oldiers, Mr. Punch can wish for no better illustration
than in these lines on "The German graves":

I wonder are there roses still
In Ablain St. Nazaire,
And crosses girt with daffodil
In that old garden there.
I wonder if the long grass waves
With wild-flowers just the same,
Where Germans made their soldiers' graves
Before the English came?

The English set those crosses straight
And kept the legends clean;
The English made the wicket-gate
And left the garden green;
And now who knows what regiments dwell
In Ablain St. Nazaire?
But I would have them guard as well
The graves we guarded there.

And when at last the Prussians pass
Among those mounds and see
The reverent cornflowers crowd the grass
Because of you and me,
They'll give, perhaps, one humble thought
To all the "English fools"
Who fought as never men have fought
But somehow kept the rules.

[Illustration: MADE IN GERMANY

CIVILISATION: "What's that supposed to represent?"

IMPERIAL ARTIST: "Why, 'Peace,' of course."

CIVILISATION: "Well, I don't recognise it--and I never shall."]

To turn from the crowning ordeal of our Armies to the activities of British
politicians on the eve of the great German attack is not a soul-animating
experience. Indeed, the efforts of Messrs. Snowden and Trevelyan, Pringle
and King almost justify the assumption that Hindenburg would have launched
his offensive earlier but for his desire not to interfere with the great
offensive conducted by his friends on the Westminster front. Our
anti-patriots, however, are placed in a dilemma. They were bound to side
with Germany, because of their rooted belief that England always must be
wrong. They were bound to hail the Bolshevik self-determinators because of
their entirely sound views on peace at any price. But now their two loves
are fighting like cats. Hence the problem: "Which am I (both can't well be
right), Pro-German or Pro-Trotskyite?" Discussions of pig shortage,
commandeered premises, the relations of the Government and Press, and the
duties of the Directors of Propaganda leave us cold or impatient. But
members of all parties have been united in genuine grief over the death of
Mr. John Redmond, snatched away just when his distracted country most
needed his moderating influence. For in their anxiety not to interfere with
the deliberations of those patriotic Irishmen who are trying to settle how
Ir