The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1916. THE BRITISH SOLDIER.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 79, 31 October 1916, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1916. THE BRITISH SOLDIER.

A splendid tribute to tlie British. soldier and what he is doing is s j>a.id by the London Daily Express in. a recent issue, in which is described the meeting between the Brigadier and a battalion of the Dublins who had gloriously upheld Ireland's greatest traditions in the field as soldiers of the Empire in the fight for Ginchy. The scene, the Express says, was Simple, unaffected—the handshake. j between men who had faced together I the horrors of death, undaunted and I triumphant. All the Irishmen and the great majority of the English, Scotch, and Welsh in the army of theSomme are volunteers. They know why they are fighting. They realise very clearly how much depends on their success. They go into battle with no hate and no rancour. They, have no illusions,,, concerning the pow-j ,er of the enemy. A hard, bitter job has to be carried through, and every man is eager to do his "bit." Mr Phillips, the Express correspondent,! tells us that certain officers' servants. stole back to the ranks from the, safety of headquarters. .One of] them had missed Guillemont. He could not miss Ginchy! It is true that a modern war cannot be won without an almost unlimited supply of guns and ammunition. But it is equally true that individual courage | and devotion are required to win and in Britain's new army we have both as powerfully evident as ever in all history. It has been quite truthfully said that the twentieth century sol-j dier faces the possibility of infinitely. more hideous torture than the man] who went before him, and be faces it with an indifference that they certainly never surpassed. The Express sums up the case as well as it is possible to do so, when it says:— j "War is inhuman, horrible devilish. j Yet war throws into the clear white •light the magnificent courage, patiI Mibo and self-forgetfulness that link ! man with the divine. All shams and_ artificial distinctions are wiped away in the fierce trial of battle. Man is just man and is proving himself finer j far than we dared to believe in the soft days of peace."