Within them lie the unnumbered British
dead, 'the dear, pitiful, august dead.' Comrades of the dauntless
warriors of Gallipoli, comrades of the sailors who have gone down
fighting in the cold waters of the North Sea, brothers of all brave men
suffering for a clean cause, they leave the issue with us. As long as
the British Empire endures, and it will endure so long as it works for
God and no longer, the memory of the heroes of the Ypres salient will
live and glow.
'I hate war: that is why I am fighting,' said one of them. They fought
not merely for their country, but because they believed they were
fighting war itself. We shall not be true to their memory unless we
remember that. 'Slavery will always be,' said the defenders of slavery.
'It is impossible to prevent those things, human nature being what it
is,' said others of schools like Dotheboys Hall. A little time ago
England and Scotland were at one another's throats; a little before that
clan fell upon clan with vindictive fury. When we have beaten Germany,
who stands for the old, rotten, pagan belief in old, rotten, pagan
things we must see that we do not betray the men who died fighting
because they hated war.
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