THE UNBOASTING BRITISH.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1908, 28 November 1918, Page 1

THE UNBOASTING BRITISH.

AN AMERICAN TRIBUTE.

(By A. R. Carman, in the Philadelphia Public Ledger.)

We must not let our delight in the astonishing achievements of our hoys, bearing themselves like veterans on the bloodiest battlefields in history, and against the most intensively trained troops ever sent into action, blind us to the other <l big things’’ that have been and are being done in this tremendous tournament of the nations. Even in our appraisement of the great deeds of our Allies we have naturally dwelt chielly upon the unexpected and the gloriously bizarre-—the slaying of the Goliaths by the daring Davids. We have not slopped to comment on the solidity of Mont Blanc. But it is after all on the solidity of the Mont Blancs that we build. We all know the stuff of which Old England is made. VUial she has done in this war—-quietly, unboastingly, as is her wont —has surprised no one who knew English character, English stamina, and English history. imaginative writers have mentioned various moments at which the blundering bully of Berlin lost the war and his chance to concjuor and enslave the world; hut those who lake long views of tilings and recognise the primal iorce.which have shaped the destinies of nations since the disintegration of the Homan Empire will agree that the doom of Germany’s despotic anihibtiun was sealed on ihe day that Britain’s councillors wheeled thal nation into line with tin 1 forces of freedom.

If the Kaiser possessed prescience or had read his history, he must have shivered—as tradition says we do if someone steps on our grave —when lie knew for certain that his spies had lied, and that the .stubborn, stiek-10-it, bulldog British laid decided to live or die with the Erench. The British have a had record for an ambitious despot to face. They brought Philip of Spam to his knees —they curbed the power of Louis the Groat of France they grappled with the mighty Napoleon and never let go.

So (hoy entered upon Iho task of bringing down —to paraphrase Kipling —the beast that walked iiko a man. They wove under obligations to send sonic 80,000 soldiers to help the French . The Kaiser, measuring their honour by his own, thought (hey would perfunctorily and literally redeem this pledge, and lot it go at that. Hence his remark about their “contemptible little army.’ 7 The .fact is that Britain alone has sent on land and sea a total of six and a quarter millions. Her Fmpire has added two and a quarter millions more to this. Over eight millions instead of eighty thousand —a hundred in place of one. That is (he British way. When we send 15 millions we will have done as well — hut not till then.

England was no more a military nation than America when the war began. She learned to tight by lighting—and dying. AVe are profiting to-day by her tragic experience. Thousands of American lads will come home to ns alive and whole because thousands of our blood-bro-thers I'rom (he British Isles have been killed and mutilated —and have taught us how lo escape. Britain made her armies while France and her own navy held, the gap, and then she poured them into Franco and Flanders by the million to fight back the eruption of Cave Men that threatened lo submerge civilisation. Whal Ihe English have done in this war is too recent to need recapitulation. They gradually took over greater and greater sections of the front. They first fought defensive actions with all the dogged courage for which the British are famous —■ thou they created that early turn in the tide which released the series of Allied offensives dial finally sen! (he Germans hack lo Ihe Ilindenlmrg Line —and beyond. They rose (o the rank of a full military partner of France —and there is no higher rank.

For all this they paid. There is hardly a home in Great Britain which does not have its unvisited grave in France or Belgium— not a street on which the permanently maimed do not limp to unaccustomed tasks. And the figures show that (he percentage of casualties from the Mother Country exceeds the percentage from (he overseas Dominions, thus disposing of one of the vilest, meanest, most dastardly lies of the whole Satanic German propaganda which charged that the English wore putting their colonials

and their Allies in the forefront of the battle. Lord Northeliffe estimates their killed alone at 000,000!

Englarfd’s contributions outside the Western front have been worthy of a great nation, even if they stood alone. Her navy has kept the seas free for the commerce and the troop transport of the Allied world. It has bottled up the German navy from the first. Her ships have coaled, fed and munitioned the Italians —for a time fed and munitioned the Erench —brought legions ami food supplies from the seven seas. We are proud of our own swift shipment of troops to the firing- line during the days of the soul-shaking danger (his last summer, but well over hall; of them (vent in British bottoms convoyed by British warships.

Then where have not the British fought? The Suez Canal was in danger. It was the British that protected it. There were German naval stations in the Pacific. The British mopped them up. Russia asked 'help by way of the Dardanelles. The British tried to give if.

Intervention was needed on llie Tigris. The British supplied-it. 'Die British were at Salonika. British ships were in (ho Adriatic*. The British Colonial troops freed Africa from the Germans. British diplomacy steadied the Moslem world when the Turkish Sultan and his Sheik-nl-ishun proclaimed a holy war. The Brit ish to-day are moving south from Archangel and are at Viadivo,stock. Britain linanced the Allied nations (ill we came in to share (he titanic task. Her industries have elothed, munitioned, and supplied them in various vital ways. The Germans say that she has “prolonged the war.” By that they mean that she has kept up the lighting spirit of the 'Allies and supported their moral. Tlfh Briton is a dour tighter, and knows no end to a struggle save victory or death. He never fights a limited liability wav —lie goes in with his whole soul, file day that British khaki appeared upon (he battlolields of Branco it was decreed that there could lie hut one of two ends to this conflict —the collapse of Iho Brilish Empire or the linal failure of Germany’s dream of world conquest. Bui mi one, save 1 lie German Intelligence Department, has known or ever will know half of what Britain has done. When it comes- to selflaudation the British are the poorest advertisers the world has ever seen.