retreating enemy. Here, at last, was really open warfare. Never was the difference in moral between the British and German Armies at this period of the war better shown than on that day, when, their improvised defences once more broken, the enemy Armies fled pell-mell towards the Belgian frontier. Along the main roads leading from the battlefields streamed columns of prisoners, the dirt and stains of the battlefield yet on their persons, demoralized by their defeat and with open expressions of joy at their capture. Here or there among them strode an occasional officer or man who still held up his head and looked the whole world in the face, refusing to admit his own or his country's defeat. Such men were scarce, however, and those outbursts of defiance which did occur were mostly contradicted by the circumstances of the surrender of the men themselves.
The German rearguards fought well and with devotion, but signs were many that the main mass of the rank and file were beaten to a finish. Visions of a triumphal match to the Rhine were beginning to colour the day-dreams of our men as the battalions swung by singing and whistling, to try conclusions for the last time with an enemy who was already morally defeated. So they marched steadily forward with well-bronzed faces, neat uniforms, and workmanlike packs, no mean sample of the irresistible human tide which had burst the dam constructed by the greatest military Power of our day across the face of Europe. Now the column of German prisoners is past, and a very different sight greets the eye of the advancing troops. It is the 1st Division returning from its victory, and never before had troops marched back from the battlefield more spick and span, as though from a review. Not a strap was out of place, not a button dull. Four by four the men
