“I don’t believe they have a nerve in their bodies. They are magnificent men in spirit as in physique. All they want now is to ‘have a go’ at the Germans, and once they get going, there will be no holding them back, I give you my word for that. I have never seen the Territorial system to better advantage than in the New Armies. In almost every battalion the men come from their own recruiting area, and, in addition to the bond of a common dialect, have all kinds of family, business, and social relations with their officers and with one another. Their discipline is excellent, and they are taking to the new conditions of life out here like a duck to water.” One who is in a position to judge adumbrated to me the theory that the men of the later classes of the New Armies--men who joined for “conscience’ sake,” after taking a month or two to settle up their affairs--would be more “intelligent” soldiers, more to be trusted individually and in a sudden emergency, but less good with the bayonet and the spade than the earlier classes. I believe this to be the veriest hair-splitting. Experience has shown, I think, that war, or at any rate this war, gives a uniform mentality to all men who are drawn into it, and they become good or bad soldiers as the case may be. I am convinced that there is not a pin to choose between a good Regular battalion and a good Territorial battalion, even if the latter, like so many of the London Territorial regiments, for example, is in the main composed of men from the educated classes. The entrance of the New Army upon the stage of the theatre of war marks the passing of the old soldier, the man who put the battle honours on the regimental colours. He has left his magnificent spirit of courage, devotion, and endurance behind, but he is taking away with him many of his whimsical ways as expressed in his mysterious army slang, his curious army games, his love of sentimental ditties of the “Just before the Battle, Mother” order, or of doggerel like “Cock Robin” and “The Song of Shame.” Already you may find trenches at the front where an allusion to the Motherland as “Old Blighty,” to bread as “roti,” and jam as “pozzy,” will meet eyebrows lifted in haughty amazement, where “Crown and Anchor”[1] is never played, where that cry, so familiar to army ears, of “’Ouse!”[2] is never heard. You remember the apoplectic horror of the old Colonel in the story because a private of Regulars on parade blew his nose on his handkerchief, “like any damned militiaman.” What would the old gentle man say, I wonder, to privates who go into action with a pocket edition of Ruskin in their haversacks and a couple of _Times Broadsheets_ in their breast-pockets?