t in the end bring their
own terrible retribution.

Three of the bloodiest years in the world's history lie behind us;
but these years of agony and self-sacrifice, of heroic achievements,
of indomitable purpose and unswerving loyalty to an ideal, are surely
three of the most tremendous in the annals of the British Empire.

I am to tell something of what Britain has accomplished during these
awful three years, of the mighty changes she has wrought in this
short time, of how, with her every thought and effort bent in the one
direction, she has armed and equipped herself and many of her allies;
of the armies she has raised, the vast sums she has expended and the
munitions and armaments she has amassed.

To this end it is my privilege to lay before the reader certain facts
and figures, so I propose to set them forth as clearly and briefly as
may be, leaving them to speak for themselves.

For truly Britain has given and is giving much--her men and women,
her money, her very self; the soul of Britain and her Empire is in
this conflict, a soul that grows but the more steadfast and
determined as the struggle waxes more deadly and grim. Faint hearts
and fanatics there are, of course, who, regardless of the future,
would fain make peace with the foe unbeaten, a foe lost to all shame
and honourable dealing, but the heart of the Empire beats true to the
old war-cry of "Freedom or Death." In proof of which, if proof be
needed, let us to our figures and facts.

Take first her fighting men: in three short years her little army has
grown until to-day seven million of her sons are under arms, and of
these (most glorious fact!) nearly five million were _volunteers_.
Surely since first this world was cursed by war, never did such a
host march forth voluntarily to face its blasting horrors. They are
fighting on many battle-fronts, these citizen-soldiers, in France,
Macedonia, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Western Egypt and German East
Africa, and behind them, here in the homeland, are the women, working
as their men fight, with a grim and tireless determination. To-day
the land hums with munition factories and huge works whose countless
wheels whirr day and night, factories that have sprung up where the
grass grew so lately. The terrible, yet glorious, days of Mons and
the retreat, when her little army, out-gunned and out-manned, held up
the rushing might of the German advance so long as life and
ammunition lasted, that black time is past,