the deeds of the Worcesters, and the London Scottish, by all
the splendid valour of that "thin red line," French and English, cavalry
and infantry, which in the first Battle of Ypres withstood an enemy four
times as strong, saved France, and thereby England, and thereby Europe. In
that tract of ground over which we are looking lie more than 100,000
graves, English and French; and to it the hearts of two great nations will
turn for all time. Then if you try to pierce the northern haze, beyond
that ruined tower, you may follow in imagination the course of the Yser
westward to that Belgian coast where Admiral Hood's guns broke down and
scattered the German march upon Dunkirk and Calais; or if you turn south
you are looking over the Belfry of Bailleul, towards Neuve Chapelle, and
Festubert, and all the fierce fighting-ground round Souchez and the
Labyrinth. Once English and French stood linked here in a common heroic
defence. Now the English hold all this line firmly from the sea to the
Somme; while the French, with the eyes of the world upon them, are making
history, hour by hour, at Verdun.

So to this point we have followed one branch--the greatest--of England's
effort; and the mind, when eyes fail, pursues it afresh from its
beginnings when we first stood to arms in August, 1914, through what Mr.
Buchan has finely called the "rally of the Empire," through the early rush
and the rapid growth of the new armies, through the strengthening of
Egypt, the disaster of Gallipoli, the seizure of the German Colonies;
through all that vast upheaval at home which we have seen in the munition
areas; through that steady, and ever-growing organisation on the friendly
French soil we have watched in the supply bases. Yet here, for us, it
culminates; and here and in the North Sea, we can hardly doubt--whatever
may be the diversions in other fields--will be fought, for Great Britain,
the decisive battles of the war. As I turn to those dim lines on the
Messines ridge, I have come at last to sight of whither it all moves.
There, in those trenches is _The Aggressor_--the enemy who has wantonly
broken the peace of Europe, who has befouled civilisation with deeds of
lust and blood, between whom and the Allies there can be no peace till the
Allies' right arm dictates it. Every week, every day, the British Armies
grow, the British troops pour steadily across the Channel, and to the
effort of England and her Allies there will be no truce till the r