Out To Win: The Story of America in FranceDawson, Coningsby
History
Out To Win: The Story of America in France
Dawson, Coningsby
World War, 1914-1918 -- United States
In trying to explain the change I found in England after war had
commenced, I mentioned Henley and the boat-race crowds. I don't think
it was a change; it was only a bringing to the surface of something
that had been there always. Some years ago I was at Henley when the
Belgians carried off the Leander Cup from the most crack crew that
England could bring together. Evening after evening through the
Regatta week the fear had been growing that we should lose, yet none
of that fear was reflected in our attitude towards our Belgian guests.
Each evening as they came up the last stretch of river, leading by
lengths and knocking another contestant out, the spectators cheered
them madly. Their method of rowing smashed all our traditions; it
wasn't correct form; it wasn't anything. It ought to have made one
angry. But these chaps were game; they were winning. "Let's play
fair," said the river; so they cheered them. On the last night when
they beat Leander, looking fresh as paint, leading by a length and
taking the championship out of England, you would never have guessed
by the flicker of an eyelash that it wasn't the most happy conclusion
of a good week's sport for every oarsman present.
It's the same spirit essentially that England is showing to-day. She
cheers the winner. She trusts in her strength for another day. She
insists on playing fair. She considers it bad manners to lose one's
temper. She despises to hate back. She has carried this spirit so far
that if you enter the college chapels of Oxford to-day, you will find
inscribed on memorial tablets to the fallen not only the names of
Britishers, but also the names of German Rhodes Scholars, who died
fighting for their country against the men who were once their
friends. Generosity, justice, disdain of animosity-these virtues were
learnt on the playing-fields and race-courses. England knows their
value; she treats war as a sport because so she will fight better. For
her that approach to adversity is normal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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