The Guardian AND EVENING STAR, With which is incorporated "The West Coast Times.” TUESDAY, JULY 19th, 1921. YPRES LEAGUE.

Hokitika Guardian, 19 July 1921, Page 2

The Guardian AND EVENING STAR, With which is incorporated "The West Coast Times.” TUESDAY, JULY 19th, 1921. YPRES LEAGUE.

In announcing the formation ot an Ypres I.(ail'll,>, Sir Philip Gibbs, K.ii.K. says it is to consist of all men ot ours who served in the salient as members of a brotherhood in arms, unlorgetiul of the dead comrades who lie there* — •200,000 of them and mindful of their own service in the ordeal ol battle which for many was the hardest there, and of thi* meaning which that name Ypres will have for ever in our history. Large numbers ot officers and men who served at Ypres have already enrolled themselves as members ot the League, and have received their certificate of memberidup, finely designed, and good to keep as a memorial ot honour. The families of those who fell in the salient may have now this same document w ith the service and sacrifice of their own men recorded upon it. so that their children may keep it in reverence and shall remember. In the city of Ypres itself, among tile ruins there, will be kept a register of th* dead, and plans are in progress to mark the sites of tin* great battles, to guide pilgrims to the most memorable places of historic lighting, to keep the League in friendly touch with the people who have come back to those fields, and if possible- in these hard times to put up some visible memorial on behalf of th ( , League. That may lie a belfry whose chimes sounding across the Monin road below Passcltendaele, beyond Hooge will be a spiritual eaUJo the hearts of those who knew what happened there. These plans and the idea of the League, depend for great success upon the response of all those hundreds of thousands of men who now in civil life look back upon the old days in Flanders, as the time of their supreme tost in which, by the grace of God, and their own strength of soul, such as it was, they did not fail. There is nothing hut sentiment in the idea of the Ypres League. Yet it is a sentiment in which there is no falsity, no morbid touch, but something which belongs to the best pride of men. to the gladness they have in the courage that was theirs in frightful hours, or at least in the mastery they had over the fear that was in them, and their resistance to the misery, the beastliness, the filth, the terrors that were around them in those grim battlefields where death *.,,0- .. freakish choice of li pft T believe there is hardly it man in those

hundreds of thousands, who in years to come, will not bo glad to nod bis head towards that trained certificate of honour and say “You see, 1 served at Ypres,”—not in boastfulness, but in remembrance. I think, too, that the children of those who died on f' use li"lds will cherish that bit of paper as a proof of lirave ancestry. I am one of those who can tell them that any man who went out through Ypres along te Meiiin road, who sat in the dirty ditches of Hoogo, who helped m any way to get forward to the ridges up to i'as.scliendacle and defended by any seiviie the lust hold on the ruins of the city, passed the highest test of human courage. There were other British battlefields where the test came. The fields

. ill-. ;'..mime were the fighting grounds nd the graveyards of thousands of ga1,.11; ~11; an. 0. i'lolll :-t. Quentin to La

;,.,.seo across the Vimy ltidge, out beyond Arras, there is not, a. yard of earth that does not belong to the history if British valour, suffering and sacritioe. Each hummock of ground was a landmark in this frightful epic of human strile. Hut 1 lie Ypres salient is especially the greatest battleground of the British race. All our divisions passed through flic furnace there at one. time or other. Not one of them escaped that ordeal, and by general consent it was the worst place of all. It was worst of all in the early stages of the

u lirn tin- Hermans made their thrust towards Calais and till "c* had of strength which was not much liarred their way until the lines were thin ind ragged, hot still nnhroken, in the First Battle of V|ires, and the Second. !t was the worst place when the Xew Vrmies came along and learnt their first lessons in the school of war, and were flogged by shell tire. The enemy had all the good ground on the ridges ibove ns. They had perfect ohservnttion of all we did, from th t » Wyts<-haete Ridge and the Massines Ridge and W’csthock, and the Frezenliorg. They had great gun power when we were weak in guns, and tin- New Army had to stand under fire, without “answering hack-’’ or with much artillery, and by day or night, as they marched up tin? roads to Ypres past Vlamertinghe, is their guns went up, and their waggons and their mules, shells followed them, and met them, and caught them, 'lid they were “led up’’ with it all. Huy wen* ‘ fed up” with the stinking pits of JliHige. where they lay in water, lice-eateii, with the smell of Tea,tli in their nostrils, 'with mi An craters close to them. It was the worst place of all for many months, and for longer than that. Year after year the Tpres salient did not change its character very much. It was never really pleasant for British soldiers. It was not a “health resort” even after the capture of the .Mcssilies Ridge, when we knew how much the enemy had seen and were staggered at the knowledge. If was less of a “health resort” when the battles of Flanders began in 11)17. It was then one of the most dreadful plots of ground upon which the old moon had over looked down since the beginning of the world. Hundreds of thousands of men wallowed through the swamps in enormous strife under immense and all-destructive storms of high explosives. The solid earth became a liquid hog when the rains began and did not end. By (llencwrse Wood and Inverness Copse wounded men fell and were drowned in th ( > swamps, and I saw them lying there. The way to Rasschendaele was a via dolorosa, and tin* horror of it, the immense range of its misery and massacre, was only relieved and lightened by the wonderful the most grim endurance, of those masses of British soldiers who, in tln-ir masks of mud refused to surrender in their souls to the agony they endured. As I write, those human pictures come bnek to me liauntingly, and I salute again tin* men who served in the salient of Ypresi— infantry a,ml giinne’rs, lorrydrivers. and labour units, surgeons and stretcher-bearers, Air Force and tanks m iiehi ne-gun tiers and trench-mortar men, the great heroic crowd. There were other had days and weeks and months, when tin- enemy was strong still in the. last phase of the war, which was touch-and-go for us. I remember seeing old llailleul go up in Haines, and Rommel captured, and all our old roads about Wostoiitre taped out 'hv shell-fire. The battalions of one who were in the salient then stood between ns and ruin. They were weak battalions, worn down to little grours of dazed and tired men. fighting all the time, snatching a little sleep, and waking up to fight again. It was a weak line that curved round A’pres and its ramparts lint it was strong enough to save us all. and the ragged ruin of the Cloth Hall in Yores is a pillar of victory gained by an immense sum of death now gathered into the graveyards where those comrades lie. All our armies on the Western front parsed through Ypres, The Ypros League is the brotherhood of all ranks w'*<> served there. The annual reunions would gather up locally the spirit of those five years of history. No larne fee is needed for membership. The subscription for one year is’ five shillings, and for life membership two pounds ten shillings, Tf fche response is as great as expected, the League will hi. a vlrlesurei'l feßawshi’i without, disinflation of rank, from field-marshal

to private soldier, and will have a -vital influence in perpetuating great memories when, in spite of the enormous tragedy of war, the virtue of the common man was nobly revealed. The Ypres League will hold the remembrance of that. Its secretary is Major Murat, at the offices of the League, 23 Henrietta street, Cavendish square. London W.