How the British Army survived Ypres is one of the mysteries upon which time can throw little light. But how it saved Ypres and survived at the same time can only be known from an investigation into the courage and surpassing skill of the splendid organism which had our honour in its keeping. The endurance under a ceaseless battering, the repeated readjustments that were necessitated by the mere weight of the onslaught, the mere mechanism of carrying on from day to day under such a strain can only be explained by a tribute to skilful handling that needs no emphasis. Officers acted with an insistent recognition of the issues at stake. The line, momentarily breached at Gheluvelt, was immediately restored before the orders of the supreme command could direct the operation. But this was only one great example of the skill that found expression everywhere and all the time. Many of these generals, whose lives shine but vaguely through the facts which outline them, fought through these days of trial. All of them had other and stranger experience under other suns; but the experience they had garnered met its supreme test in the first phase of the war. When it had passed the barque of the army had ridden the troubled waters and was safe in harbour with only its terrible wounds to bear witness to the ordeal it had survived. Some of the commanders were fighting in other climes and came to the decisive theatre of the war when the great crisis had passed. They and all are part of the country's patrimony, part of its insurance of victory. They form a striking _ensemble_. Guardsmen some of them, with the halo which surrounds that name since the war began; engineers others, with the cool and calculating craftsmanship of their kind; others, again, of the artillery with bitter memories of the numerical weakness of their arm in the hour of trial and yet remembering fierce and glorious hours at Le Cateau, where they stood to the service of their guns and did the work of ten times their number. And there is not wanting a representative of the newest arm--the air service, which have many things to teach soldiers yet. They are one in that goodly fellowship of great soldiers who have come through the fire of the fiercest battles in the world's history. We can glimpse their metal in their actions. We have recently seen how potent still is the skill which directs in the face of all scientific and mechanical development of the war. It is natural for us who read daily the record of our soldiers to be more conscious of their small failures, than of their great success. But trace the broad lines of the war, retread those trampled roads of northern France once more behind the armies these men led, remember their mastery in the darkest days and their record becomes luminous with the assurance of final victory. I FIELD-MARSHAL VISCOUNT FRENCH OF YPRES, K.P., G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O., K.C.M.G.