LIVING BAYONETS A Record of The Last Push By Coningsby Dawson London: John Lane, The Bodley Head New York: 1919 “Our spirits are living bayonets. The ideals which we carry in our hearts are more deadly to the enemy than any man-made weapons.” CONTENTS FOREWORD LIVING BAYONETS GERMANY PLEADS FOR PEACE FOREWORD THESE selections from collected letters of Coningsby Dawson have been edited by his sister, Muriel Dawson, and are published in response to hundreds of requests. Readers of his first volume of correspondence from the Front, issued under the title of “Khaki Courage,” have written from all over the country asking that a further series be given them. The generous appreciation and personal interest expressed by these readers have induced Lieutenant Coningsby Dawson’s family to publish these letters. They take up his story at the point where “Khaki Courage” laid it down, at the time when America entered the war. LIVING BAYONETS A RECORD OF THE LAST PUSH I France April 14, 1917 THE other night at twelve your letters came to me just as I was climbing into my bunk, so recently tenanted by a Hun. I immediately lit another candle, stuck it on the wall in a manner peculiar to myself, and started on a feast of genuine home gossip. What a difference it must make to you to know that the United States are at last confessedly our Ally. Their financial and industrial support will be invaluable to us and will make a difference at once. And the moral advantage of having them on our side is the greatest wound to the spirit of Germany that she has received since the war started. It will be real fun to be able to come back to New York in khaki, won’t it?—instead of slinking in as a civilian. Besides, if I get wounded, I’ll be able to come home to visit you on leave now. This big decision has made me almost gay ever since it happened. I have such a new affection for everything across the Atlantic—almost as if New York and the Hudson were just across the lawn from England, the nearest of near neighbours. I wish with all my heart that I could drop in on you for a day and just sit down on the sunny verandah and talk and talk. There’s so much I want to hear and so much I want to understand in the changed attitude of America. I’m sure everyone must be much more happy now that the cloud of reproach has lifted and the brightness of heroism is in the air. It shines in my imagination like the clear blueness above the white towers of New York. There’s one thing certain; now that the President has made up his mind, the country will go as baldheadedly for war as it has for everything else it ever set out to attain. The real momentousness of this happening hasn’t been appreciated by the fighting men out here yet. With a sublime arrogance they feel themselves quite capable of licking Germany without the assistance of anyone. II France April 17, 1917