not proceed until all the little choir boys were perfectly quiet. He waited about five minutes. Then he preached a brief sermon (of course in French) directed to the children. I could not understand much of what he was talking about; but I think he was very eloquent. I could deduce from words here and there that he was reminding them that their fathers and brothers and uncles were fighting at the front, and telling them that if they were not good little boys and girls their fathers and brothers and uncles would fall in battle! Then he pronounced his final Benediction, and we scattered—5.20.

"I could see that everybody was discussing the service and the sermon. I overheard a Frenchman in frock coat and top hat, who seemed to be a churchwarden or something of the kind, expressing his appreciation of the latter.

"Then I came back to camp and paraded for a box-respirator! We then went through 'tear gas.' Then dinner. I sat at the Commandant's table. He was talking about a great concentration up North—guns and supplies and men swarming there recently....

"After dinner I went to bed. Thus ended Whitsun Day, 1917.

"I got up at 7.15 this morning. Breakfast. Then down to the 'bull ring' in full marching order. Gas all day. Fortunately we were under nice shady trees most of the time. We had sandwiches down there between 12 and 1, and got back at 4.30, feeling very hot after the march. Then tea....

"Hamer, Bridgestock, and Allin have gone up the line this morning. I am posted to the 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers (the battalion Norman Kemp was in!). I shall not be going up the line for a few days, but by the time your reply to this reaches me I shall be there...."

My diary of that same day, May 28, records: "To Paris Plage in the evening." And my letter written home the following day proceeds as follows:

"After writing home yesterday I walked down town, and took a car to the seaside place opposite. The country through which the car went was pretty, and the seaside place quite passable; all right in peace-time I should think. Unfortunately the last car back leaves at 8.15, so I came by it....

"To-day, Royal Oak Day, we have spent on the 'bull ring' again....

"I have seen David Morgan (who was in the same billet with me when we were privates together in the 29th Royal Fusiliers at Oxford, in January, 1916) this evening. I managed to find the C.R.E. offices where he works. He saw me, and came out to me. I went inside. He is very cosy there, in a nice new hut. He was working at a drawing. His hours daily are from 9 in the morning until 8 in the evening; but, as I had come, he managed to get a pass to go down town with me this evening. We therefore had a walk. He looks very well with his stripe, and he seems to be having a good time. He desires to be remembered to you both. I left him at about 8. Then I had dinner at the Officers' Club, but was not struck by it....

"It is now 'lights out,' so I had better stop."

"May 30th.

" ... We spent the day on the 'bull ring' as usual. It has been fine. We have not, I am thankful to say, had any rain at all since I landed in France on Saturday last.

"This evening I have spent parading the streets of the town. I have become heartily 'fed up' with the dirty antediluvian place. Morgan actually, after nine solid months of residence here, says that he likes it and the people. I could not have imagined that there were many of the latter whose acquaintance would be particularly charming; but he speaks upon the authority of long experience!"

I also wrote down the following note at that time while I was still in Étaples:

"One noticeable thing to-day (May 30) has been the number of men and transport which have been passing through on the trains all day and going north, obviously coming from one part of the Front and going round this way, to avoid the observation of the Germans, to another. We are massing troops round the great city where great battles have been fought before—concentrating for a great offensive. So there will very soon be a third battle of Ypres, and I expect I shall be present on the occasion myself. It should be very exciting. In the two former battles we were on the defensive; this time we shall be on the offensive. And I must say—pessimistic as I am on all Western offensives—this idea holds forth a faint ray of hope of success. I have always held that there is only one way in which the war can be won in the West—by a flanking offensive in the North. This is not entirely the type of flanking movement I would myself recommend, but it is an attempt at the idea—and that is something. It may prove a semi-fiasco like the awful tragedies of Neuve Chapelle, Loos, the Somme, and Arras; but it might possibly turn out a success. Then it would be simply a case of veni, vidi, vici!"

That memorandum is particularly interesting in view of the events which followed, and the story which this narrative will tell. I always held very strong-views on the conduct of the war. I was not one of those who looked upon this great bid for world power on the part, of the German Empire as purely a campaign on the Western Front, all other campaigns in other corners of the globe being mere "side shows." I was always a firm and consistent supporter of the "East End" school of strategy. I looked upon the war as a World War and, since the decisive Battle of the Marne in September, 1914, when the German hopes of complete and crushing victory in the West were shattered (which decision was still more finally confirmed at First Ypres), as primarily a south-eastern war. I held with that great statesman and strategist, Mr. Winston Churchill, that Constantinople was "the great strategic nerve-centre of the world war." I realized that a deadlock had been reached on the Western Front, and that nothing was to be hoped from any frontal attack there; and I also realized that Germany held Constantinople and the Dardanelles—the gateway to the East. And the trend of German foreign policy and German strategy convinced me that it was in the Near East that the menace to our Empire lay. There was our most vulnerable part; while Germany held that gateway, the glamour of the East, with its possibilities of victories like those of Alexander, and an empire like that one which was the great Napoleon's early dream, would always be a great temptation to German strategists. I therefore always used to assert that "The side which holds Constantinople when peace terms come to be discussed is the side which has won the war," and I think the events of September, 1918, have proved that my view and prophecy were correct. I firmly believe that if unity of command under Marshal Foch and Sir Henry Wilson, with the following decisive victories of D'Esperey at Cerna and Allenby at Armageddon in September, 1918, bringing about the capitulation of Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire, and the surrender of Constantinople to the Allies, had not been attained last year the war would still be in progress. And I therefore hold that it is impossible to estimate the debt which the Allies owe to those statesmen who brought about that unity of command.

But to return to my story. The next day was spent, as usual, on the "bull ring." On June 1, I find that I recorded the following incident:

"We have been on the 'bull ring' again this morning. The weather is as hot as ever. While we were down there a German aeroplane flew right over from one end to the other—north to south. The anti-aircraft guns were firing at it the whole time, but failed to hit it. It was flying at a great height, and the shrapnel appeared to be bursting all round it. At one time it flew directly over our