impotent to menace the safety of our transports, lay helpless--bottled
up, to quote Mr. Asquith's phrase, "in the inglorious seclusion of their
own ports."

Never before had a British Expeditionary Force been organized, equipped
and despatched so swiftly for service in the field. The energies of the
War Office had long been applied to the creation of a small but highly
efficient striking force ready for instant action. And now the time for
action had come. The force was ready. From the harbors the troopships
steamed away, their decks crowded with cheery soldiers, their flags
waving a proud challenge to any disputant of Britain's command of the
sea.

The expedition was carried out as if by magic. For a few brief days the
nation endured with patience its self-imposed silence. In the newspapers
were no brave columns of farewell scenes, no exultant send-off
greetings, no stirring pictures of troopships passing out into the
night. All was silence, the silence of a nation preparing for the "iron
sacrifice," as Kipling calls it, of a devastating war. Then suddenly the
silence was broken, and across the Channel was flashed the news that the
troops had been safely landed, and were only waiting orders to throw
themselves upon the German brigands who had broken the sacred peace of
Europe.

And so the scene changes to France and Belgium. Tommy Atkins is on his
way to the Front. He has already begun to send home some of those
gallant letters that throb throughout the pages of this book. If he felt
the absence of the stimulating send-off, necessitated by official
caution and the exigencies of a European war, he at least had the new
joy of a welcome on foreign soil. It is difficult to find words with the