Through the brutal but clumsy blundering of Prussian diplomats,
Europe has been long awaiting the conflagration; every move in
the game has been brought out long ago. Besides, Germany
undoubtedly counted on our domestic troubles and our pacific
tendencies to keep us out of this conflict. They imagined France
could easily be wiped out while Russia's vast bulk was slowly
mobilising, and that the Russians would then be held up by the
victorious legions pouring back from Paris. Then in, say, ten
years they would turn on England and wipe her from the map. Our
entrance into the War now has not only braced the whole moral
fibre of France, Russia, Belgium and Serbia, but has strangled
German commerce and held up her food supply by means of our
command of the seas. Thus all the enemy plans have been thrown
into confusion. We would be indeed foolish if we did not realise
our position--what it means to ourselves, to Europe, and to the
world. Having won the toss on a hard wicket, we are not going to
put Germany in. We must fight to the death. The law is "Eat or be
eaten."

In these circumstances we call on Dulwich College to realise its
duties to the State. Nothing--not work nor games--must be allowed
to stand before the Corps till the War is over. Special drills
and parades, extra route marches, all these must be and ought to
be looked forward to cheerfully and willingly. The splendid
number of recruits shows that the school is not going to fail in
its duty here. We are not going to indulge in theories and
jingo-patriotism, but call on you with deadly seriousness--the
British Empire, the British principles of liberty, all are at
stake. If we go down now we go down for ever. Germany is said to
have called up every male between the ages of fifteen and sixty.
If they can do that, surely we ought to be able to reply. Let
that voluntary system which is the glory of our armies and navies
carry us through now! We call on every one in the School to join
the Corps at once.

Nothing was finer in the first months of the War than the rally of the
manhood of Great Britain to the call of the country in its time of
need. All classes, rich and poor, patrician and peasant, employer and
workman, were uplifted by the great occasion. Through the influence of
patriotism, the recognition by