Is that the foolish dream of the sentimentalist? No, more than that; for
the German people, after their agony, were ready to respond to generous
dealing, pitiful in their need of it, and there is enough sentiment in
German hearts--the most sentimental people in Europe--to rise with a
surge of emotion to a new gospel of atonement if their old enemies had
offered a chance of grace. France has not won the war by her terms of
peace nor safeguarded her frontiers for more than a few uncertain
years. By harking back to the old philosophy of militarism she has
re-established peril amid a people drained of blood and deeply in debt.
Her support of reactionary forces in Russia is to establish a government
which will guarantee the interest on French loans and organize a new
military regime in alliance with France and England. Meanwhile France
looks to the United States and British people to protect her from
the next war, when Germany shall be strong again. She is playing the
militarist role without the strength to sustain it.

IV

What of England?... Looking back at the immense effort of the British
people in the war, our high sum of sacrifice in blood and treasure,
and the patient courage of our fighting-men, the world must, and does,
indeed, acknowledge that the old stoic virtue of our race was called
out by this supreme challenge, and stood the strain. The traditions of a
thousand years of history filled with war and travail and adventure, by
which old fighting races had blended with different strains of blood and
temper--Roman, Celtic, Saxon, Danish, Norman-survived in the fiber of
our modern youth, country-bred or city-bred, in spite of the weakening
influences of slumdom, vicious environment, ill-nourishment, clerkship,
and sedentary life. The Londoner was a good soldier. The Liverpools and
Manchesters were hard and tough in attack and defense. The South
Country battalions of Devons and Dorsets, Sussex and Somersets, were
not behindhand in ways of death. The Scots had not lost their fire and
passion, but were terrible in their onslaught. The Irish battalions,
with recruiting cut off at the base, fought with their old gallantry,
until there were few to answer the last roll-call. The Welsh dragon
encircled Mametz Wood, devoured the "Cockchafers" on Pilkem Ridge, and
was hard on the trail of the Black Eagle in the last offensive. The
Australians and Canadians had all the British quality of courage and
the benefit of