[Illustration: ON TICKET-OF-LEAVE
CONVICT: “The next time I’ll wear a German helmet and plead ‘military
necessity.’”]
Liberté! Liberté, Chérie!
There have been many surprises in this war. The evil surprises,
patiently, scientifically, diabolically matured in the dark for the
upsetting and downcasting of a too-trusting world by the enemy of
mankind, whose “Teuton-faith” will surely for ever outrival that
“Punic-faith” which has hitherto been the by-word for perfidious
treachery. The heartening surprises of gallant little Belgium and
Serbia; the renascence of Russia; the wonderful upleap to the needs of
the times by Great, and still more by Greater Britain; and, not least,
the bracing of the loins of our closest Allies just across the water.
In the very beginning, when the Huns tore up that scrap of paper which
represented their honour and their right to a place among decent
dwellers on the earth, and came sweeping like a dirty flood over
Belgium and Northern France, the overpowering remembrance of 1870 still
lay heavy on our sorely-tried neighbours. They had not yet quite found
themselves. The Huns had a mighty reputation for invincibility. It
seemed impossible to stand against them. There were waverings, even
crumplings. There were said to be treacheries in high places.
The black flood swept on. Von Kluck was heading for Paris, and seemed
like to get there. Then suddenly, miraculously as it seemed, his course
was diverted. He was tossed aside and flung back.
And it is good to recall the reason he himself is said to have given
for his failure.
“At Mons the British taught the French how to die.”
That is a great saying and worthy of preservation for all time.
Whether von Kluck said it or not does not matter. It represents and
immortalises a mighty fact.
France was bending under the terrible impact. Britain stood and died.
France braced her loins and they have been splendidly braced ever since.
The Huns were found to be resistible, vulnerable, breakable. The
old verve and élan came back with all the old fire, and along with
these, new depths of grim courage and tenacity, and, we are told, of
spirituality, which may be the making of a new France greater than the
world has ever known.
And that we shall welcome. France, Belgium, Serbia, Russia have
suffered in ways we but faintly comprehend on this side of the water.
When the Great Settling Day comes, this new higher spirit of France
will, it is to be devoutly hoped, make for restraint in the universal
craving for vengeance, and prove a weighty factor in the righteous
re-adjustment of things and the proper fitting together of the jig-saw
map of Europe.