"George, R. et I."[270]
The men also received a little printed letter of counsel and guidance from Lord Kitchener. It has been rightly called the noblest message ever sent to fighting men. Read the following three paragraphs very carefully, and try to remember them. Never before has so fine an ideal been set before the British soldier.
"Remember that the honour of the British Empire depends on your individual conduct, and you can do your country no better service than in showing yourself in France and Belgium in the true character of a British soldier.
"Be invariably courteous, considerate, and kind. Always look upon looting as a disgraceful act. You are sure to meet with a welcome, and to be trusted; your conduct must justify that welcome and that trust.
"Do your duty bravely. Fear God. Honour the King.
"Kitchener, Field-Marshal."
More of our soldiers were landed at Boulogne than at any other French port. Boulogne has a special interest for us: it was the port at which Napoleon made his preparations, between June 1803 and September 1805, for the invasion of England. He marched a hundred thousand men—a very large army in those days—to Boulogne, and every road by which his soldiers passed bore the sign-post, "To England." A huge flotilla of flat-bottomed boats was collected, and the men were exercised in embarking and disembarking within sight of the white cliffs of Dover. "The Channel," said Napoleon, "is but a ditch, and anyone can cross it who has but the courage to try." You know that he never tried to cross it. He could not win that command of the narrow seas on which the success of his invasion depended. His fleet lured Nelson to the West Indies, and then sailed rapidly back; but it was met off Ferrol, and was so crippled that Napoleon was forced to give up his project in disgust. He broke up the camp at Boulogne, and marched his army against the Austrians and Russians instead.
Many of our soldiers at Boulogne rested almost in the shadow of a tall column, 172 feet high, which stands about two miles from the port on the road to Calais. It was erected in 1804 to commemorate the invasion which never came off, and was left unfinished until 1841. On the summit is a statue of the emperor. Our men must also have been much interested in the crumbling forts which were built by Napoleon to protect his flat-bottomed boats from attack.