Some _seven million young men_ at least have perished from this pleasant earth, which is now again renewing its spring life in beauty and joy, and millions of others will bear the physical marks of the struggle to their graves. Is there anything to console us for such a spectacle? The reply of the British Commander-in-Chief is that "the issues involved in this stupendous struggle were far greater than those concerned in any other war in recent history. Our existence as an Empire, and civilisation itself as it is understood by the free Western nations was at stake. Men fought as they had never fought before." "Go, stranger, and tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here, obedient to their will." So the Greek epitaph that all men know. In the same spirit, for country and home, for freedom and honour--at the Will of that Power by whom "the most ancient heavens are fresh and strong"--these fighters of our day laid down their ardent and obedient lives. There is but one way in which we can truly honour them. A better world, as their eternal memorial:--shame on us if we cannot build it! _May 20th._ Since the preceding paragraphs were written, the French General Staff has published an illuminating analysis of those military conditions in the concluding months of the war which compelled the German Command and the German Government to sue for an Armistice. The German proclamation, when the conclusion of the Armistice allowed those armies to retreat, proclaimed them "unconquered." Our own Commander-in-Chief declares, it will be remembered, on the other hand, that the fighting along the front of the British Armies from November 1st to November 11th had "forced on the enemy a disorderly retreat. Thereafter he was neither capable of accepting nor refusing battle. The utter confusion of his troops, the state of his railways, congested with abandoned trains, the capture of huge quantities of rolling-stock and material--all showed that our attack had been decisive.... The strategic plan of the Allies had been realised with a completeness rarely seen in war. When the Armistice was signed, his defensive powers had already been definitely destroyed. A continuance of hostilities could only have meant disaster to the German Armies, and the armed invasion of Germany."