The Soul of the War

d reached Senlis and Chantilly, and that Paris was no longer the seat of Government. Quietly and without a word of warning the French Ministry had

an outward and visible sign that the worst thing might happen-a new siege o

e mingled, with their women and children. The tragedy deepened when it was heard that most of the lines to the coast had been cut and that the only remaining line to Dieppe would probably be destroyed during the next few hours. From the crowds which had been waiting all day for a chance to get to the guichets in the rear of other and greater crowds, there rose a murmur which seemed to me like a g

omen wept quietly, mopping their eyes. Perhaps they wept for sheer weariness after sitting encamped for hours on their baggage. Most of the men had a haggard look and kept repeating the stale old word, "Incroyable!" in a daze

and broadest Scotch, with a "Hell to the Kaiser!" and "à bas Guillaume!" A Tommy with the accent of the Fulham Road stood on a chair, steadying himself by a firm grasp on the shoulder of a French dragon, and made an incoherent speech in which he reviled the French troops as dirty dogs who ran away like mongrels, vowed that he would never have left

talking. Like many other English soldiers here who had been figh

. "The only rest from fighting was when w

n army as "a blighted

m to have an endless line of fresh men. Directly we check 'em in one attack a fresh

self, so strong in common sense that he was able to g

cent, of a battalion knocked out. But what's that? You've got to expect it nowadays. 'Taint a picnic. Besides, what if a ba

up the evidence, in the light of all that I had seen and heard, and with the assistance of my friend the Philosopher-whose wisdom shone bright after a glass of Dubonnet and the arsenic pill whi