So with a soldiers' truce ended the first five months of the war. In the West, deadlock had set in; Allies and Germans were facing each other over a front of well-nigh five hundred miles from the sodden fields of Flanders to within sight of Alpine snows, winning here and losing there a few yards of fiercely-contested ground, and enduring with what patience they could command the icy showers and the biting frost of winter. In the East, from the East Prussian wilderness of lake and morass to the wind-swept passes of the Carpathians, there was the same deadlock. On both of the main fronts of war the forces of the Central Powers were held up, and their dream of a swift and easy conquest had vanished. Nevertheless, with nearly all Belgium, a large part of industrial France, and a considerable portion of Russian Poland in their possession, they felt confident, at least, of an advantageous peace. Amongst the Allies, however, there was no thought of peace. Unprepared for war, they had, nevertheless, foiled the first and most dangerous onslaught of a foe that, according to all the rules, should have swept them away like chaff before the wind. They had gained time in which to make up for their lack of readiness, and they now began to realize that they must put forth every effort if they were to defeat the mighty forces arrayed against them. In Britain men flocked to the colours, and on every open space in the country drilling was going on. Already we had a million men in arms, and within six months we hoped to put double that number into the field. Time was with us. Every day saw us growing greater in men and resources, while every day the enemy was bound to decline in strength. So the Allies, strong in friendship and undaunted by their heavy losses, faced the future with unshaken courage and undaunted hope. "We shall never sheathe the sword, which we have not lightly drawn," said the Prime Minister, "until Belgium recovers in full measure all, and more than all, that she has sacrificed, until France is safe against the fear of invasion, until the rights of the small nations of Europe are placed on an unshakable foundation, and until the military tyranny of Prussia is wholly and finally destroyed." Such was the determination of Britons all over the world at the close of the year 1914. [Footnote 186: _Ver-mell´._] [Footnote 187: _Quin´she._] [Footnote 188: Five miles south-south-west of Ypres.] [Footnote 189: See Vol. II., p. 281.] [Footnote 190: French soldiers specially trained for fighting in the Alps. They are splendid mountaineers, and were quite at home on the high crests of the Vosges.] [Footnote 191: See diagram, p. 128.] [Footnote 192: Sometimes bombs are made in a rough-and-ready fashion out of jam-pots and bully beef tins charged with explosives and loaded with stones or scraps of iron.] END OF VOLUME III. PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN.