Hence his firm, his unshakable determination to obtain victory on his own terms; hence, also, it follows that no thought or hope of a premature peace ever disturbs his mind.
And if no one else remained to fight, he would go on, for—he says it himself, and one cannot but believe him—he has "a square jaw."
It is important, in the present condition of affairs, that the French public should make no mistake as to the opinions of the British soldier concerning the war and its sure conclusion.
About this no one can be under any delusion. Everywhere on the British front there is but one opinion—that the war must be carried through to the end; that is to say, till the inevitable victory of the Allies has come to pass; and that it would be a crime against the Homeland, the Allies and those comrades who have fallen, to listen to proposals for a peace which would be consistent with neither the intentions nor the interests of England and her Allies.
During my visit of two months I have seen the larger part of the British front from the Somme to the Yser. Everywhere I have met with the same spirit of determination. This state of mind may be explained in various ways; the perfect confidence which the British Army feels in its Commander-in-Chief, Sir Douglas Haig, "the lucky," as the soldiers call him; the regular growth in the numbers of the effectives, which, though I may not disclose these figures, exceed the estimates of them usually made in France; the tremendous development of material and in the output of munitions; the magnificent successes gained on the Somme and the Ancre, which have given rise to the certainty of being able to defeat an enemy formerly said to be invincible; etc., etc.
Without doubt, the war goes slowly. Tommy admits it, but he begs you to observe—and justly—that on every occasion when his infantry has come to grips with the Germans it has invariably beaten them.
"Besides," he thinks, "perhaps it is not absolutely essential, in order to win the war and place England and her Allies in a position to dictate their own terms, that our Armies should hurl themselves forward in one final and costly advance over the shattered lines of the Germans." The British soldier is fond of comparing the Western battle front to an immense boxing ring, of which the complex systems of barbed wire which stretch from the North Sea to Belfort form the ropes. The war, on the West, has been fought within these limits since the Marne. It is possible that it will see no change of position up to the end.
7. CANADIANS FRESH FROM THE TRENCHES.
But, as in a boxing match, it is not necessary, in order to win, to drive one's opponent over the ropes and out of the ring; in the same way it may happen that the German Army is "knocked out" in the positions where it is fighting to-day.