"This essential friendliness, not between nations, but between people of different nations, is one of the biggest facts of civilization. And yet it has counted for so little that half the nations in Europe are fighting one another. Are the causes, then, that have set us fighting stronger still? Yes, when it is a question of national conscience. And one must regretfully say yes, as long as it is possible for those who rule nations and desire war to carry out their will.

"Is that wicked, mediaeval power—in the hands of the few, but still strong enough to overrule the natural tendencies of peoples towards peace and friendship and to turn their likings into hatreds—is it going to continue when this war is over? Who can doubt, if it were possible to take a plebiscite of all the nations who are fighting now as to whether international disputes should be settled by war or arbitration, what the result would be? Is the desire of the many to have its chance when this war shall be ended, or shall we submit ourselves again to be dominated by the desire of the few?"—From "The Daily News," October 5, 1914.

"At one spot where there had been a fierce hand-to-hand fight there were indications that the combatants when wounded had shared their water-bottles. Near them were a Briton and a Frenchman whose cold hands were clasped in death, a touching symbol of the unity of the two nations in this terrible conflict."—From "The Sheffield Telegraph," November 14, 1914.

* * * * *

RECONCILIATION IN DEATH.

Letter written by a French cavalry officer as he lay wounded and dying in Flanders.

"There are two other men lying near me, and I do not think there is much hope for them either. One is an officer of a Scottish regiment, and the other a private in the Uhlans. They were struck down after me, and when I came to myself I found them bending over me rendering first aid.

"The Britisher was pouring water down my throat from his flask, while the German was endeavouring to staunch my wound with an antiseptic preparation served out to them by their medical corps. The Highlander had one of his legs shattered, and the German had several pieces of shrapnel buried in his side.

"In spite of their own sufferings they were trying to help me, and when I was fully conscious again the German gave us a morphia injection and took one himself. His medical corps had also provided him with the injection and the needle, together with printed instructions for its use.

"After the injection, feeling wonderfully at ease, we spoke of the lives we had lived before the war. We all spoke English, and we talked of the women we had left at home. Both the German and the Britisher had only been married a year.

"I wondered, and I suppose the others did, why we had fought each other at all. I looked at the Highlander, who was falling to sleep exhausted, and in spite of his drawn face and mud-stained uniform he looked the embodiment of freedom. Then I thought of the tricolor of France, and all that France had done for liberty. Then I watched the German, who had ceased to speak. He had taken a prayer-book from his knapsack, and was trying to read a service for soldiers wounded in battle."

The letter ends with a reference to the failing light and the roar of the guns. It was found at the dead officer's side by a Red Cross file, and was forwarded to his fiancée.—From "The Daily Citizen," December 21, 1914.

* * * * *

CHRISTMAS, 1914.

Letters from the Front (from the Daily Press).

"Last night (Christmas Eve) was the weirdest stunt I have ever seen. All day the Germans had been sniping industriously, with some success, but after sunset they started singing, and we replied with carols. Then they shouted, 'Happy Christmas!' to us, and some of us replied in German. It was a topping moonlight night, and we carried on long conversations, and kept singing to each other and cheering. Later they asked us to send one man out to the middle, between the trenches, with a cake, and they would give us a bottle of wine.

"Hunt went out, and five of them came out and gave him the wine, cigarettes, and cigars. After that you could hear them for a long time calling from half-way, 'Engleeshman, kom hier.' So one or two more of our chaps went out and exchanged cigarettes, etc., and they all seemed decent fellows."

* * * * *

"We had quite a sing-song last night (Christmas Eve)," says one writer. "The Germans gave a song, and then our chaps gave them one in return. A German that could speak English, and some others, came right up to our trenches, and we gave them cigarettes and papers to read, as they never get any news, and then we let them walk back to their own trenches. Then our chaps went over to their trenches, and they let them come back all right. About five o'clock on Christmas Eve one of them shouted across and told us that if we did not fire on them they would not open fire on us, and so the officers agreed. About twenty of them came up all at once and started chatting away to our chaps like old chums, and neither side attempted to shoot."

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