se. Then with little
outcry, and with less complaint, she gathered herself for her spring.
A week, and then another, she stood breathless and following with eyes
astrain the figure of her ally, little Belgium, gallant and heroic,
which had moved out upon the world arena, the first to offer battle to
the armour-weighted, monstrous war lord of Europe, on his way to sate
his soul long thirsty for blood--men's if he could, women's and little
children's by preference, being less costly. And as she stood and
strained her eyes across the sea by this and other sights moved to her
soul's depths, she made choice, not by compulsion but of her own
free will, of war, and having made her choice, she set herself to the
business of getting ready. From Pacific to Atlantic, from Vancouver to
Halifax, reverberated the beat of the drum calling for men willing to go
out and stand with the Empire's sons in their fight for life and faith
and freedom. Twenty-five thousand Canada asked for. In less than a
month a hundred thousand men were battering at the recruiting offices
demanding enlistment in the First Canadian Expeditionary Force. From
all parts of Canada this demand was heard, but nowhere with louder
insistence than in that part which lies beyond the Great Lakes. In
Winnipeg, the Gateway City of the West, every regiment of militia at
once volunteered in its full strength for active service. Every class in
the community, every department of activity, gave an immediate response
to the country's call. The Board of Trade; the Canadian Club, that
free forum of national public opinion; the great courts of the
various religious bodies; the great fraternal societies and whatsoever
organisation had a voice, all pledged unqualified, unlimited,
unhesitating support to the Government in its resolve to make war.

Early in the first week of war wild rumours flew of victory and
disaster, but the heart of Winnipeg as of the nation was chiefly
involved in the tragic and glorious struggle of little Belgium. And when
two weeks had gone and Belgium, bruised, crushed, but unconquered, lay
trampled in the bloody dust beneath the brutal boots of the advancing
German hordes, Canada with the rest of the world had come to measure
more adequately the nature and the immensity of the work in hand. By
her two weeks of glorious conflict Belgium had uncovered to the world's
astonished gaze two portentous and significant facts: one, stark and
horrible, that the German m