Doubtless the drama of the penultimate year 1917 did not centre in the supra-Somme country. Its scenes of action were at Lens and Vimy, at Pilkelm Ridge and Passchendaele. The year which ran on from the German retirement was the strangest of the war, promising everything, fulfilling nothing, beginning with Haig's victory interview and ending with the failures in Flanders and the German break-through from Cambrai. It was the year of American self-announcement, of the Russian revolution, of the pros and contras of peace at Stockholm, of the victory of the Bolsheviks, of the Italian debacle. Germany seemed to grow stronger all the year, and the morale of the Allies waned. Men no longer betted one another that it would be all over by Christmas. Lord Grey's supposed prediction was forgotten. The whisper went abroad that "it might last a lifetime," and then in mock cynicism, _They say the first seven years will be the worst_. New units hitherto untried in the war still made their appearance, whole battalions whose war-history commences with the conflicts about Lens or the battles for Passchendaele Ridge. The Derby drafts were reputed to come marching to the strains of "The Church's One Foundation" singing their own confession-- We are Lord Derby's Army Just come across the sea. We cannot march, we cannot shoot, What bloomin' good are we? And the old army said "Where have you been this long while?" The conscripts however were to follow in even more desperate case, and when they first reached France and their tender feet struck the cobbled roadways they sang--not a hymn, but a new version of "Auld Lang Syne"-- We're here because we're here, Because we're here, because we're here, We're here because we're here, Because we're here, because we're here. "Take me back to dear old Blighty!" was the song of the whole army and had completely displaced Tipperary.