And so “Tipperary” has gone with the troops into the great European battlefields, and has echoed along the white roads and over the green fields of France and Belgium.

On the way to the front the progress of our soldiers was made one long fete:  it was “roses, roses, all the way.”  In a letter published in The Times, an artillery officer thus describes it: 

“As to the reception we have met with moving across country it has been simply wonderful and most affecting.  We travel entirely by motor transport, and it has been flowers all the way.  One long procession of acclamation.  By the wayside and through the villages, men, women, and children cheer us on with the greatest enthusiasm, and every one wants to give us something.  They strip the flower gardens, and the cars look like carnival carriages.  They pelt us with fruit, cigarettes, chocolate, bread—­anything and everything.  It is simply impossible to convey an impression of it all.  Yesterday my own car had to stop in a town for petrol.  In a moment there must have been a couple of hundred people round clamoring; autograph albums were thrust in front of me; a perfect delirium.  In another town I had to stop for an hour, and took the opportunity to do some shopping.  I wanted some motor goggles, an eye-bath, some boracic, provisions, etc.  They would not let me pay for a single thing—­and there was lunch and drinks as well.  The further we go the more enthusiastic is the greeting.  What it will be like at the end of the war one cannot attempt to guess.”

Similar tributes to the kindness of the French and Belgians are given by the men.  A private in the Yorkshire Light Infantry—­the first British regiment to go into action in this war—­tells of the joy of the French people.  “You ought to have seen them,” he writes.  “They were overcome with delight, and didn’t half cheer us!  The worst of it was we could not understand their talking.  When we crossed the Franco-Belgian frontier, there was a vast crowd of Belgians waiting for us.  Our first greeting was the big Union Jack, and on the other side was a huge canvas with the words ‘Welcome to our British Comrades.’  The Belgians would have given us anything; they even tore the sheets off their beds for us to wipe our faces with.”  Another Tommy tells of the eager crowds turning out to give our troops “cigars, cigarettes, sweets, fruits, wines, anything we want,” and the girls “linking their arms in ours, and stripping us of our badges and buttons as souvenirs.”

Then there is the other side of the picture, when the first battles had been fought and the strategic retreat had begun.  No praise could be too high for the chivalry and humanity of our soldiers in these dark days.  They were almost worshiped by the people wherever they went.