I should like to say one word about the lesson of the fighting on the western front--not about the military strategy, but about the significance of the whole of that great struggle, one of the greatest struggles ever waged in the history of the world. It is full of encouragement and of hope. Just look at it! An absolutely new Army! The old had done its duty and spent itself in the achievement of that great task. This is a new Army. But a year ago it was ore in the earth of Britain, yea, and of Ireland. It became iron. It has passed through a fiery furnace, and the enemy knows that it is now fine steel. An absolutely new Army, new men, new officers taken from schools, from colleges, from counting-houses, never trained to war, never thought of war, many of them perhaps never handled a weapon of war, generals never given the opportunity of handling great masses of men. Some of us had seen the manoeuvres. A division which is now set to attack a small village is more than our generals ever had the opportunity of handling before the war. Compared with the great manoeuvres on the Continent, they were toy manoeuvres. And yet this new Army, new men, new officers, generals new to this kind of work, they have faced the greatest army in the world, the greatest army the world has ever seen, the best equipped and the best trained, and they have beaten them, beaten them, beaten them! Battle after battle, day after day, week after week! From the strongest entrenchments ever devised by human skill they have driven them out by valour, by valour which is incredible when you read the story of it. SUBALTERNS (_A Song of Oxford_) They had so much to lose; their radiant laughter Shook my old walls--how short a time ago. I hold the echoes of their song hereafter Among the precious things I used to know. Their cup of life was full to overflowing, All earth had laid its tribute at their feet. What harvest might we hope from such a sowing? What noonday from a dawning so complete? And I--I watched them working, dreaming, playing, Saw their young bodies fit the mind's desire, Felt them reach outward, upward, still obeying The passionate dictates of their hidden fire. Yet here and there some graybeard breathed derision, "Too much of luxury, too soft an age! Your careless Galahads will see no vision, Your knights will make no mark on honour's page." No mark?--Go ask the broken fields in Flanders, Ask the great dead who watched in ancient Troy, Ask the old moon as round the world she wanders What of the men who were my hope and joy! They are but fragments of Imperial splendour, Handfuls of might amid a mighty host, Yet I, who saw them go with proud surrender, May surely claim to love them first and most.