And that is why we were not driven back to the sea.  That is why we stood the test.  That is why we, the Allied Nations, shall win.

Again, if the German hordes, with their iron power behind them, had had five per cent. of the Anglo-Saxon sporting blood in their veins, they could have licked us long ago.  They did not.  They have not.  They are poor sports.  They have eliminated the individuality of “sport” for the efficiency of machinery, and they can not lick us.

Who started the war?  The War Machine that had the preparation of half a century, or the peace-loving peoples who, at a day’s notice, took their stand for humanity?

Who started the war?  There is no room for argument.  The Germans started the war.

Who will finish the war?  There is no room or argument.  We will finish the war.

CHAPTER VIII

“AND OUT OF EVIL THERE SHALL COME THAT WHICH IS GOOD”

The worst days of this war are over.  The worst days were those through which we came in the winter of 1914-15.  The war may last ten years; the war may be over inside of a few months.  Neither contingency would surprise me.  We might lose twice as many in killed and wounded as we did through that winter; every white man, British, French, American, of military age, might pay the supreme price, and yet the worst days are gone by.

The worst days of the war passed when the chance of the Hun defeating us was lost.  Though all the flower of our manhood were crippled or dead, though our old men and our boys were called to the field, though women had to gird on sword and buckler, none of these things could be worse than to be licked—­licked is the word—­by a dastardly and cowardly foe.

And if the German Army at the zenith of its strength could not lick one thin line of English, of French and Canadians, how can they lick us when we have Uncle Sam in the balance?

A question to daunt even the scientific brain of a Kaiser, of a Hindenburg, of a Von Bernstorff.

The folks back home are always wondering and inquiring how it is possible to feed the troops under such terrible and awful conditions.  The folks back home are the only ones who worry.  We do not.  Tommy Atkins is much more sure of getting his rations to-morrow than he is of living until to-morrow to eat them.

Right here I would pay a sincere tribute to two departments of our British Army.  The Commissary Department which supplies every want of the soldier, from a high explosive shell to a button.  It is as near to the one hundred per cent. mark of efficiency as it is possible for a human organization to become.  It is not too much to say that it is perfect.

The other department is that of the Medical Corps, the R.A.M.C., or the Red Cross.  It is all the same.  It is all run with the precision of clockwork.  Its whole aim for the comfort and succor of Tommy.  Of this department I speak in a later chapter.