Scott, Eberle, leader of the orchestra, Lucas, scene-painter,

What did England do in the war, anyhow?

Let us have these disregarded facts also. From the shelves of history I have pulled down and displayed the facts which our school textbooks have suppressed; I have told the events wherein England has stood our timely friend throughout a century; events which our implanted prejudice leads us to ignore, or to forget; events which show that any one who says England is our hereditary enemy might just about as well say twice two is five.

What did England do in the war, anyhow?

They go on asking it. The propagandists, the prompted puppets, the paid parrots of the press, go on saying these eight senseless words because they are easy to say, since the man who can answer them is generally not there: to every man who is a responsible master of facts we have--well, how many?--irresponsible shouters in this country. What is your experience? How often is it your luck--as it was mine in front of the bulletin board--to see a fraud or a fool promptly and satisfactorily put in his place? Make up your mind that wherever you hear any person whatsoever, male or female, clean or unclean, dressed in jeans, or dressed in silks and laces, inquire what England "did in the war, anyhow? "such person either shirks knowledge, or else is a fraud or a fool. Tell them what the man said in the street about the Kaiser and our front yard, but don't stop there. Tell them that in May, 1918, England was sending men of fifty and boys of eighteen and a half to the front; that in August, 1918, every third male available between those years was fighting, that eight and a half million men for army and navy were raised by the British Empire, of which Ireland's share was two and three tenths per cent, Wales three and seven tenths, Scotland's eight and three tenths, and England's more than sixty per cent; and that this, taken proportionately to our greater population would have amounted to about thirteen million Americans, When the war started, the British Empire maintained three soldiers out of every 2600 of the population; her entire army, regular establishment, reserve and territorial forces, amounted to seven hundred thousand men. Our casualties were three hundred and twenty-two thousand, one hundred and eighty-two. The casualties in the British Army were three million, forty-nine thousand, nine hundred and seventy-one--a million more than we sent--and of these six hundred and fifty-eight thousand, seven hundred and four, were killed. Of her Navy, thirty-three thousand three hundred and sixty-one were killed, six thousand four hundred and five wounded and missing; of her merchant marine fourteen thousand six hundred and sixty-one were killed; a total of forty-eight thousand killed--or ten per cent of all in active service. Some of those of the merchant marine who escaped drowning through torpedoes and mines went back to sea after being torpedoed five, six, and seven times.

What did England do in the war, anyhow?

Through four frightful years she fought with splendor, she suffered with splendor, she held on with splendor. The second battle of Ypres is but one drop in the sea of her epic courage; yet it would fill full a canto of a poem. So spent was Britain's single line, so worn and thin, that after all the men available were brought, gaps remained. No more ammunition was coming to these men, the last rounds had been served. Wet through, heavy with mud, they were shelled for three days to prevent sleep. Many came at last to sleep standing; and being jogged awake when officers of the line passed down the trenches, would salute and instantly be asleep again. On the fourth day, with the Kaiser come to watch them crumble, three lines of Huns, wave after wave of Germany's picked troops, fell and broke upon this single line of British--and it held. The Kaiser, had he known of the exhausted ammunition and the mounded dead, could have walked unarmed to the Channel. But he never knew.

Surgeons being scantier than men at Ypres, one with a compound fracture of the thigh had himself propped up, and thus all day worked on the wounded at the front. He knew it meant death for him. The day over, he let them carry him to the rear, and there, from blood-poisoning, he died. Thus through four frightful years, the British met their duty and their death.

There is the great story of the little penny steamers of the Thames--a story lost amid the gigantic whole. Who will tell it right? Who will make this drop of perfect valor shine in prose or verse for future eyes to see? Imagine a Hoboken ferry boat, because her country needed her, starting for San Francisco around Cape Horn, and getting there. Some ten or eleven penny steamers under their own steam started from the Thames down the Channel, across the Bay of Biscay, past Gibraltar, and through the submarined Mediterranean for the River Tigris. Boats of shallow draught were urgently needed on the River Tigris. Four or five reached their destination. Where are the rest?

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