anticipated and prepared for war for forty years and those
who had neglected to foresee the possibility of such an enterprise. The
fact remained, we had no shells.

Every day our defenses were leveled. Every night we would crawl out, after
long hours spent flat on our stomachs, covered to the neck in mud and
blood, and endeavor to repair the damage. Every night we lost a few men;
every day we lost a few men, and still we held our ground.

The day casualties were the worst. The wounded men had to lie in the damp
and dirt until night came to shelter them; then some one would help, or if
that were not possible, the wounded would have to make his own pain-strewn
way back to a dressing station. During the day some one might discover that
he had developed a frozen toe. He could get no relief; he dare not attempt
to leave his partial shelter. The slightest movement, and the enemy would
have closed his career. By night his foot would be a fiery torture, and by
the time a doctor was near enough to help it would be a rotting mass of
gangrene, and one man more would be added to the list of permanent
cripples.

I am asked, "How did you live? How did you 'carry on'?"

Many a time I have said to myself in thinking of the enemy: "Why don't they
come on--why don't the fools strike now? There's no earthly reason why they
should not defeat us, and roll on triumphantly to Paris, to Calais, to
London, to New York, and so realize their original intention." There was no
_earthly_ reason. No.

The Kaiser had talked in lordly voice of "ME and God." The Kaiser has
manufactured a God of his own fancy, a God of blood and iron. There is no
such God for us. For us, there was always that Unseen Hand which held back
the enemy in his might. The All Highest who is not on the side of blood and
murder and pillage and outrage and violation; the Almighty, who, crudely
though I may express it, is with those who fight for the Right and on the
square.

And that is why we were not driven back to the sea. That is why we stood
the test. That is why we, the Allied Nations, shall win.

Again, if the German hordes, with their iron power behind them, had had
five per cent. of the Anglo-Saxon sporting blood in their veins, they could
have licked us long ago. They did not. They have not. They are poor
sports. They have eliminated the individuality of "sport" for the
efficiency of machinery, and they can not lick us.

Who started the war? The War Machine that