Kurds and Malissores, and they overlook the great nations enrolled
under the banner of civilization. They brood over lands ground
under the iron heel of the Teuton and overlook the Empires that we
hold; here, West and East Africa, four times as large as all Germany,
with their thousands of miles of railroads and their diamond mines;
there, the Islands of Oceania and the fortress of Asia: Kiao-Tcheou,
which the Kaiser has proclaimed the pearl of his colonies. They
are alarmed at the chaff that Germany gathers in her lawless course
and they do not see the mighty girders that stay France. But we
who are the girders, we know better, we see farther.

"O Star, teach those who are not in the trenches.... Confidence!

"By the light of the past we behold the future. Whenever an army,
seized with the frenzy of conquest, has forced its way into a far
land, abandoning the cradle whence it drew its life and strength,
it has wasted away, it has perished from utter exhaustion. Like
stones loosened from a solid wall, it has disintegrated. Like the
grain of dust which the wind has blow away, it has vanished never
to return.

"More than a century ago legions attempted the conquest of Egypt.
They were the most magnificent in the world. Their chiefs bore
the names of Desaix, Kleber and Bonaparte. But they had not the
mastery of the seas, and returned not from the burning sands of the
desert.... Think also of the time when the most formidable army
of Europe, led by the greatest conqueror the world has ever known,
tried to overwhelm the vast Russian Empire. But the empire was
mightier than the Great Army, and it returned not from the glacial
solitude of the steppes.... So let it go far, ever farther on,