ammunition--both for ourselves and our allies we now possess, the war
would have gone differently. Drunkenness, trade-union difficulties, a
small--very small--revolutionary element among our work people--all these
have made trouble. But the real cause of our shortage lay in the fact that
no one, outside Germany, realised till far into the war, what the
ammunition needs--the absolutely unprecedented needs--of this struggle
were going to be. It was the second Battle of Ypres at the end of April
last year which burnt them into the English mind. We paid for the grim
knowledge in thousands of our noblest lives. But since then?

In a later letter I propose to draw some picture in detail of the really
marvellous movement which since last July, under the impulse given by Mr.
Lloyd George, has covered England with new munition factories and added
enormously to the producing power of the old and famous firms, has drawn
in an army of women--now reckoned at something over a quarter of a
million--and is at this moment not only providing amply for our own
armies, but is helping those of the Allies against those final days of
settlement with Germany which we believe to be now steadily approaching.
American industry and enterprise have helped us substantially in this
field of munitions. We are gratefully conscious of it. But England is now
fast overtaking her own needs.

More of this presently. Meanwhile to the military and equipment effort of
the country, you have to add the financial effort--something like
$7,500,000,000, already expended on the war; the organising effort,
exemplified in the wonderful "back of the army" in France, which I hope to
describe to you; and the vast hospital system, with all its scientific
adjuncts, and its constantly advancing efficiency.

And at the foundation of it all--the human and personal effort!--the lives