British lines

“ In other words, the variations of usage between Great Britain and the United States are infrequent. In England the railway was preceded by the stage-coach, and in America the railroad was preceded rather by the river steamboat; and probably this accounts for the slight differentiation observable in the vocabulary of the traveler. But this is not the reason why we in America make misuse of a French word, dépôt, while the British prefer the Latin word terminus,—restricting its application accurately to the terminal station of a line. ”

“ It is a difficult task, in a few lines of prose, to render justice to a bravery which excels that sung by the blind and immortal bard of Greece. We might devote page after page to individual feats of heroic daring in this fearful struggle, when 8,000 British troops and 6,000 Frenchmen defeated an army of 60,000 Russians, who left more killed and wounded upon the battle-field than the whole force the Allies brought against them. ”

“ The British flung in on top of the defenders like terriers into a rat-pit, and the fighters snarled and worried and scuffled and clutched and tore at each other more like savage brutes than men. The defence was not broken or driven out—it was killed out; and lunging bayonet or smashing butt caught and finished the few that tried to struggle and claw a way out up the slippery trench-sides. ”

“ Before the echoes of the explosion had died away, before the last fragments and debris had fallen, there came the sound of another roar, the bellowing thunder of the British guns throwing a storm of shell and shrapnel between the German supports and the ruined trench. That, and another sound, told the Subaltern that the full fruits of his work were to be fully reaped—the sound of the guns and of the full, deep-chested, roaring cheers of the British infantry as they swarmed from their trenches and rushed to occupy the crater of the explosion. ”

“ With a hoarse yell they flung themselves forward, and the lost trench spouted a whirlwind of fire and lead to meet their rush. But the German defenders had no fair chance of resistance. Their new parapet was not half formed and offered no protection to the stream of bullets that sleeted in on them from rifles and maxims on their flanks. The charging British infantry carried hand grenades and bombs and flung them ahead of them as they ran, and, finally, there was no thicket of barb-wire to check the swing and impetus of the rush. ”

“ We took our wine, and returned as rapidly as possible to the lines, to share our good fortune with our comrades.
A day or two after this, as we were encamped on one of the hills which overlooked the country to a great distance, a movement on the plains below attracted the attention of our officers. Scouts were instantly sent out, to learn the nature of it. Animation again appeared in the faces of our men; for, even if it were the enemy, we all felt it would be far better to win an honorable death in an open battle, than to perish daily, as we were doing, by hunger and murder. ”

“ They, too, prepared for combat; and, when the loud booming of the guns gave the signal that the battle was commenced, eighty cannon opened their destructive fire, and the light troops went sweeping onward with the rapidity of a thunder-cloud over the heavens, while the deep, dark columns marched sternly after, and charged, with terrible strength, the English lines. ”

“ Let England have its navigation and fleet—Let Scotland have its navigation and fleet—Let Wales have its navigation and fleet—Let Ireland have its navigation and fleet—Let those four of the constituent parts of the British empire be under four independent Governments, and it is easy to perceive how soon they would each dwindle into comparative insignificance. ”

“ The whole regiment looks fresh and well set-up and clean-cut, satisfied with the day and not bothering about the morrow, magnificently strong and healthy, carelessly content and happy, not anxious to go out of its way to find a fight, but impossible to move aside from its way by the fight that does find it—all of which is to say it looks exactly what it is, a British regiment of the regular Line, war-hardened by eight or nine months' fighting, moving up from a four days' rest back into the firing line. ”

“ The four crashes might have been a signal to the British guns. About a dozen reports thudded out quickly and separately, and then in one terrific blast of sound the whole line broke out in heavy fire. The infantry in the trenches could distinguish the quick-following bangs of the guns directly in line behind them, could separate the vicious swish and rush of the shells passing immediately over their heads. ”

“ The British line was overborne, and pushed struggling back until new supports brought it fresh life and turned the tide again. The Germans surviving the charge were killed, wounded, or taken prisoners, and the Forward Officer, lifting his fire and pouring it on the German trench, checked for the moment any further rush of reinforcements. The British line ran forward to a field track running parallel to the trenches and nearly midway between them, flung itself down to escape the bullets that stormed across and began, as rapidly as the men's cramped position would allow, to dig themselves in. ”

“ The Germans brought up a trench-mortar next and flung noisy and nerve-wrecking high-explosive bombs into and all round the ruin, bursting down all the remaining walls except the sandbagged one and scoring a few more casualties until the forward trench installed a trench-mortar of their own, and by a generous return of two bombs to the enemy's one put the German out of action. A big minnenwerfer came into play next, and because it could throw a murderous-sized bomb from far behind the German trench it was too much for the British trench-mortar to tackle. ”

“ France is courteously friendly. Holland and England are in leash, as against the fainter-growing blasts of Popedom. In Ireland, Tyrone has been whipped into bloody quietude. A syndicate of London merchants, dealing in pepper and spices, has made the [2] beginnings of that East-Indian empire which gives to the present British sovereign her proudest title. London is growing apace in riches and in houses; though her shipping counts for less than the Dutch shipping, great cargoes come and go through the Thames—spices from the East, velvets and glass from the Mediterranean, cloths from the Baltic. ”

