Fields of Victory by Mrs. Humphry Ward
page 32 of 187 (17%)
page 32 of 187 (17%)
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American divisions, representing both the older and the newer levies,
and drawn from different local areas--should be given the opportunity of seeing and studying the older scenes of the war on the British front?--and that our own men, also, should be able to see for themselves, not only the scenes of the American fighting of last year, but the vast preparations of all kinds that America was building up in France for the further war that might have been; preparations which, as no one doubts, changed the whole atmosphere of the struggle? "_England has not done her share!_" How many thousands of British dead--men from every county in England and Scotland, from loyal Ireland, from every British dominion and colony--lie within the circuit of these blood-stained hills of Ypres? How many more in the Somme graveyards?--round Lens and Arras and Vimy?--about Bourlon Wood and Cambrai?--or in the final track of our victorious Armies breaking through the Hindenburg line on their way to Mons? Gloriously indeed have the Dominions played their part in this war; but of all the casualties suffered by the Armies of the Empire, 80 _per cent_ of them fell on the population of these islands. America was in the great struggle for a year and a half, and in the real fightingline for about six months. She has lost some 54,000 of her gallant sons; and we sorrow for them with her. But through four long years scarcely a family in Great Britain and the Dominions that possessed men on the fighting fronts--and none were finally exempt except on medical or industrial grounds--but was either in mourning for, or in constant fear of death for one or more of its male members, whether by bullet, shell-fire or bomb, or must witness the return to them of husbands, brothers, and sons, more or less |
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