Yet one of Mr. Punch's poets, in prophetic and optimistic strain, has
actually dared to speculate on the delights of life without "Dora";
Dickens, with the foresight of genius, wrote in "David Copperfield" how his
hero "felt it would have been an act of perfidy to Dora to have a natural
relish for my dinner."
The enterprise of _The Times_ in securing the reminiscences of the
Kaiser's American dentist (or gum-architect, as he is called in his native
land) has aroused mingled feelings. But the Kaiser is reported to have
stated in no ambiguous terms that if, after the War, any Americans are to
be given access to him, from Ambassadors downwards, they must be able
neither to read nor write. _The Times_ is also responsible for the
headline: "The Archangel Landing." There was a rumour of something of this
kind after Mons, but this is apparently official.
One prominent effect of the War has been to make two Propagandist
Departments flourish where none grew before, and it is to be feared that
the reflection on the industry of our new officials implied in the picture
on the previous page is not without foundation.
War has not only stimulated the composition, but the perusal of poetry,
especially among women:
When the Armageddon diet
Makes Priscilla feel unquiet,
She prescribes herself (from Pope)
An acidulated trope.
When the lard-hunt ruffles Rose
Wordsworth lulls her to repose,
While a snippet from the "Swan"
Stops the jam-yearn of Yvonne.
When the man-slump makes her fretty
Susie takes to D. Rossetti,
Though her sister Arabella
Rather fancies Wilcox (Ella).
When Evangelina swoons
At the sound of the maroons,
Mrs. Hemans comes in handy
As a substitute for brandy.
And when Auntie heard by chance
That the Curate was in France,
Browning's enigmatic lyrics
Helped to save her from hysterics.
_September, 1918_.
Since July 15th, when the Kaiser mounted a high observation post to watch
the launching of the offensive which was to achieve his crowning victory,
but proved the prelude of the German collapse, the conflict has raged
continuously and with uninterrupted success for the Allied Armies. The
Kaiser Battle has become the Battle of Liberation. The French bore the
initial burden of the attack, but since August 8 "hundreds of thousands of
unbeaten Tommies," to quote the phrase of a French military expert, have
entered into action in a succession of attacks started one after the other
all the way up to Flanders. Rawlinson, Home, and Byng have carried on the
hammer work begun by Mangin, Gouraud, and Debeney. Péronne has been
recovered, the famous Drocourt-Quéant switch-line has been breached, the
Americans have flattened out the St. Mihiel salient. The perfect liaison of
British and French and Americans has been a wonderful example of combined
effort rendered possible by unity of command. "Marshal Foch strikes to-day
at a new front," is becoming a standing headline. And this highly desirable
"epidemic of strikes" is not confined to the Western Front. As
Generalissimo of all the Allied Forces the great French Marshal has planned
and carried out an _ensemble_ of operations designed to shatter and
demoralise the enemy at every point. The long inaction on the Salonika
Front has been ended by the rapid and triumphant advance of the British,
French, Serbians, and Greeks under General Franchet d'Esperey. Eight days
sufficed to smash the Bulgarians, and the armistice then granted was
followed four days later by the surrender of Bulgaria. In less than a
fortnight General Allenby pushed north from Jerusalem, annihilated the
Turkish armies in Palestine, and captured Damascus. And by the end of the
month the Hindenburg line had been breached and gone the way of the "Wotan"
line. Wotan was not a happy choice:
But even super-Germans are wont at times to nod,
And to borrow Wotan's aegis was indubitably odd;
For dark decline o'erwhelmed his line: he saw his god-head wane,
And his stately palace vanish in a red and ruinous vain.
[Illustration: STORM DRIVEN