an episode is true to the holiest ideals of chivalry; and it is all the
more welcome because the German record is stained by so many acts of
barbarism, which the world cannot forgive.

This magnanimous attitude toward the enemy is very apparent in these
letters. The man whose mind is filled with great ideals of sacrifice and
duty has no room for the narrowness of hate. He can pity a foe whose
sufferings exceed his own, and the more so because he knows that his
foe is doomed. The British troops do know this to-day by many infallible
signs. In the early days of the war untrained men, poorly equipped with
guns, were pitted against the best trained troops in Europe. The first
Canadian armies were sacrificed, as was that immortal army of Imperial
troops who saved the day at Mons. The Canadians often perished in that
early fighting by the excess of their own reckless bravery. They are
still the most daring fighters in the British army, but they have
profited by the hard discipline of the past. They know now that they
have not only the will to conquer, but the means of conquest. Their,
artillery has become conspicuous for its efficiency. It is the ceaseless
artillery fire which has turned the issue of the war for the British
forces. The work of the infantry is beyond praise. They "go over the
top" with superb courage, and all who have seen them are ready to say
with my son, "I'm hats off to the infantry." And in this final
efficiency, surpassing all that could have been thought possible in the
earlier stages of the war, the British forces read the clear augury of
victory. The war will be won by the Allied armies; not only because they
fight for the better cause, which counts for much, in spite of
Napoleon's cynical saying that "God is on the side of the strongest
battalions"; but because at last they have superiority in equipment,
discipline and efficiency. Upon that shell-torn Western front, amid the
mud and carnage of the Somme, there has been slowly forged the weapon