[Illustration: MEDICAL OFFICER: "Sorry I must reject you on account of your
teeth."
WOULD-BE-RECRUIT: "Man, ye're making a gran' mistake. I'm no wanting to
bite the Germans, I'm wanting to shoot 'em."]
Germany in one brief month has given us a wonderful exhibition of
conscienceless strength, of disciplined ferocity. She has shown an equally
amazing failure to read the character of her foes aright. We now know what
German Kultur means: but of the soul and spirit of England she knows
nothing. Least of all does she understand that formidable and incorrigible
levity which refuses to take hard knocks seriously. It will be our
privilege to assist in educating our enemies on these and other points,
even though, as Lord Kitchener thinks, it takes three years to do it. The
Mad Dog of Europe is loose, but we remember the fate of the dog who "to
serve some private ends went mad and bit the man." "The man recovered from
his bite, the dog it was that died." Meanwhile the Official Press Bureau
has begun its operations, the Prince of Wales's Relief Fund for the relief
of those who may suffer distress through the war is started, and in the
City
Because beneath grey Northern Skies
Some grey hulls heave and fall,
The merchants sell their merchandise
All just as usual.
_September, 1914._
Another month of revelations and reticences, of carnage and destruction,
loss and gain, with the miracle of the Marne as the first great sign of the
turning of the tide. On September 3 the Paris Government moved to Bordeaux,
on the 5th the retreat from Mons ended, on the 13th Joffre, always
unboastful and laconic, announced the rolling back of the invaders, on the
15th the battle of the Aisne had begun. What an Iliad of agony, endurance
and heroism lies behind these dates--the ordeal and deliverance of Paris,
the steadfastness of the "Contemptibles," the martyrdom of Belgium!
Day by day Germany unmasks herself more clearly in her true colours from
highest to lowest. The Kaiser reveals himself as a blasphemer and
hypocrite, the Imperial crocodile with the bleeding heart, the Crown Prince
as a common brigand, the High Command as chief instigators to ferocity, the
rank and file as docile instruments of butchery and torture, content to use
Belgium women as a screen when going into action.