The Beginning of the End
Among the many wonders of the War one of the most wonderful is the sailor-man, three times, four times, five times torpedoed, who yet wants to sail once more. But there is one thing that he never wants to do again— to "pal" with Fritz the square-head:
"When peace is signed and treaties made an' trade begins again,
There's some'll shake a German's 'and an' never see the stain;
But not me," says Dan the sailor-man, "not me, as God's on high—
Lord knows it's bitter in an open boat to see your shipmates die."
Among the ignoble curiosities of the time we note the following advertisements in a Manchester newspaper of "wants" in our "indispensable" industries: "Tennis ball inflators, cutters and makers" and "Caramel wrappers"; while a Brighton paper has "Wanted, two dozen living flies weekly during the remainder of winter for two Italian frogs." The situation in Ireland remains unchanged, and suggests the following historical division of eras, (1) Pagan era; (2) Christian era; (3) De Valera.
ONCE again the month of the War-God has been true to its name. March, opening in suspense, with the Kaiser and his Chancellor still talking of peace, has closed in a crisis of acute anxiety for the Allies. The expected has happened; the long-advertised German attack has been delivered in the West, and the war of movement has begun. Breaking through the Fifth British Army, in five days the Germans have advanced twenty-five miles, to within artillery range of Amiens and the main lateral railway behind the British lines. Bapaume and Péronne have fallen. The Americans have entered the war in the firing line. It is the beginning of the end, the supreme test of the soul of the nation:
The little things of which we lately chattered—
The dearth of taxis or the dawn of Spring;
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