The Germans have realized too late what they have lost by sacrificing the respect of their enemies. Our soldiers in the trenches make no concealment of their admiration of the efficiency and bravery of the Germans as fighters, but as men they loathe and despise them. The British soldier is an easy-going fellow, and the Germans, had they only regarded the conventions of soldiering, might have prevented much of the bitterness which this war has engendered. Even as it is, though the anger of our men against their treacherous enemy makes them a formidable and pitiless foe in the assault with the bayonet, they are gentle and paternal with their prisoners. I have actually seen the British escort giving German prisoners cigarettes. I have read letters written by German prisoners waiting in our lines in France to be sent with a convoy to England, dwelling on the good treatment they were receiving, and describing how they were given the same rations as their escort, including cigarettes, and were being taught football by their captors. The extraordinary _agapes_ that took place during the Christmas truce, when British and Germans, for a few brief hours, fraternized between the lines, could not, I believe, occur again, except possibly with the Saxons, who have behaved decently in this war, and for whom our men have a soft corner in their hearts. Since Christmas the hideous crime of the asphyxiating gas has drifted in a foul miasma between us and our enemy. No man who fought in the second battle of Ypres and saw the sufferings of the gas victims would give his hand to a German to-day. But the psychology of the British soldier is so enigmatic that the prophet would run grave risk of coming to grief who ventured to predict what the British soldier will do where his heart is concerned. Nevertheless, this much I would say--that to-day the British soldier neither fears nor trusts the German. He knows that, man for man, he is his superior; he looks forward to the time when, gun for gun and shell for shell, the same will be true. [Illustration: _“Daily Mail” phot._ GERMAN PRISONERS.] With the British and German lines in places only forty yards or less apart, there is always a certain amount of communication between ourselves and the enemy. The Germans generally contrive to find out which of our battalions is holding the trenches opposite, and often greet the reliefs with the name of their regiment. When a famous Highland battalion was going away, after a long stay in one portion of the line, the Germans played them out of the trenches with “Mary of Argyll,” very well rendered on the cornet. The Jocks were hugely amused, and gave the performer a round of applause to reward his efforts.