"Look at the map," says the German Chancellor. Look at the map, and mark
with a cross every German disappointment and you will have a history of
the war more illuminating than many books on the subject. The Marne,
Ypres, South Africa, West Africa, Egypt, Bagdad, India, Tripoli, Verdun.
Look at the map indeed. The map of the world that Germany set out to
conquer. Consider the vapouring and vainglory that marked each of these
"successes" in political or military trickery and the fact that of the
military crosses each upbears above a mountain of losses the refrain of
the old German song Verdorben--Gestorben--Ruined--Dead.
It is a wonderful map to consider, this map of the world in 1916. A
wonderful map to be studied by the mothers of the Fatherland who have
suckled their children to manure the crops of the future, to feed the
crematoriums and blast furnaces of Belgium, to fill the mad houses,
blind asylums, and homes for incurables, when the frosts of Russia and
the guns of the Allies have done with them.
And every cross marks the grave of a hope.
Paris
Regrets eternels.
That wonderful inscription was the first to be cut. Galliene was the
mason. Verdun was the last and will not be the least. But, whatever may
come to be written on stone, on the heart of the mourner when he comes
to die only one inscription will be found: "Calais." If he has a heart
large enough to have even these six letters.