British shells. The British could not confess their situation without
giving encouragement to the Germans to press harder such attacks as
those of the first and second battle of Ypres, which came perilously
near succeeding.

This little army would not admit the truth even in its own mind. With
that casualness by which the Englishman conceals his emotions the
surviving officers of battalions which had been battered for months in
the trenches would speak of being "top dog, now." While the world was
thinking that the New Army would soon arrive to their assistance, they
knew as only trained soldiers can know how long it takes to make an army
out of raw material. So persistent was their pose of winning that it
hypnotized them into conviction. As it had never occurred to them that
they could be beaten, so they were not.

If sometimes the logic of fact got the better of simulation, they would
speak of the handicap of fighting an enemy who could deliver blows with
the long reach of his guns to which they could not respond. But this did
not happen often. It was a part of the game for the German to marshal
more guns than they if he could. They accepted the situation and fought
on. They, too, looked forward to "the day," as the Germans had before
the war; and their day was the one when the New Army should be ready to
strike its first blow.

There was also a new leader in France, king of the British world there.
Sir William sent him the new battalions and the guns and the food for
men and guns and his business was to make them into an army. They
arrived thinking that they were already one, as they were against any
ordinary foe, though not yet in homogeneity of organization against a
foe that had prepared for war for forty years and on top of this had had