But nothing daunts the troops attacking day and night, in the name of patriotism, of liberty, of civilisation. Men from Yorkshire and Lancashire, from Northumberland, Westmoreland and Cumberland, the heart of England's sturdy north; men from Sussex and Kent, from Somerset and Devon; the Scotch regiments; the Ulster Division, once the Ulster Volunteers; the men of Munster and Connaught; the town-lads of Manchester; the youths of Cockney London:--all their names are in the great story. "There were no stragglers--none!" says an officer, describing in a kind of wonder one of the fierce wood-attacks. And these are not the seasoned troops of a Continental Army. They belong to regiments and corps which did not exist, except in name, eighteen months ago; they are units from the four-million army that Great Britain raised for this struggle, before she passed her Military Service Law. The "Old Army," the Expeditionary Force, which the nation owed to the organising genius of Lord Haldane and his General Staff, has passed away, passed into history, with the retreat from Mons, the first victory of Ypres, the saving of the Channel ports; but its spirit remains, and its traditions are firmly planted in the new attackers. I think of the men I saw in March, during that long and weary wait; of the desire--and the patience--in their eyes. And of patience they and the nations behind them will still have ample need. Since surprise on the Somme front was no longer possible, the great advance has gone surely indeed, but more slowly. On _July 14_, after delay caused by extraordinarily heavy rains, _the German second line was breached_, and their trenches carried, on a front of four miles and held against counter attacks. Longueval, the wood of Bazentin-le-Grand, and the village, Bazentin-le-Petit, were attacked and captured with an _elan_ that nothing could resist. "The enemy losses in guns," said the British Headquarters, "are now over 100. We have not lost one." On _July 17_, Ovillers was cleared, Waterlot Farm taken, and 1,500 more yards of the German line. The British had by now taken 11,000 prisoners, to a somewhat larger number taken by the French, 17 heavy guns, 37 field-guns, 30 trench howitzers, and 66 machine-guns. On Saturday night, _July 22-23_, the greater part of Pozieres, on the high ground toward Bapaume, was taken. "Shortly after midnight," wrote the official correspondent at Headquarters with the Australian Imperial Forces in France, "on the 23rd, by a splendid night attack, the Australians took the greater portion of Pozieres." The previous bombardment had been magnificent. "I had never before seen such a spectacle. A large sector of the horizon was lit up not by single flashes, but by a continuous band of quivering light." And under the protection of the guns, the Anzacs swept forward, passing over trenches, so entirely obliterated by shell-fire that they were often not recognised as trenches at all, till they were in the heart of the village.