It was Marshal Foch himself who acknowledged with generous warmth that in these last months of war it was the hammer strokes of the British army which did most to break the German war machine to bits, by enormous captures of prisoners, guns, and ground. General Ludendorff has said so, squarely, in his books; and history will record it, though it was quickly forgotten in some countries and never known in others. It is only for the sake of truth that it is worth recalling now, for there is no boast of victory in the hearts of men, knowing its cost and its horror, and no glory left about that war except the memory of the world’s youth which suffered on both sides of the line. THE COMING OF PEACE So it ended, with a kind of stupefaction in the minds of the soldiers. It was an enormous relief, followed by a kind of lassitude of body and spirit. Ended at last! Incredible! At the front on the day of armistice there was no wild exultation, except in a few messes here and there behind the lines. The men who had fought through it, or through enough of it to have been soaked in its dirt, were too tired to cheer or sing or shout because peace had come. Peace! What did that mean? Civilian life again? Impossible to readjust one’s mind to that. Impossible to go home and pick up the old threads of life as though this Thing had not happened. They were different men. Their minds had been seared by dreadful experience. Now that peace had come after that long strain something snapped in them.