fighting line. She has witnessed within three-quarters of a mile of the
fighting line, with a gas helmet at hand, ready to put on, a German
counter attack after a successful English advance something which no
other woman, except herself and her daughter, who accompanied her, has
ever had the opportunity to see.

Mrs. Ward admits that at the beginning England was unprepared, which
itself demonstrated that as a Nation she never wished for war with
Germany, and never expected it. Her countrymen had no faith in Lord
Roberts's ten-year-long agitation for universal national service, based on
the portentous growth of the German army and navy. She never knew of any
hatred of Germany in the country. On the contrary, she realized what
England and all the rest of the world owed to Germany in so many ways.

England was not absolutely unprepared in the sense that the United States
is unprepared, even for self-defence from external attack, but except for
the fleet and her little expeditionary force, England had neither men nor
equipment equal to the fighting of a great Continental war.

The wholly unexpected news of the invasion of Belgium aroused the whole
country to realize that war on a scale never known before had come, and,
as the firing upon Fort Sumter awakened America, convinced England that
she must fight to the death for her liberties, unready as she was;--but
Mr. Balfour, the First Lord of the Admiralty, says that, since the war
began, she has added one million to the tonnage of her navy, and has
doubled its personnel, and is adding more every day.

In the matter of munitions the story that Mrs. Ward tells is wonderful,
almost beyond belief. Much had been done in the first eight months of the
war, in the building of munition shops, and the ordering of vast