“ The subaltern chuckled.
'That's not any museum antique,' he said. 'That's a Mortar, Trench, Mark Something or other—the latest, the most modern weapon of the kind in the British Army. It was made, I believe, in the Royal Arsenal, and it is still being made and issued for use in the field—the Engineers collecting the empty jam-pots and converting them to bombs. They've only had four or five months, y'see, to evolve a—— look out, sir! Here's one of theirs!'
The resulting explosion flung a good deal of mud over the parapet on to the Colonel and the subaltern, and raised the youth to wrath. ”

“ It is true that the British Army on active service has a sense of humour peculiarly its own, and respectable civilians have been known, when jests were retailed with the greatest gusto by soldier raconteurs, to shudder and fail utterly to understand that there could be any humour in a tale so mixed up with the grim and ghastly business of killing and being killed. ”

“ The shouting had cut off instantly on the first bang, some rifles squibbed off at intervals for a few seconds and increased suddenly to a sputtering roar. With the exception of one platoon near their centre the Towers replied rapidly to the fire, the maxims joined in, and a minute later, with a whoop and a crash the shells from a British battery passed over the trench and burst along the line of the German parapet. ”

“ If we take a map and look at the relative positions of Great Britain and Germany, we shall clearly see that Britain, with the will to do it, can stop the way, and in the event of war close both the Channel and the way round by the North; thus preventing an attack upon the British possessions over-seas, even though we bear the shock of war along our whole eastern face. ”

“ They had come abroad with crude and absurd notions of what awaited them on the Continent. They dreamed of economy, refinement, universal politeness, and a profound esteem for England from all foreigners. They fancied that the advantages of foreign travel were to be obtained without cost or labor; that locomotion could educate, sight-seeing cultivate them; that in the capacity of British subjects every society should be open to them, and that, in fact, it was enough to emerge from home obscurity to become at once recognized in the fashionable circles of any Continental city. ”

“ It is not an unpardonable stretching of the truth to say that the British Empire rests on transportation. I am speaking now naturally of the sea, as a man who has lived on it for many years, at a time, too, when on sighting a vessel on the horizon of any of the great oceans it was perfectly safe to bet any reasonable odds on her being a British ship--with the certitude of making a pretty good thing of it at the end of the voyage. ”

“ London was as bright as ever, with business going on much the same. It’s a different spirit that’s abroad nowadays. [117] The British bulldog has shut his teeth hard; and when he does that he never lets go—that is, hardly ever, but there was a time more than a hundred years ago when he released his grip on our country.”
In the course of time they found themselves aboard the vessel that along toward midnight was to start from Dover for France. ”

“ Another great source of wealth, during the war itself, was the immense share which England gained of the carrying trade of the world, owing to the security which her merchantmen enjoyed in consequence of the victories of her fleets. While her mines, her looms, her steam-engines were giving her the principal share in the manufacture of goods, ships flying the British flag spread her own products through the world and carried to every part of it the products of other countries. England, in fact, was at once the workshop of European manufactures and the ocean-carrier of its commerce. ”

“ One does not wonder that the remark often made is so nearly true,—that, if there is any trouble in the farthest port on the globe, in a few hours you will see a British bull-dog quietly steaming up the harbor, to ask what it is all about, and whether England can make anything out of the transaction.
There is another consideration which perhaps many would put foremost. Has the nation kept pace with the progress of science and mechanic arts? Once her superior seamanship almost alone enabled England to keep the sea against all comers. ”

“ Great liners were racing across the Atlantic either to Britain or America with their precious freights, while those flying the French flag on the westward voyage prepared to run the gauntlet of the British cruisers as best they might. ”

“ Yes, the ships of Old England, in her Majesty’s service, and the merchantmen, sailing from the east to the west, from the north to the south, would indeed astonish you, could you see them assembled. Long may commerce flourish, and the British flag be unfurled with honour in every part of the world. ”

“ But wherever in the world German travellers have gone, wherever German traders have settled, wherever the German Government has thought of working for a site for a colony, everywhere they have met British influence, British trade, the British flag. ”

“ England’s uneasiness was increased by the projected German railroads; and ever since the beginning of the new century she did all she could during ten years, in conjunction with France and Russia, to hinder the construction of the Bagdad line. The Germans encountered here a fundamental principle of British policy; and all such principles, as we have often shown, have their roots in British trade. England has invariably been the most decided adversary of all great railroad undertakings—in so far as they were not in British hands or under British control. ”

“ On the other hand, the ways across the north-eastern frontier lead to regions full of prospective advantage for British commerce and for British expansion in every way.... On our north-western frontier the railways are mainly for strategic or political objects, and only in part for commercial objects. ”

“ Roads constructed to last for ever were laid down by that extraordinary people, as the first foundations of their empire, wherever they planted themselves, and seem to have been considered by them as the indispensable veins and arteries of all civilization. In Britain it is probable that they began their operations with the great native high roads, the course of which would be at least accommodated to the situation of the principal towns and other more important localities throughout the country. ”

“ In this short sketch of what were in some cases certainly, in others only presumably, the original British main tracks we have to note three factors which have always determined travel in Britain: the centres of internal economic production, the ports, and the Channel crossings. ”

“ Now think of how the British Empire lies with relation to the great sea and land masses of the world. There has been talk in Great Britain of what people have called "all-red air routes," that is to say, all-British air routes. There are no all-red air routes. You cannot get out of Britain to any other parts of the Empire, unless perhaps it is Canada, without crossing foreign territory. That is a fact that British people have to face and digest, and the sooner they grasp it the better for them. ”