The people behind an army--Military traditions--The “regulars” at Mons--Our ideas of conscription--British pride of regiment-- Our West Point system--Sandhurst and the German system--Martial team-play an instinct--The gallant British Expeditionary Force-- A perfect instrument--Mr. Thomas Atkins, hero--England after the Marne--Empire-wide problems--The first year wastage-- Making a new army--Kitchener the man--Characteristics of the British--The last battle that counts--The recruiting--Free institutions versus a feudal socialistic organisation--“Putting their backs into it”--The British type persists--Freedom or “verboten” on every street corner?--England’s sturdiest blows yet to come. Throughout the summer of 1915 the world was asking, What about the new British army? Why was it not attacking at the opportune moment when Germany was throwing her weight against Russia? A facile answer is easy; indeed, facile answers are always easy. Unhappily, they are rarely correct. None that was given in this instance was, to my mind. They sought to put a finger on one definite cause; again, on an individual or a set of individuals. The reasons were manifold; as old as Waterloo, as fresh as the last speech in Parliament. They were inherent in the Anglo-Saxon race. Whoever raised a voice and said, This, or that, or you, are responsible! should first have looked into his own mind and into the history of his race and then into a mirror. Least of all should any American have been puzzled by the delay. “Oh, we should have done better than that--we are Americans!” I hear my countrymen say. Perhaps we should. I hope so; I believe so. The British public thought that they were going to do better; military men were surprised that they did as well. Along with laws and language we have inherited our military ideas from England. In many qualities we are different--a distinct type; but in nothing are we more like the British than in our attitude toward the soldier and toward war. The character of any army reflects the character of its people. An army is the fist; but the muscle, the strength of the physical organism behind the blow in the long run belong to the people. What they have prepared for in peace they receive in war, which decides whether they have been living in the paradise of a fool or of a wise man. As a boy I was brought up to believe, as an inheritance of the American Revolution, that one American could whip two Englishmen and five or six of any other nationality, which made the feathers of the eagle perched on the national escutcheon look glossy. It was a satisfying sort of faith. Americans had never tried five or six of any first-class fighting race; but that was not a thought which occurred to me. As we had won victories over the English and the English had whipped the French at Waterloo, the conclusion seemed obvious.