seven hundred thousand men. Our casualties were three hundred and
twenty-two thousand, one hundred and eighty-two. The casualties in the
British Army were three million, forty-nine thousand, nine hundred and
seventy-one--a million more than we sent--and of these six hundred and
fifty-eight thousand, seven hundred and four, were killed. Of her Navy,
thirty-three thousand three hundred and sixty-one were killed, six
thousand four hundred and five wounded and missing; of her merchant
marine fourteen thousand six hundred and sixty-one were killed; a total
of forty-eight thousand killed--or ten per cent of all in active service.
Some of those of the merchant marine who escaped drowning through
torpedoes and mines went back to sea after being torpedoed five, six, and
seven times.

What did England do in the war, anyhow?

Through four frightful years she fought with splendor, she suffered with
splendor, she held on with splendor. The second battle of Ypres is but
one drop in the sea of her epic courage; yet it would fill full a canto
of a poem. So spent was Britain's single line, so worn and thin, that
after all the men available were brought, gaps remained. No more
ammunition was coming to these men, the last rounds had been served. Wet
through, heavy with mud, they were shelled for three days to prevent
sleep. Many came at last to sleep standing; and being jogged awake when
officers of the line passed down the trenches, would salute and instantly
be asleep again. On the fourth day, with the Kaiser come to watch them
crumble, three lines of Huns, wave after wave of Germany's picked troops,
fell and broke upon this single line of British--and it held. The Kaiser,
had he known of the exhausted ammunition and the mounded dead, could have
walked unarmed to the Channel. But he never knew.