One of the most stirring military spectacles it has ever been my good-fortune to witness was a parade of some battalions of the Guards before the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Kitchener, and M. Millerand, the French Minister of War. I have seen many reviews of the Prussian Guard before the German Emperor, both in Berlin and in Potsdam. My eye has been fascinated by the perfect precision of the movements of the Prussian drill, the long lines of heads thrown stiffly over at the left shoulder at the same angle, of feet flung forward in the _Paradeschritt_ with such mathematical exactitude that they seemed as one movement, of white-gloved hands swinging to and fro in absolute accord. I have watched the rippling line of the French infantry swing past the saluting-point at Longchamps reviews with a wiry elasticity that gave better promise of efficiency in the field than the stiff precision of the Prussian, and have delighted in the brilliant array of colours, the red and blue and gold and silver against the deep green background of the historic racecourse. But I have never seen, and never wish to see, a more inspiring picture than those four battalions of Guards drawn up in their drab khaki on a heath in Flanders over against the Tricolour and the Union Jack flying side by side. An ancient military tradition, a high purpose and perfect physical condition, never combined to produce a more sublime spectacle of troops than this. There was no display, no searching after cheap effects. The Guards were there in their khaki, as they had come from the trenches; the officers carried no swords; the colours were guarded in churches at home. The Grenadiers and Coldstreams had their drums and fifes; the Scots Guards their pipers, wearing the proud red tartan of the ancient House of Stuart. The four battalions stood there in four solid phalanxes, unbeautiful and undecorative, save when, to the crash of the opening bars of the “Marseillaise,” three distinct ripples ran through those serried ranks, and with a dazzling flash of steel the Guards presented arms. Memories of Mons and Landrecies, of Klein Zillebeke and Cuinchy and Festubert, went shuddering by, pale shadows escaping from the prison of the imagination, as the stalwart giants of the King’s Company of the Grenadiers led off the march past. The drums and fifes crashed through “The British Grenadiers” again and again and again before the serried files of men, marching with an iron tread that fairly shook the earth, had all gone by, and the skirling of the pipes proclaimed the approach of the Scots Guards.