ENGLAND IN THE WAR.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1948, 6 March 1919, Page 4

ENGLAND IN THE WAR.

ALL THE EPICS SURPASSED,

Mr James M. Beck, a distinguished American jurist, says': —

“All the epics of English history, all its mighty past, could be merged in one, and yet not equal the stupendous total of the four years now ended. Everywhere England’s white idume, like that of Henry of Navar-i-e, has lioon in the forefront of every battle. Her soldiers entered the City of Caliphs of Bagdad, still dreaming of the Arabian Nights.

“They did that which (he soldiers of the Lion-hearted Richard failed lo do. They have taken the Holy Sepulchre from the Moslems. Mas It not said of old of Arthur: “And men say that he shall come again, and shall win the Holy Cross ? It ho slept at Avalon, was it not also said that ho would awaken at the sound of the trumpet ‘if need for him was desperate’? “Could a poet’s dream have a fairer realisation than when Alienin' entered Jerusalem and rescued the place of the Holy Cross? The soldiers of England passed by the. ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, and pitched their tents in the shallow of the Pyramids. You trod the paths of Cyrus and Darius. The shells from England’s warships fell upon Achilles’ Tomb and awoke Ilium sleeping its dreamless sleep of centuries.

“Your great Dreadnoughts, after centuries of Turkish dominion, have now reconquered the once Christian city of Constantinople. “Your soldiers crossed the Alps like Hannibal and Caesar: they trod the Via Triumphalis of ancient Romo, and in the Lombardy and Venotia to Italy. They stood on the Marne with the historic poilus of France and heal back the modern Attila and bis Huns. They defended (lie banks of the Yser, and nothing in all the history of Great Britain will be more glorious to future generations than (lie ‘thin red line’ which from 14th October to 10th November held back the overwhelming masses of Germans ami saved (hi 1 Channel ports, until (he Kaiser galloped away and the enemy avalanche was defeated. An epic had been wrought greater than Milton s page, and more wonderful (ban Shakespeare's dreams.’’