"O Star, teach those who are not in the trenches…to be game!"
Stéphane Lauzanne
Translation by Madame Carlo Polifème.
A Tribute to England
It may be said of this war, as the master mind of all the ages said of adversity, that "its uses are sweet," even though they be as a precious jewel shining in the head of an ugly and venomous toad. While the world-war has brutalized men, it has as a moral paradox added immeasurably to the sum of human nobility. Its epic grandeur is only beginning to reveal itself, and in it the human soul has reached the high water marker of courage and honor.
The war has enriched our language with many new expressions, but none more beautiful than that of "Somewhere in France." To all noble minds, while it sounds the abysmal depths of tragic suffering, it rises to the sublimest heights of heroic self-sacrifice.
The world has paid its tribute to the immortal valor of France, and no words could pay the debt of appreciation which civilization owes to this heroic nation; but has there been due recognition of the equal valor and the like spirit of self-sacrifice which has characterized Great Britain in this titanic struggle?
When the frontier of Belgium was crossed, England staked the existence of its great empire upon the issue of the uncertain struggle. It had, as figures go in this war, only a small army. If it had been niggardly in its effort to defend Belgium, and save France in her hour of supreme peril, England might have said, without violating any express obligation arising under the ENTENTE CORDIALE, that in giving its incomparable fleet it had rendered all the service that its political interests, according to former standards of expediency, justified; and it could have been plausibly suggested that the ordinary considerations of prudence and the instinct of self-preservation required it, in the face of the deadly assault by the greatest military power in the world, to reserve its little army for the defense of its own soil. England never hesitated, when the Belgian frontier was crossed, but moved with such extraordinary speed that within four days after its declaration of war its standing army was crossing the channel, and within a fortnight it had landed upon French soil the two army corps which constituted the backbone of her military power.
What follows will be remembered with admiration and gratitude by the English speaking races as long as they endure, for nothing in the history of that race is finer than the way in which the so called "contemptible little British Army," as the Kaiser somewhat prematurely called it—outnumbered four to one, and with an even greater disproportion in artillery—withstood the powerful legions of Von Kluck at Mons. Enveloped on both flanks they stood as a stone wall for three days against an assault of one of the mightiest armies in recorded history, and only retreated when ordered to do so by the high command of the Allied forces in order to conform to its strategic plans. The English were not defeated at Mons. It was a victory, both in a technical and moral sense.
The retreat from Mons to the Marne was one of terrible hardship and imminent danger. For nearly fourteen days, in obedience to orders, the British soldiers,—fighting terrific rear guard actions, which, in retarding the invaders, made possible the ultimate victory,—slowly retreated, never losing their morale, although suffering untold physical hardships and the greater agony of temporary defeats, which they could not at that time understand, and yet it is to their undying credit, in common with their brave comrades of the French Army, that when the moment came to cease the retreat and to turn upon a foe, which flushed with unprecedented victory still greatly outnumbered the retreating armies, the British soldier struck back with almost undiminished power. The "miracle of the Marne" is due to Tommy Atkins as well as to the French Poilu.