m when it comes to a stricken field?

But let it not seem as if this were meant for disparagement. We should
be sinking to the Kaiser's level if we answer his "contemptible little
army" by pretending that his own troops are anything but a very
formidable and big army. They are formidable in numbers, formidable,
too, in their patriotic devotion, in their native courage, and in the
possession of such material, such great cannon, aircraft, machine guns,
and armored cars as none of the Allies can match. They have every
advantage which a nation would be expected to have when it has known
that war was a certainty, while others have only treated it as a
possibility. There is a minuteness and earnestness of preparation which
are only possible for an assured event. But the fact remains, and it
will only be brought out more clearly by the Emperor's unchivalrous
phrase, that in every arm the British have already shown themselves to
be the better troops. Had he the Froissart spirit within him he would
rather have said: "You have today a task which is worthy of you. You are
faced by an army which has a high repute and a great history. There is
real glory to be won today." Had he said this then, win or lose, he
would not have needed to be ashamed of his own words--the words of
ungenerous spirit.

It is a very strange thing how German critics have taken for granted
that the British Army had deteriorated, while the opinion of all those
who were in close touch with it was that it was never so good. Even some
of the French experts made the same mistake, and Gen. Bonnat counseled
his countrymen not to rely upon it, since "it would take refuge amid its
islands at the first reverse." One would think that the cause which
makes for its predominance were obvious. Apart from any question of
national spirit there is the all-important fact that the men are there
of their own free will, an advantage which I trust that we shall never
be compelled to surrender. Again, the men are of longer service in every
arm, and they have far more opportunities of actual fighting than come
to any other force. Finally they are divided into regiments with
centuries of military glories streaming from their banners, which carry
on a mighty tradition. The very words the Guards, the Rifles, the
Connaught Rangers, the Buffs, the Scots Greys, the Gordons, sound like
bugle calls. How could an army be anything but dangerous which had such
units in its line of battle?"