THE SWARTHMORE PRESS Ltd . 72, OXFORD STREET, LONDON, W.1. 1920 "The silent, colossal National Lie that is the support and confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities and unfairnesses that affect the peoples—that is the one to throw bricks and sermons at." ( Mark Twain )....

Our Sergeant looked at us contemptuously and we looked anxiously back at him. Then he gave his first instructions: "Now I'm goin' ter show yer 'ow ter do squad drill. It's quite heasy—yer've only got ter use a bit o' common sense an' do hexac'ly as I tell yer. Now we'll start wi' the turns. When I gives the order Right Turn, yer turn ter yer right on yer right 'eel an' yer left toe. When I gives the order Left Turn, yer turn on yer left 'eel an' yer right toe. Now just 'ave a try an' see if yer

There was much gaiety amongst us. There was also much gloom and bitterness. We would often quarrel violently over nothing and enrage over little inconveniences—intense irritability is the commonest result of army life. Our morale was dominated by the small, immediate event. Bad weather and long working hours would provoke outbursts of grumbling and fretful resentment. A sunny morning and the prospect of a holiday would make us exuberantly cheerful and some of us would even assert that the army w

The light-railway engine pulled the trucks slowly along by winding circuitous routes. It was a warm, sunny evening. Everything was green and peaceful. The farms and cottages bore no signs of war. But soon we saw a number of shell-holes grouped round cross-roads, and gradually, as we proceeded, the fields came to be pitted more and more thickly. We skirted a large village. It was deserted. The roof of the church had three black holes. All the houses were damaged and we could see the splintered ra

"For who feels the horrors of war more than those who are responsible for its conduct? On whom does the burden of blood and treasure weigh most heavily? How can it weigh more heavily on any man or set of men than those on this bench?" Mr. Balfour (House of Commons, June 20th, 1918.) The rain came swishing down. Water gathered on the canvas above, and heavy drops fell splashing on to the floor with monotonous regularity. Somebody was muttering curses in his sleep. Others were snoring loudly. I la

"The war is doing me good as though it were a bath-cure." ( Field Marshal Von Hindenburg .) Some had dirty bandages round their heads. Some had their arms in slings. Others had hands so thickly swathed that they looked like the huge paws of polar-bears. Many were caked with mud and wore tattered uniforms. Some limped or hobbled along. Others could walk unaided. Some leaned heavily on our shoulders and some we had to carry on our backs. As each one entered the waiting-room—a little wooden shed op

It was a warm, sunny afternoon. About a dozen of us were pitching a marquee in leisurely fashion, when suddenly there was a shout of "Fritz up!" We gazed at the sky, and, after searching for a while, saw a tiny white speck moving slowly across the blue at an immense height. Then, at some distance from it, a small white puff, like a little ball of cotton-wool, appeared. A few seconds passed and we heard a faint pop. More puffs appeared around the moving speck, each one followed by a pop. All at o

"What madness there is in this arithmetic that counts men by the millions like grains of corn in a bushel.... A newspaper has just written about an encounter with the enemy: 'Our losses were insignificant, one dead and five wounded.' It would be interesting to know for whom these losses are insignificant? For the one who was killed?... If he were to rise from his grave, would he think the loss 'insignificant'? If only he could think of everything from the very beginning, of his childhood, his fa

"I have several times expressed the thought that in our day the feeling of patriotism is an unnatural, irrational, and harmful feeling, and a cause of a great part of the ills from which mankind is suffering; and that, consequently, this feeling should not be cultivated, as is now being done, but should, on the contrary, be suppressed and eradicated by all means available to rational men." ( Tolstoy .) A change had come over us all. Instead of long spells of dreary silence interrupted by outburs

"And Cuchullain ... deemed it no honour nor deemed he it fair to take horses or garments or arms from corpses, or from the dead." ( Tain Bo Cuailgne , 5th Century). There were only a few stars visible above, but the whole eastern horizon was flashing and scintillating. Down in the valley, where several British batteries were in action, long thin jets of flame darted forth incessantly. As the day dawned we could see that the distant ridges were enveloped in drifts of dense, white fog. From time t

Ever since we had received news of the German peace offers and President Wilson's replies, rumours had multiplied enormously—the Kaiser had been assassinated, the German Fleet had surrendered, German troops were deserting in masses, German submarines were floating on the surface and flying white flags, a German Republic had been proclaimed with Liebknecht as President. One evening after a day of unusually hard labour, we were lying exhausted in our tent. Suddenly the flap was thrown open, a man