A HAPPY NEW YEAR
"YPRES DAY'' AND THE LEAGUE.
IMES
THE JOURNAL OF THE YPRES LEAGUE.
Vol. I. No. 6.
Publisheó Quarterly.
January, 1923.
SINCE the last number of this journal appeared the men and women of our Empire
have turned their thoughts again to that little spot on the earth's surface
which the Ypres League commemorates.
The seventh anniversary of the first famous battleYpres Dayhas
come and gone. The memory of the Salient is still fresh in the mindsjof
hundreds of thousands, nay millions, of survivors. As one noticed the emblemthe
Flanders cornflowerworn so universally, the reflection came Will there come a time
when this day and the sentiment which inspires it will pass into that sort of semi-obhvion
which has overtaken so many other once-notable commemorations of great deeds Will
its special fame be merged into that other day, four years later, when the Great War
ceased
Well, it was a great event for the war to have ceaseda time for thankfulness and
rejoicing, not only by us, but by our foes as well. But looking back upon ah that has
happened since, one cannot resist a feeling that it is not in itself such a glorious anniversary
as it seemed to us in the first flush of our relieved emotions. It might have been an
occasion for gladness thenbut never, surely never, for pride. November 11th will
perhaps for many reasons and one good one remain in our patriotic calendar. But it
marks no Victory. It commemorates in itself only our hearkening to the cry for a
suspension of hostilities by a foe who still proclaims himself to have been unbeaten in
the field.
So be it. But Ypres Day, like the Cressy Day and Agincourt Day of our ancestors,
like Quebec Day or Trafalgar Day, celebrates not one but several pages of our history,
which Britons will read with pride as long as our race endures. Not one battle alone—
but several battles. On this day we pay tribute to the most gigantic and heroic defence
in British history.
It was a confused and widespread, a chaotic and bloody warconfused in its origins
and often in its conduct, widespread in its scope and devastation, and chaotic in its details
arid in its issue. But we can be clear about one thing. There is one point which we can
fix with certainty, upon which there is no confusion, and where the testimony of our
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