Certainly, were it not for the war, one would have lived otherwise. One would have lived in a world of work, with its pains and pleasures, founding a family and rearing his children. One would have lived as lived his father; one would have had a wife like his mother; one would have pursued happiness. But this dream is one of peace. Now, “C’est la Guerre.” The giant struggle passes the control of men, and its unknown end is still far off. One no longer fights merely for his home, his land, his own well-being. One feels that these things have become dwarfed in the tremendous world tragedy, and that at the foundation it has to do with great principles, ideals, and human destiny. The soldier in action does not see so far. The immediate, the concrete, demand his close scrutiny; but he feels that the war is waged for all the human race, and that his blood will not flow in vain. Emancipation is coming. Man is throwing aside autocratic authority; he has reached his age of majority and wishes to be free. Society impels and guides him. He is no longer the soldier of a people, he is the soldier of a principle. He fights for the triumph of ideals that are noble, ideals that are just, ideals that are free. He assists at the ghastly death-throes of an autocracy which can live only through his enslavement. He knows the price of a revolution: some men must die that others may live. He accepts it. He knows not just how great must be his sacrifice. He knows only that he is resigned. I saw all this among my comrades. I gathered it in their discussions: for we talk, at the front. The squad argues, reads the newspapers, makes its comments, follows the trend of events when it can. But--when the “Coup de Chien” comes; when the unit enters an engagement; when one fills his cartridge-box or receives his case of grenades; when one goes over the top, to storm the enemy’s parapets and rush to the assault, all else disappears, is wiped out. There remains only exaltation and the act of the moment--a sacrament. The zero hour is passed from one to another in advance. The attack will be at ten o’clock. A half-hour before, each man is in his place. The artillery fire is redoubled. The German knows that his last minutes have come. As for ourselves, we are attentive and impatient. The anguish of the drive puts our nerves on a tension; eyes take on a hard look, hands grip convulsively. One wishes he could start, leap to the surface, cross No Man’s Land on the run, and drop into the opposite trench. The half-hour drags on slowly.