My Year Of The War




I
"Le Brave Belge!"



The rush from Monterey, in Mexico, when a telegram said that
general European war was inevitable; the run and jump on board the
Lusitania at New York the night that war was declared by England
against Germany; the Atlantic passage on the liner of ineffaceable
memory, a suspense broken by fragments of war news by wireless;
the arrival in England before the war was a week old; the journey to
Belgium in the hope of reaching the scene of action!--as I write, all
seem to have the perspective of history, so final are the processes of
war, so swift their execution, and so eager is everyone for each day's
developments. As one grows older the years seem shorter; but the
first year of the Great War is the longest year most of us have ever
known.

Le brave Belge! One must be honest about him. The man who lets