pire b y drainirg
the Overseas Dominions of their blood, and, behold I
every drop that he spilled on the ground only went to
the stronger cem enting of the great fabric.
O
N E point which Mr. W right m akes in the chapters
here presented is th at people in this country who
spread the opinion th at war-weariness has already sapped
the moral of the German A rm y are playing the enem y’s
game. B y a propaganda am ong the German soldiery—
w hich he candidly acknowledges to have been brilliant—
he shows how Ludendorff converted w hat war-weariness
did exist am ong the German soldiery into an incentive
to fierce action. H e hypnotised them into the belief th at
if the B ritish A rm y could be held until overwhelm ing
reinforcem ents could be brought from the Russian front,
the w ar in the. west and south of E urope would be brought
to a m ilitarily successful conclusion m onths before an
adequate Am erican arm y could be brought into the field.
Duty versus Fanaticism
TT was a plausible proposition, and won such acceptance
among the troops that there was seen on the western
front som ething that had not been seen on any front since
August, 1914— large numbers of individual Germ ans of
the peasant and urban classes w illingly sacrificing them
selves in forlorn hopes along the first line of defences in
m agnanimous endeavour to secure for their children “ the
entire earth as a heritage." “ N ot since the Saracens fell
at Tours,” says Mr. W right, “ and the Mongols were broken
on the marches of Poland, had Europe seen such an out
burst of intense m ilitary fanaticism as th at which carried
the German A rm y through the cam paign of Y pres, and
there left it battered, yet still unbroken in spirit.”
A
G A IN S T that fanaticism the B ritish A rm y set its
n ative strong sense of d u ty and “ the strongest will
to win th a t the world has ever know n,” to use words
em ployed b v the semi-official “ Cologne G azette ” in an
article published at the end of 1917, and intended to dissi
pate misapprehensions still existing in Germ any as to the
tem per of Great B ritain at the beginning of 1918. It
proved an effective antidote to the Prussian evil. A t
Lens the Germ an troops, in the first flush of their revived
fanaticism , were ordered to recapture Hill 70 at all costs.
Prussian Guards strove to fulfil the order, nobly upholding
their finest traditions, and th ey failed. A t m any of the
Cites surrounding the w ar-tortured tow n— each one a
separate fortress, strongly held— savage fighting followed,
and at each a fresh victory w as registered for d u ty over
fanaticism . So the great story goes on. Mr. W right will
carry it a farther stage forward in the n ext P art of T h e
G r e a t W a r , recording the incidents and issue of the
struggle that was resumed on the B elgian terrain in the
neighbourhood of Zonnebeke and eastwards from Y p res to
the Passchendaele Ridge, henceforward to be remembered
as the scene of yet another trium ph for B ritish sense
of d u ty and will to win. And so the story will go on,
until m ilitary fanaticism and arrogant pretensions to
rule the earth are broken idols for the Teutonic peoples.
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The Great War—Part ISO. »