BATTLE IN THE MUD 295

would be all right, though they had faith in nothing but in
themselves and each other." They never broke, never gave way,
never despaired; they only jested, stuck it out and diei

* What's .the use of worrying?" ran the refrain of a music-hall
song much used for marching and barn-concerts at the end of
the war. "Eh, corporal, w'a's this?" asked the soldier of his.
exiguous bread ration. "That, m'lad, is your bread ration.1*
"Blimey! A tliowt it were *Oly Communion!" An army which
could face hell in such a spirit was one which might be
annihilated. It could not be defeated.

It was not numbers nor efficiency nor even courage that did
England's business, though in all these, learning the art of
modern war by harsh experience, she came to excel. In the last
resort victory went to the nation with the greatest capacity for
endurance. During the final terrible year of the war Germany,
released from all danger on her long eastern front by the collapse
of Russia and temporarily relieved of any fear of Italian action,
concentrated her entire armament for a decisive blow in the
west On a misty morning of March 2ist, 1918, 62 German
divisions, attacking on a front of 25 miles, broke through the
fifth British Army. For the next four months the German
attacks scarcely ever ceased; at one moment, driving a wedge
between the British and French, they almost reached the vital
junction of Amiens; at another there seemed to be nothing but
one shattered, invincible battalion of Grenadiers between the
grey-coated hordes and the Channel coast. The gains of the
Somme, Cambrai, Passchendade, the Aisne, even the Marnc
melted away in a few days.

But somehow Britain and her failing ally, France, stuck fast.
The line held. American reinforcements were beginning to cross
the Atlantic in large numbers; in Palestine, Allenby of Jerusalem
and Lawrencfe of Arabia with shrewd hard blows brought down
the Turkish Empire, leaving an open door in the German rear.
By the beginning of August the army of Britain, decimated and
•tired as it was, gathered its strength.for a new spring. When
it came on August 8th it proved, contrary to all expectations,
the beginning of the end. The German Army had met its match.
It struggled bravely, wavered and finally broke. On November
nth, still falling back across the Frerieh and Belgian soil it had
conquered, it surrendered unconditionally.