There are other, many other, things to admire as patterns of organisation. It is what our subalterns, with their strict and shy economy of speech, describe as a “great show.” All the world has heard of carrying on. But it was first of all necessary to carry. And we have carried to war across the seas not a mere army, but a people in arms. II.--THE LONG ENDURANCE In the history of war, especially as it was practised by the Irish regiments, we have been accustomed to the brief ecstasy of assault, the flash of bayonets, the headlong avalanche of death and victory.... Often there had been, before this sharp decision, the heroism of a long march. But in general, instantaneity had been the characteristic of Irish soldiers as it is of Irish football forwards. There are instances enough of the old quality in this war from Festubert to Suvla Bay, from Loos to that shell-powdered sinister terrain over which the Ulster Division swept in its great charges. But there is another heroism. The three chapters of this war may well bear for rubrics: the Grim Retreat, the Long Endurance, the Epic Push. It is of the second that I write here. Note that this, the greatest, is also the dullest of all recorded campaigns. It is wrong, indeed, to call it a campaign or even a series of campaigns: one had better style it the Wall-paper War. Everywhere the same type and development of fighting, the same pattern repeated and indefinitely repeated. It is true that the walls are the walls of the world, and the colours are those of life and death. None the less the effect on the mind is that of near bigness, which is always of its nature wearisome. It is not of that weariness of the detached mind that I now write, but of the more intimate and crushing fatigue of the actual man on the spot. There may very well be units of this immense army that on their return home will have apparently little to show for their lost blood. People will say to them-- “I suppose you were in the dash at X? No? Oh, it was the capture of Y? I mean, of course, the round-up at Z?” And they will answer rather dully-- “No. We just held on. We are the lot that just stuck to A, and weren’t shifted out of B.” And the response will be a disappointed and belittling “Oh yes!” But, when it is understood, this long endurance will be seen to be something very notable in itself, and, more than that, an essential element in the slow and great victory. Movements are picturesque, but in order that something should move it was necessary that something should stand still. The ends of a lever move effectively only when it is based on an unmoving fulcrum. If the rivet of a scissors did not stand fast, the blades would cut little. And the tale of the units to whom it came merely to hold the line is the great tale.