d Line has been entered at the Bois de Foureaux, the whole of Delville
Wood has been carried; and in the combined advance of July 30th, the
French swept on to Maurepas on the north of the Somme, and are closely
threatening both Combles and Peronne, while we are attacking Thiepval on
the left of our line and Guillemont on the right, and pushing forward,
north of Pozieres, toward Bapaume. The whole of the great advance has been
_a thrust up-hill_ from the valley floors of the Ancre and the Somme
toward a low ridge running roughly east and west and commanding an
important stretch of country and vital communications beyond. "It has in
just four weeks of effort," writes Mr. Belloc--"accounted for some thirty
thousand unwounded or slightly wounded prisoners; for much more than 100
guns; for a belt of territory over five miles in its extreme breadth,
and--what is much more important than any of these numerical and local
calculations--it has proved itself capable of _continuous effort against
all the concentration which the enemy has been able to bring against it._"

But it has done yet more than this. It has welded the French and English
Alliance--the wills and minds of the two nations--more closely than ever
before; and it has tested the British war-machine--the new Armies and the
new arms--as they have never yet been tested in this war. The result has
set the heart of England aflame; even while we ponder those long, long
casualty lists which represent the bitter price that British fathers and
mothers, British wives and daughters have paid, and must still pay, for
the only victory which will set up once again the reign of law and
humanity in Europe. What the future has in store we cannot see yet in
detail; but the inevitable end is clear at last. The man-power of Germany
is failing, and with it the insolent confidence of her military caste; the
man-power of the Allies, and the gun-power of the Allies, are rising
steadily. Russia is well launched on her return way to Warsaw, to Cracow,
to East Prussia. Italy, after the fall of Gorizia, is on the march for
Trieste. The Turks are fleeing across the desert of Sinai; and the Allies
at Salonika are taking the first steps toward Sofia.

But it is in the "holy spirit of man" itself that the secret of the future
lies. On the Somme battle-fields, thousands and thousands of young lives
have been again laid down, that England--that France--may live. Here is a
letter, written the day befor