ONE THOUSAND FAMOUS THINGS 817

The Great War is Over

j. YEVER did the welkin ring in London as it rang today. Parliament
i\J Street and Whitehall were packed with people. The day was
grey and chill with a threat of rain, but no one minded the weather.
There prevailed everywhere throughout London an irresistible im-
pulse to let business go hang, to get into the streets and yell and sing
and dance and weep,

I could distinguish the hooting of motors, the ringing of handbells,
the banging of tea-trays, the shrilling of police whistles, and the
screaming of toy trumpets. And why not ? The war was over, the
war which, sick at heart, we were beginning to think would never end.
Yes, the infernal war is over, the catastrophes, alarms, fears, uncer-
l^iiities, anxieties of four and a half years, the air-raids, the sinking of
food snips, the daily desolation of family circles, have culminated
in victory.

If anyone entertained a lingering doubt as to whether war was
really finished, the mad follies of the girl clerks in the Government
offices in Whitehall must have removed it. They actually showered
down upon our heads from the windows masses of official forms relat-
ing to the war.

It was bank holiday on Hampstead Heath, on a vastly stupendous
scale. . . . But while the holiday crowd are almost entirely wage-
earners, persons of the most select social relations took part in
today's revels. The males in the civilian section of the roysterers
had two other peculiarities: they were almost all middle-aged and
looked a shabby lot in their well-worn clothes. . . . We are in truth
an enormous family party engaged in what may be called a stupendous
house-warming, and everyone taking part is, as befits the unparalleled
occasion, in high spirits of the most extravagantly irresponsible kind
—utterly forgetful of self-propriety, pretentiousness, absorbed in the
desire to contribute something to the Pandean frolic.

As I moved about I heard not a single hard word of Germany, not

a single expression of glee that she was lying crippled, perhaps for ever.

Michael MacDonagh writing on November II,

Surely for History it is
IN the sphere of force human records contain no manifestation like
the eruption of the German volcano.
For four years Germany fought and defied the five continents of
the world by land and sea and air. The German Armies upheld her
tottering confederates, intervened in every theatre with success, stood
everywhere on conquered territory, and inflicted on their enemies
more than twice the bloodshed they suffered themselves. To break
their strength and science, and curb their fury, it was necessary to