[London Portrait Co.
The splendid arrogance of the Division, its well-founded faith in its own prowess, rested on the sure foundation of the fervent belief of each man in the righteousness of the cause for which he was fighting. To die for it if need be was the simple duty that animated all. The qualities that created the Empire are equally necessary to maintain it, and the security of a heritage depends essentially on the sense of duty of those who hold it. War still remains the supreme test of a nation’s efficiency, and it is the glory of democracy that it did not shirk that test when challenged. In keeping with the national spirit the Ninth Division had ever before it the injunction received from H.M. King George V. on the 10th May 1915, and its greatest honour is that from beginning to end it faithfully and loyally carried it out.
“Officii fructus sit ipsum officium.”
As the war recedes into the past and as the emotions roused by it subside, the tendency is to linger on the splendid and spectacular advances of the latter part of 1918, and to exalt them at the expense of the previous battles. If the war is to be viewed from the proper angle, it should never be forgotten that after August 1918 the Germans were men without hope, and to deduce our lessons of the war from the last four months of fighting would be the height of folly. None knew better than those who fought at Loos, the Somme, Arras, and Passchendaele, and who also took part in the victorious advance, that in the last months we were able with confidence to take risks which it would have been rash to take in 1915, 1916, and 1917. Those whose active service was confined to the fighting after August 1918 never experienced the same deadly nerve-rack and the fierce acuities of emotion that sprang from the pitiless shelling and desperate strife of the previous campaigns. The wearing-out battles, when the foe was encountered at the zenith of his strength, with all their disappointments and mistakes alone made possible the gigantic advances at the end. A glance at the Division’s casualty list[140] shows clearly that the heat and burden of the day fell principally upon those who faced the enemy during the campaigns fought between September 1915 and the close of 1917. And the dead of the Ninth in the long chain of battles from Loos to the Lys had by their valour and sacrifice paved the way for the triumphal onset that carried the Division from Ypres to the Scheldt. The countless graves that strew the battle-line of France and Flanders contain the flower of the British race, and furnish silent but eloquent evidence of the robust qualities and manly faith without which the British Empire and all that it stands for must have passed away.
“Qui procul hinc—the legend’s writ,
The frontier grave is far away;
Qui ante diem periit,
Sed miles, sed pro patriâ.”