Edward Parrott

“ German guns had shattered it beyond repair. It resembled a city destroyed by an earthquake—a rubbish heap, with here and there a few gaping walls and shot-rent towers brooding over the desolation like gaunt skeletons. Never while our Empire endures—and God grant that it may be for aye—can Ypres and the blood-sodden meadows that lie eastward of the city be anything but holy ground to the British people. For ever the city and its neighbourhood will be sacred to the memory of our glorious British dead. ”

“ The Belgian ministers met during the night, and about four in the morning returned the noble reply that they were ready to fight to the death to maintain their independence; that they were prepared to perish as a nation rather than sell their freedom. Never before has a nation made such a heroic choice. At one bound little Belgium rose to grandeur. She threw aside all thought of self, and prepared to suffer for the right. And she has already reaped her reward. All the nations of the world, outside Germany and Austria, have united to do her honour. ”

“ You hear the shouts and cries of the warriors, the groans of the wounded and dying, the loud clash of meeting weapons, as the vast, dense mass of the English rises and falls like waves of the sea. It is a mob that fights on the narrow field, and not an army. The ground is cumbered with fallen men and horses. Many a good knight has no room to swing his weapon. He cannot advance, and the pressure behind will not let him retreat. But slowly and surely the throng is pushed back by the Scottish spears, and the day looks black for England. ”

“ The earth shakes with the roar of gigantic guns and the thunderclaps of bursting shells. Fortresses crumble to shapeless ruin; homesteads are given to the flames; temples of God are profaned and despoiled; monuments of art and piety are blotted out; cities are shattered; young and old, man, woman, and child, are given to the sword, and wherever the battle has raged there are ghastly heaps of dead and dying, "friend and foe in one red burial blent." ”

“ Poles! The hour has sounded when the sacred dream of your fathers and grandfathers may be realized. A century and a half has passed since the living body of Poland was torn in pieces; but the soul of the country is not dead. It continues to live, inspired by the hope that there will come for the Polish people an hour of resurrection and of brotherly friendship with Great Russia. The Russian army brings you the solemn pledge of this friendship which wipes out the frontiers dividing the Polish peoples, and unites them under the sceptre of the Russian Tsar. ”

“ They have dared to defend their own country; they have dared to stand in the way of a ruthless nation that had sworn not to trespass on their soil; they have refused to sell that which was dearer to them than life itself—the independence of their land; and for this they have suffered martyrdom. Let us never forget that the Belgians have fought and suffered for us. Had they given the Germans free passage through their country, or had they feebly resisted them, a great and sudden swoop would have been made upon France at the very moment when she was unprepared to meet it. ”

“ James, the brother of Charles, is king, and he is now about to grant an audience to a nephew who has unsuccessfully rebelled against him and lies under sentence of death. Look at the king’s face. You see at once that he is a slow, narrow man, singularly obstinate, harsh, and implacable. His heart is as hard as the marble chimney-pieces of his own palace. He never forgets and he never forgives an injury. As you glance at his hard, cruel face you feel that he will be deaf to every cry of mercy and relentless to every touch of pity. ”

“ We will now leave that melancholy region in which Britons of the Second Corps, like the ocean cliffs of their native land, have been thrusting back the furious surges of hostile attack for long and weary weeks. Melancholy indeed is the country over which the tide of war has swept. Prosperous villages and comfortable homesteads are now crumbling walls and smoking ruins, with the decaying carcasses of horses, cows, and pigs lying around. To and fro wander those wretched inhabitants who have escaped shot and shell, striving to save something from the wreckage of their homes. ”

“ While the bombardment lasted our troops could walk outside their trenches in safety, for the Germans were so "pinned to the ground" that those of them who remained alive dared not lift their heads. From behind the ragged clouds in the sky where the aeroplanes were sailing the sun now began to shine, making still darker the black pall that hung over the German position, and flashing back from the rows of gleaming bayonets in the British trenches. At five minutes to eight our gunners lengthened their fuses, and shells began to fall fast and furiously on the village itself. ”

“ For more than eight hundred years no hostile army has dared to invade us, and our people have never been forced to lay down their tools and snatch up their weapons to drive away the invader. No other land in Europe can make this boast. We owe this long reign of security to our Navy.
Not only has our Navy kept us free from invasion, but by winning for us the mastery of the sea it has enabled us to build up a great foreign trade, by which we have grown rich and great, and to found colonies and hold possessions in every continent on the face of the globe. ”

“ The tide of war sets in their favour, though they are beaten back from time to time before the despairing onset of the Britons.
Now you see amidst the press the noble form of that gallant British prince who is the very soul of the island defence. Arthur, the peerless knight, steps before us, “every inch a king.” He shines like a star in the gloom. Legend, song, and story have so woven themselves about his name and fame, so many fables have been told about him, so many wondrous deeds and miracles have been ascribed to him, that historians dispute his very existence. ”

“ On a hill overlooking the beach there are two redoubts, and elsewhere in the line of possible advance there are other formidable obstacles. Land mines and sea mines have been laid, and the Turks may well boast that no invader will ever remain alive on this terrible beach.
Lancashire men are now about to perform one of the finest feats of arms ever achieved by British soldiers or by any other soldiers. They are about to storm this death-trap from open boats! Hereafter, as a tribute to their splendid valour, Beach W will be known as Lancashire Landing. ”