[Fields of Victory by Mrs. Humphry Ward]@TWC D-Link book
Fields of Victory

CHAPTER I
11/19

She wants nothing more for herself--the Great Mother of Nations--why should she?
She has so much.

But loss of prestige?
The feeling in those with whom I have talked, is rather the feeling of Kipling's _Recessional_--a profound and wondering recognition that the Imperial bond has indeed stood so magnificently the test of these four years, just as Joseph Chamberlain, the Empire-builder, believed and hoped it would stand, when the day of testing came; a pride in what the Empire has done too deep for many words; coupled with the stubborn resolution, which says little and means everything--that the future shall be worthy of the past.
And as to the feeling of the Army--it is expressed, and, as far as I have been able to judge from much talk with those under his command, most truly expressed, in Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig's December despatch--which came out, as it happens, the very day I had the honour of standing at his side in the Commander-in-Chief's room, at G.H.Q., and looking with him at the last maps of the final campaign.

"The effect of the great assaults," says the Field-Marshal, "in which, during nine days of battle (September 26th--October 5th), the First, Third, and Fourth Armies stormed the line of the Canal du Nord, and broke through the Hindenburg line, upon the subsequent course of the campaign, was decisive....

Great as were the material losses the enemy had suffered, the effect of so overwhelming a defeat upon a _morale_ already deteriorated, was of even larger importance." Again: "By the end of October, the rapid succession of heavy blows dealt by the British forces had had a cumulative effect, both moral and material, upon the German Armies.

The British Armies were now in a position to force an immediate conclusion." That conclusion was forced in the battle of the Sambre (1st to 11th November).


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